Coronavirus positives in Bradenton and Hillsborough Counties (Tallahassee, Sarasota: for rent, credit)

[wondermint2]

Originally Posted by wondermint2

Judge rules in favor of Florida teachers in school reopening lawsuit

Judge’s ruling unlikely to affect reopening plan for Manatee County schools
https://www.bradenton.com/news/coron...245205140.html

Manatee County schools reopened their doors to thousands of students last week. That was unlikely to change after a judge granted a temporary injunction against the state’s order to reopen brick-and-mortar schools on Monday afternoon.

On the first day of school in Manatee County, approximately 48 percent of students were expected to make a full return to the classroom, while 23 percent were enrolled in the hybrid schedule, a mix of in-person and online classes. In total, about 71 percent of students were expected to be on campus, whether it be full time or part time, throughout the week.

District spokesman Mike Barber said Manatee schools had no plans of retracting those on-campus options as of Monday afternoon.

“Right now, we’re just studying exactly what the ramifications of the ruling are,” Barber said. “Unless we get directives from the state, as of right now, we have no plans to change what’s being done.”

[wondermint2]

Trump touts FDA’s emergency authorization of convalescent plasma as historic breakthrough, but scientists are doubtful
https://www.washingtonpost.com/healt...t-plasma-okay/

President Trump announced Sunday that he had helped break through a regulatory “logjam” to grant emergency authorization of convalescent plasma to treat covid-19, a “powerful therapy” that he claimed “had an incredible rate of success,” despite the fact that his own scientists are calling for more studies to definitively show it works.

The announcement, at a news conference where Trump was flanked by Food and Drug Administration commissioner Stephen Hahn and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, drew criticism from physicians and scientists, who said their statements misled the public by overstating the evidence behind a therapy that shows promise but still needs to be rigorously tested.

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Trump considers fast-tracking UK Covid-19 vaccine before US election
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.ft....4-0e93dcdb3c1a

The Trump administration is considering bypassing normal US regulatory standards to fast-track an experimental coronavirus vaccine from the UK for use in America ahead of the presidential election, according to three people briefed on the plan.

One option being explored to speed up the availability of a vaccine would involve the US Food and Drug Administration awarding “emergency use authorisation” (EUA) in October to a vaccine being developed in a partnership between AstraZeneca and Oxford university, based on the results from a relatively small UK study if it is successful, the people said.

Making a vaccine available before the election could allow US president Donald Trump to claim he has turned the tide on a virus that has killed more than 170,000 Americans following widespread criticism of his handling of the pandemic.

However, if the Trump administration does rush through emergency authorisation ahead of the election by skirting normal government guidelines, it could dent already shaky public confidence in the safety of vaccines ahead of one of the largest mass-immunisation programmes in US history.

[wondermint2]

The FDA keeps promising that they will not make decisions based on political pressure - but their actions are sure raising a lot of question marks. Are they truly competent? If a vaccine is approved before the election - I'm not going to be among the first to run out and take the needle jab

F.D.A. ‘Grossly Misrepresented’ Blood Plasma Data, Scientists Say
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/24/h...od-plasma.html

At a news conference on Sunday announcing the emergency approval of blood plasma for hospitalized Covid-19 patients, President Trump and two of his top health officials cited the same statistic: that the treatment had reduced deaths by 35 percent.

Mr. Trump called it a “tremendous” number. His health and human services secretary, Alex M. Azar II, a former pharmaceutical executive, said, “I don’t want you to gloss over this number.” And Dr. Stephen M. Hahn, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, said 35 out of 100 Covid-19 patients “would have been saved because of the administration of plasma.”

But scientists were taken aback by the way the administration framed this data, which appeared to have been calculated based on a small subgroup of hospitalized Covid-19 patients in a Mayo Clinic study: those who were under 80 years old, not on ventilators and received plasma known to contain high levels of virus-fighting antibodies within three days of diagnosis.

What’s more, many experts — including a scientist who worked on the Mayo Clinic study — were bewildered about where the statistic came from. The number was not mentioned in the official authorization letter issued by the agency, nor was it in a 17-page memo written by F.D.A. scientists. It was not in an analysis conducted by the Mayo Clinic that has been frequently cited by the administration.

[wondermint2]

Better late than never I reckon...................

Venice approves 30-day mask ordinance on 4-3 vote
https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/...te/3427216001/

VENICE — An ordinance requiring marks to be worn in public where social distancing cannot be enforced will be in effect in the city of Venice for the next 30 days, following a 4-3 vote by the Venice City Council Tuesday.

Council Member Helen Moore, who voted against the ordinance during the first-reading at an Aug. 3 special meeting, proved to be the swing vote, as she joined Mayor Ron Feinsod and fellow council members Rich Cautero and Mitzie Fiedler in support of the ordinance.

[wondermint2]

Two more Manatee County schools have COVID-19 cases and exposures, district says
https://www.bradenton.com/news/coron...245205125.html

Two more schools have reported COVID-19 cases and exposures in Manatee County.

