Tag Archives: Outbreak

Where U.S. coronavirus cases are on the rise

By Chris Canipe and Lisa Shumaker

(Reuters) – Most U.S. states reported a drop in new cases of COVID-19 for the week ended May 17, with only 13 states seeing a rise in infections compared to the previous week, according to a Reuters analysis.

Tennessee had the biggest weekly increase with 33%. Louisiana’s new cases rose 25%, and Texas reported 22% more cases than in the first week of May, according to the Reuters analysis of data from The COVID Tracking Project, a volunteer-run effort to track the outbreak.

(Open https://tmsnrt.rs/2WTOZDR in an external browser for a Reuters interactive)

Michigan saw new cases rise 18% after five weeks of declines. Michigan was hit hard early in the outbreak and has seen more than 4,800 deaths.

Nationally, new cases of COVID-19 are down 8% in the last week, helped by continued declines in New York and New Jersey. Nearly all 50 U.S. states, however, have allowed some businesses to reopen and residents to move more freely, raising fears among some health officials of a second wave of outbreaks.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recommended states wait for their daily number of new COVID-19 cases to fall for 14 days before easing social distancing restrictions.

As of May 17, 13 states had met that criteria, down from 14 states in the prior week, according to the Reuters analysis.

WHERE NEW CASES ARE FALLING

Kansas and Missouri saw the biggest declines in new cases from the previous week, after an outbreak at a St. Joseph, Missouri meatpacking plant resulted in over 400 cases in the first week of May. St. Joseph sits on the Kansas-Missouri border, just north of Kansas City.

Washington D.C. saw a 32% decline after several weeks of growth.

Georgia, one of the first states to reopen, saw new cases fall 12% in the past week and now has two consecutive weeks of declining cases.

Globally, coronavirus cases top 4.5 million since the outbreak began in China late last year. On a per-capita basis, the United States has the third-highest number of cases, with about 45 for every 10,000 people, according to a Reuters analysis.

(Reporting by Chris Canipe in Kansas City, Missouri, and Lisa Shumaker in Chicago)

‘There is a real risk’ of new outbreak if U.S. states reopen too soon: Fauci

By Makini Brice and Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Leading U.S. infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci on Tuesday warned Congress that a premature lifting of lockdowns could lead to additional outbreaks of the deadly coronavirus, which has killed 80,000 Americans and brought the economy to its knees.

Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told a U.S. Senate panel that states should follow health experts’ recommendations to wait for signs including a declining number of new infections before reopening.

President Donald Trump has been encouraging states to end a weeks-long shuttering of major components of their economies. But senators heard a sobering assessment from Fauci, when asked by Democrats about a premature opening of the economy.

“There is a real risk that you will trigger an outbreak that you may not be able to control and, in fact paradoxically, will set you back, not only leading to some suffering and death that could be avoided but could even set you back on the road to try to get economic recovery,” Fauci said.

The COVID-19 respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus has infected more than 1.3 million Americans and killed more than 80,600.

Fauci, a member of Trump’s coronavirus task force, told the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee that the nation’s efforts to battle the deadly virus and the COVID-19 disease it triggers should be “focused on the proven public health practices of containment and mitigation.”

Fauci, 79, testified remotely in a room lined with books as he self-quarantines after he may have come into contact with either of two members of the White House staff who were diagnosed with COVID-19. He noted that he may go to the White House if needed.

“All roads back to work and back to school run through testing and that what our country has done so far on testing is impressive, but not nearly enough,” Lamar Alexander, the Republican chairman of the Senate committee, said in an opening statement to Tuesday’s hearing.

Alexander is also self-quarantining in his home state of Tennessee for 14 days after a member of his staff tested positive. Alexander chaired the hearing virtually.

Democrats on the health committee largely concentrated on the risks of opening the U.S. economy too soon, while Republicans downplayed that notion, saying a prolonged shutdown could have serious negative impacts on people’s health and the health of the economy.

Trump, who previously made the strength of the economy central to his pitch for his November re-election, has encouraged states to reopen businesses that had been deemed non-essential amid the pandemic.

His administration has largely left it to states to decide whether and how to reopen. State governors are taking varying approaches, with a growing number relaxing tough restrictions enacted to slow the outbreak, even as opinion polls show most Americans are concerned about reopening too soon.

