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Current as of July 13, 2020 at 8:00 a.m.

COVID-19 Testing Sites - Florida

  • Drive-Thru Testing sites available are listed by county. Each walk up site can test up to 200 individuals per day. Access the list here

Safe. Smart. Step-by-Step


The Florida Department of Economic Opportunity is now giving daily updates on Florida’s Reemployment Assistance program


Access the Florida Department of Health COVID Dashboard


Graphs, Charts, and Real Time Tracking of COVID-19


Data Sources


Data Sources on Social Media


Other Resources


Current Statistics

  • Fatality rate in Florida - 1.57%

  • Covid fatality rate in FL 15-24 years old - .02%. (less than 1%)
  • Covid fatality rate in FL 15-34 years old - .03%. (less than 1%)
  • Covid fatality rate in FL 15-44 years old - .09%. (less than 1%)
  • Covid fatality rate in FL 45-64 years old - .80%. (less than 1%)
  • Covid fatality rate in FL 65-74 years old - 4.5%.
  • Covid fatality rate in FL 75 and up - 15%.
  • Seasonal influenza mortality rate in the US (2017 cdc) 18-49 yo - .02

  • Median age of new Covid cases - 38 years old

  • Emergency Visits for Covid like illness - down 15%
  • ICU beds available in Florida - 19%
  • Hospital beds available in Florida - 24%

Vaccine Tracking

Last updated:
July 10, 2020 10:16 PMPST

192
vaccines are in development.

16
are now in clinical testing.

Canadian physicians - including Canada’s first chief public health officer - have just called for ending lockdowns permanently, even if outbreaks continue.

To:  
The Right Honourable Justin Trudeau, P.C., M.P., Prime Minister of Canada
The Honourable Dwight Ball, Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador 
The Honourable Caroline Cochrane, Premier of the Northwest Territories
The Honourable Doug Ford, Premier of Ontario 
The Honourable Blaine Higgs, Premier of New Brunswick 
The Honourable John Horgan, Premier of British Columbia 
The Honourable Jason Kenney, Premier of Alberta 
The Honourable Dennis King, Premier of Prince Edward Island 
The Honourable François Legault, Premier of Québec
The Honourable Stephen McNeil, Premier of Nova Scotia
The Honourable Scott Moe, Premier of Saskatchewan
The Honourable Brian Pallister, Premier of Manitoba
The Honourable Joe Savikataaq, Premier of Nunavut
The Honourable Sandy Silver, Premier of Yukon

Date: July 6, 2020

RE: Dealing with COVID-19: A Balanced Response

The undersigned represent current and past leaders in public health, health care systems and academia. We are writing to you to with our thoughts regarding a balanced approach to dealing with COVID-19 We strongly believe that population health and equity are important considerations that must be applied to future decisions regarding pandemic management.  

The current approach to dealing with COVID-19 carries significant risks to overall population health and threatens to increase inequities across the country. Aiming to prevent or contain every case of COVID-19 is simply no longer sustainable at this stage in the pandemic. We need to accept that COVID-19 will be with us for some time and to find ways to deal with it.  

The current and proposed measures for reopening will continue to disproportionately impact lower income groups, Black and other racialized groups, recent immigrants to Canada, Indigenous peoples and other populations. And it risks significantly harming our children, particularly the very young, by affecting their development, with life-long consequences in terms of education, skills development, income and overall health.  

Canada must work to minimize the impact of COVID-19 by using measures that are practical, effective and compatible with our values and sense of social justice. We need to focus on preventing deaths and serious illness by protecting the vulnerable while enabling society to function and thrive.

Elimination of COVID-19 is not a practical objective for Canada until we have a vaccine. While there is hope for a vaccine to be developed soon, we must be realistic about the time it will actually take to develop and evaluate it and then deliver an immunization campaign covering the entire population. We cannot sustain universal control measures indefinitely.  

We need to accept that there will be cases and outbreaks of COVID-19.  We need localized control measures that are risk-based. We should consistently reassess quarantine and isolation periods, recommendations for physical distancing and non-medical masks, and travel restrictions based on current best evidence and levels of risk.

At the same time we must improve infection prevention and control in long-term care and congregate living settings. We should provide support for people living in the community who need to or choose to isolate when the disease is active, as well as those who have been adversely affected by COVID-19, or the consequences of the public health measures.  

Canadians have developed a fear of COVID-19. Going forward, they have to be supported in understanding their true level of risk, and learning how to deal with this disease, while getting on with their lives – back to work, back to school, and back to healthy lives and vibrant, active communities across this country. 

We acknowledge the heroic work that has been done in recent months by many across all levels of government and the public and private sector, and the sacrifices that Canadians have made to get to this stage. As we look forward, Canada must balance its response to COVID-19.  

