Month: November 2020

Syracuse, N.Y. — Onondaga County confirmed 67 new cases of the coronavirus in the last day, announced the results of its Covid-19 enforcement task force and are opening up a new testing site. Of those 67 cases, 45 were from community spread, County Executive Ryan McMahon tweeted Sunday afternoon. Of those 45, 18 were from a known source. Another 13 were contracted among household members, five were from travel and four are still being traced. Seven cases were tracked back to K-12 schools in the county and four were traced to colleges and universities. The 67 new cases is down from 71 new cases announced Saturday and the 99 new cases announced Friday, a single-day record. McMahon said Saturday that the county would send an enforcement team out this weekend to bars, restaurants and priva...

The number of virus strains present in each zip code in Houston during the second wave of COVID-19 cases in summer 2020. Number of strains is represented by a spectrum of colors from blue (0 strains) to red (50 strains). Credit: Houston Methodist/University of Texas at Austin. Credit: Houston Methodist/University of Texas at Austin A study involving more than 5,000 COVID-19 patients in Houston finds that the virus that causes the disease is accumulating genetic mutations, one of which may have made it more contagious. According to the paper published in the peer-reviewed journal mBIO, that mutation, called D614G, is located in the spike protein that pries open our cells for viral entry. It’s the largest peer-reviewed study of SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences in one metropolitan region of...

President Trump’s illness from a coronavirus infection last month was the most significant health crisis for a sitting president in nearly 40 years. Yet little remains known about how the virus arrived at the White House and how it spread. The administration did not take basic steps to track the outbreak, limiting contact tracing, keeping cases a secret and cutting out the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The origin of the infections, a spokesman said, was “unknowable.” But one standard public health technique may still shed some light: tracking the cluster’s genetic fingerprints. To better understand the outbreak, The Times worked with prominent geneticists to determine the genetic sequence of viruses that infected two Times journalists believed to have been exposed to the co...

PIERRE, S.D. (KELO) — Twelve new COVID-19 deaths were reported on Sunday as active cases of the coronavirus are down in South Dakota, according to the department of health’s update. The death toll is now at 437. The new deaths were five women and seven men with four in the 60-69 age range, two in the 70-79 age range and six in the 80+ age range. There has been 214 deaths in October, the deadliest month of the pandemic so far. On Sunday, 1,332 new coronavirus cases were announced, bringing the state’s total case count to 47,324, up from Saturday (45,992). There were 1,221 new PCR cases and 111 new antigen cases for 1,332 new total cases. Total recovered cases are now at 33,749, up from Saturday (31,194). Active cases are now at 13,138, down from Saturday (14,3...