Month: November 2020

This story will be updated. Maine marked the grimmest milestone yet in the coronavirus pandemic on Tuesday when the state saw the largest increase in the death toll and another record-high number of new cases. A dozen people across five counties succumbed to COVID-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus, while 258 new cases were reported across the state, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. “These are not the kind of records we want to be setting,” Maine CDC Director Nirav Shah said of the grim records in a Tuesday morning tweet. Tuesday’s report brings the total number of coronavirus cases in Maine to 10,799. Of those, 9,698 have been confirmed positive, while 1,101 were classified as “probable cases,” the Maine CDC reported. ...

This week, many Americans are grappling with how to alter Thanksgiving celebrations in order to stay safe during the Covid-19 pandemic, including Bill Gates. The Microsoft co-founder shared his Thanksgiving plans in an interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria Sunday. "We'll have less family members there than we normally would have," said Gates, who has been at home in Washington during the pandemic with his wife Melinda and their three children: Jennifer, 24; Rory, 21; and Phoebe, 18. Gates said he's setting up "a video connection with a lot of the family members on Thanksgiving Day, but [will] not be with them to have turkey together," he said. (Gates has also been hosting virtual "visits with friends where we drink wine" throughout the pandemic, he said on his new podcast, "Bill...

TURNING TO CORONAVIRUS - TONIGHT, DOCTORS WARN - HOLDING A LARGE FAMILY GATHERING BASED ON NEGATIVE COVID-19 TESTS IS áNOT AS SAFE AS IT SOUNDS. KCCI'S CHRIS GOTHNER IS LIVE AT THE DES MOINES AIRPORT WITH WHY THEY SAY IT BRINGS A FALSE SENSE OF SECURITY.. CHRIS? (áááCHRISááá) WELL WE HEARD FROM A FEW PEOPLE HERE WHO GOT A COVID-19 TEST BEFORE THEY FLEW IN OR OUT TO CELEBRATE THANKSGIVING. BUT EXPERTS ARE WARNING -- IT IS NOT A TICKET TO ENSURE YOU OR YOUR LOVED ONES AREN'T SPREADING THE VIRUS. <NAT FROM BAGGAGE CLAIM> TONI & KIRIAN BABOURINE <BAB-ER-EEN> PICKED UP THEIR BAGS AND HEADED OFF TO AMES MONDAY. THEY'RE VISITING CENTRAL IOWA FROM SUNNY FLORIDA FOR THANKSGIVING. BUT THE DAY BEFORE THEIR FLIGHT -- THEY GOT TESTED FOR COVID-19. <16;32 THEY SAID...

As the coronavirus swept across the world, it picked up random alterations to its genetic sequence. Like meaningless typos in a script, most of those mutations made no difference in how the virus behaved. But one mutation near the beginning of the pandemic did make a difference, multiple new findings suggest, helping the virus spread more easily from person to person and making the pandemic harder to stop. The mutation, known as 614G, was first spotted in eastern China in January and then spread quickly throughout Europe and New York City. Within months, the variant took over much of the world, displacing other variants. For months, scientists have been fiercely debating why. Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory argued in May that the variant had probably evolved the ability to ...

For the most up-to-date news and information about the coronavirus pandemic, visit the WHO website. When a novel coronavirus began infecting humans in late 2019, our immune systems were caught off-guard. The virus clogged lungs. It caused clotting and heart problems. It spread quickly and killed indiscriminately. Those who battled the virus and survived were left with lingering health issues, struggling for breath. The virus had evolved a near-perfect mechani...