This is Coronavirus 411, the latest COVID-19 info and new hotspots… Just the facts… for June 25th, 2021. We’re starting to see things move backwards. The coronavirus czar in Israel announced the indoor mask mandate will be reimposed early next week to stem the rise in cases. Yesterday was the highest daily tally in months. The country has one of the highest inoculation rates in the world, but it’s still far from the 80% figure needed to mark herd immunity. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Eu...
Jun 25, 2021•5 min
This is Coronavirus 411, the latest COVID-19 info and new hotspots… Just the facts… for June 24th, 2021. The New York Times reports a researcher in Seattle uncovered deleted files that show 13 partial genetic sequences for some of the earliest cases of COVID-19 in Wuhan. They don’t reveal the true origin of the virus but do firm up the idea it was circulating earlier than the outbreak at the Wuhan seafood market. About a year ago 241 genetic sequences from coronavirus patients went missing from ...
Jun 24, 2021•5 min
This is Coronavirus 411, the latest COVID-19 info and new hotspots… Just the facts… for June 23rd, 2021. More than 150 employees at a Houston hospital system who refused the vaccine have been fired or have resigned. This after a judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by an employee against the system about their vaccine requirement. The judge said any claims that the vaccines are experimental or dangerous are false. The Inspector General at the Department of Health and Human Services reports that death...
Jun 23, 2021•5 min
This is Coronavirus 411, the latest COVID-19 info and new hotspots… Just the facts… for June 22nd, 2021. The World Health Organization warned the delta variant is the fastest and strongest strain yet, one that will “pick off” the most vulnerable. And by most vulnerable, they mean the unvaccinated. It called the fact we haven’t protected front line workers a catastrophic moral failure at a global level. Delta has now spread to 92 countries. Indonesia had its largest one-day jump in new infections...
Jun 22, 2021•5 min
This is Coronavirus 411, the latest COVID-19 info and new hotspots… Just the facts… for June 21st, 2021. The CDC said the Delta variant now makes up at least 10% of all US cases. That’s up from 2.7% of cases on May 22, which illustrates just how fast this variant spreads. The CDC also now designated Delta as a variant of concern, meaning it may carry a risk of more severe illness and transmissibility. In the United Kingdom—it now accounts for 90% of cases. The U.S. sent 2.5 million doses of the ...
Jun 21, 2021•5 min
This is Coronavirus 411, the latest COVID-19 info and new hotspots… Just the facts… for June 18th, 2021. The surge in the U.K. is picking up steam with new cases going over 10,000 for the first time in nearly four months. The chief medical adviser said the surge “will definitely translate into further hospitalizations and further deaths.” In Africa, cases rose over 20% week-on-week in nearly two dozen countries and only 0.79% of the continent is fully vaccinated. Five countries, South Africa, Tu...
Jun 18, 2021•5 min
This is Coronavirus 411, the latest COVID-19 info and new hotspots… Just the facts… for June 17th, 2021. It’s the return of travel. The European Union is recommending its member countries start lifting restrictions on tourists from the United States. The recommendation is non-binding, and different governments can require whatever tests or shots it feels are necessary to make sure tourists don’t pose a risk. Not all vaccines work so well. German vaccine maker CureVac said interim data from late-...
Jun 17, 2021•5 min
This is Coronavirus 411, the latest COVID-19 info and new hotspots… Just the facts… for June 16th, 2021. The U.S. death toll from COVID-19 topped 600,000 yesterday. That’s greater than the population of Baltimore or Milwaukee and equal to the number of Americans who died of cancer in 2019. Deaths have dropped to an average of 340 a day, with cases running at about 14,000 a day. California is open. It was the first state to put a lockdown in place. No more state rules on social distancing or capa...
Jun 16, 2021•5 min
This is Coronavirus 411, the latest COVID-19 info and new hotspots… Just the facts… for June 15th, 2021. The U.S. is not going to meet its vaccination goal and a new report from Stanford and the Kaiser Family Foundation points out why. The only demographic projected to exceed a 70% vaccination rate of at least one dose by July 4 are Asians. Whites are projected to be at 66% by that date, Hispanics at 63%, and Black Americans at 51%. The pace of vaccinations would need to speed up significantly t...
Jun 15, 2021•5 min
This is Coronavirus 411, the latest COVID-19 info and new hotspots… Just the facts… for June 14th, 2021. An eye-opening statistic from Johns Hopkins, especially for those who think the pandemic was a 2020 thing. More people worldwide have died of COVID-19 already this year than during all of last year. 1.89 million reported in 2021 compared to the 1.88 million deaths counted as of December 31, 2020. Worldwide, an average of more than 9,000 deaths from COVID are still confirmed daily. With the Pr...
