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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 1,432nd day of the pandemic.
In news we cover today , Hollywood’s grosses were the lowest in three decades for a Super Bowl game weekend except for the year 2021, when most theaters were shuttered; known antisemite and antivaxxer Kyrie Irving has more to say about vaccine mandates;
SPORTS AND ENTERTAINMENT
Hollywood suffered the worst Super Bowl weekend in decades outside of 2021, when many theaters were still closed.
Combined ticket sales were an estimated $40 million, the worst revenue report for Super Bowl weekends in more than three decades, according to Comscore. Revenue in 2021 was $7.7 million.
For the uninitiated, the Super Bowl is the annual league championship game of the National Football League.
Anti-vaxxer basketball player Kyrie Irving, who in 2022 was deemed “unfit” to play for the Brooklyn Nets after refusing to apologize for a tweet promoting an antisemitic movie called “Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America,” said to a fan over the weekend that he blames New York City’s vaccine mandates for his rocky tenure with the Brooklyn Nets basketball team.
Nike, which had produced Irving’s popular signature sneaker for over eight years, ended their relationship over Irving’s racist tweets as well.
The film in question alleges that the Holocaust never occurred, among other offensive claims.
GLOBAL
India’s health minister made a somewhat bizarre claim that the fact that the Covid-19 virus has mutated thus far 223 times means that its less harmful than it was.
Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said this past week that SARS-CoV-2 will continue to remain like influenza, despite the fact that it is far deadlier than the flu. He also said that the current variants are not deadly, a fact contradicted by the weekly global death toll tallied in the Brief and elsewhere on a regular basis.
“When a virus mutates more than 100 times, its harmful effects are reduced. So far, the Covid virus has mutated 223 times and like influenza, which hits people once or twice every year Covid is with us and it will remain,” headded.
GLOBAL STATISTICS
Now here are the daily statistics for Sunday, February 11.
As of Sunday at press time, the world has recorded 702.95 million Covid-19 cases, an increase of 0.06 million in the last 48 hours, and 6.98 million deaths, according to Worldometer, a service that tracks such information. In addition, 673.84 million people worldwide have recovered from the virus, an increase of 0.05 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 Sunday at press time is 22,136,247 22,120,126, an increase of 16,000 in the past 48 hours. Out of that figure, 99.8%, or 22,100,231, are considered mild, and 0.2%, or 36,016, 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 Sunday, recorded 110.96 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 533,462.
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, 709,601, has recorded 38.37 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 Sunday, 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.
Kurt Stolz contributed reporting to this story.
The Coronavirus Daily News Brief is a publication of the Center for Long Covid Research. www.longcov.org
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