July 30 coronavirus news

MLB’s Philadelphia Phillies announced two staff members tested positive for Covid-19 on Thursday and have canceled all activities at Citizens Bank Park “until further notice.”

One member of the coaching staff and a clubhouse staff member tested positive in the team’s latest round of testing, which was conducted Wednesday. 

MLB postponed the Phillies’ Tuesday night game against the New York Yankees out of an abundance of caution after the team played a series against the Miami Marlins, who have since had 19 players and staff test positive for Covid-19.

The Phillies are currently scheduled to resume play on Saturday against the Blue Jays.

The Dallas Cowboys have announced season tickets will be unavailable for the 2020 season because of limited capacity at AT&T Stadium, dictated by NFL policies and CDC Covid-19 guidelines.

In a statement released Thursday, the team announced Cowboys season ticket holders will have the first opportunity to purchase a limited number of single-game tickets for a limited number of games.

The single-game tickets will not necessarily be in the same location as their current season tickets.

Season ticket holders can decline the first opportunity to purchase single-game tickets but if they opt out, they may not be successful in procuring seats because of expected limited inventory.

According to the team’s statement, no matter which option they choose, Cowboys season ticket holders will retain tenure, seat location and associated benefits for the 2021 season and beyond.

The immune systems of some people who have not been exposed to the novel coronavirus could have some familiarity with the pathogen — possibly helping to reduce the severity of illness if that person does get Covid-19, a new study suggests.

The study, published in the journal Nature on Wednesday, found that among a sample of 68 healthy adults in Germany who had not been exposed to coronavirus, 35% had T cells in their blood that were reactive to the virus. T cells are part of the immune system and help protect the body from infection. T cell reactivity suggests that the immune system might have had some previous experience fighting a similar infection and may use that memory to help fight a new infection.

The new study involved analyzing blood samples from 18 Covid-19 patients, ages 21 to 81, and healthy donors, ages 20 to 64, based in Germany. The study found that T cells reactive to the coronavirus were detected in 83% of the Covid-19 patients.

While the researchers also found pre-existing cross-reactive T cells in the healthy donors, they wrote in the study that the impact those cells might have on the outcome of a Covid-19 illness still remains unknown.

So how could their immune system have reactive T cells if they never had Covid-19? They were "probably acquired in previous infections with endemic" coronaviruses, the researchers — from various institutions in Germany and the United Kingdom — wrote in the new study. Using this T cell memory from another-yet-similar infection to respond to a new infection is called "cross-reactivity."

"It does appear in this study that there is a significant proportion of individuals that have this cross-reactive T cell immunity from other coronavirus infections that may have some impact on how they fare with the novel coronavirus. I think the big question is trying to jump from the fact that they have these T cells to understanding what the role of those T cells might be," said Dr. Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security, who was not involved in the new study. 

"We know, for example, children and younger adults are relatively spared from the severe consequences of this disease, and I think that one hypothesis might be that the pre-existing T cells that exist may be much more numerous or more active in younger age cohorts than in older age cohorts.”

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said he is convinced his country's economy will recover despite its GDP falling by 17.3% during the second quarter of 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a report released by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) on Thursday.

During the presidential daily briefing on Thursday, López Obrador said they "expected these figures because they measure April, May, and June, the worst months."

"We will have to wait three more months to know the results of this quarter, which I see very positively, I can assure you that the worst has already happened," the López Obrador added. 

More on the report: According to the INEGI report, Mexico’s GDP contracted by 18.9% compared to a year earlier. INEGI's President Julio Santaella tweeted: "The large quarter contraction of the Gross Domestic Product estimated for the second quarter of 2020 (-17.3) is the highest in the history of this macroeconomic indicator." 

On Wednesday evening, Mexico reported 408,449 Covid-19 cases and the death toll reached 45,361. 

Younger people are at risk of severe disease from Covid-19 and need to be protecting themselves, World Health Organization director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a briefing in Geneva on Thursday.

“Although older people are at a higher risk of severe disease, younger people are at risk too,” Tedros said. “One of the challenges we face is convincing younger people of this risk.”

There is evidence, he said, that suggests spikes in cases in some countries are being driven partly by younger people letting their guard down. They should take the same precautions as everyone else to protect themselves and others. 

Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO technical lead for Covid-19, reiterated that young people should be taking precautions and managing their own risk.

