COVID-19 Update

USA

• New Cases:   48,715
• New Deaths:       932

Bloomberg:

A top White House security official, Crede Bailey, is gravely ill with Covid-19 and has been hospitalized since September, according to four people familiar with his condition.

The White House has not publicly disclosed Bailey’s illness. He became sick before the Sept. 26 Rose Garden event President Donald Trump held to announce his Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett that has been connected to more than a dozen cases of the disease.

A White House spokesman declined to comment on Bailey. He is in charge of the White House security office, which handles credentialing for access to the White House and works closely with the U.S. Secret Service on security measures throughout the compound.

A career federal employee who has seldom appeared in the news, Bailey was swept up in a controversy last year over security clearances granted to Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, and son-in-law Jared Kushner. Bailey privately testified to the House Oversight Committee that he didn’t face pressure from others at the White House to grant clearances, according to a report by The Hill.

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John Hagee, prominent megachurch pastor, ill with COVID-19

And, entering the realm of Sci-Fi as prophetic messenger, The Times Of Israel:

COVID-19 is harming the sperm of patients, even weeks after recovery, Israeli doctors have concluded, raising concerns that the disease could reduce fertility.

“Men who had the mild disease had a broadly normal sperm quality,” Prof. Dan Aderka of Sheba Medical Center, told The Times of Israel this week. “But those who had the disease in moderate or serious form often didn’t, even after recovery.

“These men had a reduction of around 50% on average of the number of sperm per milliliter, total volume of ejaculate, and motility of sperm,” he said. This figure reflects testing that was carried out around a month after diagnosis.