Coronavirus Daily News Brief – June 18: Length of the School Shutdown ‘Not a Good Idea,’ Trump Said ‘Expletive Deleted’ Repeatedly On Call With Fauci

The White House in Washington, D.C.
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 1,560th day.
In news we cover today , Dr. Anthony Fauci reveals former President Trump’s predilection for lacing their conversations with [Expletive Deleted] in a forthcoming biography, and the good doctor also said that it was necessary for schools to close at the start of the pandemic but that they were kept shuttered far too long. In addition, new Covid cases and hospitalizations are rising in Los Angeles County.
TODAY IN THE FIRST YEAR OF COVID HISTORY
On June 18, 2020, American Airlines became the first U.S. airline to remove a passenger for refusing to wear a face mask. The passenger, identified by the airline as Brandon Straka, a hair stylist and reportedly failed actor from New York City, was asked to get off a flight from New York to Dallas.
One day earlier, a WestJet flight from Vancouver to Toronto was forced to divert when an “unruly” passenger both refused to wear a mask during the flight and also smoked a cigarette. That rogue passenger was Balvir Singh, of Surrey, British Columbia,
Austrian low-cost carrier Level Europe filed for insolvency and shut down operations without any advance warning, although it had not flown since being grounded amidst the coronavirus pandemic in March. Level Europe, which was owned by Vueling and, by extension, British Airways’ parent International Airlines Group, had operated short-haul flights within Europe from its bases at Vienna International Airport and Amsterdam Airport Schiphol.
The Canadian government announced temperature screening would be implemented for all passengers traveling to Canada or arriving in Canada from other countries.  For international flights to Canada, airlines must conduct such screenings prior to departure
the New York Philharmonic announced it would cancel its fall season. The move came a week after the Metropolitan Opera made a similar announcement.
In California, Governor Gavin Newsom made it mandatory for Californians to don face masks in most indoor settings as well as outdoors when social distancing wouldn’t have been feasible.
Finally, the number of new coronavirus cases across the globe rose by 259,848, the largest single daily increase since the start of the pandemic, leaving the total number of cases at 8.4 million, based on data compiled by the Coronavirus Morning News Brief. The death toll was just over 450,000.
UNITED STATES
In an interview on CBS Tuesday morning, Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of the nation’s foremost authorities on infectious disease, said that, while the initial school closures were a good idea, the duration for which schools were kept shuttered in some instances was a mistake.
“Shutting down everything immediately –  and we didn’t shut it down completely – but essentially major social distancing and even schools was the right thing,” Fauci said. “How long you kept it was the problem, because there was a disparity throughout the country. If you go back and look at the YouTube, I kept on saying, ‘Close the bars, open the schools. Open the schools as quickly and as safely as you possibly can.’ But initially to close it down was correct. Keeping it for a year was not a good idea.”
Fauci, who has an autobiography coming out soon, wrote that then President Donald Trump said [Expletive Deleted] multiple times to him in a phone call in the course of a phone call just three months into the pandemic.
In the chapter in his book about the former president and convicted felon, entitled “He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not,” Fauci wrote that [T]he president was irate, saying that I could not keep doing this to him.”
“He said he loved me, but the country was in trouble, and I was making it worse,” he continued. “He added that the stock market went up only 600 points in response to the positive Phase 1 vaccine news, and it should have gone up 1,000 points, and so I cost the country ‘one trillion dollars,’” he continued.
[Editor’s Note: The term “expletive deleted” refers to profanity deleted by an author, editor, or censor, and appears in place of the profanity. The term has been around since the 1930s, but gained popularity during Watergate in the 1970s.
Then President Richard Nixon, who had been compelled by a subpoena to provide the contents of the White House taping system to the House Judiciary Committee in April 1974, was shocked by the profanity-laced discussions amongst the White House’s inner circle.  He then that every use of profanity be replaced by “[EXPLETIVE DELETED].”]
The slow but steady uptick in new cases and hospitalizations continues in Los Angeles County. For the seven-day period that ended Sunday, there was an average of 121 new cases per day, up from 106 a day the prior week, according to data provided by the county’s health department.
In addition, there was an average of 126 Covid patients in hospital each day for the week that ended June 8, up from 102 the week before.
OTHER HEALTHCARE NEWS
The surgeon general of the United States called for placing cigarette-style warnings on social media platforms to alert users that the platforms can harm young people’s mental health.
Writing in a New York Times opinion piece, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy urged Congress to enact legislation that would require that social media platforms include a surgeon general’s warning to “regularly remind parents and adolescents that social media has not been proved safe.”
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 3,533 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)