Category: Corona Virus

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) On March 10, 2020, the first cases of COVID-19 were confirmed in South Dakota, bringing the state into the coronavirus pandemic that was sweeping the world. Now, two years later, the state is seeing a decline in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations as deaths from the virus reached 2,848.

At the start of 2022, active COVID-19 cases were higher than at any other point in the pandemic, peaking at 36,155 cases on January 25. As of Thursday, March 10 active cases have dropped to 3,117. The sharp decline in cases following the surge in January is fascinating according to Dr. David Basel, Averas Vice President of Clinical Quality. The health system went from having 200-210 patients across a four-state region at Omicrons peak to now only 50.

Were at about a quarter of the admits that we had in February compared to now, Basel said.

Its a question people across the world have been asking for two years: When will the COVID-19 pandemic end? While the coronavirus continues to mutate and spread widely, the disease will remain a pandemic. But, when enough immunity is achieved, through vaccination or infection and mutations become less severe, COVID-19 is expected to become endemic.

According to Basel, the end may be in sight if you look closely at the positivity rates and declining hospitalizations.

It very much appears that COVID is going to become endemic kind of like influenza where it is going to be here at a certain level and its probably going to have some peaks and valleys throughout the year, Basel said.

Basel says while many people may be testing at home for COVID-19 and not reporting to the state, the positivity rate can help determine the current community spread of the virus. Basel says recent positivity rates below 10%, and sometimes dipping below 5%, is a good indication that under-testing is not happening right now. In Thursdays update from the South Dakota Department of Health (DOH) the positivity rate was reported at 5.9%

If were just under-testing then that test positivity rate would still be staying high telling us were not testing enough people. In fact, the percent positive on our tests right now is down, Basel said.

Currently there are 96 people hospitalized with COVID-19 in South Dakota. At the peak of Omicron, hospitalizations reached 423 on January 23, 2022. Basel says the steep decline is a good indicator of where the community spread is at in South Dakota.

While cases and hospitalizations continue to trend downwards, COVID-19 deaths have held steady with 18 deaths being reported by the DOH so far this week. Basel says that its important to remember that deaths often lag a few weeks behind downward trends in the rest of COVID-19 numbers. He adds that some of the hospitalized COVID patients in the Avera Health system have been hospitalized since fall of 2021 receiving treatment for the virus.

Weve got patients still dying from COVID almost every day, Basel said. So, if this was a normal influenza year and we had that many it would be the worst influenza year on record.

Moving forward, Basel says we can expect the pandemic to turn into an endemic like influenza where there are peaks and valleys with localized outbreaks throughout the year. In former pandemics, Basel says that each peak was followed by peaks that became lower and lower each time.

Certainly, we hope that continues to be the case where this is kind of the new normal where we have to be aware of COVID, but we can go back to a closer-to-normal way of daily living, Basel said.

With the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and states beginning to loosen mask mandates, the pandemic is not yet over according to health experts. Basel says the country would need to remain at this low level of community spread for a while longer before endemic status is achieved.

In the meantime, Basel recommends testing for those experiencing cold and flu like symptoms whether with an at-home test or by going to a testing location. He also encourages immunocompromised people to continue masking if there is an increased risk associated with COVID-19 infection.

As Avera Health marks the two-year anniversary, Basel expressed his gratitude to the frontline workers who worked tirelessly over the past two years for their work.

Its been a grind and continues to be a grind, he said.

The health system has performed over 690,000 COVID-19 tests in the past two years with 88,000 positive results. In that time, they have hospitalized over 8,300 people for COVID-19, provided over 15,000 treatments for the virus and delivered over 200,000 vaccinations.

Its been a difficult and challenging time for our medical providers and front-line caregivers. They are the true heroes of this story, Bob Sutton, President and CEO of Avera Health, said Thursday in a statement. Theyve seen a lot of severe illness and death. They rejoiced with those who recovered and went home. They grieved with families who lost a loved one. Numerous times, they stood in for family members who were not able to be there at end of life, or held a phone or tablet as families said their good-byes.

Basel also said that he was thankful to the public for taking masking and testing guidelines seriously over the past two years to help curb surging cases.

We know how much of an impact this has had on each and all of our lives, Basel said.

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The new normal: COVID-19 on its way to becoming endemic - KELOLAND.com

We end our hour observing the two-year anniversary of when the pandemic came to Greater Boston with a conversation about joy.

Two years of COVID have brought a lifetime's share of loss, grief and loneliness. But there has to be a way to acknowledge the births, marriages, graduations, new friendships, and personal accomplishments of the last two years without dishonoring everything that's been lost.

