The post NYPD data: Only about 20 percent of NYC shootings ended in arrests this year appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>The city is gripped by a gun-violence epidemic, but only about 20 percent of shootings have ended with an arrest, according to a Post analysis of NYPD data through late August.
Of the approximately 1,000 cases of gunplay tallied, about 210 have seen at least one suspect arrested, with the rest remaining open as of late last month, according to data The Post obtained from the city’s five district attorneys when the NYPD repeatedly refused to provide it themselves.
Historically, the NYPD’s so-called shooting clearance rate has hovered around 30 to 33 percent, department officials have said.
NYC WOMAN, 74, PUNCHED IN FACE AFTER TEENS SNATCH PURSE, POLICE SAY
A shooting is considered “cleared” when cops make at least one arrest.
Brooklyn has seen both the most shootings — around 440 as of Aug. 23 — and the fewest resulting arrests, with around 70 busts, good for a roughly 15-percent clearance rate, the data shows.
Staten Island cops have cleared approximately half of the borough’s shootings, though that incident count was only around 30 as of Aug. 30, according to figures from Richmond County prosecutors.
Of the other three boroughs, each of which had more substantial sample sizes, Manhattan fared the best, with about a 26-percent clearance rate on its more than 130 shootings as of Aug. 23.
The Bronx had a roughly 23-percent clearance rate on its approximately 250 shootings, nearly even with Queens’ 22-percent clearance rate on about 145 shootings, as of Aug. 30 and Aug. 23, respectively.
As gunplay has exploded across New York this year to levels not seen in decades, city and NYPD officials have alternately blamed prisoner releases due to state bail-reform and the coronavirus, the pandemic-forced closure of many courts and increased scrutiny on how cops do their jobs amid a wave of anti-police sentiment.
While Post investigations have debunked the first two explanations, Maria Haberfeld, a police science professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said that the third cannot be discounted.
“We cannot be ignorant of the fact that police are under a microscope,” she said. “[It] does not encourage the average officer to out of his her way clear the cases, because even when they do there are accusations of misconduct.”
Haberfeld noted that, nationally, a clearance rate around 40 percent is considered “very high and good.
“Clearance rates are low to begin with,” she said. “It’s not like the movies.
“I’m not saying it shouldn’t be higher,” Haberfeld continued. But “right now, I think there is a fear to arrest because there is a fear of almost secondary victimization.
“No matter what they do, it’s not going to be good for them or the department, [and it] impacts the way they do their job.”
In addition to those factors, the NYPD in July saw its budget significantly reduced due to the twin pressures of the coronavirus fiscal crunch and outcry over high-profile issues of police misconduct nationally.
In June, Commissioner Dermot Shea also disbanded the department’s gun-hunting plainclothes anti-crime unit, citing a number of operations that went south to troubling result.
“The NYPD’s commitment to gun suppression is undaunted even amid a perfect storm of unprecedented challenges,” said department spokeswoman Sgt. Jessica McRorie, noting that firearms busts are up in 2020 as compared to four of the past eight years.
McRorie went on to list a number of the issues with which the NYPD has been contending.
“Headcount is down, enduring attrition, the July recruit class was canceled, overtime has been significantly limited, and resources are strained from the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, the continuing protests and the sustained increases in shootings that keep teams of officers tied to the scenes of violence for prolonged periods,” she said.
“Through it all, the men and women of the NYPD always answer the call — and will continue to do so — because they never give up.”
The post NYPD data: Only about 20 percent of NYC shootings ended in arrests this year appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>The post Forty percent of people with coronavirus infections have no symptoms. Might they be the key to ending the pandemic? appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>During its seven-month global rampage, the coronavirus has claimed more than 700,000 lives. But Gandhi began to think the bigger mystery might be why it has left so many more practically unscathed.
What was it about these asymptomatic people, who lived or worked so closely to others who fell severely ill, she wondered, that protected them? Did the “dose” of their viral exposure make a difference? Was it genetics? Or might some people already have partial resistance to the virus, contrary to our initial understanding?
Efforts to understand the diversity in the illness are finally beginning to yield results, raising hope the knowledge will help accelerate development of vaccines and therapies — or possibly even create new pathways toward herd immunity in which enough of the population develops a mild version of the virus that they block further spread and the pandemic ends.
“A high rate of asymptomatic infection is a good thing,” said Gandhi, an infectious-disease specialist at the University of California at San Francisco. “It’s a good thing for the individual and a good thing for society.”