 

Sincerely yours, 


Robert Bell, MDCM, MSc, FRCSC, FACS
Former Deputy Minister of Health, Province of Ontario
Former President and CEO, University Health Network, Toronto

David Butler-Jones, MD, MHSc LLD(hc), DSc(hc), FRCPC, FACPM, FCFP, CCFP
Canada’s first Chief Public Health Officer and former Deputy Minister for the Public Health Agency of Canada

Jean Clinton, BMus, MD, FRCPC
Clinical Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences, McMaster University

Tom Closson, BASc, MBA, FCAE, PEng
Former President and CEO, University Health Network, Toronto
Former President and CEO, Capital Health Region, British Columbia

Janet Davidson, OC, BScN, MHSA, LLD(Hon)
Former Deputy Minister, Alberta Health
Former CEO, Trillium Health Centre

Martha Fulford, MA, MD, FRCPC
Infectious Diseases Specialist
Associate Professor, McMaster University

Vivek Goel, MDCM, MSc, SM, FRCPC, FCAHS
Professor, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto
Former President, Public Health Ontario

Joel Kettner, MD, MSc, FRCSC, FRCPC 
Former Chief Public Health Officer, Province of Manitoba 

Onye Nnorom, MDCM, CCFP, MPH, FRCPC
President, Black Physicians' Association of Ontario
Associate Program Director, Public Health and Preventive Medicine Residency Program
Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto

Brian Postl, MD, FRCPC
Dean, Rady Faculty of Health Sciences and Vice- Provost, Health Sciences, University of Manitoba
Former President, Winnipeg Regional Health Authority

Neil Rau, MD, FCPC
Infectious Disease Specialist and Medical Microbiologist
Assistant Professor, University of Toronto

Richard Reznick, MD, FRCSC, FACS, FRCSEd (hon), FRCSI (hon), FRCS (hon)
Professor of Surgery and Dean Emeritus, Faculty of Health Sciences, Queen’s University

Susan Richardson, MDCM, FCRPC
Professor Emerita, University of Toronto

Richard Schabas, MD, MHSC, FRCPC
Former Chief Medical Officer of Health, Province of Ontario
Former Chief of Medical Staff, York Central Hospital

Gregory Taylor, MD, FRCPC
Former Chief Public Health Officer of Canada 

David Walker, MD, FRCPC
Former Dean of Health Sciences, Queens University
Chair, Ontario’s Expert Panel on SARS, 2003 

Catharine Whiteside, CM, MD, PhD, FRCPS(C), FCAHS
Executive Director, Diabetes Action Canada - CIHR SPOR Network 
Emerita Professor and Former Dean of Medicine, University of Toronto

Trevor Young, MD, PhD, FRCPC, FCAHS
Professor of Psychiatry
Dean, Faculty of Medicine and Vice Provost, Relations with Health Care Institutions
University of Toronto

Dealing With COVID-19: A Balanced Response

July 6, 2020

COVID-19 is a serious public health threat and will remain so until we have a universally available safe and effective vaccine or similar medical treatment. There have been many deaths due to COVID-19 and every single one represents a tragic outcome. However, in overall population health terms COVID-19’s direct impact on premature mortality is small. While those under the age of 60 account for 65% of cases, they represent just 3% of deaths. With ready access to health services, severe outcomes can be averted in those who do not have pre-existing risk factors.  

In March 2020, unprecedented public health measures were implemented in Canada in response to the rapid rate of growth of cases and the potential threat to health system. Because of the potential for exponential growth in cases and the situation in other parts of the world our governments took these actions that applied to the entire population in order to protect our health care system. These interventions were meant to buy the time necessary to develop a longer-term response. They should not be used as a means of eradicating the disease.  

While some countries have been successful in suppressing the disease, most continue to see sporadic cases and outbreaks. Only a few countries, primarily island nations, appear to have eliminated the disease, but it is uncertain how long those countries can completely isolate themselves from the rest of the world.  

The public health measures did protect our health care system, to the point that Canada had excess capacity. Our leaders and public health authorities had to use strong language to support universal acceptance of these measures. As a result, many Canadians have become fearful of COVID-19 and are worried about the impact of working, seeking routine and preventative medical care, participating in religious and cultural events, interacting with their family and friends, using public transportation, shopping and other normal activities.  

COVID-19 control is an important public health priority but it is not the only nor the most important challenge to the health of people in Canada. We need to examine the broad social determinants of health and their impact on citizens, particularly with an equity lens, as the consequences of the public health measures have not been shared equally in society. Those in lower income groups, Black and other racialized groups, recent immigrants and Indigenous people are bearing disproportionate burden. The public health efforts must take account of the impacts of both the disease and the consequences of the control measures on all segments of the population.  

The fundamental determinants of health - education, employment, social connection and medical and dental care - must take priority. Measures for COVID-19 control need to accommodate these health determinants. Children need to go to interact with their peers, in child care, schools, sports and social activities, and summer camps. Adults need to go to work. Family and friends need to meet 

The societal costs of maintaining these public health measures, even with some gradual relaxation, are too high. Canadians are missing scheduled medical appointments and surgeries, which will lead to increased deaths. There are significant challenges for our young with impact on early childhood development, one of the strongest predictors of life-long health and social outcomes. Education is compromised. There are increases in domestic violence, alcohol and drug intake, and food insecurity. The economic consequences are huge. This leads to increased unemployment which is related to increased deaths.  And the toll on mental health is just beginning to be felt. Personal concerns about the disease, cases and deaths in friends and family, loneliness and isolation, worries about jobs and finances, parents having to juggle childcare and general insecurity are leading to increased levels of anxiety, depression and stress.  

We need to shift from a mindset of attempting to eradicate this disease, which is not feasible and will lead to continued devastation of our society, to a new goal.  

Our new goal: Minimize the impact of COVID-19 using methods that are practical, effective and compatible with our values and sense of social justice. We need to focus on preventing deaths and serious illness by protecting the vulnerable while allowing society to function.  

Elimination of COVID-19 is not a practical objective for Canada until we have a vaccine. We need to accept that there will be cases and outbreaks of COVID-19. We should mitigate the effects of the disease with measures that are equitable, sustainable and acceptable. This includes testing and contact tracing, and ensuring that health services with access to the latest treatments are available for those who contract the disease.  

