WHO: Highest single-day spike in cases
The World Health Organization reported the world’s highest single-day increase since the pandemic began at more than 307,000 cases Sunday.
The Global Preparedness Monitoring Board, coconvened by the World Bank and WHO, criticized political leaders for not being prepared for the pandemic in a report on epidemic preparedness published Monday.
“Financial and political investments in preparedness have been insufficient, and we are all paying the price,” authors said.
The U.K., which has suffered Europe’s deadliest outbreak, recorded more than 3,000 new cases Sunday for the third day running for the first time since May.
In the U.S., Montana, Kansas, Guam and Puerto Rico set records for deaths this week, according to a USA TODAY analysis of Johns Hopkins University data through late Saturday. New case records were set in Wisconsin.
The U.S. has had about 6.5 million confirmed cases and more than 194,000 deaths. Globally, there have been more than 29 million cases and about 924,000 fatalities.
Images of Fla. fans maskless draw criticism
Florida State University officials on Sunday said they were upset that fans were not wearing face masks during the football opener over the weekend. Images of maskless fans led to criticism on social media.
“We were disappointed with some fans, particularly some student fans, at the Georgia Tech football game who did not comply with our policies regarding social distancing and wearing masks while in their seats,” FSU Athletic Director David Coburn said in a statement to the Tallahassee Democrat, part of the USA TODAY Network.
“There was ample room for all fans to remain safely distanced. We have three weeks until our next home game, and we will re-double our efforts to both inform our patrons and improve compliance with the new rules,” the statement read.
The criticism comes after a video on social media showed what was believed to be a pre-game FSU party off-campus with a large group of people not wearing face masks, the Democrat reported.
Rite Aid: Fired manager ‘created escalation’ when attacked by maskless customer
Rite Aid has responded to a worker’s claim that she was fired for defending herself when a man who refused to wear a mask attacked her, asserting that she lost her job because she possessed and displayed a knife during the episode — not because she defended herself and others in the store.
Previously, the drug store chain headquartered in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, had declined to publicly discuss details of the Sept. 3 confrontation between shift manager Elena Santiago and an unidentified young man who refused to wear a mask in the chain’s downtown store in York, Pennsylvania.
But after news of her firing spread across the country, the chain released a statement that asserted Elena Santiago, a 40-year-old single mother of three who had worked at the store for four and a half years, was not fired from her $11-an-hour job for defending herself.
“We understand the concern regarding the incident in York, PA,” Savarese wrote in the email. “For many reasons, we have a no tolerance policy specific to associates bringing weapons to our facilities and having weapons on person. The primary reason is to keep our associates, customers and communities safe, and to mitigate an escalation of any situation. In this unfortunate incident, the show and use of weapons by our associate created an escalation.”
University of Wisconsin-La Crosse halts classes amid COVID-19 spike
The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse suspended in-person undergraduate classes for two weeks due to a spike in coronavirus cases. Officials on Sunday said they will require face coverings on all campus property, both indoor and outdoor, and will expand a previous edict for shelter in place that was limited to one residence, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, part of the USA TODAY Network.
In-person instruction is scheduled to resume on Sept. 28.