Global Coronavirus Deaths Surpass 650,000; US May Hit 219,000 Death Toll By November

Daily deaths from COVID-19 are on the rise worldwide, averaging more than 5,000 per day thus far in July, WHO says

The U.S. death toll is approaching 150,000 and is projected to hit 219,000 total deaths by November

Arizona, California, Florida starting to see some signs of relief from Memorial Day resurgence

Known global deaths due to COVID-19 moved past the 650,000 mark Monday, with an average of more than 5,000 per day so far for the month of July, according to the World Health Organization.

The widening death toll is being driven by mounting fatalities in Asia, Europe and the Americas. The U.S., which leads the world in total cases and deaths, saw a new spike in deaths of more than 1,000 per day over a four-day period last week as the death toll approaches 150,000 nationwide.

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, the independent global health research center at the University of Washington, projects 219,000 U.S. deaths by Nov. 1. That number could be reduced to 186,000 if a universal mask mandate were in place.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) projects 175,000 deaths in the U.S. by Aug. 15, which could be an underestimate based on the current rapid rate of infections.

The U.S. has 4.4 million COVID-19 cases in total since the pandemic began and is still in the throes of the Memorial Day resurgence. The surge in daily and total cases is showing some signs of leveling off in some of the hardest-hit states like Arizona, California and Florida.

WHO reports an increasing number of infections in more countries, including China, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Mexico, Peru, Colombia and Argentina. It noted the resurgence is leading some countries to again consider closing their borders. However, WHO disapproves of locking down entire countries.

"Continuing to keep international borders sealed is not necessarily a sustainable strategy for the world's economy, for the world's poor, or for anybody else," said Dr. Mike Ryan, Executive Director of the WHO Health Emergencies Program. He contends a "global one-size-fits-all policy" is impossible because outbreaks develop differently in different countries.

On Monday, WHO also said its experts will meet this week to discuss downgrading COVID-19's emergency status. On Jan. 30, WHO declared COVID-19 a Public Health Emergency of International Concern and issued a set of temporary recommendations.

On July 24, WHO reported a record-setting single-day increase in total global COVID-19 cases over a 24-hour span with 284,196, shattering the previous high mark of 259,848 set on July 18. It also reported the second highest single-day global death toll of 9,753, just shy of the record 9,797 deaths set on April 30.

https://www.ibtimes.com/global-coronavirus-deaths-surpass-650000-us-may-hit-219000-death-toll-november-3017637

Pot, kettle, black: Facebook takes EU regulators to court for invading its privacy

Facebook – the ubiquitous privacy-invading social network – is taking European Commision regulators to court. The Silicon Valley giant is complaining that an EU investigation is invading its privacy.

The European Commission is currently investigating whether Facebook’s online Marketplace has an unfair advantage over its rivals, and how the company collects and monetizes user data. Facebook has turned over nearly two million pages of documents to the investigators in recent months, but the company now says the regulators have gone too far.

“The exceptionally broad nature of the Commission’s requests means we would be required to turn over predominantly irrelevant documents,” Facebook counsel Tim Lamb said in a statement on Monday. These documents, he continued, include “highly sensitive personal information such as employees’ medical information, personal financial documents, and private information about family members of employees.”

Lamb added that the social media giant will fight this investigation in court. The company will also petition the EU’s General Court in Luxembourg to halt all further data requests until the lawsuit can be heard.

That Facebook would sue anyone for invasion of privacy might come across as a bizarre inversion of reality. Indeed, Mark Zuckerberg’s company has made billions of dollars trafficking in user data, some of it private. While Lamb decried the EU’s collection of its employee’s medical records, Facebook was busted in 2018 for sending a doctor to a number of top US hospitals to convince them to share patients’ medical records.

A week earlier, it came out that the company scans its users’ messages, and in some cases, delved into the chat logs to delete messages its own executives were involved in. Within days of this revelation, Facebook admitted that it tracks people who don’t even sign up for the site, generating so-called “shadow profiles” based on their off-site browsing habits.

All of these rumors and more were confirmed following the Cambridge Analytica scandal in early 2018. In short, the scandal involved a private company using a third-party app to harvest the personal data of some 87 million Facebook users. After the story broke, it emerged that Facebook allowed multiple companies to access private user data, including personal messages.

https://www.rt.com/news/496016-facebook-sues-europe-privacy/

Chemicals in sunscreen could be carcinogenic, US FDA to investigate

A second major study has found that active ingredients in sunscreen are absorbed into blood at potentially dangerous levels. The US government is now investigating the potential risks – but how much damage has already been done?

As the warmer weather continues, people caged up for months by the coronavirus lockdowns are beginning to book holidays in the sun. Countries popular with travelers are eager to lure as many foreign punters as they can to keep their tourism industries afloat, even if many restrictions remain in place.

One thing holidaymakers will be making sure to pack is sun cream. The intense ultraviolet rays from our nearest star can act as a mutagen to DNA, causing damage to the genetic material in skin cells. Tanning, sunburn and freckles are all different responses to this. And sunscreen cream does protect against sunburn, but does that mean that it is beneficial overall?

Emerging pattern

Two recent studies have come from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on that very issue. The agency’s own guidelines state that the levels of chemicals absorbed from sun cream into the blood must not exceed 0.5 nanograms per milliliter. Above this threshold, they have to make sure that the chemicals in question are not carcinogenic or otherwise harmful.

But the research found that all six active ingredients (avobenzone, oxybenzone, octocrylene, homosalate, octisalate, and octinoxate) in sunscreen exceeded this limit. Furthermore, they persist in the bloodstream for weeks after application. Their effects in the blood are unknown, but the FDA has opened an investigation to determine whether they could heighten the risk of cancer, birth defects, or other ailments.

https://www.rt.com/usa/496011-suncream-harmful-ingredients-study/