Tag: coronavirus

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Arkansas Leads Nation In New COVID Cases As Vaccinations Decline

The first confirmed case of the omicron variant in the U.S. has been discovered in California.

Y’all…please get vaccinated. I’m just saying. From USA Today:

Cases of COVID-19 have doubled in the U.S. in the past two weeks, and Arkansas is becoming a case study in how low vaccination rates can fuel the spread of the virus.

Arkansas continues to be the nation’s top state for new cases per capita, and only 35% of the state’s population is fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The virus appears to be largely sparing vaccinated people from the most severe illness.

“Of all of our critically ill COVID positive patients at Baptist Health facilities, none have been fully vaccinated,” said Stephanie Whitaker, chief nursing executive for Baptist Health, a major healthcare provider in the state.

The state’s Department of Health said there are 240 COVID-19 patients in the state’s ICUs and 118 on ventilators. Only 4% of the state’s intensive care unit beds are available.

Cases of COVID-19 rose in all 50 states this week.

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Las Vegas: Face Masks Recommended For All In Public Spaces

Las Vegas health officials have recommended everyone (vaccinated or not) go back to wearing face masks when indoors.

Las Vegas health officials have recommended everyone (vaccinated or not) go back to wearing face masks when indoors. And, we’re back to wearing face masks here in my town of Las Vegas, Nevada, thanks to rising cases and slowing vaccination rates. From the Review-Journal:

The Southern Nevada Health District on Friday recommended that everyone — including those vaccinated against COVID-19 —again wear face masks in crowded indoor public settings such as grocery stores, malls and casinos.

The health district’s recommendation comes as COVID-19 test positivity rates, case counts and hospitalizations continue to increase in Southern Nevada, which has been designated as a “sustained hotspot” for the disease by the federal government.

In mid-May, Gov. Steve Sisolak dropped the mask mandate for those who were vaccinated, following guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The mask requirement remained for unvaccinated people in most public indoor settings, but was largely unenforced and often ignored.

It’s worth noting the change is only a ‘recommendation’ at this time and not a mandate. Los Angeles County reinstated its mask mandate beginning last night.

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Anti-Vax ER Nurse Dies Of COVID-19

A Louisiana nurse who railed against vaccinations for the coronavirus died on Saturday from COVID-19 complications

A Louisiana nurse who railed against vaccinations for the coronavirus died on Saturday from COVID-19 complications A Louisiana nurse who had railed against vaccinations on her social media has reportedly died from COVID-19 complications. From The Acadiana Advocate:

Olivia Guidry, a registered nurse in the emergency department, died Saturday after battling the virus for days in the hospital’s intensive care unit. Friends, who had been pleading for prayers for the young woman, expressed grief as the news of her death spread Saturday afternoon.

Guidry was diagnosed with COVID in early July, according to a social media post from her sister, Brittany Smith. She spiked a high fever and had a seizure, Smith wrote. She was placed in a medically induced coma on Thursday.

Louisiana has a vaccination rate of about 36%, below the national vaccination rate of nearly 50%.

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News Round-Up: July 8, 2021

Edward Gal and Hans Peter Minderhoud (image via Instagram)
Some news items you might have missed: • Instinct Magazine: Swedish couple Edward Gal and Hans Peter Minderhoud (above) will be representing the Netherlands at the Olympics in dressage – a type of horse riding that tests the teamwork and power of a rider with their horse. Together they won a team bronze medal at the 2014 World Championships, and each have an Olympic medal: silver for Minderhoud in 2008 and bronze for Gal in 2012. • The Gaily Grind: Caitlyn Jenner, whose net worth is estimated to be roughly $100 million, wants to deal with California’s population of more than 60,000 homeless people by moving them to “big open fields.” • The Guardian: Organizers of the Miss Mexico 2021 pageant pushed ahead in spite of a Covid-19 outbreak that infected almost half the contestants. At least 15 of the 32 contestants in the pageant tested positive for coronavirus as well as a pageant staff member.

• Washington Post: Michael Avenatti — who made headlines representing an adult-film actress who claimed an affair with Donald Trump before he was president — was sentenced to 30 months in prison on Thursday, after being convicted for trying to extort Nike Inc. He faced up to 11 years in jail. • Pink News: A New Jersey appeal court has upheld a massive $3.5 million fine against a conversion therapy practice, which was shut down after former patients alleged widespread abuse. • CNN: Researchers estimate that there would have been about 279,000 additional deaths due to Covid-19 — about 46% more than there were — and as many as 1.25 million additional hospitalizations if there had been no vaccinations. • ABC News: Pfizer will seek U.S. authorization for a third dose of its COVID-19 vaccine. Data from the company’s booster study suggests people’s antibody levels jump five- to 10-fold after a third dose.

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Coronavirus Death Toll Surpasses 4 Million Worldwide

The coronavirus death toll has now surpassed 4 million
(graphic via NY Times)

The coronavirus death toll has now surpassed over 4 million world wide even as the more contagious Delta variant continues to spread.

From the New York Times:

The world’s known coronavirus death toll passed four million on Thursday, a loss roughly equivalent to the population of Los Angeles, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

It took nine months for the virus to claim one million lives, and the pace has quickened since then. The second million were lost in three and a half months, the third in three months, and the fourth in about two and a half months. The number of daily reported deaths has declined recently.

