A federal judge in Pennsylvania on Saturday threw out a lawsuit filed by President Donald Trump’s campaign, dismissing its challenges to the battleground state’s poll-watching law and its efforts to limit how mail-in ballots can be collected and which of them can be counted.
Trump’s campaign said it would appeal at least one element of the decision, with barely three weeks to go until Election Day in a state hotly contested by Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.
The lawsuit was opposed by the administration of Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, the state Democratic Party, the League of Women Voters, the NAACP’s Pennsylvania office and other allied groups.
As coronavirus cases leap in New Jersey, there are plenty of trend lines that raise concern, one epidemiologist says.
Hospitalizations are on the rise, a sign that people are being more severely sickened, said Stephanie Silvera, a professor of public health at Montclair State University. The number of patients in intensive care and on ventilators have also been inching up recently, she said.
Put together, how serious could the signs of a reinvigorated outbreak be?
“I don’t think we’re in panic stage, but we are at a time when we should have a healthy level of concern,” Silvera said.
On Thursday, New Jersey saw its biggest single-day increase in coronavirus cases since May, with Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli warning that could escalate quickly.
“We are anticipating a second wave,” Persichilli said. “This wave has a potential to become a surge.”
New Jersey announced 1,301 new cases on Thursday, with many coming from the hotspots of Ocean and Monmouth counties. Hospitalizations reached 652, an increase of 61 patients from just the day before, and a level not seen since Aug. 6, when 754 people were hospitalized with COVID-19.
There were 152 people in intensive care, the highest since July 22. There were 52 people on ventilators, the fourth consecutive day of increases and the first time that had exceeded 50 since Aug. 5.
The benchmarks are “all starting to trend back up, and I think that is when the concern comes back into play,” Silvera said, especially as the weather turns and people move further indoors.
The US is averaging more than 45,000 new Covid-19 positive tests each day — up 8% from the previous week and more than double what the country was seeing in June, as lockdown restrictions were easing.
It’s a case count experts warn is far too high ahead of what’s forecast to be a challenging — and deadly — winter season. The latest US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ensemble forecast says US Covid-19 deaths could reach 233,000 by the end of this month.
Gatherings will likely begin to move indoors, where the virus is more prone to spread. And as colleges battle outbreaks on campus, students soon returning to visit their families for the holidays could unknowingly bring the virus with them.
On top of that, it’ll be coupled with flu season to create what experts say could turn into a “twin-demic.” What could help, health officials have said, are flu shots and strong safety measures like masks and social distancing.
The high average case count comes alongside more worrying trends: only Alabama and Hawaii are reporting a decline of new cases over the past week, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. And nationwide, hospitalizations have begun to rise, with more than 34,000 hospitalized patients, according to the COVID Tracking Project.
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Absent federal benchmark, advocates praise state for setting a limit
File photo
By Jon Hurdle, NJ Spotlight
Environmental activists welcomed a new recommendation by state scientists to regulate a toxic chemical, calling it the latest evidence of New Jersey’s efforts to curb contaminants in drinking water.
The Drinking Water Quality Institute, a panel of scientists and water company executives that advises the Department of Environmental Protection, has recommended one of the nation’s strictest standards for 1,4 dioxane, which is commonly used in solvents, paint strippers, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. The chemical is unregulated by the federal government even though the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency calls it a “likely” carcinogen.
The panel said DEP should set a Maximum Contaminant Limit (MCL) of 0.33 parts per billion (ppb) in drinking water as the upper limit for safe consumption by humans. The standard is based on the risk of one person in a million getting cancer if exposed to 0.35 parts per billion over a lifetime.
If confirmed, the proposed regulation would require water companies to keep their supplies below that level, if necessary installing technology that would control the chemical. DEP Commissioner Catherine McCabe asked the water quality panel in December 2018 to develop a recommendation for that maximum limit.
Limits on other chemicals
It was the latest action by the panel which in the last six years has recommended tough limits on three kinds of PFAS chemicals, which are also linked to cancer, as well as immune system disorders and other health conditions. All the earlier recommendations have been accepted by DEP and are now the basis of regulations that have established New Jersey as a national leader in protecting public health from the chemicals.
The latest proposal is a “really important recommendation,” said Tracy Carluccio of the environmental group Delaware Riverkeeper Network and a long-time campaigner for tighter regulation of chemicals in drinking water. She said the proposed limit is stricter than in most of the 13 states that already have a drinking water or groundwater health standard for the chemical.
But she urged the DEP to act quickly on the proposal to minimize the time that consumers are exposed to the chemical. Its recent regulation of PFAS chemicals has taken as much as three years to be finalized after the initial recommendation by water quality panel.
“We don’t want there to be a delay in the DEP rulemaking and the adoption of a MCL because we’ve got to get this very dangerous material out of people’s drinking water,” Carluccio said.
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Lehigh University is advising on-campus students to stay where they are and avoid going into the community when possible after a spike in coronavirus cases.
There have been 147 COVID cases at Lehigh, according to the school’s COVID dashboard. The university last week announced 22 new cases on Oct. 1, prompting officials to shift classes for undergraduate students online. The university’s dashboard shows 82 cases since Monday, prompting additional recommendations.
“The sharp rise in positive undergraduate student cases, and the 3% positivity rate based on the results returned so far from the surveillance testing performed Tuesday, affirms the step of scaling back campus activity and also demonstrates the need for further action to reduce the spread of the virus among our on- and off-campus student population,” school officials said in a news release.
University officials are adding restrictions for students that will go into effect Friday and run through Oct. 23. They’re telling students who are living on campus to stay there, unless they’re going home, have an emergency or health-related circumstance. Students living off campus are only allowed to access the Health and Wellness Center on campus.
All students were advised to be careful when they’re out in the Bethlehem community and to wear masks.
Previous changes remain in effect through Oct. 23, including gathering limits of five people, the closure of libraries and the Taylor Gym, takeout dining, remote undergraduate classes, and the suspension of athletic team practices and training.
“The sharp rise in positive undergraduate student cases, and the 3% positivity rate based on the results returned so far from the surveillance testing performed Tuesday, affirms the step of scaling back campus activity and also demonstrates the need for further action to reduce the spread of the virus among our on- and off-campus student population,” school officials said in a news release.
University officials are adding restrictions for students that will go into effect Friday and run through Oct. 23. They’re telling students who are living on campus to stay there, unless they’re going home, have an emergency or health-related circumstance. Students living off campus are only allowed to access the Health and Wellness Center on campus.
NEW JERSEY – Gov. Phil Murphy called the statistics “sobering” as New Jersey reported 1,301 new COVID-19 positive test results during the Thursday new briefing on the pandemic. The last time the numbers were so high was just after Memorial Day.
“The last time we were at that level of positivity was May 29,” Murphy said. “And it was 1,394.”
Murphy said that 22 percent were from Ocean County, and 10 percent were from Monmouth. While those two counties remain the “greatest focus”of the crisis, it is far from NJ’s only focus.
EnviroPolitics Blog is working to keep you informed about all aspects of the coronavirus — the status of confirmed cases, disease spread, death toll–and also how Americans are coping. Like this story, for instance. If you like what we are doing, Click to receive free EP Blog updates and please tell your friends about us.
