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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declared Wednesday that a second wave of the coronavirus is already underway in most of Canada.
“We’re on the brink of a fall that could be much worse than the spring. I know this isn’t the news that any of us wanted to hear and we can’t change today’s numbers or even tomorrow’s. Those were already decided by what we did or didn’t do two weeks ago,” said Trudeau during a rare address to the nation.
“It’s all too likely we won’t be gathering for Thanksgiving, but we still have a shot at Christmas. Together we have the power to get this second wave under control,” Trudeau said telling Canadians they have the power to flatten the pandemic curve once again.
Canada’s Thanksgiving holiday is Oct. 12.
Event organizers for the annual Times Square New Year’s Eve celebration announced Wednesday the countdown will take place this year, albeit with some changes in format.
The countdown to midnight on December 31 — which will ring in 2021, just 100 days away — will take place “visually, virtually and safely,” according to a video teaser organizers sent out as part of a release.
Jeff Straus, the president of Countdown Entertainment, which co-produces the event, said part of the event is to forget about the strain 2020 has taken on elective society.
“We will miss everyone this year but we will bring our celebration to you, whether you want to turn off and turn away from the bad news of 2020, or turn to the new year with a sense of hope, renewal and resolution, you’ll be able to join us virtually like never before as part of the Times Square 2021 celebration,” he said in the release.
Despite the despair Covid-19 has brought upon 2020, the event this year will still honor “the courageous and creative spirits who have helped and will help us travel through these challenging times into the New Year,” the release said.
Precise planning details remain scarce but the release indicated celebrities and notable people from 2020 will still take part.
“More details to come; either way, we will be celebrating with you in some form on the 31st,” Tompkins said in the release.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio applauded the efforts being taken to make the event happen in a year stricken by unpredictability and an upending of social norms.
“A new year means a fresh start, and we’re excited to celebrate,” de Blasio said in the release.
More than 587,000 children in the United States have tested positive for Covid-19 since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic earlier this year, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association.
The organizations found that 74,553 cases of Covid-19 in children were reported between Sept. 3-17 – a 15% increase in this group over two weeks – for a total of 587,948 cases of coronavirus in children, according to their weekly pediatric report.
Cases listed by age are provided by health department websites in 49 states, New York City, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and Guam, but only a subset of states report hospitalizations and mortality by age, the groups said.
Children made up between 4%-15.9% of total state tests in 11 states reporting the numbers, and between 3.5% -15.7% of children tested were positive for the virus, the report said. In the 25 states and New York City reporting child hospitalizations, children represented 0.5%-3.7% of the total number of hospitalizations, and between 0.2%-8% of all child Covid-19 cases resulting in hospitalization.
In 42 states and New York City, children accounted for 0% to 0.33% of all Covid-19 deaths, and 18 states reported no child deaths.
The AAP is calling for even more detailed reporting from states.
“At this time, it appears that severe illness due to Covid-19 is rare among children,” the report said. “However, states should continue to provide detailed reports on Covid-19 cases, testing, hospitalizations, and mortality by age and race/ethnicity so that the effects of Covid-19 on children’s health can be documented and monitored.”
Children only represent about 10% of all reported cases in the US, according to the report, but the number of cases are likely underreported because the tally relies on state data that is inconsistently collected.
The French government has ordered all bars and restaurants in the Mediterranean city of Marseille to close starting Monday, the country’s health minister Olivier Véran said Wednesday, adding that the city has now been placed under a state of “maximum alert” following a surge in new coronavirus cases.
Speaking during a briefing, the health minister warned that the circulation of the virus is “particularly strong” in the region.
According to the health minister, the cities of Paris, Lille, Bordeaux, Lyon, Montpellier, Saint Etienne, Rennes, Rouen and Grenoble have also been declared “Enhanced Alert Zones” and will face new restrictions starting Monday, including a limit of 10 people for gatherings and a 10 p.m. curfew on bars.
“We are doing everything we can to avoid a State of Sanitary Emergency,” Véran said.
Syracuse University, a private university in northern New York, has announced that it is canceling its spring break for the upcoming Spring 2021 semester, a statement from school leaders said.
