Coronavirus News Update – August 3: Louisiana and San Francisco Bay Area Institute Mask Mandates

Saint Louis Cathedral at Jackson Square in New Orleans

Louisiana, seven San Francisco Bay Area counties, and Berkeley will reinstitute face mask mandates this week.  New York City demurred, settling for a strong recommendation to don a mask indoors. The move followed last week’s guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for all people in counties with high or substantial risk of transmission to wear masks in indoor public venues.

The move comes on the heels of last week’s mandate to wear face masks indoors by Los Angeles and Sacramento counties.

Louisiana is leading the country in new coronavirus cases, the state’s Department of Health said.

As of Tuesday morning, the world has recorded 199.8 million Covid-19 cases and over 4.3 million deaths, according to Worldometer, a service that tracks such information. In addition, 180 million people worldwide have recovered from the virus.

The average daily number of new coronavirus cases in the United States over the past 14 days is 85,866, a 142% 14-day change and a trend that is fueled by the highly contagious India, or Delta, variant. The average number for the world is 601,023, a 16% 14-day increase, while the average death toll is 9,227, also a 16% 14-day change.

In the United States, the death toll is now 629,879, an increase of 495 in the past day.  Since the start of the pandemic the country has recorded over 35.5 million cases, a higher figure than any other country and one that is followed by India, which now has over 31.7 million officially recorded cases and 425,388 officially recorded deaths, although experts believe that both number are in reality significantly higher.

Since the start of vaccinations at the end of last year over 4.21 billion doses have been administered across the globe as of Tuesday morning, an increase of 0.04 billion and the equivalent of over 55  doses for every 100 people, a one-dose increase per hundred over the previous 24 hours.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that, as of Tuesday, 191.8 million people in the United States – or 57.8% – have received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine. Of that population, 49.7%, or 164.9 million people, are now fully vaccinated, and the total number of doses that have been dispensed in the United States is now 346.9 million. Breaking this down further, 70% of the population over the age of 18 – or 180.8 million people – has received at least a first inoculation and 60.6% of the same group – or 156.5 million people – is fully vaccinated.

(Photo: Accura Media Group)