August 15 coronavirus news

Health experts say children make up more than 7% of all coronavirus cases in the US -- while comprising about 22% of the country's population -- and the number and rate of child cases have been "steadily increasing" from March to July.

The data was posted alongside updated guidance from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for pediatricians that also includes what is known about the virus in children.

"Recent evidence suggests that children likely have the same or higher viral loads in their nasopharynx compared with adults and that children can spread the virus effectively in households and camp settings," the guidance states.

Transmission of the virus to and among children may have been reduced in spring and early summer due to mitigation measures like stay-at-home orders and school closures, the CDC says.

"So if I'm put into a classroom of 30 or more kids, it's a small room, there's one exit, the ventilation isn't all that great for schools," Arizona teacher Matt Chicci, who quit his job, told CNN. "It's not a good situation."

Read more here

It's the question everyone wants answered: How long are we protected from catching Covid-19 after we've recovered from the novel coronavirus -- and what does that really mean?

Last week, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its quarantine guidelines online to say that people who have recovered from Covid-19 do not need to quarantine or get tested again for up to three months -- but the agency clarified in a statement to CNN on Friday that does not mean that people are immune to reinfection.

"People who have tested positive for COVID-19 do not need to quarantine or get tested again for up to 3 months as long as they do not develop symptoms again," the CDC guidance stated.

Yet "this science does not imply a person is immune to reinfection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in the 3 months following infection. The latest data simply suggests that retesting someone in the 3 months following initial infection is not necessary unless that person is exhibiting the symptoms of COVID-19 and the symptoms cannot be associated with another illness," the CDC statement said.

"We think antibodies correlate with protection, but we don't really know that yet," Schaffner said.

Practical applications, Schaffner added, are still a long way off. Can a person who has antibodies begin to date or stop wearing a mask, for example? Absolutely not, he said emphatically.

Read more:

RELATED

Are you truly immune from Covid-19 for up to three months? It's not clear

South Korea has reintroduced social distancing measures for the greater Seoul area in an attempt to prevent the spread of the coronavirus after a recent spike in cases.

Level 2 social distancing, as imposed in Seoul and Gyeonggi, means that indoor public gatherings are limited to 50 people, while 100 people are permitted to meet outdoors. Audiences will no longer be able to attend sporting events, public facilities run by the government will be shuttered and privately owned facilities deemed high risk will be closed.

Also on Saturday, United States Forces Korea said that from 6 p.m. local time, it would raise its health protection condition from “Bravo” to the second-highest “Charlie” for the greater Seoul metropolitan area, as well as an additional nine surrounding districts.

This restricts nonessential travel to hotspot areas for US military personnel.

South Koreans are currently enjoying a long weekend introduced by the government in July to give people relief from the stress of Covid-19.

The greater Seoul area had 139 new coronavirus cases on Friday.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi used a national address on the country’s 74th Independence Day to thank those working on the frontline to combat the spread of Covid-19.

Modi praised the pace at which India’s health sector responded during the pandemic to ramp up testing and build an infrastructure for vaccine development.

Modi also spoke about the need for a self-reliant India in a post-coronavirus world.

Modi emphasized that for India to move ahead, an integrated, comprehensive infrastructure in health, education, and manufacturing was the most important goal for the country.

Addressing a very subdued and restricted gathering at New Delhi’s Red Fort, Modi also briefly mentioned the ongoing stand-off with China over the countries' shared border in the Himlayas.

"Whenever someone has tried to raise their eyes towards the sovereignty of our country, our soldiers responded to it in the same manner," he said, adding that Delhi "has strengthened its relationships in the extended neighborhood."

According to Johns Hopkins University's tally, there are at least 5,313,055 cases of the coronavirus in the United States.

At least 168,446 people have died in the country since the pandemic began.

On Friday, Johns Hopkins reported 64,201 new cases and 1,336 new deaths.

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

In Covid-19 hotspot counties across the United States, Latino and Black people were hit particularly hard, according to new research published Friday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Researchers analyzed cumulative case totals from February through June. Among 79 hotspot counties that also had data on race, more than 96% had disparities in Covid-19 cases in one or more racial or ethnic minority group.

