Category Archives: Corona Virus

Health officials in Illinois say that more than 80 coronavirus outbreaks have been reported at schools across the state, with several involving more than a dozen cases at educational institutions.

According to the latest figures from the Illinois Department of Public Health, 81 outbreaks are active at Illinois schools as of this weekend, including 11 in Cook County alone.

At Glenbrook Elementary School, an outbreak involving at least a dozen cases has been reported, while another outbreak at St. Mary Catholic School, located in Mokena, involves between five and 10 cases.

At least eight outbreaks have also been reported in Will County, including one involving more than five cases at Reed-Custer Elementary School.

Some of the worst outbreaks have been occurring in western and southern Illinois, including in the North Macoupin school district in Macoupin County. There, between 11 and 16 cases of the virus remain active, according to officials.

In nearly Staunton, more than 16 cases have been reported in the school district, according to officials.

At East Side High School in St. Clair County, more than 16 cases have been reported, and at Okawville Elementary School, a similar number of cases have been reported.

Here is a full list of school outbreaks reported by state officials.

DeKalb County 4 outbreaks

Little John Elementary School (Less than 5 cases)

Sycamore Middle School (Less than 5 cases)

Sycamore Middle School (Less than 5 cases)

Sycamore Middle School (Less than 5 cases)

Ogle County 5 outbreaks

Highland Elementary School (5-10 cases)

Highland Elementary School (Less than 5 cases)

Oregon Elementary School (Less than 5 cases)

Stillman Valley High School (Less than 5 cases)

Stillman Valley High School (Less than 5 cases)

Winnebago County 1 outbreak

Hononegah High School (5-10 cases)

Henry County 3 outbreaks

Central Junior High School (Less than 5 cases)

Colona Grade School (5-10 cases)

Geneseo High School (Less than 5 cases)

Knox County 1 outbreak

ROWVA High School (Less than 5 cases)

LaSalle County 2 outbreaks

Lincoln Junior High School (5-10 cases)

Seneca Grade School (Less than 5 cases)

Livingston County 1 outbreak

Prairie Central East (5-10 cases)

McLean County 1 outbreak

Ridgeview Elementary School (Less than 5 cases)

Mercer County 3 outbreaks

Mercer County High School (5-10 cases)

Mercer County High School (5-10 cases)

Mercer County High School (5-10 cases)

Peoria County 1 outbreak

St. Jude Catholic School (Less than 5 cases)

Rock Island 3 outbreaks

Bicentennial Elementary School (Less than 5 cases)

Rock Island High School (Less than 5 cases)

United Township High School (Less than 5 cases)

Brown County 1 outbreak

Brown County High School (5-10 cases)

Greene County 1 outbreak

North Greene Elementary School (5-10 cases)

Logan County 1 outbreak

Northwest Elementary School (Less than 5 cases)

Macoupin County 6 outbreaks

Ben-Gil Elementary School (Less than 5 cases)

Bunker Hill Schools (16+ cases)

Carlinville High School CUSD #1 (Less than 5 cases)

Mount Olive School (Less than 5 cases)

North Macoupin Schools (11-16 cases)

Staunton Community USD #6 (16+ cases)

Mason County 1 outbreak

Midwest Central CUSD #191 (11-16 cases)

Sangamon County 6 outbreaks

Ball Charter School (5-10 cases)

Chatham High School (Less than 5 cases)

Iles School (Less than 5 cases)

Pleasant Plains Middle School (Less than 5 cases)

Pleasant Plains Middle School (Less than 5 cases)

Williamsville High School (Less than 5 cases)

Scott County 1 outbreak

Winchester Grade School (5-10 cases)

Clinton County 1 outbreak

Carlyle School (16+ cases)

Madison County 5 outbreaks

Evangelical School (Less than 5 cases)

Liberty Middle School (Less than 5 cases)

Maryville Christian School (Less than 5 cases)

St. Marys School (Less than 5 cases)

Woodland Elementary School (Less than 5 cases)

St. Clair County 1 outbreak

East Side High School (16+ cases)

Washington County 1 outbreak

Okawville Grade School (16+ cases)

Marion County 1 outbreak

Centralia Junior High School (Less than 5 cases)

Will County 8 outbreaks

Beecher Junior High School (Less than 5 cases)

Caretta Scott King Elementary School (Less than 5 cases)

Cherry Hill School (Less than 5 cases)

Mokena Elementary School (Less than 5 cases)

Nelson Ridge School (Less than 5 cases)

Nelson Ridge School (Less than 5 cases)

Reed-Custer Elementary School (5-10 cases)

Troy Middle School (Less than 5 cases)

DuPage County 2 outbreaks

Downers Grove South High School (Less than 5 cases)

Owen Elementary School (Less than 5 cases)

Kane County 6 outbreaks

East Aurora School District 131 (Less than 5 cases)

Fox Meadow Elementary School (Less than 5 cases)

Gary D. Wright Elementary School (Less than 5 cases)

Holy Angels Catholic School (5-10 cases)

Kaneland John Shields Elementary (Less than 5 cases)

More here:

Coronavirus by the Numbers: More Than 80 COVID Outbreaks Reported in Illinois Schools - NBC Chicago

While some health care regions in Illinois are making progress in turning back the tide of increasing COVID cases, some areas are continuing to struggle, seeing stubbornly high positivity rates and increasing hospitalizations amid an upswing in cases.

