Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Spring, Not Winter, Will Bring Second Wave Of COVID, Scientist Predicts
A Texas聽scientist predicts a second wave of coronavirus will occur in the spring and not the winter months. Professor Ben Neuman, chairman of biological sciences at Texas A&M University-Texarkana said coronaviruses commonly 鈥減eak鈥 in the spring months, according to a Yahoo聽report. (McGorry, 9/9)
A new study in Transboundary and Emerging Disease calculated the case-fatality rate (CFR) of COVID-19 infections in 53 countries or regions that experienced a second wave鈥攐r resurgence鈥攐f coronavirus activity, and found a significantly lower death rate among all confirmed cases than in the first wave. This is the first study to compare the CFR in the first and second waves of the pandemic.聽(9/9)
Just days away from the start of a new school year, Spain鈥檚 capital city rolled out fresh restrictions on Monday to cope with what鈥檚 becoming a relentless second wave of cases. But those measures 鈥 strict controls on the distance between seats rather than tables in food-service settings, reducing funeral attendance to 25 people indoors and 50 outdoors, and 10-person limits on social gatherings 鈥 seem modest as the country鈥檚 total infections close in on 500,000, according to the latest data from Johns Hopkins. Official numbers indicate that threshold has already been reached. Spain鈥檚 is the highest infection total in Europe, though it pales against the 6 million鈥損lus cases in the U.S., which has seven times Spain鈥檚 population. (Kollmeyer, 9/8)