Category: Corona Virus

Coronavirus cases are on the rise again, Mohamed Awad Tag Eddin, Advisor to the President of the Republic for Health and Prevention Affairs, said.

The symptoms of the current coronavirus mutant are simple and similar to colds, despite the increase in the rate of infections, Tag Eddin told Al-Hayat Al-Youm program broadcast on the Al-Hayat channel on Thursday evening.

A large part of the severe cases in the world are due to the lack of respirators and medical monitoring, he continued.

Patients must take the necessary treatment and follow the doctors advice in case of infection, Tag Eddin said.

Most cases of infection with the virus and its variants range between mild and moderate at about 90 percent or 95 percent of the total infections, according to Tag Eddin.

Only 5 percent or 8 percent of cases need hospitalization, he explained.

Coronavirus cases are on the rise again, Mohamed Awad Tag Eddin, Advisor to the President of the Republic for Health and Prevention Affairs, said.

The symptoms of the current coronavirus mutant are simple and similar to colds, despite the increase in the rate of infections, Tag Eddin told Al-Hayat Al-Youm program broadcast on the Al-Hayat channel on Thursday evening.

A large part of the severe cases in the world are due to the lack of respirators and medical monitoring, he continued.

Patients must take the necessary treatment and follow the doctors advice in case of infection, Tag Eddin said.

Most cases of infection with the virus and its variants range between mild and moderate at about 90 percent or 95 percent of the total infections, according to Tag Eddin.

Only 5 percent or 8 percent of cases need hospitalization, he explained.

Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm

Coronavirus, Egypt, symptoms, infections, pandemic,

The average number of deaths from the coronavirus is between four and five cases per day, Acting Minister of Health and Population, Khaled Abdel Ghaffar, said in a statement on the official page of the ministry, on Monday, adding that the cases infected with the virus and are isolated do not need more than six days of home isolation before recovering.

He said that 97 percent of the cases of infection is with the new mutant.

The statement said that the coronavirus affects many parts of the body, such as the brain, heart, lungs and muscles, and also affects mental health.

The ministry advised citizens to receive the vaccine to strengthen their immunity and reduce the chance of infection with the virus by registering on the official website of the coronavirus vaccination.

Egypt started giving the fourth booster dose to those who got the three doses without the need for prior reservation to receive the vaccine, he added.

The number of deaths of the virus is stable, according to the statement.

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Coronavirus cases on the rise: official - Egypt Independent

The coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 is quite versatile, with a large number of variants and subvariants.The omicron variant alonehas more than 130 sublineages.

In Europe, the omicron subvariantsBA.4 and BA.5 are currentlyon the rise. Why are they spreading so fast, despite the fact that many people have already beenvaccinated?

"New variants are traditionally defined as a new set of mutations that is believed to change how the virus functions. Typically, these variants have increased infection rates and increased disease severity," Krishna Mallela, professor in the department of pharmaceutical sciences at the University of Colorado in theUS, told DW.

Now scientists are beginning to understand why specific mutations cause variants to be more infectious, like omicron, or more deadly, like delta and it comes down to how the coronavirus enters cells, and how our immune system fights it off.

A recent study from the USshowedthat omicron is more infectious because it can better evade our immune system.

After vaccination or a prior infection, antibodies circulate in your body and hunt for viruses. They detect coronavirus via its spike protein, which then signals for the virus to be neutralized.

The study showsthat the mutations in omicron subvariants BA.1 and BA.2 change the structure of the spike protein.

"The mutations are at the spots where antibodies bind to the spike protein. The mutations cause a different binding surface, which is less recognized by the antibodies. This leads to the evasion of antibody protection," Kamal Singh, an immunologist from University of Missouri in theUS,told DW.

Essentially, your immune system is less good at hunting down and destroying omicron virus particles. This evasiveness is what caused the huge rise in infections around the world since omicron was first identified in South Arica in November 2021.

With all the omicron news lately, it's easy to forget the variants that came before like delta. Delta is the most virulent coronavirus variant, leading to more severe symptoms and increased mortality among infected patients. UK statistics show that risk of death with omicron is 67% lower than delta infection.