The school explained they canceled the week-long break in late March “in order to minimize travel-related COVID-19 risks and to avoid quarantine-related complications.”
School leaders also noted that “many of our peer institutions are adopting similar schedules.”
Syracuse’s spring break was originally scheduled for March 14 to March 21, according an earlier version of the school’s calendar.
The school still plans on holding convocations and a commencement ceremony in May but the statement noted that “the format of these celebrations, whether virtual or in-person, will be contingent on public health conditions and approval by the appropriate officials.”
The school, located in the city of Syracuse, has an undergraduate population of 15,275 students in 2019, according to the school’s website.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now says thousands of passengers on board commercial flights may have been exposed to coronavirus since the start of 2020.
In a statement emailed to CNN, the CDC says it was made aware of 1,600 flights between January and August where a person on board may have had Covid-19, potentially exposing 10,900 people “within a 6-foot range for droplet transmission” to coronavirus.
“CDC identified and notified relevant health departments about these 10,900 on-board close contacts,” said the statement.
CDC said it has received reports of Covid-19 cases among people who were identified as contacts on flights, but noted this data is limited by incomplete contact information, delayed notification of an infectious traveler and incomplete information about testing and outcomes for contacts, among other factors.
The new data, first reported by The Washington Post, comes as air carriers are ratcheting up their insistence that air travel is safe. Air travel in the United States remains at roughly 30% of last year’s levels.
“You are a lot safer in an airplane… than you are probably in your own home,” Nick Calio of Airlines for America told CNN on Tuesday. “People don’t like being in a confined space, however, as opposed to being in your house, in a grocery store, in a church, in a bar or restaurant, or even a playground, you’re a lot better off.”
In June, Vice President Mike Pence called for airlines to implement a contact-tracing app, but no announcement has been made since.
Teresa Parson, wife of Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, tested positive for Covid-19 on Wednesday, Parson’s office confirmed to CNN.
She took a rapid test on Wednesday after experiencing mild symptoms, according to Parson’s Communications Director Kelli Jones.
Jones said the first lady is awaiting the results of an additional nasal swab test to confirm the findings of the rapid test. The governor’s office expects to release the results of that test later Wednesday afternoon.
She is currently quarantining at home, according to Jones.
During a United Nations General Assembly event, the World Health Organization and partner organizations called on all countries to put national action plans in place to promote science-based health information and to combat misinformation.
“We call on the media, technology companies, civil society, researchers, and people everywhere to keep the infodemic from spreading,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of WHO. “Because now more than ever, the truth matters.”
He outlined how misinformation has led to too many people harming themselves based on falsehoods, self-medicating with toxic chemicals or dangerous medications and an increased stigmatization in institutions and health systems.
Even the most effective vaccine will fail if the public don’t have confidence in it, Tedros warned as he explained why it is so important that the public and policy makers are provided with accurate information.
Read their full statement here.
Once a fixture at the administration’s coronavirus briefings, Dr. Deborah Birx has confided to aides and friends that she has become so unhappy with what she sees as her diminished role as coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force that she is not certain how much longer she can serve in her position, sources familiar with her thinking tell CNN.
Birx has told people around her that she is “distressed” with the direction of the task force, describing the situation inside the nation’s response to coronavirus as nightmarish.
According to people familiar with her thinking, Birx views Dr. Scott Atlas, a recent addition to the task force, as an unhealthy influence on President Trump’s thinking when it comes to the virus.
Birx believes Atlas is feeding the President misleading information about the efficacy of face masks for controlling the spread of the virus, the source said. Trump, whose rallies draw crowds of supporters who refuse to wear masks, has repeatedly mocked Democratic rival Joe Biden for using them.
A longtime US government health official, Birx became a household name during the early weeks of the pandemic, appearing with Trump at news conferences in the White House briefing room to deliver sobering warnings about the threat posed by the virus. In recent weeks, however, Birx has spent much less time with Trump, as she is now dispatched to raise awareness of the administration’s pandemic efforts in states where cases of Covid-19 have surged.
