US Sees New Record of 4,327 Covid Deaths In a Single Dayhttps://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6The US recorded its highest single daily death toll of the pandemic on Tuesday, according to figures published by Johns Hopkins university.
According to the new figures, yesterday the US recorded 215,805 new coronavirus cases, and 4,327 further deaths. This takes the total death toll in the pandemic in the US to 380,485, and is the highest daily death figure recorded by the university since the pandemic began. The previous highest figure of 4,194 was recorded on 7 January.
The Covid Tracking Project reports that 131,326 people are currently hospitalized in the US with Covid-19. It is the 42nd day in a row that the figure has exceeded 100,000.
The pandemic has killed more than 1,963,557 million people worldwide
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New Study Suggests College Campuses Are COVID-19 Superspreadershttps://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-01-college-campuses-covid-superspreaders.htmlCollege campuses are at risk of becoming COVID-19 superspreaders for their entire county, according to a new vast study which shows the striking danger of the first two weeks of school in particular.
Looking at 30 campuses across the nation with the highest amount of reported cases, experts saw that over half of the institutions had spikes—at their peak—which were well above 1,000 coronavirus cases per 100,000 people per week within the first two weeks of class.
In some colleges, one in five students had been infected with the virus by the end of the fall term. Four institutions had over 5,000 cases.
"At the University of Notre Dame, for instance, all 12,607 students were tested before the beginning of class and only nine had tested positive. Less than two weeks into the term, the seven-day incidence was 3083, with a reproduction number R0 of 3.29.Senior author, Ellen Kuhl, adds: "Strikingly, these local campus outbreaks rapidly spread across the entire county and triggered a peak in new infections in neighbouring communities in more than half of the cases.
In 17 of the campuses monitored, a new computer model developed by scientists at Stanford University shows outbreaks translated directly into peaks of infection within their home counties.
Out today, the team's research—published in the peer-reviewed journal
Computer Methods in Biomechanics and Biomedical Engineering—crucially shows, however, that tight outbreak management, for example the immediate transition from in person to all online learning, can reduce the peaks within about two weeks
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UK May Move Patients Into Hotels to Ease Hospital Strainhttps://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-01-uk-patients-hotels-ease-hospital.htmlHealth Secretary Matt Hancock said Wednesday that the National Health Service was looking at various ways to reduce the strain on hospitals, including moving patients to hotels when appropriate. Discussions about the issue were first reported by the Guardian newspaper.
"We would only ever do that if it was clinically the right thing for somebody," Hancock told Sky News. "In some cases, people need sit-down care, they don't actually need to be in a hospital bed."
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British Virus Variant Now In 50 Countrieshttps://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-01-british-virus-variant-countries.htmlThe coronavirus mutation first found in Britain has now spread to 50 territories, according to the World Health Organization, while a similar South African-identified strain has now been found in 20.
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Google Urgently Investigating Android Coronavirus Tracking App Issueshttps://www.theverge.com/2021/1/13/22228594/google-coronavirus-tracking-app-exposure-notifications-issues-problemsGoogle says it’s working quickly to investigate issues with Android apps that use the Android Exposure Notifications System to track the spread of COVID-19. An unknown issue is causing apps to take longer to load or conduct regular exposure checks. The NHS COVID-19 app that’s used across England and Wales is affected by this Android issue, with a loading notification stuck in the notifications area for many users.
These issues are affecting all apps worldwide that use the Android Exposure Notifications System.