Coronavirus
Data shows overall resistance to masks, but lower Paxlovid prescription and vaccination rates for people of color
Sat 27 Jul 2024 08.00 EDT
Covid is surging across the US, with levels of the virus on track to exceed last summers wave nationally and approaching the peak of last winters wave in the west, according to wastewater data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Yet vaccination and antiviral uptake, plagued by inequitable access, have remained low, and other precautions like mask-wearing are being met with increasing resistance.
A lot of people right now are getting Covid all over the country, said Dr Peter Chin-Hong, professor of medicine and infectious disease specialist at the University of California, San Francisco. There are still hospitalizations, and theres still a few hundred deaths every week in the US and thats a tragedy.
The rise is being driven by a trio of variants, called Flirt because of shared mutations, that seem to be more immune-evasive and transmissible. And much of the US has been locked in heatwaves, with many Americans staying indoors to avoid the heat which can lead to more spread of the virus.
Nationally, emergency room visits for Covid increased by 15.7% in the past week. Rising hospitalization rates are now higher than last summer at this time, although it can be difficult to make comparisons now that significantly fewer hospitals are required to report rates of Covid than in previous years.
Deaths are also increasing after reaching the lowest point of the pandemic. Nearly 400 people died in the week ending 12 June, the last week for which full data was available. Covid remains the fourth-leading cause of death in the United States.
Any hospitalization or death could be completely prevented based on the tools that we have, Chin-Hong said.
Yet compared to other surges, it just feels like a very different time right now, said David Grabowski, professor of healthcare policy at Harvard Medical School. Its pretty rare to go into a building and see people masked even in hospitals and nursing homes.
The summer surge comes as some federal and state policies have pulled away from efforts that can stop the spread of the virus, experts say.
North Carolina recently signed into law restrictions on wearing face masks in public, and officials in New York City and Los Angeles have considered the same.
In May, the CDC loosened its guidelines for Covid isolation, recommending patients stay home until they are fever-free for 24 hours and symptoms are resolving even if theyre still positive for the virus, during which time they are likely contagious.
While the US government once covered the costs of Covid vaccination, those costs shifted to the private market in 2023. A bridge program offering vaccines to uninsured people is ending next month, weeks before the updated booster will be available which will likely exacerbate gaps in access to the lifesaving vaccines.
Only 22.5% of adults and 14.4% of children are up to date on Covid vaccines and the rate is even lower (13.3%) among pregnant people, despite the risks of severe illness, complications and long Covid because of Covid infection during pregnancy.
There are also stark contrasts among Americans of color, where inequities in health access continue to affect vaccination rates. While a quarter of white adults are vaccinated, only 15.6% of Indigenous people and 16.2% of Hispanic adults have gotten the latest booster.
The disparities are quite striking, Chin-Hong said and theyre especially worrisome among older people of color, who have been more at risk throughout the pandemic. There isnt as much attention to making sure that all older populations get vaccinated or understand the power of vaccinations to keep people safe.
Vaccination rates are higher among older adults, who have the highest rates of hospitalization rates and death but those numbers are way too low, said Grabowski. Less than a third of nursing home residents are up to date on their Covid vaccines.
Those numbers really worry me. Its not clear that those residents are going to have the protection that they did earlier in the pandemic, he said.
With nursing homes, I think theres a lot of fatigue around this issue, and I say that both among the staff and the residents, said Grabowski, who wrote recently about the changes needed to make nursing homes safer after the pandemic. I dont think the vigilance we saw early in the pandemic is there today.
Antivirals like Paxlovid have had a similarly unequal rollout. People of color are significantly less likely to be prescribed Paxlovid compared with white patients about 20% to 36% less, according to one study, and 30% to 36%, according to another.
Only 15% of patients at high risk of severe illness take Paxlovid, one pre-print study suggests, despite evidence that it helps reduce the worst outcomes, including death, among vulnerable people.
