The United States has quickly become the epicentre of the COVID-19 pandemic.
More than 2,500 Americans have lost their lives due to the illness since the pandemic broke out, according to Johns Hopkins University. There are more than 143,000 cases of the novel coronavirus in the U.S. as of Sunday night, more than China or Italy.
Simply by virtue of its size — the U.S. has 8.7 times as many people as Canada — the country was all but destined to have many more cases than Canada.
COVID-19 has brought the hardest-hit state of New York to a standstill. More than 1,000 people have died. Despite having a little over half the Canadian population, New York has more than 59,500 cases.
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That’s more than nine times as many as Canada, which has about 7,405 confirmed cases, including 74 deaths.
1:33 Coronavirus outbreak: Cuomo says deaths from COVID-19 in New York could be in the thousands
Coronavirus outbreak: Cuomo says deaths from COVID-19 in New York could be in the thousands
What went wrong in the U.S. — and what was different in Canada?
While there have been widespread concerns about the availability of coronavirus testing in both countries, U.S. officials have faced sharp criticism for not making tests widely available until far too long after the virus arrived from China early this year.
A report in the New York Times concluded the failure was due to several factors, including technical issues, bureaucracy and a “lack of leadership at multiple levels.”
“The result was a lost month, when the world’s richest country — armed with some of the most highly trained scientists and infectious disease specialists — squandered its best chance of containing the virus’s spread. Instead, Americans were left largely blind to the scale of a looming public health catastrophe,” stated the report, which was based on 50 interviews.
Paul Offit, an infectious disease expert at the University of Pennsylvania, said the severity of the novel coronavirus was “largely ignored” by the U.S. government until there was already community spread.
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“We were very slow to to prohibit travel into this country from China or regions in that area where the virus was circulating,” said Offit. “When we finally did that, it was too late.”
The country’s pandemic preparedness plan — put together in response to the 2005 H1N1 virus by Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci — was also scrapped by the Trump administration, which Offit said left the U.S. ill-prepared for the COVID-19 outbreak.
By comparison, Canada’s leaders from multiple levels and political parties have called on Canadians to self-isolate and physically distance themselves to contain the spread of the virus.
1:48 Coronavirus outbreak: Trudeau asks Canadians to be ‘part of the solution’
Coronavirus outbreak: Trudeau asks Canadians to be ‘part of the solution’
The country’s strategy to deal with this pandemic has been adapted from its influenza preparedness plan, which was updated in 2018.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has also consistently deferred to the “advice of health professionals” in his daily press conferences to inform Canada’s approach.
Experts who spoke with Global News said a number of factors are driving the stark differences between how the pandemic is unfolding in Canada and the U.S.
One of the big ones is how Canada’s provinces have been able to work together on a response, said Stephen Hoption Cann, a professor at the University of British Columbia’s School of Population and Public Health.
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“What we’ve seen through this spreading pandemic is that there’s a lot of co-ordination on quarantine measures and closures from one province to the next, whereas you see the U.S., the 50 states — there’s quite large differences in what’s happening from one state to the next.”
The provinces have also been able to quickly ramp up testing, Hoption Cann said. As of Monday, more than 220,000 COVID-19 tests have been carried out in Canada.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have yet to release comprehensive numbers of Americans tested for COVID-19, but the COVID Tracking Project — a system run by data professionals that tallies every coronavirus test conducted in the U.S. — lists the total at around 850,000.
There’s also the differing structures of the health-care systems, he said. Canadians can access care without costs or insurance claims. And while some U.S. insurers have announced they’ll waive copay fees for testing, for example, there remain significant financial barriers in the system.
2:38 Coronavirus outbreak: Cuomo pleads for healthcare workers across the U.S. to help New York
Coronavirus outbreak: Cuomo pleads for healthcare workers across the U.S. to help New York
In New York City, high population density and social determinants of health such as income and housing are factors, according to Cynthia Carr, epidemiologist and owner of EPI Research in Winnipeg.
