Three of New York’s finest on a deserted Park Avenue in the middle of the day in the early days of the pandemic
Good morning. This is Jonathan Spira reporting. Here now the news of the pandemic from across the globe on the 869th day of the pandemic.
In news we cover today, Novak Djokovic is barred from entering the United States for the U.S. Open, a New York City police detective wants the Supreme Court to overturn the city’s vaccine mandate, and North Korea’s investigation of recent “fever cases” in a border region with China suggests they were not due to Covid.
Here’s a look at what has taken place over the past 24 hours.
UNITED STATES
A New York City police detective asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday to block the city from firing him and other municipal employees who refused to comply with a vaccine mandate. Attorneys for the officer, Anthony Marciano, asked the court for an emergency injunction that would block the city from enforcing the mandate.
Travel is slowly returning to the New York area. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the region’s airports, said that passenger volume at the aerodromes was up 6% in July compared to the prior month. In addition, 12.2 million passengers traversed the airports’ security checkpoints, a figure that was 93% of what airports reported in 2019, before the pandemic had started.
Finally, millions of dollars in coronavirus aid went to retrain military veterans in for-profit trade schools as part of the American Rescue Plan. Many attended the Chicago-based Future Tech Career Institute, where students found disorganized schedules and courses that didn’t follow a set syllabus, the Washington Post reported Thursday. Future Tech, along with 90 other schools like it, had its tuition funding cut off as a result.
GLOBAL
North Korea said Friday that it had investigated recent “fever cases” in a province bordering China were due to influenza, not Covid.
“It was revealed that all of the fever patients in the Ryanggang Province were patients with the flu,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported on Friday. Experts reportedly conducted clinical symptoms observation, epidemiological relationship investigation, and nucleic acid tests.
In Thailand, Siam Bioscience, which is owned by the country’s king, Vajiralongkorn, reported a nearly 50-fold increase in annual profit for 2021. The increase was attributed to its partnership with Astra-Zeneca to produce that company’s coronavirus vaccine.
SPORTS AND ENTERTAINMENT
Tennis player Novak Djokovic remains barred from entering the United States because of his refusal to get vaccinated against Covid and will therefore not be able to play in the U.S. Open in September. Djokovic had his visa revoked and was famously deported from Australia after arriving to play in the Australian Open earlier in the year.
TRAVEL
Two cruise lines, Royal Caribbean and Carnival, announced they would allow non-vaccinated passengers to self-administer coronavirus tests if they are traveling on voyages of 15 days or fewer.
Finally, the United States said it would suspend 26 China-bound flights scheduled to be operated by XiamenAir, Air China, China Southern Airlines, and China Eastern Airlines from September 5 to September 28. The move is in retaliation for China’s cancellation of some American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and United Airlines flights over the number of coronavirus cases found in passengers on certain flights. The Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C. said the Department of Transportation’s action was “extremely irresponsible” and “groundlessly suspended Chinese airline flights.”
TODAY’S STATISTICS
Now here are the daily statistics for Friday, August 26.
As of Friday morning, the world has recorded 604.5 million Covid-19 cases, an increase of 0.8 million cases, and over 6.48 million deaths, according to Worldometer, a service that tracks such information. In addition, 579.3 million people worldwide have recovered from the virus, an increase of 0.6 million.
Worldwide, the number of active coronavirus cases as of Friday is 18,675,877, an increase of 7,700. Out of that figure, 99.8%, or 18,632,246, are considered mild, and 0.2%, or 43,631, are listed as critical. The percentage of cases considered critical is unchanged over the pat 24 hours.
The United States reported 111,303 new coronavirus infections on Friday for the previous day, compared to 174,362 on Thursday, 105,203 on Wednesday, 120,643 on Tuesday, and 8,552 on Monday, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The 7-day incidence rate is now 90,921. Figures for the weekend (reported the following day) are typically 30% to 60% of those posted on weekdays due to a lower number of tests being conducted.
The average daily number of new coronavirus cases in the United States over the past 14 days is 91,400, a 14% decrease, based on data from the Department of Health and Human Services, among other sources. The average daily death toll over the same period is 460, a decrease of 3% over the same period, while the average number of hospitalizations for the4period was 39,071, a 9% decrease.
In addition, since the start of the pandemic the United States has, as of Friday, recorded over 95.8 million cases, a higher figure than any other country, and a death toll of close to 1.07 million. India has the world’s second highest number of officially recorded cases, 44.4 million, and a reported death toll of 527,556.
New data from Russia’s Rosstat state statistics service showed at the end of May that the number of Covid or Covid-related deaths since the start of the pandemic there in April 2020 is now 820,307, giving the country the world’s second highest pandemic-related death toll, behind the United States. Rosstat reported that 4,991 people died from the coronavirus or related causes in June, down from 7,008 in May and from 11,583 in April.
Meanwhile, France is the country with the third highest number of cases, 34.42 million, although Brazil has recorded the third highest number of deaths as a result of the virus, 683,328, and has recorded 34.35 million cases, placing it in the number four slot.
Germany is in the number five slot with 32 million cases.
The other three countries with total case figures over the 20 million mark are the United Kingdom, with almost 23.5 million cases, in sixth position, South Korea, with 22.8 million cases, placing it in the number seven slot, and Italy, with over 21.7 million, as number eight.
VACCINATION SPOTLIGHT
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that, as of Friday, over 262.3 million people in the United States – or 79.1% – have received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine. Of that population, 67.4%, or 223.9 million people, have received two doses of vaccine, and the total number of doses that have been dispensed in the United States is now 608.9 million. Breaking this down further, 90.1% of the population over the age of 18 – or 232.7 million people – has received at least a first inoculation and 77.3% of the same group – or 199.6 million people – is fully vaccinated. In addition, 51.6% of that population, or 102.9 million people, has already received a third, or booster, dose of vaccine.
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 67.5% of the world population has received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine by Friday, according to Our World in Data, an online scientific publication that tracks such information. So far, 12.52 billion doses of the vaccine have been administered on a global basis and 4.54 million doses are now administered each day.
Meanwhile, only 20.7% 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 in the single digits, if not lower.
In addition, North Korea and Eritrea are now the only two countries in the world that have not administered vaccines.
Anna Breuer contributed reporting to this story.
(Photo: Accura Media Group)
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