The Western Wall, or Kotel, the only remains of the Second Temple of Jerusalem
Good morning. This is Jonathan Spira reporting. Here now the news of the pandemic from across the globe on the 888th day of the pandemic.
If you test positive for Covid, you might want to consider flushing your nose twice a day with a saline solution. A study conducted by the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta found that doing so would drastically reduce the possibility of hospitalization or death.
If you don’t have a neti pot at home, you can improvise by mixing a half teaspoon of salt and a half teaspoon of baking soda into a cup of boiled (and cooled), and then pour it into a sinus rinse bottle. A squeeze bottle or bulb syringe works, too.
Commercially packaged saline rinse works equally well if a sufficient quantity is used. I’ve always kept packages of Ayr Saline Nasal Mist, available at pharmacies and from online vendors such as Amazon, at home as it helps with my chronic sinusitis.
Providing the sinuses with extra hydration helps them function better, said Dr. Amy Baxter, the study’s author who is also emergency medicine physician at the medical school.
“If you have a contaminant, the more you flush it out, the better you are able to get rid of dirt, viruses and anything else,” she said in a statement announcing the study’s findings.
In other news we cover today, the new variant BA.6 is spreading quickly and Israel may be facing a new wave of cases.
Here’s a look at what has taken place over the past 24 hours.
UNITED STATES
A new subvariant of the novel coronavirus is spreading both in the United States and in the United Kingdom. BA.6, a subvariant of the omicron variant, currently accounts for more than 9% of all cases in the country, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. In the United Kingdom, it has grown from 3% of cases in mid-August to 9% currently.
BA.6 is a direct descent of the BA.4 variant that was first detected in South Africa in January 2022. Some scientists believe it could be a recombinant variant.
Although it is similar to BA.4 in some respects, it carries a mutation to the spike protein, R346T, that has been present in other variants and is associated with immune evasion. This means that the mutation helps the virus escape antibodies that a person acquired from vaccination and prior infection.
Meanwhile, in New York State, Governor Kathy Hochul, who declined to renew her pandemic state of emergency order based on significant lower case figures, said she would issue a new order if cases began to rise again.
GLOBAL
Israel’s coronavirus czar Salmon Zarka said that the country could be facing a new wave of Covid cases, noting that the basic reproductive ratio of the virus, known as R0 (pronounced R naught), is now over 1, which means that the virus is circulating. The current figure is 1.12.
LONG COVID
The World Health Organization released a study Tuesday that reported that at least 17 million people contracted Long Covid in the first two years of the pandemic. Women were twice as likely as men to become afflicted with the condition and between 10% to 20% of those who had Covid continued to have lingering effects of the virus three months after testing positive.
ENTERTAINMENT
Actor Bill Hader, the star of the dark HBO series “Barry,” is being applauded not for his acting abilities but for having been the only actor or actress to don a face mask during the entirety of the 74th Emmy Awards presentation. Hader won the Emmy for best lead actor in a comedy Sunday night.
TODAY’S STATISTICS
Now here are the daily statistics for Wednesday, September 14.
As of Wednesday morning, the world has recorded 615 million Covid-19 cases, an increase of 0.5 million cases, and over 6.5 million deaths, according to Worldometer, a service that tracks such information. In addition, 594.1 million people worldwide have recovered from the virus, an increase of 0.6 million.
Worldwide, the number of active coronavirus cases as of Wednesday is 14,379,639, a decrease of 115,000. Out of that figure, 99.7%, or 14,338,376, are considered mild, and 0.3%, or 41,263, are listed as critical. The percentage of cases considered critical has not changed over the past 24 hours.
The United States reported 61,511 new coronavirus infections on Wednesday for the previous day, compared to 87,002 on Tuesday, 11,464 on Monday, 3,227 on Sunday, and 73,885 on Saturday, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The 7-day incidence rate is now 67,168. 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 64,598, a 29% 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 437, a decrease of 8% over the same period, while the average number of hospitalizations for the period was 34,078, a 10% decrease.
In addition, since the start of the pandemic the United States has, as of Wednesday, recorded almost 97.2 million cases, a higher figure than any other country, and a death toll of 1.08 million. India has the world’s second highest number of officially recorded cases, 44.5 million, and a reported death toll of 528,216.
The newest data from Russia’s Rosstat state statistics service showed that, at the end of July, 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 reported that 3,284 people died from the coronavirus or related causes in July, 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, over 34.76 million, although Brazil has recorded the third highest number of deaths as a result of the virus, 684,951, and has recorded 34.58 million cases, placing it in the number four slot.
Germany is in the number five slot with over 32.5 million cases.
The other four countries with total case figures over the 20 million mark are South Korea, with 24.2 million cases, the United Kingdom, with over 23.5 million cases, placing it in the number seven slot, and Italy, with almost 22.1 million, as number eight, as well as Japan, with 20.3 million, and Russia, with 20.2 million.
VACCINATION SPOTLIGHT
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that, as of the past Thursday, over 263.1 million people in the United States – or 79.2% – have received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine. Of that population, 67.6%, or 224.4 million people, have received two doses of vaccine, and the total number of doses that have been dispensed in the United States is now 610 million. Breaking this down further, 90.2% of the population over the age of 18 – or 232.9 million people – has received at least a first inoculation and 77.4% of the same group – or 199.7 million people – is fully vaccinated. In addition, 51.7% of that population, or 103.2 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 67.9% of the world population has received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine by Wednesday, according to Our World in Data, an online scientific publication that tracks such information. So far, 12.66 billion doses of the vaccine have been administered on a global basis and 3.64 million doses are now administered each day.
Meanwhile, only 21.3% 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)
All Rights Reserved Travel