WELLINGTON, New Zealand — New Zealand’s first coronavirus outbreak in six months has grown to seven people.
The announcement Wednesday came a day after Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern imposed a strict lockdown after the first case was reported. The lockdown is for at least three days for the country and at least a week for the cities of Auckland and Coromandel.
Ardern said Wednesday the government expects the number of cases to keep growing, especially after some of those infected spent time at a church, a school, a casino and a hospital. She announced a new mandate compelling people to wear masks in supermarkets, gas stations and pharmacies during strict lockdowns.
Ardern says genome testing has confirmed the outbreak is of the delta variant and originated from an outbreak in Sydney, Australia, although it’s not yet clear how the virus breached New Zealand’s border quarantine controls.
SYDNEY — Australia’s most populous state is reporting a record 633 new coronavirus infections as concerns grow about the spread of the delta variant beyond Sydney. The previous high for a 24-hour period in New South Wales was 466 on Saturday.
Officials also said Wednesday that three people died in the period, bringing the death toll to 60 from the outbreak first detected in Sydney in mid-June.
Officials say infections were reported in towns in the state’s west, north and central region in recent days. Sydney has been in lockdown since June 26 and the entire state has been locked down since Saturday.
The national capital of Canberra is surrounded by New South Wales and it reported 22 new infections from a cluster that originated in Sydney.
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PHOENIX — Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey is upping the pressure on public school districts defying a state ban on mask mandates by threatening to cut off some funds.
The governor said Tuesday that schools won’t get any cash from a $163 million grant program he controls if they don’t drop mask rules within 10 days. Schools also will lose out on the $1,800 per student if they have to close because of coronavirus outbreaks.
At least 16 districts teaching nearly a third of the state’s 1.1 million public school students now have mask rules. A judge ruled this week that the state ban does not take effect until Sept. 29.
Ducey also announced a $10 million program that will give $7,000 for a student to use for private schooling if their public school requires isolating or quarantining due to virus exposure, orders mask wearing or gives preferential treatment to vaccinated children.
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HOUSTON — At least four school districts in Texas have closed campuses due to coronavirus outbreaks early in the new school year.
The shutdowns are taking place as more districts and communities are requiring students and residents to wear face coverings indoors, defying Gov. Greg Abbott’s ban on mask mandates.
The school district in Gorman in North Texas had been set to begin the school year Wednesday but is delaying that by a week. Campus shutdowns also were announced Tuesday by the districts in the East Texas towns of Bloomburg and Waskom.
Those moves came a day after the Iraan-Sheffield district in West Texas closed its schools for two weeks.
Mask wearing was optional in these four school districts. At least 21 other districts, including some of the state’s biggest, have instituted mask mandates, which are in violation of Abbott’s executive order banning such measures.
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MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — West Virginia University is requiring masks to be worn in classrooms and labs for the next 30 days, saying not enough students and employees have submitted proof of vaccination against the coronavirus.
The university says the rule takes effect Wednesday, which is when classes start on the Morgantown campus. The mask requirement applies to everyone, even those who have been vaccinated.
While the university is not requiring its students and employees to be vaccinated, officials had set a vaccine verification goal of 80% by Sept. 1. Students, faculty and staff on all campuses were required to either provide a vaccine verification or a negative virus test result by Friday.
The school says only about two-thirds of students and staff have submitted the verification paperwork on the Morgantown campus and even less have done so on its Beckley and Keyser campuses,
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JACKSON, Miss. — Mississippi state officials say they more children are being hospitalized with COVID-19 than earlier in the pandemic.
As of Friday, 18 children were hospitalized, and on Sunday five were in an intensive care unit, with four on ventilators.
The state Department of Health said Monday that health officials heard this week about the COVID-19 death of a child between age 11 and 17, raising the total of young people deaths to five since the start of the pandemic.
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CHICAGO — Chicago will require masks in public indoor settings regardless of vaccination status as daily COVID-19 case counts rise.
The mandate takes effect Friday citywide for everyone over age 2. Chicago’s top doctor said Tuesday that the city is reporting roughly 400 cases daily, which is a threshold public health officials say signals a higher transmission risk.
Still, public health officials say it’s much lower than a winter peak when it was over 3,000 cases a day.