The coronavirus has left numerous clues — the uneven transmission in different parts of the world, the mostly mild impact on children. Perhaps most tantalizing is the unusually large proportion of infected people with no symptoms. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last month estimated that rate at about 40 percent.
Those clues have sent scientists off in different directions: Some are looking into the role of the receptor cells, which the virus uses to infiltrate the body, to better understand the role that age and genetics might play. Others are delving into face masks and whether they may filter just enough of the virus so that those wearing them had mild cases or no symptoms at all.
The theory that has generated the most excitement in recent weeks is that some people walking among us might already have partial immunity.
When SARS-CoV-2 was first identified on Dec. 31, 2019, public health officials deemed it a “novel” virus because it was the first time it had been seen in humans who presumably had no immunity from it whatsoever. There’s now some very early, tentative evidence suggesting that assumption might have been wrong.
One mind-blowing hypothesis — bolstered by a flurry of recent studies — is that a segment of the world’s population may have partial protection thanks to “memory” T cells, the part of our immune system trained to recognize specific invaders. This could originate from cross protection derived from standard childhood vaccinations. Or, as a paper published Tuesday in Science suggested, it could trace back to previous encounters with other coronaviruses, such as those that cause the common cold.
“This might potentially explain why some people seem to fend off the virus and may be less susceptible to becoming severely ill,” National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins remarked in a blog post this past week.
On a population level, such findings, if validated, could be far-reaching.
Hans-Gustaf Ljunggren, a researcher at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute, and others have suggested that public immunity to the coronavirus could be significantly higher than what has been suggested by serology studies. In communities in Boston, Barcelona, Wuhan and other major cities, the proportion of people estimated to have antibodies and therefore presumably be immune has mostly been in the single digits. But if others had partial protection from T cells, that would raise a community’s immunity level much higher.
This, Ljunggren said, would be “very good news from a public health perspective.”
Some experts have gone so far as to speculate whether some surprising recent trends in the epidemiology of the coronavirus — the drop in infection rates in Sweden where there have been no widespread lockdowns or mask requirements, or the high rates of infection in Mumbai’s poor areas but little serious disease — might be due to preexisting immunity.
Others say it’s far too early to draw such conclusions. Anthony S. Fauci, the United States’ top infectious-disease expert, said in an interview that while these ideas are being intensely studied, such theories are premature. He agreed that at least some partial preexisting immunity in some individuals seems a possibility.
And he said the amount of virus someone is exposed to — called the inoculum — “is almost certainly an important and likely factor” based on what we know about other viruses.
But Fauci cautioned there are multiple likely reasons — including youth and general health — that determine whether a particular individual shrugs off the disease or dies of it. He also emphasized that even those with mild illness may have lingering medical issues.
That reinforces the need, in his view, for continued vigilance in social distancing, masking and other precautions.
“There are so many other unknown factors that maybe determine why someone gets an asymptomatic infection,” Fauci said. “It’s a very difficult problem to pinpoint one thing.”
Immune memory machine
News headlines have touted the idea based on blood tests that 20 percent of some New York communities might be immune, 7.3 percent in Stockholm, 7.1 percent in Barcelona. Those numbers come from looking at antibodies in people’s blood that typically develop after they are exposed to a virus. But scientists believe another part of our immune system — T cells, a type of white blood cell that orchestrates the entire immune system — could be even more important in fighting against the coronavirus.
Recent studies have suggested that antibodies from the coronavirus seem to stick around for only two to three months in some people. While work on T cells and the coronavirus is only getting started — testing T cells is much more laborious than antibody testing — previous research has shown that, in general, T cells tend to last years longer.
One of the first peer-reviewed studies on the coronavirus and T cells was published in mid-May in the journal Cell by Alessandro Sette, Shane Crotty and others at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology near San Diego.
The group was researching blood from people who were recovering from coronavirus infections and wanted to compare that to samples from uninfected controls who were donors to a blood bank from 2015 to 2018. The researchers were floored to find that in 40 to 60 percent of the old samples, the T cells seemed to recognize SARS-CoV-2.
“The virus didn’t even exist back then, so to have this immune response was remarkable,” Sette said.
Research teams from five other locations reported similar findings. In a study from the Netherlands, T cells reacted to the virus in 20 percent of the samples. In Germany, 34 percent. In Singapore, 50 percent.
