By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Several states across America are seeing upticks in coronavirus cases, topping three million infections and 134,175 deaths as a result of hasty lockdown relaxation, and President Donald Trump is even pushing for schools to reopen.
There were a record 60,000 cases on Tuesday which added up to one million in the past 28 days and notched 3,117,629in total by Wednesday.
Globally, there are now 12,048,280 cases and 548,776 deaths, according to live updates by worldometers.info
The United States tops the table in both categories, followed by Brazil (1,683,738 cases, 67,113 deaths) and Italy (242,149 cases, 34,914 deaths).
WHO working on evidence of airborne transmission
The World Health Organisation (WHO) confirmed there is “emerging evidence” of airborne transmission of the coronavirus following the publication of a letter signed by 239 scientists that urged the agency to be more forthcoming about the likelihood that people can catch the virus from droplets floating in the air.
CNN reports that Dr. Benedetta Alleganzi, WHO Technical Lead for Infection Prevention and Control, said during a briefing on Tuesday that the agency has discussed and collaborated with many of the scientists who signed the letter, which was published on Monday.
“We acknowledge that there is emerging evidence in this field, as in all other fields regarding the Covid-19 virus and pandemic and therefore we believe that we have to be open to this evidence and understand its implications regarding the modes of transmission and also regarding the precautions that need to be taken,” Alleganzi said.
Infectious disease epidemiologist, Maria Van Kerkove, with WHO’s Health Emergencies Program, said many of the letter’s signatories are engineers, “which adds to growing knowledge about the importance of ventilation, which we feel is very important.”
“We have been talking about the possibility of airborne transmission and aerosol transmission as one of the modes of transmission of Covid-19, as well as droplet.
“We’ve looked at fomites. We’ve looked at fecal oral. We’ve looked at mother to child. We’ve looked at animal to human, of course as well,” Van Kerkove said.
The WHO is working on a scientific brief summarising the current knowledge around transmission of the deadly virus, which should be available in the coming weeks, she added.
Alleganzi emphasised more research is still needed on Covid-19 transmission.
Her words: “So, these are fields of research that are really growing and for which there is some evidence emerging but is not definitive.
“And therefore, the possibility of airborne transmission in public settings, especially in very specific conditions crowded, closed, poorly ventilated settings that have been described cannot be ruled out. However, the evidence needs to be gathered and interpreted.”
The ravage in America
CNN recalls that six months ago, no one thought Covid-19 existed in the U.S.
The first reported case came on January 21. Within 99 days, one million Americans became infected. It took just 43 days after that to reach 2 million cases.
And 28 days later, the U.S. reached over three million cases of the novel coronavirus on Wednesday.
The ferocious speed at which Covid-19 spreads has astounded doctors, with over 131,000 people dying from the disease since January, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
And in 35 states, the rate of new cases keeps increasing – threatening to reverse progress made during weeks of painful shutdowns and stay-at-home orders.
Hospitals running out of ICU capacity
Health officials say many Americans have fallen into a false sense of security as states started reopening, abandoning safety measures such as social distancing and wearing face masks.
And while the death rate has generally declined in recent weeks, “it’s a false narrative to take comfort in a lower rate of death,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on Tuesday.
“There’s so many other things that are very dangerous and bad about this virus. Don’t get yourself into false complacency,” he warned.
Deaths can lag “two, three, four, five weeks after” new cases are reported, said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, infectious diseases chief at Massachusetts General Hospital.
The White House has suggested that the decreasing death rate is a sign that Covid-19 is under control. But other metrics continue to surge.
The U.S. set a new record for the most number of cases reported in a single day – 60,021 on Tuesday, according to CNN.
In Florida, 56 hospitals are out of capacity in their intensive care units.
In Arizona, the state has set new records for daily death counts about once a week, including Tuesday – the same day the state reported its lowest-ever number of ICU beds available.
“We need medical professionals, we need testing kits, we need supplies immediately,” Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego said on Tuesday.
“Our hospital is already in dire straits, and they tell us in the next two weeks it is going to get to an unbearable level of crisis.”
California and Texas set grim records
California and Texas are among the states setting new records as well, says CNN.
With nearly 6,000 patients on Tuesday, California hospitalisations are at an all-time high. Tuesday saw a 3.4 per cent increase in new patients from the prior day.
The state also recorded a record number of Covid-19 patients in intensive care units, according to data from California Department of Public Health.
Texas had its highest single day increase in coronavirus cases on Tuesday, with 10,028 new cases reported. The total for the state is now more than 210,000 cases and 2,715 deaths.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced that a testing site in Edinburg will offer 5,000 free tests a day between Wednesday and July 14 in an effort to increase testing in hot spots.
“This new surge testing site will help us identify and mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in the Rio Grande Valley and keep Texans safe,” Abbott said.