Department of Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady says no further restrictions or closures are currently planned and the goal is to remain open, but careful.
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BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — A major state employer, the University of Alabama at Birmingham Health System, said Tuesday it would require workers to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by Nov. 12.
The requirement affects 16,000 employees and others working in hospitals and could help boost the state’s last-in-the-nation ranking for the shots.
Employees of UAB Health already are required to be vaccinated against other health threats including the flu, the system said, and COVID-19 is threatening its ability to provide care.
Nearly 100 doctors, nurses and other workers have contracted COVID-19 at UAB Hospital, a report showed.
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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is reinstating a mask mandate for all indoor public places, regardless of vaccination status.
Grisham’s office also announced Tuesday that more people will be required to get vaccinated, such as workers at hospitals, nursing homes, juvenile justice facilities and residential treatment centers.
All workers at schools in New Mexico must also get vaccinated or submit to weekly testing.
Officials noted that vaccination rates remain stagnant, but infections are rising.
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ATLANTA — Parents in Georgia’s second largest school district plan to rally again to try to force school officials to require masks amid a statewide surge in coronavirus cases that has disrupted classroom instruction for thousands of students.
The plans for a rally on Thursday by Cobb County school parents come as coronavirus cases in the school system and other districts around the state continue to rise.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp on Monday reiterated his opposition to mask and vaccine mandates and said he has no plans for statewide school restrictions.
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PHOENIX — A western Arizona school district is considering a proposal to ban any discussion between staff and students about vaccines and masks.
The Colorado River Union High School’s governing board is set to meet on the matter Tuesday night.
The measure would allow for disciplinary action to be taken against any district employee who speaks on “anything related to vaccine status or encouraging/discouraging vaccines or mask with students.”
District officials did not immediately return a message from The Associated Press seeking comment.
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HONOLULU — Hawaii’s largest private hospital system has run out of ICU beds amid a surge of new coronavirus cases.
Jason Chang, chief operating officer of The Queen’s Health Systems and president of The Queen’s Medical Center, says all of the hospital system’s beds are completely full.
The hospitals were canceling some elective surgeries and procedures and diverting emergency patients to other hospitals, Chang said.
Hospital workers are tired and frustrated because most of the COVID-19 patients they are caring for are not vaccinated, Chang said.
Hawaii, with a population of nearly 1.5 million people, has averaged 652 new cases a day over the past week and has a 7.5% positivity rate, according to state data. In early July, the state was averaging 50 cases a day.
At least 308 COVID-19 patients are hospitalized statewide.
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LAS VEGAS — Vaccine verification at major venues has become a coronavirus fighting front in Nevada.
Las Vegas’ biggest trade conference on Tuesday followed the NFL’s Las Vegas Raiders announcing they’ll require attendees to prove they’re inoculated.
The sponsor of the CES gadget show said attendees in January will have to show they’ve been vaccinated to enter venues including the expanded Las Vegas Convention Center.
The announcement came a day after Gov. Steve Sisolak said indoor venues with 4,000 or more attendees can opt out of the state’s mask requirements if they opt in to a program ensuring that attendees have inoculations.
Sisolak said one dose of a two-dose vaccination will get people in the door, but they’ll still have to wear face coverings.
Fully vaccinated people won’t have to wear masks.
The Raiders unveiled their first-in-the-NFL policy to require fans to show proof of vaccinations beginning Sept. 13.
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JACKSON, Miss. — A top Mississippi health official said Tuesday 20,000 students are currently quarantined for COVID-19 exposure in the state — 4.5% of the public school population, according to the state’s latest enrollment figures.
The data comes from reports made by 800 schools to the Mississippi State Department of Health last week, Mississippi State Epidemiologist Dr. Paul Byers said during a call with state pediatricians.
The school outbreaks have resulted in many school officials rethinking their policies after beginning the academic year without restrictions, like mask mandates. Around 600 schools have now implemented universal masking for indoor settings, Byers said.
But there are still many settings where many restrictions that could keep kids safer are not in place — or not enforced.
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DES MOINES, Iowa — State Fairs in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota and Wisconsin are offering COVID-19 vaccinations as the delta variant spreads across the country.
