The unique Kodak digital camera, 1888.
Good morning. That is Jonathan Spira reporting. Right here now the information of the pandemic from throughout the globe on the 1,256th day of the pandemic and World Images Day.
Images – the time period comes from the Greek roots φωτός (phōtós), which implies gentle, and γραφή (graphé), which implies drawing, therefore collectively – the invention of which might be traced by to the Arab physicist Ibn al-Haythan, who was born in 965 and died in 1040, who invented the primary pinhole digital camera and a type of digital camera obscura, though it will be centuries till somebody was in a position to repair a picture onto paper or metallic. In 1802, the British inventor Thomas Wedgewood tried to seize the picture in a digital camera obscura by way of a light-sensitive substance and the primary everlasting photoetching was created in 1822 by Nicephore Niépce.
In 1839, two viable and commercially profitable – albeit to various extents – photographic processes have been launched to the world by Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre and William Henry Fox Talbot. Daguerre’s daguerreotype was a global sensation and, in change for a pension from the federal government, it was offered as a present to the world. The talbotype, or calotype, was topic to licensing and due to this fact far much less fashionable.
Images modified dramatically within the Eighteen Eighties when George Eastman launched clear versatile roll movie and the Kodak digital camera, making pictures accessible to only about anybody, not simply photographers who needed to learn to make a daguerreotype or ambrotype or tintype. It modified once more within the Nineteen Nineties when analog digital and later digital cameras have been launched by corporations that included Sony, Nikon, and, in fact, Kodak.
All through its historical past, nonetheless, regardless of a change within the medium on which the picture was fastened, pictures has continued to make use of a chemical response initiated by gentle to remain true to its origins of φωτός and γραφή.
In different information we cowl in the present day, a Miami lady stole $400,000 in pandemic reduction funds, senior residents are the recipients of unwelcome Covid at-home check equipment, and there’s a brand new and extremely mutated Covid subvariant on the town.
UNITED STATES
An actual property dealer in Miami who bilked the federal government out of virtually $400,000 in pandemic reduction funds will go to jail. Daniela Rendon, who’s 31, was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in jail for falsely acquiring $381,000 from the pandemic reduction program. She used the cash for a Bentley vehicle, a luxurious house, and beauty procedures.
Rendon pleaded responsible to 1 depend of wire fraud after having been indicted in February on six extra counts of wire fraud, two counts of cash laundering, and one depend of aggravated identification theft.
Some senior residents are receiving Covid-19 at-home check kits they didn’t request and later seeing the costs for them seem on their Medicare statements.
The Division of Justice is investigating who’s making an attempt to bilk hundreds of thousands of {dollars} from Medicare by utilizing the stolen ID numbers of senior residents and sending them Covid-19 checks they didn’t ask for.
The DOJ mentioned that the fraudsters are even sending the kits to people who find themselves already deceased.
The U.S. Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention mentioned this week that it’s monitoring a lately found SARS-CoV-2 pressure, BA.2.86. A case of the extremely mutated variant was found in Michigan, officers mentioned.
The variant has been reported in different nations as properly, together with Denmark, Israel, and the UK.
“At this time we’re extra ready than ever to detect and reply to adjustments within the Covid-19 virus,” mentioned Kathleen Conley, a CDC spokesperson, in a press release to the Morning Information Transient. Scientists are working now to grasp extra concerning the newly recognized lineage in these instances and we’ll share extra info because it turns into out there.
OTHER HEALTHCARE NEWS
The usage of marijuana, hallucinogens, and alcohol climbed to a document excessive in 2022, a report from the Nationwide Institutes of Well being mentioned earlier this week.
Of specific be aware, marijuana and hallucinogen use, in addition to binge ingesting reached “historic highs” within the age group 35 to 50, the Nationwide Institute on Drug Abuse, which is a part of the NIH, mentioned.
“Substance use isn’t restricted to teenagers and younger adults, and these information assist us perceive how individuals use medicine throughout the lifespan,” mentioned the director of NIDA, Dr. Nora Volkow.
TODAY’S STATISTICS
Now listed below are the day by day statistics for Saturday, August 19.
As of Saturday morning, the world has recorded 693.68 million Covid-19 instances, a rise of 0.01 million from the day before today, and 6.91 million deaths, in line with Worldometer, a service that tracks such info. As well as, 665.59 million individuals worldwide have recovered from the virus, a rise of 0.07 million from the prior day.
