Coronavirus Daily News Brief – June 14: U.S. Led Campaign to Discredit China’s Vaccine, Mysterious Infection Hits Hundreds of Hikers in the Grand Canyon

A man sweeping at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding
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 1,556th day.
In news we cover today , the United States led an antivax campaign aimed against Chinese vaccines, a mysterious infection is making hundreds of people who visit a remote part of the Grand Canyon dangerously ill, and a report from an outside consulting firm suggests that New York State’s pandemic response was limited by efforts to centralize management of the crisis in the governor’s office.
TODAY IN THE FIRST YEAR OF COVID HISTORY
On June 14, 2020, then New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in his daily televised briefing that failing to don a mask was “disrespectful to the healthcare workers and the essential workers who sacrificed themselves for 100 days – some of whom died and gave their life to crush this Covid virus.”
Cuomo also said the state has received 25,000 complaints of businesses that were in violation of the reopening plan.  Manhattan and the Hamptons were “the leading areas in the state with violations,” the governor added.
Dr. Jerome Andrews, President Trump’s surgeon general, pushed back on the idea that face masks infringe on freedoms, and he underscored that they were important to slow the spread of coronavirus and reopen the economy.
A top advisor to Trump, Larry Kudlow, said that individuals planning to go to the rally in Tulsa scheduled later for that month that was expecting over 300,000 people in a space designed for 20,000 “probably” should wear masks.
The venue where the rally was slated to be held had canceled or postponed all other events until at least the end of July due to pandemic and social-distancing concerns, according to its website.
Finally, the number of coronavirus cases across the globe stood at 7.8 million, based on data compiled by the Coronavirus Morning News Brief, while the death toll was at least 430,000.
In the United States and its territories, the number of confirmed cases stood at 2.09 million, while the death toll stood at 118,006.
UNITED STATES
An independent review of New York State’s pandemic response policy found that the emergency response structures developed through experience from events including the September 11, 2001 terror attacks  and Hurricane Sandy were largely ignored by then Governor Andrew Cuomo, who opted to centralize pandemic management in the executive chamber.
The report suggests that, had the governor allowed health officials and local government officials to control some aspects of the response, it could have limited unnecessary suffering and harm caused by several one-size-fits-all executive orders.
The report was prepared by the Olson Group, which, on its LinkedIn page, says it “is a small business with impressive capabilities.”
Cases of SARS-CoV-2 are rising across the country and, in California, the number of new infections is highest in the Bay Area. The California Department of Public Health said that the region now has the most viral wastewater than anywhere else in the state.
“Currently we are seeing some of the highest concentrations we’ve ever measured” in that area, Amanda Bidwell, a wastewater researcher and data analyst at Stanford University, told local reporters.
GLOBAL NEWS
T he U.S. military launched a secret anti-vax campaign in the early months of the pandemic in an attempt to counter what it perceived as China’s growing influence over the Philippines, a nation hit particularly hard by the deadly virus.
The campaign targeted China’s Sinovac vaccine and the campaign, which was first reported by Reuters, was reportedly payback for Beijing’s efforts to blame the United States for the pandemic. The campaign began under the leadership of former President Donald Trump and Trump staffers warned the incoming Biden administration about it, which in turn put an end to the program.
“Covid came from China and the vaccine also came from China, don’t trust China!” one typical tweet from July 2020 stated in Tagalog.
OTHER HEALTHCARE NEWS
Hundreds of hikers have reported falling violently ill while hiking to Havasupai Falls, a remote part of the Grand Canyon located on Havasupai tribal land. In some instances, visitors were too sick to hike back out of the canyon, and needed to be rescued by helicopter. One symptom of the mysterious illness is dangerously high body temperatures. Maylin Griffiths, a visitor to the area, told Fox News that her body temperature registered as 104° F (40° C) and her companion’s was 105° F (40.6° C).
Having a temperature of over 100.4° F (38° C) is your immune system’s response to an infection or another invader. The medical profession unanimously agrees that anyone with a fever of 105° F should head to the nearest emergency room as a temperature this high can cause damage to the central nervous system.
Meanwhile, environmental health officers with the regional Indian Health Service office were sent to Havasupai to investigate the source of the outbreak and to implement measures to keep it from spreading, the agency said.
PANDEMIC STATISTICS
CURRENT U.S. COVID STATISTICS AT A GLANCE
In the United States, in the week ending June 8, 2024, the test positivity rate was, based on data released on June 14 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was 5.4%, 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 0.6%, and the trend in emergency department visits is +12.6%.
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 four 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 6,959 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.
=======================================
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.
☏ 844 LONGCOV (844 566-4268) 
(Photo: Accura Media Group)