Coronavirus Moring News Brief – May 21: In U.S., Republicans Want Unspent Covid Funds Applied to Deficit, Masks Fly Off the Shelves in Hong Kong
As Face Mask Requirements Disappear, What Will Happen to the Immunocompromised and Those With Long Covid

A Covid safety officer holding a mask up sign at a performance of “A Strange Loop” at the Lyceum Theatre
Good morning. This is Jonathan Spira reporting. Here now the news of the pandemic from across the globe on the 1,165th day of the pandemic as well as World Baking Day. It’s been said that baking is cheaper than therapy and Julia Child once noted that, “with enough butter, anything is good,” so have at it. I very well may.
OP-ED ON SUNDAY
Face masks, one of the last visible symbols of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, are slowly fading away as Americans hope to view the pandemic only in the rearview mirror.
Hospitals and physicians’ offices were some of the last bastions of mandated masking and state mandates for medical facilities are dropping like flies.
State-wide orders mandating masks in all public places largely ended in early 2022 although mask requirements for hospitals, long-term care facilities, and medical offices remained in force. Now, those laws are largely a thing of the past.
It went largely unnoticed, but the U.S. mandate for the use of face masks on public transit expired on May 11, 2023 with the end of the public health emergency. It had not been enforced on planes for over a year due to an April 2022 court order.
In addition, the Navaho Nation, the largest U.S. tribal nation, ended its mask mandate on January 20 of this year, after being in effect across the Navajo reservation, which covers more than 27,000 square miles (70,000 square kilometers) in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah, for almost three years.
This all sounds good if you are not immunocompromised or do not suffer from chronic illnesses.
It can also be particularly bad if you happen to be one of the estimated four million people in the United States who happens to have Long Covid. A Covid reinfection can worsen symptoms of Long Covid or cause a recurrence of symptoms in patients who have recovered.
Accordingly, the changes to masking policies have sparked pushback from some doctors and infectious-disease specialists as well as Long Covid researchers such as myself. They correctly point out that maintaining masking rules in medical settings would protect elderly patients, patients with chronic conditions, people with weakened immune systems, others who are vulnerable to infection, and Long Covid patients who are extremely vulnerable to reinfection.
If a new variant or subvariant becomes dominant in a region and it has the ability to evade current protections afforded by immunity, all bets are off if face masks are also off.
Regular readers of this space will note that I discussed last week the possibility of another SARS-CoV-2 outbreak that will rival the omicron wave in illness and death. This is not a shot in the dark.
One leading virologist said that it appears that there’s as much of a 40% chance of this happening if not greater.
If this comes to pass – and 40% is not a “slight chance” by any means – it will be catastrophic to these at-risk groups and merely disastrous to everyone else.
In other news we cover today, in the United States, the GOP wants unused coronavirus pandemic funds to be applied to the federal deficit but not everyone is on board and, as cases there surge, face masks are flying off the sheles in Hong Kong.
UNITED STATES
The trillions of dollars approved by Congress since early 2020 for fighting the coronavirus pandemic were piled onto the federal deficit as an emergency need that didn’t have to be offset with spending cuts or revenue hikes.
Now that the public health emergency is officially over, House Republicans want to take back the less than 1% of remaining funds. Biden hasn’t rejected the idea out of hand but public health experts have, saying it will limit the country’s ability to prepare for the next pandemic.
GLOBAL
In Hong Kong, where flu season has been rampant since early April and Covid-19 cases have surged to 10,000 new daily infections in recent days, mask manufacturers are reporting a heyday of sorts. One local mask maker said that May 2023 sales are set to reach 70% of a company record set in the height of the pandemic.
Earlier in the week, Secretary for Health Lo Chung-mau on that up to 10,000 Hong Kongers were contracting SARS-CoV-2 every day at the present time. He called on residents to remain vigilant but expressed confidence that the outbreak was manageable.
TODAY’S STATISTICS
Now here are the daily statistics for Sunday, May 21.