It doesnt seem like were actually directing resources to the most vulnerable among us, and thats been really disheartening, Grabowski said. Thats a real red flag.
The CDC recently explained that Covid can surge at any time of the year, including summer, unlike viruses such as the flu and RSV that tend to peak in winter.
The agency recommended that everyone above the age of six months receive updated boosters in the fall, and everyone over the age of 65 receive an additional booster at least four months later.
Chin-Hong hopes vaccination rates will rise once again this fall when the new boosters are available and he hopes public attitudes shift to view Covid vaccines as routine as flu shots. Hopefully, in 2025 well have a combo flu and Covid vaccine, he said. That might make it more palatable for people.
As the virus continues circulating, measures beyond vaccines and treatments will also help control the spread particularly in high-risk environments like nursing homes, Grabowski said.
We need to take other steps, whether its testing, personal protective equipment, better air quality, he said. Yet, change has been slow, and some gains made during the pandemic have now seemed to reverse, Grabowski said.
To the extent that we had some planning in place earlier in the pandemic, I think today thats all absent.
{{topLeft}}
{{bottomLeft}}
{{topRight}}
{{bottomRight}}
{{.}}
One-timeMonthlyAnnual
Other
This page either does not exist or is currently unavailable.
From here you can either hit the "back" button on your browser to return to the previous page, or visit the ABCNews.com Home Page. You can also search for something on our site below.
STATUS CODE: 500
usatoday.com wants to ensure the best experience for all of our readers, so we built our site to take advantage of the latest technology, making it faster and easier to use.
Unfortunately, your browser is not supported. Please download one of these browsers for the best experience on usatoday.com
CORPUS CHRISTI, Tx If youve heard a family member, a friend or even a co-worker mention getting COVID recently, you arent alone. COVID-19 cases are on the rise again nationwide including in the Coastal Bend.
DR. Eric Baggerman, CEO and pediatrician at Amistad Health shared that COVID has a six month cycle. That means that usually there is an increase in cases in the winter and summer.
Baggerman said there could be a few reasons for the spike in cases.
Just like the winter, if people are together more in smaller spaces doing things more or maybe theres more picnics, doing things like that, people might share it more, Baggerman said.
For the past two years or so, the omicron variant of COVID-19 has been the dominant strain. Now, a sub-variant of that variant, called KP.3., is what is causing the rise in cases. Its main characteristic is that its highly infectious.
Jazlyn Vela said she thinks thats the strain her sister caught recently.
My sister she just got over COVID about two days ago. They had it for about two and a half weeks, her, her husband and her kids had it pretty bad, Vela said.
Vela said catching the virus came somewhat of a shock, but not a surprise.
She freaked out again because she didnt expect to get it again, especially because she had her vaccinations. I think it was a big shock to her especially with her kids getting it. Its always scary when your kids get COVID. I think its a very scary situation especially since its an ongoing thing and different strains keep coming out, Vela said.
But Baggerman said the increase in cases isnt as dangerous as when COVID first arrived in 2020.
What weve seen since 2020, its been more of a more normal virus change. Its nothing unlike other viruses, Vela said.
But just because it isnt as dangerous, certain people should still take precautions if they feel they need it.
People who have health problems, people who are over 65, or heart conditions, lung conditions Baggerman said.
COVID positivity rate nationwide is up 12-13% with ER visits being up four percent. Although there is a rise in cases, there is not as many people being hospitalized compared to previous variants.
Baggerman said vaccines significantly reduce the risk of being hospitalized from COVID-19. The latest vaccine, called the 24-25 COVID vaccine, was approved earlier this month. It should be available by September.
Youre reading The Checkup With Dr. Wen, a newsletter on how to navigate medical and public health challenges. Click here to get the full newsletter in your inbox, including answers to reader questions and a summary of new scientific research.
President Bidens stunning announcement that he will end his reelection bid has led many to laud his accomplishments. Chief among them should be how his administration handled the coronavirus pandemic and saved millions of American lives.
