Is Rhode Island Still Surging? - 5 Major Coronavirus Developments
GoLocalProv News Team
Is Rhode Island Still Surging? - 5 Major Coronavirus Developments
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"The rate of rise of the number of new cases, the rate of rise of hospitalizations is not as steep as it was. It's like the curve is flattening a little bit. It's not flat by any means," said Dr. Michael Fine, former RI Director of Health.
"I'm hoping that everybody's being a little more cautious, everybody's now remembering to mask, I hope and I'm hoping that that's having some effect," said Fine.
Warning for September and October
"But remember we're still at high transmission [rate]. You know, close to 200 new cases per 100 000 per week -- way above the 35 or 20 new cases a week [we had been seeing]," added Fine.
Fine's big worry is the impact when schools begin. "I'm really worried about what happens when we bring this level of transmission with this delta variant into schools when schools start in two or three weeks. That to me is you know is the great unknown," he added.
He urges that everything needs to be done to drive cases down in the next week weeks before schools begin. Children under 12 are not eligible for vaccination and RI does not require teachers and staff to be vaccinated.
SEE THE 5 MAJOR DEVELOPMENTS BELOW
5 Major Coronavirus Developments - August 24, 2021
Rhode Island Numbers: Inconsistent Due to Lack of Testing
The lack of testing by the RI Department of Health presently is causing data to be less stable. Unlike the successful college testing programs that require all of their students and staff to be tested twice a week, RI has no formal testing strategy.
Rhode Island is now conducting less than a third of the testing it had previously conducted during high infection periods.
Previously, RI conducted upward of 20,000 tests daily -- now the daily testing is about 7,000.
NY City Requires Teachers and Staff to Be Vaccinated, RI Does Not
The New York Times is reporting that "New York City will require all Department of Education employees to have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine by Sept. 27, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday."
While NY is pressing forward, RI's Commissioner of Education Angélica Infante-Green has refused to mandate teachers and staff to be vaccinated as they return to school.
New York is the largest school district in the United States.
Hawaii's Governor Is Asking Tourists to Stay Away
Hawaii Gov. David Ige on Monday called on tourists not to travel to Hawaii, as Covid-19 cases continue to surge, overtaxing the state’s health care system.
"Ige stopped short of imposing the sort of travel restrictions that effectively shut down Hawaii’s tourism industry when he put them in place in March 2020. Instead, the governor called on people to voluntarily postpone non-essential travel to and from Hawaii until after October," reports Honolulu Civil Beat.
“They would have a much, much better experience” if tourists wait until the late fall said the Governor.
False COVID News Dominates Facebook
A news article about a doctor who died after receiving a Covid-19 vaccination was Facebook's most viewed link in the US in the first quarter of 2021, a previously shelved report shows.
The piece - updated after a report said there was no proven link to the vaccine - was popular with vaccine [skeptics].
The New York Times claimed that Facebook initially held back its report because it would "look bad".
Facebook said the delay was in order to make "key fixes".
The company had already published its "Widely Viewed Content" report for the second quarter of 2021, in which it found a word search promising to reveal "your reality" was the most popular post.
Similarly, frivolous "question posts" formed most of the top 20.
Fauci's Confusion
Dr. Anthony Fauci over the past couple of days created a significant amount of confusion with comments about his estimation as to when the pandemic in the United States would be under control.
Dr. Michael Fine, the former RI Director of Health said the virus will not be under control for an estimated three to five years -- and not until children in the United States can be vaccinated and there is an improvement in international vaccination rates. Fine made the comments ten days ago on GoLocal LIVE.
Yahoo reports:
"...Fauci walked back his prediction Monday that it will take the United States more than one year to get control of COVID-19.
During an appearance on CNN, President Joe Biden's chief medical adviser offered an apology and said he meant to say the goal is actually within reach sooner — the spring of 2022 instead of the fall of next year as he said earlier in the day — but only if people holding out on getting vaccinated decide to get the jab.
"No, Anderson, I have to apologize," he told anchor Anderson Cooper. "When I listened to the tape, I meant to say the spring of 2022, so I did misspeak. And in the conversation with Mary Louise Kelly, she was saying, when do I think we can get some control? I said if we can get through this winter and get really the overwhelming majority of the 90 million people who have not been vaccinated, vaccinated, I hope we could start to get some good control in the spring of 2022. I didn't mean the fall. I misspoke, my bad."
Earlier, on NPR, Fauci made the comment about the fall of 2022. He said it was contingent on widespread vaccinations, a contentious issue lingering more than eight months after the jabs became available to the public, as the more contagious delta variant causes a new spike in cases and health officials push for booster shots."