Latino populations were the largest group who lived in hotspot counties and had disparities in cases in the population. These disparities were found in three-quarters of the hotspot counties, where about 3.5 million Hispanic people live.

Black people were the next largest group, with about 2 million people living in 22 hotspot counties, where there were disparities in cases identified.

This was followed by more than 60,000 American Indian/Alaska Natives living in three counties, nearly 36,000 Asian people in four counties and about 31,000 Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander persons in 19 hotspot counties, with disparities in cases within the population.

There are a number of factors that could lead to the increased risk for Covid-19 in these populations, including structural factors, such as economic and housing policies, social factors, such as essential worker employment status requiring in-person work, and long-standing discrimination and social inequities that can lead to increased risk of disease, such as limited access to health care and underlying medical conditions.

Disparities were identified as either a difference of 5% or more between the proportion of cases and the proportion of the population or as a ratio of 1.5 or greater for the proportion of cases to the proportion of the population.

The research does have some limitations, the authors said, such as the fact more than half of the hotspot counties did not report enough race data and had to be excluded from the analysis.

South Korea reported 166 new coronavirus cases on Friday -- 155 of which were as a result of community transmission, according to a press release from the South Korean Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC).

Churches in Seoul and neighboring Gyeonggi province, as well as fast-food restaurants and a market in Seoul, have been identified as clusters in the fresh outbreak.

In an emergency briefing on Saturday, Park Yoo-mi, Seoul City’s top health official, said so far 12 infections in the region are linked to a fast-food burger chain Lotteria, 12 to a church in Gyeonggi province and Seoul’s Namdaemun market, and 44 cases to Sarang-jeil Church in Seoul.

Seoul issued an executive order Friday for all 7,560 religious facilities in the city, ordering them to restrict group events except the main service.

The 4,000-strong congregation of Seoul’s Sarang-jeil Church are subject to self-quarantine and must be tested, Park said.

Religious gatherings are also being restricted in Gyeonggi, according to an order issued by Gov. Lee Jae-myung on Friday.

Park, the Seoul health official, warned that attendees at an anti-government rally scheduled for Saturday could face prosecution under a protest ban. She said those who flout the ban could be subject to legal action -- and if a confirmed virus case is reported from a protest, organizers could face a fine.

South Korea's total number of confirmed cases stands at 15,039, of which 833 are active. The country's death toll remains at 305.

Seven new locally transmitted coronavirus cases have been recorded in New Zealand, as the country attempts to contain a new outbreak after weeks of being virus free.

According to Ashley Bloomfield, the country's Director-General of Health, six of the new cases were related to a known cluster in Auckland, while the origins of one case remain under investigation -- although he was confident that case would also linked to the same cluster.

The total number of cases related to the Auckland cluster stands at 37, Bloomfield said.

Fifty-four close contacts of those infected have been moved to quarantine centers. So far, 24 of them have tested positive for the coronavirus.

It remains unclear where the latest outbreak originated. New Zealand Minister of Health Chris Hipkins said the country has not seen "any positive tests from our border and managed isolation facilities over the last few days, and genome sequencing does not match any of the known cases in these facilities."

Testing of borders staff -- those who work at managed isolation centers, airports, and maritime staff -- has been carried out in a bid to find out where the virus may have come from, after local transmission was stamped out for 102 days earlier this year.

Since August 12, New Zealand has implemented an aggressive testing policy, completing 49,780 tests in three days. On Friday alone, 23,846 tests were processed.

Human challenge trials are “unnecessary, uninformative and unethical,” a former professor at Harvard Medical School said Friday.

Also known as controlled infection trials, human challenge involves the intentional exposure of participants to a virus to allow more rapid assessment of a vaccine’s efficacy.

“Basically, it's treating (people) like laboratory animals,” William Haseltine told CNN.

The United States National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is working to create a strain of coronavirus that could be used in human challenge trials of a Covid-19 vaccine, although there are no plans to do so, NIAID Director Dr. Anthony Fauci said earlier Friday.

Haseltine said such trials are typically only necessary when a virus is not “raging,” and the coronavirus is currently in widespread circulation.

He added that participants would likely be mainly healthy, young people, so the trials would not yield information about those most at risk for serious illness.

“Are we really ready to infect people with live virus that can kill them?” Haseltine said.