Category: Covid-19

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Elisa Soliz lost her sister to the new coronavirus in late May and says at least nine other family members have tested positive. The 63-year-old school bus driver lives in Hidalgo County in the Rio Grande Valley an area thats been devastated by the pandemic.

In the weekend edition of The Brief podcast, listen to why Soliz says shell retire before subjecting herself to a busload of kids, many of whom lack access to health care.

Start your day with a quick take on the latest Texas politics and policy news. Subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Amazon Echo, or RSS.

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Ten in this South Texas family got COVID-19. She doesnt want to be next. - The Texas Tribune

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COVID-19 diagnoses increased by 102% in St. Louis County with a positivity rate of 7.5% - KMOV.com

As part of the planned return to on-campus operations, The Ohio State University will require all students, faculty and staff to complete an online training course and the Together As Buckeyes Pledge.

Executive Vice President and Provost Bruce A. McPheron and Dr. Hal Paz, executive vice president and chancellor for health affairs and CEO of the Ohio State Wexner Medical Center, used their weekly message to the campus community to detail the new requirements.

McPheron and Paz delivered the joint message on July 24.

Dear Ohio State Community:

Good afternoon. This week, we are sharing with you several important updates. As we continue to plan for a return to on-campus operations in the autumn, Ohio State will require that all students, faculty and staff complete an online training course and the Together As Buckeyes Pledge. We are also sharing accountability measures for failure to take the training and sign the pledge, and for anyone who chooses not to abide by required health and safety guidelines.

These steps, shared at University Senate, are part of a larger picture of mandatory safe and healthy measures, including wearing a mask, practicing physical distancing and ensuring good hygiene. We want to be clear: Our return to on-campus operations in the autumn is fully dependent on each member of the university community following all requirements and guidance. If we fail to collectively maintain this culture of caring for ourselves and each other, we will not be able to be together on our campuses doing the things we love including teaching, learning, researching, playing sports and keeping active, and cheering on our student-athletes.

In the fight against the spread of COVID-19, we are Together As Buckeyes.

Online training course and Together as Buckeyes Pledge

All students, faculty and staff must complete an online training course and the Together As Buckeyes Pledge. The pledge acknowledges an understanding of and commitment to the behaviors described in the training. It is not a legal waiver.

The 10-minute training will be assigned in the coming weeks to BuckeyeLearn transcripts and the pledge will be signed upon completion of the course. We will alert the entire community when it is available. Accommodations will be made for those without access to a computer to complete the training.

Completing the training and signing the pledge are mandatory for all students, faculty and staff before returning to Ohio States campuses. Those who have already been working on a campus should take the online training and sign the pledge as soon as possible. For those not physically returning to a campus, the training and pledge need to be completed by the start of autumn semester on Aug. 25.

The training course will cover expectations for daily health checks, personal protection such as face masks, hygiene, staying informed and more.

Accountability measures

While we expect everyone to follow the guidance voluntarily, accountability measures will be in place for those who do not complete the training and sign the pledge, or choose not to abide by required health and safety guidelines. These accountability measures range from additional training and informal coaching to formal disciplinary action based on existing structures for students, faculty and staff. They are available on the Safe and Healthy Buckeyes website.

Please visit the website regularly for updates, including guidance related to our mask requirement for all students, faculty, staff, vendors, volunteers and visitors.

As a reminder, masks must be worn on Ohio States campuses when entering indoor or enclosed spaces. Masks also must be worn in outdoor spaces where individuals gather and cannot maintain physical distancing of at least 6 feet between each person. This is in alignment with state guidance for institutions of higher education and the recent mandate from the Ohio Governors Office.

Travel advisory

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine announced this week a new travel advisory, recommending that Ohioans self-quarantine for 14 days after returning from any state or territory with a COVID positivity rate greater than 15%. This list currently includes: Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Mississippi, Nevada, South Carolina and Texas.

The university is reviewing this new advisory, and we will keep you informed on how these changes may impact Ohio States travel guidelines. We are also extending the university state of emergency through Saturday, Aug. 1, which enables us to utilize Disaster Leave (Policy 6.28).

