US records at least 42,000 coronavirus cases in 24 hours
Healthcare workers collect a test sample from a motorist at a drive-through coronavirus testing center at M.T.O. Shahmaghsoudi School of Islamic Sufism on September 29 in Los Angeles, California. Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images
According to Johns Hopkins University's (JHU) tally of cases in the US, there were at least 42,812 new cases of the coronavirus in the past 24 hours, bringing the country's total to 7,233,042 confirmed infections.
There were 946 new fatalities reported on Wednesday, bringing the US coronavirus death toll to at least 206,932 people.
The totals include cases from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and other US territories, as well as repatriated cases.
The figures are a slight increase from Tuesday, which saw 42,185 new cases and 914 reported deaths, according to JHU.
For regular updates, please follow CNN’s map, which is refreshed with new data every 15 mins:
Two-thirds of Americans miss cancer screenings amid Covid-19, survey suggests
From CNN Health's Andrea Diaz
Two-thirds of Americans have delayed or skipped scheduled cancer screenings -- such as a mammogram, colonoscopy, skin check, or Pap/HPV test – because of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a survey out Thursday.
More than a third of Americans had some sort of cancer screening due during the pandemic this year, but nearly 64% of those surveyed said they had put it off or skipped it altogether, the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) found.
“While delaying recommended screenings for a few months is not necessarily dangerous, our biggest concern is that a significant number of Americans might stop getting preventive care for long periods of time or altogether,” said ASCO chief medical officer Dr. Richard Schilsky. “Cancer screenings are critical for detecting cancer early, and early detection is key to successfully treating many cancers.”
Plus, fewer than half of Americans are doing any of the things known to prevent cancer, such as staying out of the sun or using sunscreen when outside; maintaining a healthy weight; and limiting alcohol, the survey of 4,000 adults found.
The survey, conducted online from July 21 to September 8, also found 59% believe racism can affect the health care a person receives, with Black people (76%), Hispanic people (70%), and Asian people (66%) more likely than White people (53%) to hold these views.
“Despite evidence of worse cancer outcomes for Black Americans, few Americans are aware of the established relationship between race and cancer survival,” ASCO said in a statement. “Fewer than one in five (19%) believes race has an impact on the likelihood a person will survive cancer, with Blacks (27%) and Hispanics (22%) significantly more likely than Whites (16%) to be aware of the link.”
5:49 a.m. ET, October 1, 2020
Half a million more girls at risk of child marriage in 2020 due to Covid-19, charity warns
The pandemic has put 500,000 more girls at risk of being forced into child marriage this year, reversing 25 years of progress that saw child marriage rates decline, according to a new report by the charity Save the Children.
Before the global outbreak, 12 million girls married each year, now the charity warns that up to 2.5 million more girls could be at risk of child marriage over the next five years.
With up to 117 million children estimated to fall into poverty in 2020, many will face pressure to work and help provide for their families."
The pandemic means more families are being pushed into poverty, forcing many girls to work to support their families, to go without food, to become the main caregivers for sick family members, and to drop out of school -- with far less of a chance than boys of ever returning,” Inger Ashing, CEO of Save the Children International, said in a press release.
The pandemic led to school closures and “experience during the Ebola outbreak suggests many girls will never return” to class due “to increasing pressure to work, risk of child marriage, bans on pregnant girls attending school, and lost contact with education,” the charity wrote.
Who is at risk? This year, 191,200 girls in South Asia will be disproportionately affected by the risk of increased child marriage, the report says. It is followed by West and Central Africa, where 90,000 girls are at risk of child marriage, Latin America and the Caribbean (73,400), and Europe and Central Asia (37,200).
Girls affected by humanitarian crises, such as wars, floods and earthquakes, face the greatest risk of child marriage, the report notes. Before the pandemic, data showed child marriage was increasing among refugee populations. In Lebanon, child marriage among Syrian refugee girls rose by 7% between 2017 and 2018.
“Every year, around 12 million girls are married, 2 million before their 15th birthday,” Ashing said. “Half a million more girls are now at risk of this gender-based violence this year alone -- and these only are the ones we know about. We believe this is the tip of the iceberg.”
5:18 a.m. ET, October 1, 2020
Big contact-tracing study shows role of kids and superspreaders in coronavirus pandemic
From CNN Health’s Maggie Fox
A health worker on a mobile testing van takes a nasal swab from a man in New Delhi, India on August 5. Pradeep Gaur/SOPA Images/Sipa USA/AP Images
Children can spread coronavirus among themselves efficiently, but young adults are the primary source of coronavirus spread, according to a study published Wednesday.
The study, based on a giant contact-tracing effort involving more than 3 million people in India, shows most Covid-19 patients never infect anyone else -- the researchers found that 70% of infected people did not infect any of their contacts.
Instead, the study found that 8% of patients accounted for 60% of observed new infections.
The study also contradicts the widely held belief that children are unlikely to catch coronavirus.
“We find otherwise. They are getting infected in significant numbers,” study leader Ramanan Laxminarayan of the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy in New Delhi, and also of Princeton University, told CNN.
The team wrote in their report, which was published in the journal Science, that "while the role of children in transmission has been debated, we identify high prevalence of infection among children who were contacts of cases around their own age."
And that’s despite schools being closed in India since March, Laxminarayan noted.
The study was based on the universal contact-tracing efforts undertaken in two large states in the south of India.
Authorities tracked down and tested more than 575,000 people exposed to nearly 85,000 confirmed coronavirus cases from March until August.
“This is the largest contact-tracing study in the world, and by a long shot,” Laxminarayan said. “We were surprised to find that just 8% of the infected primary cases were responsible for 60% of the contacts that were infected,” he said. “That’s a hugely disproportionate effect. Superspreading has been suspected, but not really documented.”
