Live updates: U.S. reports more than 1,000 deaths for fourth consecutive day
"Coronavirus Update July 30th"
New infections appear to have peaked across the United States, but hospitalizations continue to rise, and the death toll is soaring. (Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty Images)
By Kim Bellware, Lateshia Beachum, Hannah Knowles, Siobhán O'Grady, John Wagner, Felicia Sonmez, Hamza Shaban, Marisa Iati and Meryl Kornfield
For the fourth straight day, the United States has witnessed more than 1,000 deaths from the novel coronavirus, with 1,249 reported Thursday. The death toll nationwide was slightly lower than Wednesday, when 1,400 coronavirus-related deaths were reported, the worst day in more than two months for deaths from the disease.
Meanwhile, the illness continues to rattle the economy, which shrank a head-spinning 9.5 percent from April through June, the fastest the quarterly rate has fallen in modern record-keeping. At the same time, Congress is still clashing over a new coronavirus relief bill, with no deal reached on extending emergency unemployment benefits that expire on Friday or help for people facing evictions. Concerns are growing that the path to recovery could be delayed and more difficult.
Here are some significant developments:
* Herman Cain, a former pizza chain executive and Republican presidential candidate, died after testing positive for the coronavirus. Though it is unclear where Cain contracted the disease, he attended a June Trump campaign rally in Tulsa that drew several thousand supporters, most of whom did not wear masks.
* President Trump visited the American Red Cross headquarters on Thursday and urged people who have recovered from covid-19 to donate their plasma to help others fight the disease the virus causes. He also wore a face mask as he toured the facilities in Washington, the third time he has worn one in public.
* Baseball’s Philadelphia Phillies announced that two staff members tested positive for the coronavirus. No Phillies players have tested positive, but the team’s three-game series this weekend against the Toronto Blue Jays has been postponed, and all activity at Citizens Bank Park has been canceled.
* Children may have as much of the coronavirus in their respiratory systems as adults, a new study says, complicating Trump’s assertion that children are safer from the virus than older people.
* About 1 in 5 U.S. adults packed up and moved because of the pandemic — or they know someone who did, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center. The likelihood of someone moving or knowing someone who moved is greatest with higher levels of education and income.
Study says that young children carry as much coronavirus in their noses as adults
"... Active cases has increased 47 straight day. Pathetic! Testing is and will be a catastrophe when schools get back. If there are long lines now what the hell is going to happen when schools come back? "
The study could mean that children can easily spread the virus, although more research is necessary.
Children in a pre-school class wear masks and sit at desks spaced apart as per coronavirus guidelines during summer school sessions at Happy Day School in Monterey Park, Calif., on July 9, 2020.Frederic J. Brown / AFP - Getty Images
July 31, 2020, 3:29 AM AEST
By Erika Edwards
Children under 5 can carry just as much of the coronavirus in their noses as older children and adults, researchers at Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago reported Thursday.
The 145 patients were split into three groups: those under 5, those ages 5 to 17, and adults ages 18 to 65.
"Children had equal — if not more — viral RNA in their noses compared to older children and adults," Heald-Sargent said.
Compared to adults, the young kids had anywhere from 10 to 100 times the amount of viral RNA in their upper respiratory tract, the study authors wrote.
"This supports the idea that children are able to get infected and replicate virus and therefore shed and transmit virus just as much as older children and adults," she said, noting that more research is needed to confirm this.
Indeed, "you can have somebody who has high viral load in the nose, but that doesn't mean necessarily that they're going to spread more than somebody who has a little less," said Dr. Rick Malley, a senior physician in pediatrics in the division of infectious diseases at Boston Children's Hospital.
"We don't know that for sure," Malley, who was not involved with the new study, said.
Still, the findings add another layer to the complex question of whether schools should reopen their doors for the fall semester, and if so, how do to so safely.
"We don't have the evidence that children will play the same role with this virus as they do, say, with the flu virus, where it's pretty clear that kids with flu are main drivers of spread," Malley said.
However, he added, COVID-19 is "behaving in an unpredictable way."
Some young people have developed a potentially deadly condition called multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, or MIS-C, that's believed to be linked to COVID-19.
The condition is relatively rare; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention .. https://www.cdc.gov/mis-c/cases/index.html .. reported that as of July 15, 342 cases of MIS-C had been diagnosed in the country. Six children died.
Overall, though, children have largely been spared the most severe consequences of COVID-19.
In Heald-Sargent's study, patients' ages ranged from less than 1 month old to age 65. Those who needed help breathing were excluded from the study. All were diagnosed in March and April.
Lurie Children's required all hospitalized patients to undergo a COVID-19 test, and some cases were discovered, even if children had minimal to no symptoms.
"We were catching kids who came in with a broken arm who happened to test positive," Heald-Sargent said.
It remains unclear how prevalent COVID-19 is among children, in part because testing is limited, especially for those without symptoms. And schools have largely been closed since spring, making it difficult to ascertain how widely kids can spread this virus.
There are some theories for why children may not spread the coronavirus as easily as adults: Their lung capacity is smaller, so they may not be able to cough or sneeze with the same force as adults. Also, whatever respiratory droplets they emit may fall to the floor because their bodies are simply closer to the floor.
Heald-Sargent, who has young children of her own, dismissed the latter idea. "We have to remember that COVID-19 can be shed in the stool, it can be in the mouth and the nose. Kids touch that. They are little germ factories."
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