THE TIMES OF INDIA | Apr 23, 2022, 02:01:28 IST
Delhi on Friday reported 1,042 fresh Covid-19 cases, 757 recoveries, and 2 deaths in the last 24 hours. While the active cases have reached 3,253, the positivity rate stands at 4.64 per cent. Stay with TOI for latest updates:Read Less
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TAMPA, Fla. COVID-19 cases are beginning to rise again across the United States and Florida. Experts are watching the omicron subvariant and its mutations.
The cases are actually increasing both in Florida and across the United States right now, said Dr. Thomas Unnasch, Distinguished USF Health Professor.
This thing is really now vying with measles for the most infectious respiratory virus known to man, Unnasch added.
The original omicron variant caused a record number of COVID-19 cases at the beginning of the year. Researchers say BA.2 is not likely to make that big of an impact.
Case numbers are going up a little bit, with doubling time now of about once every two weeks, were seeing a doubling in case numbers, but thats a lot slower than what we saw with the omicron variant back in January where it was doubling once every three and a half days which was really, really scary, said Unnasch.
Researchers believe the BA.2 subvariant has mutated a few times, increasing its infectiousness even more.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates BA.2 and its mutation have accounted for about 93% of new COVID-19 cases in the United States last week.
Im thinking that were probably going to be reaching a peak of cases averaging about maybe about 3,000 or 4,000 a day maybe in the next 10 days or so and then were going to start to see a decline, said Unnasch.
Health officials say the most important thing we need to pay attention to right now is hospitalizations and death.
So we may see an uptick in cases but Im not really thinking that were going to see a really serious uptick in hospitalizations and deaths, said Unnasch.
Which indicates I think that theres enough immunity out there right now that people are getting pretty well protected against severe disease, he added.
The one thing experts say could increase this peak is more people not wherein masks in crowded spaces.
I think anytime weve seen before, weve seen a loosening of any of the public health measures, weve seen a little bump up in the total case numbers, said Unnasch.
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To date, a total of 2,448 cases with SARS-CoV-2 variants have been identified and investigated in residents of Dallas County, including 246 cases of B.1.1.7 (Alpha); 4 cases of B.1.351 (Beta); 1,810 cases of B.1.617.2 (Delta); 15 cases of B.1.427 (Epsilon); 28 cases of P.1 (Gamma); 12 cases of B.1.526 (Iota); 5 cases of C.37 (Lambda); 4 cases of B.1.621 (Mu); 323 cases of B.1.1.529 (Omicron); and 1 case of P.2 (Zeta). Four hundred and twenty-two cases have been hospitalized and 52 have died. Forty-five COVID-19 variant cases were reinfections. Seven hundred and one people were considered fully vaccinated before infection with a COVID-19 variant.
As of 4/15/2022, a total of 384 confirmed and probable cases were reported in CDC week 14 (week ending 4/9/22), which is a weekly rate of 14.6 new cases per 100,000 residents.
As of the week ending 4/9/2022, about 81% of Dallas County residents age 12 years and older have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, including 98% of residents age 65 years and older; 86% of residents between 40-64 years of age; 78% of residents 25-39 years of age; 68% of residents 18-24 years of age; and 62% of residents 12-17 years of age. In the cities of Addison, Coppell, Highland Park, Irving, and Sunnyvale, greater than 94% of residents 18 years of age and older have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. In the cities of Cedar Hill, Desoto, Farmers Branch, Garland, Lancaster, and University Park, greater than 81% of residents 18 years of age and older have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
About 45.7% of COVID-19 cases diagnosed in Week 14 were Dallas County residents who were not fully vaccinated. In Dallas County, 50,891 cases of COVID-19 breakthrough COVID-19 infections in fully vaccinated individuals have been confirmed to date, of which 3,936 (7.7%) were hospitalized and 679 have died due to COVID-19.
Of all Dallas County residents tested for COVID-19 by PCR during the week ending 4/9/2022 (CDC week 14), 3.0% of respiratory specimens tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. For week 14, area hospital labs have continued to report elevated numbers and proportions of respiratory specimens that are positive for other respiratory viruses by molecular tests: parainfluenza (5.39%), rhinovirus/enterovirus (32.87%), and RSV (3.0%).
There are currently 9 active long-term care facility outbreaks. A cumulative total of 6,447 residents and 4,362 healthcare workers in long-term facilities in Dallas have been diagnosed with COVID-19. Of these, 1,335 have been hospitalized and 910 have died. About 16% of all deaths reported to date have been associated with long-term care facilities.
There has been 1 outbreak of COVID-19 in a congregate-living facility (e.g. homeless shelters, group homes, and halfway homes) reported within the past 30 days. A cumulative total of 1,135 residents and 295 staff members in congregate-living facilities in Dallas have been diagnosed with COVID-19.
New cases are being reported as a daily aggregate, with more detailed data dashboards and summary reports updated on Friday evenings, available at: https://www.dallascounty.org/departments/dchhs/2019-novel-coronavirus/daily-updates.php.