In an update on Monday afternoon, district spokesman Mike Barber provided a copy of the notifications sent to employees and families of Manatee High School and Lincoln Memorial Academy.

Manatee High had “a couple of cases of COVID-19” and “direct exposures” to the infected people, according to a notification dated Aug. 22.

A similar message, dated Aug. 21, said that Lincoln Memorial Academy had “a case of COVID-19” and “direct exposures” to the infected person.

Both notifications said the infected and exposed people were isolated, but the true impact of COVID-19 on local schools was not publicly known. Deviating from past statements, the district stopped providing the number of people who were infected or exposed at each campus, and it was unclear if the affected people were employees or students.

[wondermint2]

First Three Cases of Covid-19 Re-Infection Confirmed
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcar...s-reported?amp

Two patients, one from Belgium and the other from the Netherlands, were confirmed to have been reinfected with COVID-19, Reuters reported.

In order for reinfection, a virus must change its genetic code.

Whether or not the recurrence of infection will be more rampant in the community is still uncertain.

"Viruses mutate and that means that a potential vaccine is not going to be a vaccine that will last forever, for 10 years, probably not even five years. Just as for flu, this will have to be redesigned quite regularly," he said.

On Monday, researchers in Hong Kong reported the area's first confirmed reinfection of the virus, 4 1/2 months after the patient's initial infection.

"This case illustrates that reinfection can occur just after a few months of recovery from the first infection," the researchers said in a press release. "Our findings suggest that SARS-CoV-2 may persist in the global human population as is the case for other common-cold associated human coronaviruses, even if patients have acquired immunity via natural infection."

[wondermint2]

Four scenarios on how we might develop immunity to Covid-19
https://www.statnews.com/2020/08/25/...y-to-covid-19/

As the world wearies of trying to suppress the SARS-CoV-2 virus, many of us are wondering what the future will look like as we try to learn to live with it.

Will it always have the capacity to make us so sick? Will our immune systems learn — and remember — how to cope with the new threat? Will vaccines be protective and long-lasting?

These pressing questions gained even greater urgency Monday with the news that scientists in Hong Kong have confirmed a 33-year-old man was reinfected with Covid-19; his second infection as diagnosed — by airport screening — came 4.5 months after his first infection in March.

STAT asked a number of experts to map out scenarios of how we might come to coexist with this new threat. In a time of uncertainty, the scenarios they sketched were actually hopeful, even if the relief most envisage is not immediately around the corner.

[wondermint2]

New COVID-19 cases reported in four Manatee County schools and two colleges
https://www.bradenton.com/news/coron...245262285.html

Blackburn Elementary School, 3904 17th St. E. in Palmetto, reported “a couple of cases of COVID-19” and “direct exposures” to the infected people, according to a message sent to parents on Monday.

Gullett Elementary School, 12125 44th Ave. E. in Bradenton, reported “a case of COVID-19” and “direct exposures” to the infected person. The message was sent to parents on Tuesday afternoon.

Manatee High School, 902 33rd St. Court W. in Bradenton, reported a case of COVID-19, “which has not been on our campus since last week,” according to Principal David Underhill’s message to employees and families. He also said there were direct exposures to the infected person.

It was the second time Underhill sent a COVID-19 notification in the past several days. Manatee High reported “a couple of cases of COVID-19” on Sunday, along with the newest case on Tuesday.

“This is not the case I informed you about over the weekend,” Underhill said in his latest message.

Manatee School For the Arts, a public charter school in Palmetto, reported a COVID-19 case with no direct exposures on Monday evening.

The University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee also reported a case on Aug. 20. And as of Wednesday, the State College of Florida had a combined 21 cases between three campuses, according to its website:

-SCF Bradenton — three employees and 11 students tested positive.
-SCF Lakewood Ranch — one employee and one student tested positive.
-SCF Venice — one employee and four students tested positive.

While the district tracks the number of cases and exposures in schools, it has stopped providing those numbers, making it hard to know the true impact of COVID-19 on local campuses.

[wondermint2]

Manatee OKs new COVID-19 mask mandate exemption. You don’t have to wear one at church
https://www.bradenton.com/news/coron...245241180.html

A group of concerned citizens convinced the Manatee County Commission to modify its COVID-19 mask mandate, removing the requirement to wear masks within houses of worship.

Forcing worshippers to wear masks is an “overreach” of government authority, residents said at Tuesday’s Board of County Commissioners meeting. After listening to their concerns, commissioners voted 6-1 to make the change.

[wondermint2]

The 6-foot social-distancing rule is based on nearly 80-year-old science. Scientists at MIT and Oxford have created a traffic-light system to use instead.
https://www.businessinsider.com/6-fo...tem-2020-8?amp

-The 6-foot rule for social distancing is based on science that's 80 years old.

- Researchers say it's an antiquated way to think about how viruses move through the air.

- Instead, we should be considering many facets of an interaction: where it takes place, how long it lasts, and whether it's going to be loud.

- A new tool out from researchers at Oxford and MIT provides a traffic-light system for assessing risks during the pandemic so we don't always have to be on high alert.