Thank you for your continued commitment to each other and our universitys mission. Next week, July 27-31, we celebrate Faculty and Staff Appreciation Week, recognizing the many ways that you work each day to advance Ohio States mission. For virtual events and discounts available throughout the week, visit the Human Resources website.

Additionally, you can show your appreciation for a colleague or colleagues with personalized messages and virtual cards available at the Kindness at Ohio State website.

We remain Together As Buckeyes.

Sincerely,

Bruce A. McPheron, PhD

Executive Vice President and Provost

Harold L. Paz, MD, MS

Executive Vice President and Chancellor for Health Affairs CEO, Wexner Medical Center

COVID-19 Resources

Wellness Resources

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COVID-19 update: Online training and pledge required of all - The Ohio State University News

For the past two months, as winter descended on Chile, infectious-disease specialist Claudia Corts worked tirelessly to keep a wave of critically ill Covid-19 patients alive in the hospital where she works. At the same time, she worried about what would happen when the usual wave of influenza patients arrived.

They never came.

From Argentina...

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Covid-19 Measures Have All but Wiped Out the Flu in the Southern Hemisphere - The Wall Street Journal

TUPELO Officials in state government say they are increasingly wary of mounting COVID-19 case numbers in Northeast Mississippi.

In the first wave of COVID-19 that spread across the state in the spring, Northeast Mississippi never emerged as a hot spot, even as places like the Jackson-metro area, the Gulf Coast, the Delta and DeSoto County saw high transmission of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

But following the relaxation of closure orders and other measures designed to stem the time of COVID-19, a second wave of the disease continues to deepen in Mississippi, and the northeast region might soon find itself the target of orders the governor has imposed in other regions.

Lee County is on my list to watch, Gov. Tate Reeves said in a press conference last week in response to questions by the Daily Journal. Lee County is one that we are watching and monitoring very closely.

Mississippis Chief Health Office Dr. Thomas Dobbs made similar remarks at Friday afternoons press briefing.

The trajectory is certainly very worrisome, Dobbs said.

Dobbs noted that, until recently, the northeast region has fared relatively well. He fears, however, that an ongoing and widespread failure to abide by recommendations and orders regarding social gatherings will largely sweep COVID-19 throughout the state, even in areas that have previously seen relatively mild case numbers.

Bars have come in for much scrutiny as potential sites for COVID-19 spread among younger adults, but Dobbs said there are plenty of other social outlets for spread, even in the predominantly rural Northeast Mississippi.

Social stuff is killing us, he said. Its going to be a party, its going to be hanging out with friends. Funerals and churches, that sort of thing.

Tupelo Mayor Jason Shelton imposed a masking order in late June. The city of Oxford has done the same, and was in fact a leader in the region with respect to mandatory face coverings.

The Lee County Board of Supervisors has declined to impose a county-wide mask order, but has required that face coverings be worn inside county-owned buildings.

Early last week, Dobbs released a graphic on Twitter highlighting counties with rapid COVID growth.

The Northeast Mississippi counties included on the graphic were Alcorn, Lee, Marshall, Pontotoc, Prentiss and Tishomingo.

That graphic, which included data through July 20, indicated the doubling time of COVID-19 in those cases.

The doubling time in Alcorn was 11.6 days; in Lee, 16.5 days; in Marshall, 16.7 days; in Pontotoc, 17 days; in Prentiss, 10 days; and in Tishomingo, 12.8 days.

As of Sunday, July 19, Lee County had 768 total cases of COVID-19 cumulatively reported since the testing data began to be compiled. As of Saturday, a week later, Lee County had 968 reported cases. That is a one-week increase of 200.

In early July, leadership of North Mississippi Health Services reported that the record high for hospitalized COVID-19 patients in the NMHS system was 57. That number has since been exceeded, and as of Friday, NMHS reported 66 hospitalized COVID-19 patients.

The governor on Friday did list Calhoun County among a roster of new counties he will target with more stringent requirements, including a county-wide mask order.

