Coronavirus Morning News Brief – May 20: Cases Surge in Hong Kong, Were Lockdowns the ‘Greatest Intrusions on Civil Liberties’ in U.S. History?

The Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C.

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 Eliza Doolittle Day.

OP-ED ON SATURDAY

In case you’re wondering why today, of all days, is Eliza Doolittle Day, the answer is right there in the script.

The holiday is observed every year on the 20th of May and takes its cue from the song from the scene in the 1956 hit Broadway musical “My Fair Lady” where the Cockney flower girl who has been elevated to the toast of London society fantasizes about meeting the king of England in the song “Just You Wait.”

The song includes the passage

One day I’ll be famous! I’ll be proper and prim;
Go to St. James so often I will call it St. Jim!
One evening the king will say:
‘Oh, Liza, old thing,
I want all of England your praises to sing.
Next week on the twentieth of May
I proclaim ‘Liza Doolittle Day!’ “

My Fair Lady” is, of course, based on George Bernard Shaw’s masterpiece “Pygmalion,” itself said to have been inspired by the true-life story of Eliza Sheffield, a barmaid in London who also rose through society, albeit with marriage, various relationships, and forgeries.

Both the musical and the play  underscore the importance of learning how to speak properly (and the ramifications of not being able to do so).  Eliza is instructed by the brilliant linguist and professor of phonetics Henry Higgins, who has made a bet with a friend and colleague that he will be able to pass her off as a duchess at a ball.  Liza agrees to the challenge because she wants to improve her station in life.

Today, elocution continues to be valued as a symbol of education and upward mobility, although not everyone has gotten the memo.

People who use proper English (or whatever a person’s mother tongue happens to be) continue to stand out as intelligent and educated, but they are far and few between.

So, on this Eliza Doolittle Day, perhaps we should all take a moment to think about how we sound before we speak. After all, we don’t want to be condemned by every syllable we utter.

In other news we cover today, congressmen in Washington, D.C. are upset that federal workers are telecommuting and not back in the office, cases in Hong Kong are surging, and a Supreme Court justice had choice words about pandemic lockdowns.

UNITED STATES

While the return-to-office movement in major cities appears to have stalled, the House of Representatives Oversight Committee is livid that federal employees are continuing to work from home.

“This is unacceptable and U.S. taxpayers deserve better,” said Representative James Comer, although there is no evidence of lower productivity on the part of government workers who telecommute.

A coronavirus testing lab in North Carolina run by StarMed Healthcare, has been repurposed to process rape test kits from police departments across the United States. A rape test kit is a package of items used by medical personnel for gathering and preserving physical evidence following sexual assault.

Finally, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch leveled harsh criticism about how local, state, and federal government officials responded to the gravest public health threat in over a century.  Gorsuch called emergency measures taken during the first two years of the coronavirus pandemic that killed  over one million Americans perhaps “the greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country.”

„Executive officials across the country issued emergency decrees on a breathtaking scale,” Gorsuch wrote in an eight-page statement released on  Thursday that accompanied an expected Supreme Court order that formally dismissed a case involving the use of the Title 42 policy to prevent asylum seekers from entering the United States.

GLOBAL

Cases of SARS-CoV-2 are surging in Hong Kong.  Daily new case reports are upwards of 10,000 at the present time.

“According to the estimates of the Health Bureau, there are more than 10,000 new cases of coronavirus infections in Hong Kong every day,” Secretary for Health Lo Chung-mau said in an interview with mainland Chinese media on Friday. “There will always be another epidemic,” he pointed out.

Meanwhile, approximately 2,700 Covid-19 in the special administration region were being treated for Covid public healthcare facilities, with a relatively short average stay of 4.8 days, according to the Hospital Authority there.

One expert believes that the caseload is five times as high.

But respiratory medicine specialist Dr Leung Chi-chiu told the South China Morning Post that he estimated the daily caseload could be as high as 50,000, pointing to the latest result of an ongoing screening study by the University of Hong Kong.

OTHER HEALTHCARE NEWS

Another person is dead after using contaminated eye drops that contained drug-resistant bacteria, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States said.

The outbreak now totals 81 cases across 18 states. Four people have died, health officials said, and  14 people have suffered vision loss. An additional four people who have had their eyeballs enucleated due to infection.

The manufacturer of the contaminated eye drops, India-based Global Pharma, sells the drops under three brands, EzriCare, Delsam Pharma’s Artificial Tears, and Delsam Pharma’s Artificial Ointment.  The bacteria behind the outbreak is a strain of Pseudomonas aeruginosa dubbed VIM-GES-CRPA.

Last week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration finalized changes in its blood donor eligibility policy, eliminating “time-based deferrals and screening questions specific to men who have sex with men.” Going forward, all prospective donors, regardless of sexual orientation, will be asked risk-based questions that aim to reduce the likelihood of blood donation from someone with a new or recent HIV infection.

TODAY’S STATISTICS

Now here are the daily statistics for Saturday, May 20.

As of Saturday morning, the world has recorded 688.8 million Covid-19 cases, an increase of 0.1 million from the previous day, and just under 6.88 million deaths, according to Worldometer, a service that tracks such information. In addition, 661.1 million people worldwide have recovered from the virus, an increase of just over 0.1 million 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 Saturday at press time is 20,756,026, a decrease of 29,000. Out of that figure, 99.8%, or 20,717,471, are considered mild, and 0.2%, or 38,555, 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, 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 Saturday, recorded 106.9 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 531,818.

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 just under 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 Saturday, 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)