“What we know about young people is that young people can infected, young people can transmit the virus to others, the majority of young people who are infected tend to have more mild disease, but that is not always consistent,” she said. “We know that young people can develop severe disease, we know that young people can end up in ICU and we know that young people can die.” 

She also said that they are learning more about the long-term effects of the disease, even in people who had mild disease. A number of patient groups have formed with people who are having long term effects, including extreme fatigue or shortness of breath. WHO has reached out to some of these groups so they can hear about their experiences directly and use them for future planning around rehabilitation and longer term care.

The Americas has reported the highest number of new Covid-19 cases globally for the past three months, Dr. Carissa Etienne, the director of the Pan American Health Organization, said Thursday. And the virus is spreading faster than ever. 

It’s been six months since coronavirus was declared a public health emergency of international concern. At that time, the Americas had only eight cases, with none reported in Latin America or the Caribbean, Etienne said at a briefing.

The Americas has reported almost 9 million cases — with nearly half of them in Latin America — and nearly 350,000 deaths, she added.

Transmission "keeps accelerating throughout the region," the PAHO director said. 

Poland has had the largest daily increase in coronavirus cases since the beginning of the outbreak, with 615 new infections recorded on Thursday, a spokesperson for the country's Ministry of Health told CNN.

The cases come mainly from three regions, according to the spokesperson —the Silesia region, where there were 160 new infections, and the Malopolska and Mazovia regions, which recorded 133 and 95 cases, respectively. 

"Most regions" in Poland have registered "several or a dozen" or so cases a day, the spokesperson said, adding that the "epidemiological situation is under control there."

The spokesperson added that the country had not seen a "significant increase" in the number of hospitalizations and patients on ventilators, which he said "proves that the course of infections is mild."

Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said in a news conference on Thursday that  the government would like to avoid another lockdown due to the negative socio-economic effects it could bring, according to a spokesperson from the Government Information Center.

But, Mateusz cautioned it was impossible to predict what would happen in a month due to the evolving nature of the pandemic.

The government is considering "different scenarios of action — depending on the number of Covid-19 cases and the course of the epidemic," the Government Information Center spokesperson told CNN.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy called for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to accept the White House’s offer to deploy rapid testing resources to the Capitol complex.

Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell jointly declined the offer earlier this year, saying they wanted resources to go to the front lines fighting the virus instead. McCarthy slammed Pelosi for refusing the offer during his weekly news conference Thursday. McConnell’s role in turning down the testing resources was conspicuously absent from McCarthy's remarks.

He said the Capitol should have tests available not only for members, but also for staff, reporters, and the other workers at the building. He said leaders should consider instituting random testing to catch asymptomatic cases. 

“This is not just a campus, the country expects us to convene,” McCarthy said. He added that he has spoken with the White House to see if their offer still stands, and they said it does.

“I have checked again with the administration. The offer is still there for the rapid Abbott tests,” he said. “There’s more than 50 million tests that have already happened in America. But the one place it’s not happening is in Congress. I can’t understand why the speaker continues to refuse. Is it just because the offer has come from the administration?”

Asked about Republican members not wearing masks over the past couple of months when the House has been in session, McCarthy pushed back on the notion that it was a significant number of members and said he believes all members should wear masks.

He again blamed any safety problems on testing not being readily available in the Capitol.

McCarthy said he has been clear with members to wear their masks, wash their hands, keep distance, and to keep their staff working in the office small.  

He also said reporters don’t always follow proper social distancing requirements at the Capitol, and they “hover together quite often.”

Without appropriate and streamlined federal action, reopening hotels has been difficult, says Jonathan Tisch, Chairman and CEO of Loews Hotels.

However, the surge in different parts of the country and changing local rulings and guidance has not provided for a climate where people want to travel, he said, adding that the debate over reopening schools is also going to impact the travel industry.

In a letter to government officials, 13 travel industry CEOs are asking for tax credits for individual travel, a reintroduction of the business meals deduction, liability waivers, among other things for economic assistance, Tisch said.

“Some 16 million dedicated men and women used to make a living in the travel and tourism industry. Our industry is running at 50% unemployment,” he said. “There's an estimate that 1% of all hotel rooms in the country, some 60,000 hotel rooms, could be wiped out. The number in New York where we run our business from is worse. There's an estimate that has 20% of the hotel rooms in New York City could be wiped out.”

He added that the industry needs help in many ways so industry workers can come back to “provide a service that's appreciated by our guests.”