Research has shownthat delta is particularly deadly because of mutations on the spike protein, protuberances on the surface of the virus. A new US-based study found that two mutations cause increased expression of the spike protein on the delta variant of the virus.

That's important becauseSARS-CoV-2 is like a thief trying to sneak into your house, or rather your cells and it does this via spike proteins.

Its system of breaking into cells is via a protein expressed on the surface of cells in your body, called ACE2. Thisprotein is like a door into your cells. Normally it's closed and requires a key to open it.

SARS-CoV-2 has managed to trick ACE2 into thinking it should be let into your cells. In essence, it's duplicated the keys to your house.

In biological terms, the keys are the spike proteins, which bind to ACE2. Once inside, the virus then replicates and spreads.

Coronavirus enters human cells via its spike proteins

For delta, more spike proteins mean greater ability to enter cells and reproduce, leading to higher quantitiesof coronavirus in the body.

Mallela, the study's lead author,explained how the mutations also affects the immune system's ability to neutralize the virus.

"Our study found deltareducesthe spike protein binding to an important class of antibodies [in the human body]. This causes higher infectivity rates and worse symptoms," he said.

Coronavirus vaccines have been hugely successful, reducing mortality and severe symptoms worldwide. However, new variants are likely to appear in the coming years, and they could be more transmissible and deadly.

Scientists are working hard to be one step ahead, developing new coronavirus vaccines that train the immune system to deal with new variants.

"There are about 220 vaccine candidates in clinical trials around the world," said Mallela."These updated vaccines will allow usto generate an immune response that is better suited to tackle the variants that are in circulation at the time of vaccinating."

And there's reason to be optimistic. For example, UK-based scientists recently showcased a promising new vaccine that better protects against newer coronavirus variants like omicron. The study authors used new nanoparticle technology to create a vaccine that can easily be adapted to target future variants.

Edited by: Carla Bleiker

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Why are omicron variants of the coronavirus on the rise? - DW (English)

President Bidens Covid diagnosis on Thursday comes as his request to Congress to approve billions of dollars in additional pandemic aid remains stalled, with lawmakers unable to agree over how much to spend and how to pay for it.

While some lawmakers and officials have held out hope that those funds could be incorporated into future legislation, Republicans have demanded that any additional coronavirus aid be paid for by repurposing money already approved by Congress. The White House and top Democrats have pleaded for additional funds as much as $22.5 billion early this year to pay for more vaccines, testing, therapeutics and research to combat future variants.

Democratic leaders dropped a $15.6 billion emergency aid package from a catchall spending package in March, after governors in both parties and some House Democrats balked at plans to pay for part of it by clawing back some stimulus funds that were awarded to states as part of the 2021 American Rescue Plan. Negotiators then haggled over a smaller $10 billion package, but that preliminary deal also collapsed amid an election year debate over immigration restrictions at the southern border.

Because 60 votes are required to advance most legislation in the evenly divided Senate, at least 10 Republicans needed to join all 50 senators who caucus with Democrats for any aid package to move forward. The impasse, however, directly contradicts the overwhelming bipartisan consensus behind sending more than $50 billion this year in emergency aid to Ukraine.

Republicans have recently signaled that they would likely refuse to restart talks over how to provide more pandemic aid, after the administration decided to repurpose $10 billion in federal Covid-19 aid meant for virus testing and protective gear. Senator Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah and a key negotiator, accused the White House in June of giving him patently false information over how much money was left for the coronavirus response effort.

Washington operates on a relationship of trust between the respective parties, the administration and Congress, Mr. Romney said at the time. For the administration to provide information to us that was patently false is something which dramatically attacks that trust.

Democrats have privately and publicly acknowledged regret that they had dropped the initial pandemic package from the government funding legislation in March.

Personally I think we made a mistake not funding that, Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the majority leader, told reporters earlier this month. Frankly, we did it because states were complaining about how they needed the money from the federal government.

Almost every state has a surplus, a very substantial surplus because we sent them so much money, and some of them are now using it for tax cuts, he added. Thats absurd.

