Coronavirus Daily News Brief – May 8: First National Pandemic Memorial Dedicated, A Vacuum in Iceland is Sucking Pollutants Out of the Air

A visitor at a cave in Friðland

Good afternoon. This is Jonathan Spira, director of research at the Center for Long Covid Research, reporting. Here now the news of the pandemic from across the globe on its 1,519th day as well as Red Cross Day,

Red Cross Day is dedicated to those individuals who provide aid to people suffering from natural disasters, armed conflicts, and other crises.

In news we cover today, the first pandemic memorial in the United States was dedicated, a Midwest school district used pandemic relief funds for athletic fields, a new direct air capture vacuum in Iceland is sucking pollutants from the air, and Dr. Tenpenny is back in the news.

TODAY IN THE FIRST YEAR OF COVID HISTORY

On May 8, 2020, the U.S. Department of Labor said that the country had lost 20.5 million more jobs in April, making the unemployment rate 14.7%. The rate was the highest since the Great Depression.

The number of coronavirus cases across the globe stood at 3.95 million, of which 1.36 million had recovered, based on data compiled by the Coronavirus Morning News Brief. The death toll stood at 271,791.

In the United States and its territories, the number of confirmed cases stood at 1.3 million, while the death toll stood at 77,058.

UNITED STATES

The first national pandemic memorial was dedicated in Belmar, New Jersey, on Wednesday. The Rami’s Heart Covid-19 Memorial stands at the spot where, earlier in the pandemic, many gathered to mourn and support each other, according to local media reports.

The memorial is named after Rami Samman, who died on May 10, 2020 from SARS-CoV-2. At that time, funerals were limited in size to eight people but, several months later, people began to leave stones in memory of loved ones on the beaches of Belmar. That grew into the present-day memorial.

In Oklahoma, the Mid-Del Public Schools committed to repaying more than $500,000 in federal pandemicrelief funds that were spent on athletic fields. The Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction, Ryan Walters,termed the use of the funds for this purpose as a blatant misuse of federal tax dollars, saying the school district “mismanaged funds.”

Schools in Oklahoma received a total of $1.2 billion in pandemic relief funds and Mid-Del received over $12 million from the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act.

The doctor who contended that vaccinated people become magnetized and who had her license to practice medicine yanked by the State of Ohio last year has agreed to pay a $3,000 fine and cooperate with investigators in order to regain her right to practice medicine.

Last summer, the State Medical Board of Ohio indefinitely suspended the license of  Sherri Tenpenny.  Tenpenny had her 15 minutes of fame after testifying to state lawmakers in June 2021 that coronavirus vaccinations made people magnetic.

Her testimony then is the stuff that legends aren’t generally made of.

“I’m sure you’ve seen the pictures all over the Internet of people who have had these shots and now they’re magnetized,” Tenpenny said in the course of her testimony. “You can put a key on their forehead [and] it sticks. You can put spoons and forks all over and they can stick because now we think there is a metal piece to that.”

Tenpenny didn’t stop there, however.  She said there may be an “interface – yet to be defined” between the components of the vaccines and “all of the 5G towers,” noting that the connection is “not proven yet” but that “we’re trying to figure [it] out.”

GLOBAL PANDEMIC NEWS     

AstraZeneca said it had begun the worldwide withdrawal of its coronavirus vaccine, now called Vaxzevria, due to a “surplus of available updated vaccines” since the start of the pandemic. It also has begun to withdraw the vaccine’s marketing authorizations within Europe.

OTHER HEALTHCARE NEWS

Mammoth, the world’s largest “vacuum cleaner” designed to filter pollution out of the air, has been brought on line. It works by using giant fans that suck in the air and separate the carbon.

The direct air capture plant was made by the Swiss company Climeworks. Mammoth is ten times bigger than an earlier model, Orca, which began to operate in 2021.

The plant is powered by Iceland’s clean and abundant geothermal energy.

Direct air capture is  a technology that sucks in air and strips out the carbon using chemicals. The carbon is then injected deep beneath the earth’s surface. It can also be reused or transformed into solid products. The carbon will be transported underground in partnership with an Icelandic company, Carbfix. Once  underground, it will be naturally transformed into stone, thereby locking up the carbon permanently.

PANDEMIC STATISTICS

CURRENT U.S. COVID STATISTICS AT A GLANCE

In the United States, in the week ending April 27, 2024, the test positivity rate was, based on data released on May 3 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was 3.0%, a figure that is unchanged from the previous 7-day period, and the trend in test positivity is -0.1% in the most recent week. Meanwhile, the percentage of emergency department visits that were diagnosed as SARS-CoV-2 was 0.3%, and the trend in emergency department visits is -11%.

The number of people admitted to hospital in the United States due to SARS-CoV-2 in the same 7-day period was 5,098, a figure that is down 11.1 % over the past 7-day period. Meanwhile, the percentage of deaths due to SARS-CoV-2 was 0.8%, a figure that is essentially unchanged from the previous period.

VACCINATION SPOTLIGHT

Some 70.6% of the world population has received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine at press time, according to Our World in Data, an online scientific publication that tracks such information.  So far, 13.57 billion doses of the vaccine have been administered on a global basis and 6,925 doses are now administered each day.

Meanwhile, only 32.7% 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, 2023, Eritrea remains the only country in the world that has not administered vaccines in any significant number

Finally, as of April 14, 2024, only Turkmenistan in Central Asia is only state that has not reported any cases of SARS-CoV-2 infections whatsoever, although it is strongly suspected that the virus is present there. Meanwhile, the last territory in the world to have its first ever SARS-CoV-2 infection was Tokelau, a dependency of New Zealand that reported its first five cases on December 21, 2022.

Where Has All the Data Gone?

We regret to inform that, as of April 15, 2024, the Global Daily Statistics data in the Coronavirus Daily News Brief are no longer being updated. Over the past 15 months, as more politicians and governments sought to place SARS-CoV-2 in the rear-view mirror, pandemic data reporting sputtered out and we are now at the point where it is simply not feasible to provide statistically valid case data on a global scale.

We are developing potential new and authoritative sources that we will present once they have been properly vetted, so stay tuned to this space. In the meantime, our Long Covid and pandemic coverage will remain much the same.

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Anna Breuer contributed reporting to this issue.

The Coronavirus Daily News Brief is a publication of the Center for Long Covid Research. www.longcov.org

If you have Long Covid and need to talk to someone, call the Long Covid Patient Peer Counseling Phone Line, or HOPELINE.  The HOPELINE is our free, confidential support and information service.

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