Global COVID-19 Cases Surpass Springtime Highs, Deaths Still Lag: Live Updates Tyler Durden Sat, 10/10/2020 - 12:08 Summary: Global daily cases just shy of record high Russia reports record cases Pelosi warns on vaccines Iran imposes new restrictions * * * Earlier this week, the Chinese Communist Party joined a WHO vaccination global effort - remember when President Xi promised to vaccinate the developing world a penance for unleashing SARS-CoV-2? - that is working, with the support of the Gates Foundation, to provide vaccines to every person who needs one. During Friday press briefing in Geneva, WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros urged the west to contribute to the effort to "vaccinate all in all countries, not all in some countries," arguing that "sharing and solidarity is in the interest of each and every nation on earth". Globally, the world is reporting record numbers of daily cases. On Friday, the world reported 360,685 new cases, missing the record tally from Sept. 24 by 1,000 cases. Despite the surge in infection, deaths have remained relatively steady since May. Yesterday, Johns Hopkins counted 6,163 deaths. For the past four months, Dr. Fauci and a legion of scientists in Europe and elsewhere have warned about an impending surge in deaths as the northern hemisphere enters the winter months, even as all available evidence seems to suggest that improving treatment strategies have helped to permanently reduce the virus's mortality. Again on Saturday, Bloomberg published a story entitled "Covid’s Comeback Is Bigger But Less Deadly, at Least for Now". The story included a handy chart showing how the locus of the global outbreak has shifted since March. In Europe, public health officials have largely blamed reckless young people packing into parties and illegal dance clubs, while families who traveled during the summer months "let down their guard". Yesterday, in France, daily cases surged to a new record. France expanded localized COVID-19 rollbacks to more cities after Marseille and Paris both saw their alert levels raised to the max as pubs and restaurants and other non-essential businesses were closed. Over the past month, France has reported 340,000 new cases, roughly half its cumulative total, though deaths have risen by less than 1,800, a rate of roughly 0.5%. Many of the hotspots from the Spring are seeing a second wave, while countries that saw only muted outbreaks in the spring - Poland, and the Czech Republic, which have reported record numbers in recent days as their outbreaks spiral out of control - have seen numbers soar for the first time As the CDC reaffirmed in the latest update to its guidance, the virus is most often spread in poorly ventilated areas indoors. As the flu season kicks in, doctors are worrying about the impact on people cross-infected with COVID-19 and the flu. "It is a problem that we know this thing gets transmitted by going inside, with large crowds, for prolonged periods," said Ezekiel Emanuel, vice provost for global initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania. "And the winter months are all about going inside for prolonged periods of time." Across the US, many fear what might happen as college students head home for the Thanksgiving holiday next month, as campuses have become veritable petri-dish breeding grounds for the virus (mortality has been practically zero, fortunately). However, even in Europe, where infections in some hot spots matched or surpassed levels from the spring, largely thanks to a surge in testing, daily deaths remain roughly 1/10th their levels from the spring. The UK has increased testing 10-fold from the spring, when only the symptomatic were likely to be tested. Here's some more COVID-19 news from Saturday morning and overnight: Nancy Pelosi has said that the US should not approve a Covid-19 vaccine based on data from British trials, amid fears that the Trump administration is planning to rush out an inoculation before election day. The Democratic speaker of the House of Representatives on Friday cast doubt on the British system for testing and approving medicines, further politicising the race to develop a vaccine for Covid-19 (Source: FT). Russia’s coronavirus cases rose by 12,846 on Saturday, a new daily record since the start of the outbreak early this year. The latest figures pushed the overall total number of infections in the country to 1,285,084. The previous record of 12,126 new cases was registered on Friday. Russia’s coronavirus crisis centre said 197 more deaths were confirmed in the last 24 hours, bringing the official death toll to 22,454 (Source: AJ). Iran has imposed additional restrictions for capital Tehran and set penalties for people flouting the rules as coronavirus cases continue to surge in the country. A partial shutdown implemented in Tehran a week ago was extended on Saturday until October 16 as the authorities classified the city as red in a colour-coded scale denoting the severity of the pandemic (Source: AJ).