Category: Covid-19

Nearly two-thirds of Northern Virginia's deaths due to COVID-19 have occurred in outbreaks at the region's long-term care facilities, according to an InsideNoVa analysis of Virginia Department of Health data released Friday.

At least 557 patients at the region's nursing homes and assisted living centers have died from the virus since the pandemic began in March, the analysis shows. The Northern Virginia region has reported 853 deaths altogether as of Thursday. The number of deaths at the long-term facilities is actually slightly higher than that because exact numbers for facilities with between one and four deaths was not reported in order to protect individuals' privacy. For analysis purposes, InsideNoVa assumed those facilities had one death apiece.

The number of cases at the region's facilities totals 3,181, or about 10.6 percent of the region's nearly 30,000 coronavirus cases. Cases at the facilities include both patients and staff, the health department said.

Among Northern Virginia's five health districts, Loudoun County has the highest percentage of its COVID-19 deaths at long-term care facilities, 76.8%. The lowest is 40.8% in the Prince William Health District, although that number is probably higher due to the number of facilities with suppressed data.

The Prince William district, which includes the cities of Manassas and Manassas Park, also had the lowest percentage of its COVID-19 cases at long-term facilities, 4.9%. The highest percentage is 20.5% in Arlington.

State and local health departments had previously refused to release specific data about outbreaks in long-term care facilities, citing a section of state code. However, Gov. Ralph Northam ordered the data released Friday.

"Due to the widespread nature of this pandemic, it is now unlikely that releasing facility information would compromise anonymity or discourage facilities from participating in a public health investigation," a release from the governor's office said. The release also cited recently released data from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that has been inconsistent, creating public confusion.

The federal data released two weeks ago showed that the region had 241 deaths and 903 cases of COVID-19 at nursing homes, but the data did not include assisted-living facilities, which fall under different regulations, some information was incorrectly reported, and facilities were only required to report cases and deaths since May 1. Some facilities reported cumulative data since the pandemic began, however, causing more inconsistencies.

The data released by the state today includes outbreaks at both nursing homes and long-term care facilities and is cumulative based on reporting to the state health department. An outbreak is defined as two or more cases of the virus.

Eight facilities across the region have reported more than 20 deaths due to COVID-19, with Annandale Healthcare Center reporting the most, 51, followed by Leewood Healthcare Center in Fairfax with 35 and Birmingham Green in Manassas with 33.

Nine facilities reported more than 100 cases of the virus among patients and staff.

Earlier article on data release and Gov. Northam's announcement of additional aid for long-term care facilities.

SOURCE: Virginia Department of Health data released June 19, 2020.

* - Facility had between 1 and 4 outbreaks or deaths; exact number suppressed for privacy reasons.

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Two-thirds of region's COVID-19 deaths have occurred in long-term care facilities - Inside NoVA

As states begin to re-open and professional and collegiatesports teams enter new phases of their return amid the coronavirus pandemic, the threat of the virus still remains. That has become evident in recent weeks as reports of players from numerous teams and cities testing positive for COVID-19.

Specifically, an increase in positive tests in the sports world came on Friday, June 19, as cases continue to spike in several states across the country. Here is a running list of teams and players that have tested positive for COVID-19:

The Phillies were among the multiple franchises to have players reportedly test positive for COVID-19 on Friday. NBC Sports Philadelphia's Jim Salisbury reported that five unnamed players that weretraining atthe teams facility in Clearwater, Fla., contracted coronavirus. Florida is one of the states seeing a massive surge in cases, as the state set a single-day record on Friday.

The team has since shut down all operations at the Clearwater facility. Salisbury reported that no players were hospitalized.

The Blue Jays shut down their facility inDunedin, Fla., on Thursday after a player showed symptoms of COVID-19, ESPN's Jeff Passan reported on Friday. Toronto's Spring Training facility is not too far from where the Phillies' outbreak happened.

RELATED: SHOULD BASEBALL BE PLAYED AMID VIRUS CONCERNS?