According to the latest figures from the Illinois Department of Public Health, numerous areas in northern Illinois, including in McHenry and Lake counties and in Cook County, are making good progress in turning back increasing positivity rates.

In Region 9, comprised of McHenry and Lake counties, the positivity rate has dropped to 4.5%, while ICU bed availability has rebounded to 22% in recent days. Hospitalizations are increasing there, but have also showed signs of slowing down, according to IDPH data.

Chicago currently owns the best positivity rate in the state at 3.7%, while Kane and DuPage counties have the best ICU bed availability, sitting at 26%.

Not all areas are seeing improvements in their COVID rates, however. In Region 5, located in southern Illinois, the positivity rate has remained steady at 10.3%, the highest in the state, and its ICU bed availability is the lowest in the state at 5%.

While positivity rates are decreasing in Region 2, located in western Illinois, hospitalizations have increased nine of the last 10 days.

Here is a full picture of the metrics across Illinois.

Positivity Rate: 5.7% (stable)

ICU Bed Availability: 19% (increasing)

Hospitalization Trends: 9/10 days increasing

Positivity Rate: 5.2% (decreasing)

ICU Bed Availability: 18% (steady)

Hospitalization Trends: 9/10 days increasing

Positivity Rate: 5.6% (decreasing)

ICU Bed Availability: 16% (steady)

Hospitalization Trends: 9/10 days decreasing or stable

Positivity Rate: 6.5% (decreasing)

ICU Bed Availability: 21% (stable)

Hospitalization Trends: 7/10 days decreasing or stable

Positivity Rate: 10.3% (stable)

ICU Bed Availability: 5% (stable)

Hospitalization Trends: 5/10 days increasing

Positivity Rate: 8.1% (stable)

ICU Bed Availability: 20% (increasing)

Hospitalization Trends: 6/10 days increasing

Positivity Rate: 5.7% (decreasing)

ICU Bed Availability: 25% (increasing)

Hospitalization Trends: 7/10 days increasing

Positivity Rate: 4.8% (decreasing)

ICU Bed Availability: 26% (increasing)

Hospitalization Trends: 6/10 days decreasing or stable

Positivity Rate: 4.5% (decreasing)

ICU Bed Availability: 22% (increasing)

Hospitalization Trends: 6/10 days increasing

Positivity Rate: 4.1% (decreasing)

ICU Bed Availability: 17% (increasing)

Hospitalization Trends: 9/10 days increasing

Positivity Rate: 3.7% (decreasing)

ICU Bed Availability: 19% (stable)

Hospitalization Trends: 7/10 days increasing

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COVID by the Numbers: Coronavirus Metrics in Each of Illinois' 11 Health Care Regions - NBC Chicago

The Oregon Health Authority on Tuesday announced 54 new COVID-19 deaths and 5,821 new cases for a four-day period that included the Labor Day weekend.

The announcement comes after a busy holiday weekend, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urged unvaccinated individuals to not travel to mitigate the spread, and it marks the first disclosure of state data since Friday.

Cases in Oregon have generally plateaued over the past week, with a daily average of 2,250, and state officials have expressed some optimism that spread has slowed.

Gov. Kate Brown on Tuesday said the state is making progress against the delta variant because of increasing vaccinations and masking.

We have been able to cut the projected length of this surge, that is really good news, Brown said in a press conference on Tuesday. However there are still some challenging times ahead and we must remain vigilant.

Colt Gill, director of the Oregon Department of Education, said that this is the third year of COVID-19 impacting students, noting the isolation some children have felt throughout the pandemic. Last spring brought on in-person schooling anxieties for children and parents, but Gill emphasized safety precautions for in-person learning.

The good news is that we proved schools can be in session, in-person and still mitigate the spread of COVID-19, Gill said of past efforts. This is possible because schools are controlled settings.

Where the new cases are by county: Baker (33), Benton (56), Clackamas (453), Clatsop (27), Columbia (98), Coos (38), Crook (15), Curry (19), Deschutes (404), Douglas (421), Harney (12), Hood River (25), Jackson (439), Jefferson (28), Josephine (262), Klamath (65), Lake (2), Lane (647), Lincoln (77), Linn (302), Malheur (21), Marion (602), Morrow (24), Multnomah (772), Polk (71), Sherman (5), Tillamook (69), Umatilla (91), Union (57), Wallowa (19), Wasco (26), Washington (550), Wheeler (1) and Yamhill (90).

