Former mayor Rudy Giuliani has criticized the current New York City leadership, saying they’re “killing this city” with continued Covid-19 restrictions.
“I wouldn’t do what they are doing now,” he told CNN’s Chris Cuomo Friday night. “I wouldn’t keep this city closed as long as they are keeping it closed. I think they are killing the city… I think what they are doing to this city could be fatal.”
“They are overdoing,” he added. “They are killing the city.”
Giuliani’s remarks come as movie theaters, amusement parks and casinos remain closed and indoor dining banned, among other restrictions.
Cuban officials on Friday extended curfew and lockdown measures for Havana residents for an additional 15 days, saying they still had not brought the spread of Covid-19 under control in the Cuban capital.
Until at least September 30, Havana residents will not be able to leave their homes from 7 p.m. until 5 a.m., Gov. Reinaldo Garcia Zapata said on state-run TV.
Other lockdown measures restricting travel between provinces, curtailing public transportation and increased fines for people not wearing face masks will also remain in place, he said.
Cuba has reported 4,563 coronavirus cases and 106 deaths, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.
Mexico’s health ministry reported 534 new Covid-19 deaths on Friday, raising the country’s death toll to 70,183 – the fourth-highest in the world, behind only India, Brazil and the United States.
The ministry also reported 5,935 new Covid-19 cases, taking the nationwide total to 658,299.
Despite its struggles with the virus, Mexico is still welcoming international tourists, including from the US, as the economy struggles under the weight of lost revenue.
Dr. Chris Murray, a researcher behind the new projection of 415,000 Covid-19 deaths in the US by January, said Americans should begin to brace for a “a very deadly December.”
The death projection by Jan. 1 represents a more than doubling of deaths over the past six months, a change which Murray said could be driven by Americans “being less careful” as they grow weary of abiding by restrictions.
He said the model assumes that once the death rate spikes, state and local governments and individuals will once again begin to take restrictions more seriously and return to adherence recommended by doctors and experts.
An influential coronavirus model has updated its forecast for January, predicting a “most likely” scenario of 415,090 US deaths by January.
In a worst-case scenario, deaths could reach more than 600,000 by Jan 1, the IHME said.
According to Johns Hopkins University, nearly 6.4 million infections have been recorded in the US and more than 191,000 Americans have died. In the IHME’s best case scenario, just under 300,000 people will die.
“But US mark use is trending in the wrong direction. At the present time, only six states have 50% mask use: California, Texas, Virginia, Hawaii, Florida and Alaska,” the IHME said.
Dr. Anthony Fauci can’t explain pandemic deniers in “any logical way.”
Friday marked six months since the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a pandemic.
When asked who the American public should listen to — the President, who claimed Thursday that the country is “rounding the corner” of the pandemic, or himself — Fauci said people should trust facts.
“I say look at the data; the data speak for themselves. You don’t have to listen to any individual. And the data tells us that we’re still getting up to 40,000 new infections a day and 1,000 deaths. That is what you look at. Look at the science, the evidence and the data and you can make a pretty easy conclusion,” he said.
Responding to comments made by an attendee at President Trump’s rally Thursday night, who said he wasn’t wearing a mask because this is “fake pandemic,” Fauci called it a tragedy.
“If you deny the reality of it, then you don’t put all of your efforts into doing something about it. You’ve got to admit the problem before you address the problem,” he said. “It’s just a distortion of reality — people who don’t want to face the reality that we are dealing with a serious situation that we can do something about.”
Vaccine maker Moderna said Friday it has increased the number of minority volunteers involved in its Phase 3 clinical trial of a Covid-19 vaccine over the past week.
The company reported Friday that enrollment in the trial has risen to 23,497 participants, up from 21,411 a week ago.
The current breakdown in numbers include 59% White participants, 22% Hispanic, 11% Black, 5% Asian and 3% other populations.
Last week the trial included 68% White volunteers, 20% Hispanic, 7% Black, 3% Asian and 1% other populations.