We do just that with two Boston journalists, Kara Baskin, a correspondent for The Boston Globe, and Meghan Kelly, multi-platform editor for WBUR, as well as hear from listener callers about their own moments of joy and pride over the course of the pandemic.

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Joy in the time of the coronavirus | Radio Boston - WBUR

Hidalgo County on Thursday reported four coronavirus-related deaths and 603 cases of COVID-19.

Of the four individuals who died due to the virus, three were not vaccinated, according to the report from the Hidalgo County Health and Human Services Department. The youngest person who died was a man in his 50s from Edinburg.

The people who tested positive are in the following age groups:

The county also reported 91 people are currently hospitalized with COVID-19, including 82 adults and nine children.

Of the 91 people hospitalized with COVID-19, 35 patients are in intensive care units, including 34 adults and one child.

On Thursday, schools across Hidalgo County reported one staff member and 15 students tested positive for the virus.

A total of 4,825 staff members and 16,572 students have tested positive for the virus since the county started reporting school-related infections on Aug. 18, 2021.

Since the pandemic began, 193,947 people have tested positive for the virus, and 3,842 people have died due to the virus in the county.

There are currently 1,197 reported active cases of COVID-19 in the county.

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Hidalgo County reports four coronavirus-related deaths and 603 cases of COVID-19 - KRGV

Fourmore Mainers have died and another 289coronavirus cases reported across the state, Maine health officials said Thursday.

Thursdays report brings the total number of coronavirus cases in Maine to 231,758,according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Thats up from 231,469 on Wednesday.

Of those, 167,824have been confirmed positive, while 63,934were classified as probable cases, the Maine CDC reported.

Three men and a woman have succumbed to the virus, bringing the statewide death toll to 2,140.

One was from Androscoggin County, one from Hancock County, one from Penobscot County and one from York County.

Of those, two were 80 or older and two were in their 60s.

The number of coronavirus cases diagnosed in the past 14 days statewide is 7,710. This is an estimation of the current number of active cases in the state, as the Maine CDC is no longer tracking recoveries for all patients. Thats down from 8,544 on Wednesday.

The new case rate statewide Thursday was 2.16 cases per 10,000 residents, and the total case rate statewide was 1,731.60.

The most cases have been detected in Mainers younger than 20, while Mainers over 80 years old account for the largest portion of deaths. More cases have been recorded in women and more deaths in men.

So far, 4,426 Mainers have been hospitalized at some point with COVID-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus. Of those, 128 are currently hospitalized, with 28 in critical care and nine on a ventilator. Overall, 66 out of 355 critical care beds and 261 out of 328 ventilators are available

The total statewide hospitalization rate on Thursday was 33.07 patients per 10,000 residents.

Cases have been reported in Androscoggin (22,233), Aroostook (12,226), Cumberland (47,566), Franklin (5,585), Hancock (7,133), Kennebec (22,312), Knox (5,763), Lincoln (5,071), Oxford (10,973), Penobscot (26,806), Piscataquis (2,920), Sagadahoc (4,923), Somerset (9,389), Waldo (5,901), Washington (4,167) and York (38,781) counties. Information about where an additional ninecases were reported wasnt immediately available.

An additional 588 vaccine doses were administered in the previous 24 hours. As of Thursday, 990,364 Mainers are fully vaccinated, or about 77.3 percent of eligible Mainers, according to the Maine CDC.

As of Thursday morning, the coronavirus had sickened 79,413,957 people in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as caused 963,869 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.

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4 more Mainers have died and another 289 coronavirus cases reported across the state - Bangor Daily News

Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel during a ceremony to honor medical teams dealing with the pandemic in Jerusalem last summer.Credit...Abir Sultan/EPA, via Shutterstock

JERUSALEM Benjamin Netanyahu, the former prime minister of Israel, tested positive for the coronavirus on Wednesday, according to a statement from his conservative Likud party.

A party spokesman, Yonatan Ulrich, said in the statement that Mr. Netanyahu, 72, feels well and that he was acting according to the countrys coronavirus guidelines. The former prime minister was in Parliament on Wednesday morning before being informed that he had tested positive in a routine P.C.R. test, according to Mr. Ulrich.

Under Ministry of Health guidelines, Mr. Netanyahu must now stay in isolation for at least five days and conduct rapid home tests on the fourth and fifth evenings of isolation. If the results of both tests are negative and no symptoms have appeared for 48 hours, Mr. Netanyahu will be able to leave isolation at the end of Day 5. A positive result would require him to remain in isolation until the end of Day 7.