Senator Patty Murray, the senior committee Democrat, criticizing aspects of the administration’s response to the pandemic, said Americans “need leadership, they need a plan, they need honesty and they need it now, before we reopen.”

Others testifying on Tuesday included U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield, Assistant Secretary for Health Brett Giroir and Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn. Each testified remotely.

Meanwhile, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, a Democrat, told reporters that a Democratic bill to provide significant new federal aid in response to the coronavirus pandemic could be unveiled later on Tuesday, with a possible House of Representatives votes on it on Friday.

(GRAPHIC: Tracking the novel coronavirus in the U.S. – https://graphics.reuters.com/HEALTH-CORONAVIRUS-USA/0100B5K8423/index.html)

(Reporting by Richard Cowan, Makini Brice, Doina Chiacu and Tim Ahmann; Editing by Scott Malone and Alistair Bell)

Trump says coronavirus task force to work ‘indefinitely,’ shift focus

By Susan Heavey and Doina Chiacu

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday his White House coronavirus task force would remain in place but with a focus on medical treatments and easing restrictions on businesses and social life and perhaps with different advisers.

On Tuesday, Trump had said he planned to wind down the task force and replace it with “something in a different form” as the country shifts into a new phase focusing on the aftermath of the outbreak. He also acknowledged then that “some people” might be hit hard by a resurgence of the virus.

“Will some people be affected? Yes. Will some people be affected badly? Yes. But we have to get our country open, and we have to get it open soon,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday as he toured a face-mask factory in Arizona, where he defied infection-control guidelines by not wearing a mask himself.

In a series of tweets on Wednesday, Trump said that because of its success, “the Task Force will continue on indefinitely with its focus on SAFETY & OPENING UP OUR COUNTRY AGAIN. We may add or subtract people to it, as appropriate. The Task Force will also be very focused on Vaccines & Therapeutics.”

The task force to date has included medical professionals focused on battling the pandemic, some of whom have at times offered guidance at odds with Trump’s.

Trump told reporters on Tuesday: “We’re now looking at a little bit of a different form, and that form is safety and opening. And we’ll – we’ll have a different group probably set up for that.”

Trump praised the task force, headed by Vice President Mike Pence, for having brought together resources including a supply of ventilators. Pence was scheduled to lead the group’s meeting at 4 p.m. ET (2000 GMT) at the White House.

(Reporting and writing by Susan Heavey and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Howard Goller)

U.S. coronavirus outbreak soon to be deadlier than any flu since 1967 as deaths top 60,000

By Lisa Shumaker(Reuters) – U.S. deaths from the novel coronavirus topped 60,000 on Wednesday and the outbreak will soon be deadlier than any flu season since 1967, according to a Reuters tally.

America’s worst flu season in recent years was in 2017-2018 when more than 61,000 people died, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The only deadlier flu seasons were in 1967 when about 100,000 Americans died, 1957 when 116,000 died and the Spanish flu of 1918 when 675,000 died, according to the CDC.

The United States has the world’s highest coronavirus death toll and a daily average of 2,000 people died in April of the highly contagious respiratory illness COVID-19, according to a Reuters tally. The first U.S. death was recorded on Feb. 29 but recent testing in California indicates the first death might have been on Feb. 6, with the virus circulating weeks earlier than previously thought.

On Tuesday, COVID-19 deaths in the United States eclipsed in a few months the 58,220 Americans killed during 16 years of U.S. military involvement during the Vietnam War. Cases topped 1 million.

The actual number of cases is thought to be higher, with state public health officials cautioning that shortages of trained workers and materials have limited testing capacity.

The outbreak could take nearly 73,000 U.S. lives by Aug. 4, compared with an April 22 forecast of over 67,600, according to the University of Washington’s predictive model , often cited by White House officials.

In early March, the prospect that the coronavirus would kill more Americans than the flu was unthinkable to many politicians who played down the risk of the new virus.

Republican President Donald Trump tweeted on March 9: “So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!”

On March 11, Democratic New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio told New Yorkers during a radio interview to eat out at restaurants if they were not sick.

That same day, top U.S. infectious diseases expert Dr. Anthony Fauci warned Congress that the coronavirus was at least 10 times more lethal than the seasonal flu.

