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 1,479th day.
In news we cover today, the pandemic has dramatically changed many people’s spending habits, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a warning for a rare but serious form of meningitis, and four years ago today, then President Trump described a grim scene at Elmhurst Hospital in New York City.
TODAY IN COVID HISTORY
On March 29, 2020, then President Donald Trump commented on his first-hand experience seeing the horrors of the pandemic first hand for the first time close to where he grew up in the borough of Queens in New York City.
“This is in my community in Queens, New York,” he said. “I have seen things that I’ve never seen before. I mean I’ve seen them, but I’ve seen them on television and faraway lands, never in my country,” Trump said. “When I see the trucks pull up to take out bodies, and these are trucks that are as long as the Rose Garden. And they’re pulling up to take out bodies and you look inside, and you see the black body bags and you say what is in there? (It’s) Elmhurst Hospital, must be supplies. It is not supplies, it is people. I have never seen anything like it.”
The precursor to what we now refer to as at-home testing was being introduced in the United States as “self-swab testing.”
Following an approval by the Food and Drug Administration, people with suspected Covid were able to use a foam swab in their nose to collect a nasal sample that they then would put in a plastic bag and submit for testing. This was less uncomfortable for patients than the method of having a healthcare provider stick a swab all the way down in the back of the nose and it saved time because the provider did not have to change his PPE between patients.
Finally, as of that date, there were at least 137,047 cases of coronavirus in the United States, according to figures from the Coronavirus Morning News Brief from that date. In addition, 2,400 people had died in the United States from SARS-CoV-2 at that point in time..
UNITED STATES
Data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis released on Friday shows that consumer spending continues to increase while the personal savings rate fell to levels last seen during the Great Depression. Be it doom spending, YOLOing, or carpe diem syndrome, there has been a dramatic change in what people splurge on and how much they spend.
Consumers spent $145.5 billion more in February than they had in the first month of the year, the biggest increase in more than a year.
The amount spent on international travel and live entertainment rose by 30% last year, five times the overall rate of increase on spending.
An intoxicated television actor who refused to sit next to a fellow passenger because she was wearing a face mask was kicked off the flight before it departed. The actor, Forrie Jordan Smith, who in a video he posted to social media appeared so drunk that he didn’t even know which city he was attempting to depart from, said that he wasn’t drunk but had been drinking for three hours.
“I told them I didn’t feel comfortable sitting next to somebody with a mask on,” he said on the video.
OTHER HEALTHCARE NEWS
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a health advisory on Thursday concerning a rise in rare but severe forms of meningococcal infections, or meningitis. These bacterial infections can cause potentially life-threatening inflammation of the membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued ist highest-level alert earlier this month about a heart pump associated with reports of 49 deaths and dozens of serious injuries. The agency shared updated information and instructions from the device’s manufacturer to doctors on how they should use the device.
“The FDA has identified this as a Class I recall, the most serious type of recall,” the agency said in a statement. “Use of these devices may cause serious injuries or death.”
The Impella pumps are tiny devices used temporarily to help support a patient’s heart, such as during high-risk procedures or after a severe heart attack. If the pump is used incorrectly, it could cut the wall of the heart’s left ventricle, a key cardiac chamber that helps pump blood full of oxygen to the body, the FDA said.
NorthShore University HealthSystem and Swedish Covenant Hospital allowed an obstetrician-gynecologist to continue practicing medicine unsupervised for more than a year while police investigated reports that he had sexually assaulted two patients, according to a new lawsuit. In addition, during that period of time, the now former physician, Fabio Ortega, reportedly abused at least six additional patients.
GLOBAL STATISTICS
Now here are the daily statistics for Friday, March 20.
As of Friday, at press time, the world has recorded 704.54 million Covid-19 cases, an increase of 0.02 million in the last 24 hours, and 7.01 million deaths, according to Worldometer, a service that tracks such information. In addition, 675.39 million people worldwide have recovered from the virus, an increase of 0.01 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 Friday at press time is 22,135,094, a decrease of 463 in the past 24 hours. Out of that figure, 99.8%, or 22,100,120, are considered mild, and 0.2%, or 34,974, 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 Friday, recorded 111.76 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, 533,543.
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 38.83 million total cases.
Brazil, which has recorded the third highest number of deaths as a result of the virus, 710,966, has recorded 38.69 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 24.91 million, and Russia, with 24.08 million, as nine and ten respectively.
CURRENT U.S. COVID STATISTICS AT A GLANCE
In the United States, in the week ending March 16, 2024, the test positivity rate was, based on data released on March 22 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was 4.0%, 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 0.6%, and the trend in emergency department visits is -21.1%.
The number of people admitted to hospital in the United States due to SARS-CoV-2 in the same 7-day period was 9,345, a figure that is down 13.9% over the past 7-day period. Meanwhile, the percentage of deaths due to SARS-CoV-2 was 1.5%, a figure that is down 16.7% 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 11,909 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.
Finally, as of March 15, 2024 , only the following countries and territories have not reported any cases of SARS-CoV-2 infections whatsoever:
Antarctica
British Antarctic Territory
Peter Island
Overseas
Bouvet Island
Heard Island and McDonald Islands
Prince Edward Islands
South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
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
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