In Iowa, a vaccination booth nestled among corn dog and funnel cake stands vaccinated 150 people in the first four days of the fair in a state where only half of the population is fully vaccinated. All but three of Iowa’s 99 counties are experiencing a substantial or high rate of spread.
Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds’ policy of personal responsibility allows fairgoers to decide whether to be vaccinated or wear a mask. Public health officials recommend wearing a mask in crowds. The fair is on track to attract an estimated 1 million visitors.
At the Indiana State Fair, 304 vaccines have been administered since July 30. And at the Wisconsin State Fair in Milwaukee, 608 people were vaccinated over 11 days, perhaps enticed by the promise of a free cream puff pastry.
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PHOENIX — Five Arizona school districts have joined the growing list of districts requiring students and staff to wear masks, even though a state law bars such mandates.
Two districts in the Tucson area and three in metro Phoenix issued mask requirements after a Maricopa County judge ruled Monday that the state doesn’t take effect until Sept. 29.
A teacher who filed a lawsuit challenging a mask mandate at one Phoenix district argued it took after lawmakers approved it in late June. In all, at least 16 districts in Arizona are requiring students and staff to wear masks while indoors amid fears over the delta variant.
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TIRANA, Albania — Albania’s Health Ministry reported 451 new cases and two deaths related to the coronavirus.
That is a significant increase compared to last month when there were less than 10 new cases per day.
Authorities have made August a free month for receiving a vaccine, urging all people 18 and older to get one. Albania uses Sinovac, Pfizer, Astra Zeneca and some Sputnik V vaccines. Albania has given 1.3 million shots to a population of 2.8 million.
Neighboring Kosovo is noting a serious increase in the daily numbers. Authorities reported 1,765 new cases and five deaths on Tuesday, a significant increase compared to July.
About one-third of its 1.8 million population has gotten at least one shot of the Pfizer or Astra Zeneca vaccine.
MILWAUKEE (AP) — Whooping cough is at its highest level in a decade for this time of year, U.S. health officials reported Thursday.
There have been 18,506 cases of whooping cough reported so far, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. That’s the most at this point in the year since 2014, when cases topped 21,800.
The increase is not unexpected — whooping cough peaks every three to five years, health experts said. And the numbers indicate a return to levels before the coronavirus pandemic, when whooping cough and other contagious illnesses plummeted.
Still, the tally has some state health officials concerned, including those in Wisconsin, where there have been about 1,000 cases so far this year, compared to a total of 51 last year.
Nationwide, CDC has reported that kindergarten vaccination rates dipped last year and vaccine exemptions are at an all-time high. Thursday, it released state figures, showing that about 86% of kindergartners in Wisconsin got the whooping cough vaccine, compared to more than 92% nationally.
Whooping cough, also called pertussis, usually starts out like a cold, with a runny nose and other common symptoms, before turning into a prolonged cough. It is treated with antibiotics. Whooping cough used to be very common until a vaccine was introduced in the 1950s, which is now part of routine childhood vaccinations. It is in a shot along with tetanus and diphtheria vaccines. The combo shot is recommended for adults every 10 years.
“They used to call it the 100-day cough because it literally lasts for 100 days,” said Joyce Knestrick, a family nurse practitioner in Wheeling, West Virginia.
Whooping cough is usually seen mostly in infants and young children, who can develop serious complications. That’s why the vaccine is recommended during pregnancy, to pass along protection to the newborn, and for those who spend a lot of time with infants.
But public health workers say outbreaks this year are hitting older kids and teens. In Pennsylvania, most outbreaks have been in middle school, high school and college settings, an official said. Nearly all the cases in Douglas County, Nebraska, are schoolkids and teens, said Justin Frederick, deputy director of the health department.
That includes his own teenage daughter.
“It’s a horrible disease. She still wakes up — after being treated with her antibiotics — in a panic because she’s coughing so much she can’t breathe,” he said.
It’s important to get tested and treated with antibiotics early, said Dr. Kris Bryant, who specializes in pediatric infectious diseases at Norton Children’s in Louisville, Kentucky. People exposed to the bacteria can also take antibiotics to stop the spread.
