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South Korea’s epidemic ‘in full swing’ after protest outbreak linked to church members, East Asia News & Top Stories – The Straits Times

The latest outbreak is driven by hundreds of infections among members of a church run by a far-right preacher. They had attended an anti-government protest in Seoul last Saturday, the 75th anniversary of Japan’s World War II surrender and the end of colonial rule in South Korea.

Mr Kwon urged all the demonstrators to be tested immediately at nearby public health clinics so as to protect those around them who are vulnerable.

The demonstration may have been a “catalyst” for the nationwide outbreak, as churchgoers chartered buses to the capital from their homes across the country, including the southern port of Busan, Mr Kwon said.

 

Source: South Korea’s epidemic ‘in full swing’ after protest outbreak linked to church members, East Asia News & Top Stories – The Straits Times

India sees record daily jump in Covid-19 infections

India reported a record daily jump of 69,652 coronavirus infections yesterday, taking the total case count in the country to 2.84 million, data from the Health Ministry showed.

As of last night, the number had pushed past 2.85 million and the death toll stood at over 54,000. India is the worst-hit country in Asia and third globally behind the US and Brazil in terms of case numbers.

BENGALURU/NEW DELHI • India reported a record daily jump of 69,652 coronavirus infections yesterday, taking the total case count in the country to 2.84 million, data from the Health Ministry showed.

As of last night, the number had pushed past 2.85 million and the death toll stood at over 54,000. India is the worst-hit country in Asia and third globally behind the US and Brazil in terms of case numbers.

India is also staring at a protracted slowdown as infections reach the countryside, with signs of recovery in the rural economy hailed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi being “at best a mitigating factor”, said government officials and analysts.

The world’s No. 5 economy will report first-quarter gross domestic product data on Aug 31. According to a Reuters poll, there was likely a 20 per cent contraction in the April to June period. The economy is also forecast to shrink 5.1 per cent in the year to March next year, the weakest performance since 1979.

Nearly half of India’s 1.38 billion people rely on agriculture to survive, with the sector accounting for 15 per cent of economic output.

Mr Modi has been citing higher fertiliser demand and the sowing of monsoon crops, both key signs of rural activity, to show there are “green shoots” in the economy.

But four government officials said the uptick in activity may not be as large as believed given a spike in virus cases in rural areas that were initially isolated from the pandemic.

“The economic situation has in fact worsened since April and May, and we are likely moving towards a longer economic slowdown than expected,” a Finance Ministry official said, pointing to sluggish consumer demand and a slowdown in rural lending as causes for concern.

A government adviser with knowledge of India’s budget plans said: “The situation on the economy front is very serious and the government’s hands are tied on the fiscal front.”

Both declined to be named as they were not authorised to speak to the media. A ministry spokesman declined to comment.

Separately, Dr A. Velumani, head of leading private laboratory Thyrocare, said at least one in four people in India may have been infected – much higher than official government figures suggest.

An analysis of 270,000 antibody tests done by Thyrocare across India showed the presence of antibodies in an average of 26 per cent of the people, indicating they had already been exposed to the virus, he said.

“This is a much higher percentage than we had expected. The presence of antibodies is uniform across all age groups, including children,” Dr Velumani told Reuters.

Thyrocare’s findings are in line with government surveys done in Indian cities such as Mumbai, which showed that 57 per cent of the population in its crowded slum areas had been exposed to the virus. The Thyrocare survey covered paid and tested patients in 600 cities in India for the last seven weeks.

If the trend continues, the percentage of India’s population having antibodies may hit 40 per cent before the end of December.

REUTERS

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UT-Austin students and employees urge officials to stop in-person classes, lower tuition and offer hazard pay

With less than a week until the first day of the fall semester at University of Texas at Austin, students, employees and alumni urged System officials on Thursday to cancel in-person learning this semester.

“I urge you to make enlightened and courageous decisions during the pandemic that will protect all of us and put the overarching humanitarian concerns ahead of short-term financial stress,” said Anne Lewis, a professor at UT-Austin and an executive member of the Texas State Employees Union, during testimony at the virtual Board of Regents meeting.
The Texas flag flies on the south lawn of The Univerisity of Texas at Austin campus on Dec. 3, 2019.

The south lawn of The University of Texas at Austin campus.

Credit: Eddie Gaspar/The Texas Tribune

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With less than a week until the first day of the fall semester at University of Texas at Austin, students, employees and alumni urged System officials on Thursday to cancel in-person learning this semester.

“I urge you to make enlightened and courageous decisions during the pandemic that will protect all of us and put the overarching humanitarian concerns ahead of short-term financial stress,” said Anne Lewis, a professor at UT-Austin and an executive member of the Texas State Employees Union, during testimony at the virtual Board of Regents meeting.

During the meeting, the Texas State Employees Union presented a petition that condemns the upcoming return to campus in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic as harmful, especially to people of color, who are disproportionately affected by COVID-19, and to low-wage earners, who are typically working on the front lines.

The petition calls for moving all face-to-face classes with more than 10 people to remote learning until there’s a downward trajectory in cases. It also calls on the UT System to end furloughs and layoffs and to provide hazard pay of $500 to all essential workers while ensuring unlimited and free access to protective equipment and COVID-19 testing.

UT-Austin is offering students free COVID-19 testing and will proactively test up to 5,000 asymptomatic individuals a week.

Speakers referenced Ural Wade Sr., the custodial services worker at UT-Austin who died earlier this summer after contracting COVID-19. Many warned that UT-Austin’s in-person return, scheduled in less than a week, will lead to more campus deaths.

