September 1 coronavirus news

The National Football League and NFL Players Association announced four new confirmed positive tests among players in their latest Covid-19 testing results for Aug. 21 to 29.

Overall, 58,621 tests were administered in that time frame, 23,279 tests to a total of 2,747 players and another 35,342 tests to 5,992 team personnel.

There were six new confirmed positive test results among team personnel tested.

In the previous Covid-19 testing results from Aug. 12 to 20, zero players tested positive, and six team staffers confirmed positive test results.

Utah State University school officials say they have found elevated amounts of Covid-19 in sewage samples collected from four residence halls on campus.

The university issued a safety alert on Sunday calling for mandatory testing and quarantine of all 287 students living in Rich, Jones, Morgan and Davis on-campus residence halls.  

The mandatory quarantine is effective immediately and will continue until the test results are returned. USU has also activated a Covid Care Team to arrange for resources to assist the affected students, including meal deliveries. 

Testing sewage samples provides an early alert warning for the campus to address potential cases and prevent the spread of the virus, said Amanda DeRito, a director with the university.

No other testing samples on campus taken this week show elevated levels of the virus and there are currently no reported positive tests for Covid-19 in the quarantined residence halls, according to a statement by the university. 

USU is working along with the Bear River Health Department to send the quarantined students the test results.

Nurses across the country are still struggling to get the personal protective equipment they need to safely treat patients during the coronavirus pandemic, a new survey shows.

Many are still re-using PPE, even though it’s not safe to do so, the American Nurses Association said Tuesday.

The nationwide survey of more than 21,000 US nurses, taken between July 24 and August 14, showed more than half had treated a patient with confirmed or suspected Covid-19 in the past two weeks. 

Here's what else the survey found:

“We cannot afford to have nursing profession that is not supported and one in which our nurses do not feel safe,” said Ernest Grant, president of the ANA, during a news briefing. “It is both a moral and strategic imperative for our nation’s leaders to do everything possible to arm and protect nurses and other critical responders.”

“These practices contribute to nurses burdens of mental and emotional stress,” he added. “Nurses say they feel unsafe given the ongoing issue with PPE and are concerned about the health of patients that they care for, their families and themselves.” 

Major League Baseball has postponed another Oakland Athletics game. MLB had previously postponed the first two games of the team’s series with the Seattle Mariners and has now elected to reschedule the final game of the three-game set. 

The league says the decision to pull an additional game from the schedule is out of an abundance of caution and will allow more time for additional coronavirus testing. The league announced over the weekend that a member of the Oakland organization had tested positive for Covid-19. 

The A’s have had four games postponed since the reported Covid-19 positive test. 

Admiral Brett Giroir, the head of US Covid-19 testing efforts, said Tuesday that the Trump administration will begin to send low-cost antigen tests to states starting in mid-September. 

This antigen test, called the BinaxNOW Covid-19 Ag Card, uses a nasal swab and requires no instrument to read it. The test costs $5 a piece and Giroir said 48 million a month will be available in the United States. 

The administration, which purchased 150 million of the tests in a $760 million contract, will push the tests out in mid-September. The tests will go to assisted living senior centers and home health staff, but the “overwhelming majority” will be sent to governors to support the opening of schools and daycares and to support first responders and people who work in critical jobs. They will also encourage the tests be sent to first responders and people who have been displaced by natural disasters like the wildfires out West and the hurricanes in Louisiana. 

It is authorized to be used on people doctors or nurses suspect may have Covid-19 within the first seven days that the person shows symptoms. Giroir said the tests have a “remarkable sensitivity and specificity” in this context of 97.1% and 98.5% respectively. It has a false negative rate of under 3%.

The tests pairs with a free, optional smartphone app that a doctor and patient can download that matches to a unique barcode on the test. The provider can record the result of the test in the app and the result can be automatically sent to the public health system that tracks test results. The tests can also be used to test asymptomatic individuals in congregate settings like nursing homes, schools and workplaces.

Giroir, the assistant secretary for health at the US Department of Health and Human Services said his department, along with the US Food and Drug Administration and Abbott Labs, have been working on an inexpensive point of care test that “literally for months.”

Antigen tests, which look for pieces of the virus, are not as reliable as traditional PCR tests that look for the virus’ genetic material, but they are quicker and less expensive. PCR tests for Covid-19 have had significant problems with supply chain problems and backups at labs that have, in some cases, significantly delayed test results.

As Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin testifies before their panel, the House select committee on the coronavirus crisis released a report finding problems with the handling and implementation of the Paycheck Protection Program, aimed to help small businesses keep workers on their payrolls through low-interest, forgivable loans.

These are the problems the Democrats identified, as described in their press release:

According to Johns Hopkins University's tally of cases in the United States, there have been at least 6,039,169 cases reported since the start of the pandemic. At least 183,733 people have died in the US from coronavirus.  

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

So far on Monday, Johns Hopkins has reported 8,582 new cases and 136 reported deaths in the US.

A White House coronavirus task force report sent to officials in the state of Iowa this week warned of dire new case increases across rural and urban areas and called for a mask mandate, the closure of bars, and a plan from universities as the pandemic intensifies in the Midwest.

CNN has obtained the nine-page Aug. 30 report for the state, first reported by the Des Moines Register, from the Iowa Department of Public Health. The task force releases state-by-state reports each week to governors’ offices, and has so far declined to make them publicly available.

The report says that Iowa is in the task force-defined “red zone” and warns that the state has the highest rate of cases in the US, which increased by 77.4% from the previous week.

The report offers recommendations to Iowa, including strongly encouraging a mask mandate. Iowa does not currently mandate masks.

“Mask mandates across the state must be in place to decrease transmission,” the report says.

It also says bars “must be closed” and indoor dining “must be restricted to 50% of normal capacity in yellow zone and 25% of normal capacity in red zone counties and metro areas."

In the report, the task force points to universities as a major factor contributing to the virus’ spread.

“University towns need a comprehensive plan that scales immediately for testing all returning students with routine surveillance testing to immediately identify new cases and outbreaks and isolate and quarantine,” the report says.

The three counties with the highest numbers of cases also have large student populations: Story County, home to Iowa State, and Johnson County, home to University of Iowa, as well as Polk County, which contains Iowa's largest metro area, Des Moines

The report comes less than two weeks before Iowa State University will welcome crowds to its stadium for its season opener football game.

Though social distancing will be observed, a letter from the school’s athletic director estimated “there will be approximately 25,000 fans at the first game." The task force report suggests red zone counties should limit gatherings to 10 or fewer people.

 The test positivity rate for Iowa State students in the second week of testing is 28.8%.

 At the University of Iowa, there have been 935 self-reported cases in students and employees since the semester began August 18.  

There are also concerns, per the task force’s report, about spread in nursing homes, calling the number of nursing homes with more than one resident testing positive “concerning.”

CNN has reached out to Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds’ office for comment as to whether she plans to heed these recommendations. Reynolds, a top ally of PresidentTrump, spoke at the Republican National Convention last week, and while she touted the administration’s response to the derecho storm earlier this month, she did not mention the pandemic.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced a limited reopening of visitations at nursing homes in his state. The announcement was made during a roundtable event in Jacksonville.

DeSantis said all visitations will be by appointment only, with residents designating up to 5 visitors each. Only 2 visitors will be allowed at one time. No minors will be allowed.

All visitors will have to wear personal protective equipment and pass a screening test, per DeSantis. And no facility can allow visitors unless 14 days have passed without the onset of a new positive Covid-19 case, in either a resident or a staff member.

Visitations at nursing homes and long-term care facilities were shut down in March by DeSantis.