Delta aircraft at New York’s JFK airport
Good morning. This is Jonathan Spira reporting. Here now the news of the pandemic from across the globe on the 1,100th day of the pandemic.
Just because someone is a tech innovator doesn’t mean he isn’t also a creep or worse.
Steve Kirsch, an American entrepreneur, is one of two people who independently invented the optical mouse in 1980 and created the search engine Infoseek, which was launched in 1994. More recently he has been a promoter of misinformation about coronavirus vaccines as well as a philanthropic supporter of medical research.
In 2020, the first full year of the pandemic, Kirsch created a research fund for potential treatments for SARS-CoV-2, pouring $1 million into the Covid-19 Early Treatment Fund, according to a report by the MIT Technology Review.
Then things went south. As the article’s headline put it, “[T]his tech millionaire went from Covid trial funder to misinformation superspreader.”
Now we can add the word “creep” to his CV.
Last week, on a Delta Air Lines flight, Kirsch offered a nearby female passenger $100,000 to remove her face mask for the duration of the flight.
“I am on board a Delta flight right now,” he said in a post on social media. “The person sitting next to me in first-class refused $100,000 to remove her mask for the entire flight. No joke. This was after I explained they don’t work. She works for a pharma company.”
Apparently she did not buy into his explanation of how masks don’t work the same way people voiced skepticism about an article that recently appeared in the Cochrane Review that led many to conclude that masks don’t work to prevent SARS-CoV-2. In early March, the publication’s editor apologized for the article, calling the conclusion that masks don’t work “inaccurate.”
Kirsch continued to harass the passenger, who remained anonymous, throughout the flight.
“I started the bidding at $100,” Kirsch said on Twitter. “And I pointed out that when she removed the mask for eating and drinking, she could be infected with one breath. So she had full disclosure.”
“She took off her mask as soon as the breakfast was served!!!! Because everyone knows you can’t get infected while you are eating!! ,” he sarcastically added, before concluding his rant: “Maybe next time I’ll sit next to someone who had an account at Silicon Valley Bank.”
Numerous people on Twitter called Kirsch a “creep” and a “noxious arrogant fool.”
“Harassed a woman minding her own business in a confined space where she couldn’t get away from you… Lovely,” another poster wrote.
In other news we cover today, the U.S. maternal mortality rate hit its highest level in almost 60 years, an existing MS drug may serve as an antiviral for Covid, and Paxlovid does not appear to cause Covid rebound.
UNITED STATES
The Food and Drug Administration released a report that shows that there is no clear association between use of the antiviral Paxlovid and Covid rebound. Rebound rates, the study said, were approximately the same in people who took the drug and in those who did not.
“Virologic and/or symptomatic rebound may occur as part of the natural progression and resolution of COVID-19 disease, irrespective of Paxlovid treatment,” the FDA wrote. Approximately 10 to 16% of people with SARS-CoV-2 had rebound symptoms, according to the FDA’s analysis.
Meanwhile, the U.S. maternal mortality rate hit its highest level in almost 60 years in 2021. The number of women who died during pregnancy or shortly thereafter in the calendar year 2021 rose 40% to 1,205, compared with 861 in 2020 and 754 in 2019, the National Center for Health Statistics said Thursday.
Finally, a new T cell antibody treatment is said to improves outcomes in patients with SARS-CoV-2. T cells are one of the important types of white blood cells of the immune system and play a central role in the adaptive immune response.
A new study published in the journal PNAS, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States, suggests that the drug Foralumab, designed to treat multiple sclerosis and other neurodegenerative diseases, may prevent infection in those recently exposed to the virus and might also help patients with the virus stave off the worst effects of Covid-19.
GLOBAL
The World Health Organization’s plan to create a network of mRNA “vaccine hubs” in third-world countries for the purpose of sharing technology and eventually manufacturing mRNA vaccines of their own will require funding from the United States, the agency said. The World Bank’s pandemic fund has so far raised some $1.6 billion, with $300 million available for a first round of financing for pandemic preparedness efforts.
TODAY’S STATISTICS
Now here are the daily statistics for Thursday, March 16.
As of Thursday morning, the world has recorded 682.1 million Covid-19 cases, an increase of 0.3 million from the previous day, and just under 6.82 million deaths, according to Worldometer, a service that tracks such information. In addition, 655 million people worldwide have recovered from the virus, an increase of 0.1 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 20,240,530, an increase of 136,000. Out of that figure, 99.8%, or 20,200,243, are considered mild, and 0.2%, or 40,287, are listed as critical. The percentage of cases considered critical has not changed over the past three months.
The United States reported 20,174 new coronavirus infections on Wednesday for the previous day, compared to 13,115 reported on Tuesday, 1,005 reported on Monday, 1,489 reported on Sunday, 10,161 reported on Saturday, and 55,447 reported on Friday, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The 7-day incidence rate is now 28,313. 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 27,442, a figure down 18% over the past 15 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 414, a decrease of 19% over the same period, while the average number of hospitalizations for the period was 23,112, a decrease of 14%. In addition, the number of patients in ICUs was 3,084, a decrease of 12% and the test positivity rate is now 7.3%, a figure that is down by 13% over the same period.
In addition, since the start of the pandemic the United States has, as of Thursday, recorded 105.7 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 530,790.
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 39.7 million, and Germany is in the number four slot, with 38.3 million total cases.
Brazil, which has recorded the third highest number of deaths as a result of the virus, 699,634, 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 over 33.3 million cases, South Korea, with just under 30.7 million cases, placing it in the number seven slot, and Italy, with just over 25.6 million, as number eight, as well as the United Kingdom, with 24.4 million, and Russia, with just under 22.5 million.
VACCINATION SPOTLIGHT
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that, as of the past Thursday, 269.6 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 230.1 million people, have received two doses of vaccine, and the total number of doses that have been dispensed in the United States is now 672.1 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 just under 204 million people – is fully vaccinated. In addition, 19.6% of the same population, or 50.5 million people, has already received an updated or bivalent booster dose of vaccine, while 22.7 million people over the age of 65, or 41.4% of that population have also received the bivalent booster.
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, 13.33 billion doses of the vaccine have been administered on a global basis and 389,899 doses are now administered each day.
Meanwhile, only 28.3% 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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