(Click here to see deaths by month).

Who died: The state did not immediately disclose details of the 54 deaths, with information to be released later.

Hospitalizations: 1,140 people with confirmed cases of COVID-19 are hospitalized, down 32 from Friday. That includes 300 people in intensive care, down nine from Friday.

Vaccines: Oregon reported 3,329 newly administered doses, which includes 719 administered Monday and the remainder from previous days.

Since it began: Oregon has reported 289,649 confirmed or presumed infections and 3,326 deaths, among the lowest per capita numbers in the nation. To date, the state has reported 4,919,843 vaccine doses administered, fully vaccinating 2,427,352 people and partially vaccinating 234,013 people.

To see more data and trends, visit https://projects.oregonlive.com/coronavirus/

-- Alexandra Skores

askores@oregonian.com; 503-221-8073; @AlexandraSkores

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Coronavirus in Oregon: 5821 cases, 54 deaths reported in past four days - OregonLive

Follow our latest updates on the California Recall Election and Governor Newsom.

As the pandemic-fueled campaign to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom of California heads into its last week, its lead proponent said he has been sidelined with the coronavirus.

Orrin Heatlie, 52, a retired Republican sheriffs sergeant from Yolo County, said he was at home recovering from a bout of the coronavirus.

Thought I was immune as Ive had it before, Mr. Heatlie said in a text message, adding that he is unvaccinated. Then spent 13 hours in a warm truck traveling back from Wyoming with a friend who came down with it on the trip.

The pandemic has played a major role in fueling the recall, which had been regarded as a long shot when Mr. Heatlie and a small group of grass-roots Tea Party activists began circulating petitions in 2019.

Their initial complaint with the governor arose from his stances on the death penalty and immigration, which they disagreed with. But when Mr. Newsom initiated stay-at-home orders, classroom closures and other health restrictions to slow the spread of the virus, recall supporters added those upheavals to their list of grievances against him.

In November, a judge granted them an extension to continue circulating petitions because Mr. Newsoms health orders had made it harder to gather signatures. That extension allowed Mr. Heatlies group to gather the nearly 1.5 million signatures required to bring the proposed recall to a vote an effort that was helped along when a maskless Mr. Newsom was seen dining at an exclusive restaurant with friends, after he had asked Californians to stay home to avoid spreading the virus.

Throughout the campaign, the recall supporters have blasted the governors mandates to get vaccinated, socially distance and wear face masks. Mr. Heatlie said his wife, who is vaccinated, had caught the virus from him.

The acknowledgment came as coronavirus cases, which are surging in other parts of the country, have plateaued in California, which now has some of the nations highest vaccination rates. This week, Mr. Newsom, ahead in the polls, released a new ad warning Californians that Republicans backing the recall will eliminate vaccine mandates, and endanger the states recovery.

More here:

Orrin Heatlie, the Lead Behind Newsoms Recall, Has the Coronavirus - The New York Times

Confirmed cases of COVID-19 have passed 221.9 million globally, according to Johns Hopkins University. The number of confirmed deaths stands at more than 4.58 million. More than 5.53 billion vaccination doses have been administered globally, according to Our World in Data.

New Zealand has reported a further fall in locally acquired COVID-19 cases, with 15 reported today, down from 21 a day before.

As of Tuesday morning, 75% of US adults had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced.

It comes as the CDC warned against travel to Sri Lanka, Jamaica and Brunei because of rising COVID-19 cases.

Venezuela has received its first batch of vaccines through the COVAX vaccine-sharing facility, the Pan-American Health Organization announced yesterday.

Spain's healthcare regulator has approved a third dose of COVID-19 vaccines for people with severely compromised immune systems.

Singapore recorded 328 new domestic COVID-19 cases yesterday, its highest daily tally in more than a year.

Two-hundred-nine deaths within 28 days of a positive COVID-19 test were reported in Britain yesterday, the highest total since 9 March.

The Philippines' capital region will remain under the second strictest COVID-19 restrictions, a senior official announced yesterday, delaying a planned easing of curbs.

Sweden is set to remove most restrictions and limits on public venues, such as restaurants, theatres and stadiums, at the end of September, the government said yesterday.

Daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases per million people in selected countries

Image: Our World in Data

Hundreds of thousands of people will die of tuberculosis if left untreated because of disruption to healthcare systems in poor countries as a result of the pandemic, the Global Fund warned.

The Geneva-based aid body said that in some of the world's poorest countries, excess deaths from AIDS and TB could even exceed those from COVID-19 itself.

"Essentially, about a million people less were treated for TB in 2020 than in 2019 and I'm afraid that will inevitably mean that hundreds of thousands of people will die," Executive Director Peter Sands told Reuters.

The Fund's annual report showed that the number of people treated for drug-resistant TB in countries where it operates fell by 19%. A decline of 11% was seen in HIV prevention programmes and services.

