September 17, 2020 • No Comments • National News

Myriam Borzee/iStockBy MORGAN WINSOR, ABC News

(NEW YORK) — A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now killed more than 942,000 people worldwide.

Over 29.9 million people across the globe have been diagnosed with COVID-19, the disease caused by the new respiratory virus, according to data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. The criteria for diagnosis — through clinical means or a lab test — has varied from country-to-country. Still, the actual numbers are believed to be much higher due to testing shortages, many unreported cases and suspicions that some national governments are hiding or downplaying the scope of their outbreaks.

Since the first cases were detected in China in December, the virus has rapidly spread to every continent except Antarctica.

The United States is the worst-affected country, with more than 6.6 million diagnosed cases and at least 197,120 deaths.

California has the most cases of any U.S. state, with more than 772,000 people diagnosed, according to Johns Hopkins data. California is followed by Texas and Florida, with over 696,000 cases and over 674,000 cases, respectively.

Nearly 170 vaccine candidates for COVID-19 are being tracked by the World Health Organization, at least six of which are in crucial phase three trials.

Here’s how the news is developing Thursday. All times Eastern:

Sep 17, 1:02 pm
Abu Dhabi using smartwatch tech to enforce self-quarantines

All travelers arriving at Abu Dhabi International Airport are required to undergo thermal screening, take a COVID-19 test and self-quarantine for two weeks.

After clearing immigration, those who arrive will also be required to wear a free, medically approved wristband during their self-quarantine, Etihad Airlines confirmed in a statement to ABC News.

Only United Arab Emirates (UAE) nationals are allowed to fly into Abu Dhabi International Airport. UAE nationals arriving at the airport would be exempt from wearing wristbands if they hold diplomatic passports, are under the age of 18, over the age of 60, or have a chronic disease.

According to the UAE government portal, authorities in Abu Dhabi have been using the technology to track and monitor people diagnosed with COVID-19 to make sure they are self-quarantining.

The UAE has over 81,000 COVID-19 cases and at least 402 fatalities, according to the state-run WAM news agency.

ABC News’ Christine Theodorou, Clark Bentson and Ibtissem Guenfoud contributed to this report.

Sep 17, 12:21 pm
HHS Secretary to testify before Congress on Oct. 2

Alex Azar, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, will testify before a House select subcommittee on Oct. 2 about the response to the pandemic.

This will be his first appearance before Congress since February.

According to the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, “The hearing will examine the Trump Administration’s unprecedented political interference in the work of scientists and public health experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Food and Drug Administration, the Administration’s refusal to provide accurate and clear public health information, and the failure of the Administration to develop and implement a comprehensive national plan to contain the coronavirus, more than eight months into this public health emergency.”

ABC News’ Mariam Khan contributed to this report.

Sep 17, 11:15 am
New York City again delays start of in-person classes for most students

Three days before public schools in New York City were slated to reopen for in-person learning, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a new timetable.

“It involves several phases,” de Blasio said at a press conference Thursday.

Students in pre-K, 3-K and special education programs will resume in-person learning Monday, as scheduled. Those in K-5 and K-8 schools will now return to physical classrooms on Sept. 29, while middle and high schools won’t open until Oct. 1.

Remote learning will begin citywide Monday for those whose in-person start dates have been pushed back.

It’s the second time the mayor has delayed the start of in-person classes amid the coronavirus pandemic. De Blasio said his colleagues had reached out to him with “real concerns.”

“They acknowledged progress has been made but more had to be done to make sure that things would be as strong as they needed to be,” he said.

ABC News’ Aaron Katersky contributed to this report.

Sep 17, 9:58 am
150 million more children in poverty due to COVID-19, report says

The coronavirus crisis has pushed 150 million more children into poverty, according to an analysis published Wednesday night by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the U.K.-based charity Save the Children.

Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the number of children living in deprivation in low- and middle-income countries has increased by 15% to approximately 1.2 billion. The multidimensional poverty analysis used data on access to education, health care, housing, nutrition, sanitation and water from more than 70 countries.

Although the report already paints a dire picture, UNICEF warned the situation will likely worsen in the coming months.

