Health News at Your Fingertips

The Florida Department of Health reports that 188 people died from Covid-19 on Friday, a new record for a single day in the state. The previous highest total was 120 on 9 July. There were also 10,360 new cases of the virus.

While cases surge around the US, New York is a reminder that things can get better.

At the peak of the state’s outbreak, more than 800 people died of Covid-19 a day in New York (for context, 827 died from the virus in the whole of the US yesterday). But on Saturday, New York governor Andrew Cuomo reported seven people have died of the virus over the last three days, the lowest three-day total since March.

While around 20% of those taking tests in Florida and Texas are testing positive, the figure is closer to 1% in New York: 730 of the more than 69,000 who took the test on Friday in New York proved to have the virus.

“I urge residents to stay New York tough and not give up the ground we’ve worked so hard to gain together, particularly in the face of rising cases throughout the country and compliance issues here at home,” Cuomo said.

A top health expert has warned that failing to curb the spread of Covid-19 risks plunging the US into instability.

“We will have hospitals overwhelmed and not only in terms of ICU beds and hospitals – and that’s bad – but exhausted hospital staff and hospital staff that [are] getting ill themselves,” Dr Peter Hotez, the dean of tropical medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, told CNN on Friday night. “So, we won’t have enough manpower, human power, to manage all of this.”

Hotez added that if the virus is not brought under control the US could see “one of the most unstable times in the history of our country.”

Covid infections were rising in 41 US states as of Friday, and more isolated areas are now seeing an uptick in numbers – previously the virus had mainly been restricted to urban regions. The 66,627 new cases on Friday were a new record for the US.

On Friday, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, Dr Anthony Fauci, told the Financial Times he had not directly briefed the president in two months.

“You have a random virus jump species from an animal to a human that is spectacularly efficient in spreading from human to human, and has a high degree, relatively speaking, of morbidity and mortality,” Fauci told the FT. “We are living in the perfect storm right now.”

As Disney World starts its reopening on Saturday, Florida has 7,063 people in hospital with Covid-19, according to data from the Agency for Health Care Administration. Orange county, where Disney World is located has 475 Covid patients. More than 40 hospitals across the state have maxed out their intensive care unit capacity, NBC News reported on Friday.

Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom will open today with the Epcot Center and Hollywood Studios due to open on Wednesday. The resort will also host the NBA season starting later this month, while Major League Soccer is also hosting a month-long tournament on the premises.

One of Fox host Tucker Carlson’s top writers has resigned after a CNN investigation found he was posting racist and sexist comment online under a pseudonym. Under the name “CharlesXII”, Blake Neff regularly posted offensive language an online forum called AutoAdmit.

In June, for example, Neff wrote, “Black doods staying inside playing Call of Duty is probably one of the biggest factors keeping crime down.” Neff also harassed a woman on the forum, posting information about her personal life and encouraging other users to post private information about her.

Carlson has called Neff a “wonderful writer” and in an interview with Dartmouth’s alumni magazine, Neff said: “Anything [Carlson is] reading off the teleprompter, the first draft was written by me.”

Carlson has not commented directly on Neff’s resignation but on Friday night’s show, he appeared to reference the story when he attacked “cancel culture”.

“We are in a situation where it’s really individuals against the mob. Online, other news organizations – CNN particularly,” said Carlson. He added: “How can people stand up to the mob and prevail?”

Carlson, one of Donald Trump’s favourite Fox News personalities, recently targeted Democratic senator and Iraq war veteran Tammy Duckworth, calling her a “coward” on Tuesday’s show. Duckworth, a former helicopter pilot, lost her legs after her aircraft was hit by enemy fire in Iraq.

Good morning. There were more grim Covid-19 figures on Friday as another record was set for new cases of the virus in the US, 66,627. Hospitals in the south felt the strain in particular as Florida and Texas both recorded more than 10,000 new cases. In Texas and Florida around 20% of Covid tests are coming back as positive, in Arizona it is even higher at around 30%, those are staggeringly high proportions and greater than we usually see.

We’ll also be looking at the reaction to Donald Trump’s decision to commute the prison sentence of his long-time friend and advisor, Roger Stone. Elsewhere, the president surprisingly told Telemundo that he wants to prompt legislation that will help Dreamers get a path to US citizenship under the DACA program, not something that you would play well among his most ardent supporters.