Jun 14, 2021•5 min
This is Coronavirus 411, the latest COVID-19 info and new hotspots… Just the facts… for June 11th, 2021. Not a trend you want to see. The number of new daily cases and deaths in the U.S. rose for the third-straight day. The number of states that have seen the weekly trend of new cases rise this week inched up to 15 on Thursday from 14 on Wednesday. The remaining Group of Seven nations said we see America’s donation of 500 million vaccine doses for poorer nations and…well we won’t each match it b...
Jun 11, 2021•5 min
This is Coronavirus 411, the latest COVID-19 info and new hotspots… Just the facts… for June 10th, 2021. Yesterday we told you San Francisco might be the first major city to reach herd immunity. But yesterday Seattle’s Mayor declared 70% of that city’s residents 12+ have been fully vaccinated. The effort now is to get Seattle fully reopened and people supporting local small retailers and restaurants, arts and culture programming, and transit. U.S. taxpayers will apparently buy 500 million more d...
Jun 10, 2021•5 min
This is Coronavirus 411, the latest COVID-19 info and new hotspots… Just the facts… for June 9th, 2021. Experts say San Francisco may have become the first major city in the United States to hit herd immunity. Yes, there are still about 137 cases a day, but they aren’t gaining enough of a foothold to trigger wider outbreaks. And that, for all practical purposes, is what herd immunity looks like. Nearly 80% of residents have received at least one shot with 68% fully vaccinated. While San Francisc...
Jun 09, 2021•5 min
This is Coronavirus 411, the latest COVID-19 info and new hotspots… Just the facts… for June 8th, 2021. Increasing vaccinations in the U.S. from this point on may prove difficult. A Gallup survey shows 76% of U.S. adults say they’ve been vaccinated or plan to be, a number that hasn’t moved much in three months. Among those not planning to be vaccinated, 78% say they won’t reconsider. 53% of U.S. adults say they’re worried about people choosing not to get vaccinated, and it’s now the public's gre...
Jun 08, 2021•5 min
This is Coronavirus 411, the latest COVID-19 info and new hotspots… Just the facts… for June 7th, 2021. The Group of Seven is a summit of the world’s wealthier democracies, it’s happening next week, and the UK will use that occasion to urge world leaders to commit to vaccinating the world by the end of 2022. Britain pledged in February to give most of its surplus supply to COVAX, the U.N.-backed program to vaccinate poorer countries. There might be a new kind of COVID-19 vaccine as soon as this ...
Jun 07, 2021•5 min
This is Coronavirus 411, the latest COVID-19 info and new hotspots… Just the facts… for June 4th, 2021. The United States sends its first shipments of surplus vaccine doses abroad today. 80 million doses by the end of June to start with. 75% of the first 25 million doses will be allotted through COVAX, the international distribution system to help with vaccinations in the world's poorest countries. California will fully reopen in less than two weeks and do away with almost all mask and social di...
Jun 04, 2021•6 min
This is Coronavirus 411, the latest COVID-19 info and new hotspots… Just the facts… for June 3rd, 2021. CDC data shows twelve U.S. states now have 70% of adult residents who’ve had at least one Covid vaccine shot. California and Maryland are the newest to hit that mark, joining Vermont, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, New Jersey, Rhode Island, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire. The national goal is to have one shot or more administered to 70% of those 18 and older by July 4. ...
Jun 03, 2021•5 min
This is Coronavirus 411, the latest COVID-19 info and new hotspots… Just the facts… for June 2nd, 2021. Good decisions come from good data and throughout the pandemic the data has been questionable. Case in point, Peru has more than doubled its official death toll after a government review. That instantly makes it the country with the highest coronavirus-related death rate per capita. And just 3% of Latin Americans have been fully vaccinated. In the UK, they’re dwelling on good news. There were ...
Jun 02, 2021•5 min
This is Coronavirus 411, the latest COVID-19 info and new hotspots… Just the facts… for June 1st, 2021. The World Health Organization announced from now on, coronavirus variants are to be known by letters of the Greek alphabet to avoid stigmatizing and discriminating against nations where they were first detected. The UK variant will be known as Alpha, the South Africa Beta, Brazil will be Gamma, and India Delta. They also considered naming the variants after Greek Gods. New coronavirus cases le...
Jun 01, 2021•5 min
This is Coronavirus 411, the latest COVID-19 info and new hotspots… Just the facts… for May 31st, 2021. A hospital in Houston is being sued by 117 employees who say it’s turning them into vaccine “guinea pigs” and breaking the law by requiring they get the shot. The lawsuit alleges compulsory vaccines violate the Nuremberg Code, created as a reaction to Nazi medical experiments. However, updated guidance from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says yes, employers of all kinds can requir...