“COVID-19 and the lockdown measures imposed to prevent its spread have pushed millions of children deeper into poverty,” UNICEF executive director Henrietta Fore said in a statement Wednesday. “Families on the cusp of escaping poverty have been pulled back in, while others are experiencing levels of deprivation they have never seen before. Most concerningly, we are closer to the beginning of this crisis than its end.”

The analysis noted that not only are more children across the globe experiencing poverty than before, but the poorest children are getting poorer as well.

UNICEF and Save the Children said they are both committed to continue to monitor the situation while working with governments and civil society to confront it.

“This pandemic has already caused the biggest global education emergency in history, and the increase in poverty will make it very hard for the most vulnerable children and their families to make up for the loss,” Save the Children International CEO Inger Ashing said in a statement Wednesday. “Children who lose out on education are more likely to be forced into child labour or early marriage and be trapped in a cycle of poverty for years to come. We cannot afford to let a whole generation of children become victims of this pandemic. National governments and the international community must step up to soften the blow.”

ABC News’ Dragana Jovanovic contributed to this report.

Sep 17, 9:24 am
860,000 Americans filed jobless claims last week

Some 860,000 Americans lost their jobs and filed for unemployment insurance last week, the U.S. Department of Labor said Thursday.

The latest tally shows that the nationwide number of new jobless claims have dropped significantly since peaking at 6.9 million in the last week of March. Still, the figure shatters the pre-pandemic weekly record set in 1982 of 695,000.

More than 29 million people across the country are currently receiving unemployment benefits under state and federal programs, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Sep 17, 7:50 am
COVID-19 outbreaks hit French universities

Dozens of university campuses in major cities across France are reporting COVID-19 outbreaks, according to various local media outlets.

The affected cities reportedly include Lyon, Marseille, Montpellier, Rennes and Toulouse.

In a recent interview with French newspaper Ouest-France, the country’s minister of higher education, Frederique Vidal, said the clusters of cases emerging on university campuses are “mostly linked to private gatherings,” such as student parties. Still, Vidal said she wants to maintain in-person classes “because it is important that teachers and students meet,” particularly first-year students “who need benchmarks.”

French student unions, on the other hand, have laid the blame on overcrowded lecture halls.

Since the start of the academic year, at least 81 schools across France have been closed and 2,100 classes have been cancelled due to COVID-19.

“We have seen around 1,200 new COVID cases among school pupils this week,” France’s minister of national education, Jean-Michel Blanquer, told reporters Wednesday. “Classes are closed as soon as there are three positive cases.”

Sep 17, 6:40 am
2-month-old baby dies from COVID-19 in Michigan

A 2-month-old baby in Michigan has died from COVID-19.

Michigan’s chief medical executive, Dr. Joneigh Khaldun, announced the infant’s death during a press conference Wednesday, while discussing how children are not spared from the novel coronavirus.

“I was so saddened to hear this news,” Khaldun said. “My condolences go out to their parents and family.”

Nearly 800 children across the United States have been diagnosed with Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C), a new pediatric disease associated with COVID-19 that can cause multiple organs to fail, according to Khaldun.

“Studies show that while children are less likely to get severely ill from COVID-19, they still can and they can also pass it on to others,” Khaldun said, while urging people to wear masks, wash their hands and maintain social distancing.

“COVID-19 is not something to be taken lightly,” she added.

Twenty children under the age of 1 have died of COVID-19 nationwide as of Sept. 12, according to the latest data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Sep 17, 5:30 am
US sees nearly 17% jump in coronavirus-related deaths

An internal memo from the Federal Emergency Management Agency obtained by ABC News on Wednesday night showed that the current national trend in new cases is only slightly down while the trend in new deaths is way up.

There were 261,204 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in the United States during the period of Sept. 9-15, a 0.7% decrease from the previous week. Meanwhile, 5,906 coronavirus-related deaths were recorded during that same period, a 16.6% increase compared with the seven days prior, according to the FEMA memo.

The national positivity rate for COVID-19 tests currently stands at 4.4%, a 0.1% decrease over the past week, according to the memo.

Sep 17, 4:48 am
US reports nearly 37,000 new cases, just under 1,000 deaths

There were 36,782 new cases of COVID-19 identified in the United States on Wednesday, according to a real-time count kept by Johns Hopkins University.