It remains unclear whether lawmakers will reach agreement on another round of coronavirus aid, though it is possible it could be merged with other spending packages later this year.

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Why Getting More Covid Aid Passed Has Stalled in Congress - The New York Times

But publicly, Trump lied.

He lied at the gathering of the worlds elite in Davos, Switzerland on January 22, saying, Its one person coming in from China. We have it under control. Its going to be just fine. He lied days later in Michigan, declaring that everythings going to be great and falsely claiming, We pretty much shut it down coming in from China. He later said the virus was going to have a very good ending for it. And with an eye toward Wall Street, he lied to the entrepreneurs in India, declaring as far as what were doing with the new virus, I think that were doing a great job.

But the markets fell again that day Trump spoke in New Delhi, creating their biggest two-day slide in four years, and things were about to get worse. None of Trumps magic words would prevent the Dow from losing 37 percent of its value from February to March, shocking the market when it dropped almost 3,000 points on March 16 its worst single-day plummet in history.

Those final days of February 2020 set the tone for the rest of Trumps terrible year. Joe Bidens turnaround on Super Tuesday in early March robbed him of his socialist foil, Bernie Sanders. Days later, Trumps shaky Oval Office address on the coronavirus did little to reassure a jittery nation. His blustery social media posts didnt move the needle either the virus, after all, didnt have a Twitter account. And in the coming months, the racial reckoning following the death of George Floyd would underscore just how out of touch Trump was with Black Americans.

Over the summer, the president who had equivocated about the violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., found himself in a bunker under the executive mansion when a small fire ignited at nearby St. Johns Episcopal Church during protests in Lafayette Park. When the bunker move leaked to the press, Trump exploded with anger for fear that it made him look weak. He horrified much of the nation by using the military and federal police to clear nonviolent demonstrators from the park, posing for an awkward photo-op in front of the damaged church, bible in hand.

By October, Trumps lies about COVID caught up with him when he was hospitalized, ill with a potentially deadly disease after nearly a year of flouting the rules, believing that wearing a mask would, as he told aides, make him look like a pussy.

After he was discharged from Walter Reed, and with the lighting just so, Trump strode up the steps to the Truman Balcony. Though still highly contagious, he tore off his mask before stepping inside. Reporters on the lawn, though, noticed something odd: Trump immediately backtracked out to the balcony again before returning inside, as if recreating his entrance. And thats what he did: He was using the moment to film a video marking his so-called triumph over COVID.

Dont be afraid of COVID. Dont let it dominate your life, Trump said.

Link:

The One Time Trump Couldn't Lie His Way Out of a Crisis - POLITICO

Pfizer, one of the world's biggest pharmaceutical companies, will spend $470 million to expand its vaccine research facilities about 40 kilometres north-west of New York City, where the company hopes to maintain its edge in the field of messenger RNA, the technology behind its coronavirus inoculation.

The drug company will construct a building and renovate existing facilities on its campus in Pearl River, New York, which has been the focal point for laboratory research driving its vaccine programmes, including the one for the coronavirus in partnership with BioNTech.

Discussions about expanding Pearl River began before the pandemic, and Pfizers coronavirus research put more strain on its facilities. Scientists there were responsible for designing the vaccine, testing it on animals and conducting other quality checks and analysis.

They have also carried out research and development work on vaccines including Pfizers Prevnar for potentially lethal pneumococcus, the worlds best-selling vaccine until the coronavirus shot arrived.

Weve been in a constant situation of running out of space, said Steve Bjornson, vice president and chief operating officer of vaccine research and development, in an interview. Were trying to keep up with the portfolio and enable the expansion of mRNA capacity.

The coronavirus vaccine, Comirnaty, has almost doubled Pfizers annual revenue, bringing more than $36 billion in 2021 sales alone. Pfizer is aiming to replicate that success by applying mRNA to other diseases.

Expanding Pearl River will bring additional lab space to develop a new portfolio of mRNA vaccines hoped to prevent influenza and other viral pathogens, Mr Bjornson said.

It will also benefit existing projects, such as Pfizers experimental vaccine against respiratory syncytial virus, which uses a more traditional technology.

