Month: August 2020

The second and third human cases of West Nile virus in Massachusetts this year were announced Friday by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.Both patients are men from Middlesex County, officials said. One is in his 50s and the other is in his 80s.The first case of the year, which was identified earlier this month, was a man in his 50s who was likely exposed to the virus in southwestern Essex County or eastern Middlesex County. "Most WNV virus activity this year has been focused in an area around Boston and includes parts of Norfolk, Middlesex, and Essex counties," DPH officials said. In 2019, there were five human cases of WNV infection identified in Massachusetts. WNV is usually transmitted to humans through the bite of an infected mosquito. While WNV can infect people of ...

Iowa on Friday reported that more than three-quarters of the coronavirus tests performed in the past 24 hours had come back positive. The positivity rate jumped to a record 79.43 percent — with 2,579 new COVID-19 cases confirmed out of 3,247 tests. But Pat Garrett, spokesman for Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, said Friday evening that the abrupt increase is a one-time event, reflecting the addition of antigen tests to state numbers. The results of about 10,000 antigen tests, previously marked as “inconclusive,” were updated as positive or negative — thereby boosting the number of cases and the positivity rate. “The test w...