What’s going on in Europe — a warning for Americans about the end of the year, about Covid-19 and an indication for the nature of vaccination rates
The White House has a warning for Americans about the end of the year and about Covid-19: you have better protect yourself.
The first hint of what could be in store is what’s happening in Europe. Many European countries, including the UK, have seen an increase in infections.
“In the past, what’s happened in Europe often has been a harbinger for what’s about to happen in the United States,” says Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. “So I think the bottom line message for us in this country is: We have to be prepared for what they are beginning to see in Europe.”
Germany and France have seen increases as we speak, according to Lauren Ancel Meyers, the director of the UT COVID-19 Modeling Consortium at the University of Texas at Austin. “That gives me pause. It adds uncertainty about what we can expect in the coming weeks and the coming months.”
Lessler says it’s not certain that the US experience will be the same as Europe’s.
It is not known if Europe’s rising cases are related to people’s susceptibility to newer subvariants they have not been exposed to. In addition, different countries have different levels of immunity.
The effects of variant on a population are more influenced by the country’s vaccination rate than any other factor.
The CDC and the New York Pandemic Center: The Rise and Fall of Omicron Boosters in the U.S.
“It’s too early to say something big is happening, but we’re keeping an eye on it,” said Kirby, national wastewater surveillance program lead at the CDC.
But infections and even hospitalizations have started rising in some of the same parts of New England, as well as some other northern areas, such as the Pacific Northwest, according to Dr. David Rubin, the director of the PolicyLab at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, which tracks the pandemic.
Rubin says that there are evidence of increasing transmission in the northern rim of the country. “The winter resurgence is beginning.”
He thinks it’s likely that we’ll see a rise in cases that may peak around the second week in January – as it has in years past – but that it won’t have a big effect on hospitalizations and deaths.
The Pandemic Center at the Brown University School of Public Health believes that there is more immunity in the population than there was last winter.
“Not only have people gotten vaccinated, but a lot of people have now gotten this virus. Some people have gotten it multiple times. And that does build up [immunity] in the population and reduce overall over risk of severe illness,” Nuzzo says.
One of the factors that could influence the impact of an increase in infections is how many people get one of the bivalent omicron boosters.
But booster uptake in the U.S. was already sluggish. William Hanage, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, says that over half of people who are eligible have not gotten their booster. It’s crazy. It’s really crazy.
The demand for the newest boosters has been sluggish so far. Less than 8 million people have gotten one of the new boosters since they became available over the Labor Day weekend even though more than 200 million are eligible.
Covid Vaccines and Mortality: The Cost of Vaccination in the United States during the Last Three- to Six Months
“The most important thing every American can do to reduce their likelihood of having significant, preventable health issues in the next three to six months is to go get an updated Covid vaccine,” Jha said. Everyone over the age of 50 with high-risk conditions should be given treatments if they get infections. Treatments are widely available.
But if booster vaccinations continue at their current pace, the nation could see a peak of more than 1,000 Covid-19 deaths per day this winter, according to the study by The Commonwealth Fund. The United States has seen more than 400 daily Covid-19 deaths.
The person will be protected by Christmas if they get the vaccine tomorrow. It is not the last day people will get together over winter. “So getting vaccinated as quickly as possible so you have protection for as much time as possible, is critical.”
“We have seen, in some regions, RSV numbers starting to trend downward. Flu numbers are still on the rise. Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Tuesday that they are concerned that after the holiday there will be more Covid-19 cases.
More than one million hospitalizations and up to three hundred thousand deaths from the coronaviruses were reduced by Covid-19 vaccinations last year according to a study released Friday.
A study analyzed data from over twenty million older Americans and others who joined a Medicare fee-for-service health plan. Last year, it included Delta and Omicron surge data.
Covid-19: Vaccination and Vaccine Information in the 21st Century and the Challenges of Working Families and Public Health
“We hope that with this report we can continue to encourage Americans to get updated with their vaccinations and get us prepared for the fall and winter that’s coming,” Becerra said.