Wednesday’s tally is far below the country’s record set on July 16, when there were 77,255 new cases in a 24-hour-reporting period.

An additional 977 coronavirus-related fatalities were also recorded Wednesday, down from a peak of 2,666 new fatalities reported on April 17.

A total of 6,630,892 people in the United States have been diagnosed with COVID-19 since the pandemic began, and at least 196,802 of them have died, according to Johns Hopkins. The cases include people from all 50 U.S. states, Washington, D.C. and other U.S. territories as well as repatriated citizens.

By May 20, all U.S. states had begun lifting stay-at-home orders and other restrictions put in place to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus. The day-to-day increase in the country’s cases then hovered around 20,000 for a couple of weeks before shooting back up and crossing 70,000 for the first time in mid-July. The daily tally of new cases has gradually come down since then.

Sep 17, 4:27 am
India records world’s highest increase in new cases

India confirmed 97,894 new cases of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, marking the highest single-day increase in infections worldwide since the coronavirus pandemic began.

An additional 1,132 coronavirus-related fatalities were also recorded. The country’s cumulative total now stands at 5,118,253 cases and 83,198 deaths, according to the latest data from the Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

India has the second-highest tally of COVID-19 cases in the world and the third-highest death toll in the coronavirus pandemic, according to a count kept by Johns Hopkins University. The relatively low death toll in a vast county of 1.3 billion people is raising questions about how it’s counting coronavirus fatalities.

India has reported more than one million cases this month alone. Based on the current rate of infection, India is expected within weeks to become the pandemic’s worst-hit nation, surpassing the United States, where more than 6.6 million people have been diagnosed with COVID-19.

India’s health ministry has attributed the surge in infections to increased testing. The country is conducting more than one million COVID-19 tests per day.

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September 16, 2020 • No Comments • National News

Breonna Taylor FamilyBy BILL HUTCHINSON, ABC News

(LOUISVILLE, Ky.) — Breonna Taylor’s image has appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair magazine and in giant murals around the county — but Tamika Palmer says she still wears a T-shirt bearing her daughter’s likeness to make sure no one forgets her name and how she died in a hail of police gunfire in her own home.

“I wear this shirt just to remind people that every day I’m fighting for her,” Palmer told ABC News. “It doesn’t matter if my day is full of me running errands; when I’m out and about, people see me so they need to see her name.”

On Tuesday, Palmer stood before news cameras wearing her T-shirt as she and the mayor of Louisville, Kentucky, announced a $12 million settlement in a lawsuit she filed against the city after three white police officers serving a “no-knock” warrant on Taylor’s apartment in March broke down the door and shot her multiple times.

The settlement, which lawyers for the Taylor family say is the largest ever paid out for a Black woman killed in an alleged police misconduct case, also includes an agreement to implement major reforms in the Louisville Metro Police Department in hopes they will prevent anything similar from occurring again.

“The police reform will definitely be a part of her legacy,” Palmer said of her daughter. “So it’ll help to continue to let her name live on now.”

Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer said the reforms are intended to build stronger connections between the city’s police department and the communities officers serve. They include establishing a housing credit program to incentivize officers to live in certain low-income neighborhoods in the city, and encouraging officers to volunteer two hours every two-week pay period in the communities they serve.

I’m still working for getting justice for her. For me, it will never be over.

A program will be established to include social workers in the police department to assist officers on certain calls, particularly those involving people suffering from mental illness. The reforms will also require the police department to overhaul how search warrants are obtained, and to create an Office of Inspector General to oversee an “early-warning system” that tracks use-of-force incidents and citizens’ complaints in an attempt to weed out bad officers, Fischer said.

In the six months since the 26-year-old Taylor was shot to death, protesters throughout the country have repeated her name in their almost daily calls for justice for her and a growing list of Black people killed in confrontations with police.

Civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, who is representing the Taylor family, told ABC News that he and Palmer hope the reforms reached in Louisville, which also include policies to increase police accountability and transparency, will “be used as a model all across America in the name of Breonna Taylor.”

“That was her conviction from the very beginning when we started to negotiate,” Crump said of Palmer. “She wanted to have reform.”

He said the program to incentivize officers to live in the communities they work in is particularly important.