Another franchise impacted by its location in the spiking state of Florida, the Lightning had multiple personnel test positive for COVID-19, TSN's Bob McKenzie reported. Three players and two staff members reportedly make up the group that tested positive, and Tampa Bay will not test all other personnel.

The NHL had just advanced to Phase 2 of its return plan two weeks ago, but there are fewer restrictions on isolation at this time than there will be when the league send playoff teams to the two hub cities.

The Maple Leafs star has tested positive for COVID-19 and is currently isolating at his home in Arizona, the Toronto Sun's Steve Simmons reports. Arizona is another state that has seen a spike in positive cases after re-opening, but Matthews hopes to be able to travel to Toronto when the team's camp opens up on July 10.

An unnamed PGA player currently participating in the RBC Heritage tournament has reportedly tested positive, Nathan Hubbard tweeted on Friday. The PGA has yet to confirm the report, but word of the positive test has reportedly spread through the other players at the event.

28 student-athletes and members of the athletic staff at Clemson have tested positive for the virus, according tocollege football reporter Bruce Feldman. The Athletic's Grace Raynor reported that 23 of the players were members of the football team.

The school noted that a majority of the cases were asymptomatic and there were no hospitalizations.

The University of Texas announced on Thursday that 13 players in the football program tested positive for COVID-19. The announcement came just 10 days after the university brought players back to campus for workouts on June 8.

The league reported on June 15that several players have tested positive for COVID-19, but did not name any specific players or organizations.

Though concerning, some players found the announcement to come at an interesting time considering the league and MLBPA were at a boiling point over negotiations for the 2020 season.

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Also on June 15, it was reported that several Texans and Cowboys players had tested positive for coronavirus, according to ESPN's Todd Archer. Among them was Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliot. Elliott's agentRocky Arceneaux confirmed the reporttoNFL Network's Ian Rapoport.

Though some players experienced flu-like symptoms, Elliott was reportedly an asymptomatic carrier of the virus.

The Penguins announced on June 4 that an unnamed player in the organization tested positive. The team stated that the player was not in Pittsburgh and isolated immediately after he began experiencing symptoms.

The Redskins third-round draft pick announced in May that he had tested positive for the virus in March, but had since self-isolated and recovered. The wide receiver out of Liberty had not been around any other Redskins personnel.

Georgetown men's basketball head coach Patrick Ewing announced on May 22that he tested positive for COVID-19. After isolating in a local hospital, Ewing has since shared that he has returned home to continue to recover.

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Who has tested positive for COVID-19 in sports? - NBCSports.com

Parts of Pennsylvania that were among the hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic will move next week into the less restrictive green zone for reopening businesses and restarting group activities, the Wolf administration announced Friday.

State Department of Health officials also announced Friday one person with ties to a Northumberland County long-term care facility has died as a result of COVID-19, according to its latest data released Friday.

The 12 counties going from yellow to green under Gov. Tom Wolf's color-colored reopening system include Philadelphia and its heavily populated collar suburbs of Montgomery, Bucks, Chester and Delaware counties.

Other counties moving to green next week will be Lehigh and Northampton in the Lehigh Valley; Erie County, where local officials have pressed for looser restrictions; Lackawanna and Susquehanna counties in the northeast; and Berks and Lancaster counties.

The changes will encompass the cities of Allentown, Bethlehem, Erie, Scranton, Lancaster and Reading.

In the green zone, gyms, barbers and theaters can reopen at reduced capacity. Bars and restaurants may allow indoor dining, also at reduced capacity. Gatherings of up to 250 people are permitted in green zones.

Wolf, a Democrat, said local officials in Philadelphia will maintain some additional restrictions for an additional week, until July 3.

The only county left in the yellow zone is Lebanon County in central Pennsylvania. In a release, the Wolf administration blamed Republican county officials for voting to open about a month ago. A message was left seeking comment from the Lebanon County commissioners and the county administrator.

"Lebanon County's partisan, politically driven decision to ignore public health experts and reopen prematurely is having severe consequences for the health and safety of county residents," Wolf's health secretary, Dr. Rachel Levine, said in the release. "Case counts have escalated and the county is not yet ready to be reopened. Lebanon County has hindered its progress by reopening too early."

