A restaurant’s sidewalk shed, or “streetery,” in Hell’s Kitchen in New York City
Good morning. This is Jonathan Spira reporting. Here now the news of the pandemic from across the globe on the 1,167th day of the pandemic as well as Victoria Day.
Victoria Day is a distinctly Canadian public holiday to honor the late Queen Victoria celebrated on the last Monday preceding May 25. Observed in Canada since at least 1845, it is also considered the informal start of the summer season in the country. Queen Victoria, meanwhile, was born on May 24, 1819 and reigned from 1837 through 1901, a period known as the Victorian Era, which was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire.
The 63-year-long reign was the longest of any British monarch until Elizabeth II surpassed her in 2015. Victoria became an icon who was closely identified with strict standards of moral behavior.
OP-ED ON MONDAY
Every morning before breakfast, Snickers the Wonderdog and I go out for a walk and we take in the wonders of nature together. The walk – and the time together – do us both a world of good.
Research has shown that the simple act of petting an animal lowers the stress hormone cortisol, while the social interaction increases levels of the feel-good hormone oxytocin, the same hormone that bonds mothers to babies.
Research from 2003 shows that both humans and dog oxytocin levels in the blood rose after a five to 24 minute session of walking, petting, and playing.
One thing I always look forward to once we exit our abode and walk out into the garden is the sound of birds singing. This is not only free entertainment. Two studies published in 2022 in the journal Scientific Reports found that seeing or hearing birds could be good for people’s mental well-being.
In one study at Kings College in London, researchers found a significant positive association between seeing or hearing birds and improved mental well-being, even when accounting for other possible explanations such as education, occupation, or the presence of greenery and water, things are also associated with positive mental health.
The researchers found that the improved mental well-being persisted for hours after the encounter with our fine-feathered friends.
Yet another study found that listening to six-minute clips of birdsongs alleviates feelings of anxiety and paranoia, even if the birdsongs are prerecorded.
As I type this, I can hear birds singing outside my windows. I’ve seen numerous varieties of birds including red breasted robins, sparrows, cardinals, and blue jays. For that matter, since I’m in New York City, I also see birds that conjure up the voice of Tom Lehrer singing his hit single, “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park.”
In other news we cover today, China expects a new wave of SARS-CoV-2 infections, New York City plans updated rules for outdoor dining that started at the dawn of the pandemic, and a mother’s breast milk shields the newborn infant from SARS-CoV-2.
UNITED STATES
New York City announced a plan to keep its outdoor dining sheds. Restaurants originally built these in order to offer outdoor dining in the first two years of the coronavirus pandemic at a time when indoor dining was prohibited.
A proposed bill in the City Council would allow sidewalk dining year round, although permits would be required. The same bill would also allow “streeteries,” namely the outdoor dining sheds, but only from April through November each year. Currently the sheds remain in place year round.
GLOBAL
China is could see up to 65 million new cases per week in a wave that should peak at the end of June, a senior health official there said.
The country should also brace for a second wave of SARS-CoV-2 infections next winter, Xie Xiaoliang, a biophysical chemist and professor at Peking University, said, although he added that the possibility of large-scale outbreaks in the near future remains small, the official government publication Science and Technology Daily reported.
Meanwhile, health authorities in China are getting ready to roll out a new series of home-grown coronavirus vaccines designed to combat omicron subvariants.
Zhong Nanshan, one of the nation’s top respiratory disease experts, told the Greater Bay Area Science Forum in Guangzhou on Monday that the new vaccines had received preliminary approval and were expected to be available soon.
In Singapore, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said Monday that he tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 after returning from state visits to Kenya and South Africa. Lee, who is 71 and has been prime minister since 2004, said in a statement that he is “generally feeling ok but my doctors have advised me to self-isolate until I am asymptomatic.”
Researchers across the globe, including at College Dublin in Ireland and the Burnet Institute in Melbourne are studying why bats are the only mammals that fly that are not affected by coronaviruses and understanding why may be key when it comes to combating the next pandemic.
The discovery that bats can host a high number of potentially lethal viruses – including the coronaviruses responsible for SARS and MERS – as well as the Marburg, Nipah, and Hendra viruses, without suffering any apparent ill effects has made the study of the mammals an extremely high priority.
