October 14 coronavirus news

By Jessie Yeung, Adam Renton and Angela Dewan, CNN

Updated 12:01 a.m. ET, October 15, 2020

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3:35 a.m. ET, October 14, 2020

China is using batch testing to test 9 million people in a week

From CNN's Eric Cheung and Jadyn Sham in Hong Kong

A health worker takes a swab from a middle school student to be tested for Covid-19, as part of a mass testing program following a new coronavirus outbreak in Qingdao, in China's eastern Shandong province, on October 12. STR/AFP/Getty Images

Chinese health authorities in the city of Qingdao are batch testing to speed up a citywide mass Covid-19 testing program, the municipal government said on Wednesday.

The testing method combines 10 samples at a time; if any batch turns out positive, all 10 people are then quarantined and tested individually.

Batch testing is efficient; Qingdao, which reported 12 locally transmitted cases over the weekend, has already tested more than 7.5 million people, said Municipal Deputy Director Chen Wansheng. The city has a population of about 9 million.

"We need to test the entire population within five days," said Zhang Huaqiang, deputy director of the Qingdao Center for Disease Control and Prevention. "Our workload is very large, and our time is very tight."

So far, 4 million of the cases have shown negative results, and no new infections have been identified.

Questions about effectiveness: However, a Hong Kong medical expert has questioned the effectiveness of the mass testing program in identifying cases.

Dr. Jin Dongyan, a virology professor at the University of Hong Kong, told CNN on Wednesday that the test was "a waste of resources" in many situations because Covid-19 patients are usually identified over a range of time, and hidden cases cannot be identified at once.

"This is just a snapshot, so it definitely will miss a lot of positive individuals," he said.

2:53 a.m. ET, October 14, 2020

Client in spin studio that followed all the rules triggers outbreak with at least 61 cases

From CNN's Paula Newton and Leah Asmelash

A spin studio in Canada that public health officials say followed all Covid-19 protocols is now reporting 61 positive cases of the disease, and as many as 100 staff, clients and family members may have been exposed.

SPINCO, in Hamilton, Ontario, just reopened in July and had all of the right protocols in place, including screening of staff and attendees, tracking all those in attendance at each class, masking before and after classes, laundering towels and cleaning the rooms within 30 minutes of a complete class, said Dr. Elizabeth Richardson, Hamilton's medical officer of health, in a statement.

But it still wasn't enough.

Public health officials are very concerned about the number of cases and the size of the outbreak, especially because the city is not currently a hotspot and the facility was not ignoring health protocols, they said in a statement to CNN.

"They have also supported public health services in our investigation by sharing the messaging with all their members," Richardson said.

There are currently 44 confirmed positive primary cases associated with SPINCO and 17 confirmed secondary cases. Exposure was linked to several classes held from September 28 to October 4.

Read the full story:

One client in one spin studio that followed all the rules triggers a coronavirus outbreak with at least 61 cases

2:25 a.m. ET, October 14, 2020

US reports more than 52,000 new Covid-19 cases

The United States reported 52,406 new cases of Covid-19 and 802 virus-related fatalities on Tuesday, according to Johns Hopkins University.

The new figures raise the country's total to at least 7,856,714 cases and 215,887 deaths.

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

See CNN's live tracker of US cases:

Tracking Covid-19 cases in the US

1:57 a.m. ET, October 14, 2020

Schools in India set to reopen as country sees a drop in daily new Covid-19 cases

From CNN's Manveena Suri in New Delhi

Schools in India are set to reopen Thursday after being closed for months, albeit with new government regulations in place, according to a news release from the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs.

“Students may attend schools/institutions only with the written consent of parents. Attendance must not be enforced and must depend entirely on parental consent,” the release said.

Fall in cases: This comes as India has seen a decrease in daily new cases reported this week. The Health Ministry reported 63,509 new cases on Wednesday -- the first week since August that the country has reported consistent daily figures below 70,000. The total number of confirmed cases is now more than 7.23 million.

India also reported 730 new virus-related fatalities in the past 24 hours, bringing the country's death toll to 110,586.

State-by-state rollout: Schools in the northern state of Punjab will fully reopen on Thursday, though online learning will continue to be the preferred mode of learning.

In northern Uttar Pradesh state, schools will open from October 19.

Schools in the union territory of Delhi and western Maharashtra state will remain closed until October 31, while in eastern West Bengal state, the decision to reopen schools will be made after Diwali on November 14.

Movie theaters and multiplexes will also reopen on Thursday.

1:40 a.m. ET, October 14, 2020

Woman dies after catching Covid-19 twice, the first reported reinfection death

From CNN's Amy Cassidy

An elderly Dutch woman has become the first known person to die from catching Covid-19 twice, according to experts, raising serious questions about how long immunity and antibodies can last.

The woman, 89, suffered from a rare type of bone marrow cancer called Waldenström's macroglobulinemia. Her immune system was compromised due to the cell-depleting therapy she received, the researchers at Maastricht University Medical Center in the Netherlands wrote in a paper accepted for publication in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.

However, the researchers said her natural immune response could still have been "sufficient" to fight-off Covid-19, as the type of treatment she received for cancer "does not necessarily result in life threatening disease."

The patient was initially admitted into hospital earlier this year with a severe cough and fever, testing positive for Covid-19.

She was discharged five days later when "besides some persisting fatigue her symptoms subsided completely," according to the report.