“We’ve always said it’s important that if the police knew the individuals in the communities that they were policing there would be less of this ignorance of one another,” Crump said. “You wouldn’t fear these young Black people when you saw them because they would be your neighbors.”

Taylor and her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, were sleeping inside their Louisville apartment on March 13 when police officers attempted to execute a “no-knock” search warrant. Three plainclothes officers forced open Taylor’s front door and “blindly” fired into the apartment, according to a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Palmer in April.

Taylor, a certified emergency medical technician, was accused of accepting USPS packages for an ex-boyfriend who police were investigating as an alleged drug trafficker, according to the warrant. No drugs were found in her home, officials said.

The police officers claimed they knocked several times then used a ram to open the door before they were met with gunfire. Walker said he called 911 before he used his licensed firearm to fire one shot, which struck one of the officers in the leg.

The three officers involved in the shooting, Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly and detectives Brett Hankison and Myles Cosgrove, were placed on administrative reassignment pending the results of an investigation.

Hankison was later fired for his role in the incident. According to his termination letter that was shared with local reporters, Hankison violated procedure when he fired 10 rounds into Taylor’s apartment while executing the warrant.

Taylor’s family has called for the officers to be criminally charged. Kentucky state Attorney General Daniel Cameron released a statement this week saying the case remains under investigation.

Palmer said she will not rest until the officers responsible for her daughter’s death are held accountable.

“We need charges brought against these officers,” Palmer told ABC News. “I’m still working for getting justice for her. For me, it will never be over.”

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September 16, 2020 • No Comments • National News

ABC NewsBy WILLIAM MANSELL and EMILY SHAPIRO, ABC News

(NEW YORK) — Hurricane Sally made landfall near Gulf Shores, Alabama, just before 6 a.m. ET Wednesday as a dangerous Category 2 storm, and is now slamming the Gulf Coast with torrential rain and life-threatening flooding.

The latest

Sally, now weakened to a Category 1, is crawling north-northeast at 5 mph, near the Alabama-Florida border.

Even though Sally is weakening in terms of wind speed, the torrential rainfall is extremely dangerous, falling at 4 inches per hour in parts of Alabama and Florida.

Parts of western Florida and the southeastern Alabama coast are under flash flood emergencies through the evening.

Officials in Baldwin County, Alabama, reported “major to catastrophic flooding,” urging residents to stay off the roads.

In Florida’s Santa Rosa County, officials reported downed trees and power lines and said emergency crews were “only responding to high water calls due to the high wind and the excessive rain.”

Escambia County, Florida, is facing massive flooding due to the historic rainfall, local officials said. Water rescue operations are ongoing there as residents in about 300 homes did not evacuate, officials said.

In Pensacola in Escambia County, where wind gusts reached 92 mph, the flooding is extremely dangerous.

Downtown Pensacola is submerged under at least 3 to 4 feet of water while storm surge in the area climbed to 5.6 feet.

“Flooded roadways and intersections, along with hazardous debris in roadways (locations), have become too numerous to list,” the Pensacola Police Department said. “Please stay off the roadways now.”

Sally has even destroyed a Pensacola bridge; local authorities posted this photo showing the missing section.

The slow-moving storm forced some Alabama first responders to stay indoors — the Orange Beach Police Department said it could no longer respond to calls.

“Present conditions are preventing us from answering calls at this time. Please take all measures to be as safe as possible,” the department tweeted. “If you have the option to move to higher ground do so now.”

Power outages have impacted more than 278,000 customers in Alabama, 225,000 customers in Florida and 3,000 customers in Mississippi.

The forecast

Hurricane Sally’s latest path shows the storm tracking northeast. After Wednesday, remnants of Sally will continue to inch inland toward Atlanta, where up to a foot of rain is possible.

Heavy rain will even spread into South Carolina, North Carolina and southern Virginia, where some areas could see up to 6 inches of rain. Flash flooding is expected there Friday.

This storm has also resulted in several tornado warnings, though no tornadoes have been confirmed yet. A tornado watch was issued for parts of Florida, Georgia, and Alabama until 7 p.m. ET.

Sally is the eighth continental U.S. named storm to make landfall in 2020. The other named storms to make landfall in 2020 so far have been: Bertha, Cristobal, Fay, Hanna, Isaias, Laura and Marco.