The different teams hypothesized this could be due to previous exposure to similar pathogens. Perhaps fortuitously, SARS-CoV-2 is part of a large family of viruses. Two of them — SARS and MERS — are deadly and led to relatively brief and contained outbreaks. Four other coronavirus variants, which cause the common cold, circulate widely each year but typically result in only mild symptoms. Sette calls them the “less-evil cousins of SARS-CoV-2.”
This week, Sette and others from the team reported new research in Science providing evidence the T cell responses may derive in part from memory of “common cold” coronaviruses.
“The immune system is basically a memory machine,” he said. “It remembers and fights back stronger.”
Interestingly, the researchers noted in their paper, the strongest reaction they saw was against the spike proteins that the virus uses to gain access to cells — suggesting that fewer viral copies get past these defenses.
“The current model assumes you are either protected or you are not — that it’s a yes or no thing,” Sette added. “But if some people have some level of preexisting immunity, that may suggest it’s not a switch but more continuous.”
Childhood vaccines
Nearly 2,000 miles away, at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., Andrew Badley was zeroing in the possible protective effects of vaccines.
Teaming up with data experts from nference, a company that manages their clinical data, he and other scientists looked at records from 137,037 patients treated at the health system to look for relationships between vaccinations and coronavirus infection.
They knew that the vaccine for smallpox, for example, had been shown to protect against measles and whooping cough. Today, a number of existing vaccines are being studied to see if any might offer cross-protection against SARS-CoV-2.
The results were intriguing: Seven types of vaccines given one, two or five years in the past were associated with having a lower rate of infection with the new coronavirus. Two vaccines in particular seemed to show stronger links: People who got a pneumonia vaccine in the recent past appeared to have a 28 percent reduction in coronavirus risk. Those who got polio vaccines had a 43 percent reduction in risk.
Venky Soundararajan, chief scientific officer of nference, remembers when he first saw how large the reduction appeared to be, he immediately picked up his phone and called Badley: “I said, ‘Is this even possible?’”
The team looked at dozens of other possible explanations for the difference. They adjusted for geographic incidence of the coronavirus, demographics, comorbidities, even whether people had had mammograms or colonoscopies under the assumption that people who got preventive care might be more apt to social distance. But the risk reduction still remained large.
“This surprised us completely,” Soundararajan recalled. “Going in we didn’t expect anything or maybe one or two vaccines showing modest levels of protection.”
The study is only observational and cannot show a causal link by design, but Mayo researchers are looking at a way to quantify the activity of these vaccines on the coronavirus to serve as a benchmark to the new vaccines being created by companies such as Moderna. If existing vaccines appear as protective as new ones under development, he said, they could change the world’s whole vaccine strategy.
Genetics and biology
At NIH headquarters in Bethesda, Md., meanwhile, Alkis Togias has been laser-focused on one group of the mildly impacted: children. He wondered if it might have something to do with the receptor known as ACE2, through which the virus hitchhikes into the body.
In healthy people, the ACE2 receptors perform the important function of keeping blood pressure stable. The novel coronavirus latches itself to ACE2, where it replicates. Pharmaceutical companies are trying to figure out how to minimize the receptors or to trick the virus into attaching itself to a drug so it doesn’t replicate and travel throughout the body.
Was it possible, Togias asked, that children naturally expressed the receptor in a way that makes them less vulnerable to infection?
He said recent papers have produced counterintuitive findings about one subgroup of children — those with a lot of allergies and asthma. The ACE2 receptors in those children were diminished, and when they were exposed to an allergen such as cat hair, the receptors were further reduced. Those findings, combined with data from hospitals showing that asthma did not seem to be a risk factor for the respiratory virus, as expected, have intrigued researchers.
“We are thinking allergic reactions may protect you by down-regulating the receptor,” he said. “It’s only a theory of course.”
Togias, who is in charge of airway biology for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is looking at how those receptors seem to be expressed differently as people age, as part of a study of 2,000 U.S. families. By comparing those differences and immune responses within families, they hope to be able to better understand the receptors’ role.
Separately, a number of genetic studies show variations in genes associated with ACE2 with people from certain geographic areas, such as Italy and parts of Asia, having distinct mutations. No one knows what significance, if any, these differences have on infection, but it’s an active area of discussion in the scientific community.
Masks
Before the pandemic, Gandhi, the University of California researcher, specialized in HIV. But like other infectious-disease experts these days, she has spent many of her waking hours thinking about the coronavirus. And in scrutinizing the data on outbreaks one day, she noticed what might be a pattern: People were wearing masks in the settings with the highest percentage of asymptomatic cases.