“Pertussis is worth preventing,” Bryant said. “The good news is that we have safe and effective vaccines.”
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AP data journalist Kasturi Pananjady contributed to this report.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
How a sperm and egg fuse together has long been a mystery.
New research by scientists in Austria provides tantalizing clues, showing fertilization works like a lock and key across the animal kingdom, from fish to people.
“We discovered this mechanism that’s really fundamental across all vertebrates as far as we can tell,” said co-author Andrea Pauli at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna.
The team found that three proteins on the sperm join to form a sort of key that unlocks the egg, allowing the sperm to attach. Their findings, drawn from studies in zebrafish, mice, and human cells, show how this process has persisted over millions of years of evolution. Results were published Thursday in the journal Cell.
Scientists had previously known about two proteins, one on the surface of the sperm and another on the egg’s membrane. Working with international collaborators, Pauli’s lab used Google DeepMind’s artificial intelligence tool AlphaFold — whose developers were awarded a Nobel Prize earlier this month — to help them identify a new protein that allows the first molecular connection between sperm and egg. They also demonstrated how it functions in living things.
It wasn’t previously known how the proteins “worked together as a team in order to allow sperm and egg to recognize each other,” Pauli said.
Scientists still don’t know how the sperm actually gets inside the egg after it attaches and hope to delve into that next.
Eventually, Pauli said, such work could help other scientists understand infertility better or develop new birth control methods.
The work provides targets for the development of male contraceptives in particular, said David Greenstein, a genetics and cell biology expert at the University of Minnesota who was not involved in the study.
The latest study “also underscores the importance of this year’s Nobel Prize in chemistry,” he said in an email.
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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.
Patients who are older, don’t speak English, and don’t have a high school education are more likely to experience harm during a hospital stay in Canada, according to new research.
The Canadian Institute for Health Information measured preventableharmful events from 2023 to 2024, such as bed sores and medication errors,experienced by patients who received acute care in hospital.
The research published Thursday shows patients who don’t speak English or French are 30 per cent more likely to experience harm. Patients without a high school education are 20 per cent more likely to endure harm compared to those with higher education levels.
The report also found that patients 85 and older are five times more likely to experience harm during a hospital stay compared to those under 20.
“The goal of this report is to get folks thinking about equity as being a key dimension of the patient safety effort within a hospital,” says Dana Riley, an author of the report and a program lead on CIHI’s population health team.
When a health-care provider and a patient don’t speak the same language, that can result in the administration of a wrong test or procedure, research shows. Similarly, Riley says a lower level of education is associated with a lower level of health literacy, which can result in increased vulnerability to communication errors.
“It’s fairly costly to the patient and it’s costly to the system,” says Riley, noting the average hospital stay for a patient who experiences harm is four times more expensive than the cost of a hospital stay without a harmful event – $42,558 compared to $9,072.
“I think there are a variety of different reasons why we might start to think about patient safety, think about equity, as key interconnected dimensions of health-care quality,” says Riley.
The analysis doesn’t include data on racialized patients because Riley says pan-Canadian data was not available for their research. Data from Quebec and some mental health patients was also excluded due to differences in data collection.
Efforts to reduce patient injuries at one Ontario hospital network appears to have resulted in less harm. Patient falls at Mackenzie Health causing injury are down 40 per cent, pressure injuries have decreased 51 per cent, and central line-associated bloodstream infections, such as IV therapy, have been reduced 34 per cent.
The hospital created a “zero harm” plan in 2019 to reduce errors after a hospital survey revealed low safety scores. They integrated principles used in aviation and nuclear industries, which prioritize safety in complex high-risk environments.
“The premise is first driven by a cultural shift where people feel comfortable actually calling out these events,” says Mackenzie Health President and Chief Executive Officer Altaf Stationwala.
They introduced harm reduction training and daily meetings to discuss risks in the hospital. Mackenzie partnered with virtual interpreters that speak 240 languages and understand medical jargon. Geriatric care nurses serve the nearly 70 per cent of patients over the age of 75, and staff are encouraged to communicate as frequently as possible, and in plain language, says Stationwala.
“What we do in health care is we take control away from patients and families, and what we know is we need to empower patients and families and that ultimately results in better health care.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