“We can’t bring him back, but you can prevent others from getting sick and from dying,” said Greg Bosley, a computer support employee at UT-Austin.

UT-Austin has said 75% of its class seats will be online-only, which is an indication of how few people will be on campus at any given time, spokesperson J.B. Bird previously said in an email.

But allowing even a smaller number of in-person classes is dangerous, speakers said.

Employees also said they are already suffering from financial austerity measures the school has put in place. UT-Austin has furloughed at least 260 employees, though many have since returned to work. The school is also considering scaling down academic and administrative departments and has frozen salary increases and university-sponsored travel.

Bosley said because of budget cuts stemming from the pandemic, he’s been doing the jobs of two workers for months without additional pay.

“I’m exhausted,” Bosley said. He said he was praised by UT leadership for his hard work but “we need that praise backed up materially, with hazard pay.”

Student speakers criticized the UT System for endorsing a reopening plan they view as motivated by money over safety. The petition calls for a tuition decrease of 10% for the duration of the pandemic.

“The UT system can’t make any money if all the students are sick, dead or unable to attend because of high tuition costs in a global pandemic,” said Bennett Burke, a sophomore at the UT-Austin.

Students have repeatedly questioned the value of college this fall, leading to at least five lawsuits in Texas against universities for tuition-related grievances according to one law firm’s litigation tracker.

Allison Navejas, another sophomore at UT-Austin, said she and other students shouldn’t be paying thousands of dollars for tuition and fees if they don’t have access to any campus extracurriculars and are dealing with a decrease in the quality of learning.

“Charging $12,000 for what we are getting this semester is, frankly, immoral,” Navejas said. “It isn’t okay to charge us for the luxuries of a large university when most of your students will be doing the equivalent of online community college.”

Both Burke and Navejas also pointed out issues with relying on student behavior and said they have already witnessed large groups of students congregating on campus without masks.

Currently, UT-Austin is reporting 478 total COVID-19 cases among community members since March, with students making up 290 of those.

Disclosure: University of Texas at Austin has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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The real reason Netanyahu kept Gantz in dark on UAE deal – The Jerusalem Post

What happened with the UAE deal illustrates a misunderstanding of how a responsible government is meant to function. In a system of government like Israel’s, decisions of these kind are made by the coalition, not by a single individual. Netanyahu, of course, does not see it this way, and he has systematically tried since 2015 to rid the country of all checks and balances. That is what he has tried to do with legislation against the courts, decisions against the police, attacks against the media, and even legislation that allows him to bypass the Knesset’s parliamentary oversight: push everyone out of the way so he can decide on his own and rule on his own. If the Knesset disperses next week, Israelis will have a chance to decide what they want: a country that functions, or a government that cares about one thing and one thing only – the fate of its leader.

Source: The real reason Netanyahu kept Gantz in dark on UAE deal – The Jerusalem Post

Feds OK COVID-19 tests without FDA approval | CIDRAP (Translation; Risk of faulty tests increased) 

“As part of HHS’s ongoing department-wide review of regulatory flexibilities enacted since the start of COVID-19, the department has determined that the Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) will not require premarket review of laboratory developed tests (“LDT”) absent notice-and-comment rule making,” HHS said in a document posted to its website yesterday.

Source: Feds OK COVID-19 tests without FDA approval | CIDRAP

Texas begins publishing some data on coronavirus in child care centers | The Texas Tribune

The Texas state health agency will start regularly posting names and locations of all child care centers that have reported positive COVID-19 cases, after refusing to publicly release that information last month.

The Texas Health and Human Services Commission published a spreadsheet on its website Thursday showing COVID-19 cases in 1,867 child care facilities, summer camps and before- and after-school programs in 127 counties. It excludes the names and addresses of child care centers run out of homes, but the agency included total cases from home-based centers in a separate spreadsheet.

 

Source: Texas begins publishing some data on coronavirus in child care centers | The Texas Tribune

3 Manatee County Schools Have Confirmed COVID-19 Cases (HIPPA does not stop schools from disclosing how many students and staff are sick or have been exposed)

At Ballard Elementary, the district said, “a contact tracing investigation was conducted by a Florida Department of Health epidemiologist, and it was determined that there were direct exposures to the confirmed case.”

The message went on to say, “The case is isolated to a portion of the campus, and anyone who had direct exposure to the confirmed case is being contacted and sent home to isolate for 14 days.”

At Parrish Community High School, the Florida Department of Health determined there was “minimal direct exposure” to the confirmed case.

The state of Florida requires all traditional public schools to report COVID-19 cases on campus, but that’s not the case for charter schools.

Spectrum Bay News 9 independently confirmed a case at Rowlett Academy for Arts and Communication.

The school notified the Florida Department of Health anyway.

“It has been determined that the confirmed case had limited exposure to distinct portions of our campus. These areas will be closed for the next 2-5 days for intensive cleaning and disinfecting,” Principal Chuck Fradley wrote in an email to parents and employees.

Both Ballard Elementary and Parrish Community High School also said their campuses were undergoing additional cleaning measures.

The district says it’s continuing “to take mitigation measures at our [schools] including taking temperatures, wearing masks, asking symptom-related questions of all students and staff daily and limiting access to our [campuses].

A spokesperson for Manatee Schools declined to comment on how many students or staff members were affected in each of these cases, citing HIPPA.

Source: 3 Manatee County Schools Have Confirmed COVID-19 Cases