The reader ought to be aware that rare reporting from some sources could seem as spikes in new case figures or loss of life tolls.
Worldwide, the variety of energetic coronavirus instances as of Saturday at press time is 21,177,896, a lower of 59,000. Out of that determine, 99.8%, or 21,140,502, are thought of gentle, and 0.2%, or 37,394, are listed as essential. The share of instances thought of essential has not modified over the previous eight months.
The check positivity fee for Covid for the week ending August 12 was 21.6%, up from 17.76% the prior week, in line with information from the CDC Respiratory Virus Laboratory Emergency Division Community Surveillance, or RESP-LENS By comparability, the check constructive fee for influenza was 1.09%, down from 1.24% and, for RSV, that determine was 0.81%, up from 0.78%.
The share of deaths on account of Covid was 1.3% within the week ending August 12, 2023, a determine that’s up 8.3% over the week.
Lastly, the variety of hospital admissions from Covid for seven days ending August 5 was 10,320, a determine that’s up 14.3% over the previous week.
As of March 25, 2023, the Morning Information Transient started to replace case information in addition to loss of life tolls on a weekly foundation. As well as, as of Might 15, 2023, the Morning Information Transient has pressed pause on sure information units as we assess the replace of adjustments in reporting by U.S. well being authorities on the CDC. The place applicable, the Morning Information Transient has reintroduced information units are they’ve grow to be out there.
Because the begin of the pandemic, the US has, as of Saturday, recorded 107.8 million instances, the next determine than every other nation, and a loss of life toll of 1.17 million. India has the world’s second highest variety of formally recorded instances, 45 million, and a reported loss of life toll of 531,924.
The most recent information from Russia’s Rosstat state statistics service confirmed that, on the finish of July 2022, the variety of Covid or Covid-related deaths because the begin of the pandemic there in April 2020 is now 823,623, giving the nation the world’s second highest pandemic-related loss of life toll, behind the US. Rosstat final reported that 3,284 individuals died from the coronavirus or associated causes in July 2022, down from 5,023 in June, 7,008 in Might and 11,583 in April.
In the meantime, France is the nation with the third highest variety of instances, with 40.14 million, and Germany is within the quantity 4 slot, with 38.43 million complete instances.
Brazil, which has recorded the third highest variety of deaths on account of the virus, 705,054, has recorded 37.71 million instances, inserting it within the quantity 5 slot.
The opposite 5 nations with complete case figures over the 20 million mark are South Korea, with 33.9 million instances, as quantity six; Japan, with 33.8 million instances inserting it within the quantity seven slot; and Italy, with 25.92 million, as quantity eight, in addition to the UK, with 24.67 million, and Russia, with 22.98 million, as 9 and ten respectively.
VACCINATION SPOTLIGHT
The Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention mentioned that, as of August 5, the entire variety of up to date bivalent doses given in the US was 152.5 million, a rise of 8 million doses over the previous month.
Older – and now not up to date – information from the CDC reveals that over 270.2 million individuals in the US – or 81.4% – have acquired no less than one dose of the coronavirus vaccine as of Might 11, 2023. Of that inhabitants, 69.5%, or 230.6 million individuals, have acquired two doses of vaccine, and the entire variety of doses which were allotted in the US is now over 676.7 million. Breaking this down additional, 92.23% of the inhabitants over the age of 18 – or 238.2 million individuals – has acquired no less than a primary inoculation and 79.1% of the identical group – or 204.3 million individuals – is absolutely vaccinated.
Some 70.5% of the world inhabitants has acquired no less than one dose of coronavirus vaccine by Saturday, in line with Our World in Information, an internet scientific publication that tracks such info. Thus far, 13.5 billion doses of the vaccine have been administered on a world foundation and 47,617 doses are actually administered every day.
In the meantime, solely 32.53% of individuals in low-income nations have acquired one dose, whereas in nations equivalent to Canada, China, Denmark, France, Italy, the UK, and the US, no less than 75% of the inhabitants has acquired no less than one dose of vaccine.
Solely a handful of the world’s poorest nations – Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia and Nepal – have reached the 70% mark in vaccinations. Many nations, nonetheless, are underneath 20% and, in nations equivalent to Haiti, Senegal, and Tanzania, for instance, vaccination charges stay at or beneath 10%.
As well as, with the start of vaccinations in North Korea in late September, Eritrea stays the one nation on this planet that has not administered vaccines.
Anna Breuer contributed reporting to this story.
(Photograph: Accura Media Group)