Month: November 2020

The number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus (COVID-19) in Michigan has risen to 184,889 as of Monday, including 7,357 deaths, state officials report. Monday’s update represents 6,709 new cases and 17 additional deaths over the past two days. On Saturday, the state reported 178,180 total cases and 7,340 deaths. New COVID-19 cases and deaths continue to rise in Michigan. Testing has increased in recent weeks, with more than 40,000 diagnostic tests reported per day, but the positive rate has increased to above 7% over the last week. Hospitalizations have increased steadily for the last four weeks, including upticks in critical care and ventilator use. RELATED: 4 differences between first Michigan COVID spike and now Michigan’s 7-day moving average for daily cases was 2,879 on Sunday, t...

Scientists have sequenced the genome of a coronavirus strain that likely infected President Trump and dozens of his advisers and others with whom he came into contact.  It comes after the White House deemed the source of President Trump's infection 'unknowable,' and refused the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) offer to assist in contact tracing related to the outbreak.  Two New York Times journalists who had been in close proximity to Trump and later tested positive for COVID-19 claim that they most likely caught the virus as a result of the White House outbreak.  And they were less convinced that the origins of the virus they caught were untraceable, and enlisted the help of geneticists at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center to attempt to find out the lineage of the virus the...

Here’s what you need to know: “We are now saying pregnant women are at increased risk for severe illness. Previously we said they ‘might be’ at increased risk for severe illness,” said Sascha Ellington, a health scientist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and one of the authors of a new study.Credit...Jonathan Ernst/Reuters Federal health officials on Monday added pregnancy to the list of conditions that put people with Covid-19 at increased risk of developing severe illness, including a heightened risk of death. While most pregnant women infected with the coronavirus have not become severely ill, the new caution is based on a large study that looked at tens of thousands of pregnant women who had Covid-19 symptoms. The study found they were significantly more lik...

Eight months into the pandemic, we all know that wearing a mask helps stop the spread of coronavirus. "You protect yourself, you protect others, [and] you prevent yourself from touching your face," Joseph G. Allen, director of the Healthy Buildings program at Harvard, told The New York Times recently. However, we also know that not all face coverings are created equal—and there are a number of mask mistakes that make them less effective at keeping you safe from COVID-19. With so many different styles—from standard surgical masks to homemade variations to N95s—it's important to understand not only how exactly masks help stop the spread of coronavirus, but also the things that make your mask far less effective than it could be. So, what's the biggest problem of them all? Not paying attentio...

Air quality worsened Monday as a thin haze of pollution crept over Bay Area skies. Cities around the region recorded moderate levels of air pollution just after dawn, with conditions reaching levels unhealthy for sensitive groups. Those with respiratory illnesses are being encouraged to limit prolonged outdoor exertion. Vallejo recorded the poorest air quality in the region as conditions there inched closer to unhealthy air quality levels. Berkeley, East Oakland and San Jose also saw declines after a stretch of clear skies. Bu...