Each of our Top 50 social enterprise last mile responders and multi-stakeholder initiatives is working across four priority areas of need: Prevention and protection; COVID-19 treatment and relief; inclusive vaccine access; and securing livelihoods. The list was curated jointly with regional hosts Catalyst 2030s NASE and Aavishkaar Group. Their profiles can be found on http://www.wef.ch/lastmiletop50india.

Top Last Mile Partnership Initiatives to collaborate with:

COVID-19 is something that is likely here to stay, World Health Organization (WHO) officials said yesterday.

I think this virus is here to stay with us and it will evolve like influenza pandemic viruses, it will evolve to become one of the other viruses that affects us, Dr Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHOs Health Emergencies Program, said at a press briefing.

Ryan said that it was "very, very unlikely" that we will eliminate or eradicate the virus.

Written by

Joe Myers, Writer, Formative Content

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

Original post:

COVID-19: What you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic on 8 September - World Economic Forum

Updated at 3:00 p.m. ET on September 7, 2021

When London vanquished cholera in the 19th century, it took not a vaccine, or a drug, but a sewage system. The citys drinking water was intermingling with human waste, spreading bacteria in one deadly outbreak after another. A new comprehensive network of sewers separated the two. London never experienced a major cholera outbreak after 1866. All that was needed was 318 million bricks, 23 million cubic feet of concrete, and a major reengineering of the urban landscape.

The 19th and early 20th century saw a number of ambitious public-health efforts like this. The United States eliminated yellow fever and malaria, for example, with a combination of pesticides, wide-scale landscape management, and window screens that kept mosquitoes at bay. One by one, the diseases that people accepted as inevitable facts in lifedysentery, typhoid, typhus, to name a few morebecame unacceptable in the developing world. But after all this success, after all weve done to prevent the spread of disease through water and insects, we seem to have overlooked something. We overlooked air.

This turned out to have devastating consequences for the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. The original dogma, you might remember, was that the novel coronavirus spread like the flu, through droplets that quickly fell out of the air. We didnt need ventilation or masks; we needed to wash our hands and disinfect everything we touched. But a year and half of evidence has made clear that the tiny virus-laden particles indeed linger in the air of poorly ventilated areas. It explains why outdoors is safer than in, why a single infected person can super-spread to dozens of others without directly speaking to or touching them. If we are to live with this coronavirus foreveras seems very likelysome scientists are now pushing to reimagine building ventilation and clean up indoor air. We dont drink contaminated water. Why do we tolerate breathing contaminated air?

Its not just about COVID-19. The scientists who recognized the threat of airborne coronavirus early did so because they spent years studying evidence thatcontrary to conventional wisdomcommon respiratory illnesses such as the flu and colds can also spread through the air. Weve long accepted colds and flus as inevitable facts of life, but are they? Why not redesign the airflow in our buildings to prevent them, too? Whats more, says Raymond Tellier, a microbiologist at McGill University, SARS-CoV-2 is unlikely to be the last airborne pandemic. The same measures that protect us from common viruses might also protect us from the next unknown pathogen.

To understand why pathogens can spread through the air, it helps to understand just how much of it we breathe. About eight to 10 liters a minute, says Catherine Noakes, who studies indoor air quality at the University of Leeds, in England. Think four or five big soda bottles per minute, multiply that by the number of people in a room, and you can see how we are constantly breathing in one anothers lung secretions.

The particles emitted when people cough, talk, or breathe come in a range of sizes. Weve all been unwittingly sprayed by large droplets of saliva from the mouth of an overenthusiastic talker. But smaller particles called aerosols can also form when the vocal cords vibrate to air rushing out from the lungs. And the smallest aerosols come from deep inside the lungs. The process of breathing, says Lidia Morawska, an aerosol scientist at Queensland University of Technology, in Australia, is essentially a process of forcing air through the lungs moist passages. She compares it to spraying a nebulizer or perfume bottle, in which liquidlung secretions, in this casebecomes suspended in exhaled air.

Even before SARS-CoV-2, studies of respiratory viruses like the flu and RSV have noted the potential for spread through fine aerosols. The tiny liquid particles seem to carry the most virus, possibly because they come from deepest in the respiratory tract. They remain suspended longest in the air because of their size. And they can travel deeper into other peoples lungs when breathed in; studies have found that a smaller amount of influenza virus is needed to infect people when inhaled as aerosols rather than sprayed up the nose as droplets. Real-world evidence stretching back decades also has suggested that influenza could spread through the air. In 1977, a single ill passenger transmitted the flu to 72 percent of the people on an Alaska Airlines flight. The plane had been grounded for three hours for repairs and the air-recirculation system had been turned off, so everyone was forced to breathe the same air.