The number of new infections has been rising in Lebanon County since late May, increase from 88 new cases over the 14-day period ending May 28 to 213 new cases in the 14-day period ending Thursday.

A Republican state lawmaker from Lebanon, Rep. Russ Diamond, was prime sponsor of a resolution passed by both chambers earlier this month to end Wolf's shutdown. The state Supreme Court will decide whether that resolution carries any legal weight.

New cases

Health officials confirmed another two cases in nursing or personal care homes in the county, the only two additional cases in Northumberland County. There is also one new case in Union County.

According to the state's latest data, there are 18 total cases among residents and four employees of nursing or personal care homes in Northumberland County. There is also one case among workers at two separate facilities in Union County.

At least 17 of the 22 cases in Northumberland County are at ManorCare Health Services-Sunbury, according to the parent company's most recent set of facility data updated Thursday evening.

The state has not disclosed which facility housed the person who died, nor whether the individual was a resident or an employee.

A separate statewide database, last updated on June 10, does not indicate which county facilities have had positive cases. ManorCare-Sunbury, operated by HCR ManorCare based out of Ohio, shows on its latest system-wide data that it has tested 53 patients. Of the 53 tests, 13 have come back positive along with four employees. The facility, located at 901 Court St., is listed among HCR ManorCare's "tier 3" facilities, a designation that comes with more strict protocols.

Calls to the HCR ManorCare headquarters were not returned on Thursday.

State health officials announced another 526 cases on Friday, pushing the statewide total to 80,762. There were also 38 COVID-19 related deaths, giving Pennsylvania 6,399 deaths since tracking began in March.

In nursing and personal care homes across the state, there are 16,895 resident cases of COVID-19, and 3,012 cases among employees, for a total of 19,907 at 651 distinct facilities in 47 counties. Of the state's 6,399 deaths, 4,345 have been residents of nursing or personal care facilities.

Approximately 6,092 of Pennsylvania's total cases are in health care workers.

Since the state began tracking data in March, there have been 467 cases in the Valley: 254 in Northumberland County, 84 in Union, 68 in Montour and 61 in Snyder.

The DOH estimates 77 percent of the state's positives have recovered already.

Statewide, 725 patients remain hospitalized due to COVID-19, including 162 on ventilators. Four of the patients on ventilators are in Montour County.

We are making critical coverage of the coronavirus available for free. Please consider subscribing so we can continue to bring you the latest news and information on this developing story.

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DOH: One Northumberland County COVID-19 death linked to long-term care facility; State has 526 new cases - Sunbury Daily Item

Just as all 50 states reopen from their public health lockdowns, a new wave of COVID-19 cases is hitting parts of the nations Sun Belt, areas that had not felt much impact during the pandemics early months. In the three weeks following Memorial Day, new cases have ticked up sharply in southern and western states. This Sun Belt surge has led to new rates of high COVID-19 prevalence in many smaller-sized rural counties that are less racially diverse, have more middle-income residents, and lean Republican.

This analysis extends our monitoring of the spread of counties with a high COVID-19 prevalence from April and May. Even more so than in earlier reports, the new surge is hitting parts of the country that national and local leaders thought to be immune to the pandemic just one month ago.

While its true that the nationwide number COVID-19 cases has declined in recent weeks, that has not been the case for every part of the country, especially states in the Sun Belt region. For the three weeks between Memorial Day (May 25) and June 14, 27 states showed an increase in COVID-19 cases compared to the three previous weeks. Twenty-four of these states are in the Sun Belt, with the greatest increases in California, Arizona, Florida, Texas, and North Carolina. States showing the greatest declines in new cases include the earlier hotspots of New York, Illinois, New Jersey, and Massachusetts.

A notable aspect of the Sun Belt surge is its dispersion into outer suburban, smaller, and nonmetropolitan counties. Figure 1 depicts the contrast in regional shifts over the six-week period between May 3 and June 14 for new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 population.