Wear a mask, save lives
As of Monday, 35 states plus Washington DC and Puerto Rico had implemented some type of mask requirement. Fauci said he is “strongly in favour” of the mandates to curb the spread.
“When you look at what we can do that we know works, it’s the use of masks, physical distance and avoiding crowds,” Fauci said on Tuesday.
“So, if you’re saying it doesn’t matter whether you put it on or take it off, you’re giving a wrong, mixed signal. The signal should be: Wear a mask. Period.”
If most Americans heed that signal, as many as 45,000 fewer Americans will die of coronavirus this fall, according to Dr. Chris Murray, the director of the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME).
The newest model, released on Tuesday, projects as many as 208,000 coronavirus deaths by November 1.
The new death rate stems from the recent surge in cases combined with seasonality and schools reopening, Murray said.
But that number drops to 163,000 if most Americans wear a face mask, according to the model.
“It’s an incredibly simple strategy and intervention,” Murray said.
“It’s one that will save lives, but it will also help the economy enormously because it will avoid shutdowns which will inevitably come when things get quickly out of control in some states.”
College students may return in fall
Colleges and universities across the U.S. are navigating how to safely reopen and keep students in the classroom come the fall semester.
New York University (NYU) has implemented mask requirements and social distancing measures for the next semester.
Caps will be placed on enrollment and space capacity, and classroom occupancy will be reduced by 50 per cent, according to an email from NYU leadership to the community.
As soon as July 15, all students, faculty and visitors to the University System of Georgia (USG) will also be mandated to wear masks, it announced on its website.
And though Columbia University announced undergraduates and students of Columbia College and the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science will return in the fall, only 60 per cent will be welcomed back.
Most classes will still be taught in remote or hybrid form.
Brown University will shift its calendar and add a summer term to accommodate more students on campus at separate times, according to a letter to students from University President Christina Paxson.
The university will also offer virtual learning courses to all students, regardless of whether they are living on campus, and all classes with more than 20 students will be conducted remotely.
Trump ignores reality, pushes to open schools
CNN reports that the new push by Trump to open schools shows he has learned nothing from calamities sparked by his demands for premature state openings.
His quest to reopen schools also ignores the deep concerns about a return to class next month that are shared by parents, children and college students.
There is anxiety about sending kids into environments that are germ-laden at the best of times with the virus still running rampant.
While Trump says most children do not get seriously sick with the virus, he has offered no answers to teachers, who are at far higher risk of serious complications.
The White House promised new guidelines on Tuesday to ensure that schools can reopen safely. But such material is unlikely to ease many concerns.
Trump fails to offer detailed proposals or planning on the imminent question of how schools could open safely as soon as next month even as he admitted he intended to crank up pressure on governors to do what he wants.
“I would say that when we talk about the fall, that seems like a long time. It’s a long time,” Trump said in an interview on Tuesday with Nexstar Media Group.
Trump on Wednesday tried to point to some other countries’ ability to open their schools as evidence the U.S. must do the same, but he is neglecting the fact that they all wrangled the pandemic through public health measures he’s not pushing.
“In Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and many other countries, SCHOOLS ARE OPEN WITH NO PROBLEMS.
“The Dems think it would be bad for them politically if U.S. schools open before the November Election, but is important for the children & families. May cut off funding if not open!” he tweeted.
All those countries have suppressed the virus in one way or another, whereas the U.S. is rocketing up at record levels – making it harder and less safe to open schools.
Trump then tweeted his disagreement with the U.S. Centers from Disease Control and Prevention guidelines for safely reopening schools, calling their recommendations “very tough” and “expensive”.
His attitude on education mirrors the way he disregarded details on another vital issue: the reopening of the economy.
From April onwards, Trump pressured states to open up, often when cases were rising in many regions and his own government’s recommendations on how to safely reopen were not being observed.
Trump also delivered a fresh rebuke to Fauci who had dismissed the president’s discredited claims that the U.S. has the world’s lowest mortality rate.
And Trump conjured another wishful prediction: that the worsening battle against the virus, which has already killed more than 130,000 Americans and infected three million, would be far less serious within weeks.
This all came a few days after another discredited claim, that 99 per cent of cases of the virus are harmless.
Fresh evidence of Trump’s negligence came on the same day that a new University of Washington model forecast that 208,255 people may die from the virus in the U.S. by November 1.
But experts at the university’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation also said that if 95 per cent of the population wore masks in public – a step Trump has often maligned – that number would dip to 162,808.
“It is an inferno in some parts of this country,” Dr. Jonathan Reiner, a renowned cardiologist at George Washington University, said on CNN’s “Erin Burnett OutFront.”
“The president has been trying to make this go away with magical thinking for a long time. He was desperate to open the country in April, and his urgency to open the country is really one of the prime reasons we are where we are now,” he added.