There is as yet no treatment or vaccine for coronavirus while flu vaccines are widely available along with treatments.

(Writing by Lisa Shumaker; Editing by Howard Goller)

Governor worries cooped-up Californians will hit beaches on warm weekend

By Dan Whitcomb

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Californians locked down for weeks during the coronavirus pandemic have trickled back to local beaches as the weather warms, prompting Governor Gavin Newsom on Thursday to plead for social distancing during a heat wave expected this weekend.

Newsom, in his daily remarks on the response to the outbreak, appeared to concede that the state’s beaches would be an irresistible lure to residents, who have been largely confined to their homes since mid-March.

“We’re walking into a very warm weekend. People are prone to want to go to the beaches, parks, playgrounds and go on a hike, and I anticipate there will be significant increase in volume,” the governor said.

“But I also think if there is and people aren’t practicing physical distancing, I’ll be announcing again these numbers going back up,” Newsom said, referring to a slight downward tick in new hospitalizations and admissions to intensive-care units.

California, the nation’s most populous state, recorded its deadliest day yet in the pandemic, with 115 fatalities in the 24 hours from Wednesday to Thursday.

Newsom has been credited with taking early action to lock down the state as cases of COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the coronavirus, spread in early March, and California has seen fewer cases than New York and other East Coast states.

California’s beaches are under a patchwork of state and local jurisdictions, which means some have remained open while others were shut.

Los Angeles County closed all its beaches – including parking lots, bike paths, showers and restrooms – during the coronavirus outbreak, but leaders in neighboring Orange County voted to keep some open.

Amid a debate over whether residents are safer in open spaces such as the beach, officials in San Clemente in southern Orange County voted this week to reopen city beaches that they closed two weeks ago, the Orange County Register reported.

This week in Huntington Beach, an Orange County city that has both state and local beaches as well as the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve, surfers could be seen in the water on either side of a closed pier as sunbathers watched from the sand and joggers used pedestrian paths.

Lifeguards at Huntington Beach’s main stretch of shoreline counted about 9,000 people on the sand and in the water on Thursday, according to local CBS television affiliate KCBS.

Los Angeles Police Department Chief Michel Moore urged residents to avoid flocking to beaches and trailheads as summery weather returns, the Los Angeles City News Service (CNS) reported.

“Save police the awkwardness of us having to admonish you and advise and direct you for something that you already know,” CNS quoted Moore as saying. “With that, our men and women can stay focused on public safety.

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Additional reporting by Lucy Nicholson in Huntington Beach; Editing by Bill Tarrant, Daniel Wallis and Gerry Doyle)

Exclusive: U.S. Navy destroyer in Caribbean sees significant coronavirus outbreak – officials

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. Navy destroyer is believed to have a significant coronavirus outbreak on board as it carries out a counter-narcotics mission in the Caribbean, U.S. officials told Reuters on Friday, marking the latest challenge for the military in dealing with the virus.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that over a dozen sailors had tested positive for the virus. Given the size of ship, usually only a few hundred sailors, an outbreak like this is likely to cause concern and raise questions about whether it would have to return to the United States.

The cases on the ship appear to be the first onboard a ship currently underway at sea.

The aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt was in the Asia Pacific when it had an outbreak onboard, having to eventually dock in Guam. Nearly 850 out of the roughly 4,800 personnel on the carrier have tested positive on the Roosevelt.

The destroyer Kidd is part of the Trump administration’s deployment of more Navy warships and aircraft to the Caribbean to fight drug cartels. Announcing the deployment earlier this month, the Trump administration said the additional warships and aircraft were also aimed and preventing “corrupt actors” like Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from exploiting the coronavirus pandemic to smuggle more narcotics.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Jonathan Oatis)

Supplies for coronavirus field hospital held up at U.S.-Mexico border

By Julia Love and Mica Rosenberg

(Reuters) – Red tape and rules on exporting medical gear have delayed work on a field hospital for migrants in an asylum camp near Mexico’s border with Texas, undercutting efforts to prepare for the coronavirus pandemic, according to organizers of the project.

Migrants are seen waiting at clinic of Global Response Management at a migrant encampment where more than 2,000 people live while seeking asylum in the U.S., while the spread of Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues, in Matamoros, Mexico April 9, 2020. REUTERS/Daniel Becerril

Mexican authorities approved construction of the 20-bed field hospital on April 2. But since then, a trailer laden with supplies for the project has been parked in Brownsville, Texas, less than a block from the U.S.-Mexico border.