Sally’s landfall in Gulf Shores, Alabama, comes 16 years to the day after Hurricane Ivan made landfall in Gulf Shores as a Category 3 storm.

Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

September 15, 2020 • No Comments • National News

ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty ImageBy HALEY YAMADA and MICHAEL MENDEHLSON

(LOS ANGELES) — Families are mourning the loss of loved ones after at least 27 people have been killed in the wake of more than 70 devastating wildfires raging out of control on the west coast.

Josiah Williams, a 16-year-old from Berry Creek, California, died while trying to evacuate from the fires. His aunt told ABC’s “World News Tonight” that she doesn’t blame anyone for the tragedy.

“His brother tried to get back up in there to get him. His dad tried to get back up there,” said Tiffany Long, Josiah’s aunt. “It’s not anybody’s fault. It’s not his mom’s. It’s not his dad. It’s not his brother’s. These things happen, and it’s horrible.”

Milicent Catarancuic died in the North Complex Fire. Her sister, Susan, is one of dozens who are still missing. Their family, who has been grieving for their loss, said that the two sisters just didn’t know how fast the flames were moving.

“What they didn’t know is that there is a wall of flame moving at them at over 1,000 yards an hour. I don’t think they understood that,” said Millicent Catarancuic’s son, Zygy Roe-Zurz.

In the wake of the West Coast inferno, a thick blanket of smoke has created a health hazard for millions. Satellite images have shown the massive smoke clouds spreading all the way across the country, reaching as far as New York.

“It’s difficult to tell at first who has COVID-19 and who has irritant from the pollution,” said Dr. Peter Hakim, an emergency room doctor in Portland, Oregon. “We’re seeing a lot more people with productive coughs, dry coughs [and] shortness of breath.”

Due to the smoke, Portland declared the worst air quality of any major city in the world, according to IQAir. The city handed out 250,000 N95 masks to residents and told people to stay indoors, reported ABC affiliate KATU2.

The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, Lane Regional Air Protection Agency and the Southwest Washington Clean Air Agency extended an air quality advisory Monday for all regions of Oregon and Southwest Washington due to the smoke.

Wildfire smoke is a mix of gases and fine particles from burning vegetation, building materials, and other materials. Wildfire smoke can make anyone sick. Even someone who is healthy can get sick if there is enough smoke in the air, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC also warned that older adults, pregnant women, children, and people with preexisting respiratory and heart conditions may be more likely to get sick if they breathe in wildfire smoke.

Seattle is also stifled by the smoky conditions, which are affecting those already impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The same population that is most vulnerable to the virus is also most vulnerable to the smoke,” said Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has said it’s urgent to address climate change. Newsom has sparred with President Donald Trump over differing views on how to put out the state’s wildfires after Trump criticized the state’s approach to managing its forests and threatened to withhold federal funding.

“I quite literally have no patience for climate change deniers. You may not believe it, intellectually, but your own eyes tell a different story, particularly here in the state of California,” he said this week. “Never have I felt more of a sense of obligation and purpose to maintain California’s status in terms of addressing climate change head on.”

ABC News’ Stephanie Ebbs, Ginger Zee, Lindsey Griswold, Mark Osborne and Jon Haworth contributed to this report.

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September 15, 2020 • No Comments • National News

Ovidiu Dugulan/iStockBy MORGAN WINSOR, ABC News

(NEW YORK) — A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now killed more than 930,000 people worldwide.

Over 29.2 million people across the globe have been diagnosed with COVID-19, the disease caused by the new respiratory virus, according to data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. The criteria for diagnosis — through clinical means or a lab test — has varied from country-to-country. Still, the actual numbers are believed to be much higher due to testing shortages, many unreported cases and suspicions that some national governments are hiding or downplaying the scope of their outbreaks.

Since the first cases were detected in China in December, the virus has rapidly spread to every continent except Antarctica.

The United States is the worst-affected country, with more than 6.55 million diagnosed cases and at least 194,836 deaths.

California has the most cases of any U.S. state, with more than 765,000 people diagnosed, according to Johns Hopkins data. California is followed by Texas and Florida, with over 685,000 cases and over 665,000 cases, respectively.

