Thursday live coronavirus updates: U.S. records highest day of new cases since April
U.S. sees highest single day of new COVID-19 Cases
Wednesday marked a record-high of new coronavirus cases in a singled day with 45,557 new confirmed cases, according to a tally by NBC News.
The new record tops the country’s previous highest daily county of new confirmed cases from April 26 by more than 9,000 cases during the first peak on the pandemic, NBC reported.
The World Health Organization reported it’s highest single-day record Sunday, with 183,000 new cases confirmed worldwide.
CVS locations in Swansea, Alton to offer drive-thru testing
Three area CVS locations will begin offering drive-thru COVID-19 testing starting Friday, June 26.
CVS locations in Belleville at 4609 West Main Street, in Swansea at 1801 North Illinois Street and in Alton at 2422 College Avenue will offer testing as part of an expansion of testing offerings from the pharmacies. In total, 1,400 CVS locations are offering drive-thru testing, 16 of which are in Illinois.
Patients must register in advance at CVS.com for a testing.
Masks, travel restrictions, testing as virus cases surge
BANGKOK (AP) — Coronavirus case numbers are rising to dire new levels in several U.S. states and around the world, potentially wiping out two months of progress in fighting the pandemic and prompting governments and businesses to impose new restrictions.
Indonesia exceeded the 50,000 mark for confirmed infections on Thursday as the government allowed businesses to reopen amid increasing economic pressures. In Melbourne, Australia, health workers planned to go door-to-door to test more than 100,000 residents in a coronavirus hot spot that threatens to undo the nation’s success in battling the virus.
In the Indian capital of New Delhi, which has reported over 70,000 cases, authorities will conduct house-to-house screenings for the virus. With the city’s hospitals overwhelmed, military personnel were providing care at makeshift medical wards fashioned from railroad coaches. India reported a record 16,922 cases on Thursday, taking the national total to 473,105, with nearly 15,000 deaths.
American hospital officials and health experts, meanwhile, are warning that politicians focusing on the economy and a public tired of being cooped up are letting a deadly medical disaster spiral to new heights. The 34,700 COVID-19 cases reported Tuesday returned the U.S. to near its late April peak of 36,400 new cases in one day, according to a count kept by Johns Hopkins University.
Several states have set single-day case records this week, including Arizona, California, Mississippi, Nevada, Texas and Oklahoma. Some also broke hospitalization records, as did North Carolina and South Carolina.
“People got complacent,” said Dr. Marc Boom, CEO of the Houston Methodist hospital system. “And it’s coming back and biting us, quite frankly.”
The virus has been blamed for over 120,000 U.S. deaths — the highest toll in the world — and more than 2.3 million confirmed infections nationwide. On Wednesday, the widely cited University of Washington computer model of the outbreak projected nearly 180,000 U.S. deaths by Oct. 1.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont announced that their states, which were devastated by early outbreaks that appear to be under control, will now require travelers from certain states to quarantine for 24 days upon arrival.
The quarantine applies to people coming from states with a positive test rate higher than 10 per 100,000 residents on a seven-day average, or with a 10% or higher positive rate over seven days.
European nations appeared on track to reopen their shared borders by July 1, and their EU representatives debated criteria for lifting restrictions on visitors from outside Europe. In Greece, aviation officials were visiting regional airports that are due to open to direct international flights on July 1.
Americans are unlikely to be allowed into EU nations for at least the next few weeks, given how the pandemic is flaring in the U.S. and President Donald Trump’s ban on Europeans entering the United States.
World financial markets were rattled by the setbacks in fighting the pandemic, which clouded prospects for recoveries of economies mired in their worst downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Asian shares fell Thursday after the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost over 700 points overnight for a drop of 2.7% and the broader S&P 500 fell 2.6%.
The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday that the continent’s cases have surged to more than 336,000, up by 10,000 from a day earlier. The Africa CDC chief said the pandemic on the 54-nation continent “is picking up speed very quickly” while shortages of testing materials and medical equipment remain severe.
Alarmed, some states are moving to ensure more consistent use of face masks and other anti-virus measures.
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, ordered people to wear masks in public as the daily count of hospitalizations and new cases hovered near records. In Florida, several counties and cities recently enacted mask requirements.
Dr. Peter Hotez, an infectious-disease expert at the Baylor College of Medicine in Texas, said he worries that states will squander what time they have to head off a much larger crisis.
“We’re still talking about subtlety, still arguing whether or not we should wear masks, and still not understanding that a vaccine is not going to rescue us,” he said.
In Paris, the city’s iconic Eiffel Tower reopened to visitors for the first time Thursday after its longest-ever closure in peace time: 104 days. But enjoying views from the top requires some effort: the lift that normally carries visitors up the 324-meter (1,063-feet) tall wrought-iron structure remains closed, so for now people have to take the stairs.
“It’s very special, very special because it’s only the Paris people,” said Annelies Bouwhuis, a 43-year-old visitor from the Netherlands. “We’ve seen a lot Paris people enjoying their city, enjoying their parks without all the tourists.”
Skyscraper-studded Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, ended a monthslong nightly curfew, saying in a tweet that there would be “free move all day & night” as long as people wore masks and maintained social distancing.
In China, where the virus first appeared late last year, an outbreak in Beijing appeared to have been brought under control. China reported 19 newly confirmed cases nationwide amid mass testing in the capital.
South Korea was still struggling to quell an outbreak there, reporting 28 new cases on Thursday, mostly associated with nightlife, churches, a huge e-commerce warehouse and door-to-door sales. But the numbers have not reached the hundreds of new cases every day in late February and early March.
Worldwide, over 9.4 million people have been confirmed infected, and nearly 500,000 have died, by Johns Hopkins’ count. Experts say those numbers are low due to limited testings and missed mild cases.
Dr. Michael Ryan, the WHO’s emergencies chief, said when countries will hit their peak numbers of infections hinges entirely on what people do.
“There are no magic answers. There are no spells here. You can’t divine this away,” Ryan told reporters in Geneva. “We have to act at every level.”
Jobless claims and depressed economy show damage from virus
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of laid-off workers seeking U.S. unemployment benefits dipped only slightly last week, and the economy shrank in the first three months of the year — evidence of the ongoing economic damage being inflicted by the viral pandemic.
The economy, which contracted 5% in the January-March quarter, is widely expected to shrink at a roughly 30% annual rate in the current April-June quarter. That would be the worst quarterly contraction, by far, since record-keeping began in 1948.
The government reported Thursday that the number of laid-off workers who applied for unemployment benefits declined slightly to 1.48 million last week. It was the 12th straight drop. Still, applications for jobless aid have declined just 5% in the past two weeks, a much slower rate of improvement than in April and May.
What’s more, an additional 700,000 people applied for jobless benefits last week under a new program for self-employed and gig workers that made them eligible for aid for the first time. These figures aren’t adjusted for seasonal variations, so the government doesn’t include them in the official count.
The steady if slow decline in applications does suggest that the job market is gradually healing from the pandemic, which shuttered businesses and sent the unemployment rate up to 14.7% in April, its highest level since the Great Depression. The total number of people who are receiving jobless aid also fell last week, to 19.5 million from 20.3 million, evidence that employers are rehiring some of the workers who had been laid off since mid-March.
In addition, the government said Thursday that orders for durable goods surged nearly 16% in May, reflecting a rebound in some business activity. Still, the pace of orders and shipments remains far below pre-pandemic levels. And excluding the volatile transportation category, so-called core orders for durable goods rose only modestly last month, reflecting still-sluggish business investment.
The latest economic figures coincide with a sudden resurgence of COVID-19 cases in the United States, especially in the South and West, that’s threatening to derail a nascent economic rebound. On Wednesday, the nation set a record high of new coronavirus cases. Many states are establishing their own records for daily infections, including Arizona, California, Mississippi, Nevada, Texas and Oklahoma. Cases of coronavirus have also jumped in Florida and Georgia.
Should those trends continue, states may reimpose some limits on businesses that would likely trigger job cuts. Whether by choice or by government order, fewer consumers would shop, travel, eat out and visit bars or gyms. All those scenarios would result in renewed layoffs and hinder the economy.
Nervous investors sent stock prices plummeting Wednesday over escalating fears that the economy will suffer further damage from the disease.
“The health crisis continues to cast a dark shadow over the economic landscape,” said Bob Schwartz, a senior economist at Oxford Economics, a forecasting firm.
Before this week’s heightened worries about the pandemic, many economists had been relatively optimistic. In May, the unemployment rate unexpectedly declined, though to a still-high 13.3%. Consumers began spending again, sending retail sales jumping by a record amount. And sales of new homes rose as record-low mortgage rates fueled buyer interest.
Southwestern Illinois coronavirus cases
Here are the latest available statistics from southwestern Illinois health departments as of Wednesday afternoon:
- St. Clair: 1,869 positives, 136 deaths, 14,486 tests administered, 44 pending results, 1,319 recoveries, 29 hospitalizations
- Madison: 852 positives, 68 deaths, 14,509 tests administered, 500 recoveries, 107 hospitalizations
- Randolph: 279 positives, seven deaths, 2,742 tests administered, no hospitalizations, 270 recoveries
- Clinton: 227 positives, 17 deaths, 1 hospitalizations, 172 recoveries
- Monroe: 115 positives, 12 deaths
- Macoupin: 49 positives, four deaths, 4,224 tests administered, 42 recoveries, 13 tests pending
- Perry: 47 positives, 44 recoveries
- Jersey: 33 positives, 1 death, 28 recoveries
- Washington: 19 positives, 19 recoveries
- Bond: 19 positives, one death, one hospitalization, six recoveries, 214 tests administered, one test pending
- Calhoun: One positive, one recovery
State, nation, world statistics
Here are the latest available statistics from the Illinois Department of Public Health and Johns Hopkins University’s coronavirus map as of Wednesday afternoon:
- Illinois: 138,540 cases, 6,770 deaths
- U.S.: 2,457,187 cases, 114,187 deaths, 1,033,261 recoveries
- World: 9,502,025 cases, 483,664 deaths, 5,123,529 recoveries
Want to help? Here are some ideas
The BND has compiled a list of ways you can help during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Go to BND. com to learn about the opportunities to volunteer your time or donate to help communities in the metro-east without putting yourself or others at risk.
You can sew face masks, read stories for people with vision loss and deliver meals to seniors.
If you know of a recognized charitable organization looking for help that isn’t listed, please tell us about it. Send an email to newsroom@bnd.com or fill out the BND’s Southwest Illinois Coronavirus Service and Assistance Guide online at BND.com.
Get the latest news on coronavirus
BND.com will keep you updated throughout the day with information about the spread of the coronavirus in southwestern Illinois.
You can also find the most complete and up-to-date information from government sites including:
State of Illinois’ COVID-19 page: coronavirus.illinois.gov
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/summary.html
Federal government’s coronavirus page: cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html
Who to call about mental health
Here are some resources from mental health professionals for anyone struggling during the COVID-19 pandemic:
- Touchette Regional Hospital’s Mental Health Support and Resource Line: Call 618-482-7158 to talk to trained therapy staff.
- Illinois Human Services Mental Health Division’s Call4Calm: Text the word “talk” to 552020 to text with a mental health care professional for free.
- Centerstone of Illinois, Inc.: Call 618-462-2331 for virtual mental health services.
- Chestnut Health Systems: Call 618-877-4420 for virtual mental health services.
- Narcotics and Alcoholics Anonymous: Call 618-398-9409 or email metroeastnapr@gmail.com to learn about virtual meetings.
- Regional Disaster Mental Health Volunteer Response Team: Call a support line for health care professionals at 618-381-5173.
Contact BND with tips, concerns, suggestions
If you have suggestions about something for the BND to cover regarding the COVID-19 pandemic or if you see a report that sounds suspicious on social media or anywhere else, please drop us a note at newsroom@bnd.com and include a link. We’ll check it out.
We’d like to hear from health-care workers
The BND would like to speak with nurses, doctors and other health care professionals who are on the front lines caring for patients in doctor’s offices, clinics and hospitals during this difficult time. We’re interested in hearing about your challenges and rewards, frustrations and accomplishments. How is this affecting you? Send us an email at newsroom@bnd.com.
Willing to share your COVID-19 story?
Have you recovered from coronavirus or are you in the process of recovering from COVID-19? We would like to hear from you on how you dealt with the respiratory disease. Send us an email at newsroom@bnd.com.
This story was originally published June 25, 2020 at 8:23 AM.