Arizona Shatters Records For ICU Cases, Positivity Rate As Cuomo Claims Sun Belt Outbreak “Threatens New York’s Progress”: Live Updates
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
Wed, 07/08/2020
Summary:
Chile tops 300k cases, plans to lift lockdown
Miami-Dade occupied hospital beds hit new record
Dr Birx urges states with worst outbreaks to revert to phase 1 reopening
Decision on reopening NY schools will come first week in August
Cuomo warns outbreak in the Sun Belt is putting NY’s progress at risk
Arizona hospitalizations rise to another record
NYC schools won’t reopen in September, mayor says
Dr. Fauci: “I never saw a virus with so many symptoms”
Cuomo calls for press briefing at 1130ET
Moderna completes trial enrollment
WHO finally admits there’s “some evidence” of airborne transmission as US severs ties
Kudlow says moving back toward lockdown would be “a mistake”
Mt Sinai, Emergent Bio announce plans to test new COVID plasma drug
US reports 60k+ new cases on Tuesday
NJ orders mandatory mask wearing outside
US coronavirus cases top 3 million
US reports ~44k new cases Tuesday
56 Florida ICUs hit full capacity
Texas hospital occupancy at more than 90%
World reports 5k new deaths
US sees highest daily death toll since June 9
Brazil president says he’s taking hydroxychloroquine
Trump demands schools reopen in the fall
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Update (1245ET): Chile has just topped 300k confirmed cases of COVID-19, joining the an exclusive group of just a handful of countries that have passed the threshold.
The country also announced plans to lift its lockdown, but not until Aug. 1.
Chile surpassed 300,000 coronavirus cases on Tuesday after reporting more than 2,400 new infections over the last 24 hours, prompting the South American country to move ahead with easing its lockdown.
There were 50 new deaths, bringing the total to more than 6,400, although the health ministry believes another 3,500 deaths were probably caused by the virus.
Chile’s numbers have been declining for more than three weeks, and the country is now planning to ease confinement measures.
“We confirm an improvement that has been going on for 23 days,” said Health Minister Enrique Paris.
The country remains essentially tied with Peru for worst hit country in Latin America.
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Update (1215ET): Miami-Dade just announced that its occupied hospital beds have hit a new record high at 358, from 343. As Fla’s hospitals grow more crowded, Dr. Birx said Wednesday that states with the worst outbreaks should “revert” to phase 1 of the reopening.
Birx urges people in states experiencing covid surges "to stop going to bars, to close the bars to move to outdoor dining, to decrease indoor, any kind of indoor gatherings again, to all of the Americans out there that are in these four states" and not gather "in homes either" pic.twitter.com/CgHvW809ya
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) July 8, 2020
Update (1154ET): As Cuomo continues to chide the sun belt states for not doing enough to contain the virus, we’d just like to point out that more stories about the state’s futile ‘contact tracing’ efforts have emerged. Today’s comes from San Diego’s KPBS:
Every day, Asma Al Sabag goes to work and gives people bad news.
“I’ll say, ‘Hi, I’m calling because you were recently exposed to someone who tested positive for COVID-19,”‘ she said during a recent call.
Al Sabag is one of nearly 500 contact tracers working for San Diego County whose job it is to find and notify people who were likely in contact with someone who’s tested positive for the coronavirus. And while she’s likely made hundreds of phone calls by now, all her hard work might not be paying off.
Since early March when San Diego County’s contact tracing program began tracking COVID-19 cases, tracers have only contacted about 9,000 county residents who were named as a close contact of someone with the virus, according to county spokeswoman Sarah Sweeney.
That’s likely only a small fraction of those who’ve been exposed countywide. So far there have been about 17,000 known positive cases of COVID-19 in San Diego County, and each case on average has about 10 close contacts — people the infected person has been less than 6 feet away from for more than 15 minutes in the last two weeks.
In other news, the White House’s Dr. Birx said that she’s “hopeful” Arizona’s cases have finally “plateaued”, while also expressing hope that Florida’s outbreak has also been contained.
“The seven-day average (of coronavirus cases in Arizona) is showing some flattening and I find that encouraging. Also, equally encouraging at this point, because we know that the test positivity rate is the first thing to increase and we’re hoping that it heralds a stability in Arizona of at least reaching a plateau in their curve,” Birx said.
[…]
“We also understand that we went through a holiday weekend and holiday weekends can impact data on both ends – underreporting through the weekend and catch up reporting on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday after a holiday weekend,” she added.
Cuomo, drawing near the end of his briefing, once again called on President Trump to sign a mandatory executive order on mask wearing, even after Dr. Fauci yesterday said he believed these types of mandates should come from local officials.
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The Rest…HERE
