(PHOENIX) — As of Saturday, the University of Arizona reported at least 1,148 COVID-19 infections among students and staff, 877 of them in the last 10 days, according to the university.
The outbreak is being driven by large off-campus parties where kids are not socially distancing or wearing masks, a university spokesperson told ABC News. U of A said it is testing on-campus students every week, in order to identify and quarantine asymptomatic cases. No students have been hospitalized because of the virus, according to the university. Despite increasing infections among students and staff, U of A said it’s not planning to revert to online learning.
Other major institutions, such as the University of Alabama and the University of Georgia, have public-facing COVID-19 tracking dashboards, where students, parents and the public can access at-a-glance data about infections and testing on campus. University spokesperson Holly Jensen told ABC News that while U of A is “a little bit behind the curve” on developing a COVID-19 dashboard, a tracking dashboard is under development and expected to go live early next week.
Transparency is very important to the university, according to Jensen. “I think where people get upset is that we’re not breaking the numbers down far enough,” Jensen said of the university’s COVID-19 online resources. The new dashboard should correct that, she added.
Universities that have reopened in person this fall have struggled with how much information to share with the public about COVID-19 infections among students and staff.
Across the state, Arizona State University’s lack of transparency about COVID-19 infection data has created tension between university officials and students. Despite reporting more than 1,413 infections among students, faculty and staff, ASU has no tracking dashboard.
“Knowing how many cases may be present in our community at one time does not give members of our community useful information about whether they particularly may need to take extra precautions,” an ASU spokesperson told The State Press, ASU’s student newspaper.
ASU has started publishing written reports on positive case counts among students and employees. “That’s our version of a dashboard,” Katie Paquet, an ASU spokesperson, told ABC News. The written reports will be updated twice a week and archived, so that the public can look at trends over time, according to Paquet. There are no plans for an ASU COVID-19 tracking dashboard in the works, she confirmed.
There have been more than 200,000 infections and 5,200 deaths in Arizona due to COVID-19, according to the state health department.
Stephen Maturen/Getty ImagesBY: KARMA ALLEN, ABC NEWS
(NEW YORK) — The family of George Floyd pushed back against accusations levied against him in court on Friday after lawyers claimed he had taken drugs prior to his fatal encounter with Minneapolis police in May.
Defense attorneys for the four officers charged in Floyd’s death claimed he had swallowed fentanyl, a deadly synthetic opioid, before his arrest, but the slain man’s lawyers disputed that.
Ben Crump, a lawyer for Floyd’s family, accused the defense team of blaming the dead, a legal maneuver that “flies in the face of what we see with our own eyes on the video,” he added, referring to viral cellphone footage of an officer with his knee on Floyd’s neck before his death.
“The only overdose that killed George Floyd was an overdose of excessive force and racism by the Minneapolis Police Department. George was lucid, cooperative, obeyed commands and had situational awareness when he died,” Crump said in a statement. “The world witnessed his asphyxiation on video, and now defense counsel is asking us to disbelieve our own eyes. Multiple autopsies determined that he died of asphyxiation because of the officers kneeling on his back and neck.”
He claimed Floyd told the officers that he couldn’t breathe and “pleaded for his life,” but those pleas were ignored.
“It is classic police defense to blame the dead and claim that suspects with any amount of drugs in their system were responsible for their own death,” he said. “It’s called ‘blame the dead,’ and it flies in the face of what we see with our own eyes on the video.”
Crump gathered with the Floyd family outside the Family Justice Center, where the pre-trial hearing took place as more than 200 peaceful protesters marched nearby in support. Some gave speeches condemning the police, including the officers involved in Floyd’s death, while others chanted anti-police brutality slogans.
Philonise Floyd, George Floyd’s brother, said the “painful” video of his brother dying has traumatized his family forever. But he said listening to the defense team “blame him for his own death” showed how unfair the justice system is.
“Watching our brother die on video was the most painful experience of our lives. But listening to those defending these officers blame him for his own death today felt like a knife in the heart,” Philonise Floyd said in a statement. “It shows the degree to which the justice system works to protect those in authority at our expense.”
Crump also accused the opposing counsel of portraying “negative narratives” often used against Black victims of police brutality, in which individuals effectively are “assassinated a second time when the official story line destroys their character after they are dead.”
Attorney Antonio Romanucci, who’s also representing the family in the case, said the officers actions displayed the “shameful failure” of the Minneapolis Police Department.
“When George said the first time that he could not breathe, they had a duty to check his oxygen exchange and ensure that he was breathing normally. They did not,” he said in a statement Friday. “In fact, they let him beg and plead for breath until there was none left, and he was dead. They exerted deadly force on a non-violent suspect who was subdued, handcuffed and prone.”
