Coronavirus Morning News Brief – April 5: Shanghai Lockdown Extended, CDC to Review Its Own Processes and Procedures

A food shop before the lockdown

Good morning. This is Jonathan Spira reporting. Here now the news of the pandemic from across the globe on the 756th day of the pandemic.

The news coming out of China is far from a surprise, given the manner in which health officials there are trying to contain the spread of Covid.

Residents of Shanghai were supposed to emerge from a two-stage lockdown on Tuesday but, instead, that lockdown continued as the number of cases in the city continued to rise.  On Tuesday, health officials there said that the Paris of the East had seen 13,000 new cases that day, triple the number seen nine days ago at the start of the lockdown.  The lockdown has been marked by closed offices and factories, including Tesla’s, barricaded streets, and panic buying.

There is now no word on when the lockdown will come to an end.

In other news we cover today, the CDC will undergo a review of its operations, Sacramento officials appear to have “abandoned” public health during the pandemic, and the New York City municipal employee who posed as a journalist to ask Mayor Adams questions at a news conference has been fired.

Here’s a look at what has taken place over the past 24 hours.

UNITED STATES

After a barrage of criticism over its handling of the coronavirus pandemic in recent months, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it would undergo a monthlong comprehensive review and evaluation.  The move is a first step in modernizing its existing systems and processes, as well as in launching a transformation for the future, the agency’s director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, announced on Monday.

“The lessons from the Covid-19 pandemic, along with the feedback I have received inside and outside the agency over the past year, indicate that it is time to take a step back and strategically position CDC to support the future of public health,” she wrote in an email message sent to agency employees.

In Sacramento, California’s state capital, a grand jury report found that the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors “abandoned” public health and failed to provide money and support to the public health office during the Covid -19 pandemic.

“The Grand Jury is dumbfounded that the County Board of Supervisors seemed completely disconnected from the Office of Public Health in the midst of the crisis our community faced,” Deanna Hanson, who served as the jury’s forewoman, said in a statement, adding that “it is simply irresponsible to think that Sacramento will never face another situation that needs immediate attention.”

In New York, a woman who worked for the city’s Law Department has been fired after posing as a reporter at a press conference in order to grill Mayor Eric Adams about his mask policy.

The city Law Department said in a statement which confirmed the dismissal of Daniela Jampel, that “her decision to lie to City Hall staff, and state she was a journalist at a press conference, demonstrate a disturbing lack of judgment and integrity.” The department also said she made “troubling claims about her work,” adding that “the decision had been made to terminate her” prior to her actions on Monday.

GLOBAL

Officials in Shanghai defended the separation of infected children from uninfected parents due to the highly transmissible nature of the virus, but relented by allowing parents who test positive to stay with their children who had also tested positive for the virus.

After 750 days, South Africa will end its national “state of disaster” occasioned by the coronavirus pandemic. The state of disaster had allowed the government to impose some of the broadest public health restrictions seen anywhere.

The regulations will end at midnight local time on Monday, President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a televised address.

TODAY’S STATISTICS

Now here are the daily statistics for Tuesday, April 5.

As of Tuesday morning, the world has recorded 493.2 million Covid-19 cases, an increase of 1.3 million new cases in the preceding 24 hour period, and 6.2 million deaths, according to Worldometer, a service that tracks such information. In addition, 428.8 million people worldwide have recovered from the virus, an increase of 1.8 million.

Worldwide, the number of active coronavirus cases as of Tuesday is 58,208,466, a decrease of 548,000 from the prior day. Out of that figure, 99.9%, or 58,153,065 are considered mild, and 0.1%, or 55,401 are listed as critical.  The percentage of cases considered critical is largely unchanged over the past 24 hours.

The United States reported 40,636 new coronavirus infections on Tuesday for the previous day, compared to 4,927 on Monday, 11,395 on Sunday, 31,112 on Saturday, and 38,273 on Friday, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.   Figures for the weekend (reported the following day) are typically 30% to 60% of those posted on weekdays due to a lower number of tests being conducted.

The average daily number of new coronavirus cases in the United States over the past 14 days is 27,573, a 6% decrease, based on data from the Department of Health and Human Services, among other sources.  The average daily death toll over the same period is 633, a decrease of 40% over the same period.

In addition, since the start of the pandemic the United States has, as of Tuesday, recorded almost 81.9 million cases, a higher figure than any other country, and a death toll of over 1 million. India has the world’s second highest number of officially recorded cases, just over 43 million, and a reported death toll of 521,446. Meanwhile, Brazil has recorded the second highest number of deaths as a result of the virus, 660,381, and has 30 million cases.  France continues to occupy the number four position with 26 million cases, and Germany is in the number five slot with 21.9 million.  The United Kingdom, with over 21.4 million cases, is now number six and is the only other country in the world with a total number of cases over the 20 million mark.

VACCINATION SPOTLIGHT

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that, as of Tuesday, over 255.8 million people in the United States – or 77% – have received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine, a figure that is largely unchanged over the past 24 hours. Of that population, 65.6%, or 217.9 million people, have received two doses of vaccine, and the total number of doses that have been dispensed in the United States is now over 562.4 million. Breaking this down further, 88.4% of the population over the age of 18 – or 228.4 million people – has received at least a first inoculation and 75.5% of the same group – or 195 million people – is fully vaccinated.  In addition, 48.5% of that population, or 94.6 million people, has already received a third, or booster, dose of vaccine.

Over 64.6% of the world population has received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine by Tuesday, according to Our World in Data, an online scientific publication that tracks such information.  So far, 11.33 billion doses of the vaccine have been administered on a global basis and 15.5 million doses are now administered each day.

Meanwhile, only 14.7% of people in low-income countries have received one dose, while in countries such as Canada, China, Denmark, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States, at least 75% of the population has received at least one dose of vaccine. In countries such as Ethiopia, Haiti, Syria, Senegal, Tanzania, and Uganda, for example, vaccination rates remain in the single digits, if not lower.

Anna Riegler contributed to this story.

(Photo: Accura Media Group)