The numbers on two cruise ships were especially striking. In the Diamond Princess, where masks weren’t used and the virus was likely to have roamed free, 47 percent of those tested were asymptomatic. But in the Antarctic-bound Argentine cruise ship, where an outbreak hit in mid-March and surgical masks were given to all passengers and N95 masks to the crew, 81 percent were asymptomatic.
Similarly high rates of asymptomatic infection were documented at a pediatric dialysis unit in Indiana, a seafood plant in Oregon and a hair salon in Missouri, all of which used masks. Gandhi was also intrigued by countries such as Singapore, Vietnam and the Czech Republic that had population-level masking.
“They got cases,” she noted, “but fewer deaths.”
The scientific literature on viral dose goes back to around 1938 when scientists began to find evidence that being exposed to one copy of a virus is more easily overcome than being exposed to a billion copies. Researchers refer to the infectious dose as ID50 — or the dose at which 50 percent of the population would become infected.
While we don’t know what that level might be for the coronavirus (it would be unethical to expose humans in this way), previous work on other nonlethal viruses showed that people tend to get less sick with lower doses and more sick with higher doses. A study published in late May involving hamsters, masks and SARS-CoV-2 found those given coverings had milder cases than those who did not get them.
In an article published this month in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, Gandhi noted that in some outbreaks early in the pandemic in which most people did not wear masks, 15 percent of the infected were asymptomatic. But later on, when people began wearing masks, the rate of asymptomatic people was 40 to 45 percent.
She said the evidence points to masks not just protecting others — as U.S. health officials emphasize — but protecting the wearer as well. Gandhi makes the controversial argument that while we’ve mostly talked about asymptomatic infections as terrifying due to how people can spread the virus unwittingly, it could end up being a good thing.
“It is an intriguing hypothesis that asymptomatic infection triggering immunity may lead us to get more population-level immunity,” Gandhi said. “That itself will limit spread.”
Read more:
The post Forty percent of people with coronavirus infections have no symptoms. Might they be the key to ending the pandemic? appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>The post Chicago homicides increase 50 percent in 2020, 139 percent in July alone, data shows appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>Chicago saw a dramatic increase in homicides and shootings in the first seven months of 2020 and a particularly remarkable increase in July, reflecting a growing trend in the U.S. that raised questions about potential police reform in major cities.
Data released on Saturday showed that Chicago saw 440 homicides between January 2020 through the end of June, a 52 percent increase from the same time period last year (which saw 290 homicides). Shooting victims similarly increased by 51 percent (1,480 to 2,240) and shooting incidents themselves rose 47 percent (from 1,210 to 1,783).
Crime tends to increase during summers, but recent events have fueled unrest in the U.S. The troubling figures came as Chicago and other cities saw dramatic increases in violent crime amid protests surrounding George Floyd’s death. Kansas City, for example, is expected to see “close to 700 people” shot by the end of the year, its police chief previously told Fox News.
A host of other cities — Houston, Atlanta, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, Portland and Seattle — also saw spikes in shootings and murders, according to public data. “I think it’s just a perfect storm of distress in America,” Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said in July.
3 CHICAGO COPS SHOT OUTSIDE POLICE STATION DURING ARREST, SUSPECT ALSO HIT, AUTHORITIES SAY
In her city, the police department reported a 240 percent increase in murders (from 5 to 17) when comparing a four-week period ending in July 2019 to the same timeframe this year. New York City, meanwhile, saw a 277 percent increase in shootings (from 13 to 49) when observing the year-over-year change for one week in July.
The Los Angeles Police Department’s statistics show there have been 151 murders so far this year, an increase of 12.7 percent compared to the 134 reported at this time in 2019. Shooting numbers, however, were down.
July 2020 was especially violent for Chicago, as the city recorded 105 homicides and 584 shootings. Among them was a 9-year-old boy who was killed Friday when someone opened fire in the direction of a number of people, including him and his friends, according to police. The morning prior, three Chicago police officers were shot just outside a police station.
In July alone, Chicago saw a 139 percent increase in murders from the previous year, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.
FBI OFFERING $25G REWARD FOR INFO IN CHICAGO TEEN, 3 OTHERS’ SHOOTING DEATH
Despite the increase in violent crime, overall crime, which includes violent crimes, burglaries and thefts, was down 9 percent compared to the same period last year. The decrease was driven by a 26 percent decline in thefts and a 19 percent decline in sexual assaults, police said.