Moderna said last week it was increasing its efforts to reach more diverse populations, even if it impacted the speed of enrollment.
The trial has been struggling to enroll enough minorities since at least mid-August.
Some coronavirus victims are testing positive for the virus long after their initial symptoms and sickness, but Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, says it’s highly unlikely that these people are still contagious.
“That is unlikely,” Fauci told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer in an interview Friday.
Fauci said it’s doubtful that a person who had Covid-19 is contagious past the 10-day isolation period.
“What we’re seeing a lot of evidence for is that if you are weeks out and you have no more symptoms, that the positivity that you’re detecting are fragments of the virus,” he said.
These are non-replication competent. “Which means they’re particles of the virus, but they can’t infect you and they can’t make you sick,” he said.
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Danuel House Jr. of the Houston Rockets has been instructed to leave the NBA’s campus bubble in Orlando after it was concluded he had violated the league’s health and safety protocols.
The NBA determined that House had an unauthorized guest in his hotel room for “multiple hours” on Sept. 8. As a result, House will leave the bubble and will not play again for the Rockets this season.
Before deciding to eat in a crowded restaurant, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said people should check out coronavirus infection rates in the community.
As for gyms, Fauci, who is a runner, said he wouldn’t hesitate to visit a gym in an area with a low Covid-19 infection rate.
“If you are in a green zone with very little infection, I would not hesitate to go to a gym as long as proper precautions are taken,” Fauci said.
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The country’s response to the pandemic would have been very different if it was less politically divided, Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer Friday.
“You can’t but notice the divisiveness, “ Fauci said.
“We’re in a very politically charged atmosphere now and whenever you’re trying to get people all together singing from the same tune and doing the same things as a society, unified against this common enemy, this virus — It’s very difficult to do that when you have such a charged atmosphere that we have right now. And that really is truly unfortunate,” added Fauci, who is director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a White House coronavirus task force member.
Fauci recalled being in New York City, 19 years ago during 9/11, when the twin towers went down.
“It just reminds us of the fragility of life but also of the extraordinary spirit of the American public. I mean, particularly for people in New York but the entire country, that we pulled together after their tragedy, and really came together as a nation — which hopefully we can do now within the context of this historic pandemic that we’re going through.”
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If Americans expect things to return to normal in 2021, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said respecting and following public health measures is paramount, he said today on CNN.
One such public health measure that must be followed is the use of face masks, Fauci said. The nation’s leading infectious disease expert also said the country does not need to shut down again in order to get control of the pandemic.
“When I said we need to hunker down, I don’t mean by any means shutting down the country again. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about accepting the responsibility of following prudent and careful public health guidelines. I’m not talking about shutting down again. We don’t need to shut down. We can do this if we pull together and abide by relatively simple and understandable public health measures,” he said.
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Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, said the US should expect “a gradual return to some of the aspects of normality” next year but it won’t be until late 2021 until things fully get back to normal, he told CNN today.
Fauci hinged a lot of his predictions on a coronavirus vaccine.
“Now, I believe, as I’ve predicted, that when we get a vaccine and I feel cautiously optimistic that we will have a vaccine by the end of this calendar year as we get into early 2021, once that happens, and if it’s an effective vaccine to, let’s say, the tune of 70-75%, then we’re going to start seeing as we get into 2021 and we deploy the vaccine that we’re going to get a much better control over the outbreak. But it’s not going to be turning a switch off and turning a switch on. It’s going to be gradual,” he said.
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Cases of Covid-19 are climbing among New Jersey residents between the ages of 19 and 24, state health commissioner Judy Persichilli said Friday.
With a positivity rate of 6%, “this population now has the highest percent positivity in the state,” she added.
The 14-18 year old age group comes in at the second highest, with a positivity rate of 4%, Persichilli said.
“Percent positivity among all other age groups is declining, or remaining flat,” Persichilli said.
The state’s most recent overall positivity rate is 2.6%, according to the most recent available data, Murphy said.