May 31, 2021•6 min
This is Coronavirus 411, the latest COVID-19 info and new hotspots… Just the facts… for May 28th, 2021. Data from Johns Hopkins shows average daily Covid case counts in the U.S. are at less than half the level recorded at the start of May. The country is seeing an average of 23,407 new infections per day over the past week. The U.S. reports an average of 1.7 million daily vaccinations, and nearly 50% of the population has received one dose or more. Case counts have not been this low since June 2...
May 28, 2021•6 min
This is Coronavirus 411, the latest COVID-19 info and new hotspots… Just the facts… for May 27th, 2021. France is imposing a mandatory quarantine on visitors from Britain to slow the spread of the Indian variant. Germany has even stricter limits on people coming in from the U.K. Travel companies can only transport German citizens and residents from Britain. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said she was relying on a study in a top infectious disease journal when she said outdoor transmission accoun...
May 27, 2021•6 min
This is Coronavirus 411, the latest COVID-19 info and new hotspots… Just the facts… for May 26th, 2021. The CDC reports nearly one out of two Americans have now received at least one dose of a vaccine as of yesterday. And half of citizens 18 and over have been fully vaccinated. The United States has administered 287,788,872 doses. Elsewhere, problems remain. Bahrain's health ministry reported the highest daily death toll in that small island nation as a surge in cases hits record levels. Authori...
May 26, 2021•6 min
This is Coronavirus 411, the latest COVID-19 info and new hotspots… Just the facts… for May 25th, 2021. India crossed another milestone yesterday with more than 300,000 people lost to the coronavirus. That death toll is the third highest in the world after the U.S. and Brazil, accounting for 8.6% of coronavirus fatalities globally. It’s still believed the real numbers are much higher. Speaking of Brazil, its Health Ministry confirmed just shy of 450,000 dead from the virus. A damning report base...
May 25, 2021•6 min
This is Coronavirus 411, the latest COVID-19 info and new hotspots… Just the facts… for May 24th, 2021. There was a time anyone who suggested the novel coronavirus escaped from a lab in Wuhan was branded a conspiracy theorist, so certain was the reporting that it emerged naturally. Now none other than Dr. Anthony Fauci says he’s not convinced. He joins the rising number of voices calling for a real investigation into the virus' origins. For example, the Wall Street Journal reported three researc...
May 24, 2021•6 min
This is Coronavirus 411, the latest COVID-19 info and new hotspots… Just the facts… for May 21st, 2021. The CDC apparently believes relaxing mask requirements will encourage people who haven’t already done so to get vaccinated. Some experts in human behavior say not likely. The gamble is people will be nervous in a maskless world if they aren't vaccinated. The risk is that those people never felt at risk and all this will do is cause unvaccinated people to go unmasked. With 52 more COVID-19 fata...
May 21, 2021•6 min
This is Coronavirus 411, the latest COVID-19 info and new hotspots… Just the facts… for May 20th, 2021. Yesterday, India reported more coronavirus deaths in a single day than any other country at any time during the pandemic, setting a global record. Over the last month, India’s COVID-19 fatalities have jumped six-fold. And the infections continue to spread, mostly through the countryside where most people live, and health care is limited. Restrictions are returning across Asia. Mongolia has see...
May 20, 2021•6 min
This is Coronavirus 411, the latest COVID-19 info and new hotspots… Just the facts… for May 19th, 2021. The hope is that we’re seeing the last of the worst. India’s total cases since the pandemic began crossed over 25 million yesterday and there was a record 4,329 deaths in 24 hours. Argentina also had a record one-day coronavirus death toll of 745 as it deals with a second wave of infections. However, in India, there’s at least a trend of falling cases. Lots of buzz after Dr. Anthony Fauci’s ap...
May 19, 2021•6 min
This is Coronavirus 411, the latest COVID-19 info and new hotspots… Just the facts… for May 18th, 2021. If you’re in India, you have to wonder what else could happen. A powerful cyclone in the Arabian Sea was expected to make landfall on India’s west coast last night. Authorities tried to evacuate hundreds of thousands of people, but what the threat also did was suspend desperately needed vaccinations in one state. Flooding and crowded evacuation shelters could also make matters worse. Condition...
May 18, 2021•6 min
This is Coronavirus 411, the latest COVID-19 info and new hotspots… Just the facts… for May 17th, 2021. The shocking news out of India persists. Not only have bodies been found floating in the Ganges River, more have been found buried in shallow sand graves on its banks. Police with portable loudspeakers are asking people not to dispose of bodies this way. The good news, after hitting record highs for weeks, new cases are said to be stabilizing. A study out of India shows only 0.06% of people wh...
May 17, 2021•6 min