“You have people living in very overcrowded apartments and living situations, and those people will be at even higher risk,” she said.
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The city has nearly 33,500 cases of the novel coronavirus and 776 deaths.
While there has been a large number in cases, Carr said the death rate in the city appears to be on par with other areas.
“The mortality rate, just like Canada, is still very much on the low side,” she said.
Sarah Albrecht, a social epidemiologist and assistant professor at Columbia University, added to this.
She said the city’s status as a travel hub for international and domestic tourism makes it particularly vulnerable when faced with a pandemic.
“In many ways, it’s what makes NYC a unique and exciting place,” Albrecht said.
“But when it comes to infectious diseases, the population density — having people so close together — is what makes it easy for them to take hold, and to spread so quickly.”
1:41 Coronavirus outbreak: New York’s Central Park converted into emergency field hospital for COVID-19 patients
Coronavirus outbreak: New York’s Central Park converted into emergency field hospital for COVID-19 patients
The population density in New York City more than doubles that of major cities like Toronto, with 10,935 people per square kilometre, according to a 2015 report from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Comparatively, figures from Statistics Canada in 2016 showed that Toronto had a population density of 4,334 people per square kilometre.
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New York City also has large pockets of marginalized populations, who Albrecht said are at an even higher risk of becoming infected with COVID-19 and experiencing more severe disease.
That state’s hospitals are not fully equipped for the pandemic outbreak, which Albrecht said could also be a factor.
Personal protective equipment like surgical masks and gowns that repel fluid are in short supply across the country, she said.
Albrecht added New York’s lack of ventilators has also put doctors in the “awful” position of having to decide which patients will have access to a ventilator and which will be forced to go without life-saving equipment.
In an email to Global News, Charles Branas, chair of the department of epidemiology at Columbia, said “extreme, unprecedented measures are being taken, like building ICU beds in a tented hospital in Central Park.”
8:11 Government departments working together to obtain and manufacture PPE supplies: Bains
Government departments working together to obtain and manufacture PPE supplies: Bains
Provinces that were hit hardest during the 2002-2003 SARS outbreak had ventilators stockpiled in case of emergency.
Ontario, which was hit hardest by the SARS pandemic, said Friday it had approximately 3,250 ventilators that were ready to be deployed.
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As previously reported by Global News, the province of British Columbia has 1,272 ventilators, while Nova Scotia, who began tapping the private sector for supplies last week, reportedly has 240 ventilators and another 140 on order.
The Alberta government said it has 477 with another 50 on order while Manitoba health officials told reporters they had 243 ventilators with another 20 on order.
Saskatchewan has 91 adult ventilators for critical care, 80 additional subacute ventilators and 250 additional ventilators ordered.
Newfoundland and Labrador officials said they have 156 ventilators. Prince Edward Island has 19, with 15 on order.
Nunavut has the least amount of ventilators available at seven, but officials said all intensive care patients are transported out of the territory to be treated.
2:30 Trudeau promises “millions more items” of protective gear
Trudeau promises “millions more items” of protective gear
Paul-Émile Cloutier, president of HealthCareCAN, said in earlier interview with Global News that as long as the outbreak doesn’t worsen and overwhelm Canada’s health care system, provinces should have enough ventilators to meet their current needs.
If that were to happen, Cloutier, whose group represents health care organizations and hospitals, said Canada may find it difficult to find suppliers able to meet a sudden influx in demand for supplies.
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“If there was a surge of patients coming through to which they would need to be hospitalized, then you may have a shortage of ventilators,” he said.
NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. syphilis epidemic slowed dramatically last year, gonorrhea cases fell and chlamydia cases remained below prepandemic levels, according to federal data released Tuesday.
The numbers represented some good news about sexually transmitted diseases, which experienced some alarming increases in past years due to declining condom use, inadequate sex education, and reduced testing and treatment when the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
Last year, cases of the most infectious stages of syphilis fell 10% from the year before — the first substantial decline in more than two decades. Gonorrhea cases dropped 7%, marking a second straight year of decline and bringing the number below what it was in 2019.