Israel is just emerging from a fifth wave prompted by the Omicron variant of the virus, which saw confirmed cases soar to nearly 100,000 a day in the country. That number has now dropped to a daily average of about 6,500 new cases.

Mr. Netanyahu has received four vaccination shots, according to Mr. Ulrich. In January, Israel began offering fourth shots to people aged 60 and over as the country braced for a surge of infections from the highly contagious Omicron variant.

Israel lifted many of its remaining Covid restrictions on March 1, including ending limitations on gatherings, opening up the country to unvaccinated tourists and eliminating the need to present a digital proof of vaccination to enter restaurants and most other venues.

Another member of Israels Parliament Shirly Pinto, of the small, right-wing Yamina party led by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on Twitter on Wednesday that she, too, had tested positive for the virus. She said she was the 61st lawmaker in Parliament to have been infected, though she didnt specify what time period she was referring to.

Parliament has 120 seats, but two elections in the country since March 2020 have changed the makeup of the house during the course of the pandemic. Asked how many lawmakers had been infected in the current Parliament, a parliamentary spokesman, Uri Michael, said, Sorry, were not counting.

Source: Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University. The daily average is calculated with data that was reported in the last seven days.

Mr. Netanyahu was prime minister from 2009 until 2021 after serving a previous three-year term in the 1990s, making him the longest-serving prime minister in Israeli history. He is now the leader of the opposition in Parliament.

Alongside his parliamentary role, Mr. Netanyahu is fighting corruption charges in a trial now underway in the Jerusalem District Court. He was charged with bribery, breach of trust and fraud in three separate cases in 2019, accused of providing lucrative official favors to wealthy businessmen in exchange for material gifts like expensive cigars and Champagne, and less-tangible ones such as control over coverage of him and his family in a major news outlet.

An increasingly polarizing figure as he clung to power, Mr. Netanyahu led Israel into four tumultuous election cycles within two years. Unable to form a majority coalition after the last election in March 2021, he was eventually replaced by Mr. Bennett.

On Wednesday, Mr. Bennett, a former political ally who sat in several Netanyahu-led governments, wished Mr. Netanyahu, who is now a bitter rival, a speedy and complete recovery, writing on Twitter, Feel well!

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Covid News: Djokovic Will Miss U.S. Tournaments Over Vaccination Status - The New York Times

Covid cases appear to be rising in older people as increased socialising, waning immunity and a more transmissible version of the Omicron variant threaten to fuel a resurgence of the virus.

Tests on nearly 100,000 swabs from homes across England reveal that, while infections have fallen overall since the January peak, one in 35 people tested positive between 8 February and 1 March, with cases either level or rising in those aged 55 and over.

Scientists on Imperial Colleges React-1 study said the R value the average number of people an infected person passes the virus to remained below 1 for those aged 54 and under, meaning cases were in decline. But for those aged 55 and over, R stood at 1.04.

The suspected uptick has raised concerns as older people are more prone to severe Covid and have had more time for their immunity to wane, as many had their booster vaccines several months ago.

The findings come as the latest government figures showed a sharp 46% rise in new recorded UK cases week on week to 346,059 over the past week and a 12% rise in hospitalisations to 8,950.

Prof Paul Elliott, director of the React study, said the rise was probably driven by factors including the lifting of all Covid legal restrictions in England on 24 February, more mixing between age groups and waning protection from booster shots.

One idea experts are investigating is whether hospitalisation rates are being driven by unshielding, where people who have been extremely careful for two years have emerged into a world where infections are still rife.

Another driver is thought to be the BA.2 form of Omicron, a relative of the original BA.1. While BA.2 does not seem to evade immunity any more than BA.1 or cause more severe disease, it spreads faster and increases R by 0.4 compared with BA.1, the Imperial researchers found. From what we see, BA.2 is more transmissible and may prolong the Omicron wave of the pandemic, Elliott said. Its taking over, so that could explain higher infection rates.

Since the first BA.2 cases were discovered in December, it has steadily gained ground and now accounts for about half of all Omicron cases in England, with levels currently highest in London. It is unclear how large a wave of infections and hospitalisations BA.2 could drive given widespread immunity from vaccines and past Covid infections.

A further push on vaccinations is due in early April when over-75s and the clinically vulnerable will be offered a fourth shot, or a fifth in the case of people with severely weakened immune systems. Additional doses of vaccine are almost certainly going to be necessary, said Prof Peter Openshaw, a member of the governments New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag).