In official public-health guidance, however, the possibility of flu-laden aerosols still barely gets a mention. The CDC and World Health Organization guidelines focus on large droplets that supposedly do not travel beyond six feet or one meter, respectively. (Never mind that scientists who actually study aerosols knew this six-foot rule violated the laws of physics.) The coronavirus should get us to take the airborne spread of flu and colds more seriously too, says Jonathan Samet, a pulmonary physician and epidemiologist at the Colorado School of Public Health. At the very least, it should spur research to establish the relative importance of different routes of transmission. We had done such limited research before on airborne transmission of common infections, Samet told me. This just wasnt seen as a major problem until now.

At the University of Maryland, Donald Miltonone of the few longtime airborne-transmission researchersis about to embark on a multiyear, controlled trial aimed at understanding influenza. Flu patients and healthy participants will share a room in this study. And they will take different precautions, such as hand-washing plus face shields or having good ventilation, which would presumably stop either droplet or aerosol transmission. The trial is meant to prove which intervention works the best, and thus which transmission route is dominant. When Milton had managed to get funding for a different aerosol study in the 2000s, he said a public-health official told him, Were funding you to put the nail in the coffin of the idea that aerosols are important. Now, Milton says, Well find out which direction the nail is being driven here.

A virus that lingers in the air is an uncomfortable and inconvenient revelation. Scientists who had pushed the WHO to recognize airborne transmission of COVID-19 last year told me they were baffled by the resistance they encountered, but they could see why their ideas were unwelcome. In those early days when masks were scarce, admitting that a virus was airborne meant admitting that our antivirus measures were not very effective. We want to feel were in control. If something is transmitted through your contaminated hands touching your face, you control that, Noakes said. But if somethings transmitted through breathing the same air, that is very, very hard for an individual to manage.

The WHO took until July 2020 to acknowledge that the coronavirus could spread through aerosols in the air. Even now, Morawska says, many public-health guidelines are stuck in a pre-airborne world. Where she lives in Australia, people are wearing face masks to walk down the street and then taking them off as soon as they sit down at restaurants, which are operating at full capacity. Its like some kind of medieval ritual, she says, with no regard for how the virus actually spreads. In the restaurants, theres no ventilation, she adds, which she knows because shes the type of scientist who takes an air-quality meter to the restaurant.

Earlier this year, Morawska and dozens of her colleagues in the fields of building science, public health, and medicine published an editorial in Science calling for a paradigm shift around indoor air. Yes, vaccines and masks work against the coronavirus, but these scientists wanted to think bigger and more ambitiousbeyond what any single person can do to protect themselves. If buildings are allowing respiratory viruses to spread by air, we should be able to redesign buildings to prevent that. We just have to reimagine how air flows through all the places we work, learn, play, and breathe.

The pandemic has already prompted, in some schools and workplaces, ad hoc fixes for indoor air: portable HEPA filters, disinfecting UV lights, and even just open windows. But these quick fixes amount to a Band-Aid in poorly designed or functioning buildings, says William Bahnfleth, an architectural engineer at Penn State University who is also a co-author of the Science editorial. (Tellier, Noakes, and Milton are authors too; the author list is a real whos who of the field.) Modern buildings have sophisticated ventilation systems to keep their temperatures comfortable and their smells pleasantwhy not use these systems to keep indoor air free of viruses too?

Indeed, hospitals and laboratories already have HVAC systems designed to minimize the spread of pathogens. No one I spoke with thought an average school or office building has to be as tightly controlled as a biocontainment facility, but if not, then we need a new and different set of minimum standards. A rule of thumb, Noakes suggested, is at least four to six complete air changes an hour in a room, depending on its size and occupancy. But we also need more detailed studies to understand how specific ventilation levels and strategies will actually reduce disease transmission among people. This research can then guide new indoor air-quality standards from the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), which are commonly the basis of local building codes. Changing the building codes, Bahnfleth said, is what will actually get buildings to change their ventilation systems.

The challenge ahead is cost. Piping more outdoor air into a building or adding air filters both require more energy and money to run the HVAC system. (Outdoor air needs to be cooled, heated, humidified, or dehumidified based on the system; adding filters is less energy intensive but it could still require more powerful fans to push the air through.) For decades, engineers have focused on making buildings more energy efficient, and its hard to find a lot of professionals who are really pushing indoor air quality, Bahnfleth said. He has been helping set COVID-19 ventilation guidelines as chair of the ASHRAE Epidemic Task Force. The pushback based on energy usage, he said, was immediate. In addition to energy costs, retrofitting existing buildings might require significant modifications. For example, if you add air filters but your fans arent powerful enough, youre on the hook for replacing the fans too.

The question boils down to: How much disease are we willing to tolerate before we act? When London built its sewage system, its cholera outbreaks were killing thousands of people. What finally spurred Parliament to act was the stench coming off the River Thames during the Great Stink of 1858. At the time, Victorians believed that foul air caused disease, and this was an emergency. (They were wrong about exactly how cholera was spreading from the riverit was through contaminated waterbut they had ironically stumbled upon the right solution.)