Local health experts use hospitalizations, ICU admissions, and ER visits as three of the key indicators as part of determining the COVID-19 Risk Level (color-coded risk) and corresponding guidelines for activities during our COVID-19 response. The most recent COVID-19 hospitalization data for Dallas County, as reported to the North Central Texas Trauma Regional Advisory Council, can be found at http://www.dallascounty.org/covid-19 under Monitoring Data, and is updated regularly. This data includes information on the total available ICU beds, suspected and confirmed COVID-19 ER visits in the last 24 hours, confirmed COVID-19 inpatients, and COVID-19 deaths by actual date of death. The most recent forecasting from UTSW can be found here.The most recent COVID-19 Data Summaries for Dallas County, TX can be found at the bottom of this page.
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It began in midair. Shortly after a federal judge struck down mask requirements on planes, pilots got on intercoms to share the news, and some passengers tore off their masks with whoops and glee.
Jonathan Russell Biehl, a pilot for Delta, was halfway from Tampa to Minneapolis on Monday night when the announcement came. The day Ive been waiting for, he called it. But on another flight bound for Los Angeles, Brooke Tansley, who was flying with two children too young to be vaccinated, said she felt scared as the passengers around her slipped off their masks. All I could do was hope its going to be OK, she said.
By Tuesday, more than a year after the country imposed strict masking requirements on airplanes and public transportation to combat the spread of the coronavirus, a judges determination that the federal government had overstepped its boundaries rippled across the country. The unexpected ruling by one judge in Florida instantly reshaped travel for millions while sharpening political divisions over the virus and sowing new confusion over where, exactly, Americans now need to mask up.
As much as ever, the countrys pandemic rules are a confounding patchwork. Mask requirements were toppled for many subways, buses and ride-share services. But the rules remained in place in several major cities. Subway riders in New York City were still required to wear facial coverings, but New Jersey Transit riders just across the Hudson River were allowed to take theirs off. In Philadelphia, where officials had reinstituted an indoor mask requirement this week, people were allowed to go maskless on trains and buses.
Up to them, President Biden told reporters in New Hampshire on Tuesday when he was asked whether people should continue to wear masks.
Many domestic airlines hurriedly adjusted their policies to make masks optional after the Transportation Security Administration said it would stop enforcing mandates, while some European carriers that operate in the United States, including Air France and Lufthansa, kept mask rules in place.
Discordant messages from Washington added to the uncertainty. The administrations Covid-19 response coordinator, Dr. Ashish K. Jha, said on Twitter he was disappointed in the judges ruling and would continue wearing a mask on flights. And the Biden administration announced on Tuesday that it intended to appeal the ruling by Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, an appointee of President Donald J. Trump, but only if the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention decides that extending a masking measure on public transportation is necessary. This month, shortly before the mandate had been set to expire, federal officials extended it into early May.
In most facets of American life, masks became optional weeks or months ago. The largest exceptions had been airports and public transportation, along with medical facilities. But across the country on Tuesday, the decision was quickly reshaping travel and commutes for millions of Americans.
In Las Vegas, passengers and flight crews passed through security checkpoints unmasked at Harry Reid International Airport, walking past freshly outdated signs that read, Masks required! At one ticket counter, an agent checking passengers luggage wore a mask while a colleague working next to her was barefaced.
Lois Strickland, a track and field coach flying home to Maryland from a vacation in New Orleans, said she was relieved to be able to fly unmasked. Im tired of it, OK? she said. Ive already had Covid. Ive already been vaccinated. It doesnt make sense.
But many public health officials reacted with alarm, warning that new infections, while low, are edging back up.
In interviews, older Americans, people with compromised immune systems, parents with young children and low-income workers who rely on public transportation worried that they would now be at even greater risk with every bus ride or plane trip.
Its isolating, said Catherine Muskin, a lawyer in Ithaca, N.Y., and a mother of a 3-year-old and 20-month-old. She said the end of airline mask mandates had killed any hopes she and her husband had of flying to Florida for a vacation. We still have our protocols and we still have our rules. But now were the exception.
The new mask rules arrived amid some hopeful pandemic news. Case reports have plummeted since the Omicron variant first swept over the country around New Years, and fewer Americans are hospitalized with Covid-19 than at any point since reliable data collection began in spring of 2020. Deaths have also fallen rapidly in recent weeks, from more than 2,600 reported each day in early February to fewer than 500 a day over the past week.
But there remained ample, and growing, reason for concern about the weeks ahead.
New case reports are low but rising, and are believed to be a significant undercount because of the popularity of at-home tests that are often not included in official tallies. Two new versions of Omicron, both of which evolved from the subvariant BA.2, have been spreading rapidly in New York and worrying scientists.
The latest case uptick has been especially steep on the East Coast and around the Great Lakes. New case reports, though still a small fraction of their winter peak, have more than doubled over the past two weeks in Michigan, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania.
Those increases made the judges ruling all the more alarming, several public health experts said.