Regardless, the state of Chicago’s unrest has provoked federal attention, with President Trump sending federal officers to help crack down on violent crimes. At the end of last month, he criticized Mayor Lori Lightfoot for not accepting federal help and tweeted that several other cities should request help, as well.
Speaking during a briefing on the coronavirus pandemic, Trump had called Chicago a “disaster” and said Lightfoot was making “a big mistake” by not asking the White House for help in combatting crime in the United States’ third-most-populous city. He added: “Chicago should be calling us and so should Philadelphia and Detroit and many others.”
Lightfoot, a frequent Trump critic, had already slammed the president in a letter for “unhelpful” rhetoric and detailed ways the federal government could help the city to reduce violence, including gun safety reform, public safety support, community outreach and community investment.
The city recently deployed 200 additional police officers to address the issue. Saturday’s press release also touted the city’s continued focus on seizing and recovering illegal guns as a way to combat violent crime. “To date, officers have recovered over 5,600 guns already this year and have made more than 3,700 gun arrests — up 5 percent from 2019,” the department said.
During a phone call last week, Lightfoot and Trump reportedly reached an agreement not to send federal help, with Lightfoot’s office indicating that Trump would hold back or risk legal action.
“Mayor Lightfoot maintains that all resources will be investigatory in nature and be coordinated through the U.S. Attorney’s office,” a statement from her office read. “The Mayor has made clear that if there is any deviation from what has been announced, we will pursue all available legal options to protect Chicagoans.”
Complicating law enforcement has been widespread concern about racism in police departments. The House of Representatives in July passed sweeping reform while activists have pushed to defund departments and shift the money to social services.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Although mayors such Los Angeles’ Eric Garcetti and New York’s Bill de Blasio have backed these efforts, Lightfoot seemed more resistant to the idea. She’s argued that “Defund The Police” was a “nice hashtag” but contravened what Chicagoans told her they wanted, Politico reported.
“We’d have to get rid of the youngest, most diverse, most well-trained officers,” she said of defunding.
Fox News’ Stephanie Pagones and Andrew O’Reilly contributed to this report, as well as The Associated Report.
The post Chicago homicides increase 50 percent in 2020, 139 percent in July alone, data shows appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>The post 20 percent of MLB teams have games postponed due to coronavirus, Cardinals-Brewers the latest: reports appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>Twenty percent of Major League Baseball teams has been forced to postpone games Friday night because of positive coronavirus tests.
The sport has been back for a little over a week and on Friday games between the Washington Nationals and Miami Marlins, Philadelphia Phillies and Toronto Blue Jays and Milwaukee Brewers and St. Louis Cardinals were postponed because of the coronavirus.
CUBS’ ANTHONY RIZZO PEEVED OVER MLB’S SAFETY PROTOCOLS BEFORE GAME GETS POSTPONED OVER WEATHER
MLB Network, and others, reported that the latest postponement was the game between the Brewers and Cardinals. It would have been the Brewers’ home-opener at Miller Park. According to the report, the Cardinals were the team with positive tests and elected to quarantine in their team hotel.
It’s unclear whether the entire weekend series will be postponed. MLB has yet to make Friday’s postponement official.
The Marlins’ outbreak raised alarm throughout the sport on Sunday when four players tested positive for the coronavirus. As the week progressed, 17 players and coaches had reportedly contracted the virus. MLB put their season on pause because of the outbreak.
PHILLIES STAFF MEMBERS TEST POSITIVE FOR CORONAVIRUS, SHUT DOWN BALLPARK ACTIVITIES
The Phillies, who were playing the Marlins last weekend, had two staffers test positive for the virus, forcing their series against the Blue Jays to be postponed. The Phillies had a series against the New York Yankees postponed earlier this week.
MLB released a statement on the Marlins’ issue on Monday.
“The health and safety protocols were designed with a challenging circumstance like the one facing the Marlins in mind. The response outlined in the joint MLB-MLBPA Operations Manual was triggered immediately upon learning of the cluster of positive cases, including contact tracing and the quarantining and testing of all of the identified close contacts. The Marlins’ personnel who tested positive remain in isolation and are receiving care,” MLB said in a statement.
