Happy Mother’s Day
Good morning. This is Jonathan Spira reporting. Here now the news of the pandemic from across the globe on the 1,159th day of the pandemic.
In the United States and dozens of other countries including Austria, Canada, China, Germany, and Ukraine, today is Mother’s Day, a holiday created by Anna Jarvis in 1912.
Jarvis designated the spelling to be the genitive singular case (hence “Mother’s,” not “Mothers’” in English), for each family to honor its own mother, not the genitive plural that would commemorate all mothers in the world.
In many regions, the Mother’s Day holiday precedes the start of high school and college graduation ceremonies and celebrations, and other family gatherings.
OP-ED ON SUNDAY
The Orlando Sentinel, the primary newspaper of record in Central Florida, noted over the weekend that Florida Surgeon General Joseph Lapado said that his anti-vaccine campaign “was God’s plan,” adding that it cost him the trust of his peers.
“Ladapo marked the third anniversary of the pandemic in March by heaping praise on his boss, Gov. Ron DeSantis, for putting the ‘kibosh on vaccine mandates.’ He then asserted that the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine “has a terrible safety profile,’ despite an extremely good safety record.
Last week, Lapado’s boss, Governor Ron DeSantis, signed into a law a set of “medical freedom” measures which ban masks and vaccine mandates, and include new “conscience protections” for healthcare providers.
The governor’s action comes one week after it was revealed that Lapado had altered an analysis that had been released by the Florida Department of Health in order to suggest that mRNA coronavirus vaccines posed a significant health risk to men ages 18 to 39.
The newspaper looked at his transformation from noncontroversial research into “an outspoken doubter of mainstream COVID-19 science. Not only does he face the serious accusation of data manipulation, the paper found that he is not fulfilling his stated duties at the University of Florida, where his contract requires that he spend 80% of his time in research and 20% of his time teaching at the school. It also found that other faculty members don’t want anything to do with him, including when it comes to collaborating on research. ““They don’t want to work with him,” one said.
In other news we cover today, the G7 plans a new vaccine distribution program for Third World countries, Florida’s Surgeon General is not fulfilling his contracted duties at the University of Florida, and three teachers in Rhode Island were reinstated in the settlement of a vaccine-mandate related lawsuit.
UNITED STATES
In Connecticut, the state’s attorney general, William Tong, asked a federal judge to throw out a lawsuit filed by the Milford Christian Academy over the state’s vaccine mandate.
“All five counts must be dismissed…because of Supreme Court, Second Circuit, and Connecticut U.S. District Court holdings permitting states to enact school vaccination requirements that do not contain religious exemptions,” wrote Assistant Attorneys General Darren Cunningham and Cynthia Mahon in a 38-page memorandum supporting a motion to dismiss the lawsuit.
Meanwhile, three Rhode Island teachers who were fired for refusing to get inoculated against SARS-CoV-2 citing religious grounds will get their jobs back with full back pay after they reached a settlement with the school district that fired them. Details of the settlement were not disclosed.
GLOBAL
The Group of Seven nations is set to agree on establishing a new program to distribute vaccines to developing countries at next week’s summit of leaders, Japan’s Yomiuri newspaper said on Saturday.
G20 nations such as India and international groups such as the World Health Organization and the World Bank will participate, the paper added, citing Japanese government sources.
OTHER HEALTHCARE NEWS
A new report shows that New York City’s subways have “alarmingly high” levels of pollution. A group of researchers from New York University, who published their findings in late April, found that levels of airborne iron particles on subway platforms were a staggering 126 times more than the average level. Iron, which makes up the bulk of the air pollution on the subway, can be neurotoxic if inhaled and is linked to autism, schizophrenia, and ADHD.
A separate study showed a correlation between iron inhalation and cardiovascular disease, cancer, and respiratory illness. The NYU researchers said, however, that more research in this area is needed.
The worst station listed by the NYU team was located at 181st Street on the No. 1 line. The researchers found an average concentration of airborne particles 17 times higher than the daily average level of metal ions considered safe by the Environmental Protection Agency. Running a close second was the 168th Street on the No. 1 line; followed by Bowling Green on the No. 5 line; Broadway-Lafayette on the B line, and High Street on the No. 3 line.
TODAY’S STATISTICS
Now here are the daily statistics for Sunday, May 14.
As of Sunday morning, the world has recorded 688.3 million Covid-19 cases, an increase of less than 0.1 million from the previous day, and 6.87 million deaths, according to Worldometer, a service that tracks such information. In addition, 660.7 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 20,725,383, a decrease of 28,000. Out of that figure, 99.8%, or 20,657,268, are considered mild, and 0.2%, or 38,967, are listed as critical. The percentage of cases considered critical has not changed over the past eight months.
The United States reported 77,263 new cases in the period April 27 through May 3, a figure that is down 22% 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 1,109, a figure that is down 11%. The average daily number of hospital admissions from Covid was 4,275 on May 12, a figure that is down 2% over the preceding 14 days. Finally, the test positivity rate is 5.3%, up 3% over the 14 days preceding May 7.
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 106.8 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, just under 45 million, and a reported death toll of 531,770.
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 40 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, 702,116, has recorded 37.5 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 33.8 million cases, South Korea, with 31.4 million cases, placing it in the number seven slot, and Italy, with 25.8 million, as number eight, as well as the United Kingdom, with over 24.5 million, and Russia, with 22.9 million.
VACCINATION SPOTLIGHT
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that, as of 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, 69.5%, or 230.6 million people, have received two doses of vaccine, and the total number of doses that have been dispensed in the United States is now 676.7 million. Breaking this down further, 92.23% 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 204.3 million people – is fully vaccinated. In addition, 20.5% of the same population, or just under 53 million people, has already received an updated or bivalent booster dose of vaccine, while 23.9 million people over the age of 65, or 43.3% 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 70% 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, 13.38 billion doses of the vaccine have been administered on a global basis and 201,779 doses are now administered each day.
Meanwhile, only 29.9% 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)
All Rights Reserved Travel