‘This Pandemic Is Not Over’: CDC Issues Guidance About New At-Risk Groups Extending Beyond Elderly

Stat: CDC Broadens Guidance On Americans Facing Risk Of Severe Covid-19
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday broadened its warning about who is at risk of developing severe disease from Covid-19 infection, suggesting even younger people who are obese or have other health conditions can become seriously ill if they contract the virus. The new advice, timed to influence behavior going into the July 4 weekend, came as CDC Director Robert Redfield acknowledged serology testing the agency has conducted suggests about 20 million Americans, or roughly 6% of the population, has contracted Covid-19. Redfield said for every person who tests positive, another 10 cases have likely gone undiagnosed. (Branswell, 6/25)

The New York Times: As Virus Surges, Younger People Account For ‘Disturbing’ Number Of Cases 
Younger people are making up a growing percentage of new coronavirus cases in cities and states where the virus is now surging, a trend that has alarmed public health officials and prompted renewed pleas for masks and social distancing. In Arizona, where drive-up sites are overwhelmed by people seeking coronavirus tests, people ages 20 to 44 account for nearly half of all cases. In Florida, which breaks records for new cases nearly every day, the median age of residents testing positive for the virus has dropped to 35, down from 65 in March. (Bosman and Mervosh, 6/25)

The New York Times: How The Virus Won
Invisible outbreaks sprang up everywhere. The United States ignored the warning signs. We reconstructed how the epidemic spun out of control. (6/25)

Stat: As Covid-19 Peaks, A Virus Once Again Takes Advantage Of Human Instinct
The natural response to a disaster is to at first believe that it is not happening. The Covid-19 pandemic, we are learning, is a disaster playing out in slow motion — when every moment is a little bit worse than one would expect. In the United States, the result is a grim sense of déjà vu. (Herper, 6/25)

NPR: Coronavirus's Genetics Not Changing Much, And That Bodes Well For A Vaccine 
Scientists are monitoring the virus that causes COVID-19 for genetic changes that could make a vaccine ineffective. But so far, they're not seeing any. "There's nothing alarming about the way the coronavirus is mutating or the speed at which it's mutating," says Emma Hodcroft, a molecular epidemiologist at the University of Basel in Switzerland. "We don't think this will be a problem [for vaccines] in the short term." (Hamilton, 6/26)

The Wall Street Journal: The Covid 15: Lockdowns Are Lifting, And Our Clothes Don’t Fit 
Amanda Ponzar knew she had gained weight from all her baking while sheltering at home in Alexandria, Va., but she hadn’t realized how much until she ordered shorts online from Walmart Inc. They had an elastic waist but were still too tight. “You need smaller thighs to wear those,” her 12-year-old son told her. She is now buying bigger sizes as a stopgap until her old clothes fit. (Kapner, 6/25)

Kaiser Health News: Packed Bars Serve Up New Rounds Of COVID Contagion 
As states ease their lockdowns, bars are emerging as fertile breeding grounds for the coronavirus. They create a risky cocktail of tight quarters, young adults unbowed by the fear of illness and, in some instances, proprietors who don’t enforce crowd limits and social distancing rules. Public health authorities have identified bars as the locus of outbreaks in Louisiana, Florida, Wyoming and Idaho. Last weekend, the Texas alcohol licensing board suspended the liquor licenses of 17 bars after undercover agents observed crowds flouting emergency rules that required patrons to keep a safe distance from one another and limit tavern occupancy. (Rau and Lawrence, 6/25)

AP: Pandemic Forces Some Patients To Phone In Doctor Visits
Video telemedicine took off earlier this year as the coronavirus paused in-person doctor visits. Earl Egner missed that trend. The 84-year-old diabetic and cancer survivor has no computer or cellphone. Instead, he relies on a form of communication older than himself — the telephone — to talk to doctors as he stays hunkered down in his Somerset, Virginia, home. (Garcia Cano and Murphy, 6/25)

Kaiser Health News: Seniors In Low-Income Housing Live In Fear Of COVID Infection 
Davetta Brooks, 75, who has heart failure, a fractured hip and macular degeneration, is afraid. Conditions in her low-income senior building on Chicago’s Near West Side — the Congressman George W. Collins Apartments — are “deplorable,” she said. Residents are not wearing masks or gloves to guard against the coronavirus, she said: “They’re touching everything on the elevator, in the laundry room. And anybody and everybody’s relatives and friends are coming in and out with no scrutiny.” (Graham, 6/26)

