Before Hurricane Ida barreled through Louisiana, the state’s hospital resources were already being pushed to the brink. In a state where only 40% of residents are vaccinated for COVID-19, the health care system has borne the consequences; as of today, nearly 88% of Louisiana’s intensive care hospital beds are in use—and 91% of hospitalized COVID-19 patients are not fully vaccinated. The pandemic has also tapped out the health care system’s most valuable resource: its workers. Hospitals are reporting major shortages of healthcare workers, and those on the job report feeling exhausted by the endless pandemic.
Now, the hurricane is stretching hospital resources even further. For instance, before the storm, North Oaks Health System in Hammond, a city between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, was preparing to lift a month-and-a-half long pause on elective procedures. When Ida hit, the facility switched to generator power and prioritized emergency care, CEO Michele Kidd Sutton told my colleague Jamie Ducharme. “Many people are just coming up to the front door and asking for updates,” Sutton says.
Ochsner Health System, the state’s largest non-profit academic health care system, had to evacuate two of its hospitals in the Bayou region. The network is also working to provide staff members with housing, and its facilities are now stocking essential toiletries for employees. Michael Hulefeld, Ochsner’s chief operating officer, told my colleague Alice Park that while COVID-19 has made space tight at their facilities, “We’re holding a lot of patients we can’t yet discharge because people can’t go to their homes yet... As we have throughout the process, we will manage it day to day.”
For other facilities, it may be too soon to determine the storm’s full impact for the community. Children’s Hospital New Orleans (CHNO) has been facing a surge of pediatric COVID-19 cases, with about 15 children hospitalized for the virus at any given time in recent days. Laurie Schulenberg, CHNO’s chief nursing officer, told my colleague Jamie Ducharme that with many New Orleans families gathering in communal shelters to avoid the hurricane, it’s hard to say whether more kids will become seriously ill. “I would hope that situations like this would encourage people to be vaccinated, because there’s only so much control we have over who we come into contact with on a daily basis,” Schulenberg says.
TODAY'S CORONAVIRUS OUTLOOK
More than 217.1 million people around the world had been diagnosed with COVID-19 as of 8 a.m. E.T. today, and more than 4.5 million people have died. On August 30, there were 686,120 new cases and 8,887 new deaths confirmed globally.
Here's how the world as a whole is currently trending:
Here's where daily cases have risen or fallen over the last 14 days, shown in confirmed cases per 100,000 residents:
And here's every country that has reported over 4 million cases:
The U.S. had recorded nearly 39.1 million coronavirus cases as of 8 a.m. E.T. today. Nearly 639,000 people have died. On August 30, there were 258,532 new cases and 1,172 new deaths confirmed in the U.S.
Here's how the country as a whole is currently trending:
Here's where daily cases have risen or fallen over the last 14 days, shown in confirmed cases per 100,000 residents:
All numbers unless otherwise specified are from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, and are accurate as of Aug. 31, 1 a.m. E.T. To see larger, interactive versions of these maps and charts, click here.
WHAT ELSE YOU SHOULD KNOW
About 70% of European Union adults are now fully vaccinated, representing more than 250 million people, E.U. chief Ursula von der Leyen said in a video posted to Twitter today. While the E.U. was criticized for a slow start to its vaccine rollout, the Union passed the U.S. in vaccination rate last month; as of today, only 63.4% U.S. residents over the age of 18 are fully vaccinated. However, the rate of vaccination varies radically across European countries: whereas 83.5% of adults in Denmark are fully vaccinated, for instance, the number in Bulgaria is just 20%.
The U.S. Department of Education is investigating whether indoor-masking prohibitions in five states discriminate against students with disabilities who are at greater risk of severe COVID-19, the department announced in a bulletin yesterday. The department’s Office for Civil Rights sent letters to school officials in Iowa, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Utah describing why indoor-masking bans contradict other mandates to protect the safety of all students. “The Department will fight to protect every student’s right to access in-person learning safely,” Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said in a statement. In Florida, meanwhile, the state imposed penalties on two school districts, Alachua County and Broward County, for imposing mask mandates, the New York Times reports.
A U.S. Centers for Disease Control Prevention report released yesterday found that the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines to prevent hospitalization in people over 75 appears to decline over time, dropping from 90% to 80% between June and July, the New York Times reports. That said, the study also found that, for adults under 75, the vaccines were 94% effective at preventing hospitalizations as of July.
Research published in the journal JAMA yesterday found that Moderna’s vaccine produces a greater immune response than Pfizer-BioNTech’s shot. The study, which examined immune responses of health workers in Belgium, found that Moderna’s vaccine produced more than double the number of antibodies. However, David Benkeser, a biostatistician at Emory University, warned people to not overinterpret the results. “I would urge caution in making the conclusion that because Moderna demonstrated a slightly higher peak on average that its efficacy will be slower to wane,” he told Bloomberg, noting that both vaccines produce high levels of antibodies and that other studies have shown that lower antibody levels, such as those produced by Moderna in this study, can effectively protect against serious COVID-19.
New Zealand has deployed police to establish checkpoints around Auckland and other regions in the country to prevent non-essential travel in and out of those areas, which are under the country’s strictest restrictions for two more weeks, the New York Times reports. New Zealand has implemented some of the tightest COVID-19 restrictions in the world in an effort to eliminate COVID-19 entirely, despite having a small number of cases; in the past month, the country has had only 646 cases and zero deaths.
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. If you have specific questions you'd like us to answer, please send them to covidquestions@time.com.
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Today's newsletter was written by Tara Law and edited by Elijah Wolfson.