Atlas, a neuroradiologist without expertise in infectious diseases, has seen his prominent role on the task force come under some scrutiny as respected medical experts have questioned his controversial flirtation with “herd immunity” as a solution for the outbreak in the US.
“When you isolate everyone, including all the healthy people, you’re prolonging the problem because you’re preventing population immunity. Low-risk groups getting the infection is not a problem,” Atlas told Fox News in July.
An administration official close to the West Wing’s coronavirus response acknowledged the addition of Atlas has unsettled some of the experts on the task force. But the official maintained Atlas “shook things up a bit” and brought “fresh eyes” to discussions behind the scenes, a dynamic Trump prefers.
“He’s not been instructed to make friends,” the official said of Atlas.
Trump has invited Atlas to appear at recent White House news conferences to field questions from reporters. Noticeably absent in the briefing room, Birx and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the administration’s leading authority on infectious diseases.
“Don’t you think the frustration would be there?” remarked one source close to Birx about the briefings.
The same source said Birx, who has spent much of her career tackling global health crises from Covid-19 to AIDS, is not likely to end her time in government service by stepping down from the task force.
Birx did not respond to requests for comment. The White House did not respond to a request for comment nor offer a response from Atlas.
Unlike Fauci, who occasionally differs with the President’s statements on the virus during television appearances, Birx is seen as much more of a team player inside the administration. During one memorable task force news conference in late April, Birx famously bit her tongue and sat stone-faced as Trump suggested that government researchers investigate whether injections of disinfectants could somehow guard Americans against the virus.
Birx believes her current role as a traveling spokesperson for the administration’s coronavirus response in states across much of the south and southwest is having some positive effect, a source said. She has touted the benefits of mask mandates during visits to college towns and other communities where Covid-19 spikes have alarmed local officials.
James Glassman, a friend of Birx and a former top State Department official during the George W. Bush administration, said the task force coordinator is trying to make the best of a difficult situation.
“Dr. Birx is out in the states with the most trouble, telling them the right things about masks and distancing and going back to school,” Glassman said. “She’s ignoring the nonsense from Scott Atlas and just getting the job done — just as I’ve seen her do, fighting AIDS for the past 15 years.”
The Metropolitan Opera announced they have canceled the entire 2020-21 season due to the “ongoing health crisis,” according to a news release issued Wednesday.
The 2021-22 season will open with the premier of Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones. Blanchard’s opera is the first by an African American composer to be performed at the Met.
According to the release the Met’s decision to cancel the season was based on the advice of health officials.
The release said “because of the many hundreds of performers who are required to rehearse and perform in close quarters and because of the company’s large audience, it was determined that it would not be safe for the Met to resume until a vaccine is widely in use, herd immunity is established, and the wearing of masks and social distancing is no longer a medical requirement. Health officials have said this will likely take at least five to six months after a vaccine is initially made available.”
In addition to previously announced furlough days for the mayor and his staff, the city of New York will now mandate all managerial and underrepresented city employees to furlough for five days, NYC Mayor Bill De Blasio said Wednesday at the city’s daily Covid-19 conference.
Staff will be expected to furlough for five days starting October through March, the mayor’s office said.
“We’re hurting,” the mayor said when speaking about the city’s budget.
Over 9,000 employees in total will be furloughed and that will save the city over $21-million dollars, the mayor said.
India’s Upper House of Parliament, the Rajya Sabha, has adjourned indefinitely, a week ahead of schedule, in light of the rising number of Covid-19 cases across the country.
“I have to inform the members that the government has decided to recommend the adjournment of the House sine die today. But some important legislative business passed by the Lok Sabha must be disposed of before adjournment of the House sine die [indefinitely],” Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs V. Muraleedharan informed the Upper House.
“This August house had to function from six different locations, including chambers of both the houses, four galleries of the house, the first of its kind in the history of Rajya Sabha. In another first, we functioned on Saturday and Sunday of the last week, without taking the usual break,” he added.
Several opposition parties are currently boycotting the house and the benches were empty as the Upper House passed the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Amendment Bill, the Bilateral Netting of Qualified Financial Contracts Bill, the three labor codes, and the Jammu and Kashmir Official Languages Bill on the last day.
