September 15 coronavirus news

In an interview with the New York Times, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation co-chair Bill Gates described optimism that the United States would ultimately help provide Covid-19 vaccines for poor countries around the world.

“It’s my disposition,” Gates said in the interview, published Monday. “Plus, I’ve got to call these people up and make the pitch to them that this really makes sense – and I totally, totally believe it makes sense.” 

The Times said Gates was referring to leaders in the White House and Congress, who he has lobbied for $4 billion for Covid-19 vaccines for poorer countries.

“As they say,” Gates said, “the US government – after it’s tried every other thing – does the right thing.”   

The Goalkeepers Report from the Gates Foundation, which published Monday, showed that a large number of deaths could be prevented if Covid-19 vaccines were distributed to all countries based on their populations, rather than to rich countries first. But Gates acknowledged that this will not be soon. 

Gates said it “looks selfish” that the US avoided joining global Covid-19 vaccine development efforts and focused on deals with vaccine companies that ensure millions of doses are allocated to the United States, but he did not feel it was unjustified. 

“You’re not going to succeed in getting the US to treat itself as just a random 5% of the world’s population,” Gates said, noting that American taxpayers have covered much of the costs for clinical trials and vaccine manufacturing.

Gates told the Times he expected by next year, regardless of who wins the election, the US would come around to paying much of the estimated $4 billion needed to get Covid-19 vaccines to others around the world. Congress has repeatedly kept funds for AIDS, malaria and childhood vaccinations in the foreign aid budget, Gates said, despite attempts to slash them; with the idea that no country is safe from Covid-19 until every country is, “there’s a better global argument for generosity on this one than there is for H.I.V. or malaria,” he said. 

Seán Ó Fearghaíl, the speaker of the Dáil in Ireland, has announced that all Irish cabinet members are now self-isolating.

The Dáil, the Irish lower house, is also suspended until at least next Tuesday. 

New York University has instructed all residents and employees in one of their dormitories to quarantine until at least Tuesday night, following a diagnosis of six positive cases out of roughly 400 students living in the building, the university announced in its latest campus update.

NYU has reported a total of 65 cases since Aug. 1, according to the school’s coronavirus dashboard — returning an overall positivity rate of .19%. The school has reported 48 cases in the most recent 14-day period, returning a positivity rate of .31%.

Dr. Anthony Fauci said a national mask mandate “probably would not work.”

Speaking during a news conference with Vermont Gov. Phil Scott, Fauci said, “There is such a degree of variability of accepting mandates throughout the country.”

Fauci added this has been discussed “in great detail at the level of the White House coronavirus task force.”

“If the citizens of a particular state, a city, a county or what have you, are really in lockstep with the authority, that does it – there’s not a big problem,” he said.

However, issues arise when a majority of the population in an area do not agree with the mandate – and that begs the question: How do you enforce the mandate?

Fauci said anything that puts an “authoritative statement to the citizenry often is met with a considerable amount of pushback.”

SeaWorld has laid off at least 1,896 employees, due to “significant and sustained” effects from the Covid-19 pandemic, Kyle Miller, Park President of SeaWorld Orlando said in a letter to the State of Florida.

The letter is a requirement of employers in Florida, who must submit a WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification) alerting local government when a mass layoff occurs.  

SeaWorld closed its parks on March 16 and within weeks had temporary furloughed the vast majority of its workforce. Though the parks reopened at a reduced operating and guest capacity in June, “self-imposed limitations, consumer concerns and other factors” have made the recovery slow and have forced the company to make permanent the temporary furloughs. 

The layoff touches nearly all positions at SeaWorld, including waiters and waitresses, security officers, performers, sales clerks and photographers.  

“SeaWorld intends to accomplish this mass layoff with the least amount of disruption to the lives of its ambassadors and their families, and the Orlando community,” Miller said in the letter.

Philanthropist Bill Gates said in an interview with Bloomberg Television that the US Food and Drug Administration has lost credibility during the coronavirus pandemic.

“We saw with the completely bungled plasma statements that when you start pressuring people to say optimistic things, they go completely off the rails. The FDA lost a lot of credibility there,” Gates told Bloomberg's Erik Schatzker.

“Historically, just like the CDC was viewed as the best in the world, the FDA had that same reputation as a top-notch regulator,” Gates said. “But there’s been some cracks with some of the things they’ve said at the commissioner level.” 

In a Stat interview published Monday, Gates criticized FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn’s mischaracterization of data about convalescent plasma as a Covid-19 treatment. Hahn has previously acknowledged his misstatement and said criticism of his remarks was “entirely justified.” 

On Bloomberg Television, Gates also spoke about his frustration with the lack of US funding for vaccinations in the developing world.

At least 422,190 students in the New York City Public School System have requested the entirely remotely learning option for the fall, according to data provided by the city’s Department of Education — a little more than 40% of the total 1 million plus students enrolled in the nation’s largest public school system. 

Roughly 58% of students are planning to return to school buildings as part of a hybrid learning model beginning next week, according to the DOE. 

Parents in the New York City public school system were given the option to opt out of the in-person hybrid plan after it was first announced. In August, Mayor Bill de Blasio said that 74% of families had said they were planning to participate in in person learning at the time. 

Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft and co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, called the US response to Covid-19 “shocking” and “mismanaged” in an interview published on Monday in Stat.

“You know, this has been a mismanaged situation every step of the way,” Gates told Stat. “It’s shocking. It’s unbelievable – the fact that we would be among the worst in the world.” 

Gates said the change to US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Covid-19 testing guidelines for people without symptoms “blows the mind." 

He criticized US Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn and his mischaracterization of findings arounds convalescent plasma. Hahn has acknowledged the misstatement and said criticism of his remarks was “entirely justified.” 

Gates also mentioned Dr. Scott Atlas, a neuroradiologist and senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution who is now a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force. CNN has reported that Atlas has advocated herd immunity through mass infection in briefings and written pieces in recent months; Atlas has denied pushing a herd immunity strategy in the White House. 

“The administrations now hired this Stanford guy who has no background at all just because he agrees with their crackpot theories,” Gates said.

The daily Covid-19 indicators are all under desired thresholds, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said Tuesday.

Here's what the numbers in New York City look like:

Remember: These numbers were released by the city's public health agency, and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project