Those at highest risk of severe consequences need to be offered effective protection from COVID-19, particularly those in long-term care institutions, but this protection must be respectful of their autonomy and allow them a reasonable quality of life.  

Aside from the outbreaks in long-term care institutions, some of the most significant have been in other congregate living settings (homeless shelters, prisons, dormitories for temporary foreign agriculture workers) and work settings such as meat packing plants. Appropriate protections and supports are needed in such settings.  

COVID-19 control must be balanced with basic human rights. People need to be empowered to make informed choices about their own lives and the level of risk they are prepared to accept. Universal public health measures are appropriate only when they are truly necessary, supported by strong evidence, and when there are no other alternatives.  

Recommendations

Carefully reopen schools, businesses and health care. Allow gatherings of friends and family. Provide practical guidance that allows citizens and institutions to operate safely and effectively. Restore public confidence that it is safe to go out, that appropriate precautions are in place, and conditions will be closely monitored.  

Develop clear control plans for future outbreaks or resurgence of disease that are risk-based and focused so further universal lockdowns are not necessary.   

Improve our disease surveillance so that we have an accurate picture of disease activity to make timely decisions and provide useful advice to Canadians. Ensure that public health has the resources to conduct timely and effective testing and contract tracing.  

Provide clear guidance on appropriate use of viral (diagnostic) and antibody (serology) testing for health care providers, employers and community organizations. While testing is a critical element for control of COVID-19, it has to be done in a smart way. Indiscriminate testing, for example, daily testing of all employees in an office setting is less effective than testing of those with greater exposure to the general public.  

Assess community risk in applying infection control approaches in different settings. Procedures that are appropriate for a hospital, with high risk of exposure, are not necessary across all of society. Control measures need to be evidence-based and address the level of risk in a particular setting and community. Measures should take account of costs and benefits at the individual and community level using a social determinants of health model and applying an equity lens.  

Assess the appropriateness of recommendations for physical distancing from a risk benefit perspective. Where risk of community transmission is very low, the absolute benefits of physical separation are negligible, particularly if good hygiene is practiced and individuals with symptoms stay home.  

Reassess quarantine and isolation periods based on current evidence. Strategies that use testing to further reduce this period should be examined. Review the restrictions on non-essential travel to all parts of the world. Travel should be restarted to countries where there is little community transmission.  

Be clear on when the use of medical and non-medical masks is recommended. When advice varies based on local epidemiology, provide clear evidence-based criteria for decision-making. Any requirements for mandatory masks must be based on strong evidence with clear specification of where they are most appropriate (close quarters, congregate living settings, etc).

Improve infection prevention and control in long-term care as deaths have come mainly from a break down in these practices within some facilities.  

Canadians must be better informed about their true level of risk from COVID-19. An accurate accessible risk assessment tool is a priority. This will help empower people to make informed decisions about how they choose to lead their lives. Help people understand and manage their fear and anxiety.  

Provide support for vulnerable people living in the community who choose to isolate when the disease is active. Some individuals, even though at risk for severe disease, may wish to make informed decisions to carry on with normal life. Such choices should be respected and supported.  

Ensure there are adequate supports for those individuals that have been adversely affected by COVID-19, or the consequences of the public health measures. In particular, support for mental health and addictions is essential as the potential toll on the population is massive.


In stark contrast to the MIT researchers' grave projections, Stanford University biologist and Nobelist in chemistry Michael Levitt and his team argue in their preprint study that the pandemic is essentially self-flattening and is already subsiding in much of the world. The Stanford team tracks data on cases and deaths from COVID-19 outbreaks at 3,546 locations around the world. They find that after an initial steep rise in each outbreak that the rates of diagnosed infections and deaths generally begin to decline at a steady, almost linear, pace.

As Medical News explains, the Stanford team created graphs for each outbreak using data that takes into account four trends. The first three are the total case number, the total death number, and their ratio, that is, the death rate. The fourth measure is the ratio of the total cases (or deaths) for today divided by the same ratio of yesterday. This is known as the "fractional change function." This analysis revealed that, instead of growing exponentially, the epidemics in many regions are actually slowing down exponentially with time. (Interestingly, the daily rate of U.S. COVID-19 deaths has been slowing down, but the daily number of diagnosed cases has started growing once again.) So how does Levitt account for the epidemic's self-flattening behavior?

Levitt and his colleagues argue, "The existence of invisible cases of individuals who are mildly symptomatic and, therefore, not counted as confirmed cases may explain the non-exponential behavior of COVID- 19: the known cases cannot easily find people to infect as the hidden invisible cases have already infected them." They also acknowledge that changes in behavior such as the wide adoption of social distancing and mask-wearing would also contribute to flattening the epidemic.

"Imagine I had a confirmed case of COVID. Unbeknownst to me, a declared case, I've also infected my friends, my kids, people near me. And this means on the first day, I can infect people, but then the next day, I can't find people so easily to infect," explained Levitt in a May 4 interview with The Stanford Daily. "In some ways, what's happening is that invisible cases are having a hard time finding people to infect, because the invisible cases have already infected them. Since then, there's been a lot of extra findings about maybe we have some natural immunity to the virus as well."

Basically, Levitt is arguing that the various regions his team is tracking are reaching COVID-19 herd immunity much faster and at lower levels than most epidemiologists think likely. While most epidemiologists believe that the COVID-19 herd immunity threshold is somewhere around 60 to 70 percent, "I personally think it's less than 30 percent," said Levitt in the interview. Recent very preliminary research in fact suggests that several regions have already achieved herd immunity to COVID-19.

