‘Explosive increases in mobility’ leads to increased number of projected deaths under new modeling

Louisiana health officials suggested safe alternatives, like having a virtual brunch together.

“We are telling everyone, see mom virtually today,” Derderian told CNN. “As much as you feel guilt on the front end for not seeing her, it’s better than feeling guilt on the back end over the possibility you were carrying Covid-19 and you give it to mom or grandma, and the consequences were they got sick, or worse, it was fatal.”

‘Explosive increases in mobility’ leads to more projected deaths

A projection model cited by the White House now predicts thousands more deaths, largely due to “explosive increases in mobility in a number of states.”

IHME Director Dr. Christopher Murray said cell phone data shows Americans are moving more, suggesting more infections to come.

“What’s driving the change is, simply put, the rise in mobility,” Murray said. “We’re seeing in some states a 20 percentage point increase in just 10 days in mobility. And that will translate into more human contact, more transmission.”

He said the top five states that have seen increased mobility are Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota and Georgia.

Other states have seen a 15-20 percentage point increase in mobility, according to an IHME press release: Alabama, Alaska, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

For those who might succumb to new infections, “around three weeks is the average time between infection to death,” said Gu, citing studies from Italy and China.

Top health officials are going into quarantine

Fauci is one of several top government and health officials who said they came in contact with an infected person at the White House.

While Fauci was not in close proximity to the person, he said he will spend the next two weeks working from home and wearing a mask. Fauci said he might go to his office, where he will be alone.

And Dr. Stephen Hahn, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, will also go into quarantine after coming into contact with a person who tested positive for the virus, an FDA spokesman confirmed to CNN on Friday.

Officials didn’t identify the infected person with whom Hahn or Redfield came into contact. But at least two people close to the president or vice president have tested positive for coronavirus.

The White House confirmed Vice President Mike Pence’s press secretary Katie Miller tested positive on Friday. She was often in White House coronavirus task force meetings.

An illness seen in children may be linked to virus

A teenager and two children under 8 years old died from an inflammatory illness observed in dozens of children in New York, state officials said.

That illness could be linked to the virus, they said.

“We were laboring under the impression young people were not affected by Covid-19,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. “We’re not so sure that that is the fact anymore.”

Researchers still don’t know whether coronavirus caused the syndrome. But this is under investigation, Cuomo said.

Many of the children tested positive for the virus or had its antibodies, Cuomo said. But they didn’t always show symptoms common with Covid-19, such as respiratory distress.

“It’s possible that these cases were coming in and were not diagnosed as related to Covid because they don’t appear as Covid,” Cuomo said.

State officials had previously warned that dozens of children in the state had been hospitalized with a condition doctors described as “pediatric multisystem inflammatory syndrome,” and that it could be linked to coronavirus.

On Sunday, Cuomo said 85 cases were under investigation. The cases mainly involved toddlers to elementary-school-age children.

Many of the children had fever and symptoms similar to toxic shock syndrome and Kawasaki disease, the state said.

Kawasaki disease causes inflammation in the walls of blood vessels, including those that supply blood to the heart, which in rare cases can lead to deadly limitations in blood flow.

New rules for New York state nursing homes

All nursing home staff must be tested diagnostically twice a week, Cuomo said. He also said hospitals cannot discharge a patient to a nursing home unless the patient tests negative for Covid-19.

And nursing homes can only take in residents if they have all the necessary resources to fully serve them, Cuomo said. If a nursing home cannot provide the appropriate level of care, they must transfer to another facility or contact the state health department.

Any nursing home that doesn’t follow these new rules could lose its license.

“We have alternative facilities for nursing home patients, Covid or non-Covid,” Cuomo said. “We created 40,000 hospital beds because we had to.”