A street scene in Frankfurt
Good morning. This is Jonathan Spira reporting. Here now the news of the pandemic from across the globe on the 1,209th day of the pandemic.
OP-ED ON MONDAY
The Sun Sets on the N.Y.S. Excelsior Pass, the Nation’s First Vaccine Passport
For many, the Excelsior app was a staple of the pandemic, giving those who tested negative for the coronavirus and/or had received one or more vaccinations the ability to engage in social activities ranging from dining out to attending the theater.
Championed by former Governor Andrew Cuomo, the app is similar in function and intent to Israel’s Green Pass, which allowed the country to reopen to those who were fully inoculated.
The Excelsior Pass documented (and continues to do so) an individual’s vaccination status and/or recent negative Covid-19 tests and can be presented to gain entry to businesses and event venues that require the pass.
“The first-in-the-nation Excelsior Pass heralds the next step in our thoughtful, science-based reopening,” Cuomo said in a statement at its launch in March 2021.
The pass, which resides in a proprietary app, resembles a mobile airline boarding pass. Holders of the pass will be able to store their passes in the NYS Wallet app and, when needed, print out a copy. The app continues to be available at no charge in the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store for Android apps.
The Excelsior Pass used by theaters, stadiums, and arenas, as well as at weddings at other catered events. Madison Square Garden in New York City and the Times Union Center in Albany were among the first to announce support of the pass, and it was adopted by Broadway and off-Broadway theaters later in the year when they finally were able to safely reopen.
The app doesn’t display actual health data; rather it shows a green checkmark if the holder of the pass has been vaccinated or tested negatively or a red “x” if he hasn’t.
In other news we cover today, a spokesman for Germany’s Bundesministerium für Gesundheit, or Health Ministry, said that there were 209 cases of vaccine damage in the court system, a coronavirus mask price gouger now faces prison time, and three women who stole pandemic relief funds meant for those who could not pay rent or condo fees also face jail time.
UNITED STATES
In Illinois, an entrepreneur now faces prison time of at least one year after committing price-gouging in the sale of N95 masks in the earliest weeks of the pandemic. Krikor Topouzian was convicted on Thursday in federal court in Chicago following a bench trial. He owned a health goods supply company in Skokie and purchased approximately 80,000 N95 masks in March and April 2020, paying approximately $5 per mask. He then sold them for $20 per mask, boasting about making as much as $80,000 per day and $1 million in just a few weeks.
Meanwhile, three women in Palm Beach, Florida, fabricated documents in order to appear to qualify for food stamps and rent relief. Two of the women worked in the office of an apartment rental complex that gave them access to the tools with which to forge such documents.
In total, the three received just over $24,000 in pandemic relief, with the funds coming from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, approved in 2020 – also known as the CARES Act – and from money provided by the U.S. Treasury’s Emergency Rental Assistance Program in 2021.
GLOBAL
A court proceeding against drugmaker BioNTech is set to begin in the Landgericht Rottweil, the regional court in Rottweil. The case is one of 209 cases against vaccine makers for damages claimed by individuals who received the vaccine.
State-provided compensation is covered by vaccine procurement contracts that were signed by the European Commission during the first two years of the coronavirus pandemic. However, this compensation will not apply if unexpected side-effects are found to be caused by gross negligence or failure to comply with manufacturing standards.
TODAY’S STATISTICS
Now here are the daily statistics for Monday, July 3.
As of Monday morning, the world has recorded 690.98 million Covid-19 cases, an increase 0.03 million from the previous day, and 6.89 million deaths, according to Worldometer, a service that tracks such information. In addition, 663.62 million people worldwide have recovered from the virus, an increase of 0.14 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 Monday at press time is 20,456,165, a decrease of 22,000. Out of that figure, 99.8%, or 20,418,873, are considered mild, and 0.2%, or 37,292, 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 the most recent data available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The test positivity rate for Covid for the week ending June 24 was 8.2%, up from 7.8% 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 2.1% and, for RSV, that figure was 0.51%.
The death toll from Covid was 1.1% in the week ending June 24, 2023, a figure that is unchanged over the past week.
Finally, the number of hospital admissions from Covid for seven days ending June 17 was 6,373, a figure that is down 5.3% over the preceding 7-day period.
As of March 25, 2023, the Morning News Brief began to update case data as well as death tolls on a weekly basis. In addition, as of 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. Where appropriate, the Morning News Brief has reintroduced data sets are they have become available.
Since the start of the pandemic, the United States has, as of Monday, recorded 107.3 million cases, a higher figure than any other country, and a death toll of 1.17 million. India has the world’s second highest number of officially recorded cases, 45 million, and a reported death toll of 531,903.
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, 703,964, has recorded 37.7 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 32 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 June 15, the total number of updated bivalent doses given in the United States was 139.9 million.
Older – and no longer updated – data from the CDC shows that over 270.2 million people in the United States – or 81.4% – have received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine as of May 11, 2023. 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.
Some 70.3% of the world population has received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine by Monday, according to Our World in Data, an online scientific publication that tracks such information. So far, 13.47 billion doses of the vaccine have been administered on a global basis and 65,965 doses are now administered each day.
Meanwhile, only 32.2% 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 beginning 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)
