Category: Covid-19

People working as medics near the Colorado State Capitol on May 31, during one of Denver's many protest demonstrations in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis. Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images hide caption

People working as medics near the Colorado State Capitol on May 31, during one of Denver's many protest demonstrations in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis.

Amid clouds of choking tear gas, booming flash-bang grenades and other "riot control agents," volunteer medics in Denver plunged into street protests in recent weeks to help the injured sometimes rushing to the front lines as soon as their hospital shifts ended.

Known as "street medics," these unorthodox teams of nursing students, veterinarians, doctors, trauma surgeons, security guards, ski patrollers, nurses, wilderness EMTs and off-the-clock ambulance workers poured water not milk into the eyes of tear-gassed protesters. They stanched bleeding wounds and plucked disoriented teenagers from clouds of gas, entering dangerous corners where on-duty emergency health responders may fear to go.

Many are medical professionals who see parallels between the front lines of COVID-19, where they confront stark racial imbalances among those stricken by the coronavirus, and what they see as racialized police brutality.

So, donning cloth masks to protect against the virus, plus helmets, makeshift shields and other gear to guard against rubber bullets, projectiles and tear gas, the volunteer medics organized themselves into a web of first responders to care for people on the streets.

A table is filled with supplies for injured protesters at an apartment complex that became the central command for Denver's street medics on June 1. LJ Dawson for KHN hide caption

A table is filled with supplies for injured protesters at an apartment complex that became the central command for Denver's street medics on June 1.

They showed up early, set up first-aid stations, established transportation networks and covered their arms, helmets and backpacks with crosses made of red duct tape, to signify that they were medics. Some stayed late into the night, past curfews, until every protester had left.

Iris Butler, a 21-year-old certified nursing assistant who works in a nursing home, decided to offer her skills after seeing a man injured by a rubber bullet on her first night at the Denver protests. She showed up as a medic every night thereafter. She didn't see it as a choice.

"I am working full time and basically being at the protest after getting straight off of work," says Butler, who is black. That's tiring, she says, but so is being a black woman in America.

After going out as a medic on her own, she soon met other volunteers. Together they used text-message chains to organize their efforts. One night, she responded to a man who had been shot with a rubber bullet in the chest; she says his torso had turned blue and purple from the impact. She also provided aid after a shooting near the protest left someone in critical condition.

Iris Butler, a certified nursing assistant, worked as a medic during Denver's June 1 protest. "I am working full time and basically being at the protest after getting straight off of work," says Butler. LJ Dawson for KHN hide caption

Iris Butler, a certified nursing assistant, worked as a medic during Denver's June 1 protest. "I am working full time and basically being at the protest after getting straight off of work," says Butler.

"It's hard, but bills need to be paid and justice needs to be served," she says.

The street medic movement traces its roots, in part, to the 1960s protests, as well as the American Indian Movement and the Black Panther Party.

Denver Action Medic Network offers a 20-hour training course for people who want to serve as volunteer medics that prepares them to treat patients in conflicts with police and large crowds; a four-hour session is offered to medical professionals as "bridge" training.

Since the coronavirus pandemic began, the Denver Action Medic Network has added some new guidelines to its trainings: Don't go to protests if sick or in contact with those who are infected; wear a mask; give people lots of space and use hand sanitizer.

Jordan Garcia, a 39-year-old medic for over 20 years who works with the Denver network, says his group also warns medics about the increased risk of transmission due to protesters coughing from tear gas, and urges them to get tested for the virus after the protests.

The number of volunteer medics swelled after George Floyd's May 25 killing in Minneapolis. In Denver alone, at least 40 people reached out to the Denver Action Medic Network for training.

On June 3, Dr. Rupa Marya, an associate professor of medicine at the University of California-San Francisco and the co-founder of the Do No Harm Coalition, which runs street medic training in the Bay Area, hosted a national webinar attended by over 3,000 medical professionals to provide the bridge training to be a street medic. In her online bio, Marya describes the coalition as "an organization of over 450 health workers committed to structural change" in addressing health problems.

"When we see suffering, that's where we go," Marya says. "And right now that suffering is happening on the streets."

