Good morning. This is Jonathan Spira’s report. Now here is the news of the pandemic from around the world on the 1040th day of the pandemic and also on Valentine’s Day.
The insane have taken over the asylum.
That line, believed to have originated in a 1919 remark by studio executive Richard A. Rowland about founding United Artists, may have been an allusion to Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether .
In this case, it’s happening in the Kansas state legislature, where lawmakers are attempting to limit the power of state, county and local health officials to enact rules and regulations that would attempt to prevent the spread and reporting of contagions or infections illnesses.
Last week, the Kansas Senate Committee on Public Health and Welfare considered a bill that would limit the secretary of state for health and the environment to only recommending, but not adopting, rules and regulations which could prevent the spread of a disease.
If passed and signed into law, the bill would also remove teachers and school administrators from a list of appointees who must report infectious or contagious diseases. It would also prevent local or county health boards from banning public gatherings in order to control the spread of a disease and would remove the authority of law enforcement agencies to assist in carrying out isolation or quarantine orders.
I hear the cheering of the virus lobby in the stands.
But wait a minute to pick the cotton. There is no virus lobby. These lawmakers in Kansan, however, must have lost their minds over picking cotton.
In other news we cover today, California has reached 12 million cases of Covid, more young people have died of heart attacks during the pandemic than any other age group, and a man with an amoeba infection who eats brain was treated using a 50-year-old antibiotic.
UNITED STATES
The California Department of Public Health recorded its 12 millionth case of SARS-CoV-2 in recent days as the XBB 1.5 omicron sublineage continues to dominate.
Meanwhile, models from the California Department of Public Health indicate that the spread of COVID-19 is increasing statewide after declining steadily over the past two months. The state’s actual breeding number — denoted as Rnaught — which estimates the average number of people each infected person passes the virus to, is currently 1.1, after falling below 1.0 from Dec. 18 to Feb. 5. The number is seeing a steep increase in parts of the Bay Area, including San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa, Sonoma and Solano counties.
Separately, a study from California’s Cedars Sinai Hospital showed that the number of deaths from heart attacks during the first two years of the pandemic was 30% higher than expected. The national study found that heart attack-related deaths increased across all age groups in the spring of 2020, but the group that saw the largest jump was in the 25-44 age group.
Finally, in Congress, the House Oversight Committee launched an investigation into the origins of SARS-CoV-2 and sent a series of letters to current and former Biden administration officials for documents and testimony. Rep. James Comer, chairman of the committee, said he would “follow up the facts” and “hold accountable U.S. government officials who took part in any type of cover-up.”
VOYAGE
Taiwan will reopen its borders to visitors from Hong Kong and Macao starting next week. The Mainland Affairs Council said on Monday that residents of the two cities will then be able to go on individual sightseeing tours.
OTHER HEALTH NEWS
A man with a brain-eating infection caused by an amoeba was treated with Nitroxolin, an antibiotic that has been in use in Europe for about fifty years and has proven to be very effective in fighting biofilm infections. Patient infection, although very rare, is almost always fatal.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released a study showing that teenage girls in the US are experiencing record levels of violence, sadness and suicide risk. The report found that nearly 60% of adolescent girls felt persistently sad or hopeless in 2021, the highest level recorded in a decade. The percentage of adolescent boys with similar feelings was only 29%.
TODAY’S STATISTICS
Now here are the daily stats for Tuesday February 14th.
As of Tuesday morning, the world had 677.8 million cases of Covid-19, an increase of 0.1 million cases and 6.78 million deaths, according to Worldometer, a service that tracks that information. In addition, 650.4 million people worldwide have recovered from the virus, an increase of 0.2 million.
The reader should note that infrequent reporting from some sources may appear as spikes in new case figures or death tolls.
Worldwide, the number of active coronavirus cases as of Tuesday at press time stands at 20,667,903, a drop of 14,000. Of that figure, 99.8%, or 20,626,665, are considered mild and 0.2%, or 41,238, are listed as critical. The percentage of cases considered critical has not changed in the last three months.
The United States reported 24,468 new coronavirus infections on Tuesday for the previous day, compared with 3,127 on Monday, 1,902 on Sunday, 14,142 on Saturday, 68,999 on Friday and 112,192 on Thursday, according to data from the US Department of Health and Human Services. United States . The 7-day incidence rate is now 36,661. Figures for the weekend (reported the next day) are typically 30% to 60% of those posted on weekdays due to fewer tests being conducted.
The average daily number of new coronavirus cases in the United States over the past 14 days is 38,926, a figure down 15% over the past 14 days, based on data from the Department of Health and Human Services, among other sources. The average daily number of deaths over the same period is 452, down 15% over the same period, while the average number of hospitalizations for the period was 28,716, down 12%. In addition, the number of ICU patients was 3,555, a drop of 14%, and the test positivity rate is now 10%, a figure that has remained stable over the past 24 hours.
In addition, since the start of the pandemic, the United States has recorded just under 104.8 million cases as of Tuesday, more than any other country, and a death toll of 1.14 million. India has the world’s second-highest number of officially recorded cases, 44.7 million, and a reported death toll of 530,753.
The most recent data from Russia’s state statistical service Rosstat showed that, as of the end of July, the number of Covid or Covid-related deaths since the start of the pandemic in April 2020 now stands at 823,623, giving the country the second highest pandemic of the world. relative death toll, behind the United States. Rosstat last reported that 3,284 people died from the coronavirus or related causes in July 2022, down from 5,023 in June, 7,008 in May and 11,583 in April.
Meanwhile, France is the country with the third highest number of cases, at 39.6 million, and Germany is in fourth place, with 37.9 million total cases.
Brazil, which has recorded the third highest number of deaths from the virus, 697,762, recorded 36.9 million cases, placing it fifth.
The other five countries with total cases above 20 million are Japan, with just under 33 million cases, South Korea, with 30.4 million cases, which ranks seventh, and Italy. , with 25.5 million, at number eight, as well as the United Kingdom, with 24.3 million, and Russia, with 22.1 million.
VACCINATION HIGHLIGHTS
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 269.2 million people in the United States — or 81.1 percent — had received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine as of Thursday. Of that population, 69.2 percent, or 229.8 million people, received two doses of the vaccine, and the total number of doses that have been dispensed in the United States is now 668.8 million. Breaking it down further, 92% of the population over the age of 18 – or 237.6 million people – have received at least one first shot and 78.9% of the same group – or 203.8 million people – are fully vaccinated. . Furthermore, 19.2% of the same population, or more than 49.5 million people, have already received an updated or bivalent booster dose of vaccine.
Effective June 13, 2022, the CDC began updating vaccine data on a weekly basis and posting updated information on Thursdays by 8 p.m. EDT, according to a statement on the agency’s website.
About 69.4 percent of the world’s population received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine by Tuesday, according to Our World in Data, an online scientific publication that tracks that information. To date, 13.27 billion doses of vaccine have been administered globally and now 854,826 doses are administered every day.
Meanwhile, only 26.4% of people in low-income countries have received a dose, while in countries such as Canada, China, Denmark, France, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States, at least 75% of the population have received at least a dose of vaccine.
Only a handful of the world’s poorest countries – Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia and Nepal – have achieved 70 per cent of vaccinations. Many countries, however, are below 20% and, for example, in countries such as Haiti, Senegal and Tanzania, vaccination rates remain at or below 10%.
Furthermore, with the start of vaccinations in North Korea in late September, Eritrea remains the only country in the world to have not administered vaccines.
Anna Breuer helped report this story.
(Photo: Accura Media Group)