The sudden conclusion of the Monsoon Session, which began on September 14 and is due to end on October 1, comes amid an uproar over the government’s farm bills, which were passed on Sunday.
Eight opposition Rajya Sabha MPs were suspended for unruly behavior, which triggered the boycott by opposition parties in proceedings in both the upper and lower houses, demanding the suspension be revoked.
The Lower House, or Lok Sabha, will meet at 3 p.m. local time and is also likely to be adjourned.
Friends of a 28-year-old doctor who died after a months-long battle with coronavirus remember her as a friendly, caring person who served as a “role model” for many.
Adeline Fagan was a second-year OB-GYN resident living in Houston. She developed Covid-19 symptoms in July, but didn’t respond to treatments and was placed on a ventilator before she died.
“It’s not something that you think of at 27, 28, that your friend dies. And that’s kind of what’s happening during this pandemic. We’re seeing all these young adults getting infected by this virus,” Dr. Catherine De Guzman, a friend of Fagan’s since medical school, said on CNN’s “New Day.”
“I have like nightmares and…wake up thinking that maybe this isn’t real. But then I remind myself that it is,” she added.
Dr. Tiffany Lin, another medical school friend, said that Fagan was a warm and caring person who went out of her way to help others.
Fagan would set up “friend dates” to get to know everyone in her class.
“She valued happiness on par with her studies,” said Dr. Timothy Shub said.
De Guzman said she will continue to look to Fagan as an example.
“She was pretty much my role model and who I wanted to become,” De Guzman said. “…She was just like someone I wanted to be, someone I still strive to be.”
Watch more:
After successfully tamping down the first surge of infection and death, Europe is now in the middle of a second coronavirus wave as it moves into winter.
If you’re just reading in now, here’s where things stand in countries across Europe:
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post incorrectly reported Czech Republic bars and restaurants will begin closing at 10 p.m. on Wednesday. The new restrictions go into effect on Thursday.
The death toll in the United States from the coronavirus pandemic has surpassed 200,000 – the most fatalities of any country in the world.
The staggering scale of that loss is hard to fathom. It’s equivalent to suffering the effects of 109 Hurricane Katrinas. Or enduring the 9/11 attacks every day for 66 days.
Behind those numbers are people: A beloved radio host, a navy veteran, a progressive pastor, 20-year-old siblings.
But survivors and victims’ families say that those tragedies have been obscured by rampant misinformation, and President Donald Trump’s minimizing of the pandemic. Their message: This is not a hoax.
What did Trump have to say about the desperate milestone? “It’s a shame.”
A version of this story appeared in the September 23 edition of CNN’s Coronavirus: Fact vs. Fiction newsletter. Sign up here to receive the need-to-know headlines every weekday.
Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine candidate begins phase 3 trials in the United States on Wednesday. Trials for the single-dose vaccine, which uses a human adenovirus, will include up to 60,000 adult participants at nearly 215 sites in the US and internationally.
The vaccine candidate was developed by Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson. Phase 3 trials will begin immediately, with the first participants receiving doses Wednesday, Johnson & Johnson Chief Scientific Officer Dr. Paul Stoffels said on a call with reporters Tuesday.
Initial findings from the vaccine’s phase 1/2 trials in the US and Belgium suggest the vaccine provokes an immune response and is safe enough to move into large-scale trials.
Phase 3 trials will examine the safety and effectiveness of a single dose against a placebo to prevent symptomatic Covid-19. The fact that the trial will examine the efficacy of a single dose of the vaccine, instead of two doses, should expedite results, said Stoffels.
Trials will run in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, South Africa and the United States. Johnson & Johnson intends to run a separate phase 3 trial in collaboration with the UK government to examine the effectiveness of two doses
If the vaccine is proven safe and effective, Johnson & Johnson said it expects the first doses to be available for emergency use authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration by early 2021.
Where things stand: Moderna, Pfizer/BioNTech and AstraZeneca also have Covid-19 vaccine candidates in Phase 3 trials in the United States, although AstraZeneca’s trial is currently paused.