The statement continued, “In over 6,400 tests conducted since Friday, July 24th, there have been no new positives of on-field personnel from any of the other 29 Clubs. This outcome is in line with encouraging overall data since the June 27th start of testing. Through last Thursday, July 23rd, 99 of the 32,640 samples – 0.3% – had been positive.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON FOXNEWS.COM
“The difficult circumstances of one Club reinforce the vital need to be diligent with the protocols in all ways, both on and off the field,” the league wrote. “We will continue to bolster our protocols and make any necessary adjustments. The realities of the virus still loom large, and we must operate with that in mind every day. We are confident that Clubs and players will act appropriately, for themselves and for others, and the data provides reason to believe that the protocols can work effectively.”
The post 20 percent of MLB teams have games postponed due to coronavirus, Cardinals-Brewers the latest: reports appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>The post Nearly 70 percent of California coronavirus cases are people under 49 years old: health officials appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>California surpassed 400,000 total coronavirus cases on Tuesday, with nearly 70 percent of those cases involving people under the age of 49, according to health officials.
The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) reported 9,231 new COVID-19 infections on Tuesday, which raises the state’s total number of cases to 400,769 since the start of the pandemic. Of those cases, 276,023 are people under the age of 49, which is about 69 percent of those infected with the virus in California.
“By staying home and practicing physical distancing, you’re helping bend the curve,” California Department of Public Health Director Dr. Sonia Y. Angell tweeted when announcing the latest numbers on Tuesday.
LOS ANGELES CAR THEFTS AT RECORD HIGH DURING CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK
Although people within that age range make up two-thirds of the population in California, a large portion consists of children under 18 who make up just 9 percent of all cases. In comparison, people between the ages of 18 to 49 make up more than 60 percent of total infections in the state.
The state has now seen more than 120,000 new cases over the past two weeks, amid a recent surge in infections. As of Tuesday, the seven-day average of cases per day was up to 9,132, an increase of more than 700 from last week’s average of 8,382 new infections per day.
The CDPH also released race and ethnicity data for all cases and deaths associated with COVID-19. Data showed that the Latino population makes up 55.6 percent of cases, followed by the white population at 17.5 percent. The Asian and African American populations make up 5.7 and 4.3 percent, respectively, of cases in California.
When compared to the percent of cases, the African American and White populations make up 8.7 and 30.7 percent of all deaths.
A health care worker takes information from a person at a COVID-19 testing center on July 21, 2020, in Pleasanton, Calif. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)
CALIFORNIA TEEN DIES AFTER SUFFERING CORONAVIRUS SYMPTOMS, FAMILY SAYS
Hospitalization rates have increased roughly 15 percent over the past two weeks, the CDPH reported. There have been 6,536,932 tests conducted in California as of Tuesday, an increase of about 122,611 tests over the previous 24-hour period.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
“As testing capacity continues to increase across the state, an increase in the number of positive cases has been expected – increasing the importance of positivity rates to find signs of community spread,” according to the CDPH.
The post Nearly 70 percent of California coronavirus cases are people under 49 years old: health officials appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>The post Fox News Poll: 63 percent see country’s Founders as heroes, 15 percent say villains appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>President Trump said in his July 4 Mount Rushmore speech that American children are being taught that the people who built our country were not heroes, but were instead villains.
The latest Fox News survey asks voters how they view the country’s Founders. Sixty-three percent see them as heroes, while 15 percent say villains. Another 15 percent say it depends and 7 percent gave no opinion.
White voters (71 percent) are more than twice as likely as Black voters (31 percent) to consider the Founders heroes.
Those most likely to call them heroes include Republican women (82 percent), Republicans (79 percent), White evangelical Christians (77 percent), self-identified very conservatives (77 percent) and White suburban voters (72 percent).
Those most inclined to consider them villains include Black voters (39 percent), self-identified very liberals (37 percent), non-White women (35 percent), women under age 45 (29 percent), and millennials (24 percent).
CLICK HERE TO READ THE POLL RESULTS
Overall, voters want to hold on to historical memorials.
By a 57-point margin, they think monuments and statues of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson should stay up (73 percent) rather than be taken down (16 percent).
They also say Confederate monuments and statues should stay, but by a much narrower 9-point margin (48 percent stay vs. 39 percent removed). In 2017, the last time the Fox News survey asked the question, the margin was 32 points, as 61 percent said Confederate monuments should stay in place and 29 percent supported removing them.
The poll also finds that large majorities see police brutality against Black Americans (76 percent) and a lack of law and order (79 percent) as very or somewhat serious problems.