In addition to the criminal charges, the family filed a civil lawsuit against the city of Minneapolis and the four officers involved — Derek Chauvin, Tou Thao, Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng — in July. The lawsuit claims they used unnecessary and excessive force when detaining George Floyd, resulting in his death. They are seeking compensatory and special damages and requesting that the city “properly trains and supervises its police officers.”
Last month, a defense attorney for Chauvin asked to have all charges dropped against his client, arguing the death of Floyd, 46, allegedly was the result of a drug overdose and not caused by the officer pinning Floyd to the ground with his knee. Chauvin, who was charged with second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter, pleaded not guilty.
Attorneys for Lane and Kueng previously argued that their clients were rookies who followed Chauvin’s lead. Bob Paule, an attorney for Thao, said his client’s role was removed from the attack as he was on crowd control while the others restrained Floyd.
The officers are scheduled stand trail in March of 2021.
The Minneapolis Police Department issued a series of reforms in the wake of the fatal incident. The department now bans officers from shooting at moving vehicles and they are now required to use the lowest level of force possible when apprehending suspects.
“The most impactful thing that we do in this profession is when a decision is made and we have to take a life. Sanctity of life is the cornerstone of how we are guided as a police department, so I see these new changes and updates to use-of-force policy, I think, [keep] both both our officers and our public safe,” Police Chief Medaria Arradondo told reporters last month. “It strengthens our values toward de-escalation and encourages a more reportable force.”
He said the reforms were aimed at reducing encounters like the one that led to Floyd’s death.
“What I have heard from communities over the course of several years is the impact when officers point their weapons at them, even if it doesn’t result in an arrest situation, the trauma that can have,” Arradondo said. “That’s a threatening use of force and we have not captured that before. It’ll be new for our department members, but it speaks to trying to build that public trust.”
ABC News’ Stephanie Wash and Alex Perez contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — An estimated 500,000 people in Oregon have evacuated as a result of the wildfires burning hundreds of thousands of acres across the state, according to the Oregon Office of Emergency Management.
Amid the devastating blazes, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown issued an executive order to combat businesses that are trying to take advantage of those in need by price gouging. This is in response, she said, to reports that some essential consumer goods and services, especially lodging, are seeing increasing prices.
“During a statewide emergency, it is absolutely unacceptable to price gouge Oregonians who have already been hard hit and are facing devastating loss,” Brown said in a statement Thursday.
“As wildfires force thousands of Oregonians to abandon their homes, local businesses have stepped up to ensure that families can find essential goods and services at fair prices,” Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum said in a statement Thursday.
As of Friday morning, there are 38 active fires burning more than 805,000 acres. The largest is the Beachie Creek Fire, which is more than 185,000 acres and is 0% contained. This deadly blaze has resulted in at least two deaths.
The Holiday Farm Fire has burned more than 144,000 acres and is also 0% contained. The Lionshead Fire, which is more than 125,000 acres and has resulted in at least four injuries, is 5% contained.
The Riverside Fire is 120,000 acres and is 0% contained, while the Archie Creek Fires is burning more than 107,000 acres and is 1% contained, according to OEM.
“Thousands of evacuated Oregonians are sleeping in motels, on cots in shelters, or with friends/family,” Brown tweeted. “Please know that we are doing everything in our power to fight these fires.”
While state and local emergency responders continue their work to battle the wildfires, they will now be getting some additional federal help.
A day after a delegation of Oregon lawmakers sent a letter to President Donald Trump asking for disaster assistance, the president approved Oregon’s Emergency Declaration.
“The President’s action authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all disaster relief efforts which have the purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population, and to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures … to save lives and to protect property and public health and safety, and to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe,” a statement from the White House said.
The death toll from the West Coast wildfires has climbed to at least 17, but that number is expected to rise as many people remain unaccounted for, according to local officials.
In California, the fires are continuing to wreak havoc.
The North Complex Fire, formerly known as the Bear Fire, has burned more than 244,000 acres, is 23% contained and has resulted in at least 10 deaths. This deadly blazed has also destroyed at least 2,000 structures.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency Thursday for Siskiyou County, where the Slater Fire is 127,000 acres and is 0% contained.
Cal Fire said Thursday evening that 2.6 million acres have burned across the state currently. Six of the top 20 largest wildfires in California history have occurred this year.
The August Complex Fire is 746,607 acres and is 25% contained.
The El Dorado Fire near San Bernardino is more than 13,000 acres and is 31% contained.
And in the state of Washington, the Cold Springs Fire in Okanogan County is more than 187,000 acres and is 25% contained.