In the recent Denver protests, street medics responded to major head, face and eye injuries among protesters from what are sometimes described as "kinetic impact projectiles" or "less-than-lethal bullets" shot at protesters, along with tear-gas and flash-bang stun grenade canisters that either hit them or exploded in their faces.

Garcia, who by day works for an immigrant rights nonprofit, says that these weapons are not designed to be shot directly at people.

"We're seeing police use these less-lethal weapons in lethal ways, and that is pretty upsetting," Garcia says about the recent protests.

Denver police Chief Paul Pazen has promised to make changes, including banning chokeholds and requiring SWAT teams to turn on their body cameras. Last week, a federal judge also issued a temporary injunction to stop Denver police from using tear gas and other less-than-lethal weapons in response to a class action lawsuit, in which a medic stated he was shot multiple times by police with pepper balls while treating patients. (Meanwhile, last week in North Carolina,, police were recorded destroying medic stations.)

Aj Mossman, a Denver emergency medical technician who is studying to be a nurse, was shocked to be tear-gassed and struck in the back of the leg with a flash grenade while treating a protester in late May. LJ Dawson for KHN hide caption

Aj Mossman, a Denver emergency medical technician who is studying to be a nurse, was shocked to be tear-gassed and struck in the back of the leg with a flash grenade while treating a protester in late May.

Denver street medic Kevin Connell, a 30-year-old emergency room nurse, says he was hit with pepper balls in the back of his medic vest which was clearly marked by red crosses while treating a patient. He showed up to the Denver protests every night he did not have to work, he says, wearing a Kevlar medic vest, protective goggles and a homemade gas mask fashioned from a water bottle.

As a member of the Denver Action Medic Network, Connell also served at the Standing Rock protests in North Dakota in a dispute over the building of the Dakota Access Pipeline.

"I mean, as bad as it sounds, it was only tear gas, pepper balls and rubber bullets that were being fired on us," Connell says of his recent experience in Denver. "When I was at Standing Rock, they were using high-powered water hoses even when it was, like, freezing cold. So I think the police here had a little bit more restraint."

Still, first-time street medic Aj Mossman, a 31-year-old Denver emergency medical technician studying for nursing school, was shocked to be tear-gassed and struck in the back of the leg with a flash grenade while treating a protester on May 30. Mossman still has a large leg bruise.

The following night, Mossman, who uses the pronoun they, brought more protective gear, but says they are still having difficulty processing what felt like a war zone.

"I thought I understood what my black friends went through. I thought I understood what the black community went through," says Mossman, who is white. "But I had absolutely no idea how violent the police were and how little they cared about who they hurt."

For Butler, serving as a medic with others from various walks of life was inspiring. "They're also out there to protect black and brown bodies. And that's amazing," she says. "That's just a beautiful sight."

Kaiser Health News is a nonprofit, editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation. KHN is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

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'Street Medics' Fight COVID-19 And Tend To Protesters' Wounds - NPR

Genetically engineered cows are making human antibodies that neutralize SARS-CoV-2.

By Mitch LeslieJun. 5, 2020 , 4:35 PM

Sciences COVID-19 reporting is supported by the Pulitzer Center.

The latest recruits in the fight against COVID-19 are munching hay in a South Dakota barn. A biotech company has coaxed genetically modified cows to pump out human antibodies that subdue SARS-CoV-2, the pathogen causing the deadly disease, and it plans to start clinical trials of them this summer.

This is promising, says Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease physician at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security. We want to have as many countermeasures as we can.

To manufacture antibodies for treating or preventing diseases, companies typically turn to sources such as cultured cells or tobacco plants. But almost 20 years ago, researchers began to develop the approach now pursued by SAb Biotherapeutics of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to produce antibodies on the hoof. The company genetically alters dairy cows so that certain immune cells carry the DNA that allows people to make antibodies. That upgrade enables the animals to manufacture large quantities of human antibodies against a pathogen protein injected into them, such as the spike surface protein of the new coronavirus. Essentially, the cows are used as a giant bioreactor, says viral immunologist William Klimstra of the University of Pittsburgh, who has been analyzing the bovinemade antibodies potency against SARS-CoV-2.

Cows make good antibody factories, and not just because they have more blood than smaller animals engineered to synthesize human versions of the proteins. Their blood can also contain twice as many antibodies per milliliter as human blood, says Eddie Sullivan, SAb Biotherapeuticss president and CEO.

