Depending on your poison of choice, you likely spent much of this week glued to cable news or obsessively refreshing Twitter, waiting for the U.S. election results. It’s been one of the few weeks so far this year that the coronavirus pandemic hasn’t been the dominant news story in the U.S.—but plenty still happened in the fight against the outbreak, both domestically and globally.
Here’s just some of what you may have missed this week:
The U.S. set a new single-day case record on Wednesday, then promptly shattered it. Wednesday marked the first time the U.S. reported more than 100,000 new cases of COVID-19 on a single day—102,831, to be exact. That would have been bad enough, but on Thursday, the case count rose by nearly 20%, to 121,888. That’s an astronomical one-day leap, and a worrying sign of what’s to come this winter.
Much of Europe is back under lockdown. As the virus surges in Europe, countries including Italy, France, Germany, England and Greece have reimposed lockdown measures of varying degrees. This time around, however, officials have an added challenge: convincing people tired of ongoing pandemic precautions to respect the orders.
It was revealed that the CDC knowingly released a flawed test. In February, with the threat of the pandemic bearing down on the U.S., officials at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provided public laboratories with a coronavirus test despite knowing that it failed up to a third of the time, according to new NPR reporting. Experts told NPR that such an unreliable test never should have been released.
There's a COVID-19 cluster in a highly surveilled part of China. China is weathering its biggest coronavirus outbreak in months, in the tightly controlled western region of Xinjiang. Nearly 200 people have recently tested positive there, prompting the government to test nearly 5 million people who live in the area. The Xinjiang outbreak is China’s largest since June, when about 180 infections were reported in Beijing.
Denmark is culling its mink herd. After scientists found signs that some Danish minks have been infected with a mutated version of the virus that causes COVID-19, officials began culling all 17 million of the animals in the country as a precaution. Danish leaders said they took the drastic measure due to fears that vaccines currently in development wouldn’t protect against the mutated virus, but experts told STAT that there’s not yet strong evidence that the mink mutation poses a significant threat to humans.
More than 48.6 million people around the world had been diagnosed with COVID-19 as of 1 a.m. E.T. today, and more than 1.2 million people have died. Here's where daily cases have risen or fallen over the last 14 days, shown in confirmed cases per 100,000 residents:
On Nov. 5, there were 589,413 new cases and 8,111 new deaths confirmed globally. Here's how the world as a whole is currently trending:
Here is every country with over 600,000 confirmed cases:
While many parts of Europe are back under lockdown, some countries have been criticized for not going far enough to stop the spread of the virus. Turkey, for example, has shuttered many businesses but stopped short of closing schools and mosques. Turkish health care workers argue the measures don’t go far enough, The Guardianreports, and suggested the country’s caseload may be growing even faster than the roughly 2,000 new diagnoses per day that have been reported in recent days.
In a preliminary study published yesterday, scientists from the Netherlands and the U.S. describe what could someday be a valuable tool for fighting COVID-19: a nasal spray that essentially acts as a vaccine, preventing the virus from infecting its host. The results have not yet been peer-reviewed, and the spray hasn’t been proven to work in humans—the new research was conducted using ferrets. Still, independent scientists told the New York Times that it’s worth keeping an eye on the project’s development.
The Situation in the U.S.
The U.S. had recorded more than 9.6 million coronavirus cases as of 1 a.m. E.T. today. Almost 235,000 people have died. Here's where daily cases have risen or fallen over the last 14 days, shown in confirmed cases per 100,000 residents:
On Nov. 5, there were 121,888 new cases and 1,210 new deaths confirmed in the U.S. Here's how the country as a whole is currently trending:
The U.S. unemployment rate dropped a percentage point to 6.9% from September to October after 638,000 jobs were filled last month, according to new data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Industries including leisure/hospitality, retail and construction saw noticeable job gains in October, according to the data. Nonetheless, more than 11 million people in the U.S. remain unemployed, and more layoffs may come if further shutdowns become necessary.
A Missouri poll worker who reported for duty on Election Day despite testing positive for COVID-19 has died, local health officials announced yesterday. The man tested positive on Oct. 30 and was directed to quarantine, but failed to do so. About 2,000 voters showed up to the St. Charles polling site where the man worked, though it’s not clear if any were directly exposed.
In other unfortunate quarantine news, 36 resident physicians in Syracuse, N.Y., have been directed to quarantine after attending a Halloween party where they may have been exposed to the coronavirus. A co-worker who attended the party tested positive for the virus on Tuesday, triggering the quarantine order, the Syracuse Post-Standard reports.
All numbers unless otherwise specified are from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, and are accurate as of Nov. 6, 1 a.m. E.T. To see larger, interactive versions of these maps and charts, click here.
WHAT ELSE YOU SHOULD KNOW
Kids May Clear Coronavirus Infections Faster
A new study may help explain why children rarely get severely ill with COVID-19: their bodies seem to neutralize and clear the infection faster than adults’ do, as the New York Times explains. Read more here.
An Unusual Case of COVID-19
A 71-year-old cancer patient tested positive for COVID-19 for 105 straight days, despite showing no symptoms—and she was likely contagious for 70 of those days, according to a new case report. The woman’s experience seems to be quite rare, but may add to doctors’ understanding of how immunocompromised patients handle a coronavirus infection. Read more here.
The Year of Pizza and Pelotons
Americans lucky enough to have disposable income this year have channeled it toward at-home pleasures like food delivery, exercise equipment and video games, the Wall Street Journal reports. The stationary bike company Peloton has been an especially big winner, with its revenue tripling to almost $758 million during the September quarter. Read more here.
Thanks for reading. We hope you find the Coronavirus Brief newsletter to be a helpful tool to navigate this very complex situation, and welcome feedback at coronavirus.brief@time.com.
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Today's newsletter was written by Jamie Ducharme and edited by Alex Fitzpatrick.
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