Black voters (94 percent) are more than 20 points more likely than White voters (72 percent) to consider police brutality against Blacks a serious problem — and 36 points more likely to call it very serious (77 vs. 41 percent).
On a lack of law and order, Blacks (81 percent) and Whites (80 percent) are equally likely to call it serious.
When asked about the recent backlash against the police, just over half, 51 percent, say it has gone too far, while 12 percent say not far enough, and 29 percent think it has been justified.
Ten percent of voters say race relations is the most important issue facing the country today, placing it third only behind coronavirus (29 percent) and the economy (15 percent).
A 56 percent majority disapproves of the job Trump is doing on race relations. That’s an improvement from last month when a high of 61 percent disapproved. Some 35 percent of voters approve of Trump’s handling of the race issue.
Seventy-eight percent of Blacks, 68 percent of Hispanics, and 50 percent of Whites disapprove of Trump on race issues.
The poll also finds, for the first time, voters narrowly saying it is okay to kneel during the national anthem as a form of protest. Forty-eight percent think it is appropriate, while 44 percent say inappropriate. It was 44-52 percent in October 2017, when the question was last asked.
Current views represent a significant shift since 2016, when Colin Kaepernick first started kneeling. At that time, voters considered it inappropriate by about a 2-to-1 margin (32 percent appropriate vs. 61 percent inappropriate).
Conducted July 12-15, 2020, under the joint direction of Beacon Research (D) and Shaw & Company (R), this Fox News Poll includes interviews with 1,104 randomly chosen registered voters nationwide who spoke with live interviewers on both landlines and cellphones. The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points for all registered voters.
Fox News’ Victoria Balara contributed to this report.
The post Fox News Poll: 63 percent see country’s Founders as heroes, 15 percent say villains appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>The post At least 31 percent of children tested in Florida are positive for COVID-19: report appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>Nearly one-third of every child tested for the coronavirus in Florida are positive for the virus, according to a report on Friday.
Palm Beach County’s health department director, Dr. Alina Alonso, warned county commissioners Tuesday about the potential long term health consequences for children who catch COVID-19. She said the virus could cause lifelong damage even for children with mild illnesses.
“They are seeing there is damage to the lungs in these asymptomatic children. … We don’t know how that is going to manifest a year from now or two years from now,” Alonso said, according to the Sun-Sentinel. “Is that child going to have chronic pulmonary problems or not?”
BROWARD COUNTY SUPERINTENDENT PUSHES FOR FULL ONLINE CLASSES IF CORONAVIRUS CASES DON’T DECLINE
Florida had tested 54,022 Florida residents under the age of 18, according to the state’s COVID-19 pediatric report on July 10. Of those tests, 16,797, or just over 31 percent, have come back positive. Meanwhile, the positivity rate for Florida’s entire population stands at roughly 11 percent.
“This is not the virus you bring everybody together to make sure you catch it and get it over with,” Alonso told the paper. “This is something serious, and we are learning new information about this virus every day.”
Fears by Alonso come as Gov. Ron DeSantis is pushing for students to get back into the classroom in the fall, according to Fox 13.
“My kids are three, two, and a newborn, so they’re just too young to be in school now, but if they were 7, 6, and 5, I’d have no problem, I would view it as incredibly low risk,” DeSantis said during a press conference on Friday.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) said last month that children and adolescents were “less likely to be symptomatic and less likely to have severe disease” resulting from a COVID-19 infection. As of Tuesday, 4,514 coronavirus deaths have been reported in the Sunshine State, with four being younger than 18.
Still, the AAP and three other groups on Friday wrote: “We should leave it to health experts to tell us when the time is best to open up school buildings.”
An April study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), also found that kids under the age of 18 have accounted for fewer than two percent of reported cases in the U.S., even though they make up roughly 22 percent of the population.
Meanwhile, the CDC issued an advisory back in May regarding a severe inflammatory condition found in children believed to be associated with the coronavirus. Doctors describe the inflammatory condition (MIS-C) as similar to Kawasaki disease, a rare illness that causes swelling in medium-sized arteries throughout the body.
CLICK HERE FOR THE FOX NEWS APP
The pediatric report lists 13 such cases in Florida in children under the age of 18.