The animals may provide another advantage.Most companies trying to produce antibodies to combat COVID-19have pinned their hopes on mass-producing identical copies of a single version, a so-called monoclonal antibody that homes in on and attaches tightly to a particular section of a virus. Instead of making just one antibody variety, the cows fashion polyclonal antibodies, a range of the molecules that recognize several parts of the virus. Thats the natural way that our bodies fight disease, Sullivan says. This diversity may make the cows proteins more powerful than monoclonal antibodies, he says, and they may remain effective even if a virus mutates.

When the COVID-19 pandemic erupted, SAb Biotherapeutics had already completed a clinical trial with cow-generated antibodies againstMiddle East respiratory syndrome, which is caused by a coronavirus related to SARS-CoV-2. Developing that treatment gave us the initial knowledge to focus on the right target, Sullivan says. Within 7 weeks the cows were generating antibodies against SARS-CoV-2s spike.

Before the animals start to release these antibodies into their blood, the cows need a starter immunizationa DNA vaccine based on a portion of the virus genome that preps their immune system. Then comes the injection that contains a piece of SARS-CoV-2s spike protein, which serves as the virus passkey to cells. Each month, one cow can yield enough antibodies to treat several hundred patients, Sullivan says.

In test tube studies, Klimstra and colleagues recently pitted the antibodies against so-called convalescent plasma from the blood of COVID-19 survivors. Rich in polyclonal antibodies,the plasma is being tested in clinical trials as a treatment for the virus. The cow antibodieswere four times better than convalescent plasmaat preventing the virus from entering cells, the company announced last week.

The biotech hopes to begin a clinical trial within the next couple of months, Sullivan says, and wants to test whether infusions of antibodies sifted from the cows blood prevent healthy people from getting infected by SARS-CoV-2 and prove beneficial for patients who are already sick.

Not everyone thinks the cows are the best choice for making antibodies, however. Infectious disease physician Manish Sagar of Boston University Medical Center says he will remain skeptical until I see further proof that production of antibodies in cows is a lot more feasible and economically viable than other methods. So far, no antibodies generated by the animals have been approved for treating any disease.

But infectious disease specialist Jeffrey Henderson of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis describes the cow-produced antibodies as the logical next step to the convalescent plasma he has been studying. The whole approach, he says, is based on sound science and on past experience going back more than a century.

Excerpt from:

This cow's antibodies could be the newest weapon against COVID-19 - Science Magazine

By: Explained Desk | Updated: June 11, 2020 10:09:03 am China has maintained that there was no delay or cover-up in the Chinese governments response to the outbreak of the disease and has rebutted all other accusations suggesting the virus may have originated from the lab, saying that its a smear campaign.

A new study carried out by researchers from the Harvard Medical School, Boston University of Public Health and Boston childrens hospital used satellite imagery of parking lots and disease-related search engine queries to investigate the possibility that coronavirus may have been circulating in Wuhan since August last year.

The authors of the study say that they observed an upward trend in hospital traffic and search volume for disease-related terms beginning in late summer and early fall of 2019, implying that the virus may have already been circulating before the identification of the Huanan market cluster in Wuhan late November, early December.

This hypothesis is supported by emerging epidemiologic and phylogenetic evidence indicating that the virus emerged in southern China and may have already spread internationally, and adapted for efficient human transmission by the time it was detected in late December, the study says.

Significantly, the study say that while queries for the respiratory symptom cough show seasonal fluctuations that coincide with yearly influenza seasons, the search for the term diarrhea, which is a more COVID-19 specific symptom showed an association with the current epidemic only.

An Expert Explains: The best practices for home quarantine of Covid-19 patients

For the study, researchers collected over 111 satellite images of Wuhan from January 9, 2018 to April 30, 2020 resulting in 140 successful daily extractions of parking lot volume from hospitals. As per their analysis, between 2018 and 2020 there was a general upward trend of increased hospital occupancy and a steep increase in volume starting August 2019. Further, while individual hospitals have days of high relative volume in both Fall and Winter 2019, between September and October 2019, five of the six hospitals show their highest relative daily volume, which coincides with elevated search queries for the term diarrhea and cough.

