New York City, once the coronavirus epicenter of the world, is “on track” to enter its next phase of reopening as soon as next Monday, while Beijing has been forced to raise its emergency response level as a new round of coronavirus infections in the capital worsens.
At least 137 cases have been identified in Beijing this week after months without reporting any new cases. The latest outbreak, which is centered on the Xinfadi wholesale food market, began last week. Schools have now been made to shut back down, and several neighborhoods surrounding the market have been cordoned off so that residents can’t leave. More than 1,200 flights going in and out of Beijing were canceled Wednesday.
Beijing has tested 356,000 people for the coronavirus since Saturday, and city official Zhang Qiang said officials intended to test at least 355,000 more people with links to the Xinfadi market quickly, according to CBS News. Six groups of people will be tested this week, including those who have visited Xinfadi or other food markets, public sector employees, medical workers, and teachers and students who have returned to school.
In New York City, meanwhile, outdoor dining, some in-store shopping, hair salons, barbershops, and some offices may be permitted to reopen next as it enters phase two after months of business closures and lockdowns.
“The same metrics we’ve used in New York City are the same we’ve used across the state,” Cuomo said. “Part of the phasing is allowing local governments to increase capacity and handle additional burden. It only works if business owners are ready.”
Infectious disease experts worry that President Trump’s fixation on having a coronavirus vaccine ready before the end of the year, part of his initiative called Operation Warp Speed, will lead to regulatory agencies authorizing the use of vaccines that haven’t been proven safe, the Washington Post reported Wednesday.
“What worries me is we are coming up to an election, and the administration might be tempted to put its hand into the Warp Speed bucket and say we have enough information, let’s just give it now,” said Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine expert at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
Scientists are worried that Trump’s insistence on having the vaccine ready in 2020 will politicize regulatory agencies in charge of making sure medications are safe for consumption. The decision in March by the Food and Drug Administration to authorize doctors to prescribe hydroxychloroquine in hospital settings to COVID-19 patients came shortly after Trump began touting its benefits at press conferences. On Monday, the FDA rescinded its emergency use authorization after receiving hundreds of reports of adverse reactions to the drug.
Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, told the Washington Post that the politicization of the FDA “will be a huge issue” when the first vaccine to finish clinical trials applies for marketing approval.
“I think the FDA has lost a lot of credibility the last few months,” Jha said.
Nearly 2.2 million people in the United States have been infected with the coronavirus. At least 117,600 people have died, according to Johns Hopkins University data. Nine states hit record highs for new coronavirus cases Tuesday, including Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, and Texas.
Lighthouse Pentecostal Church in rural northeastern Oregon has become the new epicenter for the state’s coronavirus outbreak, as 236 people tested positive for the virus on Tuesday out of 278 new cases statewide, ABC News reported. In response to the increasing rate of new cases, Gov. Kate Brown put a hold on reopening procedures for seven days.
The number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 in Texas surged to 2,793 Wednesday, up from 2,518 patients Tuesday, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services. Wednesday’s tally marks the eighth new high in hospitalizations in less than two weeks.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced in a Wednesday press briefing that she will extend the coronavirus state of emergency statewide, which was set to expire Thursday.
“All 50 states are in some form of state of emergency, and we will have to be as well,” she said.
The state of emergency is not the same as a stay-at-home order, which lifted last month. Rather, it allows Whitmer to put orders in place that are meant to curb the pandemic further. She said schools are still on track to reopen in the fall.
There is a partisan divide among voters over whether to get a coronavirus vaccine when it becomes available, a CNBC survey found. While 56% of Democrats said they would “definitely” get the vaccine, only 18% of Republicans agreed. Meanwhile, 41% of Republicans said “definitely not” when asked if they would get the vaccine compared to only 6% of Democrats.
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analysis found that African Americans and Latinos account for the most coronavirus infections in the U.S., Yahoo News reported. African Americans account for only 13.4% of the U.S. population, but the CDC says they accounted for 22% of coronavirus infections. Latinos represent 18.3% of the population, according to 2010 census data, but the CDC found that they suffered 33% of the coronavirus infections in the study’s cohort.
