Austrian coronavirus-themed stamp featuring Kibali the baby elephant that represented 1 m (3.3′) of social distancing, printed on toilet paper
Good afternoon. 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 its 1,468th day.
In news we cover today, four years ago today, Moderna began human trials on its mRNA coronavirus vaccine, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will further revise their airborne respiratory virus guidelines after complaints that they were, at least in some cases, not steeped in science, and, in wastewater scanning, Covid is waning but other viruses are on the rise.
THE LEDE
It’s a GDP Miracle So Let’s Not Do the Hamsterkauf
In early 2020, the global economy screeched to a halt not seen since the Great Depression. With shutdowns and social distancing and spiraling infection rates, it’s no wonder that there was talk of a possible recession or even a recession.
However, over the past 14 quarters, the U.S. gross domestic product has increased by 40%. This is not a typo, and it’s unprecedented in modern times.
Perhaps somewhat ironically, in English, GDP also stands for the official name of the former East Germany, the Deutsche Demokratische Republik or German Democratic Republic, which was neither a republic nor democratic.
Did you try to purchase a car or major appliance in 2020 or 2021?
As a consequence of the pandemic and, later, the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine which commenced in 2022, global supply chains – which are the complex logistics systems that consist of facilities that convert raw materials into finished goods and distributes them to their final consumers or customers – slowed to a crawl. This caused worldwide shortages and affected consumer buying habits (observant readers will recall my use of the German term “Hamsterkauf” or “hamster buying,” as it is akin to the manner in which the rodents stuff their cheeks with food – generally precedes blizzards and hurricanes but it typically has a finite end point.
In one extreme, a Tennessee man who amassed a collection of over 17,000 bottles of hand sanitizer and other personal hygiene supplies.
Indeed, it didn’t take much to start a round of hoarding. In June 2022, amidst rumors of plans to test approximately half of Shanghai’s population for Covid, a new wave of panic buying began.
Toilet paper became such a prominent symbol of the pandemic that, when Austria created a special stamp to commemorate the first year of the coronavirus pandemic, stamp designers brought together two key symbols of the pandemic in the Alpine republic. The stamp itself is printed on toilet paper to commemorate the panic buying.
The stamp also features a baby elephant, the country’s symbol of the social distancing campaign to remind people to keep 1 m (3.3’) apart. One meter is the estimated size of the baby elephant Kibali (who is now closer to 2 m in length) who resides at Vienna’s Schönbrunn Zoo. In order to help Austrians visualize the recommended one-meter distance, health authorities used the example that it was the length of a baby elephant.
To further help visualize the distance, the stamp also displays an ant, a fly, and mouse, 1 mm, 1 cm, and 1 dm in size respectively, explaining that 1000 mm = 100 cm, 100 cm = 10 dm, and 10 dm = 1 m.
THIS DAY IN COVID HISTORY
On March 17, 2020, Moderna Therapeutics begin the first human trials of its mRNA vaccine to protect against SARS-CoV-2. The trials took place at a research facility in Seattle, Washington.
The healthcare landscape in the United States was dramatically changed when the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid temporarily expanded telehealth benefits, enabling Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries to receive a wider range of healthcare services from their doctors without having to travel to their practices.
LONG COVID
The number of people living with Long Covid is going up, not down, according to recent data from a survey conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The startling increase comes to light as the agency has relaxed Covid isolation recommendations.
That means an estimated 17.6 million Americans could now be living with long Covid.
UNITED STATES
Last fall, the committee advising the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the guidelines pushed forward its final draft of guidelines to control the spread of infectious diseases. When a variety of groups ranging from unions, to aerosol scientists, to workplace safety experts warned that the draft left room for employers to make unsafe decisions on protecting against airborne diseases, the CDC sent the draft back to committee for further work.
One example of the problems found: The director of the CDC’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health said that the draft “cannot be misread to suggest equivalency between facemasks and NIOSH Approved respirators, which is not scientifically correct,” a major flaw in what the committee released.
