Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

CIDRAP - Southern states face growing COVID-19 crises

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • CIDRAP - Southern states face growing COVID-19 crises

    Source: http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-persp...ovid-19-crises


    Southern states face growing COVID-19 crises
    Filed Under:
    COVID-19
    Stephanie Soucheray | News Reporter | CIDRAP News
    | Apr 02, 2020



    Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia, who said this morning he just learned that the novel coronavirus could be spread by asymptomatic carriers, issued a statewide stay-at-home order today, following a similar announcement yesterday by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Both Kemp and DeSantis have resisted shutting down state economies during the COVID-19 pandemic.
    (See related CIDRAP News story today on the latest study demonstrating pre-symptom transmission.)
    Now 37 states and the District of Columbia have stay-at-home orders in place, while Kentucky and Oklahoma have both closed nonessential businesses and issued quarantines for vulnerable populations.
    In Georgia, Atlanta has been a hot bed of coronavirus activity, with 722 cases and 22 deaths. But rural counties in the state have also seen deadly pockets of infections. In total, 5,348 Georgians have been infected with the virus, according to the Georgia Department of Public Health, including 163 fatalities.
    Keisha Lance Bottoms, the mayor of Atlanta, issued a 14-day stay-at-home order for her city on Mar 23.
    In Florida today, Florida Health tracked a total of 8,010 cases, including 128 deaths. "While Florida's testing has increased over the past week, the percent of those testing positive for COVID-19 overall is 10 percent," Florida Health said in a daily update. "Of the 9,198 tests performed on April 1, there were 1,199 positive results, or 13 percent."
    Louisiana also added more than 2,000 new COVID-19 cases to its case count in the past 24 hours, raising its outbreak totals to 9,150 COVID-19 cases, including 310 deaths. One third of the state's cases are in New Orleans. Governor John Bel Edwards warned citizens today they would continue to see skyrocketing numbers as testing increased across the state.
    According to the New York Times case tracker, 234,483 cases of coronavirus are confirmed in the country and 5,708 people have died.

    Ventilator crisis in New York

    In his daily press briefing from Albany, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said New York is 6 days away from depleting its stockpile of ventilators.
    "If a person comes in and needs a ventilator and you don't have a ventilator, the person dies," Cuomo said. "That's the blunt equation here. And right now we have a burn rate that would suggest we have about six days in the stockpile." The governor also said every county in New York has now reported at least one COVID-19 case.
    Case counts in New York rose by nearly 10,000 since yesterday, with a state total of 92,381 cases and 2,373 deaths. New Jersey has 25,590 cases, California has 9,816 cases, and Michigan has 9,334 cases, according to the New York Times.
    Washington, the first hard-hit US state, now has 5,984 confirmed cases and 247 deaths. About half of those cases come from King County, where the Life Care Center long-term care facility tracked the first COVID-19 deaths in the country.

    FDA warns of malaria drug shortage

    Yesterday the Food and Drug Administration said the antimalarial drugs hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine are in shortage because of increased pandemic interest in them. Several small studies and anecdotal evidence suggest the drugs may be helpful to patients hospitalized with COVID-19, and President Donald ***** has touted the drug during his White House coronavirus task force meetings.
    In other US news, 6.6 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week, a new record. According to the Wall Street Journal, about 6% of Americans have filed for unemployment in the past 2 weeks.
    Also today, Democratic party leaders said the Democratic National Convention, which had been scheduled in Milwaukee during the week of Jul 13, has been pushed to the week of Aug 17.


Working...
X