When Biden took office in January 2021, the United States had endured nearly a year of turmoil. The coronavirus had become the nations third-leading cause of death and was continuing to spread at alarming speed. His predecessors pandemic strategy could most charitably be described as surrender. (Less-charitable descriptions, as I wrote about at the time, include supreme recklessness and knowingly facilitating superspreader events.)
The one saving grace of Donald Trumps administration was the remarkable speed with which it facilitated the development of safe and effective vaccines. But its one thing to promise shots and quite another to get them produced, distributed and administered into the arms of Americans. As the public health aphorism goes, its not vaccines that saves lives; its vaccinations.
This is where the Biden administration excelled. In just weeks, Bidens covid-response czar Jeff Zients, vaccinations coordinator Bechara Choucair and their team turned the slow and disjointed operation inherited from their predecessors into one of the most effective vaccination campaigns in history.
They easily exceeded Bidens campaign promise to administer 100 million doses in the first 100 days; it took just 58 days to deliver that many shots. In the first six months of 2021, nearly half of the U.S. population got shots. By the end of 2022, more than 80 percent of Americans had received at least one vaccination.
A 2022 report from the Commonwealth Fund estimated that in those first two years, these vaccines prevented more than 18.5 million hospitalizations and averted 3.2 million deaths. The vaccination program also saved more than $1 trillion in medical costs.
The Biden administration can be credited with many other covid-related actions, including partnering with drug companies to develop and distribute antiviral treatments, scaling up at-home testing, improving disease surveillance and investing in long-covid research. Their efforts were successful because Biden rightfully elevated the voice of medical professionals such as Anthony S. Fauci and Vivek H. Murthy. But just as crucially, he chose people experienced at implementing complex programs such as Zients and Choucair and empowered them to do their jobs.
There are those who remain critical of the administration for its support of mask and vaccine mandates and for not pushing for schools to reopen sooner. Others wish Biden had kept the public health emergency for covid in place longer. And much work remains to be done, including to increase lackluster booster uptake among vulnerable older adults and to restore trust in scientific institutions.
On balance, though, I believe Bidens legacy will be that he was the president who got the United States out of the pandemic as well as could be hoped for. Lets not forget, too, that he expanded access to health care, embraced harm reduction in treating opioid addiction and reduced the cost of prescription drugs for seniors.
For all his work to advance public health, I thank Joe Biden. Future leaders would do well to learn from his foresight to set ambitious targets, enlist the private sector and positively channel the power of the federal government to help fix urgent problems.
This story originally appeared on WIRED Japan and has been translated from Japanese.
The northern hemisphere is entering yet another Covid wavewhile much of the world acts as if the pandemic were over, cases are surging again. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recorded an uptick in positive Covid tests, emergency department visits, hospitalizations, and deaths in recent weeks, while cases and hospital admissions in the UK are creeping up too.
But its in Japan where the surge is particularly visible. The countrys National Institute of Infectious Diseases has reported that the average number of infected people per medical institution has been increasing rapidly since June. In particular, Okinawa prefecture has witnessed the highest number of newly hospitalized patients since reporting began, and its possible that the virus is spreading in Japan at a rate that exceeds the countrys last two big waves, in September 2023 and January 2024.
The culprits behind the surge are a new set of variants: KP.3, LB.1, and KP.2.3. Descendants of the Omicron sublineage JN.1 that gained dominance over Christmas, theyve become the driver of new infections around the world, with KP.3 seemingly gaining dominance. As of July 15, the US CDC estimated approximately 37 percent of new Covid cases in the United States were due to KP.3, with KP.2 accounting for 24 percent and LB.1 15 percent. KP.3 has been rising rapidly over the past few months: As of May 11, it accounted for an estimated 9 percent of cases in the US; a month later on June 11, its share was 25 percent.
