HomeWorld News UpdatesCoronavirus daily news updates, August 5: What to know today about COVID-19 in the Seattle area, Washington state and the world – The Seattle Times
Coronavirus daily news updates, August 5: What to know today about COVID-19 in the Seattle area, Washington state and the world – The Seattle Times
The world on Wednesday surpassed 200 million coronavirus infections — more than the populations of Germany, France and Spain combined — as the virus continues to find new hosts across the globe at a rapid rate.
We’re updating this page with the latest news about the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on the Seattle area, the U.S. and the world. Click here to see previous days’ live updates and all our other coronavirus coverage, and here to see how we track the daily spread across Washington and the world.
The cable news channel has mandated that all employees working in its offices or in the field be fully vaccinated. In a memo to staff Thursday, President Jeff Zucker said the network has “a zero-tolerance policy on this” and fired the three after learning this past week that they were coming to the office unvaccinated.
“You need to be vaccinated to come to the office,” he said. “And you need to be vaccinated to work in the field, with other employees, regardless of whether you enter an office or not. Period.”
CNN had thus far relied on an “honor system” and hasn’t required employees to show proof they’ve been inoculated. In the weeks ahead, providing evidence of vaccination may become a formal process across CNN’s parent company, AT&T’s WarnerMedia, Zucker said.
Swedish implements new policy requiring all health workers to get vaccinated
Swedish Health Services this week announced a new COVID-19 policy requiring all employees to be vaccinated, or sign a declination citing either medical or religious reasons.
The new policy supports infection-prevention planning and allows hospital management to “rapidly determine and respond to risk” in case of an exposure within Swedish facilities, according to a statement from hospital spokesperson Tiffany Moss. It will also help Swedish determine appropriate staffing for high-risk care areas, like immunocompromised patient-care settings, and plan for necessary supplies and equipment.
“We know that vaccination is one of the most effective ways to prevent the spread of COVID-19, and associated severe illness, hospitalization and death,” the statement said. “As a health care provider, Swedish wants to help protect our patients and each other, and the vaccine is our path forward.”
As of July 21, about 85% of Swedish caregivers were partially or fully vaccinated.
The update brings the state’s totals to 486,303 cases and 6,155 deaths, meaning that 1.3% of people diagnosed in Washington have died, according to the DOH. The data is as of 11:59 p.m. Wednesday.
In addition, 27,340 people have been hospitalized in the state due to the virus — 162 new hospitalizations. In King County, the state’s most populous, state health officials have confirmed a total of 119,960 COVID-19 diagnoses and 1,683 deaths.
Since vaccinations began in mid-December, the state and health care providers have administered 8,196,908 doses and 52.9% of Washingtonians have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to vaccination data, which the state updates on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Providers are currently giving an average of about 9,694 vaccine shots per day.
The DOH says its daily case reports may also include duplicate test results, results assigned to the wrong county, results that are reported for today but are actually from a previous day, occasional false positive tests and other data discrepancies. Because of this, the previous day’s total number of cases plus the number of new daily cases does not add up to the new day’s total number of cases. State health officials recommend reviewing the dashboard’s epidemiologic curves tab for the most accurate representation of the state’s COVID-19 spread.
U.S.-based Novavax partnered with the Serum Institute of India to apply in the three countries, and plans later this month to also seek the World Health Organization review needed to be part of the COVAX global vaccine program.
Novavax CEO Stanley Erck called the submissions an “important step toward access to millions of doses of a safe and effective vaccine for countries with an urgent need to control the pandemic.”
The company announced it also plans to submit applications in Britain soon, followed by Europe, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, but not in the U.S. until later in the year.
The Novavax two-dose shot is made with lab-grown copies of the spike protein that coats the coronavirus. That’s very different than other widely used vaccines that deliver genetic instructions for the body to make its own spike protein.
What you should know about indoor dining amid the delta variant
You might be thinking about making reservations at a restaurant this weekend, but before you smash the “confirm” button on your favorite app, you could be having second — or eighth — thoughts. News about the delta variant of the coronavirus, “breakthrough infections” among vaccinated people and changing guidelines on masking are adding levels of uncertainty that we once assumed were behind us.