Thus far, Reeves has consistently resisted calls for a statewide masking order. Instead, he has released orders targeting counties with high levels of COVID-19 spread. In those counties, Reeves has required face coverings and imposed limits on social gatherings that are more strict than elsewhere in the state.

Reeves said that if the trends dont change, Lee County could meet his criteria for a targeted set of restrictions sometime this coming week.

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Growth of COVID-19 in Northeast Mississippi earns attention - Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal

Editors note: The Salt Lake Tribune is providing free access to critical stories about the coronavirus. Sign up for our Top Stories newsletter, sent to your inbox every weekday morning. To support journalism like this, please donate or become a subscriber.

The number of Utahns tested for COVID-19 surpassed 500,000 Saturday as the Department of Health reported 661 more cases and one additional death.

The state now has had a total of 37,623 cases and 274 deaths. The new death was a Davis County man, age 65 to 84, who lived in a long-term care facility.

The state saw a drop in the number of people in intensive care units at 79, down from 97 the day before. The last time there were that few COVID-19 patients in ICUs was July 9.

American Indians and Alaska Natives also had the highest mortality rate Saturday, with 29.1 per 100,000 population, slightly higher than Pacific Islanders and Native Hawaiians at 27.9. The statewide mortality rate was 8.7.

The overall seven-day average in Utah was 615 new cases per day, slightly up from Fridays average of 614. Gov. Gary Herbert has said he wants the states seven-day average to be below 500 new cases per day by Aug. 1.

For the past week, 9.2% of new tests came back positive, which is a slight increase from Fridays average of 9.1%.

Of 37,623 Utahns who have tested positive for COVID-19, 24,390 are considered recovered that is, they have survived for at least three weeks after being diagnosed.

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More than 500000 Utahns have been tested for COVID-19 as state reports 661 more cases, 1 new death - Salt Lake Tribune

In many states across the U.S., contact tracing paired with rapid testing has been an effective tool to slow the spread of COVID-19. Now, as schools, businesses, and organizations prepare to reopen during the ongoing pandemic, those efforts will need to be amplified to prevent a new wave of infections, said a panel of people who have been working as contact tracers.

The panelists, all three of whom are students in or graduates of the Bouv College of Health Sciences at Northeastern, offered insights working as contract tracers in Massachusetts since April during a July 23 webinar hosted by Bouv on the importance of contact tracing.

Meredith Patterson, a care resource coordinator with the Massachusetts Community Tracing Collaborative who is studying for her masters in public health, suggested that the drop in cases in Massachusetts could in part be attributed to the coordination of resources such as food and medication or housing and mental health services to help people safely quarantine and isolate after they received a positive test result.

Going forward, its something well have to figure out economically and logistically: How do we make sure in every state there is a contact tracing and care resource coordination effort as extensive as the one in Massachusetts? Because weve seen that these efforts have been successful, said Patterson. From a national perspective thats definitely something we have to keep in mind is how do we have equity in response throughout the states?

Magda Pankowska, a recent graduate who studied infectious diseases at Northeastern, said rapid testing and diagnosis will be crucial and that one way of accelerating that process is by finding a way to notify patients of their results virtually. Her colleague, Cassandra Dechaine, said she worries that efforts to reopen could divert resources such as COVID-19 tests away from vulnerable communities.

I think that there are a lot of moving pieces that need to be taken into consideration and monitored really closely as we start to reopen, said Dechaine, a second-year student pursuing a dual degree in law and public health.

Pankowska and Dechaine are volunteers for the Academic Public Health Volunteer Corps, a group that was formed in the spring comprising public health students and graduates and aimed at buttressing the capacity of local health departments across the Commonwealth not only to respond to COVID-19, but also address other areas of public health need.

In the four months of working as contact tracers, they said theyve encountered language barriers, challenges in connecting people of different backgrounds with the appropriate resources, and people who have anxiety while awaiting their result because of testing delays.

A big part of communicating results back to people is making sure that were communicating very rapidly, Pankowska said. People shouldnt be waiting a long time between getting tested and getting communications about what the results are and the next steps they should be taking, because it not only makes people feel anxious and stressed out, but also [we want to] ensure that when people do test positive, theyre able to isolate.

