Month: July 2020

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Michigan officials has decreased the number of recorded deaths linked to COVID-19 due to data entry errors.  On Friday, the state said the total number of deaths linked to coronavirus was 6,151. On Saturday, the modified total of COVID-19 deaths was listed at 6,149. The state says the errors were discovered while reviewing the data, which resulted in 16 being subtracted from the cumulative death total.  Officials say the errors occurred during a local case investigation, which involved mistakenly indicating people were dead when they were not. On Saturday, the state says it confirmed 14 more deaths linked to the virus on Friday. Eight of those deaths were discovered during a review of death certificates. Also Saturday, the state r...

The Newport Beach Fire Department is feeling the effect of the coronavirus among its own ranks. Ten firefighters and 11 lifeguards had tested positive for the virus, Fire Chief Jeff Boyles confirmed Friday. Boyles said the virus apparently broke through to his crews through community spread and not while directly treating coronavirus patients. He said all fire stations and trucks remain staffed, and cleaning protocols have been tweaked. Newport Beach Fire is not sending crews to out-of-county wildland fires. “We have been very vigilant when we go on calls with what we know to be sick people, but people have lives outside of work,” Boyles told the City Council at its last meeting on July 14. An additional 30 firefighters and 21 lifeguards have quarantined at some point in July, Boyles ...

HOLBROOK, Ariz. (AP) — County health officials in northeastern Arizona said a man has contracted the human plague and are warning the public to take precautions to limit the risk of exposure. Navajo County Assistant Manager Bryan Layton said Friday that a man over the age of 55 was being treated for the disease amid an investigation into how it was contracted. Humans typically get plague after being bitten by an infected flea that is carrying the plague bacterium or by handling an animal infected with plague. The Navajo County Health Department encouraged people to avoid rodent burrows and keep dogs on a leash.

In the absence of medical grade personal protective equipment (PPE), many of us have turned to homemade cloth masks to help stop the spread of coronavirus. But increasingly, research has shown that not all masks are created equal, and some are downright ineffective.  A new video case study produced by Australian researchers shows that in order for a homemade cloth mask to stop viral transmission, it needs to have at least two layers of fabric. In effect, if your mask has just one layer of fabric, you can safely bet that it simply doesn't work. Using an LED lighting system and a high-speed camera, the research team filmed the dispersal of aerosols produced by a subject while speaking, coughing, and sneezing. Th...

SALT LAKE CITY — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is advising Americans to watch for symptoms of salmonella as a new outbreak grows rapidly without a clearly identified source. The outbreak has sickened 40 Utahns so far and 212 people total, the CDC says, though more cases may be yet unreported. "This outbreak is growing rapidly in size," the CDC wrote on its website. "A specific food item, grocery store, or restaurant chain has not been identified as the source of infections." The CDC "is not recommending that consumers avoid any particular food at this time." Symptoms of salmonella include diarrhea, fever and stomach cramps. Symptoms usually develop six hours to six days after exposure to the bacteria, the CDC says. The illness usually lasts from four to seven days, and mo...

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health said Saturday that 53 more people died from coronavirus overnight, with 3,628 new cases reported. Across all areas of L.A. County, it brings the total to 172,325 cases and 4,351 deaths since the outbreak began. The L.A. Department of Public Health stated that part of the high number of cases are due to an inclusion of backlogged system results. A larger trend is emerging where younger people are comprising a larger portion of those infected. 76% of new cases occurred in people under 50 years old of which 54% of new cases were under the age of 30. Los Angeles County is seeing a 10% positivity rate among the 1.6 million individuals tested. Director of Public Health Dr. Barbara Ferrer emphasized that it is too early to re...

Residents of an assisted living facility in The Villages and a Wildwood nursing home and six tri-county residents are the latest local victims of the COVID-19 virus. One of the long-term care residents lived at Serenades in The Villages, located at 2450 Parr Drive, while the other was a resident of Cypress Care Center, located at 490 S. Old Wire Road in Wildwood. No other information about the two victims was provided Saturday by the Florida Department of Health. Serenades Memory Care and Assisted Living is located on Parr Drive in The Villages. Five of the area residents who died lived in Marion County, while the sixth was a resident of Sumter County. There were identified as: 72-year-old man who tested positive July 9, hadn’t traveled recently but had been in contact with anot...

The state is reporting 437 new cases of the novel coronavirus on Saturday, July 25, a decrease of more than 100 cases compared to Friday’s daily count of 594 cases. Michigan now has seen 76,978 total COVID-19 cases compared to 76,541 on Friday, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. Recent data quality review operations at the state level, however, has led to a bit of a shuffle in the latest COVID-19 death statistics. Fourteen deaths were reported on Saturday, in comparison to three deaths on Friday. According to Michigan health officials, the deaths announced today include eight deaths identified during a vital records review. Manual data entry errors were also discovered in relation to the cumulative death total, leading to a decrease of 16 cumulative deaths. The er...