(NEW YORK) — A COVID-19 outbreak has rapidly spread through a Virginia jail, infecting at least 120 inmates and 20 staff members despite emergency protocols officials say have been in place since March to prevent the contagion from infiltrating the facility.
The Pamunkey Regional Jail in Hanover, Virginia, is the latest U.S. correctional institution to report an outbreak of coronavirus which has plagued thousands of jail and prison inmates across the country since the global pandemic started earlier this year.
On Wednesday, officials at the Pamunkey jail announced that 120 of the 380 inmates incarcerated at the lockup have tested positive for the virus in the six days since the first inmate case was detected on Sept. 3.
“It’s virtually impossible to stop outbreaks from occurring within facilities of these types,” Dr. Tom Franck, director of the Chickahominy Health District in Virginia, said during a news conference at the jail. “When you have a congregated setting like this and you’ve got people sharing bathrooms and sharing space together, it’s almost inevitable that you’re going to get outbreaks.”
Franck said officials have narrowed the outbreak to a specific pod at the jail, saying about 70% of the 178 inmates in that section have tested positive for the virus and that test results are pending for another dozen inmates.
While it remains unclear how the virus invaded the 127,000-square-foot facility that has 15 different housing units, James Willett, the jail’s superintendent, said two staff members tested positive for COVID-19 on Aug. 20 and a jail contractor tested positive on Aug. 28.
He said the two jail employees and a third staff member who tested positive on Aug. 31 were immediately instructed to self-isolate. Since then, another 17 staff members have tested positive and have gone into self-isolation.
Willett said the first inmate to test positive had exhibited cold-like symptoms, but most of the other inmates were asymptomatic. He said the inmates who contracted the virus have been isolated from the jail’s general population.
Roughly 200 other inmates at the jail will be tested in the coming days and that the facility has been placed on lockdown, Willett said. He added that any inmate who refuses to be tested will be placed in isolation for 10 to 14 days.
Willett said that none of the inmates who have tested positive have needed to be hospitalized and no deaths have occurred as the result of coronavirus.
The outbreak at the jail came despite stringent precautionary measures instituted at the jail in March that include medical screenings of all newly arriving inmates, who are placed in quarantine for 14 days before being moved to the general population, according to Willett. He said the jail has also canceled all non-essential visits, instituted enhanced cleaning measures of the facility and trained staff and inmates on hand-washing and proper social distancing.
Nathan Webel, deputy superintendent of the jail, told ABC affiliate station WRIC-TV in Richmond, Virginia, that all employees and inmates have been issued N95 masks and are required to wear them at all times, adding that inmates must wear masks any time they leave their bunks.
The outbreak came after Southern California officials announced they are dealing with a rapidly-spreading COVID-19 outbreak at the Santa Barbara County Jail. The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement that 42 inmates have the virus and are currently isolated, including three who tested positive on Thursday.
Since the pandemic started, a total of 84 inmates have tested positive for COVID-19, including a 38-year-old man who died from the virus on Aug. 11, jail spokesperson Raquel Zick told ABC News on Thursday. The jail has a total of about 450 inmates.
U.S. jails and prisons have been hit particularly hard by the pandemic, prompting the early release or home confinement of thousands of inmates in an attempt to reduce the population of incarcerated individuals.
A research letter published in July in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) found that between March 31 and June 6, 42,107 inmates at U.S. prisons had contracted COVID-19 and 510 had died. The research, conducted by the UCLA Law COVID-19 Behind Bars Data Project, found that the COVID-19 case rate for U.S. prisoners was 5.5 times higher than the U.S. population case rate of 587 per 100 000 people.
(NEW YORK) — A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now killed more than 903,000 people worldwide.
Over 27.8 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 6.36 million diagnosed cases and at least 190,869 deaths.
California has the most cases of any U.S. state, with more than 747,000 people diagnosed, according to Johns Hopkins data. California is followed by Texas and Florida, with over 667,000 cases and over 652,000 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 10, 10:32 am Assange’s extradition case halted over coronavirus fears
The extradition hearing for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been brought to a halt in London after it was revealed that a lawyer representing the U.S. government may have been exposed to COVID-19 and was being tested.
Judge Vanessa Baraitser agreed to a request from Assange’s defense team to adjourn the hearing until the attorney in question, who hasn’t been identified, had received the test results.
“Last night, I was informed that one of the barristers in the case may have been exposed to the virus,” Baraitser said at London’s Old Bailey court on Thursday. “I am told the testing process will be known at some time tomorrow. Whilst the situation is uncertain the hearing should be adjourned until the outcome is known.”
The judge asked both parties for submissions on what to do next if the test comes back positive.
