Tag Archives: pandemic

ABC News reports: The city of Springfield, Missouri, announced Monday that it was canceling a major summer festival as COVID-19 surges in the region. The Birthplace of Route 66 Festival, which was scheduled for Aug. 13-14 and typically includes live music and a classic car parade, has been called off for the second year in a row due to COVID-19. …

CNN reports: The US is averaging about 19,455 new cases over the last seven days, a 47% increase from the week prior, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. And a third of those, CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner said, come from five hotspots: Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri and Nevada. “In places like Missouri where ICUs are packed, you’re …

Little Rock’s NBC News affiliate reports: As concerns mount over the growing impact of the delta variant of COVID-19, figures released Friday show coronavirus cases again surging in Arkansas, topping levels seen in a year before. The Arkansas Department of Health reported 1,155 new cases of COVID-19 Friday afternoon, bringing the total number of cases in Arkansas to 355,460. Active …

CNN reports: Covid-19 vaccines saved hundreds of thousands of lives and prevented more than a million hospitalizations in the United States, according to new estimates from researchers at Yale University and the Commonwealth Fund. The researchers compared actual trends in Covid-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths against a modeled trajectory of what those trends would have been if there had been …

Wichita’s ABC News affiliate reports: With 13 COVID-19 cases in the last two weeks and 23 overall, an AGK Ministries summer camp has been declared a cluster by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. The KDHE and the Butler County Health Department are investigating the church camp that took place from June 21 to June 25 at the Wheat …

The Daily Beast reports: Talk about a sick deal. The Small Business Administration has given anti-vaccine conspiracists a million-dollar-plus shot in the arm by forgiving massive loans to top opponents of inoculations, a review by The Daily Beast revealed. Ironically, this infusion has come via the Paycheck Protection Program, intended to relieve the economic strain brought on by the pandemic—the …

The Guardian reports: Organisers pushed ahead with a Mexican beauty pageant in spite of a Covid-19 outbreak that infected almost half the contestants, it has emerged. At least 15 of the 32 contestants in the Miss Mexico 2021 pageant tested positive for coronavirus. A pageant staff member also tested positive, according to the Chihuahua state health secretariat. “Even though many …

The New York Times reports: The world’s known coronavirus death toll passed four million on Thursday, a loss roughly equivalent to the population of Los Angeles, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. It took nine months for the virus to claim one million lives, and the pace has quickened since then. The second …

ABC News reports: Essential workers who helped New York City through the COVID-19 pandemic are being honored Wednesday with a parade up Broadway, a celebration of flying paper and floats that’s been used to fete returning soldiers, astronauts and championship sports teams in the past. “We’ve got a lot to appreciate, because we’re well underway in our recovery. We’ve got …

USA Today reports: COVID-19 cases were up in nearly half of U.S. states, a USA TODAY Network analysis of Johns Hopkins University data shows. Alaska and Arkansas more than doubled cases in just the last week. South Carolina and Kansas are up more than 50%. In Missouri, the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients jumped by nearly 30% over the Fourth …

Atlanta’s ABC News affiliate reports: There’s a serious warning for young people still on the fence about getting a COVID-19 vaccine from a 24-year-old Georgia man who chose not to do so. Blake Bargatze just underwent a double lung transplant Monday after suffering complications from the virus. His mom, Cheryl, talked to 11Alive because Bargatze can’t speak yet. She said …

The Associated Press reports: Faced with soaring numbers of new coronavirus infections among unvaccinated young people, some Spanish regions are reinstating curbs on nightlife only weeks after dropping them. New infections have spread among Spanish teenagers as a result of trips and parties to celebrate the end of the school year. Thousands have been forced to go into isolation nationwide …

The Associated Press reports: America’s top infectious disease expert said about 99.2% of recent COVID-19 deaths in the United States involved unvaccinated people. “It’s really sad and tragic that most all of these are avoidable and preventable,” he added. He told NBC’s “Meet the Press” it’s frustrating “where you have a formidable enemy” in the coronavirus and “yet we do …

Houston’s ABC News affiliate reports: More than 125 adults and youth from a Galveston County church camp event have tested positive for COVID-19, the church said in a statement to its members. The Clear Creek Community Church youth ministry camp was held at a facility near Giddings, Texas, last month. “Unfortunately, upon return from camp, 125+ campers and adults reported …

The Moscow Times reports: Russia on Saturday reported 697 Covid-19 deaths in the previous 24 hours, the fifth straight day the country has set a new record as it battles the surging Delta variant. It also recorded 24,439 new coronavirus infections, the highest figure since the middle of January when Russia was emerging from its second wave of the pandemic. …

The Daily Beast reports: President Joe Biden set a goal for the country soon after he assumed office: 70 percent nationwide vaccination against the coronavirus by July 4th. Biden hoped to declare “independence from the virus” alongside Independence Day. The country as a whole has fallen just short of the benchmark, with 67 percent of the over-18 population having received …

The Washington Post reports: The Biden administration on Thursday announced the formation of “surge response” teams intended to combat the fast-moving delta variant of the coronavirus by deploying additional expertise and supplies to hot spots. “These are dedicated teams working with communities at higher risk for, or already experiencing, outbreaks due to the spread of the delta variant and their …

Religion News Service reports: The American Humanist Association announced Thursday (July 1) that Dr. Anthony S. Fauci is its 2021 Humanist of the Year. Fauci is chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden and has been director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the U.S. National Institutes of Health since 1984. Although Fauci attended Jesuit schools …

The Hill reports: Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease doctor, on Tuesday said he is concerned that the widening gap between the vaccinated and unvaccinated in America will get worse, leading to possible spikes in coronavirus cases. “When you have such a low level of vaccination superimposed upon a variant that has a high degree of efficiency of spread, …

The Lincoln Journal-Star reports: A COVID-19 outbreak at a central Illinois summer camp has led to at least 85 cases of the virus among teens and adult staff, and to other cases at a nearby conference, the Illinois Department of Public Health said Monday. The two outbreaks occurred in Schuyler and Adams counties. At the summer camp, held in mid-June, …