JUDGE SIMS reports 5 new COVID cases on Friday. THERE WER 36 new cases in LGV and 17 in Smith County.
FREE TESTING: Free COVID-19 testing is still being offered in Longview by the Texas Department of Emergency Management.
The free testing in Gregg County opened at the Agricultural Pavilions at the Longview Convention Complex, and will continue for several weeks.
Drive-up testing will be available from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., every Monday through Saturday. Testing results should be available 24 to 48 hours after testing. Registration is required and can be done either online or in person.
“A person does not need to have symptoms to be tested, but should bring some form of identification and have a phone number or email address available where they can receive their results,” Marshall-Harrison County Health District director, Jennifer Hancock, noted before.
Report: Coronavirus infected scores of children and staff at Georgia sleep-away camp
The statement noted that by not requiring campers to wear masks or airing out cabins, the camp had not followed CDC reopening guidance, and it pointed to “daily vigorous singing and shouting” as potential contributing factors.
(J. Harris: Little kids can transmit the COVID virus)
Contact Tracing Is Failing in Many States. Here’s Why.
Contact tracing, a cornerstone of the public health arsenal to tamp down the coronavirus across the world, has largely failed in the United States; the virus’s pervasiveness and major lags in testing have rendered the system almost pointless. In some regions, large swaths of the population have refused to participate or cannot even be located, further hampering health care workers.
The goal of contact tracing for Covid-19 is to reach people who have spent more than 15 minutes within six feet of an infected person and ask them to quarantine at home voluntarily for two weeks even if they test negative, monitoring themselves for symptoms during that time.
Tracking those exposed is so far behind the virus raging in most places that many public health officials believe the money and personnel involved would be better spent on other resources, like increasing test sites, helping schools prepare for reopening and educating the public about mask wearing.
FROM THE LANCET(BRITISH):US withdrawal from WHO is unlawful and threatens global and US health and security
COVID-19 has revealed shortcomings in WHO’s powers and funding, warranting substantial reforms. WHO has limited authority to ensure state compliance with the IHR, including constrained ability to independently verify official state reports. But after leaving WHO, the USA would be on the outside looking in, without global influence to promote crucial reforms. Stand-alone US programmes, moreover, could never substitute for a truly global agency. Absent treaty obligations, in a multipolar world, mean there are no guarantees that countries will cooperate with the USA.
The US administration’s decision to sever ties and terminate WHO funding violates a binding condition in Congress’s 1948 resolution, which must be met before the USA may withdraw. The law mandates the USA must pay its financial obligations for the current fiscal year. Because withdrawal could not occur until next July, the USA must pay its mandatory WHO contributions through the end of 2021. And because any withdrawal could not take effect until July, 2021, a new US presidential administration could simply revoke the withdrawal upon taking office.
Association Between Statewide School Closure and COVID-19 Incidence and Mortality in the US
(J. Harris: I can’t follow all the “maybes,” but school closure for 2 months in the spring might have saved over 40.000 lives in the US).
After voluntarily publishing its data, UT-Austin now has the unwelcome distinction of leading U.S. colleges in COVID-19 cases
“…UT is offering a public service by making its case data easily accessible…UT-Austin diligently tracks and transparently reports COVID-19 cases. Regardless of how other universities choose to approach these numbers, UT-Austin will do what’s best for public health and the health of its community,…We believe that’s the right way to do it, and we’re going to continue to do that.”
With more than 150,000 cumulative COVID-19 deaths, the US leads the world. The US has reported more than 3 times as many deaths as every country except Brazil. The US represents 22.5% of the global COVID-19 deaths—and 26% of the global cases—despite accounting for only 4.3% of the global population. The US is #9 globally in terms of per capita cumulative deaths—but will likely surpass France as #8 in the coming days.
National COVID-19 incidence and hospitalizations appear to have peaked over the past week, but deaths continue to increase. The US is reporting an average of approximately 65,000 new cases per day, more than double the first peak in mid-April. National COVID-19 hospitalizations are at essentially the level reported during the United States’ first peak in mid-April. Analysis by the COVID Tracking Project indicates that more than 56,000 COVID-19 patients are currently hospitalized across the country, based on data reported by individual states. This is a slight decrease from the most recent peak of nearly 60,000 on July 23. The US is averaging more than 1,000 deaths per day for the first time since June 3. Multiple states continue to report record high daily deaths, including Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Oregon, and Texas. Notably, Texas is averaging nearly 250 deaths per day, and Florida is reporting more than 150. Arizona is averaging more than 1 death per 100,000 population per day.
The Johns Hopkins CSSE dashboard reported 4.50 million US cases and 152,074 deaths as of 10:30am on July 31.
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