A Straßenbahn in Vienna near the Schwarzenberg Platz
Good morning. This is Jonathan Spira reporting. Here now the news of the pandemic from across the globe on the 927th day of the pandemic.
One thing that is not prominent in pandemic reporting these days is contact tracing and there’s perhaps good reason, despite continued high numbers of cases in many parts of the country.
Covid is so pervasive today in the world that the type of contact tracing done in the early days of the pandemic – similar to that in many respects conducted for sexually-transmitted diseases – has been rendered useless.
New York City’s contact tracing program, dubbed the Track and Trace Corps, which was disbanded this spring, reached 1.7 million people in the Big Apple who had contracted Covid and identified 1.8 million of their close contacts. The program notified 76% of those contacts of their exposure, the Health and Human Services Department said in a statement earlier this year.
In some areas, the program continues, albeit more to answer questions from people who have contracted the virus than to locate close contacts.
In Connecticut, the Housatonic Valley Health District, which serves New Milford, Oxford, Southbury, Washington, and Woodbury, keeps its tracers busy answering questions about people’s exposure, when it might be safe to return to work, and connecting people to additional healthcare resources, a local online newspaper, CTInsider, reported.
In Danbury, Connecticut, which serves New Milford, Oxford, Southbury, Washington, and Woodbury, former contact tracers now focus on the prevention of the coronavirus, the flu and other respiratory illnesses.
In other news we cover today, the director of the CDC tested positive for Covid, Vienna will continue its mask mandate, and doctors in Singapore are concerned about public “complacency” over Covid.
UNITED STATES
The director of the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, reported that she tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. The news comes just one month after she received her bivalent booster shot. Walensky reported only “mild symptoms” and said she is isolating in accordance with CDC guidelines.
Meanwhile, in California, officials are closely monitoring a rise in new sublineages of the omicron variant in Los Angeles County as well as the San Francisco Bay Area. Public health authorities issued warnings saying that the number of new daily cases is no longer substantially declining, as it had been in September.
GLOBAL
In Vienna, Bürgermeister Michael Ludwig announced that the mask mandate for public transit and pharmacies would continue. Masks and a negative PCR test are required to enter hospitals and old-age and care homes, while, in other Bunderländer, only a mask is required for entry. Throughout Austria, masks are required in medical practices and physical therapy facilities..
In Singapore, physicians are warning the populace as well as government officials against complacency as the number of cases caused by the new XBB variant continue to surge. The city-state’s approach to living with the virus has allowed it to end most pandemic-era curbs and reopen borders to tourists.
TODAY’S STATISTICS
Now here are the daily statistics for Sunday, October 23.
As of Sunday morning, the world has recorded 632.8 million Covid-19 cases, an increase of 0.4 million cases, and 6.6 million deaths, according to Worldometer, a service that tracks such information. In addition, 611.6 million people worldwide have recovered from the virus, an increase of 0.3 million.
Worldwide, the number of active coronavirus cases as of Sunday at press time is 14,578,840, a decrease of 74,000. Out of that figure, 99.7%, or 14,540,299, are considered mild, and 0.3%, or 38,541, are listed as critical. The percentage of cases considered critical has not changed over the past 24 hours.
The United States reported 2,576 new coronavirus infections on Sunday for the previous day, compared to 33,923 on Saturday, 63,637 on Friday, 68,420 on Thursday and 28,124 on Wednesday, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The 7-day incidence rate is now 35,259. Figures for the weekend (reported the following day) are typically 30% to 60% of those posted on weekdays due to a lower number of tests being conducted.
The average daily number of new coronavirus cases in the United States over the past 14 days is 37,938, a 6% decrease, based on data from the Department of Health and Human Services, among other sources. The average daily death toll over the same period is 361, a decrease of 6% over the same period, while the average number of hospitalizations for the period was 26,810, a 1% decrease.
In addition, since the start of the pandemic the United States has, as of Sunday, recorded 99.1 million cases, a higher figure than any other country, and a death toll of 1.1 million. India has the world’s second highest number of officially recorded cases, 44.6 million, and a reported death toll of 528,957.
The newest data from Russia’s Rosstat state statistics service showed that, at the end of July, the number of Covid or Covid-related deaths since the start of the pandemic there in April 2020 is now 823,623, giving the country the world’s second highest pandemic-related death toll, behind the United States. Rosstat reported that 3,284 people died from the coronavirus or related causes in July, down from 5,023 in June, 7,008 in May and 11,583 in April.
Meanwhile, France is the country with the third highest number of cases, with 36.5 million, and Germany is in the number four slot, with 35.1 million total cases.
Brazil, which has recorded the third highest number of deaths as a result of the virus, 687,581, has recorded over 34.8 million cases, placing it in the number five slot.
The other five countries with total case figures over the 20 million mark are South Korea, with 25.3 million cases, the United Kingdom, with 23.9 million cases, placing it in the number seven slot, and Italy, with 23.3 million, as number eight, as well as Japan, with 21.9 million, and Russia, with 21.4 million.
VACCINATION SPOTLIGHT
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that, as of Thursday, over 265.6 million people in the United States – or 80% – have received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine. Of that population, 68.2%, or 226.6 million people, have received two doses of vaccine, and the total number of doses that have been dispensed in the United States is now 632.9 million. Breaking this down further, 91% of the population over the age of 18 – or 234.9 million people – has received at least a first inoculation and 78% of the same group – or 201.4 million people – is fully vaccinated. In addition, 52.3% of that population, or 105.3 million people, has already received a first booster dose of vaccine.
Starting on June 13, 2022, the CDC began to update vaccine data on a weekly basis and publish the updated information on Sunday by 8 p.m. EDT, a statement on the agency’s website said.
Some 68.4% of the world population has received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine by Sunday, according to Our World in Data, an online scientific publication that tracks such information. So far, 12.86 billion doses of the vaccine have been administered on a global basis and 2.66 million doses are now administered each day.
Meanwhile, only 23.3% of people in low-income countries have received one dose, while in countries such as Canada, China, Denmark, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States, at least 75% of the population has received at least one dose of vaccine.
Only a handful of the world’s poorest countries – Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia and Nepal – have reached the 70% mark in vaccinations. Many countries, however, are under 20% and, in countries such as Haiti, Senegal, and Tanzania, for example, vaccination rates remain at or below 10%.
In addition, with the start of vaccinations in North Korea in late September, Eritrea remains the only country in the world that has not administered vaccines.
Paul Riegler contributed reporting to this story.
(Photo: Accura Media Group)