Searches for diarrhea showed elevated traffic starting in late 2019, cough shows yearly peaks that coincide with the influenza season. Both the search terms show a large increase approximately three weeks preceding the large spike in confirmed COVID-19 cases in early 2020. The researchers observed a large decrease in hospital volume and search query data following the public health lockdown of Wuhan on January 23, 2020.

Essentially, the researchers are saying that while it cannot be confirmed if the increase in the volume of hospital traffic and symptom search data in Wuhan was directly related to the coronavirus, they say that there is some evidence to believe that the disease might have been spreading before its identification at the Huanan seafood market.

In August, we identify a unique increase in searches for diarrhea which was neither seen in previous flu seasons or mirrored in the cough search data. While surprising, this finding lines up with the recent recognition that gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms are a unique feature of COVID19 disease and may be the chief complaint of a significant proportion of presenting patients, the study says. The authors have cited a study carried out by the Wuhan Union Hospital and Wuhan Tongji Medical University, which says that while respiratory symptoms are common indicators of COVID-19, a potentially large segment of patients with digestive symptoms, such as diarrhea play an important role in community transmission.

Dont miss from Explained: How fast can coronavirus spread via hospital surfaces?

It is also possible that the initial rise in GI symptoms may have been ignored as an early signal of COVID-19 since the surveillance systems were looking for a respiratory pathogen, that are generally associated with symptoms such as fever, sore throat and cough.

Over the last month, conversations about the origins of the virus have picked up pace. Three weeks ago, China and the WHO agreed to allow an independent international investigation into the origins of the coronavirus. In April, US President Donald Trump called the WHOs response to the pandemic, Chinacentric and has repeatedly blamed the body for supporting China in their efforts to under-represent the severity of the outbreak. Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have also claimed that the virus originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Hubei province.

China, on the other hand, has maintained that there was no delay or cover-up in the Chinese governments response to the outbreak of the disease and has rebutted all other accusations suggesting the virus may have originated from the lab, saying that its a smear campaign. In late April, the head of the virology lab told Reuters there is no basis to claims that suggest the virus originated in the lab, adding that there still are no conclusive answers as to where the disease started.

A press release issued by the State Council Information Office of the Peoples Republic of China on Monday said that, China timely notified the international community of virus data and information about the epidemic, and made significant contributions to the global prevention and control. Significantly, a June 4 Associated Press report stated that China delayed sharing the virus genomic sequence.

China reported a cluster of cases of pneumonia in Wuhan to the WHO on December 31, 2019 and on March 11, the body characterised the disease outbreak as a pandemic. The scientific consensus is dominated by the view that the virus evolved naturally. WHO says on its website that the possible animal source of COVID-19 has not yet been confirmed. There is also a theory that the most trafficked mammals in the world, pangolins, maybe an intermediate host for transmission of the virus between bats and humans, however, research on this is still emerging.

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Explained: New study indicates Covid-19 may have been circulating in Wuhan since August last year - The Indian Express

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Providence Transitional Care Center in Anchorage on Sunday, May 31, 2020. (Bill Roth / ADN)

An East Anchorage care center where a COVID-19 outbreak began in late May is now reporting 41 cases in residents and employees.

That news comes along with 19 new cases statewide reported Monday by the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services, including the first case in the Southeast community of Wrangell.

Haines Borough also reported its first case of COVID-19 on Monday, after a man with symptoms got tested last week. He is quarantined at home and did not recently travel, officials there said.

The double-digit increase reflects the latest in more than a week of increased case counts after almost a month with no significant spikes. Officials say thats to be expected given Alaskas mostly reopened economy, and that the increases arent stressing the states health-care system because COVID-related hospitalizations remain relatively low.

The outbreak of the infectious disease caused by the novel coronavirus at the Providence Transitional Care Center began in late May when a patient with a cough and a fever tested positive. The facility immediately tested more than 400 residents and employees.

Another 17 cases were discovered within several days of the May 29 onset.

As of Friday, that number had risen to 29: 14 residents and 15 caregivers, with two residents sick enough to require hospitalization. One of the caregivers also works on the campus of an adjacent long-term care center.

