A family enjoying an outing at Iron Horse Vineyards in Napa Valley
Good morning. This is Jonathan Spira reporting. Here now the news of the pandemic from across the globe on the 1,117th day of the pandemic and World Autism Day.
A team of researchers at the Wellcome Sanger Institute in Cambridgeshire is developing what could be a groundbreaking technology that would be used to monitor genetic changes in respiratory viruses as they circulate across the globe.
Once completed, the genetic early warning system would be used to pinpoint dangerous new variants as they emerge and act as an early warning system for new diseases and future pandemics.
The team at the institute is aiming to make the technology inexpensive, easy-to-use, and easy to scale. The plan calls for it to be used to provide global surveillance of a variety of viruses including coronaviruses, influenza viruses, RSV or respiratory syncytial virus, as well as new, i.e., previously unknown, viruses.
If you’re wondering how often such an alert might be needed, one need only look back through the past 20 years, during which we had SARS in Asia, MERS inIthe Middle East, and SARS-CoV-2, which left virtually no country in the entire world untouched.
In news we cover today, California is ending its mask requirement in hospitals and healthcare settings and Hong Kong is facing a backlog of hundreds of deceased Covid patients waiting to be interred in mainland China.
UNITED STATES
Starting Monday, California will no longer require patients and healthcare workers to don face masks for Covid-19 prevention in healthcare settings although it is unlikely that many facilities, if any, will drop their mask mandates. The change leaves isolation for individuals who test positive for SARS-CoV-2 as the last vestige of the Golden State’s pandemic rules.
Residents in five states – namely Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, New Hampshire, and South Dakota – will be the first to lose Medicaid coverage as the Congressional prohibition for states to winnow their Medicaid rolls based on eligibility ends. Since the start of the pandemic, states were prohibited from removing those individuals who would normally be deemed ineligible for the public health insurance program.
All states must review eligibility for the program and complete redeterminations over the next 14 months.
GLOBAL
The South China Post is reporting that at least 200 deceased individuals have been stuck in Hong Kong for several months waiting to be interred in mainland China. The problem is that the only border crossing for hearses remains closed. Apparently, some on the wait list have been dead for over three years.
Hospitals and mortuaries apparently have no more room for the deceased and the only place providing temporary storage service for coffins and urns in the city, the historic Tung Wah Coffin Home in Sandy Bay, is full, the newspaper reported.
TODAY’S STATISTICS
Now here are the daily statistics for Sunday, April 2.
As of Sunday morning, the world has recorded just over 684 million Covid-19 cases, an increase of 0.1 million from the previous day, and 6.83 million deaths, according to Worldometer, a service that tracks such information. In addition, just over 656.9 million people worldwide have recovered from the virus, an increase of less than 0.1 million from the previous day.
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 Sunday at press time is 20,195,322, a decrease of 32,000. Out of that figure, 99.8%, or 20,155,412 (, are considered mild, and 0.2%, or 39,910, are listed as critical. The percentage of cases considered critical has not changed over the past five months.
The United States reported 138,481 new cases in the period March 23 through March 29, a figure that is down 16% over the same period one week earlier, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The death toll for the same period is 1,596, a figure that is down 12%. The average number of hospital admissions from Covid was 5,713 on March 31, a figure that is down 7% over the preceding 14 days. Finally, the test positivity rate is 7.1%, up 5% over the 14 days preceding March 28.
Starting on March 25, 2023, the Morning News Brief began to update case data as well as death tolls on a weekly basis.
In addition, since the start of the pandemic the United States has, as of Sunday, recorded over 106.2 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 530,881.
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 39.8 million, and Germany is in the number four slot, with 38.4 million total cases.
Brazil, which has recorded the third highest number of deaths as a result of the virus, 700,239, has recorded 37.3 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 33.5 million cases, South Korea, with 30.8 million cases, placing it in the number seven slot, and Italy, with 25.7 million, as number eight, as well as the United Kingdom, with 24.4 million, and Russia, with over 22.6 million.
VACCINATION SPOTLIGHT
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that, as of Thursday, over 269.9 million people in the United States – or 81.3% – have received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine. Of that population, 69.4%, or 230.4 million people, have received two doses of vaccine, and the total number of doses that have been dispensed in the United States is now 674 million. Breaking this down further, 92.2% of the population over the age of 18 – or 238.1 million people – has received at least a first inoculation and 79% of the same group – or 204.2 million people – is fully vaccinated. In addition, 20% of the same population, or 51.6 million people, has already received an updated or bivalent booster dose of vaccine, while 23.1 million people over the age of 65, or 42.1% 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 Sundays by 8 p.m. EDT, a statement on the agency’s website said.
Some 69.8% of the world population has received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine by Sunday, according to Our World in Data, an online scientific publication that tracks such information. So far, 13.36 billion doses of the vaccine have been administered on a global basis and 626,017 doses are now administered each day.
Meanwhile, only 28.5% 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.
Paul Riegler contributed reporting to this story.
(Photo: Accura Media Group)
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