Based on his analysis, Levitt projected on May 4 that COVID-19 deaths in Sweden should plateau in the next few weeks at between 5,000 to 6,000. As of July 1, the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 dashboard reports 5,411 COVID-19 deaths in Sweden. Levitt also predicted on May 4 that the number of deaths in the rest of the world will reach a peak sometime around the next 8 to 14 weeks. It's been nine weeks since his prediction.

According to Worldometers data, global daily COVID-19 deaths peaked in April and have since been on a plateau of around 4,000 per day for the last couple of months. If that daily death rate is sustained through March of next year that would just about match the global projections made by the MIT team.

Will the COVID-19 pandemic grind grimly on racking up ever more deaths as the MIT researchers predict or will it moderate and recede mildly into the background of daily life as the Stanford team forecasts? We should know which of the statistical numerologists is the more accurate by the end of the summer. 


No local institution is more important than our public schools. Even as COVID-19 cases continue to spike throughout Florida and Tampa Bay, school officials need to find a way for schools to open safely next month, with masks, social distancing, lower capacity on school buses, distance-learning as appropriate and whatever else is necessary to cut the danger to responsibly manageable levels. They also must plan for what happens when students and staffers inevitably test positive. Shutting down and starting over is not the answer. Scaling back could be.

Schooling is too important to get wrong, and too many students have effectively had little to no education since campuses closed in the spring. The students who most need a structured learning environment — that is, a classroom of some kind — are the ones being left behind. Yes, it’s important to keep students and staffers safe, but we cannot let already disadvantaged and struggling students fall even farther behind.

This cannot be a binary choice between safety or schooling. They are equally important, and neither is optional.

Guiding principles — not hard and fast mandates — are key, as is flexibility. If students and staffers don’t feel safe, the entire enterprise will collapse. Learn from other states. California, for example, will keep school buses at low capacity and have students load from the back to front and then disembark from front to back. Lots of simple practical solutions can combine to keep the risk lower. Computer modeling led by University of South Florida professor Tapas Das for all of Miami-Dade (not just schools) showed that face masks and aggressive contact tracing, combined with the existing Phase II reopening, could have effectively ended the outbreak in that county by late September. But that didn’t happen. Policy choices matter.

Also, school officials can learn from what we are fast discovering about the coronavirus, whom it affects and how, and how it is and isn’t transmitted. We know so much more than we did in March. Younger kids, for example, may not be super spreaders, as once feared. Open air is far safer than closed spaces. Social distancing really works, as do masks, so long as everyone wears them properly. And we’ll know more next month than we do now. Plans should adapt accordingly. In that way, it was wise for Hillsborough County superintendent Addison Davis to listen to experts and change his mind this week to require, not merely suggest, that most teachers and students wear masks when classes resume next month.


In January, vaccine researchers lined up on the starting blocks, waiting to hear a pistol. That shot came on January 10, when scientists in China announced the complete genetic makeup of the novel coronavirus. With that information in hand, the headlong race toward a vaccine began.

As the virus, now known as SARS-CoV-2, began to spread like wildfire around the globe, researchers sprinted to catch up with treatments and vaccines. Now, six months later, there is still no cure and no preventative for the disease caused by the virus, COVID-19, though there are glimmers of hope. Studies show that two drugs can help treat the sick: The antiviral remdesivir shortens recovery times (SN: 4/29/20) and a steroid called dexamethasone reduces deaths among people hospitalized with COVID-19 who need help breathing (SN: 6/16/20).

But the finish line in this race remains a safe and effective vaccine. With nearly 180 vaccine candidates now being tested in lab dishes, animals and even already in humans, that end may be in sight. Some experts predict that a vaccine may be available for emergency use for the general public by the end of the year even before it receives expedited U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval.

19 is both startlingly unique and painfully familiar
Velocity might come at the expense of safety and efficacy, some experts worry. And that could stymie efforts to convince enough people to get the vaccine in order to build the herd immunity needed to end the pandemic.

“We’re calling for transparency of data,” says Esther Krofah, executive director of FasterCures, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit. “We want things to accelerate meaningfully in a way that does not compromise safety or the science, but we need to see the data,” she says. 

Getting a head start
Traditionally, vaccines are made from weakened or killed viruses, or virus fragments. But producing large amounts of vaccine that way can take years, because such vaccines must be made in cells (SN: 7/7/20), which often aren’t easy to grow in large quantities.

Getting an early good look at the coronavirus’s genetic makeup created a shortcut. It let scientists quickly harness the virus’s genetic information to make copies of a crucial piece of SARS-CoV-2 that can be used as the basis for vaccines.

That piece is known as the spike protein. It studs the virus’s surface, forming its halo and allowing the virus to latch onto and enter human cells. Because the spike protein is on the outside of the virus, it’s also an easy target for antibodies to recognize.

Researchers have copied the SARS-CoV-2 version of instructions for making the spike protein into RNA or DNA, or synthesized the protein itself, in order to create vaccines of various types (see sidebar). Once the vaccine is delivered into the body, the immune system makes antibodies that recognize the virus and block it from getting into cells, either preventing infection or helping people avoid serious illness.

Using this approach, drugmakers have set speed records in devising vaccines and beginning clinical trials. FasterCures, which is part of the Milken Institute think tank, is tracking 179 vaccine candidates, most of which are still being tested in lab dishes and animals. But nearly 20 have already begun testing in people.


As America comes back, examining different sectors provides key insights as to those that may be integral to the rebound. What we learn from this process allows the nation not only to return to work but also sketch a roadmap for future job growth, environmental stewardship and safety.

Among the sectors leading the way is the design and construction community. This industry is a key component of any recovery because its supplies services to a cross-section of America, both public and private sector, from road, bridges, dams, to power grids, manufacturing, industrial, water treatment and residential. A newly-released APCO Insight survey indicates that 95 percent of the U.S. public thought it very or somewhat important “for the U.S. to continue to invest in its infrastructure” emerging from the shutdown.  

As an example, the construction industry is responsible for the creation and maintenance of key sustainable environmental projects; which if cancelled or delayed could potentially mean lack of remediation to water, air and other hazardous challenges that may risk the well-being of the public. Therefore, finding ways to keep the workforce safe and the projects continuing has important societal benefits.

Consequently, the architectural, engineering and construction industry as a whole is a broad barometer of the nation’s health and prosperity; while also playing a vital role with regard to global competitiveness, economic growth, environmental sustainability, and national security, as well as assuring the extraordinary quality of life enjoyed by so many Americans.

Moreover, a robust construction and design industry can help lead the nation out of the current difficulties with a wide array of skilled craft trades and/or professional positions. As a highly labor-intensive sector of our economy, the industry offers good paying jobs and career paths in communities of all sizes across the country; including prime opportunities for women, minority populations, and those who are economically disadvantaged. Most positions don’t require four-year college degrees, and some will pay while you are an apprentice or trained on the job. The same APCO survey finds 90 percent of Americans agreed “apprenticeships & credentialing programs can lead to good paying jobs and career paths.”

APCO’s new polling results also show high concern among Americans due to COVID19’s impact on small businesses – even more so than the impact on the overall economy. (64% vs. 55% very concerned). Construction, architectural and engineering companies are predominantly small business entities. These companies are part of the fabric of main street America and represent a vital part of the nation’s economy for which the public is worried.


America’s handling of the coronavirus.

The words “utter disaster” are used, and Williams, an expatriate, contrasts America’s response to that of France, where he currently lives.

“As Donald Trump’s America continues to shatter records for daily infections, France, like most other developed nations and even some undeveloped ones, seems to have beat back the virus,” Williams writes.

To be sure, the US response to the coronavirus was far from perfect (more on that later). But the article shows one of the challenges with this pandemic: even as more data is acquired, the picture doesn’t always get clearer.

In some ways, COVID-19 data are like a Rorschach blot from which writers, politicians, and experts can glean whatever conclusions they wish to find. Take Sweden, where daily COVID-19 deaths recently reached zero.

According to Newsweek editorial director Hank Gilman, Sweden’s “lighter touch” approach was a failure because seven times as many people died there than in neighboring Scandnavian countries such as Finland and Norway. He is not alone in the assessment.

On the other hand, Sweden suffered far fewer deaths per capita than several European neighbors that instituted strict lockdowns—including Belgium, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom—and has avoided some of the economic fallout other nations have endured. Unlike other countries, its currency is growing stronger.

Indeed, Sweden’s death rate is remarkably close to that of France, which Williams praised as a model in contrast to the “utter disaster” in the US. However, the US actually has a lower per capita death rate than both Sweden and France—at least for now. (While it’s true COVID cases are on the rise again in the US, deaths recently reached three-month lows.)

This raises questions about how we measure success in the age of COVID-19. While most attention is being paid to rising case numbers, death tolls would seem to be the most important metric. While US deaths per capita (401/1M) put the country among the ten highest in the world—ahead of France and Sweden, but just below the Netherlands—those numbers also don’t tell the entire story.

Few may have noticed that 42 percent of all COVID deaths in the US come from just three states—New Jersey, New York, and Massachusetts. These three states account for nearly 56,000 of the nearly 133,000 deaths in the US, even though they represent just 10 percent of the population. If these three states are excluded, the US suddenly finds itself somewhere in between nations such as Luxembourg (176/1M) and Macedonia (166/1M), where some of the better fatality numbers in Europe are found.

Why have New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts suffered so much more than other US states? We don’t yet know the answer to that question, but evidence suggests it could be policy related.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo earlier this year received a great deal of criticism when the state’s policy of prohibiting nursing homes from screening residents for COVID-19 came to light. Cuomo eventually reversed that decision under intense criticism from public health experts and trade group leaders.

This week, the New York State Department of Health issued a report that concluded 6,326 COVID-positive residents were admitted to nursing homes between March 25 and May 8 as a result of the order.

”The data shows that the nursing home residents got COVID from the staff, and presumably, also from those who visited them. Unfortunately, we did not understand the disease early on, we did not realize how widespread it was within our community, and therefore, it was able to be introduced into a vulnerable population,” said New York Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker.

The report, however, also claimed that “most patients admitted to nursing homes from hospitals were no longer contagious when admitted and therefore were not a source of infection … [and] … nursing home quality was not a factor in nursing home fatalities.”

The report cites the high nursing home fatality rates of Massachusetts and New Jersey as additional evidence that New York was not an outlier in nursing home deaths.

“...an examination of fatalities in our neighboring states—despite having populations much smaller than New York’s—illustrates fatalities at these facilities were not a New York-specific phenomenon: Connecticut reports 3,124 deaths in these facilities, New Jersey reports 6,617, and Massachusetts reports 5,115, to New York’s 6,432 fatalities.”

Over the last 100 years, the world has seen more than two dozen socialist experiments. It has failed in every country every time it has been tried: in the Soviet Union they implemented one form of socialism, in Yugoslavia another; Chinese socialism differed from the socialism of North Korea; Venezuelan socialism was not the same as Cuban socialism — but every single one of these experiments failed. In response to this catalog of failures, socialists complain, "The idea was right, it was just never properly executed!"

Venezuela, Socialism of the 21st Century

The last time left-wingers rhapsodized about a socialist experiment was 20 years ago when Hugo Chavez came to power in Venezuela. Leftist intellectuals around the world were enthused, deeming Chavez the founder of “Socialism of the 21st Century.” Even in the United States, Chavez had a coterie of admirers among left-wing intellectuals. One of their most prominent figures, Tom Hayden, who died in 2016, explained: “As time passes, I predict the name of Hugo Chavez will be revered by millions.” Another of Chavez’s left-wing intellectual cheerleaders was the Princeton professor, Cornell West, who declared: “I love that Hugo Chavez has made poverty a major priority. I wish America would make poverty a priority.” And the prominent journalist Barbara Walters swarmed: “He cares very much about poverty, he is a socialist. What he’s trying to do for all of Latin America, they have been trying to do for years, eliminate poverty. But he is not the crazy man we’ve heard … This is a very intelligent man.”

But even this experiment ended in poverty and dictatorship. No other country in the world has experienced such rampant inflation as Venezuela. Ten percent of the population has already fled. Venezuela has even resorted to importing gasoline from Iran, even though Venezuela is the most oil-rich country in the world. Those who stayed are starving. And what do the socialists tell us? They say the same thing they say after every failed socialist experiment: “Sorry, that wasn’t real socialism.” Or they blame the U.S. for imposing economic sanctions, as if North Korea, Cuba, or Venezuela would ever have been prosperous economies if it weren’t for these sanctions. This is, of course, absolute nonsense.

The Angela Merkel fallacy
The process is always the same, as Kristian Niemietz documents in his major work, Socialism. The Failed Idea That Never Dies. In the earliest stages of any new socialist experiment, left-wing intellectuals praise it to the heavens. Leading Western intellectuals extolled Stalin and Mao, for example, but after the failure of these experiments, they said, “Well, that was never real socialism. Things will definitely work out better next time.” But the question is: What should we make of an idea that has always failed, that has caused more than 100 million deaths?

Democratic Socialism?

The second argument socialists make is: So, let’s give “democratic socialism” a go! “Democratic socialism” has attracted widespread support from many politicians in the Western hemisphere, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Sen. Bernie Sanders, and many on the left wing of the Democratic Party. In Britain, Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn was a figurehead for this political course but was deposed after his party’s defeat at the 2019 general election. The British, in particular, should know better because they had already experienced the pain caused by “democratic socialism.” In 1945, when the Labour Party came to power in the first post-war general election, it implemented a form of democratic socialism. The Labour Party’s policies closely mirrored much of what Bernie Sanders and other socialists hope for in the U.S. today: extremely high taxes on the rich and far-reaching state influence on the economy.

The British government tried to take control of the private sector. The economist Arthur Shenfield quipped that “the difference between the public and private sectors was that the private sector was controlled by government, and the public sector wasn’t controlled by anyone.” The United Kingdom became a textbook example of democratic socialism as the third way between communism and capitalism. Margaret Thatcher, who was a vocal critic of these policies at the time and later implemented her own raft of capitalist reforms, stated: “No theory of government was ever given a fairer test or a more prolonged experiment in a democratic country than democratic socialism received in Britain. Yet it was a miserable failure in every respect. Far from reversing the slow relative decline of Britain vis-a-vis its main industrial competitors, it accelerated it. We fell further behind them, until by 1979 we were widely dismissed as ‘the sick man of Europe.’”


Major developed economies face a surge in debt as the coronavirus crisis sparks massive fiscal stimulus, but they have time to get their houses in order, Barclays said on Wednesday.

In a new report on debt in developed markets, the British bank added that policymakers won’t be able to ignore worsening fiscal profiles for long.

The ratio of debt to gross domestic product for G20 countries is set to rise above World War Two levels in the coming year. Barclays expects the U.S. ratio to rise almost 30 percentage points over the next two years; the euro area’s is likely to grow to around 100% in 2020 from about 85% in 2019.

Barclays said the United States is seeing the greatest fiscal deterioration but is “least likely to face a reckoning” on its debt levels.

That is because the world’s biggest economy enjoys the benefits of having the reserve currency and a large and liquid bond market that’s less prone to volatility, Barclays said.

But the euro zone remains vulnerable, as a monetary union without a fiscal union.

Italy’s debt burden is rising sharply, but its debt trajectory is likely to stabilise at high levels rather than end up on “unsustainable exponential path”, Barclays said. It expects the country’s debt/GDP ratio to reach 165%.

“The key contributor is the structurally low core interest rates and the ECB’s commitment to putting a cap on Italian spreads,” Barclays said, referring to the European Central Bank’s asset-purchase scheme.

Barclays also said the bar for a new euro zone debt crisis was high versus 2010-12, noting a sharp fall in financing costs. It estimates average nominal yields on sovereign debt have fallen to below 2% from 3.75% in 2010.

But while borrowing costs in the eurozone have fallen broadly, the diverging economic trends between Southern and Northern Europe and its unique monetary system means Europe has to carve out a separate way to reduce overall debt.

Barclays expects redistributing money and credit and pursuing a policy of financial repression by putting a ceiling on bond yields will be the most relevant channels to reduce debt to income levels in highly indebted nations.

For Italy, “an evolution of partial fiscal transfers and debt mutualisation into a permanent one over time would provide protection in case of more permanent macro shocks in the interest rate environment,” it said.

In Britain, Barclays expects debt management to come under greater scrutiny in a post-Brexit environment.

“A belief that the gilt market will passively accept higher borrowings and less fiscal transparency may be an assumption that a future government does not have the luxury of making,” Barclays said

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had not recommended the general closure of public schools in the spring when panicked governors and local officials shuttered schools across the land.

These high-minded officials -- read Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak -- weren't listening to "the science," as they claimed. At the time, CDC guidelines recommended closing schools only after an infected person had exposed a campus or in areas of high infection rates -- and then only for two to five days to clean and disinfect buildings.

But once the school closures began, they became the default response. American children were deprived of months of critical classroom time to teach them to read, to steep them in their history and help them navigate the physical world -- with little pushback.

At long last Tuesday, President Donald Trump and the American Academy of Pediatrics joined together to snap institutional America out of the stupor.

The academy advocated that educators start the fall semester "with a goal of having students physically present in school" -- a gesture meant to throw cold water on school officials considering distance education only in the fall.

As task force member Deborah Birx said, the mortality rate for people younger than 25 is less than 0.1%. These rare, sad cases overwhelmingly involve children with other health issues, which means parents would know to keep their children at home.

While the National Education Association and Democratic National Committee have panned opening public schools, ostensibly because they are not safe, remote learning simply hasn't worked.

A recent Clark County School District survey showed that parents, students, school staff and stakeholders overwhelmingly prefer a "full-time return to the regular school day and schedule." All groups rejected distance education, as well as "blended" schedules of both classroom and remote learning


This Independence Day, more than any in living memory, it is vitally important that we reflect upon that greatest of all anti-slavery documents, the Declaration of Independence.

That document in turn launched the greatest abolitionist movement in human history: the United States of America.

The United States was not founded as a regime of institutionalized racism, tribalism, or injustice. Intrinsic to the founding principles of this country, America institutionalized freedom, institutionalized opportunity, and institutionalized justice.

We need only remember. And we should. It might be the only thing that prevents our country from further descent into violent chaos and the tyranny that typically follows.

Two regimes are fighting an ideological war in America today. But what side are you on? And how can you sharpen up on how to defend your position? Learn more now >>

Slavery is old. Slavery is older than human history, stretching back thousands of years to prehistoric times, before written historical records were kept.

Slavery has taken different forms among different people in different places around the globe, existing at one time or another—often for long periods of time—on every continent. Sometimes slavery has resulted from war, sometimes from religious persecution, sometimes from debt. Skin color has been important in some kinds of slavery, not so much in others.

When the sciences of shipbuilding and sailing became advanced enough for the reliable transportation of cargo, transoceanic trade in slaves became big business. It was the first time large numbers of slaves were sold and sent to distant lands, where they lived among people strikingly different from themselves.

Much ugliness and injustice dwells in the stories of the slave trade. It is heart-wrenching to learn human beings were treated as mere property, owned, controlled, used, bought and sold by others. 

Injustice is colorblind.

Amid the growth of the international slave trades—and in the context of the much older story of slavery itself—one group of people, far from being morally perfect, dared to declare a universal, true moral idea: that all men are created equal in terms of inalienable natural rights to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.

And these imperfect people set for themselves an ambitious goal for which there was no historical model: to create a new nation upon that idea.

The idea was enshrined forever in the America’s Declaration of Independence, and memorialized in Abraham Lincoln’s famous speech at the Gettysburg cemetery.

The American idea is perfect. Every human being, regardless of looks, language, or religious beliefs—whether rich or poor or in between—does possess, by nature, a morally rightful claim to his or her own freedom, to whatever he or she rightfully owns, equal to all other human beings.

We know that injustices are wrong—we know that slavery is wrong—precisely because we know that the American idea is right. 

To live up to the American idea means abandoning slavery and all forms of tribalism in our public policies. No dividing citizens into groups, granting special government-dispersed powers, perks, favors, and crony subsidies to some while placing special burdens on others. No turning our backs on the natural rights of some. No stealing from others. No giving to the politically privileged and the politically preferred what they have not earned. 

In the early decades of our republic, many Americans made big strides toward their goal. They treated slavery like a cancer: prohibiting the supply of slaves from Africa; prohibiting the spread of slavery to new federal territories; confining slavery to where it existed in the original states. Between the Declaration of Independence and 1800, a mere 24 years, half of those original states abolished domestic slavery.

Never before had a people declared their own independence upon a universal moral idea that applies to all human beings, everywhere, always. Never before had so much been done to constrain and eliminate slavery so quickly.

The American Founding was the greatest anti-slavery movement in human history, hands down.

That was not the end of the tragic story, of course. Changes in technology, new business opportunities, the importation of 19th-century European philosophy and science, and rigid biblical theologies sparked new economic interests in slavery while convincing Southern slavers that they were right.

Through a terrible, bloody Civil War, Americans abolished slavery by way of a constitutional amendment, only a few more than four score and seven years after the Declaration of Independence.

The American idea requires equal protection of the laws for the equal individual rights of each and every citizen. Period.

Let us embrace our own beautiful founding idea. Let us show the world, by example, what institutionalized freedom, institutionalized opportunity, and institutionalized justice look like.