I think its extremely shortsighted, and if I were impolite, would say kind of stupid, said Dr. Lakshmi Ganapathi, who teaches pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. Given the uptick in cases occurring now, she said, This ruling is ill-timed, and its not commensurate with public health principles.
Dr. Robert Wachter, who chairs the department of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and has recently said it is time to lift mask requirements, said the government needed to have the authority to issue mandates during public health crises. He called on the Biden administration to challenge the ruling.
If this becomes a precedent, that a judge can overrule government and C.D.C. experts, that puts us in a problematic place for the next surge, the next pandemic, bioterrorism or who knows, Dr. Wachter said. Government needs to be able to act, and to imply government does not have that authority is deeply concerning.
The decision, for some, meant relief.
It feels good finally to get on a plane and not have to worry about having to pull it up, dont drink your water too much, dont eat, said Frank Kozlowski, who flew into Michigan with a face covering on Monday night and was getting ready to return home to Florida without one on Tuesday.
But the ruling also deepened divisions about how to approach the pandemic, and about what role government rules should play. To Candice Bailey, who works in education, the abrupt change felt premature. She wore her mask while at the New Orleans airport on Tuesday to catch a plane back to Greensboro, N.C.
Theres a lot more, a lot more information thats probably needed before you can make that determination, definitely with the new variants that keep popping up, Ms. Bailey said.
Dr. Rebecca Lee Smith, an epidemiologist at the University of Illinois, said her family had been weighing whether to drive or fly for a vacation this summer, but has now settled on driving because she has a child who is not old enough for a vaccine.
The ruling on masks was especially unfortunate, she said, because some people at higher risk of severe illness might have no choice but to take public transit to work or medical appointments.
We need to protect the people who have to use these, who may not have other protections, said Dr. Smith, who spoke Tuesday while riding on a commercial bus in Illinois where she said everyone was wearing a mask.
At least 60 percent of adults supported keeping a mandate in place, according to a Harris Poll conducted this month. But amid the shifting rules and mixed data, some travelers said they did not really know what to think.
At a check-in counter for Spirit Airlines at the Atlanta airport, Juston Stills was not wearing a mask on Tuesday, but said he planned to put one on before his flight to Fort Lauderdale, Fla. For the past few months, Mr. Stills said, he has been deciding whether to wear a mask from situation to situation. In small groups he does not wear a mask. At his daughters school and on public transit he wears one.
Ive been going with the vibes because really no one knows whats going on since we have no clear direction from our governors, the president, the C.D.C., he said. When it comes to the pandemic, like, what are we doing right now?
In the absence of a national mandate, airport operators and transit systems were left to make their own decisions, adding to the sense of confusion.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the three major airports in the New York metropolitan area as well as interstate buses and bus terminals, said it would follow the local guidance in each state. Mask mandates remained in effect at their two airports in New York, Kennedy International Airport and La Guardia Airport, but not at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey.
Some large public transit systems, including those in New York and San Francisco, chose to keep mask rules in place. In Milwaukee, officials said on Tuesday morning that masks would be optional for bus riders, before changing their minds and reverting to a mandate for the evening rush hour. But systems in Boston, Atlanta, Washington and Philadelphia allowed riders to drop their masks, as did the nationwide Amtrak rail system.
Signs did not always keep up with shifting rules. At the airport in Grand Rapids, Mich., messages continued to tell travelers on Tuesday that masks were required, though most passengers and employees wore none.
Ive been vaccinated, so I dont feel extremely uncomfortable at the counter, said Tiffani Harrington, an airline customer service agent in Grand Rapids who went unmasked despite some apprehension.
Two years into a pandemic, it was a big change. I feel like I forgot how to use my facial features for customer service, Ms. Harrington said. Ive got to relearn how to smile.
On all sides of the debate, confusion abounded.
At OHare International Airport in Chicago, Joseph Suaznabar had just arrived barefaced on a flight from Richmond, Va., on Tuesday. But when he went to board an L train to head toward the city, on a transit system where a mandate remained in place, he had to put his face covering back on.
I just try to do what Im told, but its hard to know what to do anymore, Mr. Suaznabar said. It seems like a mixed message to me, and the rule may come and go again like a roller coaster.
By Tuesday night, the L train mandates in Chicago had been lifted too.
Reporting was contributed by Matt Berg, Robert Chiarito, Niraj Chokshi, Jill Cowan, Elisabeth Goodridge, Kristin Hussey, Sophie Kasakove, Victoria Kim, Heather Murphy, Tariro Mzezewa, Sharon Otterman, Roni Caryn Rabin, Katie Rogers, Charlie Savage, Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Luke Vander Ploeg.