Most of the index cases – the first patient in a chain of transmission -- were adults aged 20 to 45, the team found.
3:29 a.m. ET, October 1, 2020
US CDC extends no-sail order for cruise ships through October
From CNN Health’s Maggie Fox
A man walks with his dog at the Marina Long Beach with cruise ships docked at the port due to a no-sail order in Long Beach, California on April 11. Apu Gomes/AFP/Getty Images
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Wednesday that the no-sail order for cruise ships would be extended through to October 31.
“This order continues to suspend passenger operations on cruise ships with the capacity to carry at least 250 passengers in waters subject to US jurisdiction,” the CDC said in a statement. The previous order expired on Wednesday. “Cumulative surveillance data reported to CDC from March 1 through September 29, shows at least 3,689 Covid-19 or Covid-like illness cases on cruise ships in US waters, in addition to at least 41 reported deaths. We recognize these numbers are likely incomplete and an underestimate."
On Tuesday, a federal health official told CNN that CDC Director Dr Robert Redfield failed to convince the White House to extend it into next year.
The CDC's statement said that recent outbreaks on cruise ships had proven that the vessels could be used to "transmit and amplify" the spread of the coronavirus, raising the chance of new infections in US communities.
“Recent passenger voyages in foreign countries continue to have outbreaks, despite cruise ship operators having extensive health and safety protocols to prevent the transmission of (coronavirus) on board," the statement said.
2:36 a.m. ET, October 1, 2020
Majority of American families with children under 18 report serious financial impact from coronavirus pandemic, survey finds
From CNN Health’s Shelby Lin Erdman
Most US families with children under 18 across all racial and ethnic groups are facing “serious financial problems” as a result of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, according to a new poll from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, NPR and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
The survey found 61% of households in the US with children under 18 were dealing with financial hardships due to the pandemic. The poll also found more than half of US households experienced pay cuts or lost jobs over the same period of time.
The poll was conducted from July 1 to August 3 and involved 3,454 respondents, 18-years-old and above, of whom 1,000 reported having children under 18 in their homes.
The survey also found 44% of households with children reported spending all or most of their savings during the pandemic. 11% said they did not have any savings before the outbreak.
Six out of 10 families with children reported an adult in the home had lost a job, a business, was furloughed or faced reduced wages or hours since the pandemic began, the poll found, leading to “serious financial problems.”
Since the start of the pandemic, 59% of households with children had problems caring for their children and 36% had trouble keeping their kids schooling intact, the survey revealed.
The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 6 percentage points.
12:11 a.m. ET, October 1, 2020
Study finds female doctors work harder for less money
Female doctors get paid less than male doctors, but a new study shows it's not because they work less.
In fact, female doctors spend more time with patients, order more tests and spend more time discussing preventive care than their male counterparts, a team of researchers reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.
"That raises the question of whether we are paying for what we really care about in health care," said Dr. Ishani Ganguli, an internal medicine specialist at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital, who led the study team.
Ganguli and colleagues looked at billing and time data covering more than 24 million visits to primary care doctors in the US in 2017.
"We calculated that women were paid 87 cents to the dollar for every hour worked compared to their male colleagues," Ganguli told CNN.
AstraZeneca vaccine trial still on hold in US but FDA’s Hahn won’t reveal why; it’s "confidential”
From CNN Health’s Shelby Lin Erdman and Jen Christensen
A general view of AstraZeneca is seen during Prime Minister Scott Morrison's visit on August 19 in Sydney, Australia. Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images
Drugmaker AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine trial in the United States is still on hold after a participant developed a serious illness, but the Food and Drug Administration commissioner won’t say why.
At the US Pharma and Biotech Summit hosted by the Financial Times Wednesday, US FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn was asked why the trial was still on pause in the US, even though it has resumed in Europe. Hahn said he couldn’t answer.
“I can’t speak to confidential commercial information and this summit knows that all too well,” he said. “Our agency career officials in general take the issue of serious safety very seriously, the protection of the American people, very seriously ... We will look at any and all data, and we will make a decision when we have the data available to us regarding any issue, whether it's safety or effectiveness."
Hahn said he could not talk about a “specific issue” that may involve the AstraZeneca trial.
“What I can tell you is that FDA is on the job with respect to looking at all safety and efficacy issues on all medical products,” he said.
An AstraZeneca spokesperson told CNN earlier that regulators in Britain, Brazil and South Africa had all decided to resume the trials. “We are continuing to work with the FDA to facilitate review of the information needed to make a decision regarding resumption of the US trial,” the spokesperson said.
“Regulators in each individual country determine when trials can start and they do this in their own time frame.”
8:16 a.m. ET, October 1, 2020
United Airlines to furlough more than 13,000 employees starting Thursday
From CNN's Pete Muntean
A United Airlines passenger checks in for a flight at San Francisco International Airport on September 02. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
United Airlines said it will begin to furlough more than 13,000 employees Thursday.
Like American Airlines, which announced earlier this evening that it too will begin furloughing workers tomorrow, United said it would recall furloughed employees if Congress reached a stimulus deal soon.
“In a continuing effort to give the federal government every opportunity to act, we have made clear to leadership in the administration, Congress and among our union partners that we can and will reverse the furlough process if the CARES Act Payroll Support Program is extended in the next few days. We implore our elected leaders to reach a compromise, get a deal done now, and save jobs," United said in a letter to employees.
The letter added: “To our departing 13,000 family members: thank you for your dedication and we look forward to welcoming you back.”
Some context: Earlier this evening, American Airlines announced it will begin to furlough 19,000 workers tomorrow.
