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Good day. This is Jonathan Spira, director of research at the Center for Long Covid Research, reporting. Here now the news of the pandemic from across the globe on the 1,430th day of the pandemic.
In news we cover today , a real-estate developer was sentenced to two years in prison and $2.5 million in penalties for pandemic relief fraud, New York’s governor may press “delete” on the state’s SARS-CoV-2-specific sick leave, and new research suggests Long Covid could be an injury to the brain.
LONG COVID
A study coming out of England suggests that Long Covid – or at least some aspects of the multi-faceted condition – could be an injury to the brain.
The study from the Infection Neuroscience Lab at the University of Liverpool found that these symptoms may be the result of a viral-borne brain injury. The Liverpudlians found that 351 patients who had been hospitalized with severe Covid-19 had evidence of a long-term brain injury a year after contracting the SARS-CoV-2 virus. These findings were based on a series of cognitive tests, self-reported symptoms, brain scans, and biomarkers.
The study’s participants took a cognition test with their scores age-matched to those who had not suffered a serious bout of Covid-19.
Long Covid patients who participated in the study were “less accurate and slower” in their cognition when compared to the control group, and suffered from at least one mental health condition, such as depression, anxiety, or posttraumatic stress disorder, according to researchers. They were found to have brain deficits that were equivalent to 20 years of brain aging, the researchers said.
“We found global deficits across cognition,” the study’s lead author, Benedict Michael, who serves as director of the Infection Neuroscience Lab, said in a statement. “The cognitive and memory problems that patients complained of were associated with neuroanatomical changes to the brain.”
UNITED STATES
New York may end its SARS-CoV-2-specific sick leave law in its next fiscal year. Governor Kathy Hochul proposed eliminating the law in her proposed state budget.
The sick-leave law went into effect in early 2020 and requires employers to provide SARS-CoV-2-specific paid sick days to those who are under mandatory or precautionary orders of quarantine.
Hochul in her proposal, said that one reason to end the policy is because quarantine requirements have significantly changed since the law was put into place.
A Vancouver real estate developer who fraudulently obtained Economic Injury Disaster Loans and Paycheck Protection Program loans from the U.S. government will be serving nearly two years in prison for his crimes.
Michael James DeFrees pled guilty last October in U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon ito bank fraud, money laundering and two counts of wire fraud District Judge Michael Hogan also ordered the fraudster to forfeit $1.2 million and pay $1.3 million in restitution to the U.S. Small Business Administration, according to a statement released by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
When DeFrees submitted the loan applications, he was already serving a term of probation for a 2017 Washington conviction for falsifying records in a bankruptcy proceeding, something that automatically would have disqualified him from receiving any pandemic funds had he disclosed this fact.
GLOBAL
An aging Air Koryo aircraft carrying 100 Russians landed in North Korea on Friday for a private tour. The visitors became the first foreign group to visit the reclusive state following the start of the coronavirus pandemic. The Russian embassy summed up the visit on social media as “Pyongyang opens its door.”
The hermit kingdom shuttered its borders with its neighbors and virtually cut off contact with the rest of the world.
GLOBAL STATISTICS
Now here are the daily statistics for Friday, February 9.
As of Friday at press time, the world has recorded 702.89 million Covid-19 cases, an increase of 0.01 million in the last 24 hours, and 6.98 million deaths, according to Worldometer, a service that tracks such information. In addition, 673.79 million people worldwide have recovered from the virus, an increase of 0.02 million in the past 48 hours.
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 Friday at press time is 22,120,126, a decrease of 8,000 in the past 24 hours. Out of that figure, 99.8%, or 22,084,041, are considered mild, and 0.2%, or 36,085, are listed as critical. The percentage of cases considered critical has not changed over the past 17 months.
Since the start of the pandemic, the United States has, as of Friday, recorded just over 110.95 million cases, a higher figure than any other country, and a death toll of 1.2 million. India has the world’s second highest number of officially recorded cases, 45.03 million, and a reported death toll of 533,458.
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 38.81 million total cases.
Brazil, which has recorded the third highest number of deaths as a result of the virus, 709,407, has recorded 38.34 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 26.71 million, as number eight, as well as the United Kingdom, with 24.89 million, and Russia, with 23.9 million, as nine and ten respectively.
CURRENT U.S. COVID STATISTICS AT A GLANCE
In the United States, in the week ending February 2, 2024, the test positivity rate was, based on data released on February 9, 2024 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was 10%, and the trend in test positivity is -0.6% in the most recent week. Meanwhile, the percentage of emergency department visits that were diagnosed as SARS-CoV-2 was 1.8%, and the trend in emergency department visits is -10.8%.
The number of people admitted to hospital in the United States due to SARS-CoV-2 in the same 7-day period was 20,772, a figure that is down 10% over the past 7-day period. Meanwhile, the percentage of deaths due to SARS-CoV-2 was 3.1%, a figure that is down 6.1% in the same period.
VACCINATION SPOTLIGHT
Some 70.6% 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, 13.57 billion doses of the vaccine have been administered on a global basis and 4,645 doses are now administered each day.
Meanwhile, only 32.7% 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 at or below 10%.
In addition, with the beginning of vaccinations in North Korea in late September, 2023, Eritrea remains the only country in the world that has not administered vaccines in any significant number.
Anna Breuer contributed reporting to this story.
The Coronavirus Daily News Brief is a publication of the Center for Long Covid Research. www.longcov.org
If you have Long Covid and need to talk to someone, call the Long Covid Patient Peer Counseling Phone Line, or HOPELINE. The HOPELINE is our free, confidential support and information service.
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