COVID-19 Digest: July 24

COVID-19 Digest: July 24

July 24, 2020 • Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

COVID-19 Digest

Friday, July 24, 2020

The first week of Phase IV is in the books, and it looks like we made it through intact! Here’s a brief Friday post to take you into your weekend:

  • A quick round of updates:

    • New York’s coronavirus numbers remain steady, with the new infection rate at less than one percent and new hospitalizations at 650, the lowest since March 18. (ABC New York) Meanwhile, with cases surging in most other states, the US has surpassed four million total cases and another straight day of more than 1,100 deaths. (New York Times) Just three states — New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut — currently meet the criteria to reopen and stay safe while doing so. (Vox)

    • Global Entry, a federal trusted traveler program that allows people to bypass customs lines at airports, will resume for New York residents. (Wall Street Journal) The federal government suspended the state’s access to the program in February due to the Department of Homeland Security’s disagreements with New York’s Green Light Law, but the concerns DHS claimed turned out to be unfounded. (New York Times)

    • And one heads up: all hand sanitizers are not equal; some might be toxic.

  • Until a vaccine is developed, contact tracing programs remain the best tool for controlling the spread of the virus. Widespread tracing has been successful in other countries, but programs are underfunded and underused in the US. (Scientific American) Absent federal support for a national strategy, New York State’s Contact Tracing Program and NYC’s Test & Trace Corps, the largest such initiative in the country, has prevented at least 5,000 potential COVID-19 cases in NYC. (NBC New York) But an effective contact tracing program relies on a responsive testing program that gets people results quickly. As much as a quarter of coronavirus tests in NYC are backlogged by more than a week. (New York Post) If we want to keep our reopening plans on track, then scaled testing and tracing programs will be instrumental. (NY1)

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Have a good weekend!