There are over 34.1 million global cases. There have been over 1 million total deaths—this horrible milestone was passed this week. There are over 7.4 million cases in the US. There have been over 211,000 deaths in the US. Over 850 have died in the US since yesterday. India gained over 86,000 new cases in the last 24 hours and has been gaining at this rate for the last week.
Hospitals are overflowing in Israel, and parking lot hospital beds are popping up in Haifa. 770 additional beds have been created in this manner. Israel is on its second lockdown and is seeing an alarming rise in severe COVID cases. Many Israeli hospitals are at capacity, making the makeshift underground beds a necessity.
United is going to make rapid COVID tests available to passengers on certain flights. The program will be rolled out first on San Francisco to Hawaii flights to help meet Hawaiian entrance requirements.
The WHO anticipated over 2 million global deaths from COVID-19:
Global coronavirus deaths may hit two million before vaccine is in use, WHO warns https://t.co/06Kl45eh6P
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) September 25, 2020
A large serostudy shows low seroprevalence in the US—less than 10% on average in the adult population. The prevalence of antibodies varies pretty wildly from region to region, however. What’s clear is that we are nowhere close to herd immunity. It’s unclear how accurate this whole picture is, though, given that antibodies wane after about four months.
COVID-19 is now a big problem in more rural communities. Attack rate in metro areas was predominate at the start of the pandemic, but now attack rate in small metro areas and non-metro areas is leading.
DeSantis opens Florida and blocks COVID restrictions. Florida bars are subsequently packed:
Dr. Fauci says Florida's full reopening of bars and restaurants is "very concerning.” https://t.co/Le1ziQOLjk
— NBC News (@NBCNews) September 28, 2020
The Johnson and Johnson vaccine is moving to large phase 3 trial with over 60,000 participants. It created neutralizing antibodies in over 98% of participants with just one shot in previous trials.
Grocers are stockpiling goods in anticipation of wintertime needs during the pandemic.
COVID-19 cases are rising in half of US states. This is not unanticipated as we noted a few weeks ago that 31 US states had an R > 1 and we know to watch for lagging indicators. It’s helpful to know that R, the reproductive number of the virus, is not the only important factor involved. SARS-CoV-2 spreads stochastically (having a more random pattern of spread than linear), and contagion tends to be more driven by superspreader events than the kind of homogenous person-to-person spread you’d imagine when thinking about R alone. Here’s a good primer that explains this, and why test-trace-isolate is still the best way to halt spread.
Genetic risk factors for severe COVID-19 might have come from Neanderthal genes?
The major genetic risk factor associated with severe #COVID19, a chromosome 3 genomic cluster, is derived from a Neanderthal haplotype, and carried by ~50% of people in South Asia and ~15% of people in Europe
Just out @nature https://t.co/oM3CIXBZ0B pic.twitter.com/qLo84ZdOwX— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) September 30, 2020
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