Nearly 170 vaccine candidates for COVID-19 are being tracked by the World Health Organization, at least six of which are in crucial phase three trials.

Here’s how the news is developing Tuesday. All times Eastern:

Sep 15, 1:35 pm
Vaccine ‘ought to be in a pretty good place’ by middle of 2021, NIH director says

Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, told ABC News, “I would expect that if we have a vaccine that’s approved by December, by the spring, most Americans will have a chance to access it.”

“Certainly by the middle of 2021, we ought to be in a pretty good place,” he said.

But Collins stressed, “I’m saying all this with the assumption that one of these vaccines is going to work. We don’t know that yet, and until we get to that point, science is not predictable.”

Collins said a friend asked him if her daughter should reschedule her May 2021 wedding.

“I didn’t quite know what to say,” Collins said. “I kind of said, ‘Well, you might not reschedule it yet, but you might think about having some flexibility there in case we’re still at the tail end of a time where people really shouldn’t be gathering in large numbers.”

ABC News’ Bob Woodruff and Victor Odonez contributed to this report.

Sep 15, 12:36 pm
UK health workers forced to stay off work due to lack of testing

The organization that represents the publicly funded hospitals of England warned Tuesday that COVID-19 testing shortages across the country are jeopardizing efforts to restore medical services and prepare for a potential surge in cases over the winter.

The National Health Service (NHS) in England is facing an increase in staff absences due to employees and their family members being unable to access a COVID-19 test. Without a test for either them or their loved ones, NHS staff are having to self-isolate after possible exposure to the virus, taking them away from the front line of the pandemic where they are desperately needed, according to a press release from NHS Providers.

NHS Providers CEO Chris Hopson said that hospital leaders in the British cities of Bristol, London and Leeds all raised concerns over the weekend about the lack of testing. He said hospitals “are working in the dark — they don’t know why these shortages are occurring, how long they are likely to last, how geographically widespread they are likely to be and what priority will be given to healthcare workers and their families in accessing scarce tests.”

“They need to know all this information so that they can plan accordingly,” he said in a statement Tuesday. “We need to prioritize tests for healthcare workers and their families and patients coming in for treatment, many of whom have already waited longer than normal.”

U.K. Home Secretary Priti Patel told BBC that delays in testing for the public are “unacceptable.”

Sep 15, 10:43 am
North Carolina county incorrectly tells residents they tested positive

A county in North Carolina sent erroneous text messages and emails to more than 7,000 residents saying they were positive for COVID-19.

More than 6,700 people in Mecklenburg County were told the news in a text message from the local health department last Friday, while more than 500 others received the notice via email. Mecklenburg County said its health department does not text or email test results to those affected.

In a statement Monday, Mecklenburg County manager Dena Diorio explained the erroneous messages were sent through HealthSpace Data System, a Canadian company, to individuals who were already in their system. The technical glitch occurred during “routine maintenance” and was fixed in less than an hour. No personal information was compromised, according to Diorio.

“Once corrected we were told that 6727 text messages and 541 emails were sent to individuals who were already in their system,” Diorio said in an email to the Board of County Commissioners on Monday afternoon. “We then worked with the vendor to send a corrected text/email to all that received the erroneous one.”

To date, more than 27,000 Mecklenburg County residents have tested positive for COVID-19 and at least 339 have died.

Sep 15, 9:45 am
WHO issues guidance on vaccine distribution strategy

The World Health Organization issued framework on Tuesday intended to help decision-makers on how to allocate and prioritize the first supplies of COVID-19 vaccines, which will be limited.

The framework can be a useful resource for countries as they decide on priority groups for COVID-19 to reduce the burden from deaths and disease, to lessen societal and economic disruptions and to protect essential services such as health care.

Priority groups will include — but are not limited to — populations with significantly elevated risk of severe disease or death; populations with significantly elevated risk of being infected; school-aged children to minimize disruption of education and socioemotional development; and then on to workers in non-essential but economically critical sectors.

Sep 15, 6:47 am
University of Wisconsin-Madison votes to cancel spring break

The University of Wisconsin-Madison has moved to cancel spring break next year as part of efforts to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus.

