Tag: pandemic

‘Red alert’ for hospital ICU beds in Twin Cities amid COVID-19 surge

Only nine intensive care beds were available in the Twin Cities on Wednesday morning amid a surge in COVID-19 that is sending more Minnesotans into hospitals.

Metro ICU bed space grew scarce as nurses and other caregivers were unavailable because of their own infections or viral exposures that required quarantines in central Minnesota and other parts of the state.

“We’re at a red alert for ICU beds,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy. “It’s bad.” Continue reading.

Coronavirus (MN): Record High 3,844 Daily COVID Cases Reported; Gov. Requests Federal Support

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – A day after the presidential election, Minnesota has broken COVID-19 case records yet again, with 3,844 positive cases reported Wednesday. An additional 31 people have died.

Over the past 10 days, COVID-19 cases have hovered around the 2,000 to 3,000 realm, but Wednesday beat the previous daily positive case record that had been set on Tuesday. The death toll has also breached 2,500.

Hospitalizations have also reached record numbers, with 908 currently in the hospital. Over 20% of those are currently in the ICU, though the data is still preliminary. Continue reading.

US sets record for cases amid election battle over virus

New confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the U.S. have climbed to an all-time high of more than 86,000 per day on average, in a glimpse of the worsening crisis that lies ahead for the winner of the presidential election.

Cases and hospitalizations are setting records all around the country just as the holidays and winter approach, demonstrating the challenge that either President Donald Trump or former Vice President Joe Biden will face in the coming months.

Daily new confirmed coronavirus cases in the U.S. have surged 45% over the past two weeks, to a record 7-day average of 86,352, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Deaths are also on the rise, up 15 percent to an average of 846 deaths every day. Continue reading.

Coronavirus updates: United States tops 100,000 new virus cases in a day for first time

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Here are some significant developments:

  • The United States reported more than 100,000 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, according to data tracked by The Washington Post. Seventeen states — including Kansas, Tennessee, Virginia, Oklahoma, Montana, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Ohio, Nebraska, Minnesota, Indiana and West Virginia — on Wednesday reported record numbers of patients hospitalized with covid-19, the disease caused by the virus.
  • Nationwide, more than 9,445,000 coronavirus cases and more than 232,500 covid-19 fatalities have been logged since February.
  • European countries such as England, Italy and Greece have announced new restrictions, including partial or total lockdowns as they face a sweeping second wave of infections. Continue reading.

Top Trump adviser bluntly contradicts president on covid-19 threat, urging all-out response

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“This is not about lockdowns. … It’s about an aggressive balanced approach that is not being implemented,” says internal White House report that challenges many of Trump’s pronouncements.

A top White House coronavirus adviser sounded alarms Monday about a new and deadly phase in the health crisis, pleading with top administration officials for “much more aggressive action,” even as President Trump continues to assure rallygoers that the nation is “rounding the turn” on the pandemic.

“We are entering the most concerning and most deadly phase of this pandemic … leading to increasing mortality,” said the Nov. 2 report from Deborah Birx, coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force. “This is not about lockdowns — it hasn’t been about lockdowns since March or April. It’s about an aggressive balanced approach that is not being implemented.” 

Birx’s internal report, shared with top White House and agency officials, contradicts Trump on numerous points: While the president holds large campaign events with hundreds of attendees, most without masks, she explicitly warns against them. While the president blames rising cases on more testing, she says testing is “flat or declining” in many areas where cases are rising. And while Trump says the country is “rounding the turn,” Birx notes that the country is entering its most dangerous period yet and will see more than 100,000 new cases a day this week. Continue reading.

The long-term health impact of COVID-19 is only now being understood — and it’s not pretty: study

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Doctors are discovering that the millions of Americans who managed to survive the COVID-19 pandemic are left with long-standing problems, and they have no idea just how long they will last.

The Wall Street Journal reported an August BMJ study that after nearly a year fighting off the coronavirus, they’re discovering that those who made it through the virus are still having problems with “severe fatigue, memory lapses, digestive problems, erratic heart rates, headaches, dizziness, fluctuating blood pressure, even hair loss.” For some so-called long-haulers who still have symptoms after months of having the virus, taste and smell still haven’t returned.

As the pandemic rages, the raw numbers show a picture of survivors and victims of the virus, but few explore the lasting health impact that some continue to experience. Continue reading.

The year of the vote: How Americans surmounted a pandemic and dizzying rule changes so their voices would be heard

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NOTE: This election article is being provided free of charge by The Washington Post.

Ben Lucas thought about displaying a Biden-Harris campaign sign in his front yard in Eugene, Ore., but he preferred to encourage all Americans, not just Democrats, to participate in this year’s election.

So last weekend, the 24-year-old graduate student found an old piece of plywood in the garage, painted the letters “V-O-T-E” on it and propped it against a tree.

He explained: “I wanted to be seen, and I wanted to be heard.” Continue reading.

Trump is ending his campaign on an ugly new low — and barely anyone noticed

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Donald Trump, tragically occupying the office of president of the United States, possibly has uttered the ugliest words of an ugly career defacing the national stage. And they barely led the news anywhere.

Trump has been claiming at his super-spreader rallies for the past week that American doctors are profiting from the death of COVID-19 patients. Take a step back and absorb this atrocity. This man just invented a mendacious lie from scratch, not even remotely rational and in the process denigrated the frontline heroes who have been risking their lives and those of their families in a 9-month struggle against the worst pandemic in a century.

It didn’t even dominate a news cycle. The nation has been so numbed by this Hitlerian character that this singular slander cannot be distinguished from all his other regurgitations. Continue reading.

White House sidestepped FDA to distribute hydroxychloroquine to pharmacies, documents show. Trump touted the pills to treat covid-19.

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Documents detail efforts by White House officials to distribute hydroxychloroquine to coronavirus patients in ‘hard hit’ cities

The phone call in March from President Trump’s adviser carried an urgent message.

For days Trump had touted the off-label use of the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine as a potential cure for covid-19, despite a lack of scientific evidence it worked and amid mounting concerns about the dangers to patients with underlying medical conditions.

Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro wanted to make sure the administration’s top vaccine expert would be on board with a White House plan to distribute the unproven drug to hard-hit cities. Continue reading.

‘There’s no way to sugarcoat it’: COVID-19 cases are surging; one American dies every 107 seconds

The U.S. set a record this week for new coronavirus cases over a seven-day period with more than 500,000 infections. An American is testing positive every 1.2 seconds.

Daily deaths are also climbing – one of us is dying every 107 seconds, according to Johns Hopkins data.

And daily hospitalizations have been rising steadily for more than a month, from 28,608 on Sept. 20 to more than 44,000 on Tuesday. Continue reading.