The administration encourages people to get the updated Covid-19 boosters that are available for ages 12 and up. Moderna and Pfizer are asking the FDA to authorize updated boosters for children as young as 5 years old.
My last newsletter is before I start a book leave. I’ll be back in late January. Until then, other Times journalists will be writing The Morning, and I look forward to reading their work along with all of you.
Paxlovid works better if started within days of symptoms appearing, even though treatments can reduce a person’s risk of being hospitalized or dying.
The C.D.C., the country’s principal public health agency, has acknowledged that it lacks a data infrastructure with clear standards that can accept and integrate information crucial to monitoring and fighting public health threats. Information from the health agencies and health systems that track cases, hospitalizations, and deaths in real time is included. Public health officials will be blind in the next emergency if this system is not fixed.
Improving worker safety was a missed opportunity. If colleagues feel sick, everyone in the workplace gets a bonus. There will be change in the culture of sickness and the provision of paid sick leave for those in low-income jobs and the gig economy. Paid sick leave is particularly important in the health care, hospitality, public transportation and retail industries, where infections can most easily spread. But many employers still do not provide paid sick and family medical leave, and Congress has refused to pass legislation requiring it, despite the mountain of data on workplace spread from coronavirus and other respiratory infections.
Strategies are needed to connect public health agencies with hard-to-reach populations. During the early days of Covid, much of the engagement with the public by health agencies was passive. Americans had to stand in line or sign up online for vaccines or masks or to order tests and sometimes request reimbursement from their insurers. Those with free time, broadband access and computer skills will be happy with this approach. disabled people, older people living alone, individuals with low health literacy and rural residents are more challenging than other people.
The return of the COVID-19 epidemic, and a paradigm shift in public health care: The role of the National Institute of Health and its implications for personal protective equipment
The government has yet to ensure a stable domestic production capacity and a stable supply chain for personal protective equipment such as gloves and disposable gowns.
Nor has it fixed the system of clinical research, which proved slow in generating useful results on a range of concerns, such as optimal vaccine schedules and the evaluation of drugs to lessen Covid symptoms and prevent hospitalizations. The reliable clinical results proving the benefits of steroids and hydroxychloroquine came from Britain and other countries. Yet the National Institutes of Health have not revamped how they organize, fund and reward scientists for participating in large, pragmatic clinical trials, especially but not only in public health emergencies.
COVID-19 restrictions mean we are more susceptible to these viruses. The surge in the Northern Hemisphere has raised questions about what the new normal will be.
Scott Hensley, an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania, says that the viruses are coming back with a vengeance. “It is possible that this year will be sort of the granddaddy of them all in terms of flu.”
Some scientists have also posited on social media that the surge in RSV hospitalizations might be the result of SARS-CoV-2 infection causing immune deficiencies that leave people more susceptible to other infections. Miller hasn’t seen any evidence to support the idea that a large number of missed exposures are to blame for the surge in hospital admissions. All of the naive population are at risk. There are more numbers going into the system.
Older children and adults with previous infections are at risk of waning immunity. In the absence of a virus, the levels of antibody decline. In a typical year, “we might get exposed to a small bit of virus and your body fights it off”, says John Tregoning, an immunologist at Imperial College London. The kind of asymptomatic boosting has not happened in the last few years.
Another open question is how these viruses compete and interfere with one another. A strong innate immune response can be produced if you are infection with one virus and another. Hensley points out that last year’s first wave of influenza declined soon after the Omicron surge began. Perhaps Omicron infection provided some short-lived protection against flu. Or maybe the Omicron surge simply convinced people to mask up and keep their distance.
Covid-19 is getting worse every year, and it’s likely that next year will be the last unusual winter for the Pitzer family, says Shishi Luo
Pitzer expects that next year’s peaks and valleys might look much more like those that occurred before the pandemic. She is not placing bets. She expects the winter will be the last unusual winter.
Covid-19 is not unique in this regard. The outbreak of the respiratory syncytial virus and the flu this time of year, because of Thanksgiving gatherings, has the potential to get worse as more people come together for the holiday.