Pfizers board signed off on the 24,154 square foot expansion at the end of June. The drug company, which is headquartered in Manhattan, aims to complete the Pearl River construction in the first quarter of 2026.

This is a critical time for vaccine science, and were at the centre of it and we want to stay there, Mr Bjornson said. When anyone thinks of Pfizer, I hope they think of vaccines and that we are, in effect, the best and most advanced mRNA player in the world.

Unmasked travellers wait in long lines at a security checkpoint at Denver airport on July 5, 2022. Many airports and airlines no longer require mask use or social distancing, and many don't require pre-flight testing. David Zalubowski / AP

The Pearl River campus, which straddles farmland and forest, hosts more than 1,000 Pfizer employees, hundreds of whom worked on the coronavirus vaccine. The expansion will create lab capacity for up to 370 additional staff.

Mr Bjornson said he hopes the state-of-the-art facilities will give Pfizer an edge in an increasingly competitive battle for scientists with expertise in mRNA vaccines.

The company considered building facilities in other biotechnology hubs, such as Cambridge, Massachusetts, and San Francisco, but ultimately decided Pearl River's proximity to New York City, the Hudson Valley, Connecticut and New Jersey was preferable.

You have access to a wide variety of lifestyles, he said.

Pfizer recently made a separate $29 million investment to establish a lab in Pearl River that is used to study potentially dangerous infectious agents such as the coronavirus.

The lab, commissioned in December 2020, has a biosafety level 3 rating, qualifying it to study infectious agents or toxins that may be transmitted through the air and cause lethal infections. Pfizer is committing another $20m to double the capacity of the lab.

Updated: July 23, 2022, 9:40 AM

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Pfizer to invest $470m to expand research on its coronavirus vaccine technology - The National

CHARLESTON, W.Va. State Coronavirus Czar Dr. Clay Marsh says now is a good time for state residents to get up to date on their COVID-19 vaccinations.

Marsh said during Fridays state coronavirus media briefing, the Omicron BA.5 variant will likely arrive in West Virginia soon.

We can anticipate that BA.5 will come and have its full strength felt in West Virginia in the next several weeks, Marsh said.

The state Department of Health and Human Resources COVID-19 dashboard currently has active cases at 3,358. There were 992 cases confirmed in Fridays update. The state has 325 COVID-related hospitalizations.

Marsh said this is the right time to go to the states vaccine calculator.

If youre due for another shot. If youre due for a booster or a second booster or even if youre due to get your primary seriesthis is really your best time to do it, Marsh said.

State InterAgency Task Force Director Jim Hoyer said the states vaccination rates continue to make a slow, steady climb. Hoyer said he had personal experience in recent days when a fully vaccinated man and woman in their 80s were able to survive the COVID infection.

Ive seen up close and person what the governor (and the whole team) continue to press on these vaccinations and the additional doses for people over the age of 50, Marsh said.

The state reported no new deaths in Fridays update. Total coronvirus deaths are at 7,121.

Current active cases per county include: Barbour (18), Berkeley (180), Boone (57), Braxton (16), Brooke (19), Cabell (170), Calhoun (8), Clay (15), Doddridge (9), Fayette (115), Gilmer (11), Grant (19), Greenbrier (68), Hampshire (36), Hancock (31), Hardy (34), Harrison (143), Jackson (42), Jefferson (86), Kanawha (344), Lewis (31), Lincoln (37), Logan (82), Marion (112), Marshall (51), Mason (62), McDowell (60), Mercer (168), Mineral (47), Mingo (50), Monongalia (180), Monroe (26), Morgan (19), Nicholas (64), Ohio (46), Pendleton (4), Pleasants (11), Pocahontas (16), Preston (38), Putnam (137), Raleigh (194), Randolph (26), Ritchie (11), Roane (26), Summers (22), Taylor (26), Tucker (15), Tyler (7), Upshur (49), Wayne (56), Webster (19), Wetzel (24), Wirt (6), Wood (162), Wyoming (53).