Nationally, the biggest shift is the downward trend of new cases for urban core areas, along with lower levels but modest recent gains for mature inner suburbs, outer suburbs, and small and nonmetropolitan areas.

Not surprisingly, the national declines in urban cores are most represented in counties in the Northeast and Midwest region. Among those showing large declines in the three weeks after Memorial Day were counties associated with metropolitan New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago.

Sharply countering this pattern is the uptick in COVID-19 cases among counties of all urban categories in the South and West. Over the same three weeks, the urban core and inner suburb counties of Miami, Atlanta, Houston, Phoenix, and Charlotte, N.C. registered notable gains.

A more dominant feature of the Sun Belt surge, however, is the increase in COVID-19 cases in outer suburban and smaller-sized counties. Among the 342 counties where cases of COVID-19 increased by more than 100 per 100,000 residents during the three weeks after Memorial Day, nearly four out of five are located in the Sun Beltthe vast majority of which (252 counties) lie outside urban cores and inner suburbs. Large numbers of the latter counties are located in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, Mississippi, and Texas.

This new surge of COVID-19 cases is also noteworthy because of the demographic attributes of residents in newly impacted counties, which are much different than those of earlier months. To examine this shift, we extend our earlier analysis to compare counties which reached high COVID-19 prevalence between May 25 and June 14 with those that reached high prevalence in April and early May. (We define high prevalence as at least 100 cases per 100,000 population based on case data reported by The New York Times and 2019 population data reported by the U.S. Census Bureau.)

Map 1 provides a spatial overview of the evolution of high COVID-19 prevalence counties from late March to June 14. On March 29, 59 countiesconstituting just 8% of the U.S. populationhad reached high-prevalence status. These were heavily concentrated in select large metropolitan regions, including New York, Detroit, Seattle, and New Orleans.

During the four-week period between March 29 and April 26, new high-prevalence counties spread further across the country, eventually housing 57% of the population. These included an array of metropolitan areas such as Chicago, Atlanta, Miami, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C.but also large swaths of counties in the Deep South and Midwest.

The four-week period between April 27 and May 24 saw greater COVID-19 spread into the South and West, dipping into some smaller areas in all regions and extending into Texas, Virginia, and other parts of the interior South. By then, 83% of the nation resided in the nearly 1,700 high-prevalence counties.

The most recent three-week period between May 25 and June 14 added 436 counties to high-prevalence status. As noted earlier, they represent a new surge into the South and West, with 270 counties located in those regions and large representations in Texas (46 counties), Kentucky (35), Tennessee (23), and Arkansas (20). While some of these counties are located in and around larger metro areas such as Sacramento, Calif., Portland Ore., and Ogden, Utah, the vast majority lie within smaller areas.

The contrast in demographic profiles between these new high-prevalence counties and those from late March and early April is striking. As Figure 2 indicates, less than 2% of new high-prevalence county residents live in urban core areas, with nearly three-fifths in small or nonmetropolitan areas. This differs sharply from the heavily urbanized picture of COVID-19s impact as of March 29, when four-fifths of the affected population lived in urban cores. Similarly, the newly designated high-prevalence counties are more heavily located in the South and West (78%) than earlier groups of counties.

The contrast is also apparent when looking at counties race-ethnicity attributes, foreign-born residents, and household income rates. Newly designated high-prevalence counties are nearly 70% white, but in high-prevalence counties from the end of March, more than half of residents identified with a racial or ethnic group other than white. Similarly, the new counties show the lowest representation of foreign-born residents (8.2%) and the lowest share of households with incomes above $100,000 (23.2%) out of all the groups of counties previously designated with high COVID-19 prevalence.

Perhaps the most pronounced difference between the early high-prevalence counties and those reaching high-prevalence between May 25 and June 14 is their political orientation. Early high-prevalence counties were strongly Democratic when looking at how their residents voted in the 2016 presidential election, with Hillary Clinton besting Donald Trump by a margin 62 to 34 in those areas (See Figure 2). But among residents of the new high-prevalence counties, Trump bested Clinton by a margin of 58 to 36.