Burlington Free Press: Coronavirus: Vermont Face Mask Rules Stand Out Among Northeast
As the number of COVID-19 cases continue to rise sharply in states without strict mandates on face coverings, Vermont stands out among its neighbors. The rest of the Northeast requires at least some customers of businesses to wear masks. Several states have what amount to across-the-board requirements. (Danforth, 6/25)

ABC News: 89% Of Americans Wear Masks In Public As The Coronavirus Pandemic Persists: POLL
An overwhelming majority of Americans say they've worn a face mask in public in the last week, as the coronavirus pandemic persists and infections reach new highs in more than a dozen states, a new ABC News/Ipsos poll finds. Nearly nine in 10 Americans (89%) who left their home in the last week said they wore a face mask or a face covering, compared to only 11% who said they did not. (Karson, 6/25)

ABC News: Officials See Pushback As More States, Counties Require People To Wear Masks In Public 
After Gov. Roy Cooper issued a mandatory mask requirement across North Carolina on Wednesday amid rising COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations in the state, several sheriffs publicly said they would not enforce the mandate when it goes into effect on Friday. The sheriff of Sampson County said the rule is "not only unconstitutional, but unenforceable." The sheriff of Iredell County echoed that sentiment. (Deliso, 6/25)

Modern Healthcare: Medical School Creates Program For Treating LGBTQ Patients
Riley Darby-McClure, a medical student at University of Oklahoma College of Medicine, understands what it's like to experience the healthcare system as a transgender individual. When LGBTQ care was only briefly discussed during the first two years of medical school, they were concerned. "It was important to me going to medical school to make sure that my peers and I were getting educated" on the LGBTQ community, Darby-McClure said. There is evidence that shows LGBTQ individuals face discrimination when seeking healthcare. Some providers deny transgender individuals care and physicians and nurses have a history of asking inappropriate questions or making wrong assumptions about healthcare needs for LGBTQ persons. (Castellucci, 6/25)

Stat: ‘Pool Testing’ Could Help U.S. Crank Up To Millions Of Tests Per Day 
If the country wants to crank up its Covid-19 testing capacity into the millions — the range that could be required for safer reopenings of businesses and universities — experts say it’s time to ramp up a technique known as “pool testing.” It’s a simple construct: combine — or pool — samples from multiple people and test them as a group for the coronavirus. It’s a way to dramatically and efficiently increase volume, to churn through what you expect to be a lot of negative samples at a fast clip. (Joseph, 6/26)

ABC News: COVID-19 Disease In Children Is Usually Mild, Fatalities Rare, UK Study Says 
Mounting evidence out of the United Kingdom provides more insight into how COVID-19 affects children, further confirming what researchers have been saying for months: Children are not as adversely affected by COVID-19 as adults. A newly published study in Lancet found that children, including infants, generally have mild symptoms of COVID-19, and even those who develop the disease severely enough to warrant intensive care unit admission are unlikely to die. (Adigun, 6/25)

ABC News: A Family Party, Reopened Bars: Where Coronavirus Clusters Have Broken Out Around The US 
As hospitals in some areas struggle and ICU beds run short, recent events like bar crawls and family gatherings may have contributed to the increase in coronavirus cases across the country, experts say... "Every activity that involves contact with others has some degree of risk right now," according to a press release issued by the CDC on Thursday. (Carrega, 6/25)

CIDRAP: Chilblains Unrelated To COVID-19 Infection, 2 Studies Conclude
Chilblains—which in this pandemic have been referred to as "COVID toes"—are not a sign of COVID-19 infection but rather a result of sedentary lifestyles linked to community lockdown measures and a lack of warm footwear, two small studies published today in JAMA Dermatology have found. In a study involving 31 patients with chilblains, 11 of them teenagers, from Apr 10 to 17 at a Brussels hospital, none tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, on reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) or had antibodies against the virus on serologic testing. (6/25)

ABC News: Pregnant Women With COVID-19 Not More Likely To Die, But Possibly More Likely To Get Sick, Studies Find 
When it comes to COVID-19 and pregnancy, there is a lot we don't know. Now, a new report from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and a recent multi-center study on pregnant women with COVID-19 have provided a little bit more clarity. (Baldwin, 6/25)

Kaiser Health News: Lost On The Frontline 
America’s health care workers are dying. In some states, medical personnel account for as many as 20% of known coronavirus cases. They tend to patients in hospitals, treating them, serving them food and cleaning their rooms. Others at risk work in nursing homes or are employed as home health aides.“Lost on the Frontline,” a collaboration between KHN and The Guardian, has identified 697 such workers who likely died of COVID-19 after helping patients during the pandemic. (6/26)