Beloved Cop Dies 3 Months After Retirement: U.S. Coronavirus Blog

BLOOMFIELD, NJ — Benny Christiano was well known in his hometown of Bloomfield, New Jersey, serving as a police officer for 26 years. Residents and officials in the town said it was well deserved when he announced his retirement in December.

Just this week, he became one of the latest fatal victims of the coronavirus that has now claimed more than 518,000 American lives.

"Ben fought a tough battle with COVID for recent weeks that he ultimately succumbed to," a statement from the Bloomfield Division of Public Safety said. "Ben served this department with 'Bravery, Pride and Dedication' for 26 years until making the decision to retire and move on to the next chapter in his life."

An outpouring of support came in for Christiano when it was announced he was battling COVID-19 in January.

"Great guy I've had the pleasure of riding escorts with," one former colleague wrote.

Read more from Bloomfield, NJ Patch

The Latest

Major American retailers will continue to require customers wear face coverings while in their stores even as more states are dropping their mask mandates. CVS, Target, Kroger and Starbucks are among the corporations that will keep the requirement in place in the wake of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott lifting all mask mandates in America's second most populous state, The Washington Post and others have reported.

Other stores, including Albertson's, will no longer require masks in states that have dropped the requirement but will continue to encourage customers to wear them, according to The Post report.

Health experts and public officials on the federal and local levels are warning against states such as Texas acting too soon on lifting restrictions designed to limit the coronavirus spread.

President Joe Biden on Wednesday called out the governors in Texas and Mississippi for "Neanderthal thinking" in deciding to relax their mask mandates and other COVID-19 restrictions, according to The Associated Press. Pennsylvania on Monday took a more gradual approach to reopening, allowing fans at professional sporting and entertainment events at 20 percent capacity.

Biden called the easing of restrictions a "big mistake" while speaking in the Oval Office during a meeting with lawmakers, who each wore a mask. He said, "I hope everyone has realized by now, these masks make a difference."

"We are on the cusp of being able to fundamentally change the nature of this disease," he said. "The last thing we need is Neanderthal thinking that, in the meantime, everything's fine, take off your mask, forget it."

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has urgently warned state officials and ordinary Americans not to let down their guard. Walensky said she is "really worried about reports that more states are rolling back the exact public health measures that we have recommended."

"I remain deeply concerned about a potential shift in the trajectory of the pandemic," she told the AP. "We stand to completely lose the hard-earned ground that we have gained."

Cases, deaths and hospitalizations from the virus are on a downward trend nationally, and the vaccine rollout has received a big boost with the announcement that drugmaker Merck will help rival Johnson & Johnson with the production of the single-dose vaccine that was just approved for emergency use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration a few days ago.

But the country remains far from its lofty vaccination goal, which Biden said is to have doses available for all adults by the end of May.

Local leaders in Texas have criticized Abbott's decision to open the state "100 percent."

"There is no explanation for the governor's action other than trying to distract us and the media from the failure of the state to protect us from the power outage," Austin Mayor Steve Adler said, according to CNN, referring to the winter snowstorm that caused dozens of deaths and millions to lose power two weeks ago.

Texas is one of the few states where coronavirus cases actually have increased in recent weeks. And it's where more than 100 immigrants recently released at the U.S.-Mexico border have tested positive for the virus since January, according to a Fox News report.

Felipe Romero, a spokesperson for Brownsville, Texas, told the news channel that the 108 positive tests account for 6.3 percent of the migrants who have been tested as they are released by the Border Patrol. He said the city cannot prevent the immigrants from traveling elsewhere in the United States, but has advised them to quarantine.

On the vaccine front, several states are expanding access as the rollout is expected to speed up significantly due to the Merck-J&J partnership.

Arizona, Connecticut and Indiana have thrown open the line to the younger age bracket, the AP reported Wednesday. Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are reserving the first doses of the new one-shot vaccine from Johnson & Johnson for teachers. And in Detroit, factory workers can get vaccinated starting this week, regardless of their age.

Teachers, school staff, bus drivers and child care workers will be eligible for vaccine shots in all states, a directive put in place by the Department of Health and Human Services. That's a major shift for the Biden administration, which controls access to COVID-19 vaccines but previously allowed states to set their own guidelines.

Some evidence that the vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna are working can be found in Los Angeles County, California, where health care workers have accounted for significantly fewer positive virus tests since they have been vaccinated, The New York Times reported.

Coronavirus numbers among Los Angeles County health care workers are down 94 percent since vaccinations became available in late November, the report found. The Golden State will also set aside 40 percent of its vaccines for low-income families, according to another report from the Times.

But what about people who test positive for the virus while in between their first and second vaccine shots? These cases are rare, but that's exactly what happened to an Ohio woman, WBNS reported.

The woman did not have symptoms, something doctors have said could have been thanks to her getting that first dose.

“When you get a COVID-19 vaccine, what it really protects you from is dying, it keeps you out of the hospital, and prevents you from having severe symptoms of COVID-19,” Dr. Joseph Gastaldo with OhioHealth told the news station.

Even as millions of people are vaccinated every day, leading health experts continue to worry about coronavirus variants, especially the one that originated in South Africa, spreading.

Chris Murray, a University of Washington disease expert, told Reuters he "couldn't sleep" when he saw data that suggests the South Africa variant could decrease the effectiveness of the vaccines.

"I still would want to wear a mask if there was a variant out there” even after vaccination, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, according to Reuters.

Also this week, the independent COVID Tracking Project said it will stop gathering data beginning Sunday. The tool has given a daily total of reported hospitalizations across the country, which are now consistently below 50,000.

Hospitalizations nationwide have been on a downward trend for several weeks, standing at 46,388 as of Wednesday.

Newest Numbers

As of Thursday afternoon, the United States had reported more than 28.7 million cases and more than 519,300 deaths from COVID-19-related illnesses, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

At least 2,492 deaths and 67,153 new cases of coronavirus were reported in the United States on Wednesday, according to a Washington Post database. The Post's reporting shows that over the past week, new daily cases have fallen 4.5 percent, new daily deaths have fallen 5.9 percent and COVID-19-related hospitalizations have fallen 15.8 percent.

More than 109.9 million vaccine doses have been distributed and more than 82.5 million administered in the United States as of Thursday, according to the CDC. More than 54 million people have received one dose, and more than 27.7 million have received two.

As of Thursday, 21 states and U.S. territories remained above the positive testing rate recommended by the World Health Organization to safely reopen. To safely reopen, the WHO recommends states remain at 5 percent or lower for at least 14 days.

Two states, Hawaii and Oregon, have positive test rates below 1 percent.

For more live coverage on the coronavirus, follow The New York Times or The Washington Post.

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