Those are officially reported figures, which are widely believed to undercount pandemic-related deaths.

Read the full report here. As the Delta variant continues to spread, vaccinations in the U.S. are seeing a clear decline. Health officials say 99% of the recent coronavirus death toll involves unvaccinated people. More from CBS News:

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Fauci: 99% Of Recent COVID Deaths Involved Unvaccinated People

Dr. Anthony Fauci

Dr. Anthony Fauci
Dr. Anthony Fauci (screen capture)
During an interview on NBC’s Meet The Press, Dr. Anthony Fauci said about 99.2% of recent COVID-19 deaths in the United States involved unvaccinated people. “It’s really sad and tragic that most all of these are avoidable and preventable,” he added. Fauci shared that it is frustrating when “you have a formidable enemy” in the coronavirus and “yet we do have a countermeasure that’s highly, highly effective. And that’s the reason why it’s all the more sad and all the more tragic why it isn’t being completely implemented in this country.” The United States has registered over 605,000 deaths in the pandemic, the highest national toll in the world. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 157 million Americans have been fully vaccinated, representing 47.4% of the country’s total population. But vaccination rates remain low in many parts of the South and Midwest.

(source)

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Nevada: COVID-19 Cases Slowly Rising Due To Low Vaccination Rates

Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak has dropped the statewide indoor mask mandate effective immediately.

My home state of Nevada is not doing great in the COVID vaccination department. From Jennifer Solis at the Nevada Current:

Nevada has continued to report a slow rise in COVID-19 cases over the past two weeks as the positivity rate — or percentage of tests that came back positive — increased to 4.0%, from 3.9%.

The Department of Health and Human Services reported 447 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday — the highest daily number of cases in over a month.

Confirmed and suspected COVID-19 hospitalization cases rose to 281 on Wednesday, after falling as low as 178 on June 12.

Vaccination rates for Clark County are at about 42% — lower than the national average of 45% and significantly lower than Washoe County’s 54% vaccination rate.

By comparison, Los Angeles County in California, with a population five times as large as Clark County, boasts a 7-day average positivity rate of 0.8% and reported only 260 new cases and 230 hospitalizations on Wednesday. Los Angeles County also has a significantly higher vaccination rate of 58%, according to California data.

The state, meanwhile, is offering financial motivation to encourage people to get vaccinated. Nevada will distribute $5 million in cash prizes to residents who have been vaccinated at least once.

Read the full report here.

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COVID Cases On The Rise As Delta Variant Spreads To All 50 States

The first confirmed case of the omicron variant in the U.S. has been discovered in California.

The Delta variant of the coronavirus now makes up 25% of all new cases in the U.S. Via NBC News:

The number of Covid-19 cases in the United States rose 10 percent this week as the highly contagious delta variant gained further ground, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday.

The country’s lagging vaccination rate coupled with the “hyper-transmissible delta variant” could account for the increase, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said during a White House briefing.

The variant, which was first detected in India, now accounts for a quarter of all new cases, and has been detected in all 50 states. Its rapid spread is sure to make it the dominant U.S. strain within the coming weeks, she said.

Read the full report here. According to the CDC, 57.4 percent of U.S. adults have been fully vaccinated as of today.

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Sydney Enters ‘Hard Lockdown’ Due To Delta Variant Outbreak

From CNN:

Sydney will enter a hard two-week lockdown on Saturday night local time as authorities try to contain a fast-spreading outbreak of the highly infectious Delta coronavirus variant in Australia’s largest city, the state leader said.

More than a million people in downtown Sydney and the city’s eastern suburbs were already under lockdown due to the outbreak, but health authorities said they needed to expand that after more Covid-19 cases were recorded, with exposure sites increasing beyond the initial areas of concern.

The curbs on Sydney, home to more than 5 million people, are the latest in a streak of short but hard lockdowns that have been imposed in Australia’s cities in recent months to fight small outbreaks of the coronavirus.

There were 38 cases of different COVID-19 variants reported by late Sunday, the first time in months that so many different regions in Australia had reported new infections on the same day. The government has received criticism for a slow rollout of COVID vaccinations. According to government statistics, only about 1.4 million full vaccinations have been administered in the country of 25 million people.

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Study: Brain Tissue Loss Found In Patients Who Experience COVID-19

The first confirmed case of the omicron variant in the U.S. has been discovered in California.

The results of a new study indicates some disconcerting long-term effects of COVID-19 on the brain. From the Washington Post:

The researchers from the U.K. Biobank scrutinized before-and-after brain scans from 782 people — half who had developed covid-19 and half who hadn’t. Those who had developed the illness experienced noteworthy tissue loss after infection in areas of the brain associated with the sense of taste and smell, the researchers said.

“It’s very concerning because it does suggest that the virus could be having a direct effect on certain portions of the brain,” said former FDA chief Scott Gottlieb.

“I think what it suggests is that the balance of the information that we’re accruing does indicate that covid is a disease that could create persistent symptoms,” he said. “So, this isn’t a benign disease. This is something you want to avoid. And the bottom line is, we have the tools to avoid it through vaccination.”

Read the full article here.