Western Wall and Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem
Good morning. This is Jonathan Spira reporting. Here now the news of the pandemic from across the globe on the 1,134th day of the pandemic. Yesterday, April 18, was Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, Israel’s day of commemoration for the approximately six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust by Germany’s National Socialist regime under Adolf Hitler.
In recent days, a 20-year-old Saratoga County woman was fatally shot after her friend pulled into the driveway of a home that they mistakenly believed belonged to another friend, two cheerleaders in Texas were shot after one of them mistakenly got into the wrong car and a 16-year-old boy was shot by an 84-year-old man after the former rang the wrong doorbell while going to pick up his younger brothers.
Meanwhile, a toddler squeezed through a fence at the White House triggering a Secret Service response.
No one seems to have picked up on a common thread here but there are two takeaways:
1.) There are a lot of trigger-happy people out there with a short-fuse as well as a gun. Perhaps the coverage of the spate of headline grabbing criminal activity has conditioned the populace to overreact to what they may perceive as life-threatening acts.
2.) People aren’t paying attention as to where they are going (or what their child is doing) or how their actions may be misconstrued by a frightened and overly sensitive homeowner or driver.
Walking around Manhattan, both before the pandemic and now, I’ve stopped people who were hyperfocused on their iPhones from walking against the “Don’t Walk” sign into moving traffic. A few have even looked up from their devices and thanked me.
No one should have gotten shot in any of these instances – and thank goodness the Secret Service has a toddler exception – but getting in the wrong car has proven near-fatal in the past (I’m referencing several cases of someone getting into a car he or she thought was a waiting car-service vehicle and getting assaulted).
In addition, I have no proof that any of these people who were shot were hyperfocused on their iPhones (especially in the instance where the 65-year-old owner of the house starting firing at the driveway invaders) but the takeaway here is to be far more aware of your surroundings.
In other news we cover today, air quality in the United States is improving, J&J saw a boost in revenue thanks to its vaccine, and other viruses can cause Long Covid-like symptoms.
LONG COVID
New research presented this week at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases in Copenhagen shows that SARS-CoV-2 is far from alone in causing post-viral illnesses. They can appear after the flu, herpes, Lyme disease, and even Ebola and SARS.
Long Covid is a post-viral illness that occurs after infection with SARS-CoV-2. Also known as PASC, or post-acute sequelae of Covid, it’s defined as new symptoms that develop post infection. These symptoms persist for at least four weeks, and sometimes linger for months, and even years.
UNITED STATES
International sales of its unpopular coronavirus vaccine sales helped fuel Johnson & Johnson’s first quarter increase in revenue but the company said it doesn’t expect “material sales” going forward.
The vaccine contributed $747 million in sales during the three-month period ended March 23.
OTHER HEALTHCARE NEWS
Air pollution levels are lower overall in the United States, but wildfires in the West continue to expose people to dangerous pollutants.
From 2019 to 2021, nearly 120 million people – some 36% of the population – lived in an area with unhealthy levels of air pollution, the group’s “State of the Air” report found, a figure that is noticeably down from 137 million in the prior three-year period, 2018- to 2020.
TODAY’S STATISTICS
Now here are the daily statistics for Wednesday, April 19.
As of Wednesday morning, the world has recorded 685.9 million Covid-19 cases, an increase of 0.1 million from the previous day, and 6.84 million deaths, according to Worldometer, a service that tracks such information. In addition, 658.6 million people worldwide have recovered from the virus, an increase of 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 Wednesday at press time is 20,456,068, an increase of 39,000. Out of that figure, 99.8%, or 20,416,469, are considered mild, and 0.2%, or 39,599, are listed as critical. The percentage of cases considered critical has not changed over the past five months.
The United States reported 101,445 new cases in the period March 30 through April 12, a figure that is down 26% 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 1,773, a figure that is down 22%. The average number of hospital admissions from Covid was 5,144 on April 17, a figure that is down 8% over the preceding 14 days. Finally, the test positivity rate is 6.2%, down 6% over the 14 days preceding April 14.
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 Wednesday, recorded just under 106.5 million cases, a higher figure than any other country, and a death toll of just under 1.16 million. India has the world’s second highest number of officially recorded cases, 44.8 million, and a reported death toll of 531,190.
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 39.9 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, 701,215, has recorded 37.4 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 33.6 million cases, South Korea, with just under 31 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 just under 22.8 million.
VACCINATION SPOTLIGHT
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that, as of the past Thursday, 270.1 million people in the United States – or 81.4% – have received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine. Of that population, 69.4%, or 230.5 million people, have received two doses of vaccine, and the total number of doses that have been dispensed in the United States is now 674.7 million. Breaking this down further, 92.3% of the population over the age of 18 – or 238.2 million people – has received at least a first inoculation and 79.1% of the same group – or 204.2 million people – is fully vaccinated. In addition, 20.2% of the same population, or 52.2 million people, has already received an updated or bivalent booster dose of vaccine, while 23.3 million people over the age of 65, or 42.6% 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 Wednesdays by 8 p.m. EDT, a statement on the agency’s website said.
Some 69.9% of the world population has received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine by Wednesday, according to Our World in Data, an online scientific publication that tracks such information. So far, 13.37 billion doses of the vaccine have been administered on a global basis and 68,129 doses are now administered each day.
Meanwhile, only 29.3% 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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