Global Response Management, the nonprofit sprearheading the project, said the trailer contains an X-ray machine, cots, heart monitors, medical tents, generators and other equipment. Its staff fear time is running out to prepare for a coronavirus outbreak.

“If we are trying to set up the hospital in the middle of the epidemic, it’s too late,” Andrea Leiner, director of strategic planning for the organization, told Reuters on Tuesday.

“We are in a situation where containment and quarantine are not possible, so we need to be aggressive on prevention.”

There are no confirmed cases yet in the camp on the banks of the Rio Grande that houses about 2,000 migrants, mostly Central Americans seeking asylum in the United States. The camp also holds Cubans, Venezuelans and Mexican asylum seekers along with other nationalities.

But testing has been limited. Health experts say the migrants are exceedingly vulnerable, their immune systems worn down after months living in closely packed tents.

Due to a U.S. order banning the export of key protective medical gear, the nonprofit had to remove equipment such as gloves, surgical masks and N95 masks from the trailer in Brownsville. It is now trying to source what it can from Mexico.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection have said they are trying to prevent brokers and intermediaries from diverting critical medical resources overseas.

In a rule issued on Friday, FEMA said it would consider the “totality of the circumstances,” including humanitarian considerations, when determining whether to detain shipments of medical gear.

Global Response said U.S. authorities cleared its remaining supplies on Sunday, but it is now awaiting a letter from the Matamoros mayor’s office certifying the equipment will only be brought into the country for six months, so the shipment can be approved by Mexican customs.

Mexico’s customs agency, the Matamoros mayor’s office and the National Migration Institute (INM) did not respond to requests for comment.

In addition to the trailer, Global Response has collected hundreds of cloth masks sewn by volunteers for the camp, but it has only been able to bring them in three at a time, the quantity deemed for “personal use” and thus not subject to import duties in Mexico.

The group has accumulated 3,500 rapid tests for the coronavirus to use in the camp, said executive director Helen Perry.

Many in the camp are awaiting U.S. hearings under the Trump administration’s Migrant Protection Protocols policy. All hearings under the program have been suspended until May 1.

In Matamoros, which has a population of about half a million people, the five public hospitals have 25 ventilators and 11 intensive care beds between them, according to figures provided to Reuters by the state government last month.

A Mexican government plan to relocate the migrants to a stadium was abandoned, Global Response’s Leiner said.

The nonprofit and INM are now working to fence off the camp and conduct temperature checks as people enter, she said.

(Reporting by Julia Love in Mexico City and Mica Rosenberg in New York, additional reporting by Verónica G. Cárdenas and Daniel Becerril in Matamoros,; Writing by Julia Love; Editing by Tom Brown)

Death stalks French nursing home, where corpses lie in rooms

By Lucien Libert

PARIS (Reuters) – In a nursing home in Paris, bodies have been left decomposing in bedrooms and the smell of death seeps under doors after the coronavirus spread through the overwhelmed facility, according to a care worker there.

The employee at the Jardin des Plantes home, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the subject, told Reuters some 30 residents – about a third of all the elderly being cared for at the facility – had died since the outbreak struck.

With the city’s undertakers swamped by the wave of COVID-19 deaths sweeping the capital, some corpses had laid in body bags for several days, the care worker said.

“The smell passes under the doors and permeates through the walls,” the care worker said.

“Families would call in the morning, and we’d tell them things were fine. By the evening their relative would be dead and we wouldn’t even have had the time to inform them,” the care worker added, describing how staff had been overrun.

The nursing home is run by Paris City Hall. A spokesman confirmed that the number of deaths had risen above the 21 initially reported on April 7, but could not give a precise figure.

City Hall had been alerted that some corpses were festering inside bedrooms, the spokesman said. Immediate measures had been taken “to limit as far as possible this situation”, he added.

The nursing home declined to comment.

All of France’s care homes are locked down, their 1 million residents in isolation on government orders and cut off from their families.

From Italy to the United States, such homes have emerged as a vulnerable frontline in the global pandemic, with COVID-19 most lethal to the elderly.

