Tag Archives: Coronavirus

Breathing with face mask does not alter oxygen level; virus can last nine hours on skin

By Nancy Lapid

(Reuters) – The following is a roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus.

Breathing with face masks does not affect the lungs

The average face mask may be uncomfortable but does not limit the flow of oxygen to the lungs, even in people with severe lung diseases, researchers say. They tested the effect of wearing surgical masks on gas exchange – the process by which the body adds oxygen to the blood while removing carbon dioxide – in 15 healthy physicians and 15 military veterans with severely impaired lungs via a quick paced six-minute walk on a flat, hard surface. Oxygen and carbon dioxide levels in the blood were measured before and after the walking test. Neither the healthy doctors nor the patients with diseased lungs showed any major changes in gas exchange measurements after the walking test or up to 30 minutes later. Mask discomfort is likely not due to rebreathing of carbon dioxide and decreases in oxygen levels, the researchers reported on Friday in the journal Thorax. Instead, masks may be causing discomfort by irritating sensitive facial nerves, warming inhaled air, or inducing feelings of claustrophobia. Any such discomfort should not cause safety concerns, researchers said, as that could contribute to reduction of “a practice proven to improve public health.”

New coronavirus survives nine hours on human skin

Left undisturbed, the new coronavirus can survive many hours on human skin, a new study has found. To avoid possibly infecting healthy volunteers, researchers conducted lab experiments using cadaver skin that would otherwise have been used for skin grafts. While influenza A virus survived less than two hours on human skin, the novel coronavirus survived for more than nine hours. Both were completely inactivated within 15 seconds by hand sanitizer containing 80% alcohol. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention currently recommends using alcohol-based hand rubs with 60% to 95% alcohol or thoroughly washing hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. Studies have shown that COVID-19 transmission largely occurs via aerosols and droplets. Still, the authors of the new study conclude in a report published on Saturday in Clinical Infectious Diseases, “Proper hand hygiene is important to prevent the spread of SARS-CoV-2 infections.”

Obstructive sleep apnea linked with worse COVID-19

A common sleep disorder appears to put COVID-19 patients at higher risk for critical illness, a new study finds. Using Finnish national databases, researchers found that while the rates of infection with the new coronavirus were the same for people with and without obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), among people who did become infected, those with OSA had a five-fold higher risk of hospitalization. When people with OSA are asleep, their breathing stops briefly and then restarts, often multiple times during the night. OSA is associated with health problems like obesity, high blood pressure, heart disease, and diabetes, but was linked with a higher risk for severe COVID-19 even after researchers took all these other factors into account. The study cannot prove that OSA caused the more severe outcomes. But in a paper posted on medRxiv ahead of peer review, researchers advise doctors evaluating patients with suspected or confirmed coronavirus infection to recognize that the sleep disorder is a risk factor for severe COVID-19.

Infrared thermometers may be inaccurate in adults

Non-contact infrared thermometers, long used in children and now being used to screen for fever in public places, may not accurately measure body temperature in adults, a small study suggests. The devices are held a short distance from the forehead. Because they never touch the skin, they help prevent transmission of germs and do not need to be sterilized after each use. In a study of 265 adults at two hospitals, Australian researchers compared infrared thermometers with “temporal artery” thermometers, which are rubbed across the forehead. When body temperatures were below 99.5 degrees F (37.5 C), the devices yielded similar results. But for higher body temperatures, the non-contact thermometers “demonstrated poor accuracy,” with greater discrepancies as temperatures rose, according to a report published on Friday in the American Journal of Infection Control. As only 37 study participants had fever, larger studies are needed to confirm these findings, researchers said. Meanwhile, they added, when an infrared thermometer shows a temperature above 99.5 F in an adult, it might be wise to get a direct measurement with a thermometer that makes contact with the body.

(Reporting by Nancy Lapid; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

U.S. CDC reports 209,199 deaths from coronavirus

(Reuters) – The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Monday reported 7,396,730 cases of the new coronavirus, an increase of 36,778 from its previous count, and said that the number of deaths had risen by 378 to 209,199.

The CDC reported its tally of cases of the respiratory illness known as COVID-19, caused by a new coronavirus, as of 4 pm ET on Oct. 4 versus its previous report a day earlier.

The CDC figures do not necessarily reflect cases reported by individual states.