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Covid-19 Mask Mandates and Travel News: Live Updates - The New York Times
To date, a total of 2,448 cases with SARS-CoV-2 variants have been identified and investigated in residents of Dallas County, including 246 cases of B.1.1.7 (Alpha); 4 cases of B.1.351 (Beta); 1,810 cases of B.1.617.2 (Delta); 15 cases of B.1.427 (Epsilon); 28 cases of P.1 (Gamma); 12 cases of B.1.526 (Iota); 5 cases of C.37 (Lambda); 4 cases of B.1.621 (Mu); 323 cases of B.1.1.529 (Omicron); and 1 case of P.2 (Zeta). Four hundred and twenty-two cases have been hospitalized and 52 have died. Forty-five COVID-19 variant cases were reinfections. Seven hundred and one people were considered fully vaccinated before infection with a COVID-19 variant.
As of 4/15/2022, a total of 384 confirmed and probable cases were reported in CDC week 14 (week ending 4/9/22), which is a weekly rate of 14.6 new cases per 100,000 residents.
As of the week ending 4/9/2022, about 81% of Dallas County residents age 12 years and older have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, including 98% of residents age 65 years and older; 86% of residents between 40-64 years of age; 78% of residents 25-39 years of age; 68% of residents 18-24 years of age; and 62% of residents 12-17 years of age. In the cities of Addison, Coppell, Highland Park, Irving, and Sunnyvale, greater than 94% of residents 18 years of age and older have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. In the cities of Cedar Hill, Desoto, Farmers Branch, Garland, Lancaster, and University Park, greater than 81% of residents 18 years of age and older have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
About 45.7% of COVID-19 cases diagnosed in Week 14 were Dallas County residents who were not fully vaccinated. In Dallas County, 50,891 cases of COVID-19 breakthrough COVID-19 infections in fully vaccinated individuals have been confirmed to date, of which 3,936 (7.7%) were hospitalized and 679 have died due to COVID-19.
Of all Dallas County residents tested for COVID-19 by PCR during the week ending 4/9/2022 (CDC week 14), 3.0% of respiratory specimens tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. For week 14, area hospital labs have continued to report elevated numbers and proportions of respiratory specimens that are positive for other respiratory viruses by molecular tests: parainfluenza (5.39%), rhinovirus/enterovirus (32.87%), and RSV (3.0%).
There are currently 9 active long-term care facility outbreaks. A cumulative total of 6,447 residents and 4,362 healthcare workers in long-term facilities in Dallas have been diagnosed with COVID-19. Of these, 1,335 have been hospitalized and 910 have died. About 16% of all deaths reported to date have been associated with long-term care facilities.
There has been 1 outbreak of COVID-19 in a congregate-living facility (e.g. homeless shelters, group homes, and halfway homes) reported within the past 30 days. A cumulative total of 1,135 residents and 295 staff members in congregate-living facilities in Dallas have been diagnosed with COVID-19.
New cases are being reported as a daily aggregate, with more detailed data dashboards and summary reports updated on Friday evenings, available at: https://www.dallascounty.org/departments/dchhs/2019-novel-coronavirus/daily-updates.php.
Local health experts use hospitalizations, ICU admissions, and ER visits as three of the key indicators as part of determining the COVID-19 Risk Level (color-coded risk) and corresponding guidelines for activities during our COVID-19 response. The most recent COVID-19 hospitalization data for Dallas County, as reported to the North Central Texas Trauma Regional Advisory Council, can be found at http://www.dallascounty.org/covid-19 under Monitoring Data, and is updated regularly. This data includes information on the total available ICU beds, suspected and confirmed COVID-19 ER visits in the last 24 hours, confirmed COVID-19 inpatients, and COVID-19 deaths by actual date of death. The most recent forecasting from UTSW can be found here.The most recent COVID-19 Data Summaries for Dallas County, TX can be found at the bottom of this page.
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State health officials reported more than 10,000 coronavirus breakthrough cases last week, as COVID-19 infection counts continue climbing while fully vaccinated hospitalizations also rose.
The count of 10,624 breakthrough infections last week was a 156 percent spike from the 4,154 fully vaccinated cases during the prior week.
The once-surging omicron variant had been retreating during the last several weeks, but health experts are now warning of the omicron BA.2 stealth variant. The Boston-area COVID-19 wastewater data has been rising. State health officials have been encouraging people to get a booster shot to get more protection from the variants.
Overall, 482,750 fully vaccinated people have tested positive for the virus, according to new data the state Department of Public Health released Tuesday. Thats 9 percent of the more than 5.3 million fully vaxxed people in Massachusetts.
The 482,750 overall cases is an increase of 10,624 breakthrough infections from last week or a daily average of 1,518 fully vaccinated people testing positive.
Last Tuesdays report showed a jump of 4,154 breakthrough cases, a daily rate of 593 fully vaccinated people testing positive.
The week before that was a rise of 4,957 infections, a daily average of 708.
The previous week was an increase of 3,892 breakthroughs, a daily total of 556.
The preceding weeks count was 2,732 cases, a daily tally of 390.
The prior weeks tally was 2,509 breakthroughs, a daily amount of 358.
There have been 8,134 hospitalizations among fully vaccinated people in Massachusetts, which represents 0.15 percent of those who are fully vaccinated.