“Covid positivity is going up,” said Shishi Luo, associate director of bioinformatics and infectious disease at the genetic testing company Helix, which has been monitoring coronavirus variants. “It’s increasing fastest among 18- to 24-year-olds” in the Helix sampling.
When test positivity increases, it means a greater proportion of Covid-19 tests are returning positive results, and it can be an indication that transmission is on the rise.
“We should expect more cases,” Luo said. I think we should see more people who are sick if they’re measured in a way that makes sense. I definitely am.”
If people don’t test for Covid-19 at home, then the amount of cases will not be as high by official counts.
What will we learn from Omicron’s BQ subvariants of the Covid-19 virus after the last few years? Vaccination, vaccinations, and infection effects on the population
Omicron’s BQ subvariants have risen to dominate US transmission. BQ.1 and its offshoot BQ.1.1 are descendants of BA.5; they have five and six key mutations, respectively, in their spike proteins that help them evade immunity created by vaccines and infections. They’re growing more quickly thanks to the changes.
The CDC is estimating that 50% of new Covid-19 cases in the US are caused by BQ.1 and B Q. 1.1. But so far, they’ve risen to predominance without much impact.
Nobody knows exactly what will happen with the BQ variants. Many experts think that the big waves of winters are nothing like the original Omicron variant, with its jaw-dropping peak of nearly a million new daily infections.
Bill Hanage thinks our behavior and our friends may play a bigger role in determining if cases will go up or down.
Andrew Pekosz, a virologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, says that’s probably because BQ.1’s advantages are incremental, not drastic.
“It’s probably got a bit more of a fitness advantage, so what we’re seeing is gradual replacement without a massive change in the total number of Covid-19 cases,” he said.
But these subvariants will land at a time when population immunity is higher than ever, thanks to vaccines and infections. It’s a very different setting than the virus encountered when Omicron emerged a year ago, and that should also help dampen any coming wave, Pekosz says.
Scientists at Los Alamos National Labs recently completed a study delving into what drove the effects of 13 dominant variants of coronavirus as they transitioned from one to another in 213 countries. The study includes data up to the end of September and was published as a preprint ahead of peer review.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/24/health/covid-19-thanksgiving-bq/index.html
How Do We Get Our Masks? A Study on XBB, BQ and BQ in the 21st Century, from the UK to the UK
The number of previous cases, the percentage of people who wore masks, average income and the percentage of population over the age of 65 ran second, third, fourth and fifth.
Senior study author Bette Korber says that the number of other variations in the mix is an important factor when there is a new variant.
By the time Alpha arrived in the US, it had a competitive edge over its English competitors and was evolving its own variant out of California and New York.
Korber isn’t making any predictions. She says it’s just too difficult to know what’s going to happen, pointing to Asia as the source of her uncertainty.
Asian countries have been contending with waves driven by the recombinant XBB, a subvariant that really hasn’t had much of a presence in the US. The BQ variants arrived later, but she says they look impressive against XBB, which is also highly immune-evasive.
She said that it was a good time when it was possible to wear masks. The mask protects the wearer and others around them. “And get the booster if you’re eligible and it’s the right moment for you,” especially as we gather around the table to feast with our friends and family.
Korber suggests that people exercise some extra caution to prevent that wave that they don’t want to see happening.
What are they? How many Americans live in the age of Covid-19? What do they want to know and what to do about it?
What are they? We spent more energy on the need for vaccination than the vulnerabilities of age because there was no simple or silver-bullet solution. Emphasizing that more shots are good but that different groups need different approaches, as well as the need for up-to-date vaccine and bivalent boosting, is something that public health officials should be telling politicians about.
As a country we prefer not to see those deaths because they are a kind of background noise or faded wallpaper. We don’t need to understand who is dying or why in part because we don’t want to reckon with the fact that around 300 Americans are now dying from Covid-19 every day, at a rough pace of about 100,000 per year, making it the country’s third leading cause of death. This is normalization at work, but it is also a familiar pattern: We don’t exactly track the ups and downs of cancer or heart disease either.
