New COVID-19 cases continue to drop in Washington state and the nation, but the coronavirus’ spread is persistent and continues to affect nations around the world. The pandemic appears to be winding down in the United States in a thousand subtle ways, but without any singular milestone, or a cymbal-crashing announcement of freedom from the virus.
The global death toll from COVID-19 topped 5 million on Monday, less than two years into a crisis that has not only devastated poor countries but also humbled wealthy ones with first-rate health care systems.
In the United Kingdom, some are pushing to delay an in-person U.N. climate change conference that had already been postponed a year because of a COVID spike in the country. Russia is experiencing a ‘fourth wave’ as they struggle with a vaccination rate of about 35%.
But while many developing countries don’t have enough vaccines, Western countries are providing booster shots or have too many shots for the parts of their populace who don’t want to be vaccinated. In the U.S., fights continue over how many exemptions from vaccine mandates can be allowed among large employers and the government.
In Oregon, almost two weeks after Gov. Kate Brown mandated vaccines for public employees, data shows some local governments, especially in rural parts of the state, have allowed large chunks of their employees to take advantage of religious or medical exemptions. In the city of Medford, where 44% of the city’s emergency medical technicians asked for and received exceptions, only 56% of the city’s EMTs are fully inoculated against COVID-19. In Spokane, Washington, a few firefighters who opted to leave rather than be vaccinated might return for work, if the firefighters’ union gets their way. They would not return in their original job, but in a different role in the department, city spokesman Brian Coddington said.
We’re updating this page with the latest news about the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on the Seattle area, the U.S. and the world. Click here to see previous days’ live updates and all our other coronavirus coverage, and here to see how we track the daily spread across Washington.
Jon Bon Jovi tests positive for COVID-19, cancels concert
Jon Bon Jovi tested positive for COVID-19 during a rapid test just before he was set to perform a concert in Miami Beach.
An announcer took to the stage to give the crowd the bad news just before Saturday night’s concert at Loews South Beach was set to begin, WSVN in Miami reported.
Bon Jovi, 59, and his bandmates took rapid tests just before the concert and Bon Jovi tested positive. He is fully vaccinated. Ticket holders were required to show proof of vaccination or negative test results to get into the concert, the highlight of a three-day hotel package costing up to thousands of dollars a person.
“Jon feels great,” the announcer told the crowd, adding that the “Livin’ On a Prayer” singer was going to bed.
He also had been scheduled to participate in a Q & A session and a photo op on Saturday night.
There was no word on whether the concert would be rescheduled.
COVID-19’s global death toll tops 5 million in under 2 years
The global death toll from COVID-19 topped 5 million on Monday, less than two years into a crisis that has not only devastated poor countries but also humbled wealthy ones with first-rate health care systems.
Together, the United States, the European Union, Britain and Brazil — all upper-middle- or high-income countries — account for one-eighth of the world’s population but nearly half of all reported deaths. The U.S. alone has recorded over 745,000 lives lost, more than any other nation.
“This is a defining moment in our lifetime,” said Dr. Albert Ko, an infectious disease specialist at the Yale School of Public Health. “What do we have to do to protect ourselves so we don’t get to another 5 million?”
The death toll, as tallied by Johns Hopkins University, is about equal to the populations of Los Angeles and San Francisco combined. It rivals the number of people killed in battles among nations since 1950, according to estimates from the Peace Research Institute Oslo. Globally, COVID-19 is now the third leading cause of death, after heart disease and stroke.
The staggering figure is almost certainly an undercount because of limited testing and people dying at home without medical attention, especially in poor parts of the world, such as India.
Hot spots have shifted over the 22 months since the outbreak began, turning different places on the world map red. Now, the virus is pummeling Russia, Ukraine and other parts of Eastern Europe, especially where rumors, misinformation and distrust in government have hobbled vaccination efforts. In Ukraine, only 17% of the adult population is fully vaccinated; in Armenia, only 7%.
US prisons face staff shortages as officers quit amid COVID
At a Georgia state House of Representatives hearing on prison conditions in September, a corrections officer called in to testify, interrupting his shift to tell lawmakers how dire conditions had become.
On a “good day,” he told lawmakers, he had maybe six or seven officers to supervise roughly 1,200 people. He said he had recently been assigned to look after 400 prisoners by himself. There weren’t enough nurses to provide medical care.
“All the officers … absolutely despise working there,” said the officer, who didn’t give his name for fear of retaliation.
In Texas, Lance Lowry quit after 20 years as a corrections officer to become a long-haul trucker because he couldn’t bear the job any longer. Watching friends and coworkers die from COVID-19, along with dwindling support from his superiors, wore on him.
“I would have liked to stay till I was 50,” said Lowry, 48. “but the pandemic changed that.”
Staff shortages have long been a challenge for prison agencies, given the low pay and grueling nature of the work. But the coronavirus pandemic — and its impact on the labor market — has pushed many corrections systems into crisis. Officers are retiring and quitting in droves, while officials struggle to recruit new employees. And some prisons whose prisioner populations dropped during the pandemic have seen their numbers rise again, exacerbating the problem.
9,000 NYC workers on leave as vaccine mandate takes effect
About 9,000 New York City municipal workers were put on unpaid leave for refusing to comply with a COVID-19 vaccine mandate that took effect Monday and thousands of city firefighters have called out sick in an apparent protest over the requirement, Mayor Bill de Blasio said.
About 9 in 10 city workers covered by the mandate have gotten vaccinated and there have been no disruptions to city services as a result of staffing shortages, de Blasio told reporters at his daily news briefing. New York has more than 300,000 city employees.
Firehouses remained open but 18 of the department’s 350 units were out of service, Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said. Sanitation workers made an extra pickup on Sunday to ensure trash wouldn’t pile up, the mayor said.
City officials have been battling fierce resistance among a minority of workers in some critical public safety jobs, including police officers and firefighters, as well as a pending legal challenge to the mandate by the city’s largest police union.
Russia hits new high daily coronavirus cases
Russia has once again recorded a new daily high number of coronavirus cases as much of the country’s businesses remain closed in an effort to counter a weekslong surge in infections.
The national coronavirus task force on Sunday reported 40,993 new infections over the previous day, up more than 700 on the previous record of a day earlier. Russia has tallied new record of infections or deaths almost daily during October.
The death toll reported Sunday was 1,158, just slightly down from Friday’s record 1,163.
That brought Russia’s official COVID-19 death count to 238,538, by far the largest in Europe. More than 8.51 million infections have been recorded in the country of 146 million during the pandemic.
The task force counts only deaths directly caused by the virus. The state statistics service Rosstat, which counts COVID-19 deaths by wider criteria, counted 44,265 deaths in September caused directly by the virus.That would bring Russia’s pandemic-long death toll to about 461,000 as of the end of September, nearly twice the task force’s count.
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