September 14 coronavirus news

The president of North Georgia Technical College, Dr. Mark Ivester, died Saturday after a month long battle with Covid-19, the college announced Sunday. 

According to his obituary, the 57-year-old passed away Sept. 12 at the Northeast Georgia Medical Center in Braselton.

“Once again, please continue to pray for Eleanor and his entire family. Thank you for all the love and support you have shown them and one another during this time. We are all devastated and will miss him terribly,” the college said in a statement.

Ivester served on the college's executive team for more than 20 years before his appointment to president on August 2016, his obituary said.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp offered his condolences Sunday, saying his family was praying for Ivester's loved ones, colleagues, and community: “We ask God to give them all comfort in this difficult time.” 

The state of Georgia on Monday reported 1,055 new cases of Covid-19 and 20 new fatalities. There have been a total of 295,337 Covid-19 cases and 6,353 Covid-19-related deaths in the state.

Remember: These numbers were released by the state’s public health agency, and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project.

Former United States Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson said Monday that President Trump's comments that "nothing more could have been done" to handle the coronavirus pandemic was "absurd." 

"By mid-April here in the northeast in the New York-New Jersey area where I live, the densest part of the country, we knew how to flatten the curve," Johnson said. "We knew how to slow the spread of the virus through aggressive physical distancing, through hygiene, wearing masks, but after April even though things slowed down here in the northeast, we had the spikes in the rest of the country simply because our national leadership, our President, allowed this to become a political issue."

Context: Trump's comments were from an Aug. 14 call he made to veteran journalist Bob Woodward. It was their 19th conversation, following 18 interviews that formed a key component of Woodward's book "Rage." Trump had privately told Woodward in February he knew critical details about how deadly the virus was, and in March admitted he was playing it down.

At a packed, indoor “roundtable” that President himself said feels more like a rally, President Trump is the only person socially distanced from everyone else.

Very few people in attendance are wearing masks.

The President is appearing before the Latinos for Trump Coalition Roundtable in Phoenix at the Arizona Grand Resort and Spa.

Brazil’s health ministry has reported 381 new Covid-19 fatalities on Monday, raising the nationwide death toll to 132,006.

The ministry also reported 15,155 new Covid-19 cases, bringing the countrywide total to 4,345,610.

Some context: Brazil is second only to the United States in terms of the most people who have died from coronavirus globally. In terms of cases, it is ranked third, behind the US and India, according to Johns Hopkins University.

The Covid-19 pandemic has worsened mental health issues, especially for young people of color, a mental health expert said Monday.

Isha Weerasinghe, who leads mental health work for the Center for Law and Social Policy, said that poor support for mental health in many communities has been made worse during the pandemic. She cited a lack of connectedness due to isolation, economic hardships, increased stress due to police brutality and its impacts, and anti-Asian violence and bullying. 

She added that the lack of access to health care in many communities extends to a lack of mental health care.

“There have been, of course, through the pandemic relaxed regulations in terms of telehealth, but when we're talking about people living in low income communities and households…they are privileges that only some of us are able to access,” Weerasinghe said. 

Many of these communities were burdened with higher levels of mental health issues before the pandemic began. 

She cited data from recent years showing disproportionately high rates of suicide, self-harm, anxiety and depression among young people of color, whose communities have now been hit harder by the Covid-19 pandemic.

“We’ve seen an egregious increase in suicide rates for Native young people, said Weerasinghe, citing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Fatal Injury and Violence data from 2016 to 2018. “We've seen an increase in suicide rates in Black and Hispanic young men, and we've seen an increase in rates of non-fatal self-harm for all young people, with an increase particularly among Black young people.”

The CDC recently released a report showing more people were thinking about suicide this June. 

Nearly 550,000 children in the US have been diagnosed with Covid-19 since the onset of the pandemic, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association.

The groups found that 72,993 new child cases were reported from Aug. 27 through Sept. 10. This is a 15% increase in child cases over two weeks, bringing the total to at least 549,432 cases, the groups said in their weekly report on pediatric coronavirus cases.

Cases listed by age are provided by health department websites of 49 states, New York City, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and Guam, but only a subset of states report hospitalizations and mortality by age. From the data available from 24 states and New York City, children made up 0.6% to 3.6% of total reported hospitalizations, and between 0.3% and 8.2% of all child Covid-19 cases ended up in the hospital. From the 42 states that track mortality by age, children were 0% to 0.3% of deaths, and 18 states that reported on deaths by age had no deaths among children.

The AAP would like even more detailed reporting from states.

Children represent nearly 10% of all reported cases in the US, according to the report. The child cases are likely underreported because the tally relies on state data that is inconsistently collected.

The Ingham County Health Department is now requiring 30 addresses in East Lansing, Michigan to quarantine from today until Sept. 28, according to an announcement. Most of the addresses on the list are associated with Michigan State University fraternities and sororities, they said. 

According to the letter, Ingham County experienced a 52% increase in total case count since Aug. 24, with one third of Ingram County cases since the pandemic started being reported in the last three weeks. The majority of all new cases reported come from students at Michigan State University. 

Those who are quarantined are only allowed to leave their property for medical care and other necessities, and are expected to avoid interaction with their roommates as much as possible.

Violation of the order could result in a misdemeanor charge that could be punishable with up to six months imprisonment, a $200 fine, or both. 

CNN reported over the weekend that the county department was “strongly recommending” all local Michigan State University students “self-quarantine immediately to contain a COVID-19 outbreak.”

South Carolina Lt. Governor Pamela Evette announced via Twitter Monday, that she has tested positive for Covid-19.

The lieutenant governor said she started feeling ill on Thursday morning and immediately began to self-quarantine. According to her tweet, she got tested on Friday and received the positive result on Saturday. 

Turkey announced 63 new coronavirus deaths over the last 24 hours, according to the Turkish health ministry. This marks the highest daily number of deaths since the beginning of May.

Turkey’s daily Covid-19 positive cases have been on the rise, with 1,716 new cases in the last 24 hours, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to nearly 293,000 since mid-March. 

At least 1,301 patients are in critical condition, the health ministry said. Turkey conducted 112,563 tests over the last 24 hours according to the ministry’s numbers.

Health Minister Fahrettin Koca tweeted a warning that the rate of infections was not slowing down and urged people to take precautions. 

From today, the governor of Istanbul has banned celebrations, weddings and similar gatherings in boats across the city. Boat parties and celebrations have been popular in the Bosphorus strait recently. 

The governor’s office also reintroduced a ban on concerts, festivals and other events in outdoor spaces as part of measures to stop the spread of Covid-19 in Turkey’s biggest city with a population of 15.5 million people. 

Turkey had managed to bring the daily numbers of new deaths and confirmed cases down at the start of the summer.

The country eased restrictions such as temporary weekend lockdowns at the end of May and reopened businesses and travel routes in June. 

The number of new cases is on the rise with the capital city Ankara being the new epicenter, according to the health minister.