U.S. nears 1 million deaths to COVID

C. A. Bridges, Fort Myers News-Press
·3 min read
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Welcome to today's edition of the Florida Coronavirus Watch Newsletter.

As COVID cases and, consequently, COVID-related news dwindle, we have reduced the frequency of our Coronavirus Watch Newsletter to twice weekly. You can expect the newsletter in your inbox Mondays and Thursdays — or as urgent news dictates. Thank you for reading.

Here's what's happening

- 1 MILLION U.S. DEATHS TO COVID: A pandemic legacy of grief, anger and frustration. The United States is about to hit a grim pandemic milestone: 1,000,000 COVID deaths. COVID-19 has surpassed the U.S. death toll of the 1918 influenza outbreak by a third, and it’s still killing hundreds each day.

In a special report for subscribers, USA Today looks at some of the victims, from all walks of life.

- Biden calls looming 1 million U.S. deaths from COVID an 'irreplaceable loss,' orders flags lowered. "One million empty chairs around the dinner table," Biden said in a statement. "Each leaving behind a family, a community, and a nation forever changed because of this pandemic. Jill and I pray for each of them."

Biden is directing flags on government buildings to be flown at half-staff for five days.

- Heads up: 5 to 14 million Americans could lose Medicaid coverage when COVID-19 pandemic ends, according to a new analysis. The federal government provided billions in federal aid to states on the condition that they would not remove people from Medicaid until the public health emergency ends.

But now the federal funding that has helped out the states to the tune of more than $100 billion in Medicaid funds and fiscal relief over the past three fiscal years will stop during the quarter in which the public health emergency ends. When that happens, some states may decide to start kicking people off Medicaid if they don't pass eligibility checks.

The public health emergency is now scheduled to end July 15. It's been extended every time a deadline has come up, so far.

- Even with mask 'harassment' rule, Florida saw a drop in students using Hope Scholarships. The Hope Scholarship, which started in 2018, was created to help students who have been bullied to transfer to another public school or enroll in an approved private school. Last summer, the state Board of Education amended the eligibility to include students subjected to “harassment” from wearing a mask or mask requirements during the COVID-19 pandemic.

But only a few counties saw increases in Hope Scholarship numbers for the 2021-2022 school year compared to 2020-2021.

- From the swab to the spray: Nasal vaccines may be the next generation of protection against COVID. Current vaccines are great at stopping severe disease. But people can still catch COVID-19, even after two, three or more shots. But some researchers believe that by putting the vaccine directly into the nose, it might prevent the virus from taking hold in the mucus membranes where it first enters the body.

It's also much cheaper than current COVID-19 vaccines, useful in countries where there aren't a lot of people trained to deliver shots, and can be stored in a regular refrigerator. But trials are still going on. If it works, it could still be a year or more for it to become widely available.

USA Today has the story for its subscribers.

COVID info to know

COVID-19 will be an issue for a long time to come, and we think more education is better. Here's what you need to know.

ABOUT COVID

AVOIDING COVID

TESTING

DO YOU HAVE COVID?

What do you want to know about COVID-19? You ask, we'll try to answer

Anything you'd like to know? Ask your questions here.

Thank you for reading! We appreciate you trusting our statewide journalists to keep you safe and informed. If you are encouraged by our work and want to support your local journalists, please consider subscribing. Know someone who would benefit from this newsletter? Forward this email so they can sign up.

Chris' note of the day: One million people dead from COVID-19; the U.S. is expected to cross that threshold sometime in the next few days. It's a staggering, sobering number, one-sixth of the worldwide total (6,259,459 as of Thursday afternoon, according to Johns Hopkins' XOVID-19 Dashboard). Fortunately even as cases continue to rise again, hospitalizations and deaths don\t appear to be so far. Here's hoping this is the last big COVID milestone we hit.

Here's what else is happening with the coronavirus in Florida today.

— C. A. Bridges, cbridges@gannett.com

This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: U.S. nears 1 million deaths to COVID