Riders entering the New York City subway system
Good morning and Happy Earth Day. This is Jonathan Spira reporting. Here now the news of the pandemic from across the globe on the 1,137th day of the pandemic. Today is also the 53rd Earth Day,
In 1970, before the term “climate change” was part of people’s vocabularies, then President Richard Nixon celebrated the first Earth Day by planting a tree on the White House South Lawn. Across the country, millions of people attended Earth Day events, a moment that put the battle against pollution on political and social agendas. Indeed, Nixon went on to create the Environmental Protection Agency and sign the Clean Water and Clean Air acts, passed in Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support.
Three years ago, at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, we celebrated the 50th anniversary of Earth Day in a rather muted fashion as most of the world was in some form of lockdown.
People quickly found their allergies less bothersome and the stars in the night sky more visible.. It was Mother Nature at work, taking advantage of the dramatic change in lifestyles… but it wouldn’t last.
This year, on the day before Earth Day, the White House unveiled a suite of environmental actions including the establishment of the oddly named Department of Environmental Justice.
Established by an executive order, the new office will coordinate environmental justice efforts across the federal government. The order presses agencies to close gaps in data and use scientific research to understand and prevent the damage to people’s health brought by pollution.
Environmental justice is defined as “the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies,” according to the EPA.
This notwithstanding, the most important policy change is that the executive order presses agencies to close current gaps in data and use scientific research to understand and prevent the damage to people’s health that are brought on by pollution.
In other news we cover today, two midwives sold thousands of fake coronavirus vaccination cards, conjunctivitis is a new Covid symptom, and the New York City subway is seeing a resurgence.
UNITED STATES
The XBB.1.16 sublineage of the omicron variant has been linked to a rare Covid-19 symptom, conjunctivitis. Physicians have reported patients testing positive for that subvariant presenting with red and itchy eyes, especially in babies and young children.
XBB.1.16 was first detected in India, where it is causing a surge in cases there. It now makes up nearly 10% of new cases in the United States, but does not appear to be more severe than similar subvariants, experts say.
In New York City, 4/20 wasn’t only a counterculture holiday to celebrate weed, but it also marked the first since the start of the pandemic and the shutdown on March 12, 2020 that the Big Apple’s subway system saw over four million riders on a single day.
Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that there is no evidence linking coronavirus vaccines and tinnitus. The finding came after over 16,000 people who had received the vaccine complained of a ringing or buzzing sound in their ears after being inoculated.
Finally, two midwives in New York State fraudulently enrolled their practice as an authorized vaccine administration site and provided vaccine cards to people who had not been inoculated. Kelly McDermott, of Albany, and Kathleen Breault, of Cambridge in Washington County, were among five people charged for schemes that in total distributed over 2,600 fake coronavirus vaccine record cards, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Eastern District of New York said. Investigators also uncovered more than $1.7 million in fraudulent Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program applications and payments
TODAY’S STATISTICS
Now here are the daily statistics for Saturday, April 22.
As of Saturday morning, the world has recorded 686.4 million Covid-19 cases, an increase of 0.1 million from the previous day, and over 6.86 million deaths, according to Worldometer, a service that tracks such information. In addition, 658.9 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 Saturday at press time is 20,563,129, a decrease of 43,000. Out of that figure, 99.8%, or 20,523,609, are considered mild, and 0.2%, or 39,590, 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 April 6 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 13%. The average number of hospital admissions from Covid was 4,778 on April 20, a figure that is down 13% over the preceding 14 days. Finally, the test positivity rate is 5.9%, down 7% over the 14 days preceding April 17.
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 Saturday, recorded 106.5 million cases, a higher figure than any other country, and a death toll of 1.16 million. India has the world’s second highest number of officially recorded cases, 44.9 million, and a reported death toll of 531,300.
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 31.1 million cases, placing it in the number seven slot, and Italy, with over 25.7 million, as number eight, as well as the United Kingdom, with over 24.5 million, and Russia, with 22.8 million.
VACCINATION SPOTLIGHT
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that, as of Thursday, 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 230.5 million people, have received two doses of vaccine, and the total number of doses that have been dispensed in the United States is now 675 million. Breaking this down further, 92.2% of the population over the age of 18 – or 238 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 52.1 million people, has already received an updated or bivalent booster dose of vaccine, while 23.3 million people over the age of 65, or 42.4% of that population have also received the bivalent booster.
For the week ending April 20, 2023, the CDC made slight adjustments downward in several of the data points we include here, although the total number of doses increased by 0.3 million.
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 69.9% of the world population has received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine by Saturday, 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 238,508 doses are now administered each day.
Meanwhile, only 29.5% 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.
Anna Breuer contributed reporting to this story
(Photo: Accura Media Group)
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