November 10 coronavirus news

Wearing a mask can help protect you -- not just those around you -- from coronavirus transmission, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in new guidance Tuesday.

Previous guidance from the CDC suggested the main benefit of mask wearing was to help prevent infected people from spreading the virus to others. 

Cloth masks act as “source control” to block virus particles exhaled by the wearer and provide “filtration for personal protection” by blocking incoming infectious droplets from others, the CDC said in its new guidance.

The new guidance cites a number of studies showing that masks reduce the risk of transmitting or catching the virus by more than 70% in various instances. And when officials told people to wear masks, infections and deaths fell significantly, the CDC pointed out.

The agency cited an economic analysis that found a 15% increase in universal masking could prevent losses of up to $1 trillion. It also said that some cloth masks are nearly as good as surgical masks at blocking droplets.

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Colorado authorities identified 3,890 Covid-19 cases on Tuesday, a new daily record for the US state.

Since the pandemic began, 138,427 people in Colorado have contracted the novel coronavirus. At least 2,427 of those have died.

Some 1,116 Covid-19 patients are being treated in the hospital, according to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, and 84% of the state's intensive care unit beds are occupied.

Miami Beach City Manager Jimmy Morales has extended the city's Covid-19 state of emergency and its emergency measures through November 18, according to a release from the City of Miami Beach.

The order extends the mask mandate for Miami Beach, and the general curfew established throughout Miami-Dade County continues to be effect daily from midnight until 6 a.m. Eastern Time.

Any business or organization in violation of the provisions of the order may subject to the closure of their establishment for a period of at least 24 hours, or through the duration of the state of emergency.

The southeastern US state of Florida, where Miami Beach is located, has so far recorded more than 852,174 cases of Covod-19 since the beginning of the pandemic.

Tuesday marked the seventh day in a row that Maryland confirmed at least 1,000 new Covid-19, Governor Larry Hogan said at a news conference.

The US state of Maryland identified 1,338 new Covid-19 cases on Tuesday. Fifty-four more people were hospitalized, bringing the total number of hospitalizations to 761 -- the highest since June 13. Authorities said 176 people are being treated in intensive care units.

Since the pandemic began, at least 4,084 people in the Mid-Atlantic state have died from Covid-19.

The world has come to depend on antibody tests to check whether someone's already had Covid-19, but a study in the town where the virus first spread in Italy shows that these tests are not completely reliable.

A different test -- one that looks for an immune cell, called a T cell -- was more effective, according to the study.

"This makes sense. It's well known that antibodies wane, but T cells have immunological memory," said Dr. Peter Hotez, an infectious disease specialist at Baylor College of Medicine.

In the study, researchers in Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States studied people in Vo, Italy, to learn more about testing accuracy.

They conducted blood tests on 70 people who had had confirmed cases of coronavirus about two months earlier.

Theoretically, all 70 of them should have had positive results on an antibody test. But the antibody test returned negative results in 16 of the cases, or 23%. The T cell test missed only 2 cases, or about 3%.

The researchers also tested 2,200 people who had tested negative for Covid-19. Of those, the T cell test returned positive results for 45 of them.

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More people are being hospitalized in the United States with Covid-19 than at any time during the pandemic, according to the Covid Tracking Project (CTP). 

Some 61,964 people are currently receiving hospital care due to Covid-19 as of Tuesday, according to CTP. The nation has never before topped 60,000 hospitalizations. The US currently averages roughly 1,661 new hospitalizations per day, CTP data shows.

These are the highest hospitalization day records according to CTP data:

More than 18,000 Californians have now died due to complications from the coronavirus since the start of the pandemic, state health officials announced Tuesday, a grim new milestone as cases of Covid-19 surge once again at an alarming rate.

The California Department of Public Health reported 24 new deaths on Tuesday, raising the statewide death toll to 18,001. The US state has reported 977,218 confirmed cases of Covid-19 to date. 

California Governor Gavin Newsom warned residents that the state’s coronavirus cases, positivity rates and hospitalizations are all on the rise.

San Francisco's uptick: San Francisco is temporarily closing indoor dining and will reduce the capacity of fitness centers and movie theaters to 25% to a rapid and significant increase in Covid-19 cases, San Francisco Mayor London Breed said Tuesday.

Indoor instruction at some high schools will also be paused because the transmission rate among high school students is similar to adults, Breed said. All of the new changes go into effect at 11:59pm Pacific Time on Friday, November 13.

Since October 2, San Francisco has experienced a 250% increase in Covid-19 cases, according to county health data. The city is averaging nearly 80 new cases a day compared to approximately 32 new daily cases at the end of October.

In a warning to all San Francisco residents, Director of Health Dr. Grant Colfax said the current surge in cases is greater than the rate of increase from the last major surge in the summer when cases peaked on July 19. Colfax said the city's current fall surge will exceed the summer surge if residents are unable to help turn things around.

Vermont is enacting a 14-day quarantine for all non-essential travelers entering the northeastern US state in order to slow the spread of Covid-19, the Vermont Department of Health said in a statement.

While Vermont continues to have the lowest positivity rate in the country, cases rose 46% this week, the release said.

Under the new guidelines which begin today, anyone traveling or returning to Vermont must quarantine for 14 days (or 7 days followed by a negative Covid-19 test). Essential travel -- including for school, work, personal safety, medical care, care of others, parental shared custody or for food, beverage or medicine -- is exempt.

Vermont authorities reported 46 new cases of Covid-19 on Tuesday. Authorities have identified 2,462 cases in the state since the pandemic began.

The state of Texas reported 10,865 Covid-19 cases on Tuesday, a new single-day record for the Lone Star state. Authorities there have now identified 974,230 novel coronavirus cases since the pandemic began.

Some 94 virus-related deaths were reported Tuesday, bringing the state's death toll to 18,863. 

According to the state's Covid-19 dashboard, there are currently 6,170 lab-confirmed coronavirus patients in Texas hospitals.