As Americans again grapple with the question of whether they should dine out, public-health experts and epidemiologists agree on one thing: There is no such thing as zero risk. There are only degrees of risk, no matter your vaccination status or the damage the delta variant has done to your community.
To learn what scientists and industry experts say diners should know about this new phase, read the story here.
A Texas GOP leader railed against vaccines and masks; he just died of COVID-19
A leader of the Texas Republican Party hopped on Facebook in May to post about a “mask burning” party 900 miles away in Cincinnati.
The month before, H Scott Apley responded to news that clinical trials showed the Pfizer vaccine was effective at fighting the coronavirus for at least six months, including one of the recent variants.
“You are an absolute enemy of a free people,” he wrote in a Twitter reply.
And on Friday, the 45-year-old Dickinson City Council member republished a Facebook post implying that vaccines don’t work.
Two days later, Apley was admitted to a Galveston hospital with “pneumonialike symptoms” and tested positive for COVID. On Wednesday, he died.
Alarmed Louisiana residents turn to vaccines as pandemic reaches ‘darkest days’
Officials in Louisiana have been willing to try just about anything to jolt the state’s lagging COVID-19 vaccination rates, but when many relent now and get their first vaccine dose tthey are motivated not by incentives but by fear as cases explode.
Demand for the shots has nearly quadrupled in recent weeks in Louisiana, a promising glimmer that the deadly reality of the virus might be breaking through a logjam of misunderstanding and misinformation.
Hospitals are overflowing with more COVID-19 patients than ever before, including patients in their 20s and 30s who are rapidly declining and dying.
“These are the darkest days of our pandemic,” said Catherine O’Neal, the chief medical officer at Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge.
Australia’s 2nd largest city, Melbourne, enters 6th lockdown
Australia’s second-largest city, Melbourne, went into a sixth lockdown on Thursday, with a state government leader blaming the nation’s slow COVID-19 vaccination rollout.
Melbourne joins Sydney and Brisbane, Australia’s most populous and third-most populous cities respectively, in locking down due to the spread of the highly contagious delta variant.
The government reported 262 locally acquired infections in the latest 24-hour period.
Melbourne has accused neighboring New South Wales state of taking too long to lock down Sydney after a limousine driver who became infected while transporting a U.S. aircrew from Sydney Airport tested positive to the delta variant on June 16.
New South Wales on Thursday reported its worst day since the Sydney lockdown began on June 26 with a record 262 new local infections and five deaths.
Special French court OKs most of new law on health pass
A French constitutional court on Thursday validated most aspects of a new law that, starting next week, requires people to carry a special COVID-19 health pass to access cafes, restaurants, long-distance travel and, in some cases, hospitals. But it struck down several measures for not meeting constitutional muster.
The Constitutional Council ruled that the automatic 10-day isolation of people infected with the virus goes against French freedoms. It was unclear what immediate effect that would have.
Vaccine passport plan in NYC renews online privacy debate
When New York City announced Tuesday that it would soon require people to show proof of at least one coronavirus vaccine shot to enter businesses, Mayor Bill de Blasio said the system was “simple — just show it, and you’re in.”
Less simple was the privacy debate that the city reignited.
Vaccine passports, which show proof of vaccination, often in electronic form such as an app, are the bedrock of de Blasio’s plan. For months, these records — also known as health passes or digital health certificates — have been under discussion around the world as a tool to allow vaccinated people, who are less at risk from the virus, to gather safely. New York will be the first U.S. city to include these passes in a vaccine mandate, potentially setting off similar actions elsewhere.
But the mainstreaming of these credentials could also usher in an era of increased digital surveillance, privacy researchers said. That’s because vaccine passes may enable location tracking, even as there are few rules about how people’s digital vaccine data should be stored and how it can be shared. While existing privacy laws limit the sharing of information among medical providers, there is no such rule for when people upload their own data onto an app.
The moment is reminiscent of the months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, privacy advocates said. That was when changes made in the name of national security led to lasting effects, including taking off shoes in airports and data collection enabled by the Patriot Act.