Assange, 49, is accused of conspiring to hack into U.S. government computers and violating an espionage law for releasing documents through WikiLeaks in 2010-2011. If convicted, he faces a sentence of up to 175 years in prison.
The Australian native was arrested in April 2019 at Ecuador’s embassy in London, where had been holed up for almost seven years to avoid extradition.
Sep 10, 9:20 am Nearly 70% of inmates at Virginia jail test positive so far
Nearly 70% of inmates at a jail in central Virginia have tested positive for COVID-19 so far.
The Pamunkey Regional Jail in Hanover, some 20 miles north of Richmond, announced in a press release Wednesday that 124 of 178 inmates who have been tested for COVID-19 have received positive results. Moreover, 20 of 129 staff members who were tested also had positive results.
The jail has a total population of 380 inmates, who will now all be tested for COVID-19, according to a report by Richmond ABC affiliate WRIC-TV.
The jail said the vast majority of those infected were either asymptomatic or had mild symptoms. To date, there have been no hospitalizations or deaths.
“Immediately upon receiving offender results on Monday afternoon, affected individuals were identified and isolated from the general population,” the Pamunkey Regional Jail said in the statement. “In an abundance of caution, the jail facility remains on lockdown, pending additional offender testing in collaboration with health department officials.”
The jail said it was informed of the first pair of positive COVID-19 cases among its staff on Aug. 20 — two employees who were immediately instructed to self-isolate. The third positive case was a jail contractor on Aug. 28, followed by a fourth employee on Aug. 31. Each case was individually reported to the local health department.
The first inmate to test positive for COVID-19 was on Sept. 3, after being isolated with cold-like symptoms within the facility for over a week. The local health department then arranged for all jail staff to be tested and performed testing among inmates “in areas where deemed necessary,” according to jail officials.
“All affected employees were placed on emergency paid leave, and all offenders continue to be appropriately treated by medical staff, who provide 24/7 on-site patient care,” the jail said.
Sep 10, 6:02 am France extends furlough scheme ‘until next summer’
The French government will continue paying up to 84% of salaries for furloughed workers “until next summer” due to prolonged economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, labor minister Elisabeth Borne announced Thursday on France’s BFM television.
France has already spent tens of billions of euros on the temporary unemployment scheme since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, in an effort to save jobs. Last week, the government unveiled a 100 billion euro (approximately $118 billion) stimulus plan to help revive its hard-hit economy.
France, along with other European nations, has seen a rise in COVID-19 infections in recent weeks, as people returned to work and school.
France’s national public health agency reported 8,577 new cases on Wednesday, the country’s second-highest daily increase in COVID-19 infections so far, bringing its cumulative total to 344,101 cases with 30,794 deaths.
Sep 10, 4:37 am Israel records its highest number of new cases
Israel confirmed 3,904 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, its highest day-to-day increase yet.
There were 43,500 COVID tests performed across the Middle Eastern country on Wednesday, with a positivity rate of 9%. Overall, more than 142,000 people have been diagnosed with the disease and at least 1,054 have died, according to the latest data from the Israeli Ministry of Health.
Since Tuesday, some 40 cities and towns across Israel have remained under a nightly curfew as part of efforts to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Sep 10, 4:13 am India reports another record rise in cases
India confirmed 95,735 new cases of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, marking yet another single-day record increase in infections across the country.
The country’s cumulative total now stands at 4.46 million cases with 75,062 deaths, after another 1,172 fatalities in the last 24 hours, according to the latest data from the Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
India has the second-highest tally of cases in the world and the third-highest death toll in the coronavirus pandemic, according to a count kept by Johns Hopkins University.
India’s health ministry said the surge in new infections is due to increased testing, with more than one million tests now being conducted each day across the vast country of 1.3 billion people. So far, nearly 3.3 million people in India have recovered from COVID-19.
Sep 10, 4:09 am US daily death toll shoots back up over 1,000
An additional 1,206 coronavirus-related fatalities were recorded in the United States on Wednesday, a nearly threefold increase from the previous day, according to a real-time count kept by Johns Hopkins University.
The country’s latest daily death toll from COVID-19 — the highest since Aug. 26 — is still under its record set on April 17, when there were 2,666 new fatalities in a 24-hour reporting period.
There were also 34,256 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed across the United States on Wednesday, down from a peak of 77,255 new cases reported on July 16.
A total of 6,336,107 people in the United States have been diagnosed with COVID-19 since the pandemic began, and at least 190,869 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.
Last week, an internal memo from the Federal Emergency Management Agency obtained by ABC News showed the number of new COVID-19 cases in the United States had ticked upward while new deaths had decreased in week-over-week comparisons.
Wolterk/iStockBY: ERIN SCHUMAKER, ABC NEWS
