A broom and rubbish bin at a park in Chengdu
Good morning. This is Jonathan Spira reporting. Here now the news of the pandemic from across the globe on the 1,225th day of the pandemic.
OP-ED ON WEDNESDAY
In-N-Out’s New ‘Unmatched’ Mask Policy Risks the Health of its Employees
Just when you can’t imagine corporate America making another dumb decision –prior examples include Blockbuster having had the chance to acquire Netflix early on, Hoover’s U.K. division offering free flights to the United States to those who purchased £100 of Hoover products, and Sears missing an opportunity to dominate e-commerce as far back as the late 1980s – it would appear that companies simply can’t help making themselves look like complete and utter fools to the entire world.
Enter In-N-Out Burger, the regional American hamburger restaurant chain.
This week, In-N-Out said that it will no longer allow employees in five U.S. states in which it operates to don face makes. The move, which goes into effect on August 14, is part of new company guidelines that “emphasize the importance of customer service,” i.e., showing employee smiles, according to a new policy issued by the company.
“Our goal is to continue to provide safe and customer-centric store and support environments that balance two things that In-N-Out is known for – exceptional customer service and unmatched standards for health, safety and quality,” the company said in an e-mailed memorandum viewed by Frequent Business Traveler.
An e-mail to the company asking whether customers had been complaining about masked smiles remained unanswered at press time.
Starting next month when the policy goes into effect, workers who wish to wear a face mask because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic must have a “valid medical note exempting him or her from this requirement,” the memorandum said.
“We are introducing new mask guidelines that emphasizes the importance of customer service and the ability to show our associates’ smiles and other facial features while considering the health and well-being of all individuals,” the memorandum read. Workers that have to wear masks as part of their jobs, such as for those in the so-called “patty room” or lab technicians, are exempt from the new policy.
Most employees and restaurants won’t be affected by the policy because laws in Oregon and California prohibit such actions. The company has 300 locations in California alone. However, employees in those states will have to don company-issued N95 masks.
The policy will only be in force in five states, namely Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Texas, and Utah, which together have approximately 100 locations or some 25% of the chain’s total locations.
Employees who violate the policy “risk termination,” according to the memorandum.
One thing is clear: The chain’s policy of risking its employees’ health is, indeed, “unmatched.”
In other news we cover today, here’s how genes shape your Covid experience and the United States ended funding for the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
UNITED STATES
The Biden administration formally ended the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s access to U.S. funding on Tuesday. The move comes amidst safety and security questions for the lab that is at the center of the Covid lab leak theory.
The lab leak theory has been supported by some U.S. intelligence agencies and completely dismissed by others.
Meanwhile, it turns out that the rate of teenage suicide and suicide attempts was at their lowest when schools were closed for the Covid-19 pandemic, a new study published Wednesday shows. The study points to an overall pattern that shows mental health in children and teenagers is at its worst while school is in session.
The study, by the University of Texas’s Houston School of Public Health, looked at more than 73,000 emergency department visits and hospitalizations that took place in the period between 2016 and 2021. There was an average of 964 suicide-related visits per 100,000 children between ages 10 and 18 each year, the researchers found.
Finally, a new study published in the journal Nature on Wednesday shows that people who carry a common change to genes that code for certain immune system molecules, which sit on the surface of cells called human leukocyte antigens also known as HLAs, were more likely to have SARS-CoV-2 without any symptoms.
Approximately 20% of people who contracted Covid were asymptomatic and only knew they had it because it showed up on a routine screening test. They never had any symptoms. Meanwhile, others got the virus and couldn’t shake its aftereffects for months. Some went on to be diagnosed with Long Covid.
TODAY’S STATISTICS
Now here are the daily statistics for Wednesday, July 19.
As of Wednesday morning, the world has recorded 691.72 million Covid-19 cases, an increase of 0. 03 million from the previous day, and 6.9 million deaths, according to Worldometer, a service that tracks such information. In addition, 664.12 million people worldwide have recovered from the virus, an increase of 0.03 million from the prior 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 Wednesday at press time is 20,701,430 20,691,923, an increase of 10,000. Out of that figure, 99.8%, or 20,664,234, are considered mild, and 0.2%, or 37,196, are listed as critical. The percentage of cases considered critical has not changed over the past eight months.
The United States no longer reports daily or weekly new Covid cases. It last 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 U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The test positivity rate for Covid for the week ending July 1 was 9.82, up from 9.28% 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 2.14%, up from 1.98% and, for RSV, that figure was 0.55%, up from 0.46%.
The death toll from Covid was 1% in the week ending July 8, 2023, a figure that is down 0.8% over the week.
Finally, the number of hospital admissions from Covid for seven days ending June 24 was 6,228, a figure that is down 8% over the preceding 30-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 Wednesday, recorded 107.4 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 531,915.
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, 704,448, 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 32.6 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 just over 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 Wednesday, according to Our World in Data, an online scientific publication that tracks such information. So far, 13.48 billion doses of the vaccine have been administered on a global basis and 206,748 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.
Anna Breuer contributed reporting to this story.
(Photo: Accura Media Group)