The public research university’s faculty senate voted on Monday to drop the nine-day vacation from the school’s 2021 spring calendar, according a report by Madison ABC affiliate WKOW-TV.

Under the new plan, classes would start Jan. 25, a week later than currently scheduled. Although spring break would be eliminated, classes would not be held on March 27, the beginning of Passover, on April 2, Good Friday, nor on April 3, the day before Easter. Classes would end April 30, the same day as originally planned, according to WKOW.

The move comes just days after the school announced it would be shifting to remote learning while all in-person instruction is paused for two weeks and that two residence halls would be placed under a 14-day quarantine.

Sep 15, 5:58 am
Global number of new cases decreases while deaths increase over past week

The global number of newly diagnosed COVID-19 cases has decreased over the past week while the number of deaths from the disease worldwide has increased, according to data from the World Health Organization.

On Monday, the WHO provided a snapshot for how COVID-19 impacted each region of the world for the week of Sept. 7-13, comparing data to the previous seven-day period. The number of newly diagnosed cases decreased by around 3% globally, while deaths increased by 8%.

The WHO’s Southeast Asia region saw an 11% increase each in new cases and fatalities. The region accounts for 33% of the world’s coronavirus-related deaths in the last week. India, Indonesia and Bangladesh reported the highest number of newly diagnosed cases. The Maldives, however, has the greatest caseload relative to its population size.

The Americas region saw a 19% decrease in new cases and a 10% increase in fatalities, with Guadeloupe reporting its highest numbers.

The Africa region saw a 14% decrease in new cases and a 15% decrease in fatalities, making it the only region to report a decline in coronavirus-related deaths. South Africa has the most cases of any country on the African continent.

The Eastern Mediterranean region saw a 14% increase in new cases and a 3% increase in fatalities. The uptick was largely attributed to seasonal religious and cultural mass gatherings, wedding celebrations and other social events. The number of newly diagnosed cases in Libya has more than doubled over the past two weeks, and the real figures are likely to be even higher due to testing shortages.

The European region saw an 8% increase in new cases and just under a 1% increase in fatalities. The region accounts for 16% of the world’s cases and 25% of deaths. France reported the highest number of newly diagnosed cases in the last week.

The Western Pacific region saw a 4% increase in new cases and a 6% increase in fatalities. The Philippines, Japan and South Korea had the greatest number of newly diagnosed cases. Singapore, however, has the largest number of cases relative to its population size. Overall, the region has the lowest cumulative cases and deaths relative to the populations.

Sep 15, 5:17 am
US reports over 34,000 new cases as hotspots reemerge in Northeast

There were 34,079 new cases of COVID-19 identified in the United States on Monday, according to a real-time count kept by Johns Hopkins University.

Monday’s tally is well below the country’s record set on July 16, when there were 77,255 new cases in a 24-hour-reporting period.

An additional 422 coronavirus-related fatalities were also recorded Monday, down from a peak of 2,666 new fatalities reported on April 17.

A total of 6,554,821 people in the United States have been diagnosed with COVID-19 since the pandemic began, and at least 194,536 of them have died, according to Johns Hopkins. The cases include people from all 50 U.S. states, Washington, D.C. and other U.S. territories as well as repatriated citizens.

By May 20, all U.S. states had begun lifting stay-at-home orders and other restrictions put in place to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus. The day-to-day increase in the country’s cases then hovered around 20,000 for a couple of weeks before shooting back up and crossing 70,000 for the first time in mid-July.

An internal memo from the Federal Emergency Management Agency obtained by ABC News on Monday night showed some areas in the northeastern United States are beginning to reemerge as COVID-19 hotspots, including New Jersey’s Middlesex and Somerset Counties, Maryland’s Wicomico County and Maine’s York County.

Sep 15, 4:51 am
WHO reports record rise in global infections

The World Health Organization has reported the highest single-day increase in COVID-19 infections worldwide since the pandemic began.

The WHO received reports of 308,010 newly confirmed cases across the globe on Sunday. The previous record was set on Sept. 6 when 306,852 new cases were reported, according to a real-time count kept by the WHO.

The cumulative total in global cases surpassed 29 million on Monday.

The WHO also received reports of 5,536 coronavirus-related fatalities on Sunday, down from a peak of 12,430 deaths recorded on April 17.

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