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Marsh: Now's the time to get caught up with COVID shots - West Virginia MetroNews

BEIJING, July 21 (Reuters) - China will pay close attention to variants of coronavirus in the long term, focusing on their transmission capability, pathogenicity and ability to evade immunity, a Chinese disease control official said on Thursday.

The Omicron variant is unlikely to be the final variant, Dong Xiaoping, chief expert of virology at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said at a news conference.

Register

Reporting by Ryan Woo and Roxanne Liu; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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China to pay attention to coronavirus variants over the long term - Reuters

Super-contagious Omicron subvariants that can reinfect people within weeks are fueling a new wave of the pandemic across California.

Hospitalizations are rising, and Los Angeles County is moving toward an indoor mask mandate, perhaps by the end of the month.

But this wave is different from previous ones.

Many who become infected are not falling seriously ill. While hospitalizations are rising, patients are generally less sick, and intensive care units are less crowded than during the peaks of previous waves.

Experts cite the availability of vaccines and treatments, as well as changes with the virus itself, for the improvements.

But it doesnt mean COVID-19 has become a toothless tiger. Deaths in L.A. County have increased significantly over the past month, and so has the number of coronavirus-positive patients in intensive care, which has reached the same level as almost exactly one year ago, the last time L.A. County enacted an indoor mask mandate.

This double-edged reality where the risk of severe illness for every case may be lower, yet there are considerable numbers of deaths is causing confusion as the pandemic stretches into its third summer.

The latest kerfuffle stems from the Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, the largest of four county-run public hospitals. During an internal town hall Wednesday, which was posted online, Chief Medical Officer Dr. Brad Spellberg noted that while coronavirus-positive cases have risen, this isnt because were seeing a ton of people with symptomatic disease getting admitted.

Spellberg said around 90% of the hospitals coronavirus-positive patients were admitted for other issues.

Virtually none of them go to the ICU and when they do go to the ICU, it is not for pneumonia. They are not intubated, he said, citing other issues such as electrolyte abnormalities.

It is just not the same pandemic as it was, despite all the media hype to the contrary. ... A lot of people have bad colds, is what were seeing.

Epidemiologist Dr. Paul Holtom chimed in that, as of Wednesday, we have no one in the hospital who had pulmonary disease due to COVID.

Holtom noted the possibility of a mask mandate but said theres no reason, from a hospitalization-due-to-COVID perspective, to be worried at this point.

As video from the town hall spread online, some highlighted the pairs remarks to repudiate the concept of a masking order or to argue that dangers associated with the current coronavirus wave are overstated or unfounded.

But in a statement to The Times on Monday, the L.A. County Department of Health Services, which has oversight of County-USC, said the pandemic remains a very serious public health threat that we must continue to fight with every tool available, including vaccines, masking, social distancing, and treatment.

To use our weekly internal town hall to suggest such measures are unnecessary is fundamentally contrary to our position as a medical center, the statement continued.

While its true that many coronavirus-positive patients are not presenting with serious symptoms that require admission to the ICU, the Department of Health Services credited that trend in part to the high level of vaccination coverage in L.A. County.

While we are not currently experiencing an increase in ICU admissions at [County-USC], we are seeing a significant increase in the number of infections among our patients, staff and the communities we serve, officials wrote in the statement. Rising rates of infection are extremely concerning, as the more people who become infected, the greater the probability that ICU admissions for COVID-19 will rise in the future.

While not as severely as in previous surges, hospitalizations have swelled. In L.A. County, 1,299 coronavirus-positive patients were hospitalized as of Monday up 60% since the start of the month.

And County-USCs experience in its ICU may not be representative of L.A. County as a whole. There were 137 coronavirus-positive patients in L.A. Countys intensive care units Monday, far below the highs of previous waves but an increase of almost 51% since July 1. The last time L.A. County enacted an indoor mask mandate, on July 17, 2021, there were 134 coronavirus-positive patients in ICUs.

At the end of June, roughly 20% of coronavirus-positive patients at L.A. Countys four public hospitals were being treated for COVID-19 illness.

At all hospitals, public and private, in L.A. County, about 42% of coronavirus-positive patients are being seen for COVID-19 illness. Statewide, the share is about 50%.

