Welcome to the newly revamped Key Developments, now twice weekly and with non-COVID news. Right now, it’s still mostly COVID news, but we’ll be slowly morphing it into something broader as we go.
The world has over 22.8 million COVID-19 cases. We’ve added about 1.8 million cases since last week, as we did the week before. There have been over 795,000 deaths. The US has over 5.7 million cases and has had over 177,000 deaths. About 1,000 Americans are dying from COVID-19 each day. US has gained over 41,000 new cases since yesterday. India is first in the world for daily case growth, followed by the US and Brazil. India will soon surpass Mexico in number of deaths.
Regeneron and Roche will be linking up to produce an antibody cocktail. The cocktail has been used successfully in animal models. Safety and efficacy trials in humans are planned.
New cancer diagnoses are dropping significantly, and this is not good news. This phenomenon is due to people avoiding medical care during the pandemic, and it spells bad news for morbidity and mortality rates in the years to come. When these cancers are eventually discovered, they will be in later stages along the disease trajectory and will be harder to treat. Moral of the story: don’t delay medical care or routine screenings because of the pandemic.
The Mayor of Los Angeles shut off power to a party house:
Today I authorized the City to disconnect utility service at a house in the Hollywood Hills to stop the large parties held there in flagrant violation of our public health orders. Parties like these can quickly and easily spread the virus and put our communities at risk.
— MayorOfLA (@MayorOfLA) August 19, 2020
CCP officials minimized and withheld information during the beginning of the outbreak that eventually became a global pandemic:
It is increasingly clear that Chinese government officials- locally in Wuhan and nationally in Beijing- sought to hide information and downplay the seriousness of the coronavirus outbreak in the critical first weeks of the pandemic.https://t.co/bcKuSlcPKW
— Josh Michaud (@joshmich) August 20, 2020
Here’s a link to a working list of university outbreaks:
Article contains table listing COVID-19 outbreaks to date at colleges in 16 states (AZ, CA, CO, CT, GA, IL, IN, IA, KS. KY, MI, MS, NJ, NC, OK, and TN).
COVID-19 Outbreaks Occur as Students Return to Campus https://t.co/jbcD9o8uxc
— Richard H. Ebright (@R_H_Ebright) August 20, 2020
Hospitals are now supposed to submit pandemic case data to the CDC again, as the HHS data experiment fails:
NEW: Trump administration reverses course on the way hospitals report coronavirus data, returning data collection to the CDC https://t.co/7Juz2QriQl
— BNO Newsroom (@BNODesk) August 20, 2020
Chaos in the US Post Office is causing huge problems for businesses and for everyday folks waiting weeks for by-mail prescription refills. Delays in bill-paying are also causing havoc, and it’s possible that all this will impact people already suffering from job or housing losses during the pandemic.
Huge swathes of California are on fire after a massive lightning complex came through during a hot, dry spell, and because large numbers of inmates are sick with COVID-19, there aren’t enough inmate firefighters to help. Tens of thousands of people are being evacuated all over Northern California and many will be shoved together in closed indoor spaces and facilities, making COVID-19 transmission more likely. Many of these fires are spreading quickly and are 0% contained. UC Santa Cruz has been evacuated. Santa Cruz County is asking tourists to leave affected areas immediately. Don’t travel to areas experiencing these fires or even adjacent cities for tourism right now—hotels may be converted into evacuation facilities:
There's still a lot going on with #wildfires today in California… pic.twitter.com/vtq76yJaos
— AI6YR (@ai6yrham) August 20, 2020