But two days into chemotherapy treatment -- 59 days after the start of the first Covid-19 episode -- the woman developed fever, cough and difficulty breathing.

She once again tested positive for coronavirus, and no antibodies were detected in her blood system when tested on days four and six. Her condition deteriorated on day eight.

Two weeks later, the woman died.

Read the full story:

Dutch woman dies after catching Covid-19 twice

1:15 a.m. ET, October 14, 2020

"Hunker down": The fall Covid-19 surge is here

From CNN's Christina Maxouris and Holly Yan

A car enters a temporary drive-through Covid-19 testing site at East Orange District Park in Orlando, Florida, on October 1. Paul Hennessy/NurPhoto/Getty Images

As predicted, the United States is now grappling with a new Covid-19 surge -- one that could overwhelm hospitals, kill thousands of Americans a day by January and leave even young survivors with long-term complications.

"We went down to the lowest point lately in early September, around 30,000-35,000 new cases a day. Now we're back up to (about) 50,000 new cases a day. And it's going to continue to rise," Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, said Tuesday.

"This is the fall/winter surge that everyone was worried about. And now it's happening. And it's happening especially in the northern Midwest, and the Northern states are getting hit very hard -- Wisconsin, Montana, the Dakotas. But it's going to be nationally soon enough."

Across the country, more than 30 states have reported more Covid-19 cases this past week than they reported the previous week, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

And Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, sounded an alarm about certain states' test-positivity rates, saying they may be a good indicator that steeper climbs in case rates are ahead.

For the whole country, test positivity averaged 5.1% over the past week as of Tuesday. But in at least 13 states, the figure was above 10%: in Alabama, Florida, Iowa, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, South Dakota, Utah, Wisconsin and Wyoming, according to the COVID Tracking Project.

"You'd like to see (the rates) less than 3%, optimally 1% or less," Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said at an event hosted by the College of American Pathologists.
"We're starting to see a number of states well above that, which is often -- in fact, invariably -- highly predictive of a resurgence of cases, which historically we know leads to an increase in hospitalizations and then ultimately an increase in deaths," he said.

Read the full story:

Amid rising Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations, local US leaders and public health experts worry of a coming surge

3:36 a.m. ET, October 14, 2020

Chinese city tests more than 7.5 million people and finds no new cases so far

From CNN's Eric Cheung in Hong Kong

The city of Qingdao in eastern China has tested more than 7.5 million people for coronavirus amid a citywide testing program, the Qingdao Municipal deputy director Chen Wansheng said in a news conference Wednesday.

As of 9:30 a.m. local time Wednesday, the city had tested a total of 7,502,720 people, Chen said, adding that more than 4 million of the tests had returned negative and no new cases had been found.

Qingdao announced on Monday that it would conduct a mass testing program over five days, after 12 cases were reported over the weekend. The city has a population of 9 million people.

11:13 p.m. ET, October 13, 2020

Pfizer to start testing its Covid-19 vaccine in children as young as 12

From CNN's Maggie Fox

Drugmaker Pfizer has plans to start testing its experimental coronavirus vaccine in children as young as 12, and parents have already expressed interest in enrolling their kids, the researcher leading the trial told CNN Tuesday.

It will be the first coronavirus vaccine trial to include children in the United States.

A team at Cincinnati Children's Hospital will begin vaccinating teenagers aged 16 and 17 this week, and will move to enroll 12-to 15-year-olds later, said Dr. Robert Frenck, director of the Vaccine Research Center at the hospital.

The company confirmed on its website it has approval from the US Food and Drug Administration to enroll children as young as 12 in its trial.

"We really think a vaccine for adolescents and children is going to be critical for getting Covid under control," Frenck told CNN in a telephone interview.
"I think one of the things that is important to remember is that although the death rate for children with Covid is lower than in older adults, it's not zero," he saId, noting that more than half a million children have been diagnosed with coronavirus in the US. "It is not a nonexistent infection in children."

Read the full story:

Pfizer to start testing its Covid-19 vaccine in children as young as 12

10:52 p.m. ET, October 13, 2020

Labor secretary's wife, who was at Rose Garden event, tests positive for coronavirus

From CNN's Kaitlan Collins

The Labor Department announced in a news release Tuesday night that Secretary Eugene Scalia's wife, Trish, has tested positive for coronavirus. The announcement said that Eugene Scalia has tested negative so far but will work from home "for the time being."

Both Eugene and Trish Scalia attended the Rose Garden event where President Donald Trump announced Judge Amy Coney Barrett was his pick to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court. They were seated in the second row, directly behind first lady Melania Trump and next to former White House counselor Kellyanne Conway -- both of whom would later test positive for Covid-19.

"This afternoon, doctors confirmed that U.S. Secretary of Labor Eugene Scalia's wife, Trish, tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Mrs. Scalia is experiencing mild symptoms but doing well," the release stated.
"This evening, Secretary Scalia received a test and the results were negative; he has experienced no symptoms. The Secretary and Mrs. Scalia will follow the advice of health professionals for Trish's recovery and the health of those around them. For the time being, the Secretary will work from home while continuing to carry out the mission of the Department and the President's agenda."

It's not clear if Trish Scalia contracted the coronavirus at the Rose Garden event. Her positive test comes more than two weeks after the event, but it's unknown when she was last tested. The virus' incubation period can be as long as 14 days.

Read the full story: