Coronavirus Breaking News

According to various Twitter posts on October 6, 2020, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff and other top U.S. military leaders are now under quarantine after the vice commandant of the US Coast Guard tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. 'No Pentagon contacts have exhibited symptoms and we have no additional positive tests to report at this time' added these posts.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, only (8) active duty military personnel have died related to coronavirus disease, as of October 5, 2020.

A non-peer-reviewed study published on October 1, 2020, says 'this model helps to explain the wide variation observed globally in seroprevalence and cumulative fatalities and raises the possibility that the proportion of people already exposed may have exceeded herd immunity threshold (HIT) in certain regions.'

This study found HIT can be lowered by the existence of a fraction of the population who are unable to transmit the SARS-CoV-2 virus, whether they are effectively segregated from the general population or mix randomly.

A new study published by Clinical Infectious Disease on October 3, 2020, indicates the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus survives on human skin for up to 9 hours. This extended survival time on human skin may increase the contact-transmission risk of SARS-CoV-2 compared to other viruses.

However, these researchers found appropriate hand hygiene is highly effective at neutralizing the coronavirus. SARS-CoV-2 found in the mucus/medium on human skin were completely inactivated within 15-seconds by ethanol treatment.

The White House physician Dr. Sean Patrick Conley finished a press briefing on October 5, 2020, regarding the US President's health status and is being 'hammered over his invocation of HIPAA to refuse to answer some questions'. There is a contradiction in what information was revealed and what information was withheld. The only legal basis would not be HIPAA, Tweeted @JonathanTurley, the Shapiro Chair of Public Interest Law at George Washington University.

'Section 45 CFR §164.508 of the HIPAA law which was passed in 1996, stipulates that all uses and disclosures of protected health information (PHI) require an authorization to be obtained from a patient before information prior to any disclosure. A patient can be selective in PHI disclosures.'

A study published by The Lancet on September 28, 2020, suggests that environmental contamination leading to SARS-CoV-2 transmission is unlikely to occur in real-life conditions, provided that standard cleaning procedures and precautions are enforced. These data indicate the coronavirus transmission through inanimate surfaces is less frequent than hitherto recognized.

The UK's Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Matt Hancock told a virtual conference on October 5, 2020, the contact tracing app launched for England and Wales on September 24, has been downloaded about downloaded 15 million times.

The UK's new app uses the Apple and Google designed Bluetooth capability in mobile phones to warn users who may have been exposed to a SARS-CoV-2 infectious person that they should self-isolate, had “gone off the shelf like digital hotcakes”, Hancock said.

Canada's Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam posted on message on Twitter on October 3, 2020, saying 'Canada is running out of time to prevent a major resurgence of COVID-19, with Ontario and Quebec continuing to report excessive numbers of cases. And, diagnostic labs across Canada continue to test for the SARS-CoV-2 virus at a high rate, with an average of over 71,000 people tested daily and which produced a 1.8% positivity rate last week.'

'Public health #TestandTrace remains vital, but without ALL OF US making hard choices now, keeping up with layers of personal protection at all times and #DownsizeYourBubble, it won’t be enough to prevent a large resurgence,' continued Dr. Tam Tweet.

There have been 162,659 cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Canada, including 9,409 fatalities during 2020.