As of Sunday morning, the world has recorded just under 689 million Covid-19 cases, an increase of just under 0.2 million from the previous day, and just under 6.88 million deaths, according to Worldometer, a service that tracks such information. In addition, 661.3 million people worldwide have recovered from the virus, an increase of 0.2million from the previous day.
The reader should note that infrequent reporting from some sources may appear as spikes in new case figures or death tolls.
Worldwide, the number of active coronavirus cases as of Sunday at press time is 20,738,271, a decrease of 18,000. Out of that figure, 99.8%, or 20,699,970, are considered mild, and 0.2%, or 38,301, are listed as critical. The percentage of cases considered critical has not changed over the past eight months.
The United States reported 72,136 new cases in the period May 4 through May 10, a figure that is down 26% over the same period one week earlier, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The death toll for the same period is 840, a figure that is down 20%. The average daily number of hospital admissions from Covid was 4,073 on May 15, a figure that is down 5% over the preceding 14 days. Finally, the test positivity rate is 5.2%, up 5% over the 14 days preceding May 11.
Starting on March 25, 2023, the Morning News Brief began to update case data as well as death tolls on a weekly basis. In addition, starting on May 15, 2023, the Morning News Brief has pressed pause on certain data sets as we assess the update of changes in reporting by U.S. health authorities at the CDC.
Since the start of the pandemic the United States has, as of Sunday, recorded 107 million cases, a higher figure than any other country, and a death toll of 1.16 million. India has the world’s second highest number of officially recorded cases, just under 45 million, and a reported death toll of 531,832.
The newest data from Russia’s Rosstat state statistics service showed that, at the end of July, the number of Covid or Covid-related deaths since the start of the pandemic there in April 2020 is now 823,623, giving the country the world’s second highest pandemic-related death toll, behind the United States. Rosstat last reported that 3,284 people died from the coronavirus or related causes in July 2022, down from 5,023 in June, 7,008 in May and 11,583 in April.
Meanwhile, France is the country with the third highest number of cases, with just under 40.1 million, and Germany is in the number four slot, with 38.4 million total cases.
Brazil, which has recorded the third highest number of deaths as a result of the virus, 702,421, has recorded over 37.5 million cases, placing it in the number five slot.
The other five countries with total case figures over the 20 million mark are Japan, with 33.8 million cases, South Korea, with 31.5 million cases, placing it in the number seven slot, and Italy, with 25.8 million, as number eight, as well as the United Kingdom, with 24.6 million, and Russia, with 22.9 million.
VACCINATION SPOTLIGHT
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that, as of Thursday, over 270.2 million people in the United States – or 81.4% – have received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine. Of that population, 69.5%, or 230.6 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 676.7 million. Breaking this down further, 92.23% of the population over the age of 18 – or 238.2 million people – has received at least a first inoculation and 79.1% of the same group – or 204.3 million people – is fully vaccinated. In addition, 20.5% of the same population, or 53 million people, has already received an updated or bivalent booster dose of vaccine, while 23.7 million people over the age of 65, or 43.3% of that population have also received the bivalent booster.
Starting on June 13, 2022, the CDC began to update vaccine data on a weekly basis and publish the updated information on Thursdays by 8 p.m. EDT, a statement on the agency’s website said.
Some 70% of the world population has received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine by Sunday, according to Our World in Data, an online scientific publication that tracks such information. So far, 13.38 billion doses of the vaccine have been administered on a global basis and 75,149 doses are now administered each day.
Meanwhile, only 29.9% 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.
Only a handful of the world’s poorest countries – Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia and Nepal – have reached the 70% mark in vaccinations. Many countries, however, are under 20% and, in countries such as Haiti, Senegal, and Tanzania, for example, vaccination rates remain at or below 10%.
In addition, with the start of vaccinations in North Korea in late September, Eritrea remains the only country in the world that has not administered vaccines.
Paul Riegler contributed reporting to this story.
(Photo: Accura Media Group)