October 27 coronavirus news

Coronavirus cases are truly up across the US and it’s not just because of more testing Admiral Brett Giroir, a member of the White House coronavirus task force, said Tuesday – directly contradicting President Trump.

In March and April, probably only one out of 10 or 15 cases were being detected, he said. Today can’t really be compared to that time period, “but compared to the post Memorial Day surge, even though testing is up, this is a real increase in cases,” he said.

Giroir said case numbers are up and also hospitalizations are also going up.

He said hospitals are filling up and coming under stress in some parts of the country, but the number of people in the hospital with coronavirus is still lower than it was in July.

One good thing is that a lot more young people are getting the virus compared to older people, which is one reason why hospitalizations are shorter, Giroir said. Also, there are some effective therapies.

Thirteen-year-old Maggie Flannery contracted Covid-19 in March but she still hasn’t recovered.

Flannery is a "long-hauler." These are Covid-19 patients who experience symptoms of the virus for weeks or months despite having virologically recovered. They have fatigue, myalgia, fever and cognitive abnormalities such as the inability to concentrate, the nation’s top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci told a Senate committee in September.

More than 657,000 children and teens across the United States have tested positive for the virus as of October 1, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children's Hospital Association. And this figure is likely underreported because it relied on state data that is inconsistently collected.

Despite her symptoms, doctors kept telling Flannery she was healthy, her mother Amy Wilson said.

“I had to be okay with the fact that this was a novel coronavirus,” she told CNN. “It was frustrating but at the same time, I knew there was no way for these specialists to understand what long Covid was when we were all figuring it out at the same time.”

To others who may be battling the virus, Flannery advised:

Watch:

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is asking residents to refrain from traveling during the upcoming holiday season, saying "it's not business as usual."

He said this is a recommendations based on health care leadership.

For those who do travel, the mayor encouraged people get tested and follow the 14-day quarantine required upon return.

Mayor de Blasio also asked the federal government to mandate anyone getting on an airplane for an international or domestic flight receive a negative Covid-19 test within 72 hours prior.

The latest numbers: The mayor said there were 60 patients admitted to hospitals with suspected cases of Covid-19 which is under the threshold of 200. However, the percentage of those confirmed positive is 21.6% which means nearly a quarter of those admitted were positive for the virus.

The number of new cases reported on a seven-day average is 528 which is only slightly under the 550 threshold.

While hospitalizations and deaths remain low, de Blasio asked everyone to remain vigilant as the holidays approach.

Note: 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.

Experts are giving mixed messages about the Covid-19 risks of air travel as Americans consider their Thanksgiving holiday plans.  

A Harvard University study released Tuesday modeled the airflow in airliners and say the specialized onboard ventilation systems filter out 99% of airborne viruses. 

The team of scientists concluded that a “layered approach, with ventilation gate-to-gate, reduces the risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission onboard aircraft below that of other routine activities during the pandemic, such as grocery shopping or eating out.”  

A contract tracing study released by Irish researchers linked 13 cases to a single passenger on a seven-hour international flight this summer where fewer than one in five seats were filled. Some passengers may not have been wearing masks.

The researchers conclude that some of the spread must have occurred on the plane because some of the passengers “had no social or airport lounge link with Groups 1 or 2 pre-flight and were not seated within two rows of them.” 

The Harvard researchers described wearing masks as a critical part of keeping travelers safe in aircraft cabins, but stopped short of calling for a government mask mandate onboard flights. But with people bunching up in jetways, aisles, and airports – where ventilation systems may not be as efficient as those on aircraft, they say more research needs to be done.

The Harvard findings mirror those from recent studies from The Department of Defense, Boeing, and Airbus as airlines are struggle to bring domestic passenger traffic above 40 percent of last year's levels.

Last week, Southwest Airlines cited the earlier studies as the reason to resume the sale of every seat on its flights starting December 1.

Dr. Ngozi Ezike, the director of the Illinois Department of Public Health, said that Covid-19 is something to be concerned about and it is frustrating that "people are not quite getting it."

As the state reports record numbers, she said people need to take personal responsibility to reduce infections each day – including things like following science and wearing masks.

Ezike fought back tears during a news briefing on Friday where she reported new coronavirus deaths and thousands of additional cases. She wiped a tear with her bare hand and turned away from the podium to compose herself. A man in a mask walked over with a box of tissues. She wiped her eyes and returned to the microphone.

"I know that sometimes the truth is painful, but I think the data, the facts, the science bear out the truth and I think all public health officials have been echoing the same chorus and we all need to be on that same page that the masks work," she said on CNN today.

Ezike said that it is frustrating that "people are not quite getting it" even though science has pointed to mitigation methods that "could make history not repeat" itself.

Ezike called for the country to have a unified approach to how to get the virus under control, including a national testing strategy, adding that she feels like there have been mixed messages that have confused the public.

"We are bordered by six states in Illinois and nobody lives in a vacuum so the sooner we have a unified approach, the sooner we can get this virus under control," she said.

Watch:

Erin Bromage, a biology professor specializing in immunology at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, outlined the risks of Halloween and Thanksgiving as coronavirus cases spike in the US — and how you can minimize the dangers. 

“When the children knock on the door, it becomes a really tight, confined space with number of people there yelling ‘trick or treat.’ And that just creates that close environment that we really are trying to avoid right now,” Bromage said on CNN’s “New Day.”

He said his neighbors are setting up tables at the end of their driveways or hanging candy from spiderweb decorations. 

Children should still wear cloth masks and keep their distance outside while trick-or-treating, according to Bromage.

Bromage also admitted he is “feeling a little dark about Thanksgiving.” 

He said families should think about limiting the number of people who gather for the holiday and changing plans to not include high-risk family members. 

He said if families are still thinking of celebrating with extended family members, they should consider not having kids in school or group sports, while adults should make sure they do not engage in any high-risk activities for at least a week beforehand.  

On Thanksgiving, open windows, space out people and consider buying a HEPA filter, he said.  

Watch more:

Europe's second coronavirus wave continues to bear down on the continent, with cases rising in many countries and areas implementing new restrictions as a result.

Here are some of the top headlines on the pandemic this morning:

Belgium is on the brink of a coronavirus disaster as a top health official warned that the country could run out of intensive care beds in as little as two weeks.

The country of 11.5 million people has reported on average more than 13,000 cases a day in the past week, according to the national public health institute Sciensano. The Covid-19 outbreak in Belgium is the second worst in Europe in terms of new cases per capita, after only the Czech Republic.

Yves Van Laethem, Belgium's spokesperson for the fight against the coronavirus, warned that unless Belgians change their behavior, intensive care units will reach their capacity of 2,000 patients in 15 days.

At a news conference Monday, Van Laethem said that 1,000 of the country's intensive beds are already being used, with total of 1,250 set to be occupied by the end of the week. Both hospital and intensive care admissions are doubling every eight days, he added.

Read the full story here.

The Portuguese government has published a new law requiring people to wear face masks in outdoor public spaces, where social distancing recommendations cannot be guaranteed. 

The new law was published in the country's national bulletin on Tuesday and will go into effect on Wednesday. 

Everyone from the age of 10 is now required to wear a face covering in indoor and outdoor public spaces, with the exception of those with medical conditions incompatible with the use of mask. People who are excused from wearing mask will have to carry a doctor’s note, confirming their condition.

Those who fail to comply with the law could be fined up to €500 ($590). The law is designed to be temporary and will be in place for a period of 70 days.