New daily deaths due to the coronavirus had fallen below 1,000 for three straight days from Saturday to early Tuesday, the first stretch of lower daily deaths in over a week.
The seven-day average number of new coronavirus deaths in the United States had dropped precipitously since the week ending Aug. 16, when the average was 1,061, according to data compiled by the New York Times. The average number of deaths reported in the week ending Aug. 23 was 968.
The single-day death toll rose on Tuesday, with 1,212 new deaths reported.
Average daily death tolls had declined from highs of about 2,000 in April to lows below 1,000 at the end of June. Yet cases surged in the Sun Belt over the summer and led to jumps in deaths.
Several hot-spot states have also seen declines in daily death rates. Deaths in Texas in the past seven days have dropped 14%. In Florida, the death rate has fallen 32%, while the death rate in Arizona fell 19%, according to Washington Post tracking data.
Other hot-spot states, however, are seeing rising daily deaths. California saw its seven-day rolling average of daily new deaths increase by 5%. The average increased by 6% in Georgia, by 32% in Tennessee, and by 4% in Mississippi.
The total death toll in the U.S. surpassed 178,000, and more than 5.7 million cases have been confirmed.
American Airlines will furlough 19,000 employees in the fall when federal aid that has bolstered the travel industry runs out, according to the New York Times. When combined with the thousands of employees who have taken buyout packages or agreed to take long-term leave, the airline will have roughly 40,000 fewer workers on Oct. 1 than it did before the pandemic began, a decline of about 30%. American Airlines executives urged Congress to extend more support to the aviation industry to protect jobs.
Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn admitted that he overstated the benefits of convalescent plasma as a coronavirus treatment during a White House press briefing Sunday. He and President Trump cited preliminary findings from Mayo Clinic research, saying the treatment has been shown to reduce mortality by 35%.
What the researchers actually said was that patients who received plasma with a high level of COVID-19 antibodies within three days of diagnosis were about 35% more likely to survive another 30 days, compared with patients who received plasma with a low level of antibodies.
“What I should have said better is that the data show a relative risk reduction, not an absolute risk reduction,” Hahn said, adding that criticism of his statements was “entirely justified.”
South Korea has ordered all schools in the greater Seoul area to close and switch to remote learning until Sept. 11 as health authorities have warned that the country is on the verge of a large-scale COVID-19 outbreak, the Associated Press reported. South Korea has reported 12 consecutive days of triple-digit increases in coronavirus cases, pushing the entire caseload to 17,945, according to South Korea’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Education Minister Yoo Eun-hae said Tuesday that at least 193 students and teachers have tested positive for COVID-19 over the past two weeks in the capital region, where a renewed outbreak is threatening to erase progress the country made in the spring to contain the virus.
The Spanish government has authorized the military to shore up the country’s case tracing program as new clusters of infections have cropped up just days before the school year is set to begin, the Associated Press reported.
“There are 2,000 soldiers who have specific training in early detection and epidemiological surveillance,” Spain’s President Pedro Sanchez said Tuesday.
The Cabinet meeting took place after Spain’s health ministry announced more than 40,000 new cases of COVID-19 in the past week, the largest weekly increase since the end of March.
Eight-time Olympic gold medalist Usain Bolt has tested positive for the coronavirus after attending his birthday party in Jamaica on Friday, according to the Washington Post. Several pro athletes and celebrities attended the party, where guests did not wear masks or social distance. Prime Minister Andrew Holness said in a press conference that the police are investigating the circumstances surrounding Bolt’s party.
Two European patients, one in Belgium and one in the Netherlands, were found to have been reinfected with the coronavirus, just one day after scientists in Hong Kong confirmed the first case of COVID-19 reinfection.
Dutch virologist Marion Koopmans said the patient in the Netherlands was an older person with a weakened immune system, according to ABC News. Belgian virologist Marc Van Ranst said the Belgian case was a woman who had contracted COVID-19 for the first time in the second week of March and for a second time in June.
Northern Irish singer Van Morrison, 74, slammed the “pseudoscience” backing socially distanced concerts and launched a campaign to rally musicians and producers to resume live shows with full-capacity audiences, the Guardian reported.
Morrison will reluctantly perform socially distanced concerts in England next month: “This is not a sign of compliance or acceptance of the current state of affairs, this is to get my band up and running and out of the doldrums. This is also not the answer going forward. We need to be playing to full-capacity audiences going forward.”