One can see COVID-19s spread to red America in the counties that reached high prevalence between April and early May. In counties designated with high prevalence between March 30 and April 26, Clintons lead was reduced to a margin of 53 to 41. Among counties designated between April 27 and May 24, Trump took a 50 to 44 lead. This change coincides with shifts of high COVID-19 prevalence to redder states and smaller, more Republican-leaning counties within those states.

When looking at the number of counties designated as high-prevalence, Table 3 makes plain that the ratio of Trump counties to Clinton counties increases with each period. In general, Trump counties tend to be smaller, so for each period since late March (even including the March 30 to April 26 period, when Clinton was still besting Trump in the voter margin) there were more Trump counties than Clinton ones among those newly designated with high COVID-19 prevalence.

That ratio increased over time, and among the newest tranche of 436 high-prevalence counties from May 25 to June 14, Trump won all but 32. Over half of these Trump counties are located in the South, with large representations in Texas, Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee. Over a third are in the Midwest, with many in Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, and South Dakota. COVID-19s spread to more Republican counties should change early assumptions that the pandemic has been confined to largely Democratic states and areas.

COVID-19s post-Memorial Day surge to new areas of the Sun Belt casts a light on where and who the pandemic will impact in the months ahead. The reopening of many states and communities thought to have overcome exposure may need to be reconsidered. In addition, the early politicization of the pandemic by the president and other public officials (which suggested that red parts of America need not be concerned with excessive protections) is looking like bad adviceand could become political fodder for their electoral opponents in November, should the virus continue to spread.

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COVID-19s Sun Belt surge has recast the pandemics impact - Brookings Institution

The Office of Personnel Management on Thursday announced that it is planning to issue regulations to allow agencies to restore federal employees' so-called "use or lose" annual leave that was canceled so they could work on the response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Ordinarily, federal workers can only carry over so much annual leave from year to year. Any unused leave over that cap is forfeited at the end of the year. Leave that is lost at the end of a year can only be restored to federal workers if it was forfeited due to an administrative error, an employee being ill, or if leave was canceled due to an "exigency of the public business."

In a memo to agency heads, acting OPM Director Michael Rigas said his agency will issue regulations officially deeming COVID-19 a national emergency to fulfill that "exigency of public business" requirement and to streamline procedures to restore leave to feds.

"Please know that OPM plans to issue regulations in the near future that will streamline the leave restoration process for agencies that have employees with 'use or lose' annual leave who are unable to use this leave because of work-related requirements related to the COVID-19 national emergency," he wrote. "The regulations will deem the COVID-19 national emergency to be an exigency of the public business for the purpose of restoring forfeited annual leave."

Rigas stressed that the forthcoming regulations will only cover federal employees who had to cancel leave because of their work responding to the pandemic, not because they had to cancel vacations or travel plans.

"An employee's decision to cancel annual leave he or she had previously scheduled or not schedule annual leave due to the cancellation of vacation or travel plans because of COVID-19 restrictions does not constitute an exigency of the public [business] for the purposes of restoration of annual leave," he wrote.

Additionally, the regulations will not allow for restoration of leave that is scheduled but canceled late in the year.

"An agency may restore annual leave that was forfeited due to an exigency of the public business or sickness of the employee only if the annual leave was scheduled in writing before the start of the third biweekly pay period prior to the end of the leave year," Rigas wrote. "Any annual leave scheduled after that date will be forfeited if not used by the final day of the leave year."

Given these restrictions, Rigas stressed that agencies should "work with their employees" to make sure they schedule and use their annual leave if possible. Under the forthcoming regulations, agencies will be required to inform employees if they are eligible for leave restoration.

"Agency heads will be required to identify any employees covered under this annual leave restoration authority and inform them in writing of this designation," Rigas wrote. "This means that agencies and their employees will not be faced with the administrative burden of scheduling, cancelingand restoring such leave for these employees at a time when all available attention and energy should be focused on the national emergency."

