PROVIDENCE, R.I.- The death toll from coronavirus in the United States exceeded 150,000 Wednesdays worldwide, according to a Johns Hopkins University count.
The milestone comes amid the symptoms that the nation’s epidemic is beginning to stabilize in the Sun Belt, but is warming in the Midwest, fed largely by young adults returning to bars, restaurants and gyms.
Brazil was second in the world with more than 88,000 deaths, followed by Britain at about 46,000.
Johns Hopkins put the nation’s confirmed infections at 4.4 million, also the highest in the world, though the real numbers in the U.S. and around the globe are believed to be higher because of limits on testing and the many mild cases that have gone undetected or unreported.
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As the world races to find a vaccine and a treatment for covid-19, there is seemingly no antidote in sight for the burgeoning outbreak of coronavirus conspiracy theories, hoaxes, anti-mask myths and sham cures.
The phenomenon, unfolding largely on social media, escalated this week when President Donald Trump retweeted a video about an anti-malaria drug being a cure for the virus, and it was revealed that Russian intelligence is spreading disinformation about the crisis through English-language websites.
Experts worry that the torrent of bad information, and resistance to mask-wearing and social distancing are dangerously undermining efforts to slow the virus.
In Missouri, Branson will require face coverings in most public places, despite the objections of many, including comedian Yakov Smirnoff.
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Smirnoff, who operates a successful theater in the city of tourism, told the councillors council Tuesday night that the mask ordinance would make his followed home look more like his home, Russia, Springfield News-Leader reported.
“I’m hoping that you can make this an island of freedom and choice in the sea of hatred and fear,” Smirnoff said, drawing applause from many in the crowd.
Nevertheless, the board voted 4-1 to approve the ordinance, which requires face coverings for people ages 13 and older, with some exceptions.
Republican Gov. Mike Parson has refused to issue a statewide mask mandate, but several jurisdictions across the state have enacted their own.
In hard-hit Florida, 216 deaths were reported Wednesday, breaking the single-day record that the state set a day earlier. Texas confirmed 313 additional deaths, pushing its total to 6,190, while South Carolina’s death toll passed 1,500 this week, more than doubling over the past month. In Georgia, hospitalizations have more than doubled since July 1.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey on Wednesday extended a state order requiring face coverings in public for another month and expanded it to include students in second grade and above as schools near to reopening.
GOVERNOR’S DEMANDS
Separately, the head of a congressional coronavirus oversight panel demanded Wednesday that Tennessee’s Gov. Bill Lee and three other Republican governors provide documents showing how their states are combating the pandemic.
“I am writing to request information about the private guidance the Administration has provided to Tennessee and whether you plan to implement those recommendations and take other critical actions to slow the spread of the coronavirus across the state,” wrote South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn, a Democrat and chairman of the House Oversight and Reform subcommittee.
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Similar letters were sent to Governors Brian Kemp of Georgia, Ron DeSantis of Florida and Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma, to the subcommittee’s spokeswoman.
According to the letter, Tennessee does not comply with at least five other recommendations provided through the White House Coronavirus Task Force, ranging from the non-adoption of a statewide masking order, which allows strict restrictions to indoor restaurants and that gyms remain open limitations in counties with a large amount of viruses
A spokesman for Lee said the governor’s workplace is reviewing the letter. The Florida governor’s workplace showed the receipt of the letter but did not have an immediate reaction. There’s no immediate reaction to Kemp’s workplace.
The Republican governor of Oklahoma questioned the state’s “red zones,” a classification we decided through the White House task council, because they had created their own covid-19 threat alert card that included the white house’s “initial methodology.”
The state “has not known a county in ‘red risk’ based on its 4 criteria for controlling the effect of covid-19 on Oklahoma’s physical care system,” Stitt said. “This is the right approach, and the state will continue to deploy transparent data, monitoring and support testing, PPE [individual protection team] and more resources to count and mitigate spaces of concern.”
According to the letter sent to Stitt, Oklahoma does not adhere to five recommendations from the White House working group. According to the task group, Oklahoma is in the red zone because it had more than a hundred new instances consisting of 100 citizens last week and has a verification positivity rate of more than 10%.
In Georgia, Clyburn observed six recommendations that he said the state did not follow. The letter stated that the state had not only failed to implement a statewide masking order, but also that Kemp had filed a lawsuit against Atlanta officials to avoid a masking requirement. Kemp and Atlanta are in mediation lately.
In Florida, the state reported that it did not follow 3 of the White House’s recommendations and partially complied with 3 others. The 12-member House oversight committee, with a 7-5 Democratic majority, has the strength to subpoena Trump’s management officials and make depositions.
Tennessee American Republican Mark Green criticized Clyburn and demanded that the Democrat rescind his application.
“The White House Coronavirus Task Force report has 21 states listed as being ‘in the red zone.’ Yet, for some reason, only four of these states, all with Republican governors, were on the receiving end of your letter,” Green said in a statement.
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All 4 states have until August 12 to respond.