Together, these viruses are referred to as the FLiRT variants, because they all have a mutation in the spike protein that changes its 456th amino acid from phenylalanine (F) to leucine (L) and its 346th amino acid from arginine (R) to threonine (T). According to a paper by the Institute of Medical Science at the University of Tokyo, published earlier this year in the journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases, these variants are more transmissible than earlier mainstream variants and have a high ability to evade neutralizing antibodies.
Genotype to Phenotype Japan (G2P-Japan), a research consortium at the institute, estimates that the R numbers of the FLiRT variantsthe average number of new cases an infected person causes, and a measure of infectivityare higher for these new forms of the virus compared to JN.1. Furthermore, when the infectivity of these viruses was evaluated in cultured cells, KP.3 needed a lower amount of virus to cause an infection compared to LB.1 and KP.2.3, which both required roughly the same amount of virus as JN.1. These results give a clue as to why KP.3 appears to be heading toward domination.
The FLiRT variants, including KP.3, also surpass the ability of earlier forms of the virus to evade immunity. When the G2P-Japan team examined past infections, breakthrough infections (those that follow being vaccinated), and responses to neutralizing antibodies induced by the updated XBB.1.5 Covid vaccine, they found that in all cases neutralizing activity against the FLiRTs was significantly weaker than that against existing epidemic variants.
University Health reports significant increase in COVID-19
by SBG San Antonio
University Health officials have reported a significant increase in COVID-19 cases in San Antonio, reflecting a similar trend observed across Texas. (SBG San Antonio)
SAN ANTONIO - University Health officials have reported a significant increase in COVID-19 cases in San Antonio, reflecting a similar trend observed across Texas.
According to state data from the "Texas Respiratory Virus Surveillance Report," the entire state is experiencing a summer surge in COVID-19 infections.
In the week before last, University Health detected 226 positive COVID-19 tests. Last week, that number surged to 336 positive cases.
"The numbers show that only 22% of adults received the most recent 2023-2024 COVID vaccine and only about 14% of kids, so most people didn't get it. It's really important to get the upcoming COVID vaccine this fall. It's supposed to be out in late August or early September, and it really matches better the strains that are circulating now," said Dr. Jason Bowling, Chief Epidemiologist at University Health.
The CDC recommends that everyone 6 months and older receive an updated 2024-2025 COVID vaccination.
Load more...
From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? Let us know!
Philadelphia is currently experiencing a rise in COVID-19 cases. The virus continues to mutate, posing ongoing public health challenges as vaccine makers race to fight new strains.
Despite the increase, the overall numbers tracked by the city are still low right now, says Gayle Mendoza, a clinician in the citys COVID Containment Division.
While we are seeing an increase, were starting at a really low number right before that. Our baseline was incredibly low, Mendoza said. For example, just this past month, the rates for emergency department visits related to COVID are only at 1% of total visits. Thankfully, we havent seen an increase in deaths due to COVID, which is great.
Preliminary data from the citys Department of Public Health and local hospitals reveal that only one person was newly hospitalized for COVID-19 in Philadelphia last week, mirroring the number of new hospitalizations from exactly one year ago.
The city no longer keeps track of the number of people who test positive for COVID-19. Instead, the Department of Public Health monitors the monthly concentration of the virus in Philadelphias three wastewater treatment plants. Only the Northeast Water Treatment plant reported an increased concentration at the start of the month. The Southeast and Southwest plants reported declines.
Mendoza emphasizes that staying up-to-date with vaccinations remains the best defense against severe illness, long COVID and death from COVID-19. For most children and adults, this means receiving a new shot every September. The national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, however, is preparing to end its program providing free COVID-19 vaccines to uninsured individuals next month.
So there may have to be other ways that people need to access those vaccines if theyre looking to get it and it might not be covered under their current insurance plan, says Mendoza.
COVID-19 is a "two hump camel," whereas the flu has "one hump" four experts talk about what this means for vaccinations.