(Reporting by Dania Nadeem in Bengaluru; Edting by Devika Syamnath)

New York governor closes schools in coronavirus ‘hot spots’

NEW YORK (Reuters) – New York Governor Andrew Cuomo ordered schools to close beginning on Tuesday in several coronavirus “hot spots” in the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens.

The announcement brings forward a plan by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio to close schools in 11 neighborhoods beginning on Wednesday after coronavirus test positivity rates rose above 3% in those areas for seven days in a row.

“I am not going to recommend or allow any New York City family to send their child to a school that I wouldn’t send my child,” Cuomo said at a news conference on Monday.

He said the state would take over enforcement of social distancing rules from local authorities in the hot spots.

Cuomo and de Blasio have repeatedly squabbled over government responses to the spread of COVID-19. Cuomo again chastised the mayor on Monday for what he said was lackluster enforcement of social distancing rules.

The two leaders have not appeared together in public in many months, although Cuomo said he spoke by phone with the mayor earlier on Monday.

De Blasio has defended his efforts.

“I think it goes far beyond the question of enforcement,” he told CNN on Monday in response to Cuomo’s comments. “I think here’s a case where we need to really work deeply with communities, with community leaders, to have a bigger turnaround in the way people are handling things.”

Cuomo said he was also concerned about similar rising coronavirus rates in Rockland and Orange counties north of New York City, and that he may consider closing schools there too.

Many of the affected neighborhoods include large, close-knit Orthodox Jewish communities. Cuomo said he planned to meet with community leaders again on Tuesday to seek their help with getting people to comply with the rules.

New York faced one of the nation’s earliest and most devastating outbreaks of the novel coronavirus in the spring, but has since managed to largely curtail its spread.

On Monday, 1.22% of coronavirus tests statewide were reported to be positive, including those from the hot spots, Cuomo said.

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen and Maria Caspani; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Bill Berkrot)

Special Report: Plastic pandemic – COVID-19 trashed the recycling dream

By Joe Brock

(Reuters) – The coronavirus pandemic has sparked a rush for plastic.

From Wuhan to New York, demand for face shields, gloves, takeaway food containers and bubble wrap for online shopping has surged. Since most of that cannot be recycled, so has the waste.

But there is another consequence. The pandemic has intensified a price war between recycled and new plastic, made by the oil industry. It’s a war recyclers worldwide are losing, price data and interviews with more than two dozen businesses across five continents show.

“I really see a lot of people struggling,” Steve Wong, CEO of Hong-Kong based Fukutomi Recycling and chairman of the China Scrap Plastics Association told Reuters in an interview. “They don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel.”

The reason: Nearly every piece of plastic begins life as a fossil fuel. The economic slowdown has punctured demand for oil. In turn, that has cut the price of new plastic.

Already since 1950, the world has created 6.3 billion tonnes of plastic waste, 91% of which has never been recycled, according to a 2017 study published in the journal Science. Most is hard to recycle, and many recyclers have long depended on government support. New plastic, known to the industry as “virgin” material, can be half the price of the most common recycled plastic.

Since COVID-19, even drinks bottles made of recycled plastic – the most commonly recycled plastic item – have become less viable. The recycled plastic to make them is 83% to 93% more expensive than new bottle-grade plastic, according to market analysts at the Independent Commodity Intelligence Services (ICIS).

The pandemic hit as politicians in many countries promised to wage war on waste from single-use plastics. China, which used to import more than half the world’s traded plastic waste, banned imports of most of it in 2018. The European Union plans to ban many single-use plastic items from 2021. The U.S. Senate is considering a ban on single-use plastic and may introduce legal recycling targets.

Plastic, most of which does not decompose, is a significant driver of climate change.

The manufacture of four plastic bottles alone releases the equivalent greenhouse gas emissions of driving one mile in a car, according to the World Economic Forum, based on a study by the drinks industry. The United States burns six times more plastic than it recycles, according to research in April 2019 by Jan Dell, a chemical engineer and former vice chair of the U.S. Federal climate committee.

But the coronavirus has accentuated a trend to create more, not less, plastic trash.

The oil and gas industry plans to spend around $400 billion over the next five years on plants to make raw materials for virgin plastic, according to a study in September by Carbon Tracker, an energy think tank.