This is no trivial matter and the CDC is expanding the range of experts who will inform the final guidelines. Last year, critics had complained that most members of last year’s Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee represented large hospital systems and 33% had published editorials arguing against masks in various circumstance, indicating a bias that is also not scientifically correct.
Data from WasteWaterScan, a network run by Stanford and Emory University that monitors sewage for signs of disease, shows that the incidence of SARS-CoV-2 is currently waning while RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, and influenza are on the rise.
WasteWaterScan said it is also detecting human parainfluenza viruses, or parainfluenza, common in infants and younger children, in 55% of samples nationwide and the incidence of parainfluenza type 3, which causes respiratory symptoms such as fever, runny nose, cough, sneezing, and a sore throat, are on the rise.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began to conduct voluntary health screenings of international passengers landing at Miami International Airport this past week as part of a traveler-based genomic surveillance program, which launched in September 2021.
The screenings are limited to Terminal D at the airport, home to American Airlines, the world’s largest carrier, which operates some 70% of that airports flights.
Other major airports in the country that are also enrolled in the program include John F. Kennedy International in New York, Logan International in Boston, and Los Angeles International.
An analysis conducted by the Albany Times-Union newspaper of federal Covid death statistics found that, while New York State had the most deaths in the first full year of the coronavirus pandemic in actual numbers, 11 other states experienced higher SARS-CoV-2-related deaths per capita between the start of 2020 and the beginning of 2024, and most of those states were in the South and Southwest of the country.
Not surprisingly, eight states with some of the highest Covid-19-related death rates have the highest obesity rates and age-adjusted heart disease fatalities in the nation: West Virginia, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Ohio, Kentucky, and Arkansas.
Finally, of states with the lowest coronavirus inoculation rates, six were among those states experiencing the highest per capita death tolls.
GLOBAL STATISTICS
Now here are the daily statistics for Monday, March 18.
As of Monday, at press time, the world has recorded 704.24 million Covid-19 cases, a figure that is virtually unchanged in the last 24 hours, and 7.01 million deaths, according to Worldometer, a service that tracks such information. In addition, 675.14 million people worldwide have recovered from the virus, an increase of 0.03 million in the same period.
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 Monday at press time is 22,095,183, a decrease of 24,000 in the past 24 hours. Out of that figure, 99.8%, or 22,059,890, are considered mild, and 0.2%, or 35,293, are listed as critical. The percentage of cases considered critical has not changed over the past 19 months.
Since the start of the pandemic, the United States has, as of Monday, recorded 111.68 million cases, a higher figure than any other country, and a death toll of 1.22 million. India has the world’s second highest number of officially recorded cases, 45.03 million, and the world’s fourth highest death toll, 533,523.
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 38.82 million total cases.
Brazil, which has recorded the third highest number of deaths as a result of the virus, 710,427, has recorded 38.59 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 26.72 million, as number eight, as well as the United Kingdom, with 24.9 million, and Russia, with 24.03 million, as nine and ten respectively.
CURRENT U.S. COVID STATISTICS AT A GLANCE
In the United States, in the week ending March 9, 2024, the test positivity rate was, based on data released on March 15 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was 5.2%, and the trend in test positivity is -1.5% in the most recent week. Meanwhile, the percentage of emergency department visits that were diagnosed as SARS-CoV-2 was 1%, and the trend in emergency department visits is -24%.
The number of people admitted to hospital in the United States due to SARS-CoV-2 in the same 7-day period was 13,391, a figure that is down 13.5% over the past 7-day period. Meanwhile, the percentage of deaths due to SARS-CoV-2 was 2%, a figure that is down 4.8% in the same period.
VACCINATION SPOTLIGHT
Some 70.6% 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, 13.57 billion doses of the vaccine have been administered on a global basis and 2,085 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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