COVID-19 does not kill as high a proportion of its victims as cholera did in the 19th century. But it has claimed well over 600,000 lives in the U.S. Even a typical flu season kills 12,000 to 61,000 people every year. Are these emergencies? If so, what would it take for us, collectively, to treat them as such? The pandemic has made clear that Americans do not agree on how far they are willing to go to suppress the coronavirus. If we cant get people to accept vaccines and wear masks in a pandemic, how do we get the money and the will to rehaul all our ventilation systems? The costs of that kind of large-scale infrastructure remodeling are astronomical, and the tendency is to look for other kinds of fixes, Nancy Tomes, a historian of medicine at Stony Brook University, said. Its also a problem distributed across millions of buildings, each with its own idiosyncrasies in layout and management. Schools, for example, have struggled to get the funds and make the ventilation upgrades in time for the school year.

In their Science editorial, Morawska and her co-authors wrote, While the scale of the changes required is enormous, this is not beyond the capabilities of our society, as has been shown in relation to food and waterborne disease, which have largely been controlled and monitored. Morawska is optimistic, which perhaps you have to be to embark on this endeavor. The changes might take too long to matter for this current pandemic, but there are other viruses that spread through the air, and there will be more pandemics. My whole drive is to do something for the future, she told me.

How much actually changes depends on the momentum created now, she said. She pointed out that the vaccines looked like they were going to quickly end the pandemicbut then they didnt, as the Delta variant complicated things. The longer this pandemic drags on, the steeper the cost of taking indoor air for granted.

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Coronavirus Ventilation: A New Way to Think About Air - The Atlantic

SALT LAKE CITY Feeling sick? Utah residents are dealing with a handful of viruses causing problems and confusion around the state.

READ: 6 human cases of West Nile Virus found in Utah

Unseasonable respiratory viruses are making Utahns miserable with many of the same symptoms, including cough, fever, and headache.

We are having now, several things circulating which makes it really hard to figure out which one youve got and what to do with that information, said Dr. Per Gesteland, who works at both University of Utah Health and Intermountain Primary Childrens Hospital.

Dr. Gesteland oversees GermWatch.org, a disease monitoring site from Intermountain Health. At the top of the list this week: the common cold, hand foot and mouth disease, and RSV.

We are seeing moderate to high levels of RSV that we would normally be seeing heading into late December, early January, Dr. Gesteland said.

READ: Utah reports 27 COVID deaths over holiday weekend; 4,657 new cases

RSV is hitting several months early and and its hitting hard.

Dr. Gesteland says Primary Childrens is busier than normal treating severe cases of infection in the lungs and breathing passages; symptoms that often mirror COVID-19.

With viruses carrying the potential to cause complications, doctors urge parents to pay attention, test for COVID and talk with their doctor when their child gets sick.

You can kind of try to sort them out, but it gets really hard, even for us expert clinicians to tell which virus youre carrying," said Gesteland. "Think about getting tested, especially if youre in that school-aged group and there are implications to bringing that back and spreading it in a school environment.

READ: Crisis Standards of Care activated in Idaho during COVID surge

While the viruses are different, prevention is the same. Doctors say vaccinated if eligible, wear a mask indoors, and wash hands often.

Read more:

COVID not the only virus causing problems around Utah - fox13now.com

The global tally for the coronavirus-borne illness COVID-19 climbed above 221.9 million on Tuesday, while the death toll rose above 4.58 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. leads the world with a total of 40.3 million cases and 650,532 deaths. Just 53.2% of the overall U.S. population is fully vaccinated against COVID, leaving almost 47% at risk of severe illness and death. The number of children and teens testing positive surpassed 250,000 for the first time in the week ended Sep. 2, the Washington Post reported, citing data from the American Academy of Pediatrics. And while most are not severe, there were almost 2,400 children in hospitals across the U.S., the most since the start of the pandemic. The numbers are worrying coming as children, who are not yet eligible for vaccination, head back to school in person. India has the second highest death toll after the U.S. at 441,411 and is third by cases at 33.1 million, the JHU data shows. Brazil has second highest death toll at 584,108 and has 20.9 million cases. In Europe, Russia has 186,224 deaths, followed by the U.K. with 133,808

Link:

Coronavirus tally: Global cases of COVID-19 near 222 million and in U.S., cases are surging among children and teens - MarketWatch

Lets start with a bit of epidemiology. On July 12th, the United States reported 35,383 new cases of COVID-19, according to the Times. A month later, as the Delta variant continued to spread in many parts of the country, the U.S. reported 138,709 new cases. From an economic perspective, these dates are significant, because the Labor Department carries out its monthly survey of employer hiring during the pay period that includes the twelfth of the month. Between the July and the August survey periods, COVID cases shot up nearly fourfold.