The 8,134 total patients is a one-week increase of 133 fully vaxxed patients. Thats up from the previous weekly increase of 92 fully vaccinated patients.
The state has reported 2,244 breakthrough deaths, or 0.04 percent of those who are fully vaxxed. Thats a one-week increase of nine deaths, a tick up from eight deaths in the previous week. The overall death count was recently updated after the state adopted a new definition for COVID-19 deaths.
Story by Rick Sobey, Boston Herald.
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Coronavirus breakthrough cases have spiked 156 percent in Massachusetts - Bangor Daily News
Total vaccine doses distributed: 718,395,045
Patients whove received the first dose: 256,880,347
Patients whove received the second dose: 218,996,861
% of population fully vaccinated: 66%
% of infections tied to the Omicron Variant: 100%
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PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY EMILY SCHERER / GETTY IMAGES
As COVID-19 testing sites close and experts warn that case numbers are capturing a small minority of infections, many public health experts are turning to a newer source that might tell us whats going on with the virus: our poop.
In the past two years, scientists have developed systems that can detect COVID-19 in our wastewater. This is a great early warning system, since the virus can show up in peoples waste days before they begin to experience symptoms or are able to get tested. Its also less biased than case data: Not everyone can find a COVID-19 test and not every positive result will get reported but everybody poops.
As with so many other COVID-19 metrics, however, interpreting wastewater data is not as simple as it seems. Before COVID-19, this type of data hadnt been used to track respiratory viruses. This means the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has little established infrastructure to build upon. The agency is attempting to standardize reporting from researchers across the country, many of whom have different water sampling methods. Plus, the state and local health officials who cite wastewater as a potential replacement for underreported case numbers arent used to interpreting data from the environment, which has unique caveats and requires a learning curve for those used to looking at numbers from hospitals and health clinics.
The Documenting COVID-19 project surveyed 19 state and local health agencies, as well as scientists who work on wastewater sampling, to learn about the challenges theyre facing. We found that many states are months away, if not longer, from being able to use wastewater data to guide public health decisions, even as the rise of an omicron subvariant, BA.2, looms. Meanwhile, the CDCs highly shared wastewater surveillance dashboard is a work in progress, and is difficult to interpret for users who might hope to follow the trends in their areas.
People are saying, We cant trust the [PCR] testing data now, and shifting to rely more on data from wastewater, said Steve Balogh, research scientist at the Metropolitan Council, a local agency in the Twin Cities, Minnesota, metro area that started wastewater surveillance in late 2020.
But health departments cant just flick a switch or gaze into the bottom of a toilet bowl and suddenly get comprehensive COVID-19 trends from wastewater. It takes time to set up sampling technology, understand the environment around a wastewater site and collect enough data for trends to be easily interpretable.
Some universities and their public health partners in California began investing in wastewater surveillance early in the pandemic. San Diego, for example, began wastewater sampling in fall 2020 as part of the campus reopening efforts for the University of California, San Diego, said Smruthi Karthikeyan, a postdoctoral researcher who works on the surveillance. It was later expanded to other parts of the city, including sites chosen to monitor COVID-19 at local public school districts.
Karthikeyans team uses machines called autosamplers, which are placed inside a sewage system and programmed to collect small volumes of water over time. These machines slowly collect a set amount of water over the course of 24 hours, which is a more thorough method than grabbing that volume all at once since it captures waste from the entire day. Researchers will then typically take a small portion of the wastewater, dilute it with other chemicals to preserve genetic material in the sample and run COVID-19 PCR tests to determine whether the virus is present. They might also run tests to look for specific variants, like omicron. Karthikeyans team uses robots to automate these analysis steps and cut down on errors; other researchers have more human-driven processes.
UCSD now processes about 200 wastewater samples daily, Karthikeyan said. When signs of COVID-19 show up in the wastewater for a particular site, another automated system alerts residents or workers of that site that they should get a PCR test. These alerts help contain outbreaks on UCSDs campus while minimizing testing costs.
People who receive the alerts feel like they have a reason to get tested, Karthikeyan said. And we get 98 percent compliance when we send out these emails to students. Other colleges and universities have similarly used wastewater to drive targeted testing.
The San Diego wastewater surveillance network also directs COVID-19 precautions at the UCSD Health system, with tiered guidance based on wastewater data (and a couple of other metrics) telling workers when they need to mask, reduce their in-person work hours or take other precautions. In March, just one week after the health system started using this guidance, wastewater trends prompted a return to mandatory masking.
But many places dont have the same resources to set up wastewater surveillance or peg public health actions to data as San Diego does. When asked if he knew of other institutions using wastewater to guide their safety measures, UCSD Health chief medical officer Dr. Christopher Longhurst said no: I couldnt point you to one.
In recent months, scientists in California have expanded wastewater surveillance to more rural parts of the state, with support from the states Department of Public Health. This poses new challenges: Public health officials often arent used to looking at data from outside hospitals or health clinics, and there are many logistical hurdles to setting up sampling in new locations, combined with the complications of interpreting data from less populous areas, where wastewater surveillance is highly sensitive to changes in COVID-19 spread.