Although Rigas said the regulation would be published "in the near future," he did not provide a specific target date for its release.

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OPM: Some Feds' Leave Canceled Because of COVID-19 Will Be Restored - GovExec.com

KCHD: Seven new COVID-19 cases in Kanawha; three more cases linked to Myrtle Beach  WCHS-TV8

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KCHD: Seven new COVID-19 cases in Kanawha; three more cases linked to Myrtle Beach - WCHS-TV8

Dr. Ashley Bloomfield, New Zealand's director-general of health, pictured last week, said Tuesday that two women flying in from the U.K. via Australia had tested positive for the coronavirus and had been in isolation since their arrival. Marty Melville/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Dr. Ashley Bloomfield, New Zealand's director-general of health, pictured last week, said Tuesday that two women flying in from the U.K. via Australia had tested positive for the coronavirus and had been in isolation since their arrival.

After 24 days with no new cases of the coronavirus, New Zealand now has two. Both are women in the same family and traveled from the U.K. via Australia.

"I can say now both women are self-isolating in the Wellington region, and we're very confident the arrangements that are in place is the best place for them to be right now," Dr. Ashley Bloomfield, New Zealand's director-general of health, said in a news conference Tuesday.

One woman experienced mild symptoms; the other was symptom-free.

The two women had been in a managed isolation hotel in Auckland since arriving in the country. They came to the country on June 7 and traveled to Wellington on Saturday.

Bloomfield said they have been following the country's regulations, including not using any public facilities and not having any contact with anyone during their journey by car from the isolation hotel in Auckland to self-isolation in Wellington. Contact tracing is now being conducted, ranging from the people who were on their flight from Australia to the staff at the airport and isolation facility.

"A new case is something we hoped we wouldn't get but is also something we have expected and planned for," Bloomfield said. "That is why we have geared up, and continue to gear up, our contact tracing at a local level and national capacity and capability as well as having our excellent testing capability so we can respond rapidly."

He added, "We know there are people continuing to come to New Zealand these are Kiwis returning from countries where there is active community spread of COVID-19. And that is why we have the requirement for managed isolation at the border."

New Zealand may grant "compassionate exemptions" for a person to leave a managed isolation facility if the person has a detailed plan for self-isolation, testing and health checks through the end of the 14-day isolation period.

The country's total number of confirmed cases is now 1,156, and its combined total of confirmed and probable cases is 1,506. The number of recovered cases remains at 1,482, and no one is currently receiving hospital-level care for COVID-19.

The Ministry of Health said that more than 558,000 people are now registered users of NZ COVID Tracer, the ministry's contact tracing app.

Here's how it works: Businesses and organizations are given posters with an official QR code specific to that location. People are then encouraged to scan the QR code with the smartphone app to create a diary of where they've gone. Users can sign up to receive alerts if it turns out a person with COVID-19 was at the same location at the same time. If you are identified as a confirmed or probable case of COVID-19, you can share your check-ins with the Ministry of Health, helping contact tracers identify others who might have been exposed.

A COVID-19 QR code allows patrons to scan for New Zealand's tracing program as they enter a stadium Saturday in Dunedin ahead of a rugby game. Joe Allison/AP hide caption

New Zealand is seen as perhaps the globe's biggest success story in controlling the spread of the virus, with the country moving swiftly to stop local transmission and prevent new cases from arriving.

In mid-March, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern ordered anyone entering New Zealand into quarantine. A few days later, Ardern stopped travel into the country, in effect banning all foreigners from entering the island nation of 4.8 million. By mid-May, New Zealand had three consecutive days with no new cases, and it allowed most businesses to reopen.

Last week, as the nation began allowing large gatherings such as sporting events and concerts, Ardern warned that New Zealand is not immune to what happens in the rest of the world.

"We will almost certainly see cases here again," she predicted. "That is not a sign we have failed."

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After Weeks Of No New Cases Of COVID-19 In New Zealand, 2 Arrivals Test Positive - NPR

The data are now overwhelming, from here in the U.S. and all around the world, that this infection is a grave threat to the elderly and chronically ill, but generally mild for younger, generally healthy people, said Katz in an interview.