On Thursday, L.A., the nations most populous county, reported 10.5 new coronavirus-positive hospitalizations for every 100,000 residents, up from 8.4 the previous week.

The move above 10 per capita pushed L.A. County into the high COVID-19 community level as defined by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Health officials have long said that should the county reach that threshold, they would prepare to institute a mask mandate in indoor public settings. Such an order could go into effect July 29 for those age 2 and up, unless conditions improve.

COVID-19 deaths across L.A. County have increased significantly in the last month, from about 50 a week to between 86 and 100. Thats the first significant increase since the end of the winter Omicron wave. During the peak of that surge, weekly deaths topped 500.

There are a number of other indicators to explain why the L.A. County Department of Public Health and institutions across Southern California are concerned about rising levels of infection, which are resulting in large numbers of workers out sick, sometimes for weeks.

The growing number of cases at County-USC, for instance, has put strain on hospital staffing, Chief Executive Jorge Orozco said during last weeks town hall.

We have a significant number of employees who are testing positive, he said, adding that those employees may not be very ill, but they need to isolate. It causes significant challenges in terms of coverage, in terms of providing appropriate care.

Last week, L.A. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said that while vaccinations, boosters and anti-COVID drugs are making it less likely that large numbers of people will need intensive care or ventilators, there are still some who need such resources.

Somewhere between 5% and 10% of folks that are hospitalized with COVID are still ending up in the ICU, and some of them are needing ventilators. So there still is some serious illness associated with COVID, she said. But nothing like what we were seeing during the Omicron surge.

Still, she said, we also have a lot of unknown with BA.5 and anything else that comes our way. Whats going on in our hospitals could change.

Ferrer said emergency departments, urgent care centers and community clinics are telling her department that theyre feeling very strapped. They have staffing shortages, because lots of their staff are sick with COVID and out, and they also have lots of their patients that, while they dont need to go to the hospital, they do need medical care, and that creates some stress.

Two months ago, 5% of emergency room visits countywide were coronavirus-related; now, its 10%.

Clusters of cases at work sites are disruptive and hazardous, Ferrer said during a recent briefing. Worksite outbreaks create worrisome risk for vulnerable employees, and they often contribute to additional spread of the virus across households and communities where our workers live.

Countywide, 371 workplaces reported clusters of coronavirus cases in a recent seven-day period. In early May, there were 100.

The county is also seeing an impact on nursing homes. Outbreak investigations were underway at 41 nursing homes in L.A. County over the past week, five times more than in early May.

Back in May, about 5% of all deaths occurred among nursing home residents, Ferrer said. Sadly, this number rose to 12% in June.

In 2022 so far, L.A. County has reported 4,390 deaths from COVID-19. There were nearly 12,000 COVID-associated deaths in 2020 and 14,500 in 2021.

By contrast, in the pre-pandemic era, about 1,500 residents in the county each year died from the flu, more than 2,000 from accidental drug overdoses and nearly 900 from motor vehicle accidents.

Coronavirus infection also presents the risk of long COVID, in which the risk of death due to complications of the heart, gastrointestinal or neurologic systems can persist for years.

Some question the wisdom of a renewed masking order or what sort of compliance L.A. County could hope to expect. Maria Salinas, president and CEO of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, and Jessica Lall, president and CEO of the Central City Assn., a downtown business group, sent a letter to Ferrer last week expressing concerns.

Requiring masks, they wrote, puts employees in the increasingly challenging position of enforcing a mandate that many customers no longer wish to or are unwilling to comply with.

L.A.s restaurants, retail stores, museums, amusement parks, sports centers and so many other establishments are working every day to recover from the pandemic, all while facing workforce shortages, supply chain challenges and more, they wrote. Businesses should not be expected to enforce a mask mandate in addition to these ongoing constraints. Businesses cannot shoulder this burden of compliance alone as they have been required to do so in the past.

If L.A. County does mandate indoor public masking, and no other counties follow suit, residents and visitors may choose to take their spending power to businesses in other parts of Southern California, which would only harm our local economy, they wrote.