Neil Maniar is a professor of the practice in the Bouv College of Health Sciences Bouv College of Health Sciences, and the director of Northeasterns Master of Public Health program. Screenshot by Northeastern University

The panelists said that reaching out to certain communities, such as undocumented immigrants, is another challenge contract tracers and case investigators commonly face. Many of these community members are reluctant to share information about themselves, said Patterson. Diversifying the public health pipeline with people of different races and linguistic abilities could help solve this issue, she said.

When we continue to diversify our workforce and we bring new people with new backgrounds and new identities into our work, populations arent difficult to reach anymore, said Patterson.

The Academic Public Health Volunteer Corps is led by Neil Maniar, a professor of practice and director of Northeasterns Master of Public Health program who facilitated the July 23 discussion as part of the Women Who Inspire at the

Forefront of Healthcare webinar series, which aims to highlight the voices and experiences of women in Bouv who are working on the front lines of the public health crisis.

The next webinar, on July 30, will focus on the impact of the pandemic on people with serious mental illness and on disordered eating. Panelists will discuss strategies to support mental health and well-being during the crisis.

For media inquiries, please contact media@northeastern.edu.

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Is contact tracing enough to slow the spread of COVID-19? - News@Northeastern

(CBS) A new study of COVID-19, based on data from a symptom tracker app, determined that there are six distinct types of the disease involving different clusters of symptoms.

The discovery could potentially open new possibilities for how doctors can better treat individual patients and predict what level of hospital care they would need.

Researchers from Kings College London studied data from approximately 1,600 U.K. and U.S. patients who regularly logged their symptoms in the COVID Symptom Tracker App in March and April.

Typically, doctors will look for key symptoms such as cough, fever and loss of the sense of smell to detect COVID-19. The study, which has not been peer-reviewed, says the six different types of COVID-19 can vary by severity and come with their own set of symptoms.

I think its very, very interesting, Dr. Bob Lahita, who is not affiliated with the study, told CBSN anchors Vladimir Duthiers and Anne-Marie Green. Among the patients I see, those who recovered, many of them present different ways: some people with fever and some without fever, and some with nausea and vomiting, some people with diarrhea, etc.

The six clusters of symptoms outlined in the study are:

The first level, flu-like with no fever, is associated with headaches, loss of smell, muscle pains, cough, sore throat and chest pain. Patients at this level have a 1.5% chance of needing breathing support such as oxygen or a ventilator.

The second type, flu-like with fever, includes symptoms like loss of appetite, headache, loss of smell, cough, sore throat, hoarseness and fever. Researchers say about 4.4% of patients at this level needed breathing support.

Patients with the third type, simply described as gastrointestinal, do not have a cough as part of their illness. Instead, they experience headaches, diarrhea, loss of smell, loss of appetite, sore throat and chest pain, and about 3.3% needed breathing support.

Lahita referred to the following three clusters of COVID-19 as the really severe types.

In type four, or severe level one, patients experience fatigue along with headache, loss of smell, cough, fever, hoarseness and chest pain. Patients at this level needed breathing support at a rate of 8.6%.

Type five, severe level two, includes the symptoms of type four along with loss of appetite, sore throat and muscle pain, and is mainly distinguished by confusion.

That means you dont know where you are or where you live, whether you are in or out of the hospital, who your relatives are, Lahita explained. That is very scary. Almost 10% of patients at that level need breathing support.

The most severe type of COVID-19 is referred to as severe level three, abdominal and respiratory, and has all the above symptoms along with abdominal pain, shortness of breath and diarrhea. Nearly 20% of these patients need breathing support.

Those are the severe level threes who wind up on a ventilator, and then it is touch-and-go as to whether they survive the infection entirely, Lahita said.

The U.K. researchers also found that only 16% of patients with type one COVID-19 required hospitalization, compared with nearly half of the patients with type six.

Patients in the severe clusters also tended to be older or with pre-existing conditions and weakened immune systems, compared to those in the first three.