Its also clear that many of the worried projections about social determinants of health and the consequences of mass unemployment are confirmed. We have, indeed, seen rising rates of addiction, domestic violence and mental duress.

We also know much more now, Katz continued, about the risks of exposure. This virus is not transmitted all that easily. Many people with transient, ordinary exposures dont get infected because of low exposure dose, partial resistance to this pathogen, or both.

All of this provides actionable intelligence, Katz argued. We can and must do a far better job of protecting the frail and elderly, especially in nursing homes, and all of those with serious chronic disease, he said. Then the rest of us can go about our business, but with policies in place to regulate any interactions we might have with higher-risk people, so we protect them, and with reasonable precautions for our own sakes, like wearing masks, practicing social distancing and avoiding crowded indoor settings, that limit exposure to high doses of coronavirus and our ability to pass it along.

We also can see now with cases spiking in locations around the country that did not experience an early wave of infection and are now opening up haphazardly how right it was to warn about the dangers of just flattening the curve without a risk-stratification strategy, added Katz. A flattened curve delays cases, it does not prevent them, because no immunity has been developed.

To get back to normalcy requires widespread immunity to the coronavirus, which happens in only two ways.

One is a vaccine that is safe, effective, mass produced and universally distributed. That would be the best solution, and God willing, a vaccine will come in the fall and everyone can get back to work safely in subsequent months. But it may not, and we cant just keep the economy on hold.

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Is Trump Trying to Spread Covid-19? - The New York Times

The COVID-19 Health Equity Dashboard seeks to fill the gaps in county-level data about the virus and underlying social determinants of health. Our goal is for this Dashboard to facilitate easy comparisons of counties with respect to COVID-19 outcomes and social determinants. We hope this becomes a valuable resource for and critical component of ...

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Covid19-HE

The latest COVID-19 model shows Harris County's projected four-week spike could be the second-worst in the country.

HOUSTON Gov. Greg Abbott told Texans not to panic Tuesday after another record-high number of new COVID-19 cases were reported across the state.

"The increased occupancy in hospital beds, it does raise concerns, but as shown today, there is no reason to be alarmed," Abbott said.

The governor blamed the spikes on batches of positive tests in prisons, assisted living facilities and some data errors. He insists that the reopening of Texas is going smoothly.

"COVID-19 hasn't magically left the state of Texas, it's still here," Abbott said. "We do not have to choose between either returning to jobs or protecting healthcare."

Abbott's press conference left infectious disease expert Dr. Peter Hotez with key questions unanswered.

"What's the contingency if these numbers continue to go up precipitously?" Hotez said.

Right now, 21% of Houston-area hospital beds remain available. The problem, Hotez said, is that the cases are going up, not down.

"The models tell a frightening story," Hotez said. "People were aggressive about opening early and this is the consequence of it, unfortunately."

The latest University of Pennsylvania models show Harris County's four-week case projection is the second-worst in the country, behind Maricopa County in Arizona.

"If by next week these numbers continue to accelerate, we may have to make some hard choices," Hotez said.

"Masks give us a fighting chance," Hotez said.

For now, Abbott is not budging.

"All of us have a collective responsibility to educate the public that wearing a mask is the right thing to do, but putting people in jail however is the wrong approach," Abbott said.

Great news if you watch TV with an antenna

KHOU has just upgraded its technology. If you were unable to receive KHOU with your antenna in the past, try again on channel 11.11. You may have to rescan your channels for it to work if thats the case, weve got some instructions at KHOU.com/antenna. If you already see KHOU on 11.1, you may now ALSO see it on 11.11 its the exact same programming. Were really excited to be able to bring our KHOU 11 News, CBS shows and sports, Wheel of Fortune, Ellenand Great Day Houston to more homes around the area. If youre still having trouble, please contact us here and well try to get you set up.

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Texas COVID-19 cases continue to rise: 'This is the consequence' of opening early, doctor says - KHOU.com