“I’m encouraged, and it’s been a long time since I felt that way” about the nation’s epidemic of sexually transmitted infections, said the CDC’s Dr. Jonathan Mermin. “Something is working.”
More than 2.4 million cases of syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia were diagnosed and reported last year — 1.6 million cases of chlamydia, 600,000 of gonorrhea, and more than 209,000 of syphilis.
Syphilis is a particular concern. For centuries, it was a common but feared infection that could deform the body and end in death. New cases plummeted in the U.S. starting in the 1940s when infection-fighting antibiotics became widely available, and they trended down for a half century after that. By 2002, however, cases began rising again, with men who have sex with other men being disproportionately affected.
The new report found cases of syphilis in their early, most infectious stages dropped 13% among gay and bisexual men. It was the first such drop since the agency began reporting data for that group in the mid-2000s.
However, there was a 12% increase in the rate of cases of unknown- or later-stage syphilis — a reflection of people infected years ago.
Cases of syphilis in newborns, passed on from infected mothers, also rose. There were nearly 4,000 cases, including 279 stillbirths and infant deaths.
“This means pregnant women are not being tested often enough,” said Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, a professor of medicine at the University of Southern California.
What caused some of the STD trends to improve? Several experts say one contributor is the growing use of an antibiotic as a “morning-after pill.” Studies have shown that taking doxycycline within 72 hours of unprotected sex cuts the risk of developing syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia.
In June, the CDC started recommending doxycycline as a morning-after pill, specifically for gay and bisexual men and transgender women who recently had an STD diagnosis. But health departments and organizations in some cities had been giving the pills to people for a couple years.
Some experts believe that the 2022 mpox outbreak — which mainly hit gay and bisexual men — may have had a lingering effect on sexual behavior in 2023, or at least on people’s willingness to get tested when strange sores appeared.
Another factor may have been an increase in the number of health workers testing people for infections, doing contact tracing and connecting people to treatment. Congress gave $1.2 billion to expand the workforce over five years, including $600 million to states, cities and territories that get STD prevention funding from CDC.
Last year had the “most activity with that funding throughout the U.S.,” said David Harvey, executive director of the National Coalition of STD Directors.
However, Congress ended the funds early as a part of last year’s debt ceiling deal, cutting off $400 million. Some people already have lost their jobs, said a spokeswoman for Harvey’s organization.
Still, Harvey said he had reasons for optimism, including the growing use of doxycycline and a push for at-home STD test kits.
Also, there are reasons to think the next presidential administration could get behind STD prevention. In 2019, then-President Donald Trump announced a campaign to “eliminate” the U.S. HIV epidemic by 2030. (Federal health officials later clarified that the actual goal was a huge reduction in new infections — fewer than 3,000 a year.)
There were nearly 32,000 new HIV infections in 2022, the CDC estimates. But a boost in public health funding for HIV could also also help bring down other sexually transmitted infections, experts said.
“When the government puts in resources, puts in money, we see declines in STDs,” Klausner said.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists can’t know precisely when a volcano is about to erupt, but they can sometimes pick up telltale signs.
That happened two years ago with the world’s largest active volcano. About two months before Mauna Loa spewed rivers of glowing orange molten lava, geologists detected small earthquakes nearby and other signs, and they warned residents on Hawaii‘s Big Island.
Now a study of the volcano’s lava confirms their timeline for when the molten rock below was on the move.
“Volcanoes are tricky because we don’t get to watch directly what’s happening inside – we have to look for other signs,” said Erik Klemetti Gonzalez, a volcano expert at Denison University, who was not involved in the study.
Upswelling ground and increased earthquake activity near the volcano resulted from magma rising from lower levels of Earth’s crust to fill chambers beneath the volcano, said Kendra Lynn, a research geologist at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory and co-author of a new study in Nature Communications.
When pressure was high enough, the magma broke through brittle surface rock and became lava – and the eruption began in late November 2022. Later, researchers collected samples of volcanic rock for analysis.