One document from Stanford Universitys Sewer Coronavirus Alert Network (SCAN) describes how the genetic material shed by someone with COVID-19 may change: over the course of their infection, from person to person and depending on measurement techniques, the weather, an influx of spring breakers, or even local business practices. For example, Modesto a city in Californias Central Valley had a lot of fruit cannery waste in its sewage. This industrial flow may have blocked the signal of the coronaviruss genetic material, impacting scientists ability to isolate it in PCR testing, said Colleen Naughton, an environmental engineering professor at the University of California, Merced, who works on wastewater monitoring in this region.
The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention has faced similar issues as it expands monitoring from Portland, the states major urban center, to more rural communities, said Michael Abbott, who leads wastewater screening at the agency.
One of Portlands wastewater treatment plants has been a long-running collection site for Biobot, a wastewater monitoring company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In Portland, a city of almost 70,000, it takes a really significant increase in COVID-19 prevalence for the virus levels in sewage to begin ticking up, Abbott said. So when the wastewater goes up, the trend is easy to interpret.
But in rural parts of the state, some of which started monitoring during the omicron surge, the data tends to bounce up and down more rather than following a fairly smooth curve, Abbott said. Small numbers of cases may have an outsized impact on wastewater levels, particularly when those cases represent outside tourists going into tiny towns, as is common in Maine.
As public health officials learn to navigate wastewater data, several states public health agencies told us they dont yet consider the system a reliable source for making policy decisions at least not in isolation. A recent report from The Rockefeller Foundation found that many local agencies, especially those serving rural areas, dont have the internal capacity to go all-in on wastewater data as they deal with budget cuts and burnout.
The Minnesota Department of Health is working to expand wastewater sampling, agency spokesperson Garry Bowman said in an email. But this expansion would take weeks or months to turn into useful data, long after Minnesotas PCR testing numbers have become wholly unreliable. And even if Minnesota does expand its wastewater monitoring to cover the whole state, the agency isnt sure if the federal government will keep up its funding, said Bowman.
It would be hard to tell these local wastewater challenges exist, though, looking at the CDCs wastewater dashboard. Highly publicized upon its addition to the agencys COVID Data Tracker in February, the dashboard only showed one metric until early April: colored dots representing an increase or decrease in coronavirus levels detected at each site over the past two weeks. There was no context about the viruss actual prevalence or how recent trends compare to longer time frames.
If a site measures virus not detected (meaning no COVID-19) for three weeks in a row, and then measures a fairly low level of COVID-19, the CDC dashboard would show a 100 percent increase, said Zuzana Bohrerova, an environmental scientist at Ohio State University who works on Ohios monitoring program. A red dot on the dashboard might be a serious warning, or it might be unimportant the CDCs original presentation made it difficult to tell.
I think they were trying to be simpler, Naughton said of the CDC dashboard. They didnt want to release all the concentration data, since they thought thats difficult for people to understand.
On April 8, the agency updated this dashboard, adding new metrics and the option to click into a specific site for a chart showing wastewater trends at that location. The updates were intended to help users better understand changes in virus levels at different sites, CDC spokesperson Brian Katzowitz said. Wastewater experts who talked to me on Twitter said they were glad to see the CDC adjusting its data visualization. Still, theres room for other improvements that would make the data more easily understandable, Katzowitz said.
Even if thousands of new wastewater collection sites are added to the U.S.s network in the coming weeks, it will take serious investment in data analysis and communication for the country to actually use these numbers in predicting new surges. Expanding wastewater sampling can take weeks or months before the effort begins to produce usable data and it costs a lot money agencies aren't sure the federal government will continue to provide.
Despite its challenges, experts say that wastewater monitoring has potential beyond COVID-19 for other respiratory viruses, antimicrobial resistance, and even identifying entirely new viruses. But without continued federal support, we wont even be able to get useful COVID-19 surveillance at a time that its deeply needed.
This story was published in partnership with the Documenting COVID-19 project, which is supported by Columbia Universitys Brown Institute for Media Innovation and MuckRock. The project collects and shares government documents related to the COVID-19 pandemic and works on investigative journalism projects with partner newsrooms.
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The National Fight Against COVID-19 Isnt Ready To Go To The Sewers - FiveThirtyEight
It is the nature of viruses, such as the one that causes COVID-19, to evolve and change gradually.
But some COVID-19 variants, such as the omicron variant, mutate more than others.
Heres what to know.
Coronavirus variants are classified in differing categories by public health agencies, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO).
There are three classifications of coronavirus variants: variants of interest, variants of concern and variants of high consequence.
The omicron variant, which public health agencies have classified as a variant of concern, differs from other coronavirus strains because it has over 50 mutations, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine. Many of them are in the spike protein.
Because of its many mutations, the virus can evade immune responses and become more transmissible from person to person.