Johnson & Johnson’s phase 3 trial is being conducted in collaboration with Operation Warp Speed, the federal government’s coronavirus vaccine effort.
Dr. Gupta discusses Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine:
Dr. James Hamblin, a staff writer at The Atlantic, says he’s concerned about the upcoming winter during the coronavirus pandemic.
Hamblin’s suggestions for winter include accepting reality, planning for more shutdowns and living like you are already contagious.
“The worst mistake we can make is to assume that because things are going well or because a neighborhood or city where you are is opening, that’s going to continue apace. It might level off, it might have to go back and shelter in place a little while,” he said.
Hamblin said that families should consider not gathering indoors for long periods of time during the holiday season, which could create as “extremely dangerous situation.”
Even if a vaccine is available, Hamblin said that should be taken along with “bundling” treatment and prevention of the virus — which includes wearing masks, social distancing and testing protocols.
Watch more:
China announced Wednesday that it would relax visa policies for some foreigners, in the latest sign of the government’s confidence in its containment of Covid-19.
Starting September 28, foreign nationals holding three types of long-term visas – called residence permits – are allowed to enter China without having to apply for a new visa, said the Chinese Foreign Ministry and National Immigration Administration in a notice posted online.
The new rule covers people who hold visas for work, personal matters and family reunions.
The latest policy, however, doesn’t apply to China-based foreign journalists, according to a Foreign Ministry official.
China effectively closed its borders to most foreign nationals in late March as part of its effort to fight the spread of coronavirus. That month it suspended all previously issued visas for foreigners not already in the country.
Eligible foreigners who enter China under the new rule “shall strictly abide by the Chinese regulations on epidemic prevention and control,” the notice added. “While ensuring effective epidemic control, the Chinese government will continue resuming people-to-people exchanges in a step-by-step and orderly manner.”
Last week’s signing ceremony on the south lawn of the White House, as Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain normalized relations, was the celebration Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wanted – and the distraction he needed.
“Let us pause for a moment to appreciate this remarkable day. Let us rise above any political divide. Let us put all cynicism aside. Let us feel on this day the pulse of history,” he said last Tuesday. “For long after the pandemic is gone, the peace we make today will endure.”
And while the coronavirus may be the most pressing challenge facing Netanyahu right now, it’s far from the only one. The 70-year-old leader is being attacked from both left and the right, not only for his handling of the public health crisis, but also for mismanagement of the economy, his response to his criminal trials, and more.
Read the rest of the article here:
A class action lawsuit has been filed against Austria and its federal state of Tyrol in connection with a mass coronavirus outbreak in the ski resort of Ischgl in March, and its subsequent spread to European countries and beyond.
The Austrian Consumer Protection Association (VSV) has submitted a first description of the facts to the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Vienna for its investigation, a statement on the VSV website says.
More than 1,000 people say they are joining the lawsuit, according to multiple reports. CNN has asked the cabinet of the Austrian chancellery for comment.
The class action aims to prove the authorities in Austria and Tyrol state did not do enough to shield visitors from the coronavirus prior to March 13 – by not closing the resort or warning skiers the virus was circulating.
In a statement to CNN, Tyrol state said people are “free to bring actions to court in a constitutional state” and it “has the greatest possible interest in re-evaluating all developments over the past few months.”
However, the statement continues, the pandemic put “many countries and regions around the world … in an exceptional situation unimaginable just a few months ago,” adding that it is working closely “with the judiciary” and an expert commission tasked with looking into Ischgl’s coronavirus crisis management.
The class action will also aim to prove that the sudden quarantine order issued for Ischgl and surrounding areas on March 13 allowed the virus to spread across Europe.
The VSV report says: “If you were at the ski resorts of Ischgl, Paznauntal, St. Anton am Arlberg, Sölden or Zillertal on 5 March 2020 or later, and shortly afterwards were diagnosed with the coronavirus, then you may be entitled to claim damages against the Tyrolean authorities and also against the Republic of Austria, provided we can produce evidence for negligence through relevant reports or in criminal proceedings.”
Ischgl and its neighboring villages draw around 500,000 visitors each winter, with high-profile celebrities and politicians among them in previous years.
