Coronavirus Daily News Brief – June 9: Trump Won’t Give ‘One Penny’ to Schools With Vaccine Mandates If Elected, Los Angeles Issues Advisor Over Rising Cases

Theatre of Dionysus, on the south slope of the Acropolis hill
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 1,551st day.
In news we cover today , Donald Trump is warning schools that he will not give them one cent if elected if they have any vaccine mandates, BBC presenter Dr. Michael Mosley died in an accident in Greece, and Los Angeles issued an advisory as case figures continue to climb.
THE LEDE
Did It Matter That ‘There Was No Science Behind’ the Six-Foot Social Distancing Rule?
The latest rallying call in the war on science was the testimony by Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading expert on infectious disease who spent five decades in government service, that “there was no science behind” the six-foot social-distancing rule in the United States and that he wasn’t sure of the rule’s origin, saying that “[I]t sort of just appeared,” has been greatly taken out of context.
The most egregious example of this were the verbal attacks aimed at Fauci by Congressman Marjorie Taylor Greene.  Her attacks, it turns out, were not, in fact, based on science.
The young lady’s (as the chairman of the committee kept referring to Greene) notion that social distancing was not based on any science is simply not accurate. Indeed, science tells us that the risk of contracting SARS-CoV-2 from an infected person drops the farther one is from that person. This is because the concentration of the virus gets diluted by the surrounding air. With larger droplets from coughs or sneezes which fall to the ground fairly quickly, 6’ of social distancing viewed by experts as a reasonable benchmark that would allow people to avoid exposure.
Moreover, a study just realized days before Fauci’s testimony showed that social distancing did save lives, in particular before there were vaccines and people with some degree of 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.
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TODAY IN THE FIRST YEAR OF COVID HISTORY
On June 9, 2020, the nation’s top expert on infectious diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, speaking at a virtual biotech conference, described Covid-19 as his “worst nightmare.”
“In a period of four months, it has devastated the whole world,” he said, adding that “it isn’t over yet.”
Although health officials in Moscow continued to report over 1,000 new coronavirus cases each day, the Russian government began to loosen lockdown restrictions there.  Barbershops, beauty parlors, veterinary clinics, and photographers’ studios were allowed to reopen their doors to customers.
Amidst much protest and confusion, the United Kingdom’s 14-day self-quarantine rule went into effect for all arriving air passengers.
With the number of new cases significantly rising in Israel, the government said it would “put the brakes” on further loosening of restrictions for the time being.
The Austrian government said it would give Austrian Airlines, a unit of the Lufthansa Group, a €450 million ($510 billion) bailout in order to protect Vienna Airport as a transit hub and safeguard “the bulk” of the carrier’s 7,000 jobs.
Finally, the number of cases of the novel coronavirus on a global basis stood at  7.1 million, according to figures compiled by the Coronavirus Morning News Brief, while the death toll stood at at least 408,000 deaths.
UNITED STATES
On the campaign trail, Donald Trump, the leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination, is telling those attending his stump speeches that he won’t give “one penny” to schools or school districts with vaccine mandates.
Trump frequently lambasts independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as “fake” anti-vaxxer while obscuring his own critical role in the development of the first generation of coronavirus vaccines thanks to his successful Operation Warp Speed program.
The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health strongly suggested that people use common-sense preventative measures amidst a rise in Covid cases.
“While Covid-19 transmission patterns continue to evolve, Public Health encourages residents to take simple precautions to reduce transmission,” according to a statement shared with the Daily News Brief. “Summer plans can easily be disrupted by COVID-19 illness and increased transmission continues to pose more risk for the elderly.”
OTHER HEALTHCARE ISSUES
British TV presenter Dr. Michael Hugh Mosley was found dead in a rocky area on Symi. His body was located days after he disappeared during a walk on the Greek island, local officials said in a statement. Foul play is not suspected in the incident.
Mosley was born in Calcutta in 1957 and attended a boarding school in England from the age of seven. He studied philosophy, politics, and economics at New College, Oxford before working as a banker in the City of London.
Mosley and his wife, Dr Clare Bailey, co-authored numerous books on health and offered everything from health tips to healthy cooking demonstrations. He studied medicine at the Royal Free Hospital Medical School and planned to practice psychiatry but, upon passing his final examinations in 1985 became disillusioned with the field and decided not to practice medicine.
He joined the BBC in 1985 as an assistant production trainee and eventually became a presenter, focusing on science and medicine.
PANDEMIC STATISTICS
CURRENT U.S. COVID STATISTICS AT A GLANCE
In the United States, in the week ending June 1, 2024, the test positivity rate was, based on data released on June 7 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was 4.45%, 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 0.5%, and the trend in emergency department visits is +16.2%.
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 three 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 8,407 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
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