Hurricane Laura makes landfall as Category 4 storm, now Category 1; 500,000+ without power
Hurricane Laura made landfall Wednesday night near Cameron, Louisiana, with maximum sustained winds of 150 miles per hour. On the Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane winds, the expected damage from a storm of this magnitude is “catastrophic.” Measured by wind strength alone, Laura is stronger than Hurricane Katrina, which made landfall in Florida as a Category 5 on August 25, 2005 but weakened to a Category 3 before it made its second landfall August 29 — 15 years ago Saturday — on the Louisiana/Mississippi coast and caused devastating damage to New Orleans and surrounding areas. Also based on winds, Laura is the strongest hurricane in 164 years, though Katrina remains the strongest based on barometric pressure. As of 10:00 a.m. ET, Laura had weakened to a Category 1 storm, with wind gusts measured at 85 MPH. The eye was situated about 65 miles SSE of Shreveport, Louisiana, with the storm moving north at 15 MPH, dropping as much as two inches of rain as it travels, causing widespread flooding. At last word, more than 508,000 people were without power in affected areas of Louisiana and Texas: over 359,000 in Louisiana and more than 85,400 in Texas.
Kenosha officer who shot Jacob Blake identified; teen suspect arrested in Tuesday night killings
The Wisconsin Department of Justice late Wednesday identified the Kenosha police officer who shot Jacob Blake. “Officer Rusten Sheskey fired his service weapon seven times,” said a press release. “Officer Sheskey fired the weapon into Mr. Blake’s back.” The press release also details the chain of events leading to the shooting, which left Blake paralyzed from the waist down. Officers responded to a call from a woman saying her boyfriend was on the premises uninvited. Responding officers tried to arrest and Taser Blake, but the Taser reportedly malfunctioned. While Blake then walked to his vehicle, he was shot. The press release also says Blake had a knife on the driver’s side floorboard of his vehicle but had no other weapons. Kenosha’s district attorney said a decision whether to charge Sheskey or any other officer with a crime “can only occur if we believe that crime can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.” All officers involved in the incident have been placed on administrative leave. Meanwhile, a 17-year-old from Illinois is in custody after a shooting during Tuesday night protests in Kenosha that killed two people and injured another. Kyle Rittenhouse of Antioch reportedly considers himself a militia member. He’s been assigned a public defender and is set to make his first court appearance Friday, where he’s expected to be charged with first-degree intentional homicide after allegedly opening fire during Tuesday night’s demonstrations.
More than one million Americans applied for unemployment last week
A further 1,006,000 Americans applied for unemployment in the week ending August 22, according to figures released this morning by the U.S. Department of Labor. The figure is a decrease of 98,000 from the previous week’s revised level and is in line with expectations, but still reflects the 23rd consecutive week of historically high unemployment claims. This also mean that except for a single-week blip, claims have remained above one million for 22 weeks since mid-March, when the COVID-19 pandemic first shut down the economy. This is an extraordinarily high number, one never seen in the U.S. before the pandemic. The current seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in the U.S. stands at 9.9% for the week ending August 15. The overall employment picture for August is scheduled to be released Friday, September 4.
COVID-19 numbers
Here’s the latest data on COVID-19 coronavirus infections and deaths.
Latest reported numbers globally per Johns Hopkins University
Global diagnosed cases: 24,203,815
Global deaths: 826,380. The United States has the most deaths of any single country, with 179,743.
Number of countries/regions: at least 188
Total patients recovered globally: 15,823,195
Latest reported numbers in the United States per Johns Hopkins University
There are at least 5,823,685 reported cases in 50 states + the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and Guam. This is more than in any other country.
U.S. deaths: at least 179,743. New York State has the greatest number of reported deaths in the U.S., with 32,921
U.S. total patients recovered: 2,084,465
U.S. total people tested: 74,549,129
The greatest number of reported COVID-19 cases in the U.S. is in California, with 687,730 confirmed cases out of a total state population of 39.51 million. That ranks third in the world after Maharashtra, India, which has 718,711 reported cases, and Sao Paulo, Brazil, which has 776,135 reported cases.
COVID-19 headlines
Global COVID-19 cases increased by 50% in the last month; child infections increase
The number of reported COVID-19 cases worldwide as of Thursday morning stands at 24,203,815, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. That marks a 50% increase over July 26 numbers, when global infections topped 16 million. In the U.S., reported cases as of Thursday morning stands at 5,823,685, representing 24% of global infections. The number of deaths in the U.S. stands at 179,743, about 22% of global COVID-19 fatalities. Further, according to a joint report released this week by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association, between August 6 and August 20 there were 74,160 new child cases reported, a 21% increase in child cases over two weeks. Seven out of 10 new child cases reported from states in the South and West. As of August 20, a total of 442,785, or 9.3% of all cases, have been in children.
CDC facing criticism for revised COVID-19 testing guidelines
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is taking heat for new COVID-19 testing guidelines that no longer recommend testing even if a person has been in close contact with someone who is infected, or if they have attended a large gathering. The same CDC web page previously recommended testing for anyone who believed they may have been exposed to the virus, even if they’re not presently showing symptoms of infection. Medical professionals and public health experts swiftly pushed back, calling the move baffling and dangerous because it would reduce the country’s visibility on the virus ahead of flu season. The head of the American Medical Association Wednesday night called the new CDC guidelines a “recipe for community spread and more spikes in coronavirus.” They are also pointedly calling out the CDC for not providing its rationale. “The people in the trenches are horrified by this,” a person who works with the White House coronavirus task force told ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl. “It gives the impression that asymptomatic people cannot transmit the disease, which is not true. Community spread is driven by asymptomatic people.” The Trump administration’s testing coordinator, Adm. Brett Giroir, defended the move as trying to prevent a “false sense of security” that some people have after getting a negative test result. On a call with reporters Wednesday, Giroir also flatly denied any political involvement in the decision. He said the new testing guidelines came from the CDC with no intervention or direction from President Donald Trump.