PARTIAL DATA

In France, nursing homes do not have to relay data on COVID-19 deaths to the health authorities.

The country’s death count has surged after it began including numbers supplied voluntarily from homes last week, with a third of the 12,210 COVID-19 fatalities nationwide occurring in nursing homes.

A spokeswoman for the regional ARS health authority in the greater Paris area said Jardin des Plantes was among the 40% of France’s 7,400 homes that had not passed on the information.

The care worker said that the home’s 80 staff had lacked face masks, gloves, gowns and shoe covers when the coronavirus first hit. High levels of absenteeism left workers overstretched before reinforcements arrived, including student nurses.

The nursing home declined to respond to questions about protective gear, which has been in short supply in many medical facilities and care homes across the world, particularly in the early stages of the coronavirus crisis.

The Paris City Hall spokesman said the municipality provided all its staff, including those working in homes, with masks.

Earlier this week, as the death toll inside the home rose, all of its surviving residents and staff were tested for COVID-19 after the health ministry changed its protocol.

Previously, as France ramped up testing capacity, the guidance was that the first two suspected cases be assessed.

Asked if the testing had come too late, the City Hall spokesman said the municipality was taking its cue from the ARS.

“We’re approaching the peak so this is a crucial time,” he said. “We’re not too late.”

(Additional reporting and writing by Richard Lough; Editing by Mike Collett-White)

Your COVID-19 questions, answered

There is a lot of misinformation circulating about the coronavirus, so we took to Instagram, Twitter and Reddit to see what questions have been bugging you, our readers.Below are answers from several healthcare experts who have been following the outbreak. Please note that there is much we still don’t know about the new virus, and you should reach out to your own healthcare provider with any personal health concerns.

LIVING UNDER LOCKDOWN

What are good ways to maintain your mental health?

I would recommend the following:

1. Maintain a normal schedule if possible

2. Exercise (go for walk or run, do an online video)

3. Maintain social connections via FaceTime, Skype or phone calls

4. Limit time spent on the Internet and connected to the news

5. Have “virtual” dates with family and friends.

— Dr. Krutika Kuppalli, infectious disease researcher

Here’s how it’s affecting young minds  and how millennials are adjusting to isolation.

How long will the U.S. really have to be on lockdown to successfully flatten the curve?

We’re still learning on a daily basis what the case count looks like in the U.S. We also need to consider that there could be a resurgence of cases once public health measures are loosened up.

— Dr. Krutika Kuppalli, infectious disease researcher

I defer to the epidemiologists here, but National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci recently said that he’s confident in a range of four to six weeks to 3 months.

— Dr. Angela Rasmussen, virologist at Columbia University

Do I actually need to wear a mask?

The WHO advises that if you’re healthy, you need to wear a mask only when caring for an infected person or if you’re coughing, sneezing or showing symptoms. More here

TRANSMISSION

Is it fair to assume every American will be exposed to the coronavirus this year?

No, which is one of the reasons we have these current public health measures in place. We are trying to prevent further onward transmission of the disease.

— Dr. Krutika Kuppalli, infectious disease researcher

Almost 100,000 cases have been reported in the U.S. and its territories, according to a Reuters tally of state and local government sources, mapped .

Is the coronavirus airborne in normal settings and if so, for how long?

According to our knowledge, it does not stay in the air in normal settings. Most evidence directs us to droplet transmission. Airborne precautions are required only for healthcare workers when undertaking aerosol producing procedures such as bronchoscopy/intubation.

— Dr. Muge Cevik, infectious diseases researcher at the University of St. Andrews

Is there potential exposure in elevators?

Coronavirus guidelines by the CDC are based on the fact that the virus is transmitted primarily via respiratory droplets, like a cough or sneeze. In droplet form, it’s airborne for a few seconds, but is only able to travel a short distance. In elevators, social distancing measures should be implemented with a max number of people inside at a time.

— Infectious Diseases Society of America

How worried should we be about fomite transmission?

We are still learning about fomite transmission. We know from an article in the New England Journal of Medicine that the virus is viable up to four hours on copper, 24 hours on cardboard, and two to three days on plastic and stainless steel.

— Dr. Krutika Kuppalli, infectious disease researcher

Can you spread the virus if you’re asymptomatic?

Yes, but it isn’t the main driver of transmission. This is also why it is extremely important to ensure you have washed hands before touching your face.