Ferrer noted that weve always benefited in L.A. County from most people actually going ahead and complying with what we say are sensible precautions. Health officials, she added, will spend the time leading up to a new masking order working with our businesses so that theyre clear about their need to both supply those masks for all of their employees, make sure that their employees are masked appropriately indoors and to do their best to message to their customers.

We need an additional layer of protection, and this is the additional layer, she added. So our hope is that folks will go ahead and make every effort to come into compliance.

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Coronavirus cases soar in L.A. County, but this is different - Los Angeles Times

December 20, 2021 - Johnson City, NY - Governor Kathy Hochul tours a COVID-19 vaccination and testing site in Johnson City. (Mike Groll/Office of Governor Kathy Hochul)

Jul 20, 2022 Governor Kathy Hochul says the state is prepping for a possible new surge of COVID-19 this fall, but she says no new rules like indoor masking are anticipated right now.

The governor also says commencing a long-promised study of the states past pandemic policies.

The first COVID-19 briefing in several weeks featured White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Ashish Jha, who says the current coronavirus variant, known as BA.5, accounts for 70 to 80% of all cases reported, and is highly contagious. It can also re-infect someone who has already had it.

But he says many tools exist to help control the spread and severity of the virus, including the second round of booster shots that are now available.

If you are over 50 years of age, and if you have not gotten a Covid shot this year (2022), Jha said. Then you need to go out and get one now.

Jha says by autumn, a new vaccine that specifically addresses Omicron and its sub-variants will likely be available.

Governor Hochul says she is also gearing up for the fall, when cases could spike once again and is launching a military-style operation for both short-term and long-term planning, if the pandemic should again worsen.

Steps include stockpiling PPE, or personal protective equipment, and distributing 3 million test kits to all of the states school districts, so they can begin testing on the first day of school.

Hochul says, for now, no masks will be required in schools, or any indoor settings.

We dont currently, based on todays numbers, anticipate the need for masks in classrooms, said Hochul. But Im going to reserve the right to return to this policy.

The governor says she is for now keeping her emergency authorization powers, so that she can act swiftly in case new public health rules need to be imposed, or if the National Guard needs to be deployed once again to hospitals and nursing homes.

Hochul has been criticized by her political opponents for delays over the start of a comprehensive review of the states pandemic policies since early 2020.

The governor announced Wednesday that an RFP, or request for proposals, is being posted to create an independent panel to look at what New York did right and did wrong during the pandemic.

Hochul says New Yorkers need to know what worked, and what did not work, and why.

The review will include the controversial March 2020 order under former Governor Andrew Cuomo that required Nursing Homes to take back from hospitals COVID-19 positive patients, a decision critics say led to many more thousands of deaths of residents and staff.

The deadline for the final report is in 6 months, which comes after the November 8th elections where Hochul is seeking a full term as governor.

Jackie Bray, the states Homeland Security commissioner will lead the review.

The state is also setting up a hotline for New Yorkers infected with COVID-19 to access anti-viral medicines. The number in New York City is 212-COVID19 and 888- TREAT- NY, in the rest of the state.

State Health Commissioner Dr. Mary Bassett also gave an update on another virus that is spreading- Monkeypox. New York leads the nation in cases, with over 600 people sick.

Bassett says anyone can get the disease, but outreach is centering on the LGBTQ community, as many cases have occurred between men having sexual encounters.

She says Monkeypox is harder to catch and spread than COVID-19, it is not airborne but is contracted through need skin-to-skin contact. In the over 2100 cases reported nationwide, no one has died. But Bassett says the illness is unpleasant, with fever, and painful pustules that last two to four weeks and can leave permanent scars.

Just like in the early days of COVID- 19 vaccinations, Bassett says theres a Monkeypox vaccine shortage, so for now, doses are being limited to those deemed most at risk

We do not at this time have (enough) vaccine to provide vaccinations to everyone who wants or needs a vaccine, Bassett said.

White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Jha says there are only enough doses for around 50% of those at risk. Just one company in the world makes the vaccines. Jha says he hopes the federal Food and Drug Administration will allow 760,000 new doses to become available within a week, and he says many will be distributed to New York.