Without safeguards now, presenting a digital vaccination passport every time people enter a public place could lead to a “global map of where people are going,” said Allie Bohm, a policy counsel at the New York Civil Liberties Union. The information could be used by third parties for profit or be handed over to law enforcement or immigration authorities, she said.
The delta variant is challenging China’s costly strategy of isolating cities, prompting warnings that Chinese leaders who were confident they could keep the coronavirus out of the country need a less disruptive approach.
As the highly contagious variant pushes leaders in the United States, Australia and elsewhere to renew restrictions, President Xi Jinping’s government is fighting the most serious outbreak since last year’s peak in Wuhan. The ruling Communist Party is reviving tactics that shut down China: Access to a city of 1.5 million people has been cut off, flights canceled and mass testing ordered in some areas.
The 1,142 infections reported since mid-July, many linked to Nanjing, are modest compared with tens of thousands of new daily infections in India or the United States. But they jolted leaders in China, which hasn’t recorded a fatality since early February.
China’s controls will be tested when thousands of athletes, reporters and others arrive for the Winter Olympics in Beijing in February.
Amazon pushes back return to office until 2022, says company will ‘closely watch’ COVID-19 conditions
Amazon has pushed back its return-to-office date for tech and corporate workers until January 2022, according to an internal email seen by The Seattle Times.
“As we continue to closely watch conditions related to COVID-19, we are adjusting our guidance for corporate employees in the U.S. and other countries where we had previously anticipated our employees would begin coming in regularly the week of Sept. 7,” wrote Amazon human resources chief Beth Galetti in the email. “We are now extending this date to Jan. 3, 2022.”
COVID: In Florida hospitals, ‘there are only so many beds’
A South Florida hospital chain is suspending elective surgeries and putting beds in conference rooms, an auditorium and even a cafeteria as many more patients seek treatment for COVID-19.
“We are seeing a surge like we’ve not seen before in terms of the patients coming,” Memorial Healthcare System’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Marc Napp said Wednesday during a news conference in Hollywood.
On Wednesday, there were more than 1,600 inpatients admitted for overnight stays across the system’s facilities. Typically, the health system doesn’t have more than about 1,400 inpatients under its care at a time.
Britain eases quarantine rules, opening up travel with France
Fully vaccinated visitors arriving in England from France will no longer have to isolate for 10 days, a loosening of restrictions that puts them in the same category as travelers from most other European countries.
The U.K. also eased rules for arrivals from India, Bahrain, and travel hubs the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. Those countries will move from the U.K.’s highest-risk “red” list to its medium-risk “amber” list, meaning arrivals will no longer need to quarantine in a government-approved hotel.
Six other European nations, including Germany, were added to the lowest-risk “green” list, meaning all visitors can avoid quarantine whether or not they are fully vaccinated. All changes will come into effect from 4 a.m. on Sunday, Aug. 8.
Moderna says its COVID vaccine is strongly effective 6 months after full vaccination
Vaccine maker Moderna said Thursday that protection from its coronavirus shots remained strong — 93 percent effective — six months after full vaccination.
The company also announced that it had tested three potential booster shots, which had demonstrated “robust antibody responses” and topped off immunity, bringing antibodies back to the protective levels triggered by full vaccination.
Pfizer-BioNTech made a similar announcement last week, stating that its vaccine remained 91 percent protective six months after the second dose. Both the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines are based on messenger RNA (mRNA) technology.
Tokyo logs record 5,042 cases as infections surge amid Games
Tokyo reported 5,042 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, its most since the pandemic began as infections surge in the Japanese capital hosting the Olympics.
Tokyo has been under a state of emergency since mid-July, and four other areas of the country have since been added. But the measures, basically shorter opening hours and a ban on alcohol for restaurants and bars, are increasingly ignored by the public, which has become tired of restrictions.
Prime Minister Yosihide Suga, who has been criticized for insisting on hosting the Olympics despite the coronavirus’s surge, says there is no evidence linking the increase in cases to the July 23-Aug. 8 Games. He urged people to firmly stick to the emergency requests and stay at home during summer vacation.
The new cases brought Tokyo’s reported total to 236,138. The entire country registered more than 14,000 new cases on Wednesday, for a 970,460 total.
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