Miscellaneous
This is Coronavirus 411, the latest COVID-19 info and new hotspots… Just the facts… for February 23rd, 2021. Remember when the concern about schools was that kids would transmit the virus? The CDC now says kids aren’t the problem, it’s teachers. 9 elementary school clusters were studied and in only one was a student the first documented case. The study lines up with others from the U.K. that found teacher-to-teacher was the most common type of school transmission there. Cases are increasing in parts of India after months of a steady decline so, authorities are imposing lockdowns and other restrictions. Experts had been warning about returning to normal too soon if for no other reason than because nobody could reasonably explain why cases had dropped so much. The FDA has taken steps to make sure drug makers can react quickly to emerging variants and modify their vaccines without extended clinical trials. Evidence so far suggests the vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer seem to offer good protection against new variants but the virus is continuing to mutate. Long-haulers who’ve been disabled by COVID-19 want to know, when can we be classified as disabled and qualify for benefits? Advocates and lawmakers are calling on the Social Security Administration to at least study the issue. The criteria are strict and most applicants are denied. Then add to that the fact COVID-19 has scarcely existed as a recognized disease very long. Dr. Anthony Fauci just made a couple more statements about masks. First, he thinks we’ll be wearing them well into the year 2022. But second, he says you can probably go maskless in private households around family you don’t live with if you’re sure they’ve been vaccinated. He says you can probably even hug them. In the United States cases were down 44%, deaths are down 32%, and hospitalizations down 30% over 14 days. The 7-day average of new cases has been trending down since January 25th. There are now 9,199,577 active cases in the United States. The current top 5 states by number of active cases: California, New York, Florida, Arizona, and Virginia replaces Georgia at number 5. The top 10 counties with the highest number of recent cases per capita according to The New York Times: Aleutians West Census Area, AK. Cimarron, OK. Chattahoochee, GA. Lexington, VA. Charlottesville, VA. Linn, KS. Bent, CO. Sherman, TX. Douglas, IL. And Marengo, AL. The five states with the highest risk levels and most daily new cases per capita over 7 days are South Carolina, New York, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and North Carolina. There have been 500,236 deaths in the US reported as Covid-related, with a current national fatality rate of 1.78%.The states with the most new deaths reported as COVID-related: California 248. Florida 161. Virginia 155. New York 114. Texas 113. Georgia 91. Ohio 58. Illinois 40. Connecticut 39. And Iowa and Washington 38. The top 3 vaccinating states by percentage of population that’s had at least one dose, Alaska at 20.8%, New Mexico at 18.8%, and South Dakota at 17.7%. The bottom 3 vaccinating states are Tennessee and Utah at 11.1%, and Texas and Georgia at 11.3%.Globally, cases were down 20%, and deaths down 25% over 14 days. The 7-day average of new cases has been trending down since January 11. Globally, there are now under 22 million active cases at 21,989,403.The five countries with the most new cases: the United States 59,257. Brazil 29,357. Russia 12,604. India 10,792. And the U.K. 10,641. There have now been 2,473,652 deaths reported as Covid-related worldwide. For the latest updates, subscribe for free to Coronavirus 411 on your podcast app or ask your smart speaker to play the Coronavirus 411 podcast. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.