U.S. Prison deaths increased by 77% during the height of the pandemic.
Good morning. This is Jonathan Spira reporting. Here now the news of the pandemic from across the globe on the 1,365th day of the pandemic
THE LEDE
Covid Cases Are Rising Once Again. It’s a Holiday-Time Tradition
“You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout,” but the world is seeing the largest increase in new SARS-CoV-2 infections in some time. Researchers are observing noticeably higher levels of the virus in wastewater, and we are welcoming a brand new subvariant, JN.1, to the omicron family.
The JN.1 sublineage is causing some concern from scientists, doctors, and Covid researchers such as myself.
As observant readers of Morning News Brief may have noticed, the figures being reported across the world – including those from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – are rising, 1.2% in the most recent week for which data is available, in lockstep with emergency room visits and hospitalizations where the diagnosis code reads Covid. Those are up approximately 10% each.
The data public-health officials understate what is actually happening. The flip side to the benefit of having easily accessible, easy-to-use at-home Covid tests is that most positive cases go unreported but the elevated levels of the virus detected in wastewater, which serves as our canary in the Covid coal mine, have shown that U.S. levels have increased steadily since October.
Given the low uptake on the new 2023 Covid vaccine, I would urge people to take precautions and work with the assumption that everyone is positive for SARS-CoV-2 unless proven otherwise. This means masking, especially in crowded environments such as airports and airplanes, social distancing, and avoiding small intimate superspreader gatherings.
In news we report today, in addition to rising cases and temperatures, BoJo made what he probably considers a sufficient and sincere apology for his (mis)handling of the first years of the pandemic, a Texas’ least reputable politician is suing Pfizer because, well, its vaccines actually work well, and Dr. Anthony Fauci agreed to speak in front of Congress on the origins of the virus.
UNITED STATES
In Texas, the state’s least reputable politician, Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a fact-free lawsuit questioning Pfizer’s Covid vaccine, which has helped to save millions of people from hospitalization and death.
He alleges that the pharmaceutical house systematically misrepresents the efficacy of its vaccine and has attempted to censor public discussion about it.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former chief medical advisor to the president, will testify both privately and publicly before the House of Representatives on the origins of Covid-19 in China and the U.S. response to the global pandemic come January.
A study by Science Advances suggests that prison deaths increased by 77% during the height of the pandemic, its researchers said.
“Covid-19 was the primary driver for increases in mortality due to natural causes; some states also experienced substantial increases due to unnatural causes,” the report states.
The report was compiled using data from record requests and some publicly available data, when necessary, from 49 state and federal departments of corrections.
GLOBAL NEWS
In Britain, former prime minister Boris Johnson issued an explicit apology for his handling of the pandemic on Wednesday. He said that his government had been too complacent and had “vastly underestimated” the risks posed by the virus.
In an appearance before an official inquiry into the UK’s handling of the pandemic, Johnson said he took responsibility for all decisions made and he understood the public’s anger after the inquiry heard of government incompetence, backstabbing and misogyny as it battled the biggest health crisis in decades.
In Germany, Gesundheitsminister Karl Lauterbach is urging people to get inoculated against Covid before the holidays are in full swing. Lauterbach, a trained epidemiologist, said that the take-up rate for the 2023 vaccine was thus far “disappointing.”
OTHER HEALTHCARE NEWS
It’s official. 2023 will be the hottest year ever recorded. The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service announced that planet Earth had reached the milestone after analyzing data that showed the world saw its warmest-ever November on top of multiple other record-setting months.
GLOBAL STATISTICS
Now here are the daily statistics for Wednesday, December 6.
As of Wednesday morning, the world has recorded 698.88 million Covid-19 cases, an increase of 0.11 million from Saturday, and 6.95 million deaths, according to Worldometer, a service that tracks such information. In addition, just over 668.98 million people worldwide have recovered from the virus, a decrease of 0.98 million.
The reader should note that infrequent reporting from some sources may appear as spikes in new case figures or death tolls as well as the occasional downward or upward adjustment as corrections to case figures warrant.
Worldwide, the number of active coronavirus cases as of Wednesday at press time is 22,948,652, an increase of 26,000. Out of that figure, 99.8%, or 22,913,113, are considered mild, and 0.2%, or 35,539, are listed as critical. The percentage of cases considered critical has not changed over the past 13 months.
Since the start of the pandemic, the United States has, as of Wednesday, recorded 109.64 million cases, a higher figure than any other country, and a death toll of 1.18 million. India has the world’s second highest number of officially recorded cases, 45 million, and a reported death toll of 533,301.
The newest data from Russia’s Rosstat state statistics service showed that, at the end of July 2022, 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 40.14 million, and Germany is in the number four slot, with 38.67 million total cases.
Brazil, which has recorded the third highest number of deaths as a result of the virus, 707,789, has recorded 38.09 million cases, placing it in the number five slot.
The other five countries with total case figures over the 20 million mark are South Korea, with 34.57 million cases, as number six; Japan, with 33.8 million cases placing it in the number seven slot; and Italy, with 26.42 million, as number eight, as well as the United Kingdom, with 24.81 million, and Russia, with 23.43 million, as nine and ten respectively.
CURRENT U.S. COVID STATISTICS AT A GLANCE
In the United States, in the week ending November 25, 2023, the test positivity rate was, based on data released on December 4 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was 10%, and the trend in test positivity is +1.2% in the most recent week. Meanwhile, the percentage of emergency department visits that were diagnosed as SARS-CoV-2 was 1.7%, and the trend in emergency department visits is +10.6%.
The number of people admitted to hospital in the United States due to SARS-CoV-2 in the same 7-day period was 19,444, a figure that is up 10% over the past 7-day period. Meanwhile, the percentage of deaths due to SARS-CoV-2 was 2.5%, a figure that was unchanged over the past week.
VACCINATION SPOTLIGHT
Some 70.6% of the world population has received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine by Wednesday, according to Our World in Data, an online scientific publication that tracks such information. So far, 13.53 billion doses of the vaccine have been administered on a global basis and 16,040 doses are now administered each day.
Meanwhile, only 32.9% 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 beginning of vaccinations in North Korea in late September, Eritrea remains the only country in the world that has not administered vaccines in any significant number.
Anna Breuer contributed reporting to this story.
(Photo: Accura Media Group)
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