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Coronavirus cases are on the rise across New York - North Country Public Radio

(solarseven/iStock via Getty Images)

Forget what you thought you knew about catching COVID-19 more than once. SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, keeps evolving and so has information about your risk of being reinfected.

"Two years ago, we thought if you had COVID once that you would never get it again," said Dr. Preeti Malani, an infectious disease physician at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. But especially with the variants that have become dominant in the U.S. this summer, that thinking no longer holds.

When it emerged last November, the omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 showed an ability to reinfect people who'd had earlier versions of the virus. This summer, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 are sweeping the U.S., with BA.5 accounting for the majority of COVID cases. Both appear to be even more adept than other omicron subvariants at evading the body's defenses against infection.

Even having had an earlier version of omicron does not seem to protect against symptomatic infection from the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants, Malani said. The subvariants also can infect vaccinated people.

"I have friends who have had COVID three times," said Malani, who has co-written an ongoing series of updates about the virus for JAMA. "One of my kids had it twice." And Malani herself recently tested positive for the first time, despite being up-to-date on her vaccinations.

The good news is that despite spreading more easily, the subvariants do not appear to cause more severe disease. And vaccination still protects against severe illness, especially hospitalizations and death.

But heart and stroke patients might need to step up their precautions.

Dr. Deepak L. Bhatt, executive director of interventional cardiovascular programs at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, said it's hard to know exactly how a pandemic is unfolding in real time, and more research is needed on COVID-19 and the heart to provide definitive answers about the risks.

But conditions such as stroke, heart failure and coronary artery disease are among those that can lead to severe illness from COVID-19, the CDC says. And in the past month, Bhatt has seen "a number of patients" with severe cardiovascular, cardiopulmonary or neurological disease die from problems related to the coronavirus.

"It's not that they specifically died from COVID," said Bhatt, who is also a professor at Harvard Medical School. "But COVID tipped them over."

Some preliminary research suggests what multiple bouts of COVID-19 might mean for heart and brain health. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, using data from the Department of Veterans Affairs, found that reinfection raised people's risks of cardiovascular and other complications when compared with people who had one infection. The risk grew with the number of infections.

The work has not been peer-reviewed, but Bhatt called its conclusions "believable" and said it made sense that with a major infection of any sort, getting infected a second time would mean more chances for problems.

The best protection against reinfection remains getting vaccinated and keeping up with boosters.

"There's still a lot of people that aren't vaccinated and were just thinking, 'Well, I'll get natural immunity, or I'll just wait it out,'" Bhatt said. "But those strategies won't work."

Vaccination helps even as the coronavirus evolves, Malani said. "It still protects against severe infection. And we shouldn't lose sight of that."

Updated vaccines tailored to omicron are expected to be available this year. Meanwhile, taking practical steps to avoid COVID-19 might be prudent, particularly for people who are traveling.

For Malani, a week ahead of a big vacation that required a negative COVID test, she urged her family to be cautious. "I said to everyone: 'Listen, I think we all need to be really extra careful. Because if one of us gets COVID, none of us are going on this trip.'"

Social connections are important, she said, but gatherings should be outdoors, or at least in well-ventilated areas. And people who are not feeling well should stay home.

The CDC says anyone who tests positive should stay home for at least five days and isolate from others. And while many guidelines about when to wear a mask have been relaxed, Bhatt encourages people to mask up in crowded indoor settings, "even if people around them aren't." Research shows it helps stop the virus's spread.

Malani acknowledged it can be confusing when advice shifts on something such as the risk of reinfection. "This isn't because the scientists and public health officials are asleep at the wheel," she said. It's what happens when experts learn more. So people should follow advice from reliable sources.

"The reason we care about this is because the vulnerable people can die, and our health care system can get overwhelmed with sick people," she said. "And we've seen that happen."

Editor's note: Because of the rapidly evolving events surrounding the coronavirus, the facts and advice presented in this story may have changed since publication. Visit Heart.org for the latest coverage, and check with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and local health officials for the most recent guidance.

If you have questions or comments about this American Heart Association News story, please email editor@heart.org.

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Rethink what you thought you knew about COVID-19 reinfection - American Heart Association News