August 15 coronavirus news

Cars queue at a Covid-19 test center in Auckland, New Zealand, on August 13.

New Zealand has recorded 13 new cases of coronavirus in the past day, health officials said Sunday, as the country maintains new restrictions amid a sudden Covid-19 outbreak.

Of the new cases, 12 were in the Auckland community, with none having traveled outside the region recently. All had close links to the existing outbreak; two of the new cases belonged to the same household as a previously confirmed patient.

The remaining case is a child in managed isolation who arrived in early August from Afghanistan.

New Zealand has recorded 1,271 confirmed cases since the pandemic began, said health authorities. It currently has 61 active cases, of which 49 were locally transmitted and 20 were imported from abroad.

Auckland under lockdown: On Friday, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced that Auckland – the city of around 1.5 million people at the center of the new outbreak – will remain under a level three lockdown for another 12 days, while the rest of the country stays under level two restrictions, meaning gatherings are limited to no more than 100 people.

The rules extend restrictions that came into effect earlier this week.

Just five days before then, New Zealand was marking an enviable milestone – 100 days without any community transmission. But this week demonstrated how fast that can change, even in a country that been held up as a world leader for its handling of the virus.

A mourner writes the name of the deceased on the fresh cement at Mercedario Cemetery in El Alto, Bolivia, on July 29.

Bolivia has seen 64 coronavirus-related deaths in the past day, its health ministry announced Saturday.

That brings the country’s total virus death toll to 4,003.

Bolivia also recorded 1,196 new coronavirus infections, bringing its total confirmed cases to 99,146. 

Of those new cases, 520 cases – nearly half – came from the administrative capital La Paz, the current epicenter of Bolivia’s outbreak.

South Korea reported 279 new coronavirus cases on Saturday, according to the South Korean Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Of those cases, 267 were locally transmitted and 141 were in the capital of Seoul.

The country has now reported 15,318 confirmed infections, of which 1,103 are in quarantine and 13 are in critical condition.

The death toll stands at 305.

From Sunday, social distancing measures will be reintroduced in the Seoul area to prevent the spread of the virus.

Mexico’s Health Ministry has reported 6,345 new cases of Covid-19 on Saturday, bringing the country’s total to 517,714 confirmed cases.

The ministry reported 635 new deaths, bringing the country’s death toll to 56,543. 

On Thursday, Mexico’s government signed an agreement with biotech firm AstraZeneca to produce a Covid-19 vaccine in Mexico to be exported to Latin America and the Caribbean in 2021.

Production for a Covid-19 vaccine could begin in 2021, Sylvia Varela, chief executive of AstraZeneca Mexico, said Thursday at a press conference in Mexico City.

Leaders at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were blindsided this week when President Donald Trump announced that the agency could deploy teams to assist schools with safely reopening in the fall, a senior CDC official told CNN, the latest example of a breakdown in communication between the agency and the White House.

The announcement left CDC officials scrambling this week to train staff to be able to deploy if they are called upon, the senior official said. 

The surprise statement by Trump was reminiscent of early on in the pandemic when the CDC Task Force regularly learned about assignments during presidential briefings, finding out in real time along with the public, a senior official said.

The CDC official said the agency is expected to come up with a vaccine plan for schools in at least four states by October, even though there is no realistic expectation that a vaccine would be ready by then. 

President Donald Trump at a news conference at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, on Saturday.

President Donald Trump said Saturday that he disagreed with CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield’s warning that this fall could be one of the worst in US history from a public health perspective.

Redfield reiterated a warning this week that if Americans don’t follow coronavirus prevention guidelines, like wearing masks and avoiding crowds, the country could be in store for “the worst fall, from a public health perspective, we’ve ever had.” Redfield noted that the coronavirus pandemic has been the worst public health crisis in a century and said Americans could prepare for fall by getting a flu vaccine.

The President then praised Americans for taking the mitigation steps the CDC recommends, including wearing masks, though pointing out that views on masks changed during the pandemic. 

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious diseases expert, and Redfield both changed their guidance on the importance of regularly wearing face masks as new evidence emerged.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp speaks during a press conference in Atlanta on August 10.

Georgia Gov. Brian P. Kemp issued a new Covid-19 executive order Saturday, according to a statement from the governor’s office.

The order extends the shelter-in-place order for the medically fragile, continues the ban on large gatherings and maintains health and safety protocols for Georgia businesses, Kemp said in his statement.

The order “protects Georgia businesses from government overreach by restricting the application and enforcement of local masking requirements to public property. While I support local control, it must be properly balanced with property rights and personal freedoms,” Kemp said in the statement.

The order says local governments “who choose to impose a Local Option Face Covering Requirement” must not fine businesses, fine violators more than $50 or enforce masks at polling places, the order says.

Masks cannot be enforced on private property, the order says. Anyone who violates local mask rules must be warned about the health risks of not doing so before a citation is issued, according to the order. 

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said in a series of tweets Saturday that Covid-19 hospitalizations and positivity rates are down in the state, citing data from August 9.

South Korea and the United States have delayed their annual joint military drills, which were expected to run between August 16 and 28. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff issued a statement on Sunday, which said the drills will begin two days later on this coming Tuesday.