On Wall Street, however, most economists took the view that the big resurgence in case numbers wouldnt have a huge effect on hiring, which had been growing strongly since May as vaccinations became freely available and many COVID restrictions were removed. This time last month, the Labor Department reported that the economy had created nine hundred and forty-three thousand jobs in July. Earlier this week, the consensus estimate for the August figure, which was due to be released on Friday morning, was seven hundred and twenty thousand, according to Dow Jones. The actual number came in at two hundred and thirty-five thousandless than a third of the consensus prediction. Even allowing for sampling error and other factors that make the month-to-month figures bounce around, this was a big forecasting error, and it seems evident that the Delta variant was to blame for it.

From February to July, total employment in the COVID-sensitive leisure-and-hospitality industry increased by about three hundred and fifty thousand per month. In August, this hiring stopped dead: the industry added zero jobs on net. Although businesses associated with the arts, entertainment (gambling), and recreation added thirty-six thousand jobs, this gain was more than offset by a loss of forty-two thousand jobs in restaurants and bars. The most convincing explanation is that, as the number of COVID cases rose sharply, some people stopped going out, and owners of restaurants and bars reassessed their staffing needs. Such a theory is consistent with OpenTable data for restaurant reservations, which show a significant dip since July. Something similar appears to have happened in the retail industry, where the most recent spending figuresfor Julyalso came in weaker than expected. The jobs report showed that retailers shed twenty-nine thousand jobs last month, with most of the drop concentrated in food and beverage stores.

The upshot of all this is depressingly clear. Despite hopes earlier this year that mass vaccination would finally break the link between the pandemic and the economy, this hasnt happenednot yet, at least. According to the Labor Departments monthly survey of households, which is part of the employment report, the number of people saying that they had been unable to work because their employer closed or lost business rose from 5.2 million in July to 5.6 million in August. Yet another sure sign that the Delta variant is biting: the rate of participation in the labor force among women aged twenty and over, which fell sharply in the early months of the pandemic before rebounding somewhat, slipped again last month.

The good news? There isnt any, Ian Shepherdson, the chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, wrote in a circular to his clients this weekend. September likely will be weak too, and were becoming nervous about the prospects for a decent revival in October, given that behavior lags cases, and cases are yet to peak. This pessimism could turn out to be justified, but it isnt universal. The August employment report was very reminiscent of April payrolls, when employment slowed sharply, only to rebound within the next two months, Aneta Markowska and Thomas Simons, two economists at the investment bank Jefferies, wrote in another analysis out on Friday. If anything, this one will likely be followed by an even quicker/sharper rebound given the likely influx of labor supply in September.

Two things we can say for sure are that the average monthly payroll figure for the three-month period from June to August is a robust seven hundred and fifty thousand, and last months gain of two hundred and thirty-five thousand was far from trivial; in normal times, it would be considered a healthy figure. Outside the most virus-sensitive sectors, many employers are still hiring. Despite supply-chain problems, the car industry added twenty-four thousand jobs in August; engineering and architectural firms added nineteen thousand; information businesses added seventeen thousand; the financial sector added sixteen thousand. Indeed, the official jobless rate dipped to 5.2 per cent last month, its lowest level since March of last year. These are all reassuring signs that the bottom hasnt fallen out of the economy, and the gradual recovery from the initial shock of the pandemic is continuing. Indeed, the United States is one of the few countries whose G.D.P. has already rebounded to its pre-pandemic level.

Looking ahead, a key question is how economic policymakers will react to the slowdown in the labor market. In a speech last week, Jerome Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, indicated that the central bank is preparing to rein in some of the monetary stimulus it has been providing since the start of the pandemic. Given the weaker jobs figures for August, Powell and his colleagues will surely wait to see the September report, which will be released early next month, before making a final decision.

On the fiscal side, the White House and Democrats on Capitol Hill are now facing renewed pressure to extend the expansion of unemployment benefits, scheduled to lapse this month. The Washington Posts Jeff Stein reported on Friday that the Biden Administration is split on the issue, with some economic aides concerned that the cutoff of additional benefits poses a serious danger to millions of Americans who remain out of work, but the President is supportive of allowing the extra benefits to lapse.

The disappointing jobs report is also sure to figure in the increasingly bitter debate among congressional Democrats about two big spending bills: a bipartisan one, devoted to infrastructure, and a larger Democratic bill designed to bolster the social safety net and promote green energy, which Party leaders hope to pass through the budget-reconciliation process. Earlier this week, Senator Joe Manchin outraged many Democrats when he advocated a strategic pause on the reconciliation bill. Shortly after the jobs report was released, Biden called on Congress to finish the job of passing my economic agenda so that we can keep up the historic momentum weve been building these last seven months.

It will be some weeks before we know the outcome of the spending battles and the Feds deliberations. But the slowdown in job growth is a stark reminder of something that Powell made clear a couple of weeks ago in remarks that now seem prescient: The COVID pandemic is still casting a shadow on economic activity. It is still very much with us. We cant, you know, we cant declare victory yet on that.

