London roofscape viewed from the Jumeirah Carlton Tower
Good morning. This is Jonathan Spira reporting. Here now the news of the pandemic from across the globe on the 1,137th day of the pandemic and World Book Day, a celebration to promote the enjoyment of reading… so please read on.
In news we cover today, Boris Johnson came close to holding an in-person meeting with the queen while exhibiting severe Covid symptoms and more researcher about a possible connection between vaccines and tinnitus is becoming available.
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
Research on the possible connection between coronavirus vaccines and tinnitus continues and Shaowen Bao, an associate professor at the College of Medicine at the University of Arizona, Tucson, a longtime sufferer of the condition, believes that ongoing inflammation in the body may be to blame.
Tinnitus is a type of sound that is heard when no external sound is present. Most people experience “normal tinnitus” in a quiet room upon occasion but the condition becomes concerning if it interferes with normal hearing.
Bao, a member of the American Tinnitus Association’s scientific advisory board, has studied the condition for over ten years and recently surveyed almost 400 members of a Facebook group of people who developed the condition after getting a coronavirus vaccine in order to investigate the possible link.
In the survey group, a significantly higher number of people said they had developed tinnitus after the first dose of vaccine than the second. Many of the cases were severe, with one man commenting that he couldn’t hear his car’s radio over the sound generated by the condition. Survey takers also reported that other symptoms including headaches, dizziness, vertigo, ear pain, anxiety, and depression.
Bao has yet to publish his findings but told NBC News that “that the vaccine is interacting with pre-existing risk factors for tinnitus. If you have the risk factor, you will probably get it from the first dose,” Bao said.
GLOBAL
A new book confirms that former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson attempted to attend his weekly audience with Queen Elizabeth despite the fact that he, at the time, was suffering from fairly noticeable symptoms of SARS-CoV-2.
According to the book, Johnson at 10: The Inside Story, written by Anthony Seldon and Raymond Newell, Johnson was “eager not to be restricted by the new laws or his apparent symptoms, to the dismay of Palace officials deeply concerned at the risk of exposing the elderly Queen to the virus,” the authors wrote.
Ultimately, the prime minister was convinced to hold the call telephonically. After the meeting, “the Queen turned to an aide and commented that she couldn’t hear a word of what Johnson had said, he was coughing so much,” the book reported.
The Daily Mirror reported news of the attempted meeting on June 24, 2021, and the palace branded the report “completely untrue.”
OTHER HEALTHCARE NEWS
In Hong Kong, the flu season may have peaked faster than expected. In a televised interview, government advisor David Hui Shu-cheong, a professor at Chinese University said: “If we look at data from the Hospital Authority laboratory, it seems in the few days between April 15 and 19, the number of respiratory tract nucleic acid test samples testing positive for influenza had already peaked.”
TODAY’S STATISTICS
Now here are the daily statistics for Sunday, April 23.
As of Sunday morning, the world has recorded 686.5 million Covid-19 cases, an increase of 0.1 million from the previous day, and 6.86 million deaths, according to Worldometer, a service that tracks such information. In addition, 659 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 Sunday at press time is 20,565,011, an increase of 18,000. Out of that figure, 99.8%, or 20,525,550, are considered mild, and 0.2%, or 39,461, 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 Sunday, 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 531,439.
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 over 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 Sunday, 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.
Paul Riegler contributed reporting to this story
(Photo: Accura Media Group)
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