Coronavirus Daily News Brief – April 30: RFK Jr.’s Dilbertian Statistics Moment, Chinese Scientist First to Publish Covid Sequence Locked Out of Lab

The Münchner Oktoberfest Musikanten performing in the Festzelt Tradition at Oktoberfest
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 1,511th day.
In news we cover today , presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had an accident with some facts in the company of Bill Maher, a new Covid variant is in town and it means business,  and the virologist who first published the sequence for Covid-19 has been locked out of his laboratory in China.
TODAY IN COVID HISTORY
On April 30, 2020, in a first, service on the New York City subway system, one of the only 24-hour systems in the world, will be halted each day between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. in order to disinfect every train in the system.
Early results of a U.S. trial showed that treatment with remdesivir, an experimental antiviral drug manufactured by Gilead Science, can speed recovery in Covid-19 patients.
In Munich, officials announced the cancellation of the 2020 Oktoberfest, and in Russia, officials announced that Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin had contracted Covid.
In the United States and its territories, the number of confirmed stands at 1.08 million, while the death toll stands at 62,535, roughly 5.75%, while the number of coronavirus cases across the globe stood at 3.28 million, of which 1.03 million had recovered, based on data compiled the Coronavirus Morning News Brief. The death toll stood at 231,576.
UNITED STATES
Television host Bill Maher took putative presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. out to the woodshed over his and his running mate’s continual anti-vaccine misinformation campaign. Maher has spoken out in favor of Kennedy up until now but a question he asked the candidate brought out the Dilbert in Kennedy, who famously said, “Studies have shown that accurate numbers aren’t any more useful than the ones you make up.”
“Your vice presidential pick wants to recall the Moderna vaccine, that’s the one I got,” said Maher, as the audience laughed loudly. “Do you agree with that? Recall it?” “I think those vaccines need to, we need to have again true double-blind placebo controlled trials on that,” RFK JR responded. “There is 25% of Americans who believe that they know somebody who was killed by a Covid vaccine.” “Killed?” Maher replied, somewhat incredulously. “Killed. 25% of Americans. 52% of Americans believe that the vaccines are causing injuries, including death. 52%,” the candidate stated.
Kennedy went on to say that “I think that [if] people want vaccines, they should be able to get it, I’m not anti-vaccine.” “Well people think you are,” Maher replied.
A new family of SARS-CoV-2 variants, which carry the nickname “FLiRT,” has begun to spread nationwide. FLiRT is short for their mutations, one of which includes the letters “F” and “L,” and another that includes the letters “R” and “T.”
They are distant relations of the omicron variant and they stem from JN.1, the sublineage behind the surge in cases this past winter.
One FLiRT variant in particular has made its presence known, namely KP.2, which accounted for about 25% of new sequenced cases during the two weeks ending April 27, according to data from the CDC. There are others, but they have not become widespread in the United States, yet.
It’s too soon to determine whether FLiRT variants will bring about a major surge in cases. It could be a wave, or it could be a ripple.
GLOBAL NEWS
Zhang Yongzhen, the first scientist to publish a sequence of Covid-19 in China, staged a sit-in protest outside his laboratory after authorities there locked him out of the facility.  The move is the latest in a series of setbacks and demotions he and his staff have faced since the virologist first published the sequence in January 2020 without obtaining state approval.
PANDEMIC STATISTICS
CURRENT U.S. COVID STATISTICS AT A GLANCE
In the United States, in the week ending April 20, 2024, the test positivity rate was, based on data released on April 26 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was 3.0%, and the trend in test positivity is -0.4% in the most recent week. Meanwhile, the percentage of emergency department visits that were diagnosed as SARS-CoV-2 was 0.4%, and the trend in emergency department visits is -17.9%.
The number of people admitted to hospital in the United States due to SARS-CoV-2 in the same 7-day period was 5,615, a figure that is down 14.4 % over the past 7-day period. Meanwhile, the percentage of deaths due to SARS-CoV-2 was 0.9%, a figure that is down 10% in the same period.
VACCINATION SPOTLIGHT
Some 70.6% of the world population has received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine at press time, 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 7,024 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 April 14, 2024, only Turkmenistan in Central Asia is only state that has not reported any cases of SARS-CoV-2 infections whatsoever, although it is strongly suspected that the virus is present there. Meanwhile, the last territory in the world to have its first ever SARS-CoV-2 infection was Tokelau, a dependency of New Zealand that reported its first five cases on December 21, 2022.
Where Has All the Data Gone?
We regret to inform that, as of April 15, 2024, the Global Daily Statistics data in the Coronavirus Daily News Brief are no longer being updated. Over the past 15 months, as more politicians and governments sought to place SARS-CoV-2 in the rear-view mirror, pandemic data reporting sputtered out and we are now at the point where it is simply not feasible to provide statistically valid case data on a global scale.
We are developing potential new and authoritative sources that we will present once they have been properly vetted, so stay tuned to this space. In the meantime, our Long Covid and pandemic coverage will remain much the same.
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Anna Breuer contributed reporting to this issue.
The Coronavirus Daily News Brief is a publication of the Center for Long Covid Research. www.longcov.org
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