All we need do is live up to our own standard in our policies and our practices. All we have to do is remember and reflect upon the true ideas contained in our own Declaration of Independence.

Many years ago, one of my duties as a young surgical intern was to fill out death certificates for recently deceased patients. Under “cause of death,” Part I asked for the immediate cause, other conditions leading to it, and the underlying cause. Part II asked for “other significant conditions contributing to death but not resulting in the underlying cause given in Part I.” If you think this is confusing, you’re right. Did the post-operative patient found dead in bed really die of a heart attack, a pulmonary embolism, or some operative complication, like bleeding? Where do you list their colon cancer or hypertension?

The task has not gotten any easier during the Covid-19 pandemic. People are still dying of heart disease, stroke, cancer, and accidents. But now there is a new respiratory illness to account for. Not every decedent who tested positive for the virus that causes Covid-19 died from it—in fact, the disease is mild for most people. Conversely, some deaths due to Covid-19 may be erroneously assigned to other causes of death because the people were never tested, and Covid-19 was not diagnosed. Nearly everyone dying of Covid-19 has concurrent health problems—the average decedent has 2.5 co-morbid conditions—and hypertension, heart disease, respiratory diseases, and diabetes are among the most common. The presence and interaction of these co-morbid conditions is what sometimes changes Covid-19 from a relatively benign disease into a killer. But co-morbidities can also cause death regardless of Covid-19.

A common way to distinguish the mortality burden of a new infectious agent from other causes of death is to estimate the excess deaths that occurred beyond what would be expected if the pathogen had not circulated. A recent study of 48 states and the District of Columbia estimated 122,300 excess deaths during the pandemic period of March 1 to May 30, compared with expected deaths calculated from the previous five years. Deaths officially attributed to Covid-19 accounted for 78 percent of the total; approximately 27,000 deaths (22 percent) were not attributed to Covid-19. A second study, using the same database with different statistical methods for the period March 1 to April 25, found that 65 percent of 87,000 excess deaths were attributed to Covid-19.

Only part of the discrepancy between excess deaths and official Covid deaths results from undercounting of Covid deaths. In New York City, when excess deaths between March 11 (the first recorded Covid-19 death) and May 2 were examined, only 57 percent had laboratory-confirmed Covid-19. Yet when probable deaths—deaths for which Covid-19, SARS-CoV-2, or an equivalent term was listed on the death certificate as an immediate, underlying, or contributing cause of death, but that did not have laboratory confirmation of Covid-19—were added in, 22 percent of excess deaths were still not attributed to Covid-19.

The indirect effect of the pandemic—deaths caused by the social and economic responses to the pandemic, including lockdowns—appears to explain the balance. For instance, people delayed needed medical care because they were instructed to shelter in place, were too scared to go to the doctor, or were unable to obtain care because of limitations on available care, including a moratorium on elective procedures.

Inpatient admissions nationwide in VA hospitals, the nation’s largest hospital system, were down 42 percent for six emergency conditions—stroke, myocardial infarction (MI), heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, appendicitis, and pneumonia—during six weeks of the Covid-19 pandemic (March 11 to April 21) compared with the six weeks immediately prior (January 29 to March 10). The drop was significant for all six conditions and ranged from a decrease of 40 percent for MI to 57 percent for appendicitis. No such decrease in admissions was found for the same six-week period in 2019. These emergency conditions did not become any less lethal as a result of the pandemic; rather, people simply died from acute illnesses that would have been treated in normal times.

Deaths from chronic, non-emergent conditions also increased as patients put off maintenance visits and their medical conditions deteriorated. In the second study of excess deaths, the five states with the most Covid-19 deaths from March through April (Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania), experienced large proportional increases in deaths from non-respiratory underlying causes, including diabetes (96 percent), heart diseases (89 percent), Alzheimer’s disease (64 percent), and cerebrovascular diseases (35 percent). New York City—the nation’s Covid-19 epicenter during that period—experienced the largest increases in non-respiratory deaths, notably from heart disease (398 percent) and diabetes (356 percent).


Lead author Elette Engels (centre) and colleagues at the Australian Synchrotron. Credit: University of Wollongong
Australian scientists have trialled in rats a new radiation therapy technique that uses ultra-fine X-rays to target brain cancer cells with precision.

Working at the Australian Synchrotron, a team from the University of Wollongong combined personalised microbeam radiation therapy (MRT) with what they describe as an innovative assessment of tumour dose-coverage.

It is, they say, the first long-term study to look at optimisation of personalised pre-clinical MRT of high-grade brain cancer.

And while more research is needed before human trials can begin, they believe the evidence to date suggests the techniques are transferable.

The results and methods, which are described in a paper in the journal Scientific Reports, investigated MRT from multiple points of view, including radiation and medical physics, radiobiology, diagnostic imaging and preclinical survival.

Lead author Elette Engels and colleagues used CT scans to map individual brain tumours in rats, then MRT to deliver high doses to the cancer cells. The synchrotron is able to produce much more powerful X-rays than conventional hospital X-ray machines.

The treated rats survived for longer than others with the same aggressive brain tumours. No long-term adverse effects were observed, and there was no noticeable decline in cognition, vision, mobility or behaviour in the treated rats.

“A single dose of this personalised synchrotron MRT treatment could be more effective than multiple radiation treatments as they are delivered now,” says Engels. “Waiting times and toxic dosage could be eliminated if this technology was available in hospitals.”