The country spent a lot of time talking about how you can protect yourself, which left us without much of a way to tell what was going on and what it would be like. Vaccine refusal was a cancer on the American experience of the Covid years — that is undeniable. But we got so comfortable equating personal choices and individual risk that even identifying vulnerabilities came to feel like an accusation of irresponsibility. Where do older adults leave? In a pandemic of the unvaccinated, what do you say to or about the 41 percent of Americans who died in January who’d gotten their shots? About 60 percent of them died this summer.
China’s zero-covid-19 impact on its citizens and public: CNN’s Evening in China (and its not just the Omicron)
CNN published a version of the story in its Meanwhile in China newsletter, which offers three times a week updates about what you need to know about China and how it affects the world. You should sign up here.
A top Covid-19 expert, Zhong Nanshan, said in an interview that Covid was spreading rapidly and that it was due to the Omicron variant.
Authorities announced Monday that there would be a deactivation of the mobile itinerary card function on the following day.
The system, which is separate from the health code scanning system still required in a reduced number of places, used cell phone data to try and identify people who had been to a city with a zone designated high.
But as the scrapping of parts of the zero-Covid infrastructure come apace, there are questions about how the country’s health system will handle a mass outbreak.
Some businesses in Beijing were closed over the weekend, and residents either fell ill or were afraid to go out, leaving the streets largely empty. Outside of the two Covid-19 testing booths, the biggest public crowds were seen.
Media outlet China Youth Daily documented hours-long lines at a clinic in central Beijing on Friday, and cited unnamed experts calling for residents not to visit hospitals unless necessary.
Health workers in the capital were also grappling with a surge in emergency calls, including from many Covid-positive residents with mild or no symptoms, with a hospital official on Saturday appealing to residents in such cases not to call the city’s 911-like emergency services line and tie up resources needed by the seriously ill.
The volume of emergency calls had increased from 5,000 to more than 30,000 in the past few days, according to Chen Zhi, chief physician of the Beijing Emergency Center.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/12/china/china-zero-covid-impact-beijing-intl-hnk-mic/index.html
The Chinese HIV epidemic: zero covid impact of Beijing intl hnk-mic and why the public is worried about the virus
It won’t be easy to completely cut off the transmission chain if the prevention and control is strong, according to one of the key public voices during the early days of the epidemic.
Last Wednesday, the health officials made a sweeping roll back of the rules they had relied on to stop the spread of infectious diseases. Some of the measures, like home isolation of cases and health code use in designated places, are still in place.
China may have underprepared itself after it decided to lift its measures in the wake of nationwide protests against the policy, growing case numbers and rising economic costs.
A small number of serious cases may have a big effect on the health system in a country with more than one billion people.
Zhong, in the state media interview, said the government’s top priority now should be booster shots, particularly for the elderly and others most at risk, especially with China’s Lunar New Year coming up next month – a peak travel time where urban residents visit elderly relatives and return to rural hometowns.
Measures to be undertaken include increasing ICU wards and beds, enhancing medical staff for intensive care and setting up more clinics for fevers, China’s National Health Commission said in a statement.
Meanwhile, experts have warned a lack of experience with the virus – and years of state media coverage focusing on its dangers and impact overseas, before a recent shift in tone – could push those who are not in critical need to seek medical care, further overwhelming systems.
Bob Li, a graduate student in Beijing who tested positive for the virus on Friday, said he wasn’t afraid of the viruses, his mother stayed up all night worrying about him Li said that she finds the virus very scary.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/12/china/china-zero-covid-impact-beijing-intl-hnk-mic/index.html
The White House warned against Covid-19, respiratory syncytial virus, and influenza during an October aperiod of intense price gouging
China’s market watchdog said on Friday that there was a “temporary shortage” of some “hot-selling” drugs and vowed to crackdown on price gouging, while major online retailer JD.com last week said it was taking steps to ensure stable supplies after sales for certain medications surged 18 times that week over the same period in October.