More data: The state reported 518 new positive cases Friday, as well as nine additional deaths, four of which were from the last five days
According to the state’s latest information, a total of 14,234 people have been confirmed to have died from the virus, with an additional 1,789 deaths presumed to have been caused by the virus.
To note: The numbers listed were released by the state of New Jersey and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project.
According to Johns Hopkins University’s latest tally, there have been at least 6,430,860 cases of coronavirus in the US since the pandemic began. At least 192,616 people have died in the US from coronavirus.
The totals include cases from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and other US territories, as well as repatriated cases.
On Friday at 3:45 pm ET, Johns Hopkins has reported 34,760 new cases and 850 deaths.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said the state’s phase 3 order allowing restaurants, churches, salons, spas and gyms to reopen at 75% occupancy with social distancing required will go into effect tonight.
Parishes with a Covid-19 positivity rate of 5% or lower for two consecutive weeks can opt-in to reopen bars for on-premises alcohol consumption.
If they do opt-in, bars will be subject to a number of restrictions, and last call will be at 10 p.m., the governor said. People younger than 21 won’t be allowed inside a bar.
Edwards said indoor social gatherings, like weddings or birthday parties, will be limited to 50% capacity with a maximum of 250 people and social distancing requirements. Outdoor crowd sizes will also be limited to 50% and a maximum of 250 people.
More details: Sporting events, like college or high school football, will operate at a lesser capacity of 25%, with social distancing required and without alcohol sales, the governor announced.
Children with mild or no symptoms can transmit Covid-19, according to contact tracing data from three Utah child care facilities released Friday.
The facilities said 12 children got Covid-19 in a child care facility and transmitted it to at least 12 people outside the facility, including household members. The data shows children can carry the virus from child care settings to their homes, the researchers write in a report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The researchers analyzed contact tracing data from 184 people with links to three child care facilities in Salt Lake County from April to July.
They found at least two children who had no symptoms not only had caught the virus, but passed it to other people, including one mother who was hospitalized. One 8-month-old child spread the virus to both parents.
The researchers say that two of the facility outbreaks began with staff members who had household contacts with the virus.
More details: Overall, children accounted for 13 of the 31 confirmed Covid-19 case linked to the facility, and all of the children had mild or no symptoms.
The researchers say that contact tracing and timely Covid-19 testing for those in child care settings, including asymptomatic people, can help prevent spread of the virus. They recommend the use of face masks, especially for staff working in child care centers with children below the age of 2, who may be too young to wear masks.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, said he is bothered when he has to debunk nonsense.
“The one thing that bothers me is the amount of things that aren’t evidence-based. And we’ve seen examples of that in the United States — like claims that certain drugs have a great, positive effect, when there’s no scientific evidence whatsoever that they have a positive effect. And yet it gets ingrained, and I and my colleagues have to spend a lot of time trying to debunk that,” he said during a Friday webinar with the Friends of the Global Fight.
A nationwide lockdown is not in the French government’s “mindset” despite the “clear deterioration” of the coronavirus situation in France, Prime Minister Jean Castex said during a televised address on Friday.
Castex gave an update on the government’s strategy to deal with the virus, saying he is “particularly worried” to see “a substantial increase in hospitalizations for the first time in a number of weeks.”
The prime minister said a national lockdown should be avoided and gave power to local authorities to impose restrictions, instead of the central government.
“Measures should not be decided from Paris,” Castex explained, saying that the virus is spreading unevenly, with Marseille, Bordeaux, and the Guadeloupe area being particularly affected. Local authorities have until Monday to present measures to the prime minister.
The prime minister also announced changes to the government’s testing and isolation strategy in France.
In face of the “significant waiting times,” testing will be prioritized to people showing symptoms, to those who were in close contact with coronavirus patients, and to health care personnel, Castex said.
He added that “France has become the third European country in terms of testing” with around a million tests per week: “this is great news,” he said.
The mandatory isolation periods for people with Covid-19 will also be reduced from 14 to seven days, a “period where there is a real risk of contagion,” Castex said.
“Tomorrow depends on you, tomorrow depends on us,” he concluded.
