Case count increases in Midwestern states with previously low infections
Health & BeautyAug 04. 2020Photo by: The Washington Post — The Washington Post
By The Washington Post · Anne Gearan, John Wagner, Jacqueline Dupree · NATIONAL, HEALTH, HEALTH-NEWS WASHINGTON – The novel coronavirus is surging in several Midwestern states that had not previously seen high infection rates, while average daily deaths remained elevated Monday in Southern and Western states hit with a resurgence of the disease after lifting some restrictions earlier this summer.
Missouri, Montana and Oklahoma are among those witnessing the largest percentage surge of infections over the past week, while, adjusted for population, the number of new cases in Alabama, Florida and Mississippi still outpaced all other states, according to a Washington Post analysis of health data.
Experts also see worrying trends emerging in major East Coast and Midwestern cities, and they anticipate major outbreaks in college towns as classes resume in August.
The University of Texas at Austin notified students that parties are prohibited when the campus reopens in three weeks. The school cited city health guidelines prohibiting groups larger than 10 people and requiring a mask when out in public.
President Donald Trump continued his push to fully reopen schools, even as some of the nation’s largest districts are delaying in-person instruction amid continuing spread of the virus.
“Ideally, we want to open those schools. We want to open them,” Trump said during a White House news conference
Trump also said the United States is doing much better dealing with the virus than most other countries – a claim inconsistent with the facts – and accused the news media of trying to make him and the country look “as bad as possible.”
At least 4.6 million coronavirus cases and 151,000 fatalities have been reported in the United States since February.
Despite growing momentum in the search for a vaccine and Trump’s confident assessment Monday that “we’re on pace to have a vaccine available this year, maybe far in advance of the end of the year,” the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that “there’s no silver bullet at the moment, and there might never be.”
WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Monday that “a number of coronavirus vaccines are now in Phase 3 clinical trials, and we all hope to have a number of effective vaccines that can help prevent people from infection.”
He cautioned, however, that “of course there are concerns that we may not have a vaccine that may work” or that its protection would be effective for a short time.
The economic fallout from the virus widened, with the parent company of Men’s Wearhouse declaring bankruptcy as people have stayed away from offices and the suits and other business attire once needed for work.
Tailored Brands, which also owns Jos. A. Bank, K&G and Moores, filed for Chapter 11 protection on Sunday evening, the same day that department store chain Lord & Taylor did so. They are among about a dozen large retailers that have tipped into bankruptcy as pandemic-fueled store closures sent sales plummeting.
Top executives at Disney, IBM, Mastercard and Microsoft were among more than 100 business leaders who called on Congress to provide emergency relief for small businesses facing economic calamity.
In a letter sent to congressional leaders of both major political parties Monday, the executives issued a dire warning of mass closures triggered by the coronavirus, as companies report declining revenue and face the prospect of shutting down yet again to contain the outbreak.
The signatories put forward a series of recommendations, including federally guaranteed loans to last into 2021, flexibility in how those loans are put to use, partial loan forgiveness for small and midsize companies that have suffered significant revenue declines, and a focus on funding for businesses owned by people of color, who have less access to funding.
More than 4 million businesses have received emergency loans from the Small Business Administration, with Congress approving $700 billion in funding to support them. But for the 30 million small businesses in the country, that funding was too limited and short-lived, business leaders say. The letter calls for a more robust and sustained effort from the federal government.
“We cannot stress enough the urgent need to act,” the letter says. “Every day that passes without a comprehensive recovery program makes recovery more difficult.”
The business leaders predict another wave of permanent business closures by Labor Day if the government does not provide aid.
Trump continued to insist that hydroxychloroquine is an effective treatment for the coronavirus even as leading health officials in his administration have concluded otherwise. The president suggested that opposition to its effectiveness is because he supports it, not because of science.
“Hydroxy has tremendous support, but politically it’s toxic because I supported it,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday. “If I would have said, ‘Do not use hydroxychloroquine under any circumstances,’ they would have come out and they would have said, ‘It’s a great, it’s a great thing.’ “
He recounted taking the anti-malaria drug in May after it was announced that a couple of White House staffers had tested positive for the coronavirus.
“I mean, I had no problem. I had no problem whatsoever. And importantly, I didn’t test positive,” Trump said.
Pressed by a reporter about the differing opinions of leading health experts, including Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease official, Trump stood his ground.
“I don’t agree with Fauci on everything,” Trump said.
In several recent interviews, Fauci has dismissed hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for the coronavirus, calling it ineffective.
Trump also feuded publicly with the other leading official face of the U.S. government response. Trump on Monday tweeted criticism of Deborah Birx, the physician overseeing the White House’s coronavirus efforts, a day after she warned that the United States is entering a “new phase” of the pandemic.
Trump tweeted that after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., criticized Birx for being “too positive” about his handling of the pandemic, the doctor “took the bait & hit us.” He appeared to be referring to Birx telling CNN on Sunday that increasing outbreaks in rural and urban areas are “different from March and April” and “extraordinarily widespread.”
