Tag: pandemic

What Happens When a Superspreader Event Keeps Spreading

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A February conference by the drug company Biogen was initially thought to have infected 99 people. By the end of October, it was feared that the number had grown as high as 300,000.

WASHINGTON — When it was disclosed last spring that the coronavirus had stealthily infected 99 people after the Cambridge, Mass., pharmaceutical company Biogen held a two-day conference in February, it helped add the term “superspreader” to the pandemic lexicon.

Little did anyone know how super the spread would actually become.

A new analysis of the Biogen event at a Boston hotel has concluded that the coronavirus strains loosed at the meeting have since migrated worldwide, infecting about 245,000 Americans — and potentially as many as 300,000 — by the end of October. Continue reading.

US enters brutal stretch of pandemic, even with approaching vaccines

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The United States is entering an even more brutal stretch of the pandemic, with deaths now exceeding 3,000 people every day, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel from a vaccine. 

The promise of a vaccine sets up a diverging reality, where in the short term the pandemic is getting even worse, but there is reassurance that it will not last forever. Public health experts are therefore urging the public to double down on precautions to get through the toughest phase for a few months until the vaccine is widely available. 

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfieldissued a stark warning about the coming weeks on Thursday. “We are in the timeframe now that probably for the next 60 to 90 days we’re going to have more deaths per day than we had at 9/11 or we had at Pearl Harbor,” Redfield said during an event hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations.  Continue reading.

US enters brutal stretch of pandemic, even with approaching vaccines

The Hill logo

The United States is entering an even more brutal stretch of the pandemic, with deaths now exceeding 3,000 people every day, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel from a vaccine. 

The promise of a vaccine sets up a diverging reality, where in the short term the pandemic is getting even worse, but there is reassurance that it will not last forever. Public health experts are therefore urging the public to double down on precautions to get through the toughest phase for a few months until the vaccine is widely available. 

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfield issued a stark warning about the coming weeks on Thursday. “We are in the timeframe now that probably for the next 60 to 90 days we’re going to have more deaths per day than we had at 9/11 or we had at Pearl Harbor,” Redfield said during an event hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations.  Continue reading.

Mitch McConnell doesn’t even want to send relief to health care workers

Hospitals nationwide are in desperate financial straits, short-staffed, and running out of beds.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is holding up talks on a bipartisan bill that could include badly needed aid for hard-hit hospitals around the country with demands that Democrats give up state and local relief funding before he’ll let the Senate vote on it.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have called for talks on the developing framework for a $908 billion COVID relief package that would include $35 billion for hospitals.

The initial summary of the bill did not include stimulus checks for individuals, though negotiations continue on that front. Continue reading.

‘There’s no pandemic!’ Tennessee pastor explodes at CNN reporter asking if he’ll take COVID vaccine

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In conversation with CNN’s Ellie Reed broadcast on Thursday, Pastor Greg Locke of Global Vision Bible Church in Mount Juliet, Tennessee exploded when asked his position on the COVID-19 vaccine, denying that there even was a pandemic at all.

“Faith over fear. I ain’t worried about some fake pandemic,” said Locke, a pro-Trump preacher who has previously drawn controversy for claiming that history classes in public schools are part of an “Islamic invasion.” “I’m not saying the sickness isn’t real. I’m saying the pandemic is not.”

“I don’t understand what you mean when you say the pandemic is not real,” said Reed. “What do you think a pandemic is?” Continue reading.

CDC director allegedly ordered deletion of email showing effort to interfere with coronavirus guidance, lawmaker says

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The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention allegedly ordered the destruction of an email written by a top Trump administration health official who was seeking changes in a scientific report on the coronavirus’s risk to children, the head of a congressional oversight subcommittee charged Thursday.

In a letter to CDC Director Robert R. Redfield and his superior, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) expressed “serious concern about what may be deliberate efforts by the Trump Administration to conceal and destroy evidence that senior political appointees interfered with career officials’ response to the coronavirus crisis at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”

The report was not altered or withdrawn. But Clyburn, chairman of the House select subcommittee on the coronavirus crisis, cited an interview three days ago with the editor of the CDC’s most authoritative publication, the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, known as MMWR. Charlotte Kent, editor in chief of that report, told investigators that while on vacation in August, she received instructions to delete the email written by Paul Alexander, a senior adviser to Azar. Continue reading.

Stealing to survive: More Americans are shoplifting food as aid runs out during the pandemic

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Retailers, police departments and loss prevention researchers are reporting an uptick in theft of necessities like food and hygiene products

Early in the pandemic, Joo Park noticed a worrisome shift at the market he manages near downtown Washington: At least once a day, he’d spot someone slipping a package of meat, a bag of rice or other food into a shirt or under a jacket. Diapers, shampoo and laundry detergent began disappearing in bigger numbers, too.

Since then, he said, thefts have more than doubled at Capitol Supermarket — even though he now stations more employees at the entrance, asks shoppers to leave backpacks up front and displays high-theft items like hand sanitizer and baking yeast in more conspicuous areas. Park doesn’t usually call the police, choosing instead to bar offenders from coming back.

“It’s become much harder during the pandemic,” he said. “People will say, ‘I was just hungry.’ And then what do you do?” Continue reading.

Here’s Why Vaccinated People Still Need to Wear a Mask

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The new vaccines will probably prevent you from getting sick with Covid. No one knows yet whether they will keep you from spreading the virus to others — but that information is coming.

The new Covid-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna seem to be remarkably good at preventing serious illness. But it’s unclear how well they will curb the spread of the coronavirus.

That’s because the Pfizer and Moderna trials tracked only how many vaccinated people became sick with Covid-19. That leaves open the possibility that some vaccinated people get infected without developing symptoms, and could then silently transmit the virus — especially if they come in close contact with others or stop wearing masks.

If vaccinated people are silent spreaders of the virus, they may keep it circulating in their communities, putting unvaccinated people at risk. Continue reading.

Giuliani says he didn’t know most Americans can’t access his VIP coronavirus treatment regimen

Even after being hospitalized for coronavirus, Giuliani was clueless about the virus and its treatment

Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s personal attorney and former New York City mayor, insisted that he has not changed his views about the dangerousness of COVID-19 despite his recent diagnosis — and even after he was informed that he had access to rare, expensive medications that most Americans with COVID-19 do not.

Speaking in an interview with New York’s TalkRadio 77 WABC on Tuesday, Giuliani said that he has “exactly the same view” that the coronavirus pandemic is being exaggerated and that people don’t need to wear masks, even as he spoke from a phone in a Washington DC hospital room because he had been infected. Giuliani added that “I’ve also been through cancer, a couple of other things — very serious, very serious, emergency knee operation. Things happen in life, and you have to go with them. You can’t overreact to them. Otherwise, you let the fear of illness drive your entire life.”

Giuliani’s comments echoed Trump’s own response to being diagnosed with COVID-19 back in October, when the president tweeted, “Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life.” Like Trump, Giuliani has recently criss-crossed America, often while shirking public health guidelines, in an attempt to overturn Biden’s unambiguous victory in the 2020 presidential election. Continue reading.