Jha said on CNN on Thursday that people who test positive for Covid-19 should “be evaluated for treatment,” especially those 50 and older and anyone with chronic conditions.
There are people that do not need medication at all. It is enough to rest, have good moods, and have good physical condition at home. ,” Li Tongzeng, chief infectious disease physician at Beijing You An Hospital, said in an interview linked to a hashtag viewed more than 370 million times since Friday.
In an interview with CNN, the White House Covid-19 response officer stressed the importance of getting ready for what is expected to be a continued rise in Covid-19 cases this winter.
“This is not one disease in isolation,” Jha said, referring to the ongoing wave of Covid-19, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and influenza. “The stress on hospitals and stress on health care workers is because of all the respiratory pathogens. We’re aware that this increase in Covid is related to one of the worst flu seasons in a decade and we think it’s a good thing.
Evidence suggests, however, that RSV has “peaked,” Jha said, with case numbers starting to come down “pretty quickly.” It will take a while before the impact of the virus is diminished.
Keeping Covid-19 at bay: The Biden Administration’s Reaffirmation of the Campaign for Preventing Sickness, Hospitalizations and Death
The Biden administration’s renewed push to encourage people to use all of the necessary tools available to keep Covid-19 at bay – getting vaccinated and boosted, making use of tests and treatments and masking up when necessary – are all part of achieving what Jha said is the White House’s ultimate goal: preventing serious illness, hospitalizations and death.
Every Americanhousehold will be allowed to order up to four free Covid-19 tests this winter, thanks to the restart of the free at- home Covid-19 test program. It is also offering federal resources to local health departments, putting an extra focus on high-risk individuals including by providing a winter playbook for nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, and permitting nursing home staff to administer vaccinations.
Data from the past few weeks shows that Covid-19 numbers have gone up, most likely due to indoor gatherings during the Thanksgiving holiday and the winter holiday season.
There are currently specific and more conservative guidelines from the CDC for what an individual should do if they test positive for Covid-19, including isolating from others, than for if one catches the flu or RSV. Jha said that has to do with the fact that the spread of RSV and the flu largely happens when a person is symptomatic, whereas Covid-19 can be transmitted a lot more even when a person is asymptomatic.
He encourages Americans to follow the simple rule of thumb, whether they have Covid or something else, and stay out of the house if they are sick.
Even if you don’t think you have Covid-19, it’s not worth spreading it to other people.
Just when you thought it was safe for a holiday visit with your Auntie Mary and her fragile health, RSV and the flu reared their heads – and now Covid-19 numbers are creeping up again.
Health officials are emphasizing the availability of the protective measures, tests and treatments that they say will be key to preventing a repeat of the Covid-19 surges of the past two winters.
Case numbers are now below those of earlier waves, but about 14% of the US population is in an area that meets the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s criteria for a “high” Covid-19 community level, up from less than 5% last week. Los Angeles County, New York City and Phoenix are some of the places that are included.
Covid-19 hospitalizations have been on the rise since early November, and older people are bearing the brunt of these serious illnesses. Hospitalization rates for seniors are four times higher than the rest of the population.
The White House said Thursday that this Covid-19 season does not have to be like last winter’s, when there was a large spike in cases with the rise of the Omicron coronavirus variant.
The White House’s Covid-19 response coordination manager said that they have the tools, infrastructure, and know how to manage this moment.
The Biden administration has been in daily contact with state and local public health leaders, monitoring hospital levels, he said. If states or communities need medical personnel, supplies or other resources, the federal government is ready to provide them.
Covid-19 Masks and the Effects on Public Transportation in Areas with High Community Levels. How to Avoid Exposure to Severe Diseases
If people used the available tools, we could get through the Covid-19 season.
School children will be required to wear masks for a 10 day period if they return from the winter break in Philadelphia.
The CDC recommends masking for anyone who’s on public transportation. It also suggests wearing one in other public settings in communities with high Covid-19 community levels. People who are at risk for severe illness should be wearing masks in areas with only medium community levels.