Month: September 2021

Israel has become the Covid capital of the world despite leading the charge on vaccines, in a clear warning sign that Britain, the US and other highly-immunised nations are still vulnerable to another wave. Stats compiled by Oxford University-backed research team Our World in Data shows there were a record 1,892 Covid cases per million people in Israel on Wednesday — nearly 0.2 per cent of the entire population in a single day. That was significantly higher than second worst-hit Mongolia, where the rate was 1,119 per million, and double the figures for Kosovo (980), Georgia (976) and Montenegro (909), which rounded out the top five. The figure only looks at one day's worth of tests and Israel's high rate is thought to have been driven up by a huge testing push ahead of schools reopening t...

Eighteen months into the pandemic, Louisiana and more than 20 other states are still trying to fill key gaps in data while fighting the most aggressive version yet of the virus. With new cases continuing to snowball, schools reopening and the holidays still to come, state health officials are bracing for a rough fall — and the possibility that a new, even more dangerous variant could emerge in the coming months. “It is a little bit like we're back at the beginning because cases are going up so quickly. hospitalizations have gone up so quickly … testing has gone up so quickly,” said Lee Mendoza, director of Health Informatics in the Louisiana health department, in a recent interview. “The demands on our time, both in terms of data requests, information and additional reporting is just ...

State health officials reported 624 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, the highest daily total since the peak of the pandemic last January. The latest surge that began in early July continues in Maine as the more contagious delta variant drives up infection rates, hospitalizations and deaths in the state. In addition to the 624 new cases — the largest single-day jump since Jan. 22 — the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday reported three additional deaths linked to COVID-19. With new positive test results flooding into the state lab, Maine CDC staff have been scrambling to review and process all of the new cases. As a result, some of Thursday’s cases could include new infections reported to the state over multiple days. But the seven-day average shows the...

Commuters wearing protective face masks board a train on August 07, 2020 in Berlin, Germany.Photo: Sean Gallup (Getty Images) An enormous randomized trial of communities in Bangladesh seems to provide the clearest evidence yet that regular mask-wearing can impede the spread of the covid-19 pandemic. The study found that villages where masks were highly promoted and became more popular experienced noticeably lower rates of covid-like symptoms and confirmed past infections than villages where mask-wearing remained low. These improvements were even more pronounced for villages given free surgical masks over cloth masks. Plenty of data has emerged over the last year and a half to support the use of masks during the covid-19 pandemic, both in the real world and in the lab. But it’s less cl...

Health care providers who administer a COVID-19 vaccine "off-label" face legal liability, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns. Luis Alvarez/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Luis Alvarez/Getty Images Health care providers who administer a COVID-19 vaccine "off-label" face legal liability, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns. Luis Alvarez/Getty Images ...