Meanwhile, researchers in Hong Kong found that breast milk from vaccinated mothers shields newborns from SARS-CoV-2. The breast milk also provides microbiota that maintain the infant’s gut microbiome which has long-term positive effects on health, including the development of B- and T-cell immunity.
TODAY’S STATISTICS
Now here are the daily statistics for Monday, May 22.
As of Monday morning, the world has recorded over 689 million Covid-19 cases, an increase of just under 0.1 million from the previous day, and just under 6.88 million deaths, according to Worldometer, a service that tracks such information. In addition, 661.4 million people worldwide have recovered from the virus, an increase of 0.1 million from the previous day.
The reader should note that infrequent reporting from some sources may appear as spikes in new case figures or death tolls.
Worldwide, the number of active coronavirus cases as of Monday at press time is 20,730,916, a decrease of 7,000. Out of that figure, 99.8%, or 20,692,601, are considered mild, and 0.2%, or 38,315, are listed as critical. The percentage of cases considered critical has not changed over the past eight months.
The United States reported 72,136 new cases in the period May 4 through May 10, a figure that is down 26% over the same period one week earlier, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The death toll for the same period is 840, a figure that is down 20%. The average daily number of hospital admissions from Covid was 4,073 on May 15, a figure that is down 5% over the preceding 14 days. Finally, the test positivity rate is 5.2%, up 5% over the 14 days preceding May 11.
Starting on March 25, 2023, the Morning News Brief began to update case data as well as death tolls on a weekly basis. In addition, starting on May 15, 2023, the Morning News Brief has pressed pause on certain data sets as we assess the update of changes in reporting by U.S. health authorities at the CDC.
Since the start of the pandemic the United States has, as of Monday, recorded 107 million cases, a higher figure than any other country, and a death toll of 1.16 million. India has the world’s second highest number of officially recorded cases, just under 45 million, and a reported death toll of 531,839.
The newest data from Russia’s Rosstat state statistics service showed that, at the end of July, the number of Covid or Covid-related deaths since the start of the pandemic there in April 2020 is now 823,623, giving the country the world’s second highest pandemic-related death toll, behind the United States. Rosstat last reported that 3,284 people died from the coronavirus or related causes in July 2022, down from 5,023 in June, 7,008 in May and 11,583 in April.
Meanwhile, France is the country with the third highest number of cases, with just under 40.1 million, and Germany is in the number four slot, with 38.4 million total cases.
Brazil, which has recorded the third highest number of deaths as a result of the virus, 702,421, has recorded over 37.5 million cases, placing it in the number five slot.
The other five countries with total case figures over the 20 million mark are Japan, with 33.8 million cases, South Korea, with 31.5 million cases, placing it in the number seven slot, and Italy, with 25.8 million, as number eight, as well as the United Kingdom, with 24.6 million, and Russia, with 22.9 million.
VACCINATION SPOTLIGHT
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that, as of the past Thursday, over 270.2 million people in the United States – or 81.4% – have received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine. Of that population, 69.5%, or 230.6 million people, have received two doses of vaccine, and the total number of doses that have been dispensed in the United States is now over 676.7 million. Breaking this down further, 92.23% of the population over the age of 18 – or 238.2 million people – has received at least a first inoculation and 79.1% of the same group – or 204.3 million people – is fully vaccinated. In addition, 20.5% of the same population, or 53 million people, has already received an updated or bivalent booster dose of vaccine, while 23.7 million people over the age of 65, or 43.3% of that population have also received the bivalent booster.
Starting on June 13, 2022, the CDC began to update vaccine data on a weekly basis and publish the updated information on Thursdays by 8 p.m. EDT, a statement on the agency’s website said.
Some 70% of the world population has received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine by Monday, according to Our World in Data, an online scientific publication that tracks such information. So far, 13.38 billion doses of the vaccine have been administered on a global basis and 65,401 doses are now administered each day.
Meanwhile, only 29.9% of people in low-income countries have received one dose, while in countries such as Canada, China, Denmark, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States, at least 75% of the population has received at least one dose of vaccine.
Only a handful of the world’s poorest countries – Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia and Nepal – have reached the 70% mark in vaccinations. Many countries, however, are under 20% and, in countries such as Haiti, Senegal, and Tanzania, for example, vaccination rates remain at or below 10%.
In addition, with the start of vaccinations in North Korea in late September, Eritrea remains the only country in the world that has not administered vaccines.
Anna Breuer contributed reporting to this story.
(Photo: Accura Media Group)
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