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Its Still the Coronavirus Economy - The New Yorker

When the novel coronavirus burst into the world, and 2020 was still young and full of hope, many imagined the pandemic would last for just a few weeks of "lockdown." Later it became: Okay, just one more year of this.

Then the vaccines came out, and even health experts were finally starting to talk about population-levelimmunity, relaxing restrictions and living it up like it was 19. Cases were dropping, at least in the United States, and it looked like the end times might soon be at an end.

For the first time, even as we were loosening restrictions, and the Red Sox came back and etc., cases continued to drop. I was like, This is categorically new epidemiology. This is vaccine, says Dr. Benjamin Linas, an epidemiologist at Boston University. We had that moment of hope that perhaps we could generate complete herd immunity. I had adjusted to the idea of like, This is awesome.

Turns out things are not awesome. With the surge of delta variant infections around the world and the revelation that the strain can cause fully vaccinated people to experience infections and transmit the virus, Linas and other health scientists say its time to recalibrate our expectations once again. The coronavirus might very well be around forever, and Linas says its high time we accept that.

I dont think were ever going to eradicate or even eliminate SARS-CoV-2 [or the novel coronavirus], Linas says.

That leaves public health at a crossroads. If COVID-19 cases cannot be eliminated, and the window for herd immunity has passed, then health officials need new goalposts. Linas says that so far, they haven't been well defined.

"Im not sure that I can do the winter the way I did last winter. I think its actually starting to tear apart the fabric of our society.

If the goal is to stop transmission, then everyone should follow 2020-style COVID restrictions, since delta can spread among vaccinated people as well as unvaccinated people. Linas says thatmay have the benefit of preventing new, even more dangerous variants from arising, but it also comes with costs.

The deprivation of regular social interactions, time with family, travel and other activities has already taken a toll over the last year and then some. Linas says some restrictions like public indoor mask mandates are needed for now, but the idea of carrying them on in private is depressing.

I dont know how you feel, but I dont think I can do it again this year. Im not sure that I can do the winter the way I did last winter, Linas says. I think its actually starting to tear apart the fabric of our society.

There is another option, Linas says. Vaccinated people could stop trying so hard to avoid coronavirus exposure at all costs. Its becoming increasingly clear that even with the delta variant, vaccinated individuals are much less likely to become ill, end up in an intensive care unit or die. According to data from North Carolina public health officials, vaccinated individuals are four times less likely to get COVID-19, and 15 times less likely to die of it.

We might need to distinguish the difference between COVID-19, the disease, and SARS-CoV-2, the virus," he says. "With the vaccine, it might be possible to eliminate COVID-19 disease even if we cant stop all the transmission.

That will take a serious mental adjustment. Linus says accepting more coronavirus risk, even as a fully vaccinated person, still feels like blasphemy. But if the consequences of getting COVID-19 are much less severe for vaccinated people, then it may be time to start getting more comfortable with a little more risk.

This might become easier in a future when the coronavirus is still present, but its largely lost its teeth. At some point, every adult will have either gotten a COVID vaccine or survived the disease so that most future infections result in only mild illness, says Dr. Shira Doron, a hospital epidemiologist at Tufts Medical Center. Then, she thinks, COVID will slowly fade into the background and be one of those viruses that just circulate.

"People will mostly get mild COVID and wont think about it too much.

If you think down the road, and I dont know how long from now this is, every adult [will] have some immunity to COVID," she says. "People will mostly get mild COVID and wont think about it too much.

In rare cases, people will still get severe COVID and end up in the hospital, Doron says, but this was already happening with other viruses such as the common cold.

Here's a possible wrinkle: The pandemic may have changed our attitudes about disease transmission, Doron says. Just because we were fine with the flu, RSV and common colds dancing about each winter, that doesn't mean we should have been.

With the coronavirus in the seasonal mix, Doron says it's possible we're in for a perpetual pandemic, one that resumes each winter even if the virus ceases to be a fatal risk for most people.

Doron says well reach a new stage in the pandemic when case numbers are no longer coupled with rising hospitalizations and deaths. Were definitely not at a point where restrictions can go away just yet, Doron says.

The best way to get there is by vaccinating everyone who currently lacks immunity to the coronavirus. In that way, the short-term goal hasnt changed, says Dr. Sabrina Assoumou, an infectious disease physician at Boston Medical Center.

Remember, we dont vaccinate for the common cold, she says. The goal is to prevent severe disease, hospitalization and death. And right now, were very fortunate that in the U.S. we have vaccines that provide a high level of protection.

Its also possible we might never see a future where COVID-19 fades slowly away. Spikes continue to happen and, Doron adds, delta pulled the rug out from under us. If vaccination doesnt happen quickly enough, its still possible a new variant might emerge that causes more disease.

No one has any idea how to predict what the future looks like in waves of illness, she says. "So we just don't know."

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The Coronavirus May Never Go Away. But This Perpetual Pandemic Could Still Fizzle Out - WBUR