The post At least 31 percent of children tested in Florida are positive for COVID-19: report appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>The post Fauci ‘not 100 percent right’ about COVID-19 spike, top US testing official says appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>July 12, 2020 | 1:18pm | Updated July 12, 2020 | 2:56pm
The country’s top testing official said Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has suggested states should pause reopening where coronavirus cases are spiking, is “not 100 percent right.”
“I respect Dr. Fauci a lot, but Dr. Fauci is not 100 percent right, and he also doesn’t necessarily, he admits that, have the whole national interest in mind,” Adm. Brett Giroir said Sunday on NBC News’ “Meet the Press.” “He looks at it from a very narrow public health point of view.”
Host Chuck Todd asked Giroir, the testing coordinator at the Department of Health and Human Services, about a Washington Post report that said Fauci has argued states with spikes should shut down again.
Giroir said he doesn’t “think we need to shut down” again — “at least in most places around the country” but suggested Americans “avoid bars” and “wear a mask in public.”
Trump last week said Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease expert, has “made a lot of mistakes.”
“Dr. Fauci is a nice man, but he’s made a lot of mistakes,” Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity. “A lot of them said don’t wear a mask, don’t wear a mask. Now they are saying wear a mask. A lot of mistakes were made, a lot of mistakes.”
Giroir also said the White House coronavirus task force openly discusses all options, batting back claims that members are being sidelined if they have opposing views.
“I want to just put this to rest. There is complete, open, honest discussion within the task force. Task force meets three to four times a week,” he said, adding that Vice President Pence regularly calls him.
“I feel absolutely free saying anything to the vice president within those rooms. The vice president, I know, briefs the president on a daily basis. So nobody feels like anything is held back. We all take this as a serious crisis. It’s got to be science driving the policy. And that’s the way it is,” Giroir said.
The post Fauci ‘not 100 percent right’ about COVID-19 spike, top US testing official says appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>The post Poll: 65 percent of Americans think coronavirus is getting worse appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>©2020 FOX News Network, LLC. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. All market data delayed 20 minutes. New Privacy Policy – New Terms of Use (What’s New) – FAQ
The post Poll: 65 percent of Americans think coronavirus is getting worse appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>The post Trump’s ’99 percent’ coronavirus comment finds little support appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>
FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn said: “Any death, any case is tragic.“ | Patrick Semansky/AP Photo
FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn on Sunday declined to provide supporting evidence for President Donald Trump’s assertion that 99 percent of coronavirus cases are “totally harmless,” as mayors across the country battling spikes in infections balked at the unsubstantiated claim.
“Now we have tested almost 40 million people … by so doing, we show cases 99 percent of which are totally harmless,” Trump said Saturday in a speech at the White House marking Independence Day celebrations.
The president may have been referring to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistic this week that the hospitalization rate is 102.5 per 100,000. But the long-term health ramifications of the coronavirus remain unknown, and mortality rates continue to vary greatly for reasons that are not immediately clear. There are now more than 2.8 million diagnosed cases in the United States and more than 129,000 deaths.
On ABC’s “This Week,” co-anchor Martha Raddatz asked Hahn whether Trump’s statement was accurate.
“Well, let’s talk about where we are right now. We’re seeing cases around the Sun Belt,” he said. “We are certainly concerned, at the White House corona task force, about this … We’ve sent teams into those states to actually help with taking care of the patients who are now with Covid-19.”
“I want to ask you again, Dr. Hahn,” Raddatz pressed. “How many cases would you say are harmless?”
“You know, any case, we don’t want to have in this country. This is a very rapidly moving epidemic, rapidly moving pandemic. And any death, any case is tragic. And we want to do everything we can to prevent that,” Hahn replied.
The commissioner similarly demurred when questioned on CNN’s “State of the Union” by host Dana Bash. “I’m not going to get into who is right and who is wrong,” he said, adding: “We have seen the surge in cases. We must do something to stem the tide.”
Hahn also urged Americans to follow CDC guidance and comply with protocols from municipal and state governments — though, as several local leaders have noted, those can often be at odds.
As Hahn struggled Sunday to explain the factual basis for the president’s statistic, mayors of Southern communities that have emerged as coronavirus hot spots flatly rejected the 99 percent figure.
“No, that’s not the case,” Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner told CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
“I will tell you, a month ago, one in 10 people were testing positive. Today, it’s 1 in 4,” Turner said. “The number of people who are getting sick and going to the hospitals has exponentially increased. The number of people in our ICU beds has exponentially increased.”
The post Trump’s ’99 percent’ coronavirus comment finds little support appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>