Everest and Sapphire after finding out news of the U.K.’s plan
Good morning. This is Jonathan Spira reporting. Here now the news of the pandemic from across the globe on the 1,056th day of the pandemic.
The Biden Administration said it was going after scammers who stole billions on coronavirus pandemic relief funds. The president pledged $1.6 billion that will be used to bolster law enforcement investigations, prevent fraud, and help victims of identity theft.
“You cannot hide,” said Gene Sperling, a senior adviser to the president, who is overseeing the implementation of the coronavirus relief plan.
According to figures from the Government Accounting Office, at least 1,044 people pleaded guilty or were convicted of defrauding coronavirus relief programs in the period from March 2020 to January 2023. Federal charges are pending against another 609 individuals or entities for attempting to defraud coronavirus-relief programs.
On a slightly different note, the Guardian reported that a nationwide cat cull was considered in the United Kingdom early in the pandemic, James Bethell, a former minister said. It was unclear whether domestic cats could transmit coronavirus, he told Channel 4 News.
“What we shouldn’t forget is how little we understood about this disease,” Bethell said. “There was a moment we were very unclear about whether domestic pets could transmit the disease.”
“In fact, there was an idea at one moment that we might have to ask the public to exterminate all the cats in Britain. Can you imagine what would have happened if we had wanted to do that?”
In other news we cover today, police officials in New York are telling shops to ask customers to unmask before entering, a former Italian prime minister is under investigation for his handling of the pandemic’s earliest days, and a U.S. intelligence report concludes that Havana Syndrome is not being caused by foreign adversaries.
UNITED STATES
Officials in New York City are considering dismantling one of the most positive legacies of the early days of the pandemic. The Big Apple’s outdoor dining shacks, which allowed restaurants to continue to serve diners when indoor dining was prohibited, serving as a lifeline for those businesses, may be placed under new constraints. The city is strongly considering an approach similar to the program in Paris, where restaurants, cafés, and bars are permitted to occupy parking spots between April and October and use sidewalk space throughout the rest of the year where permitted.
Meanwhile, in an ironic reversal of masking policy, the New York Police Department wants stores to require shoppers to remove masks before entering stores. The NYPD said that a masked thief recently stole $1.1 million in jewelry from a small business and cannot be identified because he was donning a face mask at the time.
“We’re asking the businesses to make this a condition of entry: That people, when they come in, they should show their face, they should identify themselves,” said NYPD Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey “If they feel like they want to put their mask on after they identify themselves for their safety, by all means, they should do so.”
GLOBAL
In Italy, prosecutors placed former prime minister Giuseppe Conte under investigation for allegedly mishandling the coronavirus pandemic outbreak in early 2020, Reuters reported that three sources with direct knowledge of the matter said on Thursday.
OTHER HEALTHCARE NEWS
The so-called Havana Syndrome is unlikely to have been caused by foreign adversaries or weapons, a new U.S. intelligence report said. U.S. intelligence agencies also found “no credible evidence” that any foreign adversary possesses a weapon or intelligence collection device that could cause such injuries. Instead, the report concludes that the symptoms – which include dizziness, headache, fatigue, nausea, anxiety, cognitive difficulties, and memory loss of varying severity – were likely caused by a combination of factors including pre-existing medical conditions, conventional illnesses, and environmental factors.
Meanwhile, nurses at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center and UCSF Medical Center at Parnassus held a rally to call attention to overcrowding and staffing shortages. The nurses said that patients are doubled up in rooms or remain in gurneys in hallways for extremely long periods of time.
Finally, U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisers recommended the approval of two RSV vaccines. If approved, the vaccines from GSK and Pfizer would be the first vaccines for RSV available in the country.
TODAY’S STATISTICS
Now here are the daily statistics for Thursday, March 2.
As of Thursday morning, the world has recorded 680.3 million Covid-19 cases, an increase of 0.2 million cases, and 6.8 million deaths, according to Worldometer, a service that tracks such information. In addition, 653.1 million people worldwide have recovered from the virus, an increase of 0.2 million.
The reader should note that infrequent reporting from some sources may appear as spikes in new case figures or death tolls.
Worldwide, the number of active coronavirus cases as of Thursday at press time is 20,391,729, an increase of 45,000. Out of that figure, 99.8%, or 20,351,287, are considered mild, and 0.2%, or 40,442, are listed as critical. The percentage of cases considered critical has not changed over the past three months.
The United States reported 89,261, new coronavirus infections on Thursday for the previous day, compared to 25,343 on Wednesday, 17,547 on Tuesday, 2,318 on Monday, and 1,527 on Sunday, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The 7-day incidence rate is now 30,750. Figures for the weekend (reported the following day) are typically 30% to 60% of those posted on weekdays due to a lower number of tests being conducted.
The average daily number of new coronavirus cases in the United States over the past 14 days is 32,430, a figure down 14% over the past 14 days, based on data from the Department of Health and Human Services, among other sources. The average daily death toll over the same period is 510, an increase of 20% over the same period, while the average number of hospitalizations for the period was 26,758, a decrease of 8%. In addition, the number of patients in ICUs was 3,464, a decrease of 8% and the test positivity rate is now 9.1%, a figure that is down by 7% over the same period.
In addition, since the start of the pandemic the United States has, as of Thursday, recorded 105.3 million cases, a higher figure than any other country, and a death toll of 1.15 million. India has the world’s second highest number of officially recorded cases, 44.7 million, and a reported death toll of 530,772.
The newest data from Russia’s Rosstat state statistics service showed that, at the end of July, the number of Covid or Covid-related deaths since the start of the pandemic there in April 2020 is now 823,623, giving the country the world’s second highest pandemic-related death toll, behind the United States. Rosstat last reported that 3,284 people died from the coronavirus or related causes in July 2022, down from 5,023 in June, 7,008 in May and 11,583 in April.
Meanwhile, France is the country with the third highest number of cases, with 39.6 million, and Germany is in the number four slot, with 38.2 million total cases.
Brazil, which has recorded the third highest number of deaths as a result of the virus, 699,197, has recorded 37.1 million cases, placing it in the number five slot.
The other five countries with total case figures over the 20 million mark are Japan, with 33.2 million cases, South Korea, with 30.5 million cases, placing it in the number seven slot, and Italy, with 25.6 million, as number eight, as well as the United Kingdom, with over 24.3 million, and Russia, with 22.3 million.
VACCINATION SPOTLIGHT
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that, as of the past Thursday, 269.5 million people in the United States – or 81.2% – have received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine. Of that population, 69.3%, or just under 230 million people, have received two doses of vaccine, and the total number of doses that have been dispensed in the United States is now 671.6 million. Breaking this down further, 92.1% of the population over the age of 18 – or 237.8 million people – has received at least a first inoculation and 79% of the same group – or 203.9 million people – is fully vaccinated. In addition, 19.5% of the same population, or 50.3 million people, has already received an updated or bivalent booster dose of vaccine.
Starting on June 13, 2022, the CDC began to update vaccine data on a weekly basis and publish the updated information on Thursdays by 8 p.m. EDT, a statement on the agency’s website said.
Some 69.7% of the world population has received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine by Thursday, according to Our World in Data, an online scientific publication that tracks such information. So far, 13.31 billion doses of the vaccine have been administered on a global basis and 687,506 doses are now administered each day.
Meanwhile, only 27.9% 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 start of vaccinations in North Korea in late September, Eritrea remains the only country in the world that has not administered vaccines.
Anna Breuer contributed reporting to this story.
(Photo: Accura Media Group)
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