And this little piggy went not to market but to the transplant center…
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 1,488th day
In news we cover today, a Las Vegas man on parole stole over $160,000 in pandemic relief funds and is going to jail, Pfizer breached the UK’s regulatory code on social media posts, and the first transplant recipient of a pig kidney left the hospital and is doing well.
TODAY IN COVID HISTORY
On April 7, 2020, then President Donald Trump contended that he knew “for a fact” that the United States didn’tactually have the highest number of Covid cases in the world. He said the country’s figure was the highest simplybecause it conducted more testing more than any other country.
White House pandemic coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx, in clarifying the comment, pointedly pointed out that, per capita, countries such as Italy and South Korea had done significantly more testing than had the United States and that the figures accurately represented the reality of the death toll in the country compared to other countries.
Meanwhile, officials in New York City said everyone who dies of Covid in the Big Apple will be counted in the death toll.
“Every person with a lab confirmed Covid-19 diagnosis is counted in the number of fatalities, whether they passed away at home or in a hospital,” said the deputy press secretary for the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Stephanie Buhle, to reporters at the time.
Finally, the United States saw a new record number of daily deaths, as the figure hit 1,736. This brought the total to at least 12,772 deaths from Covid, at a time where there were over 387,547 confirmed cases of the virus reported cases in the country.
UNITED STATES
A man who created a fictitious company and then applied for and received $163,100 in federal pandemic relief funds while on parole in Oregon was sentenced to more than two years in federal prison.
The man, Justin David Goulet of Las Vegas, spent most of the money on travel, living expenses, cars, and illegal drugs. In addition to being sentenced to serve 27 months in prison and three years’ supervised release, he was also ordered to pay back all the money he stole to the U.S. Small Business Administration.
GLOBAL NEWS
Pfizer was accused by the United Kingdom’s pharmaceutical watchdog, the Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority, of “bringing discredit” on the industry after senior executives used social media to promote an “unlicensed” Covid vaccine.
One post, which was made by Dr. Berkeley Phillips, the medical director of Pfizer UK, was a share of a post from an employee of Pfizer in the United States which said: “Our vaccine candidate is 95 per cent effective in preventing Covid-19, and 94 per cent effective in people over 65 years old…”
The posts were made in November 2020.
OTHER HEALTHCARE NEWS
The recipient of the world’s first pig kidney transplant was discharged from Massachusetts General Hospital last Wednesday, nearly two weeks after the surgery.
A Hong Kong man’s encounter with monkeys led to him contract a potentially deadly submicroscopic infectious agent. Last week, local health officials reported a case of B virus in a 37-year-old man. The report was the first ever in the region.
B virus, formerly known as Macacine herpesvirus, is very rare in humans but the virus can be life-threatening. The virus as first identified in 1932 following the death of William Brebner, a young physician who was bitten by a rhesus monkey while conducting research on polio. Meanwhile, the patient is currently in an intensive care unit.
Finally, a Canadian man found a rat in his toilet and, despite being successfully treated for the wound at his local emergency room, he later contracted sepsis and nearly succumbed to the condition.
Sepsis is a life-threatening condition that arises when the body’s response to infection, which is to suppress the immune system, causes injury to its own tissues and organs.
The man was released from hospital after three days and completed a course of oral antibiotics at home with no further distress.
GLOBAL STATISTICS
Now here are the daily statistics for Sunday, April 7.
As of Sunday, at press time, the world has recorded 704.63 million Covid-19 cases, an increase of 0.01 million in the last 24 hours, and 7.01 million deaths, according to Worldometer, a service that tracks such information. In addition, 675.49 million people worldwide have recovered from the virus, an increase of 0.04 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 Sunday at press time is 22,135,496, a decrease of 25,000 in the past 24 hours. Out of that figure, 99.8%, or 22,100,624, are considered mild, and 0.2%, or 34,872, 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 Sunday, recorded 111.79 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, 533,547.
The last data made available by Russia’s Rosstat state statistics service in July 2022 showed that the number of Covid or Covid-related deaths since the start of the pandemic in the country was 823,623, giving the country the world’s second highest pandemic-related death toll, behind the United States. Rosstat has not released any additional data on the death toll in Russia since then.
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, 711,249, has recorded 38.73 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 24.1 million, as nine and ten respectively.
CURRENT U.S. COVID STATISTICS AT A GLANCE
In the United States, in the week ending March 23, 2024, the test positivity rate was, based on data released on April 1 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 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 9,617 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 31, 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
Paul Riegler 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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