This is because, as a growing fleet of electric vehicles and improved engine efficiency reduce fuel demand, the industry hopes rising demand for new plastic can assure future growth in demand for oil and gas. It is counting on soaring use of plastic-based consumer goods by millions of new middle-class consumers in Asia and elsewhere.

“Over the next few decades, population and income growth are expected to create more demand for plastics, which help support safety, convenience and improved living standards,” ExxonMobil spokeswoman Sarah Nordin told Reuters.

Most companies say they share concerns about plastic waste and are supporting efforts to reduce it. However, their investments in these efforts are a fraction of those going into making new plastic, Reuters found.

Reuters surveyed 12 of the largest oil and chemicals firms globally – BASF, Chevron, Dow, Exxon, Formosa Plastics, INEOS, LG Chem, LyondellBasell, Mitsubishi Chemical, SABIC, Shell and Sinopec. Only a handful gave details of how much they are investing in waste reduction. Three declined to comment in detail or did not respond.

Most said they channel their efforts through a group called the Alliance to End Plastic Waste, which is also backed by consumer goods companies, and which has pledged $1.5 billion over the next five years on that effort. Its 47 members, most of whom are in the plastics industry, had combined annual revenue of almost $2.5 trillion last year, according to a Reuters tally of company results.

In total, commitments by the Alliance and the companies surveyed amounted to less than $2 billion over five years, or $400 million a year, the Reuters survey found. That’s a fraction of their sales.

Plans to invest so heavily in new plastic are “quite a concerning move,” said Lisa Beauvilain, Head of Sustainability at Impax Asset Management, a fund with $18.5 billion under management.

“Countries with often undeveloped waste management and recycling infrastructure will be ill-equipped to handle even larger volumes of plastic waste,” she said. “We are literally drowning in plastics.”

Since the coronavirus struck, recyclers worldwide told Reuters, their businesses have shrunk, by more than 20% in Europe, by 50% in parts of Asia and as much as 60% for some firms in the United States.

Greg Janson, whose St. Louis, Missouri, recycling company QRS has been in business for 46 years, says his position would have been unimaginable a decade ago: The United States has become one of the cheapest places to make virgin plastic, so more is coming onto the market.

“The pandemic exacerbated this tsunami,” he said.

The oil and chemicals companies that Reuters surveyed said plastic can be part of the solution to global challenges related to a growing population. Six said they were also developing new technologies to reuse waste plastic.

Some said other packaging products can cause more emissions than plastics; because plastic is light, it is indispensable for the world’s consumers and can help reduce emissions. A few called on governments to improve waste management infrastructure.

“Higher production capacities do not necessarily mean more plastic waste pollution,” said a spokesman at BASF SE of Germany, the world’s biggest chemicals producer, adding that it has been innovating for many years in packaging materials to reduce the resources required.

The new plastic wave is breaking on shores across the globe.

MAKE PLASTIC

Richard Pontillas, 33, runs a family-owned “sari-sari” or “sundries” store in Quezon City, the most populous metropolis in the Philippines. The liquid goods he sells used to be packaged in glass. Many customers, in fact, brought in their own bottles to be refilled.

Merchants like him are among key targets for the plastic industry, looking to extend a trend established after 1907, when Belgian-American chemist Leo Baekeland invented Bakelite. Since World War Two, mass-produced plastic has fueled economic growth and spawned a new era of consumerism and convenience packaging.

“Many years ago … we relied on goods repackaged in bottles and plastic bags,” said Pontillas, whose store sells rice, condiments and sachets of coffee, chocolate drink and seasonings.

Today, thousands of small-scale vendors in the developing world stock daily goods in plastic pouches, or sachets, which hang in strips from the roofs of roadside shacks and cost a few cents a go.

Already, 164 million such sachets are used every day in the Philippines, according to the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, an NGO. That’s nearly 60 billion a year.

Consumer goods firms including Nestle and P&G say they are working hard to make their packaging either recyclable or reusable. For example, P&G said it has a project in schools in the Manila region which aims to collect one million sachets for “upcycling.”

But sachets are very difficult to recycle. They are just one form of pollution that the pandemic is adding to, clogging drains, polluting water, suffocating marine life and attracting rodents and disease-carrying insects.

So are face masks, which are made partly from plastic.

In March, China used 116 million of them – 12 times more than in February, official data show.

