June 18 coronavirus news

An ensemble forecast published by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now projects 135,461 coronavirus deaths in the United States by July 11, with deaths increasing in nine states. 

This week’s national forecast relies on 21 individual forecasts from outside institutions and researchers. The new projections, published Thursday, forecast a possible range of 129,000 to 145,000 deaths.

“For other states, the number of new deaths is expected to be similar or decrease slightly compared to the previous four weeks," the CDC added.

Some context: Unlike some individual models, the CDC’s ensemble forecast only offers projections for the next month.

The previous ensemble forecast, published last Friday, predicted 130,000 deaths from coronavirus in the US by July 4. So far, according to Johns Hopkins University, more than 118,000 people have died in the US.

The National Football League Players Association has responded to comments from Dr. Anthony Fauci who told CNN that unless players are in isolated a bubble, "it would be very hard to see how football is able to be played this fall."

NFL Players Association (NFLPA) medical director, Dr. Thom Mayer, said the comments from the nation's top infectious disease doctor "carry important weight as he has served our country with expert guidance and moral clarity through many crises," according to a statement from the NFLPA.

Mayer said the NFLPA "will continue to update you as we move forward through the summer.”

There are now at least 2,185,873 cases of coronavirus in the US, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

Approximately 118,334 people have died from the virus.

So far on Thursday, Johns Hopkins reported 22,583 new cases and 617 additional deaths.

The totals include cases from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and other US territories, as well as repatriated cases. 

Michigan State’s athletics department said in a statement that an athlete has tested positive for Covid-19 after the school tested 124 student-athletes on Monday. The statement does not specify which sport the athlete is a part of.

Additionally, a student-athlete did not report to campus after testing positive for the virus at home last week.

The statement said the student will be isolated for 10 to 14 days.

Michigan State Athletics also said players who tested negative will be tested again on June 22 and "a second negative test result is required before being cleared to take part in voluntary workouts." 

When San Francisco implemented its shelter-in place order in mid-March, coronavirus continued to spread through the city’s Hispanic population in parts of the densely populated Mission District, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco reported Thursday.

For the first six weeks the ordinance was in place, the virus continued to spread among the low-income Latino population in a crowded 16-block area of the district, they found.

The team at UCSF worked with the San Francisco Department of Health, the state of California and community organizers on an initiative offering free Covid-19 tests, both nasal swab tests to diagnose active infections and antibody tests to find past infections. They reached almost 4,000 people in the area between April 25-28.

The results: They found that 2% of those given a PCR test – the most accurate type of diagnostic test – were infected with Covid-19 at the time of the test.

Among those who tested positive, infection rates were almost 20 times higher for Hispanic residents than non-Hispanics and 3.5 times higher among immigrant workers than for residents in the district.

Antibody tests indicated 6% of residents had contracted the virus at some point since the beginning of the pandemic, the researchers said in their pre-print report, which has not yet been peer-reviewed.

After comparing the tests, researchers reported, “the vast majority (96%) of new infections were occurring in the Latinx community, whereas those infected earlier in the pandemic were somewhat more representative of the neighborhood as a whole (67% Latinx, 16% white and 17% other).” 

Many of those infected could not work from home and could not miss work. Other risk factors for those contracting the virus later, in late April, for example, included frontline service work, unemployment and a household income of less than $50,000 a year.

Jackson Health System in Miami, Florida, has seen a 46% increase in Covid-19 patients in the past 10 days, according to a hospital spokesperson.

On June 8, Jackson Health reported 104 Covid-19 patients. Today, they have 152. 

Jackson Health has discharged a total of 683 Covid-19 patients since the pandemic began. Jackson Health System is a non-profit academic medical system.

Miami Mayor Francis Suarez told CNN that the city is "extremely concerned" about the increase in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations.

Suarez said that in the last eight days, Florida has reached record case numbers, with 3,200 people who reported positive Wednesday.

The mayor noted that number is nearly three times the 1,300 case threshold that caused the state to shut down months ago.

On Monday: Suarez announced that the city would not go into phase three of reopening because it had not met criteria to do so, including a decreased in cases and hospitalizations.

The city will be stepping up enforcement of protective measures for businesses to try to slow the spread, Suarez said.

He said that stricter measures could be brought back if the virus is out of control.

"Everything has to be on the table," if hospitalizations increase further, Suarez said. 

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Brazil is nearing 1 million confirmed coronavirus cases after another daily spike Thursday.

The country's health ministry reported another 22,765 new cases Thursday, bringing its total number of cases to 978,142.

The ministry also confirmed 1,238 new deaths from the virus on Thursday, bringing the country's total to 47,748.

Bangladesh on Thursday registered 3,803 new coronavirus cases, bringing the national total to 102,292, according to the country's Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

It recorded an additional 38 fatalities related to Covid-19, raising the death toll to 1,343.

The densely populated South Asian country has recently seen a spike in the number of coronavirus cases, with at least 3,000 cases registered daily for the last five days, according to the DGHS data.

Dhaka district, which includes the capital, is the worst affected with more than 26,000 cases.