A South Korean military official familiar with the US-ROK joint drills told CNN the postponement was due to a South Korean military officer testing positive for coronavirus on Friday. South Korean media widely reported that this officer was due to participate in the drills.

Brazil has reported 41,576 new Covid-19 cases and 709 deaths in the past 24 hours, the country’s health ministry reported Saturday. 

The total number of confirmed coronavirus infections now stands at 3.3 million. At least 107,232 have died from coronavirus in the country, according to the ministry’s data.

São Paulo state reported 11,408 new cases and 167 new deaths on Saturday, down from 11,667 and 289 the day before.

São Paulo has been the state hardest hit by the coronavirus in Brazil, with 697,530 total confirmed cases and 26,780 confirmed deaths.

President Donald Trump once again called for college football to “come back” during a news conference at his golf club in New Jersey on Saturday.

Trump again mentioned that he spoke to Clemson University quarterback Trevor Lawrence. who has been vocal about wanting to play this fall.

He congratulated the SEC, ACC and Big 12 athletic conferences for planning to play this fall and said he wished the Big Ten and Pac-12 would come back as well. The Big Ten and the Pac-12 each voted earlier this week to postpone college football and all their other fall sports seasons. The five conferences, known collectively as the Power Five, generate the most revenue in the NCAA.

A pedestrian walks though a tunnel at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill in June.

The University of North Carolina issued an alert on Saturday afternoon saying a cluster of Covid-19 cases has been identified in the Sigma Nu fraternity.

This comes a day after the University said that clusters had been identified in the Ehringhaus Community and Granville Towers.

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services defines a cluster by five or more cases in close proximity in a location, like a single residential hall or dwelling.

UNC says they will not release information about individual positive cases.

The Sigma Nu national headquarters has posted Covid-19 information and resources for members of the fraternity. CNN has reached out to the Sigma Nu headquarters for additional comment but has not heard back.

There were 294,237 new Covid-19 cases reported to the World Health Organization in the last 24 hours, according to a situation report published Saturday. The total number of cases that have been reported to WHO from around the globe is now 21 million.

The rise in newly reported cases sets another record for cases reported to WHO within a 24-hour period. The previous record was set July 31 when 292,527 new cases of Covid-19 were reported.

Saturday’s report noted there were 9,985 additional Covid-19 deaths reported to WHO in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of deaths worldwide to 755,786.

Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri at a press conference on March 21 in Clearwater Beach, Florida.

Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri tested positive for Covid-19 on Friday, according to a press release from the sheriff’s office.

The sheriff is suffering from mild symptoms and has lost his senses of taste and smell, the release said. Pinellas County is part of the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater metropolitan area.

Gualtieri is not experiencing any fever or respiratory issues, according to the release.

He will remain at home for the next 10 days at the direction of the Department of Health and work remotely, the release said. 

A 15-year-old boy from metro Atlanta became the second youngest person to die due to complications from Covid-19 in Georgia, according to the latest statistics released by the state health department.

The boy had other medical conditions, Nancy Nydam of the Georgia Department of Public Health told CNN. No further details on how the boy contracted coronavirus or whether he may have exposed other individuals to the virus were available.

A 7-year-old boy from Savannah is the youngest Georgian to die from Covid-19. The boy drowned in a bathtub after having a seizure due to a high fever and he tested positive for Covid-19 postmortem, according to Chatham County Coroner Bill Wessinger. The preliminary autopsy report says the child died from drowning, secondary to seizure due to fever from Covid-19.

Lebanon has reported 397 new cases of coronavirus in the past 24 hours, the country’s Public Health Ministry said Saturday.

That takes the total number of infections in Lebanon to 8,442. Three people have died in the previous day, taking the total number of deaths reported as a result of the coronavirus to 97.

It comes as Lebanese President Michel Aoun said it would be “impossible” for him to step down following calls for him to resign over the deadly blast in Beirut. Aoun said if he were to resign, there would be a “void of power” in the country. On Monday, Lebanon’s former Prime Minister Hassan Diab announced his resignation and that of his government in the wake of the deadly blast, which he called a “disaster beyond measure.”

University of Oklahoma head football coach Lincoln Riley announced Saturday that nine of his players tested positive for coronavirus. The results came back after the team returned from a one-week break from preseason practices.

The Oklahoma Sooners are part of the Big 12 Conference, which this week said it intends to move forward with a fall football season. 

Oklahoma is currently scheduled to open the 2020 season at home against Missouri State on September 12.

New York will provide health personnel and supervision so that the official 9/11 Memorial and Museum “Tribute in Light” tradition can continue this year, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a series of tweets on Saturday.

The American Heart Association recently warned that coronavirus can cause “devastating” and lasting cardiac complications. While the warning is concerning, it is not news to those treating coronavirus patients on the frontlines, said Dr. Dara Kass, an emergency medicine physician at Columbia University Medical School.

With 3,310 new cases in 24 hours, France has passed another record of post-lockdown daily coronavirus cases, according to numbers released by the National Health Agency on Saturday.

The number of hospitalizations increased by 29 to 4,857, according to the national agency website. The number of patients in intensive care also slightly increased to 376.

The death toll stands at 30,409, according to the national health agency.