At the height of summer, theres more for journalists to consider besides soaring temperatures and politics. Current CDC data shows COVID-19 test positivity reaching 12.6%, the highest it has been since the peak of the winter COVID-19 surge in January. On July 24, four experts joined a National Press Foundation online briefing to tackle questions about the summer wave of COVID, how influenza comes into the mix, and what it means for vaccine updates, protocols and more.
COVID is a two-humped camel, says Dr. William Schaffner, spokesperson for the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases. That means COVID doesnt entirely disappear. It has a summer increase in addition to what we see in the fall and the winter.
Despite vaccines not providing immunity from the disease itself, both influenza vaccine and COVID vaccines protect best against the most serious complications, he said. The four panelists explored the science and public health messaging related to COVID and the flu, providing the context and insights that can fuel better coverage.
Watch the video here:
While its known that there are seasonal patterns to certain virus, its unclear why, said Dr. Ariangela Kozik, an assistant professor in the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology at the University of Michigan.
There is some evidence that it has something to do with the environmental conditions But as far as why influenza has a certain pattern and COVID has another pattern, I dont think we know exactly why that is yet.
But she said the public needs to know that even though early on there was a lot of comparative language between COVID being like influenza or its like the flu, thats not the case as far as the biology is concerned, she said.
Kozik said that explaining how vaccination is a solution to a particular problem the problem being the infectious agent that is changing over time is a way to help people understand why its important to continue to get vaccinated.
The emergence of the so-called FLiRT variants is another important theme for journalists to explore. According to Yale University researchers, The FLiRT strains are subvariants ofOmicron, and together they accounted for the majority of COVID cases in the U.S. at the beginning of July. One of them, KP.3, was responsible for 36.9% of COVID infections in the United States, KP.2 made up 24.4%, and KP.1.1 accounted for 9.2% of cases.
Dr. Schaffner explained that as these viruses spread, they encounter the immune system and adapt. And so that, if anything, stimulates further mutation and were getting a succession of these variants. You can think of them as children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the Omicrons. So far, knock wood, we have not seen a new dominant, more serious variant evolve anywhere in the world in recent months. Very, very good. Not one that is more serious and that can evade the protection that we have currently provided ourselves through vaccines and previous experience.
New York Times science and global health reporter Apoorva Mandavilli has reported on COVID since the beginning of the pandemic. She said the challenge is that people like to think in binaries. There will always be people think that the vaccine completely prevents long COVID despite her writing about the vaccination lowering the risk of long COVID.
People are notoriously bad at figuring out what personal risk is for anything. And so I try not to use too many numbers because the second you start using numbers, some peoples brains literally shut down And so I try to explain more that you can really protect yourself in this way if you can get the vaccine, but you should still just try to avoid the virus also by protecting yourself in other ways.
While Mandavilli continues to report on the summer wave, she recently wrote the article Thousands Believe Covid Vaccines Harmed Them. Is Anyone Listening?, which focused on vaccine side effects. That is not a story Ive seen media really cover, and I think people have stayed very far from it. And I understand partly why. Its really hard to do because what you dont want is to fuel anti-vax messaging.
But I would encourage my fellow journalists to actually go there and to just do a very nuanced take on the topic, but to address the very real concerns that people have, whether its about the fact that they dont want it or they dont need it or theyre worried about it or whatever it is. you have to meet people where they are.
Whether its the flu or COVID, Dr. Bertha Hidalgo, an associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology at UAB said that she frequently gets asked about when people should get vaccines. Public health departments are a good place to start, as well as journalists and the news.
And Hidalgo urges journalists to remind the public that using masks is still a very important tool against infection. I would say that as far back as when my youngest son was diagnosed with influenza at the age of seven, we were sent home with a mask from urgent care so that while the oral antiviral medicine took effect, we would all wear masks in the home. And this was before COVID. So I think there is a precedent for mask wearing when infected, but also for prevention.
