NEWS IN BRIEF
AUSTRALIA
After the pain, pride Victoria dealt with its second wave of COVID-19 extremely well by international standards. Only Vietnam and Hong Kong did as well as Victoria in defeating a second coronavirus wave. Of the 215 nations and territories that have reported COVID-19 cases, 120 have experienced clear second waves or late first waves that began in July or later according to data from national ministries of health and the World Health Organization. Of these 120, only six have definitively emerged from their second wave: Australia, South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Vietnam and Singapore.
UNITED STATES
North Dakota governor asks COVID-19 positive nurses to keep working Last month, North Dakota’s governor, Doug Burgum, asked nurses who had tested positive for coronavirus but did not display symptoms to still report for work. North Dakota has been devastated by COVID. In one week in November, one out of every 42 people in the state tested positive for the coronavirus. Of 6869 total tests in a single day, 68 per cent were COVID-positive. Lesley McKamey, an emergency department nurse in Bismarck, North Dakota, told The Guardian she was shocked by the governor’s call. “We are willing to break our backs and work as hard as we physically can. But then to ask us to come in as a potential infectious source, is just stunning,” she said. A recent survey from National Nurses United, revealed more than 70 per cent of US hospital nurses said they were afraid of contracting COVID-19 and 80 per cent feared they might infect a family member. More than half said they struggled to sleep and 62 per cent reported feeling stressed and anxious. Nearly 80 per cent said they were forced to re-use single-use, PPE, like N95 respirators. Lost on the Frontline (a joint effort by The Guardian and Kaiser Health News), is investigating the deaths of 1375 healthcare workers who appear to have died of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic. Nearly a third of those were nurses.
More information https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/nginteractive/2020/aug/11/lost-on-the-frontline-covid-19coronavirus-us-healthcare-workers-deaths-database
38 | THE LAMP DECEMBER 2020 / JANUARY 2021
In other parts of the world the severity of the second COVID wave has been grim. By late October, the worldwide tally of cumulative cases was adding one million new cases every three or four days. Just seven countries reported fewer than 50 new cases: Australia, China, Nigeria, Singapore, Ivory Coast, Zambia and Senegal. At the same time, France and the United Kingdom each reported more than 26,000 new cases, and 20 European countries posted all-time daily record numbers. Some European countries have reported daily case numbers 25 to 30 times higher than during their first wave. Stephen Duckett, Director of the Health Program at the Grattan Institute says Victoria’s achievement in getting down to zero or near-zero community transmissions is unprecedented. “No other place in the world has tamed a second wave this large. Few have even come close.”
‘No other place in the world has tamed a second wave this large. Few have even come close.’ — Stephen Duckett, Grattan Institute
