- he outbreak, initially identified in China, is continuing to grow.
- The disease is called COVID-19. It’s caused by an infection from the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, which is one of multiple coronaviruses that can be transmitted to humans.
- Other examples include SARS, MERS, and even the common cold.
COVID-19 cases
- There have been over 2 million confirmed COVID-19 cases globally and over 130,000 associated deaths.
- The United States currently has the highest reported number of COVID-19 cases with more than 600,000. However, due to a lack of testing, the number of actual cases may be far higher.
- Over 27,000 people in the United States have died from the disease.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said today that face masks would be mandated for New Yorkers when they’re in areas where they can’t practice safe physical distancing.
Cuomo said in areas like the subway trains or platforms, New Yorkers would be required to wear some sort of face covering in order to diminish the likelihood of spreading COVID-19.
The state has been hard hit by the virus with over 10,000 deaths associated with the disease.
n Los Angeles, Mayor Eric Garcetti reportedly said that the city may ban large scale events like concerts or sporting events until 2021.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the mayor raised the issue during a weekly departmental meeting.
Garcetti spokesman Alex Comisar told the Times that the mayor doesn’t have a timeline for reopening the city.
Less than 6 months after COVID-19 was first identified and reported in China, more than 2 million people have contracted the disease, according to data from Johns Hopkins.
In recent months, cases of COVID-19 in Italy, Spain, and the United States have eclipsed the number of reported cases in China.
The rise of the virus that has killed over 130,000 people has left medical providers scrambling to look for supplies and effective ways to treat the disease.
Fatalities related to COVID-19 hit a record on Tuesday, April 14, with 2,070 deaths in 24 hours, according to the Washington Post. This is the highest daily fatality rate since the outbreak started in the United States.
The United States currently has the highest number of COVID-19 deaths globally with more than 27,000 reported deaths.
Additionally, New York, which remains the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak in the country, reached a total of 10,834 deaths.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said that although 778 New York residents died in the last 24 hours, hospitalizations and intubations continue to go down, suggesting the state may be over its peak.
“You look at the past few days and the number of lives lost it is basically flat at a devastating level… but everything else we’re seeing is flattening at this level,” Cuomo said.
COVID-19 has hit healthcare personnel hard with thousands contracting the disease and some dying as a result.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a report April 14 finding that 9,282 healthcare personnel have contracted COVID-19.
The CDC estimates that the actual number of COVID-19 cases among healthcare providers is much higher since many people with mild symptoms were not tested.
Approximately 8 to 10 percent of these people were hospitalized. The average age affected was 42 years old and over 70 percent were female.
Similar to other people with COVID-19, older healthcare workers and those with underlying conditions were more at risk of dying from the disease, but the CDC noted there were fatalities in all age ranges.
Governors of three western states announced they would work together as they contemplate easing restrictions on residents’ movement amid the COVID-19 outbreak.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and Oregon Gov. Kate Brown announced they would coordinate their plans for reopening the economy and opening up public spaces.
There’s no timetable for when shelter-in-place orders would be lifted, but all three states have avoided the drastic spike in cases that have overwhelmed hospitals in New York, Michigan, and other states. This is despite the fact that California and Washington were among the first states to see community spread of COVID-19.
“We are announcing that California, Oregon, and Washington have agreed to work together on a shared approach for reopening our economies — one that identifies clear indicators for communities to restart public life and business,” the governors said in a joint statement.
Additionally, the governors of six states on the east coast announced they would form a committee to discuss issues with reopening the economy.
The governors of Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island said they would put together a panel that includes public health experts, economists, and their chiefs of staff to work together about when it would be safe to reopen businesses and ease stay-at-home orders.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is giving emergency use authorization to a company in order to allow for the sterilization of millions of N95 masks used by healthcare workers.
“Our nation’s healthcare workers are among the many heroes of this pandemic and we need to do everything we can to increase the availability of the critical medical devices they need, like N95 respirators,” said FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen M. Hahn, in a statement.
Advanced Sterilization Products Inc., will now be allowed to use vaporized hydrogen peroxide gas plasma sterilization in order to decontaminate N95 face masks.
This is the second company to get emergency authorization to sterilize masks.
N95 masks are critical for healthcare workers treating people with COVID-19, but they’re in short supply. The new emergency use authorization could help protect healthcare workers that have been forced to ration or reuse masks.
Millions of Americans are out of work during the COVID-19 pandemic, and fast, accurate blood tests could play a critical role in getting people safely back to work or school.
However, public health officials caution that a broad range of “unregulated tests” are creating confusion that could significantly slow the path to recovery.
The Associated Press reports that governments worldwide are hoping the rapid tests — typically using a finger-prick of blood on a test strip — could soon “ease public restrictions by identifying people who have previously had the virus and have developed some immunity to it.”
These tests are different from the nasal swab tests used to detect whether someone actually has the virus in their body. Instead, they’re used to detect antibodies in the blood, which indicate whether someone has successfully beaten the infection.
Government researchers studying how the virus has spread through the U.S. population are using antibody tests to guide pandemic response efforts.
“This study will give us a clearer picture of the true magnitude of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States by telling us how many people in different communities have been infected without knowing it, because they had a very mild, undocumented illness, or did not access testing while they were sick,” said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, in a statement.
“These crucial data will help us measure the impact of our public health efforts now and guide our COVID-19 response moving forward,” he said.
There are now more than 600,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the United States. That accounts for almost one-third of the 2 million cases worldwide.
The United States has more than 27,000 reported deaths, surpassing Italy as the country with the most fatalities.
In addition, a new mass COVID-19 outbreak has been identified, this time in upstate New York, according to Rochester First News.
At a nursing home in the Hornell area, 46 individuals tested positive through mass testing of residents and employees.
New York City, facing mounting deaths from the pandemic and dwindling space in city morgues, has initiated mass burials, according to CBS News.
However, officials haven’t explained whether the increase in burials is due to pressure on mortuaries to dispose of bodies more quickly, according to The New York Times.
Research conducted at New York University showed that obesity may be a risk factor for hospitalization in people with COVID-19 under age 60.
The findings were published April 9 in Clinical Infectious Diseases.
With almost 40 percent of American adults younger than 60 at a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or higher, obesity is a significant risk factor for COVID-19 hospitalizations, according to the study.
COVID-19 can overwhelm your immune system, making you dependent on a ventilator in a matter of hours, reports ABC News Philadelphia.
“Some of those patients that you’ve seen, within 3 to 4 hours, they decompensate completely where that chest X-ray is whited,” Hernan Alvarado, MBA, RRT, RPFT, the director of respiratory therapy at Temple University Health System in Pennsylvania, told the television station. “Now they’re on a breathing tube.”
“The classic signs — increase in fever, shortness of breath, cough, difficulty breathing — if you have any of those symptoms, get checked. It could save your life,” Alvarado warned.
Coronavirus Outbreak: Live Updates
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April 16, 2020
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