— Dr. Krutika Kuppalli, infectious disease researcher

What’s the typical timeline of symptoms?

From the time of exposure to symptoms it may take on average three to six days, which may be longer/shorter in some patients. Typically it starts with fever, dry cough, myalgia and flu-like illness, then progresses to shortness of breath and pneumonia in some patients.

— Dr. Muge Cevik, infectious diseases researcher at the University of St. Andrews

Is it possible that an infected person only has a mild cold before recovering?

Yes. The most common symptoms a person will have are fever, dry cough and muscle aches/fatigue.

— Dr. Krutika Kuppalli, infectious disease researcher

Should people be more concerned about eye protection?

We certainly use face shields to protect our eyes when in contact with patients.

— Dr. Isaac Bogoch, infectious disease researcher and scientist

Does getting vaccines increase your risk?

Getting any vaccines would not increase your risk for COVID-19. We’re recommending getting needed vaccines. We want people to get their influenza vaccines so they don’t end up with the flu and in the hospital.

— Dr. Krutika Kuppalli, infectious disease researcher

Do people have a natural immunity to this virus?

I am not aware of “natural immunity” since it is a new virus. We might find as serology testing is rolled out that people have been exposed and developed antibodies without having symptoms.

— Dr. Krutika Kuppalli, infectious disease researcher

Is it possible to get reinfected?

We’re not sure how immunity works or how long it lasts. The best guess is that people who are infected are likely to be protected over the short-to-medium term. We don’t know about longer yet.

— Dr. Eric Rubin, editor-in-chief, New England Journal of Medicine

There are a handful of cases of possible “reinfection” in recovered patients. But most scientists believe those are more likely to have been relapses.

TREATMENT

Is there a team working on an antibody test for the virus? If so, when might it be ready?

There are teams working on serological tests. Rolling out on a population scale will be an essential part of the long-term answer, but we need to get through the next month.

— Bill Hanage, associate professor at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health

When will a vaccine be ready?

Vaccine trials may take as long as 12 months. There are multiple clinical trials looking at different treatment options, but we currently don’t know whether this combination is effective and safe for patients.

— Dr. Muge Cevik, infectious diseases researcher at the University of St. Andrews

Scientists in Singapore are trying to fast-track the process.

What impact will warmer weather have on the spread?

I have yet to see convincing evidence on this, one way or the other. We are all hoping transmission will slow down with warmer weather in the northern hemisphere, and that warmer countries will be spared the worst. Not enough data yet to conclude.

— Dr. Suerie Moon, director of research at the Global Health Centre

Here’s what we know about seasonal features of disease outbreaks.

I’ve seen several news sources report that experts from Johns Hopkins and other medical colleges are saying the virus can become less deadly as it spreads. Can you explain this phenomenon?

Yes, one theory for why many viruses become weaker over time is that viruses that kill their host don’t get very far. This pattern of weakening is seen with flu viruses, and many others, but not all. We’re not there yet with the current outbreak. Whether it’s weaker three or 10 years from now doesn’t change anything about today’s situation.

— Christine Soares, medical editor at Reuters

(Reporting by Lauren Young, Jenna Zucker, Beatrix Lockwood, Nancy Lapid, Christine Soares)

Italy coronavirus deaths rise by 756, lifting total death toll to 10,779

ROME (Reuters) – The death toll from an outbreak of coronavirus in Italy climbed by 756 to 10,779, the Civil Protection Agency said on Sunday, the second successive fall in the daily rate.

The number of fatalities, by far the highest of any country in the world, account for more than a third of all deaths from the infectious virus worldwide.

Italy’s largest daily toll was registered on Friday, when 919 people died. There were 889 deaths on Saturday.

The total number of confirmed cases in Italy rose on Sunday to 97,689 from a previous 92,472, the lowest daily rise in new cases since Wednesday.

Of those infected nationwide, 13,030 had fully recovered on Sunday, compared to 12,384 the day before. There were 3,906 people in intensive care, up from the previous 3,856.

Lombardy, the hardest hit Italian region, reported a rise in deaths of around 416 on Sunday.

More than 662,700 people have been infected by the novel coronavirus across the world and 30,751 have died, according to a Reuters tally.

(Reporting by Giulia Segreti)