In other words, omicron and its mutations are more contagious, even though the illness may not be as severe as any other strain of COVID-19.
Current CDC data shows that you should be protected against omicron or one of its mutations, such as the BA.2 variant, if you are up to date with your COVID-19 vaccines and booster shots.
According to a CDC study published in January 2022, receipt of a third vaccine dose was highly effective at preventing COVID-19-associated emergency department and urgent care encounters (94% and 82%, respectively) and preventing COVID-19associated hospitalizations (94% and 90%, respectively) during the delta and omicron waves of COVID-19.
Another CDC study from March 2022 found that receiving two to three doses of an mRNA vaccine, such as Pfizer or Moderna, was associated with a 90% reduction in the risk of death or need to be on a ventilator.
Those who got three mRNA vaccines during the omicron wave had a 94% reduction in risk of severe illness or death, according to the study.
Related stories about COVID-19:
How to get 4 more at-home COVID tests for free
Omicron subvariant BA.2: The new symptoms to look out for
How to get a COVID booster shot at CVS, Walgreens or Rite Aid
Should I get a second booster shot to prevent against COVID?
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Rising coronavirus cases arent going to stop much of the country from continuing to move on from the pandemic, leaving many Americans to fend for themselves on the road to a new normal.
Even as cases nationwide have jumped 47 percent over the last two weeks, on Monday a federal judge lifted the mask requirement for air travel and it doesnt sound as if the Biden administration is putting up a big fight to reinstate it. When people who were literally on a plane heard the news, their response reflected this chaotic new moment in the pandemic, a mixture of cheers and fresh fears.
But if you look at peoples attitudes broadly, Americans have been drifting toward normalcy. According to the Kaiser Family Foundations March poll, 27 percent of Americans say they have basically returned to doing what they normally did before the pandemic. Another 14 percent said that they never changed their behavior meaning nearly half of the country is living as if Covid-19 had never happened. On the other end of the spectrum, 17 percent of Americans say they are still not doing most of the activities they did before the pandemic.
The largest group, 42 percent of the US, is somewhere in the middle. These Americans say they are doing some but not all of their pre-pandemic activities. If you combine this group with the people who have returned to normal, more than half of the country is now taking it less seriously, as the government and businesses continue to encourage a return to economic and social activity.
For so many people, that makes this a disorienting period of the pandemic. Weve moved away from a sharp focus on cases as the most important metric and away from using broad mitigation measures like mask mandates to drive down case numbers. But its not clear what should replace the old pandemic mindset.
There are obviously still many good reasons to avoid being exposed to Covid-19. Some people, particularly the elderly and immunocompromised, face a higher risk of developing serious symptoms if they get infected. For others, there is an economic and social cost of getting sick, especially if their workplace or school mandates a lengthy isolation period following a positive test.
But its hard to avoid exposure when the combined policy response from federal, state, and local authorities is no longer based on helping people do that. In general, the government is now focused almost entirely on limiting hospitalizations and deaths and otherwise allowing a return to pre-pandemic activities. Hospitalizations are currently plateauing nationally after a long decline. Deaths are still dropping from their peak during the winter omicron wave.
With so many vaccinated or previously infected with the virus, we would expect to see fewer severe cases. But the virus is still spreading. The difference now is, the government and businesses are tacitly and overtly acknowledging they can only do so much about that. Delta Air Lines, in its response to the court ruling lifting the mask mandate, initially referred to Covid-19 as an ordinary seasonal disease before backtracking.
Instead of one cohesive Covid-19 response, people are left making millions of individual decisions that also ultimately limit other peoples ability to steer clear of the virus.
As President Joe Biden said on Tuesday, when asked whether Americans should continue to mask on planes despite the mandate being rescinded: Thats up to them.
The uncomfortable truth is there is only so much one person can do now. Wearing masks, avoiding crowded indoor spaces, and staying up to date on vaccinations are still the playbook for reducing your risks from Covid-19. But with so many people moving on, there is not a foolproof plan for avoiding infection.
Were in a position where youd have to have really compelling reasons to try to avoid exposure, given societys failure to make it easy to avoid exposure, Justin Feldman, a social epidemiologist at Harvard University, told me.
At previous points in the pandemic, it seemed clear what would need to happen next to start loosening our pandemic rules: cases needed to fall. New tools were arriving all the time to help that happen. First, we were waiting for the vaccines to be approved and then for people to get vaccinated. A few months later, we were waiting for news on booster shots, and the looming omicron wave promised to spread immunity throughout much of the population, albeit at a high cost.
But at this point, few if any new interventions are coming even as cases keep climbing. The toolbox has been stocked vaccines, therapeutics, tests and its now left to each person to decide how theyll use the tools.
Society is making a difficult pivot, asking people who have lived through the most extreme social and economic disruption of their lives, all because of the novel coronavirus, to regard it now as part of the milieu. We are transitioning from a world of stay-at-home orders, business closures, and universal masking requirements to a choose-your-own-pandemic experience.
