WHO launches independent review of the international response to the Covid-19 pandemic

The WHO is conducting an independent review of the global response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the agency announced yesterday. Former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and former prime minister of New Zealand Helen Clark will lead the review, which the WHO's member states asked for earlier this year. The panel conducting the review is expected to provide an interim report in November, with a more comprehensive report to be presented at the World Health Assembly's scheduled meeting next May. “This is a time for self-reflection, to look at the world we live in and to find ways to strengthen our collaboration as we work together to save lives and bring this pandemic under control,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement.

Here's what else is happening with the pandemic:

The U.S. has continued to set daily Covid-19 case records in six of the last ten days. States that opened the earliest — such as South Carolina and Georgia — are seeing the biggest jumps in cases, although there are exceptions, such as California. As of this morning, there are more than 3.1 million Covid-19 cases in the U.S. and nearly 133,300 deaths.
Stress cardiomyopathy, sometimes known as "broken heart syndrome," may have increased in recent months due to the pandemic, new research in a small group of patients suggests. Data from two hospitals in Ohio show that 20 patients — an incidence rate of almost 8% — were diagnosed with the condition between March and April this year compared to last year, when the incidence was less than 2%.
Following an open letter from more than 200 scientists earlier this week outlining evidence that transmission of SARS-CoV-2 could be airborne, the WHO yesterday acknowledged that the virus could be spread by smaller droplets or aerosols emitted while singing, shouting, or talking. Still, the agency maintained that much of the transmission seems to be through larger droplets that are coughed or inhaled.