October 20 coronavirus news

Arkansas today reported 840 new probable and confirmed cases of Covid-19, passing the 100,000 case mark, Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson announced Tuesday.

The state also reported 14 more Covid-19-related deaths, bringing the total number of deaths to 1,576, as well as 24 new hospitalizations, for 637 total hospitalized Covid-19 patients, according to Hutchinson.

Ventilator use has gone up slightly, to 101 people. 

“We’d like to see that below 100,” Arkansas Health Secretary Dr. José Romero said.

The state is currently reporting a cumulative positivity rate of 7.6%.

One thing to note: These numbers were released by the state’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.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell confirmed Tuesday that if a stimulus deal is reached between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, and is supported by President Trump, then “we would put it on the floor of the Senate and let the Senate consider it.”

But McConnell would not say if he was comfortable with a price tag around $1.8 trillion or $2 trillion as President Trump is pushing.

When asked by CNN’s Manu Raju about the high price tag the President is asking for in a stimulus deal, higher than $2.2 trillion, and whether he’s personally comfortable with spending that amount of money, McConnell said, “What I'm telling you is that if such a deal were to clear the House, obviously, with a presidential signature promise, we would put it on the floor of the Senate and let the Senate consider it.”

McConnell also dodged a question on whether it’s appropriate for the President to continue to attack the nation’s top infectious diseases expert Dr. Anthony Fauci during his weekly policy news conference.

Watch:

New York state has added Arizona and Maryland to the Covid-19 travel advisory list that it shares with New Jersey and Connecticut bringing the total number to 40 states and territories, according to a release by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office. 

Cuomo said that while both New Jersey and Connecticut along with neighboring Pennsylvania qualify to be placed on the list, they will not be due to the difficulty in enforcing travel between the states. 

The advisory requires people who have traveled to New York from areas with significant community spread to quarantine for 14 days. The quarantine applies to any person arriving from an area with a positive test rate higher than 10 per 100,000 residents over a 7-day rolling average or an area with a 10 percent or higher positivity rate over a 7-day rolling average.

Here's the full, updated travel advisory list is available below: 

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker announced the state reported 827 new cases of Covid-19 Monday as the state health department reported 15 new deaths on its Covid-19 dashboard.

Baker told reporters during a news conference Tuesday that "while there has been an increase in cases, our hospitals have the capacity to manage Covid-19 patients."  

Baker said 17,654 residents were tested Monday, bringing the total number of people tested to over 2.5 million. 

Baker noted that the state is testing around 60,000 people a day and set a record earlier this month at 91,300 tests in one day. The governor said he expects his state will soon be able to test 100,000 people a day. 

One thing to note: These numbers were released by Massachusetts'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.

Coronavirus patients are more likely to suffer complications and to die in the hospital than flu patients are, according to a report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday.

Covid-19 patients were almost 19 times more likely to experience acute respiratory distress syndrome, twice as likely to need intensive care and five times more likely to die than flu patients, according to national Veterans Health Administration data from more than 9,000 patients with either Covid-19 or influenza.

Hospital stays were almost three times longer for coronavirus patients, and nearly a quarter of these patients had complications involving three or more organ systems. The CDC-led research team found they were at increased risk for 17 health complications.

Coronavirus patients had twice the risk of pneumonia, a type of heart inflammation called myocarditis; blood clots known as deep vein thrombosis as well as pulmonary embolism; brain hemorrhage and liver failure. Flu patients were more likely to experience worsened asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. 

While coronavirus patients were slightly older, on average, flu patients had more underlying health conditions.

About 48% of coronavirus patients and 25% of flu patients were Black. The researchers found that coronavirus patients who were not White were at greater risk for respiratory, neurologic, and kidney complications and sepsis, even after adjusting for outside factors.  

They say this underscores a disproportionate impact of Covid-19 on racial and ethnic minority groups – one that cannot be explained just by age or underlying medical conditions. 

The patients included in the study tested positive for coronavirus between March 1 and May 31, or for flu between Oct. 1 and Feb. 1. The researchers set those time frames to avoid including patients who were infected with both coronavirus and flu.

The National Football League confirmed today eight players tested positive for Covid-19 and 11 staffers also tested positive during the latest round of testing, according to a league statement.

The NFL and NFL Players Association said the testing results were for the week of Oct. 11 to Oct. 17. About 7,799 people were tested. 

That brings the NFL’s total number of positive cases to 47 players and 71 other personnel since Covid-19 monitoring testing began Aug. 1.

The United States has seen nearly 300,000 excess deaths so far since late January – and the groups with the biggest jumps in excess deaths, percentage-wise, have been adults ages 25 to 44 and Hispanic people, according to a report published Tuesday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

The report included mortality data from Jan. 26 through Oct. 3, to help researchers measure how many more people died this year during the coronavirus pandemic than otherwise would have been expected.

"Although more excess deaths have occurred among older age groups, relative to past years, adults aged 25-44 years have experienced the largest average percentage increase in the number of deaths from all causes from late January through October 3," the researchers wrote. "Among racial and ethnic groups, the smallest average percentage increase in numbers of deaths compared with previous years occurred among White persons (11.9%) and the largest for Hispanic persons (53.6%)."

The report has some limitations, including that mortality data can lag, and estimates of how many deaths would otherwise be expected are based on models.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Tuesday she is optimistic that Democrats can strike a deal with the Trump administration for another coronavirus stimulus package.

“We all want to get an agreement because people need it. It’s urgent, and our economy needs it,” Pelosi said. “Hopefully by the end of the day today, we’ll know where we all are.”

Pelosi also downplayed her previous deadline for a deal prior to the election — which she said Sunday would be the end of the day Tuesday.

“Let me just say, it isn’t that this day was the day that we would have a deal. It was the day where we would have our terms on the table to be able to go to the next step. And again, legislation takes a long time,” she said.

Pelosi said she hopes to have the potential legislation finalized this week with passage by next Friday.

There are at least 8,228,870 cases of coronavirus in the US, and at least 220,417 people have died, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

So far today, Johns Hopkins has recorded 15,889 new cases and 298 reported deaths.

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