Total production of masks in China is expected to exceed 100 billion in 2020, according to a report by Chinese consultancy iiMedia Research. The United States generated an entire year’s worth of medical waste in two months at the height of the pandemic, according to another consultancy, Frost & Sullivan.

Even as the waste mounts, much is at stake for the oil industry.

Exxon forecasts that demand for petrochemicals will rise by 4% a year over the next few decades, the company said in an investor presentation in March.

And oil’s share of energy for transport will fall from more than 90% in 2018 to just under 80% or as low as 20% by 2050, BP Plc said in its annual market report in September.

Oil companies worry that environmental concerns may blunt petrochemical growth.

The U.N. said last year that 127 countries have adopted bans or other laws to manage plastic bags. BP’s chief economist Spencer Dale said in 2018 that global plastic bans could result in 2 million barrels per day of lower oil demand growth by 2040 – around 2% of current daily demand. The company declined further comment.

USE PLASTIC

This year alone, Exxon, Royal Dutch Shell Plc and BASF have announced petrochemical plant investments in China worth a combined $25 billion, tapping into rising demand for consumer goods in the world’s most populous country.

An additional 176 new petrochemical plants are planned in the next five years, of which nearly 80% will be in Asia, energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie says.

In the United States since 2010, energy companies have invested more than $200 billion in 333 plastic and other chemical projects, according to the American Chemistry Council (ACC), an industry body.

Those investments have come as the U.S. industry sought to capitalize on a sudden abundance of cheap natural gas released by the shale revolution.

The industry says disposable plastics have saved lives.

“Single-use plastics have been the difference between life and death during this pandemic,” Tony Radoszewski, president and CEO of the Plastic Industry Association (PLASTICS), the industry’s lobbying group in the United States, told Reuters. Bags for intravenous solutions and ventilators require single-use plastics, he said.

“Hospital gowns, gloves and masks are made from safe, sanitary plastic.”

In March, PLASTICS wrote to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, calling for a rollback of plastic bag bans on health grounds. It said plastic bags are safer because germs live on reusable bags and other substances.

Researchers led by the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a U.S. government agency, found later that month that the coronavirus was still active on plastic after 72 hours, compared with up to 24 hours on cardboard and copper.

The industry’s letter was part of a long-standing campaign for single-use material.

The ACC’s managing director for plastics, Keith Christman, said the chemicals lobby is opposed to plastic bans because it believes consumers would switch to using other disposable materials like glass and paper, rather than reusing bags and bottles.

“The challenge comes when you ban plastic but the alternative might not be a reusable product … so it really wouldn’t accomplish much,” Christman said.

Plastic makes up 80% of marine debris, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, a global alliance backed by governments, NGOs and companies including Shell, which is also a member of the ACC.

Plastic pollution has been shown to be deadly to turtles, whales and baby seals and releases chemicals that we inhale, ingest or touch that cause a wide range of harms including hormonal disruption and cancer, the United Nations says.

RECYCLE?

Plastic recyclers have faced new problems in the pandemic.

Demand for recycled material from packaging businesses fell by 20% to 30% in Europe in the second quarter compared with the previous year, ICIS says.

At the same time, people who stayed at home created more recycling waste, said Sandra Castro, CEO of Extruplas, a Portuguese recycling firm which transforms recycled plastics into outdoor furniture.

“There are many recycling companies that may not be able to cope,” she said. “We need the industry to be able to provide a solution to the waste we produce.”

In the United States, QRS’s Janson said that for two months after the pandemic lockdowns, his orders were down 60% and he dropped his prices by 15%.

And the pandemic has added to costs for big consumer companies that use recycled plastic.

The Coca-Cola Co told Reuters in September it missed a target to get recycled plastic into half its UK packaging by early 2020 due to COVID-19 delays. The company said it hopes now to meet that by November.

Coca-Cola, Nestle and PepsiCo have been the world’s top three plastic polluters for two years running, according to a yearly brand audit by Break Free From Plastic, an NGO.

These companies have for decades made voluntary goals to increase recycled plastic in their products. They have largely failed to meet them. Coke and Nestle said it can be hard to get the plastic they need from recycled sources.

“We often pay more for recycled plastic than we would if we purchased virgin plastic,” a Nestle spokesperson said, adding that investment in recycled material was a company priority.

Asked how much they were investing in recycling and waste cleanup programs, the three companies named initiatives totaling $215 million over a seven-year period.

At current investment levels in recycling, brands will not meet their targets, analysts at ICIS and Wood Mackenzie say.

TOSS

Even if existing recycling pledges are met, the plastic going into the oceans is on course to rise from 11 million tonnes now to 29 million by 2040, according to a study published in June by Pew Trusts, an independent public interest group.

Cumulatively, this would reach 600 million tonnes – the weight of 3 million blue whales.

In response to mounting public concerns, the Alliance to End Plastic Waste says it will partner existing small-scale NGOs that clean up waste in developing countries.

One venture, which helps women earn money from selling plastic scrap in Ghana, says it has successfully diverted 35 tonnes of plastic from becoming litter since March 2017.

That’s less than 0.01% of the annual plastic waste generated in Ghana, or 2% of the plastic waste that the United States exported to Ghana last year, according to World Bank and U.S. trade data.

“We do realize change won’t happen overnight,” said Alliance president and CEO Jacob Duer. “What is important for us is that our projects are not seen as the end, but the beginning.”

In the Philippines, Vietnam and India, as much as 80% of the recycling industry was not operating during the height of the pandemic. And there was a 50% drop in demand for recycled plastic on average across South and Southeast Asia, according to Circulate Capital, a Singapore-based investor in Asian recycling operations.

“The combination of the impact of COVID-19 and low oil prices is like a double whammy” for plastic recycling, said Circulate’s CEO, Rob Kaplan.

“We’re seeing massive disruption.”

(Reporting by Joe Brock; Additional reporting by Neil Jerome Morales in Quezon City, Catarina Demony in Lisbon, Noah Browning in London, Karen Lema in Manila, Heekyong Yang in Seoul, Yuka Obayashi in Tokyo and Marwa Rashad in Riyadh; Edited by Sara Ledwith)

Factbox: White House staff, top Republicans who have tested positive for COVID-19

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A growing number of White House staff and senior Republicans have tested positive for COVID-19 since President Donald Trump revealed he had contracted the respiratory disease.

The infections have roiled the presidential campaign, now in its final month, rattled financial markets and slowed the work of Congress, with the Senate vowing to delay any votes now that three members of the Republican majority have tested positive.

Several people who met with the president last week said they had since tested negative, but it can take days for someone who has been exposed to the virus to develop symptoms or to test positive. Below is a list of people close to Trump who have tested positive for coronavirus in recent days:

KAYLEIGH MCENANY

White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, said in a statement on Monday that she has tested positive for COVID-19, adding that she is experiencing no symptoms and “had no knowledge of Hope Hicks’ testing positive before her briefing last Thursday.”

HOPE HICKS

Hope Hicks, a close adviser to the president who often traveled with him on the Air Force One and Marine One presidential aircraft, tested positive for the disease caused by the novel coronavirus on Thursday. The disclosure of her infection, first reported by Bloomberg, set off a wave of news.

MELANIA TRUMP

Donald Trump, who had carried out a busy week of campaigning starting with the Sept. 26 introduction of his Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett at a packed White House ceremony, said on Friday that he had his wife, Melania, had tested positive.

RONNA MCDANIEL

Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel, who has had frequent contact with Trump, said on Friday she tested positive for the virus and was quarantined at home in Michigan.

SENATOR RON JOHNSON

Ron Johnson, who heads the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday, a spokesman said on Saturday.

SENATOR THOM TILLIS

Senator Thom Tillis tested positive for the coronavirus, he said in a statement on Friday. A member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Tillis positive test results comes after he attended a Sept. 26 Oval Office meeting with Barrett, who Republicans are seeking to steer onto the Supreme Court.

SENATOR MIKE LEE

Mike Lee, another senator on the Judiciary Committee, also said he tested positive on Friday. He was present at the Oval Office meeting on Sept. 26.

BILL STEPIEN

Trump’s campaign manager, Bill Stepien, also tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday and will work from home, according to a senior campaign official.

GOVERNOR CHRIS CHRISTIE

Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said on Saturday that he was checking himself into a hospital as a precautionary measure after testing positive for coronavirus.

KELLYANNE CONWAY

Kellyanne Conway, a former counselor to Trump, said in a post on Twitter that she had tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday. She attended the Sept. 26 Rose Garden ceremony for Barrett.

NOTRE DAME PRESIDENT JOHN JENKINS

University of Notre Dame President John Jenkins, who also attended the White House ceremony, said on Friday that he had tested positive.

NICHOLAS LUNA

Assistant to Trump Nicholas Luna, a “body man” who accompanies the president day and night, has tested positive, according to a source familiar with the situation.

(Reporting by Katanga Johnson and David Lawder; Editing by Scott Malone and Lisa Shumaker)

Top Israeli rabbis, and U.S. envoy, pray for Trump recovery

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel’s top rabbis prayed for U.S. President Donald Trump to recover from COVID-19 on Monday, invoking his name in a Jewish holiday ceremony at Jerusalem’s Western Wall.

Support for Trump, who recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moved the U.S. Embassy to the city, is strong among Israelis, who mark the Jewish high holidays this year while under a second coronavirus lockdown.

“May He who blessed our forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Moses, Aaron, David and Solomon send healing to Donald John, son of Fred,” intoned Shmuel Rabinovitch, rabbi of the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest prayer site.

“May the Holy Blessed One overflow with compassion for him, restore him, cure him, strengthen him, enliven him,” he said, reciting the traditional prayer for those in ill health, to amens from Israel’s two chief rabbis and U.S. ambassador David Friedman.

They were attending a ceremony, coinciding with the Sukkot festival, in which members of Judaism’s priestly caste bless the public in a chant at the Western Wall.

With Israel struggling against a surge in coronavirus cases, attendance was drastically pared down this year.

Heading to the event as an invited guest, Friedman tweeted that it was “normally attended by thousands, today just 20”.

“I will pray for God’s mercy and healing upon all those throughout the world afflicted with Covid-19,” he said.

(Writing by Dan Williams, Editing by William Maclean)

As cold weather arrives, U.S. states see record increases in COVID-19 cases

By Lisa Shumaker

(Reuters) – Nine U.S. states have reported record increases in COVID-19 cases over the last seven days, mostly in the upper Midwest and West where chilly weather is forcing more activities indoors.

On Saturday alone, four states – Kentucky, Minnesota, Montana and Wisconsin – saw record increases in new cases and nationally nearly 49,000 new infections were reported, the highest for a Saturday in seven weeks, according to a Reuters analysis. Kansas, Nebraska, New Hampshire, South Dakota and Wyoming also set new records for cases last week.

New York is one of only 18 states where cases have not risen greatly over the past two weeks, according to a Reuters analysis. However, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Sunday he is moving to shut non-essential businesses as well as schools in nine neighborhoods, starting on Wednesday. The lockdown would require the governor’s approval.

Health experts have long warned that colder temperatures driving people inside could promote the spread of the virus. Daytime highs in the upper Midwest are now in the 50’s Fahrenheit (10 Celsius).

Montana has reported record numbers of new cases for three out of the last four days and also has a record number of COVID-19 patients in its hospitals.

Wisconsin has set records for new cases two out of the last three days and also reported record hospitalizations on Saturday. On average 22% of tests are coming back positive, one of the highest rates in the country.

Wisconsin’s Democratic governor mandated masks on Aug. 1 but Republican lawmakers are backing a lawsuit challenging the requirement.

North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin have the highest new cases per capita in the country.

Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson is one of several prominent Republicans who have tested positive for coronavirus since President Donald Trump announced he had contracted the virus.

Because of the surge in cases in the Midwest, nursing homes and assisted-living facilities operated by Aspirus in northern Wisconsin and Michigan are barring most visitors as they did earlier this year.

Bellin Health, which runs a hospital in Green Bay, Wisconsin, said last week its emergency department has been past capacity at times and doctors had to place patients in beds in the hallways.

The United States is reporting 42,600 new cases and 700 deaths on average each day, compared with 35,000 cases and 800 deaths in mid-September. Deaths are a lagging indicator and tend to rise several weeks after cases increase.

Kentucky is the first Southern state to report a record increase in cases in several weeks. Governor Andy Beshear said last week was the highest number of cases the state has seen since the pandemic started.

State health experts have not pinpointed the reason for the rise but point to fatigue with COVID-19 precautions and students returning to schools and colleges. Over the last two weeks, Kentucky has reported nearly 11,000 new cases and has seen hospitalizations of COVID-19 patients rise by 20%.