By status

A hospital spokeswoman on Friday said some residents have no symptoms and were in isolation while others with symptoms were getting treatment. The infected caregivers are quarantined at home.

The facility on Monday had 41 positive cases involving 16 residents and 25 caregivers, according to a Providence spokesman. Two require hospitalization.

Providence conducted a second round of testing on residents and caregivers over the weekend and staff are waiting for all of the results to come back from the lab, according to a care center coronavirus update.

Providence officials have said they believe the first patient was exposed to the virus within the facility because of the time theyd spent within the center before becoming infected.

The statewide case count of COVID-positive residents rose to a total of 563 since March, with 169 active cases now. The number of total hospitalizations since March remained at 48. Ten Alaskans have died with the virus.

Anchorage saw nine new cases, according to state health data. Additional cases were reported on the Kenai Peninsula, in the Mat-Su and in Juneau.

The state is seeing clusters of COVID-19 infections in Anchorage, with some in Mat-Su and Kenai, according to the states chief medical officer, Dr. Anne Zink.

A crew member on the state ferry Tustumena tested positive in Dutch Harbor late Saturday, but that test wasnt counted in the state tally until Sunday and reported Monday. It marked the first COVID-19 case for the Alaska Marine Highway System.

The ferry is temporarily out of service as it returns to Homer with 35 crew and six passengers, state officials say.

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Outbreak grows at East Anchorage care center, where COVID-19 cases now total 41 - Anchorage Daily News

The study, published Monday in the scientific journal Nature, involved a modeling technique typically used for estimating economic growth to measure the effect of shutdown policies across six countries: China, South Korea, Italy, Iran, France and the United States.

Those estimates suggest that, without certain policies in place from the beginning of the pandemic in January through early April, there would be roughly:

Overall, the study suggests that emergency Covid-19 policies prevented more than 500 million total coronavirus infections across all six countries.

"The last several months have been extraordinarily difficult, but through our individual sacrifices, people everywhere have each contributed to one of humanity's greatest collective achievements," Hsiang said in the press release.

"I don't think any human endeavor has ever saved so many lives in such a short period of time. There have been huge personal costs to staying home and canceling events, but the data show that each day made a profound difference," Hsiang said. "By using science and cooperating, we changed the course of history."

The study, conducted by researchers at UC Berkeley, included data across the six countries on daily infection rates, changes in coronavirus case definitions and the timing of 1,717 policy deployments -- including travel restrictions, social distancing measures and stay-at-home lockdowns -- from the earliest available dates this year through April 6.

The researchers analyzed that data to estimate how the daily growth rate of infections could have changed over time within a specific location if there were different combinations of large-scale policies enacted. The data showed that, excluding Iran, the growth rate of infections was around 38% per day on average before policies slowed the spread.

The researchers found that, across all six countries total, shutdown interventions prevented or delayed roughly 530 million total infections -- which, based on testing procedures and how cases were defined, translates to about 62 million confirmed cases.

The researchers did not estimate how many deaths might have been prevented.

"Our analysis focuses on confirmed infections, but other outcomes, such as hospitalizations or deaths, are also of policy interest. Future work on these outcomes may require additional modeling approaches because they are relatively more context- and state-dependent," the researchers wrote in the study.

The study had some limitations, including that available data on infections and measures across the countries were limited and the study can only suggest estimations about what could have happened.

"Our empirical results indicate that large-scale anti-contagion policies are slowing the COVID-19 pandemic," the researchers wrote in the study. "Because infection rates in the countries we study would have initially followed rapid exponential growth had no policies been applied, our results suggest that these policies have provided large health benefits."

Even though that study did not include an analysis on Covid-19 deaths, a separate study that also published on Monday examined deaths across Europe.

Across 11 countries in Europe, the lockdown orders and school closures that were put in place in response to the coronavirus pandemic may have averted about 3.1 million deaths through early May, according to estimates from another modeling study.

The countries included in the data were: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

The study had some limitations, including that deaths attributable to Covid-19 early on in the pandemic could have been missed in the data, and there is variation in the reporting of deaths by country.

Flaxman added, "Our model suggests that the measures put in place in these countries in March 2020 were successful in controlling the epidemic by driving down the reproduction number and significantly reducing the number of people who would have been infected by the virus."

