Social distancing saved 800,000 in the United States alone in the first four years of the pandemic
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 1,545th day.
In news we cover today , Dr. Anthony Fauci defended the nation’s response to the coronavirus pandemic at a congressional hearing, new research shows that social distancing saved 800,000 lives in the United States, and a right-wing congresswoman brought up the infamous Tuskegee experiments of the 1930s in the course of questioning Fauci about his work during the pandemic. Fauci was born in 1940.
TODAY IN THE FIRST YEAR OF COVID HISTORY
On June 3, 2020, a German Shepherd in New York has a confirmed case of the novel coronavirus. The Department of Agriculture confirmed the results, which are the first time a dog has tested positive in the United States. Two dogs tested positive in Hong Kong, and a tiger, lion, and two pet cats have tested positive in the United States.
At least part of the 2020 Republican National Convention will not be in Charlotte, party officials said. At the very least, President Trump’s speech to the delegates will not be delivered there, a move that follows Governor Roy Cooper’s refusal to guarantee that the event will be able to use the Spectrum arena there.
At least 15 of the West Points cadets who returned to campus, where President Trump is to deliver a commencement address later this month, tested positive for the coronavirus, the U.S. Army said. All 15 were asymptomatic and were placed into isolation.
The International Council of Nurses said that over 600 nurses worldwide have died from the novel coronavirus since the outbreak started.
Boston Hope Medical Center in Massachusetts discharged its last Covid-19 patient. The patient was applauded and cheered as he exited the facility.
Finally, the number of coronavirus cases across the globe stood at 6.49 million, of which 3.02 million had recovered, based on data compiled by the Coronavirus Morning News Brief. The death toll stood at 383,573. In the United States and its territories, the number of confirmed cases stood at 1.88 million, an increase of 3,652, while the death toll was 108,185.
LONG COVID
RECOVER, the three-year-old National Institutes of Health program to address Long Covid, has reportedly not met its early goals.
A new report published in the online publication Stat, which covers health, medicine, and scientific discovery and is backed by the Boston Globe, said that experts who reviewed the contracts and project documents made available via the Freedom of Information Act relating to budgets and project management believe that the agency set itself up for failure because it did not include scientists who were experienced in earlier post-infectious chronic diseases on the team of researchers.
RECOVER stands for “Researching Covid to Enhance Recovery.”
UNITED STATES
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading expert on infectious disease who spent five decades in government service, testified on Monday before the House of Representative’s Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, Fauci stated that, while he has an open mind as to whether the coronavirus originated in a lab or nature, the viruses used in research funded in China by the National Institutes of Health were too distance to have evolved into SARS-CoV-2.
“I feel the more likely explanation is a spillover from an animal reservoir,” he said. But absent definitive evidence one way or another, “we have to keep an open mind.”
Fauci told the panel that a senior adviser, Dr. David Morens, had acted inappropriately, but he denied that he conducted government business using a personal e-mail account.
The hearings did have some circus-like antics, however. The far-right congresswoman and conspiracy theorist Marjorie Taylor Greene raised eyebrows on both sides of the aisle by pointedly refusing to address the former White House chief medical advisor as “doctor” and demanding that he be prosecuted for “crimes against humanity.”
Greene later loudly commented that Fauci “does not deserve to have a license,” adding that “it should be revoked and he belongs in prison.”
The committee’s chairman, and a member of the same political party as Green, then told her to address him as doctor.
Green then brought up the infamous Tuskegee experiments of the 1930s when some soldiers were deliberately infected with syphilis, although it was unclear whether she was trying to imply that Fauci had had something to do with that. Fauci was first born in 1940.
Social distancing did save lives at the start of the pandemic, but that was before we had vaccines and immunity. The improvised strategy used to fight the novel coronavirus at the dawn of the pandemic slowed transmission of the virus and prevented almost 800,000 deaths in the United States alone, according to a recent study entitled “The Impact of Vaccines and Behavior on US Cumulative Deaths from Covid-19” that was published in Brookings Papers on Economic Activity. The paper, by Andrew Atkeson of UCLA and Stephen Kissler of the University of Colorado-Boulder, is based on an epidemiological model that suggests that 1.98 million pandemic-related deaths would have occurred over the past four years rather than the 1.18 million deaths that did occur.
One thing, however, is certain: Be it six feet or one meter, there was no scientific basis for that distance, but the net effect of people avoiding mass gatherings and keeping their distance nonetheless worked to save lives.
OTHER HEALTHCARE NEWS
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Moderna’s vaccine for RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus. The new vaccine will be the company’s second product after its coronavirus vaccine. A CDC advisory panel will vote later this month on recommendations for the use and intended population of Moderna’s jab, which will join similar shots by Pfizer and GSK on the market.
The U.S. government is also close to funding a late-stage trial of Moderna’s mRNA bird flu vaccine, it is understood. Moderna did not reply to a request for comment at press time, however, to confirm the funding.
PANDEMIC STATISTICS
CURRENT U.S. COVID STATISTICS AT A GLANCE
In the United States, in the week ending May 25, 2024, the test positivity rate was, based on data released on May 31 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was 4.2%, and the trend in test positivity is +0.8% 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 +5.1%.
The number of people admitted to hospital in the United States due to SARS-CoV-2 was no longer being reported as of the end of May. Meanwhile, the percentage of deaths due to SARS-CoV-2 was 0.6%, a figure that remains unchanged over the past two weeks.
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, 13.58 billion doses of the vaccine have been administered on a global basis and 4,676 doses are now administered each day.
Meanwhile, only 32.8% 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
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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