Scientists hope the discovery, once further studied, could help predict what types of care patients with COVID-19 might need, and give doctors the ability to predict which patients would fall into which category.

Im very happy that these six types have been identified and can give us an idea of a prognosis going forward for patients who are afflicted with this virus, Lahita said.

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Study identifies six different types of COVID-19 - WTRF

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Alcoa City Schools announced someone has tested positive for COVID-19 at its middle school - WATE 6 On Your Side

Residents of an assisted living facility in The Villages and a Wildwood nursing home and six tri-county residents are the latest local victims of the COVID-19 virus.

One of the long-term care residents lived at Serenades in The Villages, located at 2450 Parr Drive, while the other was a resident of Cypress Care Center, located at 490 S. Old Wire Road in Wildwood. No other information about the two victims was provided Saturday by the Florida Department of Health.

Serenades Memory Care and Assisted Living is located on Parr Drive in The Villages.

Five of the area residents who died lived in Marion County, while the sixth was a resident of Sumter County. There were identified as:

Thirteen new cases were reported Saturday in The Villages, bringing the total number in the mega-retirement community to 353. Of those, 329 are in the Sumter County portion of the community, 22 are in Lake County and two are in the Marion County section of the sprawling retirement mecca.

Thirty-five new cases also were reported Saturday in communities just outside the confines of Floridas Friendliest Hometown. Those include:

Overall, the tri-county area is reporting 8,180 cases an increase of 244 from Friday to Saturday among 3,872 men, 4,172 women, 47 non-residents and 89 people listed as unknown. There have been 111 deaths and 634 people have been hospitalized.

Sumter County is now reporting 968 cases an increase of 27 among 528 men, 428 women, seven non-residents and five people listed as unknown. There have been 25 deaths and 137 people treated in area hospitals.

Bushnell now has 197 cases 127 of which are at the Sumter Correctional Institution among 103 inmates and 24 staff members. Others have been reported in Lake Panasoffkee (49), Webster (39), Coleman (33), Center Hill (29), Lady Lake portion of the county (24) and Sumterville (15). The federal prison in Coleman also is reporting 372 cases among 297 inmates and 75 staff members.

Lake County continues to lead the local area with 3,988 cases an increase of 98 in a 24-hour period. Those are comprised of 1,863 men, 2,033 women, 31 non-residents and 61 people listed as unknown. There have been 38 deaths and 188 people have been hospitalized.

Clermont continues to pace Lake County with 993 cases an increase of 26 overnight. Others have been identified in Tavares (520, 23 of which are at the Lake County Jail among one inmate, 20 staff members and two contracted nurses), Eustis (339), Groveland (277), Mount Dora (254), Mascotte (144), Minneola (112), Sorrento (106), Montverde (77), Umatilla (74), Grand Island (38), Howey-in-the-Hills (31), Astor (23), Astatula (20), Yalaha (17), Altoona (15), Paisley (13), Okahumpka (11), Ferndale (3) and Mount Plymouth (3).

Marion County now has 3,224 cases an increase of 119 among 1,481 men, 1,711 women, nine non-residents and 23 people listed as unknown. There have been 48 deaths and 309 people requiring some form of hospital care.

The overwhelming majority of Marion County cases 2,376 have been reported in Ocala, which saw an increase of 87 overnight. Others have been reported in Dunnellon (119), Citra (45), Silver Springs (42), Reddick (40), Ocklawaha (40), Weirsdale (22), Anthony (19), Fort McCoy (9), Orange Lake (5), Candler (3), East Lake (3), Lowell (3), Sparr (2) and Morriston (1). A total of 209 cases have been identified among inmates at the Marion County Jail and 149 cases have been reported among inmates and staff members at Lowell Correctional Institution and Marion Correctional Institution.

All told, Florida is reporting 414,511 COVID-19 cases an increase of 12,199 from Friday to Saturday. Of those, 409,585 are residents. There have been 5,894 deaths and 23,730 people have been hospitalized across the Sunshine State. Those numbers show 126 more deaths since Friday and an additional 505 people requiring hospital care.

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Resident of assisted living facility in The Villages dies of COVID-19 - Villages-News