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Shutdowns through early April prevented about 60 million US coronavirus infections, study says - CNN

Florida's COVID-19 dashboard, here in a snapshot Monday, shows an uptick of cases. Florida GIS/Screenshot by NPR hide caption

Florida's COVID-19 dashboard, here in a snapshot Monday, shows an uptick of cases.

Over the last week, Florida has seen rising numbers of new COVID-19 cases. Since last Tuesday, the number of people who tested positive for the coronavirus totaled more than 1,000 each day. Saturday's total of 1,426 positive tests was the most since early April.

A similar rise in new cases is happening in other states, including North Carolina, Texas and California. It's leading to worries that as businesses reopen and stay-at-home orders are lifted, relaxed guidelines could lead to new outbreaks and even a second wave of infections.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis downplayed concerns that the rising numbers are related to the state's reopening. He said he believes more people are turning up positive for the coronavirus because more people are being tested. "We've now, in the last two weeks averaged 30,000 test results a day in the state of Florida. If you go back to the ... beginning of April, we weren't even doing 10,000 test results a day."

DeSantis pointed to the state's low rate of positive tests. In Miami-Dade County, the area in Florida hardest hit by the pandemic, the positive rate is around 5% now, much lower than it was in April, when it was more than 10%.

With widespread testing now available for anyone who wants it, DeSantis said many people without symptoms are being found positive for the coronavirus. "These are people, a lot of them don't even think they're necessarily sick, but (testing) is there so they go," he said. "And granted, 98% of them are negative, but you do find cases."

Mary Jo Trepka, a professor of epidemiology at Florida International University, agrees that increased testing is a major factor in the rising numbers. "It's easier to get testing now. Before, the people very, very sick in the hospital were being tested, but not necessarily people who were more mildly ill," she said.

Also more positive cases are being identified through contact tracing, Trepka said. "And so you're more likely to pick up those people who are asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic," she said.

Areas of concern, DeSantis said, are agriculture communities in South Florida, where workers live in close quarters. "They've been going and aggressively testing all those areas," DeSantis said. Prisons are another area where outbreaks are being monitored and contained.

DeSantis said by the end of the week, every resident and worker in the state's nursing homes and other long-term care facilities will have been tested for the coronavirus. But those entities remain a pandemic hot spot. The infection rate among residents of long-term-care facilities is significantly higher than it is for other people tested in Florida.

Trepka said that at least in Miami-Dade she is seeing an impact from the opening of businesses and a relaxing of social distancing guidelines. The rate of positive cases among those tested for the coronavirus, which was steadily declining, has now leveled off. Trepka said, "It looks like some of the gains that we were making when we were completely closed down, we're no longer seeing those gains in terms of a decrease in positivity rates."

Continued here:

Florida's Rising COVID-19 Numbers: What Do They Mean? - NPR

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said that bars and bowling alleys are on the list of business that can reopen at 25 percent beginning Friday and restaurants can increase to 50 percent capacity as the state continues to go through phases to reopen the state after closing many businesses to battle the spread of the coronavirus. Eric Gay/AP hide caption

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said that bars and bowling alleys are on the list of business that can reopen at 25 percent beginning Friday and restaurants can increase to 50 percent capacity as the state continues to go through phases to reopen the state after closing many businesses to battle the spread of the coronavirus.

Texas reported a record-breaking number of COVID-19 hospitalizations Monday, as the governor plans to reopen more businesses and double capacity.

Texas Department of State Health Services figures show 1,935 people were admitted as hospital patients for coronavirus-related treatment. That is up from a previous record of 1,888 more than a month ago on May 5.

The department's new figures were released as Gov. Greg Abbott moves forward with a plan to open bars, restaurants, amusement parks and other businesses to 50% capacity.

Abbott led most of the nation's governors in allowing Texas to lift statewide stay-at-home orders and urging businesses to reopen at limited capacity on May 1.

But even in states where officials left stringent restrictions in place, the number of newly diagnosed cases are also rising. About 20 states, including California and Arizona, have also reported a rise in COVID-19 cases in recent weeks, according to The New York Times. All as state leaders have come under increasing pressure to restart the economy.