The chemical makeup of certain crystals within the lava indicated that around 70 days before the eruption, large quantities of molten rock had moved from around 1.9 miles (3 kilometers) to 3 miles (5 kilometers) under the summit to a mile (2 kilometers) or less beneath, the study found. This matched the timeline the geologists had observed with other signs.
The last time Mauna Loa erupted was in 1984. Most of the U.S. volcanoes that scientists consider to be active are found in Hawaii, Alaska and the West Coast.
Worldwide, around 585 volcanoes are considered active.
Scientists can’t predict eruptions, but they can make a “forecast,” said Ben Andrews, who heads the global volcano program at the Smithsonian Institution and who was not involved in the study.
Andrews compared volcano forecasts to weather forecasts – informed “probabilities” that an event will occur. And better data about the past behavior of specific volcanos can help researchers finetune forecasts of future activity, experts say.
(asterisk)We can look for similar patterns in the future and expect that there’s a higher probability of conditions for an eruption happening,” said Klemetti Gonzalez.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Waymo on Tuesday opened its robotaxi service to anyone who wants a ride around Los Angeles, marking another milestone in the evolution of self-driving car technology since the company began as a secret project at Google 15 years ago.
The expansion comes eight months after Waymo began offering rides in Los Angeles to a limited group of passengers chosen from a waiting list that had ballooned to more than 300,000 people. Now, anyone with the Waymo One smartphone app will be able to request a ride around an 80-square-mile (129-square-kilometer) territory spanning the second largest U.S. city.
After Waymo received approval from California regulators to charge for rides 15 months ago, the company initially chose to launch its operations in San Francisco before offering a limited service in Los Angeles.
Before deciding to compete against conventional ride-hailing pioneers Uber and Lyft in California, Waymo unleashed its robotaxis in Phoenix in 2020 and has been steadily extending the reach of its service in that Arizona city ever since.
Driverless rides are proving to be more than just a novelty. Waymo says it now transports more than 50,000 weekly passengers in its robotaxis, a volume of business numbers that helped the company recently raise $5.6 billion from its corporate parent Alphabet and a list of other investors that included venture capital firm Andreesen Horowitz and financial management firm T. Rowe Price.
“Our service has matured quickly and our riders are embracing the many benefits of fully autonomous driving,” Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana said in a blog post.
Despite its inroads, Waymo is still believed to be losing money. Although Alphabet doesn’t disclose Waymo’s financial results, the robotaxi is a major part of an “Other Bets” division that had suffered an operating loss of $3.3 billion through the first nine months of this year, down from a setback of $4.2 billion at the same time last year.
But Waymo has come a long way since Google began working on self-driving cars in 2009 as part of project “Chauffeur.” Since its 2016 spinoff from Google, Waymo has established itself as the clear leader in a robotaxi industry that’s getting more congested.
Electric auto pioneer Tesla is aiming to launch a rival “Cybercab” service by 2026, although its CEO Elon Musk said he hopes the company can get the required regulatory clearances to operate in Texas and California by next year.
Tesla’s projected timeline for competing against Waymo has been met with skepticism because Musk has made unfulfilled promises about the company’s self-driving car technology for nearly a decade.
Meanwhile, Waymo’s robotaxis have driven more than 20 million fully autonomous miles and provided more than 2 million rides to passengers without encountering a serious accident that resulted in its operations being sidelined.
That safety record is a stark contrast to one of its early rivals, Cruise, a robotaxi service owned by General Motors. Cruise’s California license was suspended last year after one of its driverless cars in San Francisco dragged a jaywalking pedestrian who had been struck by a different car driven by a human.
Cruise is now trying to rebound by joining forces with Uber to make some of its services available next year in U.S. cities that still haven’t been announced. But Waymo also has forged a similar alliance with Uber to dispatch its robotaxi in Atlanta and Austin, Texas next year.
Another robotaxi service, Amazon’s Zoox, is hoping to begin offering driverless rides to the general public in Las Vegas at some point next year before also launching in San Francisco.