REAL CHALLENGES
“It is a real challenge in terms of trying to get the message to the public about what they can really do to protect themselves and what the facts are behind the problem,” said Michael Osterholm, head of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy.
He said the concern is that “people are putting the population at risk because they don’t have the virus, it’s something they have to deal with.”
Instead of fading in the face of new evidence, claims have blossomed, fueled through combined messages from officials, handed down on social media, amplified through leaders like Trump and mutated when faced with conflicting events.
Claims include those of Dr. Stella Immanuel.
“You don’t want masks. There’s a cure,” Emmanuel promised in a video that sells hydroxychloroquine, an antimalarial drug. “You don’t want other people locked up.”
Last month, federal regulators revoked their approval of the drug as an emergency remedy amid growing evidence that it is not running and can have fatal effects. Even if this were effective, experts say it would not negate the need for a mask and other measures to involve the epidemic.
Twitter and Facebook began deleting the video Monday for violating disinformation policies on Covid-19, however, it had already been viewed more than 20 million times.
Other theories have argued that the virus is genuine or that it is a biological weapon created throughout the United States or its adversaries. One claims that the new 5G towers spread the virus through the microwave. Another popular story is that Microsoft founder Bill Gates plans to use covid-19 vaccines to implant microchips in the world’s 7 billion people.
Then there are the political theories: that doctors, newspapers and feds conspire to lie about the risk of the virus of political harm to Trump.
The flood of misinformation has posed a challenge for Facebook, Twitter and other platforms, which have found themselves accused of censorship for taking down virus misinformation.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg asked about the video with Emmanuel at a congressional hearing Wednesday.
“We got rid of him because he violated our policies,” Zuckerberg said.
U.S. Rep. David Cicilline, a Rhode Island Democrat who led the hearing, responded by noting that another 20 million people had noticed the video before Facebook acted.
“Doesn’t that mean that your platform is so big, that even with the right policies, it can’t involve fatal content?” Cicillin asked Zuckerberg.
MASK RELUCTANCE
He claims that the mask is among the tenacious highs.
The sceptics of the mask are a vocal minority and have combined to create social media pages where many false statements about the protection of the mask are shared. Facebook has removed some pages, such as the Unmasking America !organization, which had only about 10,000 members, and there are still others.
Early in the pandemic, medical authorities themselves were the source of much confusion regarding masks. In February, officials like the U.S. surgeon general urged Americans not to stockpile masks because they were needed by medical personnel and might not be effective in everyday situations.
Public fitness officials replaced their minds when it was transparent that the virus can spread among other people without symptoms.
Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, acknowledged in an interview with NPR this month that the mixed signals hurt.
“The message early on became confusing,” he said.
Many of the claims around masks allege harmful effects, such as blocked oxygen flow or even a greater chance of infection. The claims have been widely debunked by doctors.
Dr. Maitiu O Tuathail of Ireland grew so concerned about mask misinformation that he posted an online video of himself comfortably wearing a mask while measuring his oxygen levels. The video has been viewed more than 20 million times.
“Although the mask does not decrease your oxygen levels. Covid did,” he warned.
However, the trusted medical government is rejected by those who say that requiring others to wear a mask is a step toward authoritarianism.
“Unless he takes a stand, he’ll wear a mask for the rest of his life,” tweeted Simon Dolan, a British businessman who sued over his restrictions on covid-19.
CASE REMEDY
Elsewhere, countries that had suppressed their outbreaks are helping to stimulate the relentless expansion of the global pandemic.
Japan, Israel, Lebanon and Hong Kong are among dozens of countries that have reported a record number of new instances in days, weeks after crushing the infection curve, reopening their economies, and moving forward.
And in some countries that have reduced their numbers, especially in Europe, the reopening of borders, bars and nightclubs is attributed to a slight but significant accumulation in cases.
In Belgium and Spain, the number of infections has reached unnoticed degrees since the beginning of May, leading the government to reimpose some recently lifted restrictions.
The United States, Brazil and India continue to fuel the growth of the pandemic to the maximum, accounting for approximately two-thirds of the new internationally reported bodies in the following week. Many other countries, including Africa, Latin America and the Middle East, have yet to peak infections, according to World Health Organization officials.
In Australia and elsewhere like Hong Kong and Israel, which gave the impression of beating the virus, infections grew twice as fast as in the United States.
Now one million new infections are reported every 4 days worldwide, with a total of around 17 million cases.
Meanwhile, Russia plans to pass a coronavirus vaccine until 10 and 12 August, paving what its supporters say is the world’s first official approval of the epidemic vaccine.
The Gamaleya Institute vaccine and the Russian Direct Investment Fund are expected to register conditionally in August, and another 1,600 people will still need to test, Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova said Wednesday at a television assembly of officials with President Vladimir Putin. It is expected to start in September, he said.
The information for this article was provided by David Klepper, Kimberlee Kruesi, Jim Salter, Kim Chandler, Beatrice Dupuy, Eric Tucker and Amy Forliti of the Associated Press; through Liz Sly, Simon Denyer and Ruth Eglash of The Washington Post; and through Jake Rudnitsky and Stepan Kravchenko of Bloomberg News.