The pattern also holds true worldwide. On Monday, the World Health Organization warned the outbreak is worsening around the globe. The U.N. body said the world had recorded its highest daily jump of cases 136,000. And the U.S. and Brazil continue to report the highest number of new cases on a daily basis with roughly 20,000 each.

Meanwhile, virus experts and epidemiologists are concerned that the recent protests that have cascaded across the country since the killing of George Floyd on Memorial Day, will lead to an unprecedented spike in coronavirus cases.

In Texas, the availability of intensive-care beds and ventilators 1,600 and 5,800 respectively have been seen as markers of improvement and evidence that it is time to reopen the economy.

Some officials have stated the increase in cases has more to do with the spread of testing. Some counties are now including prison testing results in their data, which is driving reporting rates up.

And the numbers are likely to continue to rise. On Monday Abbott pledged to increase testing "in underserved and minority communities that have been disproportionately impacted by the virus."

Throughout Texas, more than 75,000 people have been infected and more than 1,800 others have died from COVID-19, according to Johns Hopkins University.

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Texas Reports Record-Breaking COVID-19 Hospitalizations, As State Reopens - NPR

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern during a news conference about COVID-19 at Parliament in Wellington on Monday. Marty Melville/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern during a news conference about COVID-19 at Parliament in Wellington on Monday.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says the country has officially eradicated COVID-19 and will return to normal after the last-known infected person recovered.

Isolation and quarantine for those arriving from abroad will continue.

The announcement comes weeks after Ardern's government began easing up on restrictions after New Zealand all but eliminated community transmission of the new coronavirus.

The latest announcement, which brings the country of 5 million to its lowest alert level, means that large public gatherings, such as concerts and sports events, will be allowed for the first time since March 23, when Ardern announced a nationwide lockdown amid a rising number of daily cases. Restaurants and public transport will also be allowed to resume normal operations.

"Today, I can announce that [the] Cabinet has agreed, that we will now move to Level 1 to get our economy back to normal again. And we will start almost immediately," she said.

When she heard the news that there were no more active COVID-19 cases, Ardern said she "did a little dance" for her daughter, Neve, who will turn 2 years old later this month.

"[S]he was caught a little by surprise but she joined in, having absolutely no idea why I was dancing around the lounge but enjoying it nonetheless," the prime minister said.

New Zealand, which responded quickly to the threat of the disease, is often cited as a model for how other countries might handle the crisis. In March, it imposed a two-week quarantine on anyone arriving from abroad and quickly followed that with a monthlong stay-at-home order for all New Zealanders. Cases peaked in early April and then quickly fell off over the next few weeks. By late May, New Zealand had just one active COVID-19 case.

All told, New Zealand has seen just over 1,500 infections and 22 deaths from the disease.

Even so, Ardern warned that the disease remains a concern and that New Zealand is "not immune to what is happening in the rest of the world."

"At Level 1, we expect the continuation of recovery," she told reporters, but cautioned, "we will almost certainly see cases here again. That is not a sign we have failed."

She reiterated the need for New Zealanders to stay home if they feel sick, follow a doctor's orders to self-isolate if necessary and to continue frequent hand-washing and other measures.

In a tweet, James Shaw, the country's climate change minister, was in a celebratory mood, and used a Maori expression, "Ka pai, Aotearoa," which means, "Good job, New Zealand."

"I reckon I might pop that bottle of bubbly tonight and raise a glass to all the people of this fine country," he wrote.

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With No Current Cases, New Zealand Lifts Remaining COVID-19 Restrictions - NPR

With last weeks retractions of two Covid-19 papers from a pair of the worlds top medical journals, the scientific community is once again wrestling withthe question that arises any time ahigh-profile publication blows up: Could this have been prevented?

Entire forests have been felled so scholars can write papers on the flawed process of peer review, in which journal editors ask (usually three) outside experts to read a manuscript for rigor, methodological soundness, consistency, and overall quality. Peer review is rife with gender bias. Reviewers try to block competitors papers. They steal ideas. They favor authors from prestigious institutions. The process is hardly better than chance at keeping bad studies from being published. It does little to improve papers.

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After retractions of two Covid-19 papers, scientists ask what went wrong - STAT

Estimating the effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 in Europe  Nature.com

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Estimating the effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 in Europe - Nature.com