Good morning. This is Jonathan Spira reporting. Here now the news of the pandemic from across the globe on the 872nd day of the pandemic.
In news we cover today, the United States will stop sending at-home test kits to households on September 2, a Green Bay Packers quarterback said he deliberately mislead the media over his vaccination status, and fewer than 2% of infants and toddlers in New York are fully vaccinated.
Here’s a look at what has taken place over the past 24 hours.
UNITED STATES
Data from New York City’s Department of Health shows that less than 2% of infants and toddlers there are fully immunized against the coronavirus. Municipal data lists more than half a million children between the ages of 6 months and 4 years in the Big Apple and the health department reports that only 8,000 – or just under 2% – have received two doses of the vaccine. The health department said that 6% of children in this age bracket have received at least the first dose of Covid vaccine.
Public schools in Greenwich, Connecticut, have seen Covid cases follow the ebb and flow of the virus in the rest of the country. The Greenwich Public Schools district maintains a public online Covid case tracker that reports cases by school building and categorizes them by student, teacher, administrator, service provider, or non-teaching staff. The school district reported that one-third of the student body tested positive for the coronavirus at some point in the 2021-2022 school year.
Finally, the last day that U.S. citizens will be able to order free coronavirus test kits from the government will be September 1, the Biden administration announced. “Ordering through this program will be suspended on Friday, September 2 because Congress hasn’t provided additional funding to replenish the nation’s stockpile of tests,” the official government coronavirus test website says.
GLOBAL
In Tibet, more than 100 officials were dismissed or reprimanded over the past month for failing to contain the spread of the coronavirus, the South China Morning Post reported. Tibet accounted for 500 of the approximately 1,300 new cases China reported on Saturday.
Australia is planning a significant change to its mandatory Covid isolation rules. If approved by cabinet, the isolation period after testing positive will be reduced from seven to five days.
SPORTS AND ENTERTAINMENT
Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers admitted making misleading statements to the media about his vaccination status last season. Last August, Rodgers maintained that he was “immunized” against the virus. A few months later, he contracted Covid and missed multiple games and he was revealed as a fraud, reviled by many as a result. Speaking on Saturday on the “Joe Rogan Podcast,” he said he purposefully mislead the media when he was queried on the subject.
TODAY’S STATISTICS
Now here are the daily statistics for Monday, August 29.
As of Monday morning, the world has recorded 606.1 million Covid-19 cases, an increase of 0.4 million cases, and close to 6.49 million deaths, according to Worldometer, a service that tracks such information. In addition, 581.6 million people worldwide have recovered from the virus, an increase of 0.7 million.
Worldwide, the number of active coronavirus cases as of Monday is 17,996,219, a decrease of 352,000. Out of that figure, 99.8%, or 17,952,888, are considered mild, and 0.2%, or 43,331, are listed as critical. The percentage of cases considered critical is unchanged over the pat 24 hours.
The United States reported 8,539 new coronavirus infections on Monday for the previous day, compared to 8,821 on Sunday, 100,346 on Saturday, 111,303 on Friday, and 174,362 on Thursday, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The 7-day incidence rate is now 89,888. 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 88,391, 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 478, a decrease of 2% over the same period, while the average number of hospitalizations for the4period was 38,252, a 10% decrease.
In addition, since the start of the pandemic the United States has, as of Monday, recorded 96 million cases, a higher figure than any other country, and a death toll of 1.07 million. India has the world’s second highest number of officially recorded cases, over 44.4 million, and a reported death toll of 527,799.
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, 34.48 million, although Brazil has recorded the third highest number of deaths as a result of the virus, 683,548, and has recorded 34.38 million cases, placing it in the number four slot.
Germany is in the number five slot with over 32 million cases.
The other three countries with total case figures over the 20 million mark are the United Kingdom, with 23.5 million cases, in sixth position, South Korea, with 23 million cases, placing it in the number seven slot, and Italy, with over 21.8 million, as number eight.
Meanwhile, Russia, with 19.4 million recorded cases, will likely cross the 20 million mark within under two weeks.
VACCINATION SPOTLIGHT
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that, as of Monday, 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 67.6% 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, 12.56 billion doses of the vaccine have been administered on a global basis and 5 million doses are now administered each day.
Meanwhile, only 20.9% 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 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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