—Voice of OC
Orange County’s second wave of coronavirus infections is putting more and more people in the hospital and making it clearer to epidemiologists and public health experts the potential for a situation like — or even worse than — the region’s summer sickness wave.
County officials, who have long been eager to move into less restrictive tiers to reopen more sectors of the local economy, canceled their weekly news conference on Thursday for public virus information just a few hours before publishing new data that points to a worsening situation on their hands….
“Given sort of the trends — not just in OC, but across the country — it’s not looking good. I think there’s a real strong potential that it could be a lot worse than in the summer,” said University of California, Irvine epidemiologist Sanghyuk Shin in a phone interview….
Shin — who specializes in studying how diseases, like Tuberculosis, spreads through aerosol droplets when people talk, cough, yell, sneeze and sing — said COVID-19 spreads much the same way.
“That’s what the epidemiological evidence points to, as well as the environmental science and engineering folks … those experiments point to that as a primary mode of spread,” Shin said….
“The second wave is starting, I would say,” [epidemiologist Andrew] Noymer said. “We don’t wanna see ICUs in the 80’s and 90’s and so on … I’m frankly concerned.”….
Judges rule there is no evidence of discrimination against Asian Americans. Case is headed to Supreme Court.
—Inside Higher Ed
—CHE
On-campus learning is critical to student success, leaders say. And in some cases, college budgets may hinge on it.
—CHE
✅California hits 1 million coronavirus cases as L.A. County urges travel quarantine -- Coronavirus infections in California are racing upward at a level not seen since the summer, with the state surpassing 1 million cases on Thursday, and health officials are warning dire action must be taken to stop the spread of the illness. Luke Money in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 11/13/20
✅Biden finds support among Republicans as Trump scrambles to salvage his strategy to contest the election -- President-elect Joe Biden began seeing more support, if indirectly, from Republicans on Thursday as senior GOP lawmakers called for him to receive classified briefings even as the Trump administration continued to bar a formal transition. Seung Min Kim, Josh Dawsey, Matt Viser and Jon Swaine in the Washington Post$ -- 11/13/20
✅Election Officials Directly Contradict Trump on Voting System Fraud -- Hours after President Trump repeated a baseless report that a voting machine system “deleted 2.7 million Trump votes nationwide,” he was directly contradicted by a group of federal, state and local election officials, who issued a statement on Thursday declaring flatly that the election “was the most secure in American history” and that “there is no evidence” any voting systems were compromised. David E. Sanger, Matt Stevens and Nicole Perlroth in the New York Times$ -- 11/13/20
✅As Trump stews over election, he mostly ignores the public duties of the presidency -- On Thursday, six American service members were killed in a helicopter crash during a peacekeeping mission in Egypt. Tropical Storm Eta made landfall in North Florida, contributing to severe flooding. The number of Americans infected with the novel coronavirus continued at a record-setting pace, sending the stock market tumbling. David Nakamura in the Washington Post$ -- 11/13/20
✅California faces winter of misery as coronavirus spreading like ‘fire’ -- Coronavirus is again on the rise in California, and the big question is: How bad it will get? With the holidays approaching, state officials have already rolled back reopenings in some counties as case numbers surge. Officials now fear more hospitalizations and deaths, and they are debating whether more intense measures will be needed to slow the infection rate. Maura Dolan, Luke Money in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 11/12/20