July 9 coronavirus news

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced she is once again prohibiting indoor seating at restaurants and breweries, saying Covid-19 trends in the state are "going in the wrong direction." 

Gyms, however, can remain open at current capacities. 

Lujan Grisham is also restricting the state's parks in New Mexico to residents only.

Some context: The amended public health order comes as Lujan Grisham announced 238 new positive cases Thursday. 

Indoor dining at restaurants is now prohibited, but outdoor dining can continue to operate at 50% capacity, while continuing to provide carryout and delivery service, she said. Breweries may continue to provide curbside pickup services, Lujan Grisham said. 

"New data is emerging that with face coverings, and the limited number of folks participating in gyms, and they're social distancing while they do that, seems to have the right mitigating impacts, Lujan Grisham said. 

To note: These figures were released by the state of New Mexico and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project.

There’s no proof that the new coronavirus spreads via an airborne route, but it’s better to assume it does, just to be safe, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Thursday.

The World Health Organization said earlier Thursday that it’s possible the virus spreads in aerosols in health care settings. Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said it’s a confusing question because of differing definitions of airborne droplets and aerosols.

It’s known the virus spreads on larger droplets that fly out of a person’s nose and mouth. More worrying is the idea that particles containing virus might remain suspended in the air for longer than a few minutes.

People should assume there is some airborne transmission, and act accordingly, he said. That’s why health experts want people to wear masks.

“Obviously, we are, in the United States … we have a real difficult situation, almost like a division, of those who swear by masks and those who don’t want to put masks on,” Fauci said. But he said the evidence is clear that mask use can slow the spread of the virus.

Only six people under the age of 50 have died since Oklahoma reopened, said Gov. Kevin Stitt during a Covid-19 news briefing today.

According to the governor, 72% of new cases since the state reopened were people who were age 50 and below. This group accounted for 10,000 new cases.

Speaking about hospitalizations, Stitt said the number has only gone up by 181 since the state began reopening, even though there have been 15,000 new cases. 

There were 560 hospitalizations at the peak on March 30, Stitt said. When the state began reopening on April 24, there were 306 hospitalization. As of Thursday, there were 487 hospitalizations, the governor said.

"Our fight is not over. In order to protect the health and lives of Oklahomans and continue to mitigate the impacts to our economy. We need all Oklahomans to do their part," Stitt said.

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves ordered a mask mandate for 13 counties with the greatest spikes of Covid-19.

The mask mandate was ordered for Hinds, DeSoto, Harrison, Rankin, Jackson, Washington, Sunflower, Grenada, Madison, Claiborne, Jefferson, Wayne and Quitman counties. This also includes the cities of Jackson, Biloxi and Gulfport.

Reeves said the counties have seen either 200 new cases within the last 14 days or have had an average of 500 cases per 100,000 residents in the last 14 days.

He is also adding social distancing requirements in the counties but not requiring businesses to shut down, he said. Everyone must wear masks when in public, Reeves said.

“Our numbers are getting worse,” Reeves said. “No orders will be effective if we don’t have the participation of our people.”

There is evidence that some people develop a long-term fatigue syndrome from coronavirus infections, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Thursday.

“There may well be a post-viral syndrome associated with Covid-19,” Fauci told a news conference organized by the International AIDS Society. The group is holding a Covid-19 conference as an add-on to its every-other-year AIDS meeting.

Fauci said the symptoms resemble those seen in patients with myalgic encephalomyelitis, or ME, once known as chronic fatigue syndrome.

“If you look anecdotally, there is no question that there are a considerable number of individuals who have a post-viral syndrome that in many respects incapacitates them for weeks and weeks following so-called recovery,” Fauci said.

A two-drug cocktail used to treat hepatitis C may also help patients recover more quickly from coronavirus, researchers reported Thursday.

Three small studies involving 176 patients show the combination of the two drugs, sofosbuvir and daclatasvir, may have hastened the recovery of patients hospitalized with coronavirus, Andrew Hill of Liverpool University told the International AIDS Society’s Covid-19 Conference.

After two weeks of treatment, 94% of the patients given the two-drug combination were significantly better on a seven-point scale, compared to 70% of those not given the drugs, Hill said at a news conference.

The studies were conducted in Iran, where the drug combination is widely used to treat hepatitis C patients. Hill said the studies were not the carefully controlled trials that doctors prefer to see before they adopt a new treatment.

Hill added that the drugs have been widely used.

“Millions of people have been cured of hepatitis C using this treatment,” he said.

Studies involving 2,000 people are under way and Hill said results should be available by October.

Some context: Currently, remdesivir is the only antiviral drug that has emergency use authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration to treat coronavirus infections.

Teams of doctors are testing a variety of antiviral drugs developed to treat hepatitis, HIV and other viral infections.

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said trends in the state are "going in the wrong direction.”

Speaking at a news conference, Lujan Grisham said that the state had 238 new Covid-19 cases today and six new deaths.

There are currently 154 people in the state in hospitals, with 32 on ventilators. 

The governor said they are starting to see some long lines for testing, but insisted the state is working on it.

The state has reported 14,251 total cases and 533 deaths.

To note: These figures were released by the state of New Mexico and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project.

Indoor dining in Arizona will now be limited to 50% occupancy, Gov. Doug Ducey announced at a news conference on Thursday.

“We have had a brutal June in Arizona,” the governor said, as the state saw a 50% increase in Covid-19 cases. The state reported a total of at least 108,614 Covid-19 cases. 

He emphasized that residents are safer at home and should continue staying at home. 

The governor also said the United States was seeing a decrease in number of daily cases through the month of May but in June, when Arizona’s number began to climb so did the total numbers for the United States.

“It's possible that Arizona was the front of that wave of increases in these cases and the actions that we're taking can lead the way for our state to navigate forward," Ducey said.

Note: These numbers were released by the state of Arizona, and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project.

Bolivian Interim President Jeanine Añez announced on her official Twitter account Thursday that she tested positive for novel coronavirus.

Añez mentioned that many of her cabinet members had tested positive recently.

In recent days, at least four top Bolivian government officials, including Health Minister María Eidy Roca, tested positive for Covid-19. The other officials positive for novel coronavirus include Minister of the Presidency Yerko Núñez Negrette, Minister of Mines Jorge Fernando Oropeza, and the commander of the armed forces, Gen. Sergio Orellana.

Añez is the third Latin American head of state to test positive for the virus, following Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro and Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez.