New York’s Covid-19 Toll Nears 9/11 Level

State Sees Biggest Daily Toll Of 500+; US May Ask All To Wear Masks

Chidanand.Rajghatta@timesgroup.com

Washington:04.04.2020

Amid rising concern about the durability and lethality of the coranavirus, including its professed ability to transmit through even regular breathing/exhalation, American health and public safety mandarins are further tightening public health protocols and social distancing norms, even as toll from the pandemic neared 7,000 in America.

This comes as New York state on Friday recorded more than 500 coronavirus-related deaths in a single day, bringing its total to nearly 3,000, or about the same number killed in the US in the 9/11 attacks. The 24-hour toll was 562, raising the New York state total to 2,935 fatalities, Governor Andrew Cuomo said, calling it the “highest single increase in the number of deaths since we started”. Cuomo said the state also had more than 10,000 new cases in a single day, passing 1,00,000 in confirmed infections.

New guidelines recommending wearing of masks in public places at all times are expected anytime now, overriding suggestions that only sick people are needed to wear masks. Because of the shortage of masks and the need for higher grade N95 masks by medical personnel, people are being asked to wear any kind of mask, including home-made masks, scarves, bandannas, handkerchiefs etc, under the principle that something is better than nothing.

The updated guidelines follow research results that purportedly show the coronavirus has extraordinary durability and stealth features, including ability to transmit asymptomatically and to stick around in the air and surfaces longer than normal.

While a majority of infected people still appear to show mild symptoms and its mortality rate is now thought to be closer to 1% or even less, the transmissibility of the virus is something that has surprised scientists. A leading infectious disease scientist on Wednesday wrote to the White House in response to its queries that “currently available research supports the possibility that (virus) could be spread via bioaerosols generated directly by patients’ exhalation” — in other words, the simple act of breathing normally (not just coughing or sneezing) by even asymptomatic carriers could transmit the virus.

“If you generate an aerosol of the virus with no circulation in a room, it’s conceivable that if you walk through later, you could inhale the virus. But if you’re outside, the breeze will likely disperse it,” Dr. Harvey Fineberg, chairman of a committee with the US National Academy of Sciences, explained in a CNN interview, adding how long coronavirus lingers in the air depends on several factors, including how much virus an infected individual puts out when breathing or talking, and also on the amount of circulation in the air.

Meanwhile, wrangles continued between the White House and state and city officials over limited resources even as the president continued to boast about how his quick action on stopping travel from China very early helped contain the pandemic in the US. However, data from the US Customs and Border Protection reported in the local media shows that nearly 4 million travellers entered the US during December, January, and February when the outbreak was taking a foothold across the world. Of them, 759,493 people entered the U.S. from China, while 343,402 travellers arrived from Italy, 418,848 from Spain, and about 1.9 million more came from Britain.

Top officials at the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention are pushing for President Trump to advise everyone to wear masks when in public, arguing that doing so will reduce the number of people who get infected

‘Don’t use pandemic to target minorities’

Chidanand Rajghatta

Governments and establishments across the world should not use the coronavirus pandemic to target minorities, a key US official said on Thursday. “We are tracking the blaming of religious minorities for Covid-19 virus, and unfortunately, it is happening in various places. This is wrong … Governments really should put this down and state very clearly that this (religious minorities) is not the source of the coronavirus,’’ Sam Brownback, a former Senator and governor and the current US ambassador-at-large for International Religious Freedom, said. Brownback’s observation was part of a broader critique of the persecution of religious minorities across the world and the need to release them in the time of the coronavirus pandemic because of the conditions they are held in. He also criticised the killing of minority Sikhs in Kabul in an attack on a gurdwara last weekand.