Coronavirus Morning News Brief – June 15: BoJo Misled Parliament Over Lockdown Parties, N.Y.C. Hits 50% Office Occupancy Rate
The skyline of lower Manhattan
Good morning. This is Jonathan Spira reporting. Here now the news of the pandemic from across the globe on the 1,191st day of the pandemic.
In news we cover today, a public enquiry in parliament found that then Prime Minister Boris Johnson misled his government about the so-called “lockdown” parties at No. 10, and researchers in China have found that smoke particles can act as a kind of Trojan horse for viruses.
UNITED STATES
Officials in the state of Connecticut made the to-go cocktail a permanent fixture in the Nutmeg State’s restaurant and bar scene. Sales of to-go cocktails were first made available in the first year of the coronavirus pandemic as part of an effort to prop up restaurants.
Meanwhile, in New York City, officials there said that the Big Apple’s office occupancy rate hit 50% for the first time since the early days of the pandemic in 2020.
GLOBAL
A damning report by a UK parliamentary committee found that former Prime Minister Boris Johnson deliberately and repeatedly mislead UK lawmakers over lockdown parties that were held at No. 10 Downing Street in the first year of the pandemic.
Meanwhile, Chinese scientists find small air pollution particles such as PM2.5 can act as a kind of “Trojan horse” for viruses. A study in mice found that pollution-borne pathogens can reach deep into the lungs and attack more distant organs through the bloodstream. Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences said results give “further urgency” to air quality management and pollution reduction policies.
TODAY’S STATISTICS
Now here are the daily statistics for Thursday, June 15.
As of Thursday morning, the world has recorded just under 690.4r million Covid-19 cases, an increase of under 0.1 million from the previous day, and 6.89 million deaths, according to Worldometer, a service that tracks such information. In addition, 662.8 million people worldwide have recovered from the virus, an increase of less than 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 Thursday at press time is 20,643,308, an increase of 18,000. Out of that figure, 99.8%, or 20,605,786, are considered mild, and 0.2%, or 37,522, 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 test positivity rate for the week ending June 3 was 8.7%, up from 6.79%, in the prior week, according to data from the CDC Respiratory Virus Laboratory Emergency Department Network Surveillance, or RESP-LENS. By comparison, the test positive rate for influenza was 2.06% and, for RSV, that figure was 0.39%.
The death toll from Covid was 1.5% in the week ending May 27, 2023, and the trend in Covid-19 deaths is up 7.1% over the same period.
Finally, the number of hospital admissions from Covid for the week ending May 30 was 7,643, a figure that is down 8.4% over the preceding 7-day period.
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 Thursday, recorded 107.2 million cases, a higher figure than any other country, and a death toll of over 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 531,893.
The newest data from Russia’s Rosstat state statistics service showed that, at the end of July 2022, 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 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, 703,399, has recorded 37.6 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 31.9 million cases, placing it in the number seven slot, and Italy, with 25.9 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 May 11, 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. Starting on May 11, 2023, the CDC pressed pause on reporting new vaccine data, a hiatus it said would end on June 15 of this year.
Some 70.1% of the world population has received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine by Thursday, according to Our World in Data, an online scientific publication that tracks such information. So far, 13.42 billion doses of the vaccine have been administered on a global basis and 239,219 doses are now administered each day.
Meanwhile, only 30.2% 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.
Anna Breuer contributed reporting to this story.
(Photo: Accura Media Group)