Access the full transcript here.
This webinar was sponsored by the Champions for Vaccine Education, Equity + Progress. NPF is solely responsible for its content.
A Long Island hospital is one of three national sites running clinical trials on an experimental nasal COVID-19 vaccine that could help reduce transmission and infections of the disease, experts said.
NYU Langone Hospital-Long Island in Mineola has started signing up eligible adults between the ages of 18 and 64 for the trial, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health.
If the nasal vaccine gains approval, it could provide an alternative to people who have been hesitant to get the COVID-19 vaccine.
We get infected with COVID through our respiratory system, said Dr. Martn Bcker,associatedirector of the vaccine center at NYU Langone Hospital-Long Island. Having our immune system activated at the site of infection might lead to more sterilizing immunity, which might help prevent milder infections or [prevent]transmissions better than the currently available vaccines.
Meanwhile, the summer COVID-19 wave continues with cases, emergency room visits and hospitalizations on the rise, according to the national statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
OnLong Island, there were 217 people hospitalized for COVID-19 on Monday, the highest since February. That's an increase from 192 people hospitalized on the Islanda week earlier.
Most of the current COVID-19 cases appear to be mild infections, which would be the target of the experimental nasal vaccine.
While first-generation COVID-19 vaccines continue to be effective at preventing severe illness, hospitalizations, and death, they are less successful at preventing infection and milder forms of disease, Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, director of the NIHs National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in a statement. With the continual emergence of new virus variants, there is a critical need to develop next-generation COVID-19 vaccines, including nasal vaccinesthat could reduce SARS-CoV-2 infections and transmission.
In animal tests, the vaccine produced robust systemic immune responses, according to the NIH. This is the first time it will be tested on people.
About 60 people across all three sites will be enrolled in the study. The other locations are Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and The Hope Clinic of Emory University in Georgia. In order to be eligible, people need to have received at least three prior doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Dr. Martn Bcker, associatedirector of the vaccine center at NYU Langone Hospital-Long Island. We are mainly trying to learn if this is safe and how it activates the immune system, he said. Credit: Debbie Egan-Chin
Bcker, who is overseeing the Phase 1 clinical trial on Long Island, said the first group of volunteers will receive one low dose of the vaccine nasal spray.
If the vaccine is well tolerated and there are no safety concerns, the next group will receive a higher dose and the third group an even higher dose.
Over the next year, subjects will be evaluated numerous timesto see what kind of immune response can be measured in their blood and in their nose.
We are mainly trying to learn if this is safe and how it activates the immune system, Bcker said.
He said giving the public another option may help eventually boost the number of people who get vaccinated. Between Sept. 14, 2023, and May 11,2024, only 22.5% of adults in the United States reported receiving the updated COVID-19 vaccine, according to the CDC.
Dr. Andrea Cox, an infectious disease specialist and professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, likened the protection of a vaccine to the protection of an army sitting on the border.
What we want is a vaccine that doesnt even let the invader in, said Cox, who is not involved in the study but specializes in viral vaccines. The virus comes in through the nose and it sets up infection there and then spreads down into the lungs and causes all sorts of problems.
The nasal vaccine uses a pneumonia virus to deliver the spike protein, which may be more effective in delivering the vaccine to where the infections begin, according to the NIH.
That virus has been honed to grab onto cells in your nose, Cox said. It sticks to the cells in the nose, which is what the virus has evolved to do.
Becker said people interested in participating in the study can call 516-663-3890or email NYULongIslandvaccine@nyulangone.org for more information.
Those who volunteer are true heroes, Bcker said. We try to remind people that no medication, no vaccine, nothing we use in medicine could be advanced to the point of approval without the participation of volunteers.
Lisa joined Newsday as a staff writer in 2019. She previously worked at amNewYork, the New York Daily News and the Asbury Park Press covering politics, government and general assignment.