The Orion giga coaster with a 300-foot drop at Kings Island amusement park in Mason, Ohio. MUST CREDIT: Photo courtesy of Jared Ream
By Special To The Washington Post · Cathy Free · FEATURES
Five years ago, roller coaster enthusiast Jared Ream was excited to take another ride on his all-time favorite coaster – the 310-foot Millennium Force at Ohio’s Cedar Point amusement park – when he received some bad news.
Because he couldn’t buckle his safety restraint, a park employee told him he would have to get off the coaster train.
At 430 pounds, he was too big to go on the ride.
“There’s nothing worse – it’s called the ‘walk of shame,'” said Ream, 35, who works for a digital advertising company in Dayton, Ohio.
Jared Ream at Walt Disney World in November 2018. MUST CREDIT: Photo courtesy of Jared Ream.
“It’s a terrible feeling when that little green light doesn’t come on to show that you’re buckled in,” he said. “Everyone is looking at you as you have to climb out of the car and walk away. To know that you’ve become so overweight that you can’t ride a roller coaster is painful and humiliating.”
Ream, a card-carrying member of American Coaster Enthusiasts who until then had ridden nearly 300 roller coasters around the country, was so embarrassed by the experience that he gave up his passion, he said.
Jared Ream before he rode Orion July 1, his first ride on a roller coaster in five years. MUST CREDIT: Photo courtesy of Jared Ream.
Then last August, he learned that his favorite coaster manufacturer, Bolliger & Mabillard, was building a “giga coaster” – one of only a handful of full-circuit coasters between 300 and 399 feet tall around the world.
Named the Orion, the coaster would be located at Kings Island amusement park in Mason, Ohio, just 30 miles from Ream’s home in Dayton.
At that moment, said Ream, he made a decision: He was going to lose enough weight to safely buckle up and ride the Orion when it opened.
In less than 11 months, Ream lost 195 pounds by limiting himself to 2,000 calories a day, eating more fruit and vegetables and jogging in place in his garage while watching television.
He wrote an essay in the Dayton Daily News about the inspiration for his weight loss.
The essay began, “When people ask me how I did it, they usually think I’ll respond with Keto, Atkins, Paleo or even surgery. They’re wrong. My answer: Orion.”
Kings Island invited him to ride the Orion as many times as he liked on the park’s media day, one day before it opened to the public.
On July 1, weighing 240 pounds, he sat down in the car of the Orion and buckled in, overjoyed that he fit in the safety restraint. He finally took the 300-foot drop on his dream roller coaster.
“When I pulled down the lap restraint and heard it click, I couldn’t stop smiling,” he said. “And I even had room to spare. It was an incredible feeling – all of that hard work had paid off.”
Chad Showalter, director of communications for Kings Island, called Jared’s weight loss journey “nothing short of amazing.”
“Orion’s first 300-foot drop makes it only the seventh giga coaster on the planet,” he said, “which is a pretty incredible way to celebrate such an accomplishment.”
At 6 feet 9 inches, Ream has always been a large man, he said, but it wasn’t until he took a desk job in digital advertising in 2015 that he started gaining a lot of weight.
“It was a lack of caring, a lack of exercise,” he said. “I’d come home, watch TV and eat whatever I wanted instead of doing something healthy.”
As the months passed, his eating became more problematic.
“When I could no longer ride roller coasters – something I’m passionate about – that made it worse,” he said. “I’d feel sad about it and eat a piece of cake.”
Ream’s love of roller coasters goes back to the day he learned he met the height requirement as a boy on a trip to Kings Island with his parents and three older brothers.
“I love everything about them – the speed, the height, the thrill, the views,” he said. “I’ve never been a screamer, though. More than anything, I find roller coasters relaxing. I just sit back and let them take me where they want to go.”
For years, he had gone out of his way to ride the fastest, smoothest and steepest coasters in the country, timing summer business trips to hit a park or two before coming home.
When that came to an end because of his weight gain, Ream said he felt defeated.
“I figured that I’d never get back that passion again,” he said. “I had no motivation.”
But last summer when he heard about the new Orion coaster, everything changed.
“To be honest, I don’t know if I’d have been able to do this if they hadn’t announced that roller coaster,” he said.
He gave himself less than a year to lose the weight.
Besides exercising and cutting calories, Ream said he limited his eating to two meals and one snack a day between the hours of 11 a.m. and 6 p.m.
“I also got more sleep,” he said. “The more sleeping I did, the less time I had to eat.”
The weight quickly began to drop off, and Ream was soon losing about 22 pounds a month, he said.
In less than a year, he went down 18 sizes and now wears pants in a size 36, down from 54.
Still, on the day when it mattered, he felt a little nervous about passing the “green light” test to ride the Orion. When he did, it made all his hard work worth it.
“That first 300-foot drop was really something,” he said.
Ream rode the 91-mile-per-hour Orion four times that day and plans to return for another spin around the track every chance he gets.
“It’s my happy place,” he said. “You can’t see me smiling because of my face mask, but believe me, I am. And if I can now help inspire somebody else to lose weight and also be able to see that green light, then I know it’s all been worthwhile.”
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