(Reporting by Lisa Shumaker in Chicago; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

One in 10 may have caught COVID, as world heads into ‘difficult period’: WHO

By Stephanie Nebehay and Emma Farge

GENEVA (Reuters) – Roughly one in 10 people may have been infected with the coronavirus, leaving the vast majority of the world’s population vulnerable to the COVID-19 disease it causes, the World Health Organization said on Monday.

Mike Ryan, the WHO’s top emergency expert, was addressing the agency’s Executive Board, where the United States made a thinly veiled swipe at China for what it called a “failure” to provide accurate and timely information on the outbreak.

But Zhang Yang of China’s National Health Commission, said: “China has always been transparent and responsible to fulfill our international obligations.” China maintained close contacts with all levels of the U.N. health agency, she added.

Ryan said that outbreaks were surging in parts of southeast Asia and that cases and deaths were on the rise in parts of Europe and the eastern Mediterranean region.

“Our current best estimates tell us about 10% of the global population may have been infected by this virus. It varies depending on country, it varies from urban to rural, it varies depending on groups. But what it does mean is that the vast majority of the world remains at risk,” Ryan said.

“We are now heading into a difficult period. The disease continues to spread,” he said.

The WHO and other experts have said that the virus, believed to have emerged in a food market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year, is of animal origin.

The WHO has submitted a list of experts to take part in an international mission to China to investigate the origin, for consideration by Chinese authorities, Ryan said, without giving details.

U.S. assistant health secretary Brett Giroir said that it was critical that WHO’s 194 member states receive “regular and timely updates, including the terms of reference for this panel or for any field missions, so that we can all engage with the process and be confident in the outcomes”.

Germany, speaking for the EU, said the expert mission should be deployed soon, with Australia also supporting a swift investigation.

Meanwhile, Alexandra Dronova, Russia’s deputy health minister, called for an evaluation of the legal and financial repercussions of the Trump administration announcing the U.S. withdrawal from the WHO next July.

The United States will not pay some $80 million it owes the WHO and will instead redirect the money to help pay its U.N. bill in New York, a U.S. official said on Sept. 2.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay and Emma Farge; writing by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Alison Williams)

Trump says will leave hospital on Monday, ‘Don’t be afraid of Covid.’

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said he will leave the U.S. military hospital where he was being treated for COVID-19 later on Monday, adding that he felt “really good.”

“I will be leaving the great Walter Reed Medical Center today at 6:30 P.M. Feeling really good! Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life. We have developed, under the Trump Administration, some really great drugs & knowledge. I feel better than I did 20 years ago!” he said on Twitter.

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

China accuses U.S. at U.N. of trying to take world back to ‘jungle age’

By Michelle Nichols

NEW YORK (Reuters) – China accused the United States on Friday of “fabricating lies” and trying to take the world back to the “jungle age” after Washington blamed Beijing and U.N. agencies for “the murder of millions of baby girls.”

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) on Friday said it regretted the accusations by U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, which were made at a U.N. General Assembly meeting on Thursday on the anniversary of a landmark 1995 women’s conference.

UNFPA Executive Director Natalia Kanem told reporters that any coercion of women was “against our practice and policy.”

“We accord the highest priority to voluntary sexual and reproductive health, rights, and procedures,” she said. “We have invited reviews of, in the case of UNFPA, our practice and procedures in the country of China, and for the past four years, the United States has not visited our programs.”

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration cut funding in 2017 for UNFPA, saying it “supports … a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.” The United Nations said that was an inaccurate perception.

DeVos and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who issued a statement on Thursday, both accused China of subjecting Uighurs and other minorities to forced abortion, forced sterilization, and involuntary implantation of birth control devices.

A spokesperson for China’s U.N. mission in New York said in a statement that the remarks were “sheer fabrication.”

“Some U.S. politicians lie and cheat as a habit,” the spokesperson said. “They maliciously create political confrontation and undermine multilateral cooperation. The United States, going against the trend of the times, is becoming the biggest destroyer of the existing international order and trying all means to take the world back to the ‘jungle age.'”

Long-simmering tensions between the United States and China have hit the boiling point at the United Nations over the coronavirus pandemic, spotlighting Beijing’s bid for greater multilateral influence in a challenge to Washington’s traditional leadership.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; editing by Jonathan Oatis)