It feels noisier than ever in terms of how people perceive the virus, its severity, its risks, the risks to others, Kate Cagney, who researches sociology and public health at the University of Michigan, told me. We dont have a consistent algorithm that were all following.
Not everybody is facing this new normal on equal footing. Elderly Americans and the immunocompromised continue to have good reason to be vigilant about avoiding Covid-19 because it could still pose a serious risk to their health.
But for others, there may be a tug of war between the pull toward normalcy and wanting to be conscientious about a virus that, even in this relative lull, still kills around 500 Americans every day.
Figuring out a new approach can be a challenge when the government, businesses, and many of the people around you act like Covid-19 is no longer an active concern. People are also making this transition back to more normal activities while contending with ever-changing public health guidance and an increasing lack of real-time information about the actual state of the outbreak.
You see the disorder everywhere. While there was always some variance in how public health experts thought about the pandemic, the divisions feel starker than ever now. When Philadelphia recently decided to put its mask mandate back in effect because local cases were starting to rise, former Baltimore city health commissioner and Washington Post contributor Leana Wen was baffled. She cited the CDCs own assessment, which classified Philly as an area with low risk. But some of her public health peers quickly pushed back on Wen for doubting the citys decision to be more proactive about slowing Covid-19s spread.
Youd be forgiven for being confused. But this kind of dissonance is increasingly common. Newspapers are canceling their White House Correspondent Dinner receptions because of a local increase in Covid-19 cases but the dinner will go on. Even as local cases are rising, the DC Metro system is ending its masking requirement.
With such a dizzying information environment, its no surprise the pandemic is messing with our heads. Experts were warning about decision fatigue a year ago, and research indicates the last two years have made a lot of peoples anxiety worse. One survey-based study in Europe found that people who had a higher interest in the pandemic were more likely to show signs of neuroticism. People with higher levels of anxiety were more likely to perceive a higher level of risk from Covid-19, according to another US-based study.
When something as simple as asking a coworker to go get a drink can feel fraught, people are bound to be stressed out. Every social interaction comes with a complex decision tree: Would that person be comfortable going out in public? Im supposed to go see my parents this weekend so if I go out tonight, can I get tested in time?
Its a lot of cognitive engagement. Having to engage in that calculus all the time is so wearing that I think it makes people just stay home, Cagney told me.
Or they may go the other way and largely give up on taking precautions. After all, a lot of other people have.
Part of the reason for all the confusion is that pandemics are partly a social construction.
There is an objective biological phenomenon, but there is also a social component. Its a pandemic because we collectively decide there is a moral imperative to trying to prevent illness. That was what happened when governments issued shelter-in-place orders and closed most of the economy to contain Covid-19s spread and when most people agreed to follow the new public health guidelines.
Ever since, we have been trying to figure our way out of that pandemic mentality. But the nature of this particular emergency, in which Covid-19 will eventually become endemic, has made that harder. David Rehkopf, a social epidemiologist at Stanford University, pointed out to me that most public health risks end up being resolved or limited in some way. A measles outbreak will eventually end. Chronic health issues like obesity or diabetes arent infectious; one persons dietary decisions doesnt affect someone elses likelihood of developing those conditions.
But Covid-19 is still present, still infecting people, and yet the official attitude has transitioned from avoid infection at all cost to getting infected is a largely acceptable risk of getting life back to normal. If you are on the cautious end of the risk tolerance spectrum, the whiplash can be quite disorienting.
Even if the objective data is troubling, if you dont have the moral judgment, its normative now, that level of death and disease, Kimberlee Holland, a medical sociologist at Georgetown University, told me. As society transitions objectively into this endemic rather than pandemic phase, many people themselves have not shifted.
There is a case for embracing the new normal. We have effective vaccines now and therapeutics that greatly reduce the risk of dying from Covid-19. Many public health experts believe that preventing the worst outcomes is the best we can hope for. It may not be realistic to expect that we can avoid catching a virus thats become as transmissible as the measles.
For the healthy and vaccinated, it may also not be desirable to take the extreme measures that would be necessary to avoid exposure. Restricting activities in order to slow down the virus can negatively affect not only the general economy but the social networks that help ameliorate the stress many people are feeing during a crisis.
Our Covid-19 policies must acknowledge that we dont have just one needle that we are trying to move any longer, Briana Mezuk, co-director of the Center for Social Epidemiology and Population Health at the University of Michigan, told me. A singular policy focus on Covid-19 cases is nonsensical at this point in the pandemic.
Yet in some important ways, our policies are still uniquely focused on Covid-19. Getting infected with the coronavirus might force somebody to enter a mandatory isolation period, but catching the flu wouldnt necessarily do the same. There is an economic and social cost to getting Covid-19 that is separate from the clinical risk.
Were still searching for a new equilibrium. Its been a rocky transition so far. As Rehkopf put it to me: Theres not a playbook for this kind of middle ground.
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What the end of airline mask mandates reveals about our new Covid-19 normal - Vox.com