Mark Woolhouse, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh, said it was impossible to make a sensible prediction about the size of any BA.2 wave but the situation needed close monitoring. The worry is that its hard to see anything happening in the next few weeks that will reverse the growth of BA.2 unless, that is, people decide on their own account to step up precautions.

Danny Altmann, professor of immunology at Imperial College, who is not on the React-1 study, said the recent rise was foreseeable. Well see a great deal more of this, along the lines of recent resurgent spikes in Scotland and Hong Kong, he said. Caseloads were by no means low or under control as we came out of all mitigations and, when you add in waning immunity and the enhanced transmissibility of BA.2, it looks like we are in for a difficult period, especially for the elderly.

He said a lack of measures such as mask-wearing and testing potentially left only the option of a wider push for fourth shots, beyond the over-75s but cautioned that very regular boosters may not be sustainable long-term.

Openshaw said the rise in cases and hospitalisations should remind people the pandemic is not over. I think its a shame that the message that seems to have got out to the population is that its all over and we dont need to be cautious any more, he said.

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UK Covid cases rising among those aged 55 and over - The Guardian

Boris Johnson has promised bereaved families will have their voices heard, as he published wide-ranging terms of reference for the public inquiry into the governments handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The prime minister bowed to pressure last year and announced the inquiry, which will be chaired by the retired judge Lady Hallett.

The government has now published its draft terms of reference. These cover the public health response, including how decisions were made, and a wide range of other issues from shielding to lockdowns, the procurement of personal protective equipment to the closure of schools.

Hallett will also examine the economic response, including the furlough scheme, and how the NHS and wider health and social care system responded.

Announcing the draft terms of reference, Johnson said: The importance of the inquiry working to understand the experiences of those most affected by the pandemic including bereaved families as well as looking at any disparities evident in the impact of the pandemic and our response.

Hallett will hold a four-week consultation on the draft terms of reference. They include the necessity to produce a timely report, although the very broad remit suggests merely taking evidence may be a very lengthy process.

The inquiry is asked to produce a factual narrative account of the response to the pandemic and then to identify any lessons to be learned, thereby to inform the UKs preparations for future pandemics.

In doing so, the inquiry will listen to the experiences of bereaved families and others who have suffered hardship or loss as a result of the pandemic. It will not investigate individual cases of harm or death in detail, and Hallett will not be asked to apportion blame for any failures she identifies.

The families of people who have died from Covid-19 have long campaigned for a full public inquiry. Johnson initially rejected those calls, before announcing one in May 2021. But he stipulated the inquiry would not begin its work until this year, when the government hoped the worst of the pandemic would be over.

At the time, Johnson said it would take a frank and candid look at how the pandemic was managed.

An investigation by the health and science select committees has already pointed to a number of failures in the governments response, including the pace at which Covid testing was ramped up, and the decision to discharge patients from hospitals into care homes without testing.

The committees took dramatic testimony from Johnsons former chief aide Dominic Cummings, who claimed the prime minister consistently failed to grasp the seriousness of the pandemic in its early stages.

Becky Kummer, a spokesperson for Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice, said: The inquiry is a one-off and historic opportunity for the terrible suffering and loss of the past two years to be learned from, [and] to ensure these tragedies are not repeated in the future. The government finally publishing the draft terms of reference is a huge step forward, and we look forward to feeding into the consultation on them.

Sadly, todays announcement comes far too late. We will never know how many lives could have been saved had the government had a rapid review phase in summer 2020, as we called for at the time.

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Johnson announces terms of reference for Covid inquiry - The Guardian

In his State of the Union address on Tuesday, President Biden struck a cautiously optimistic note about the COVID-19 pandemic as it enters its third year.

The White House followed up with a detailed strategy for the pandemic's next phase including vaccinating here and abroad, testing, antiviral treatments, improving the quality of indoor air, expanding the nation's capacity to track and treat new variants and supporting people with long-term consequences of COVID.

The Centers for Disease Control has also issued new guidelines suggesting most Americans can take off their masks.

We set out, in the wake of the State of the Union, to assess the state of the pandemic with some of the country's foremost researchers, both at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta and at the University of Pittsburgh.

That's where virologist Paul Duprex alerted 60 Minutes last year about the dangers of coronavirus variants -- well before Delta and Omicron battered the United States.

Dr. Jon LaPook: It's been about one year since we last spoke for 60 Minutes. Is the pandemic over?

Paul Duprex: The pandemic is not over. But we're in a very different place today than we were one year ago.

Dr. Jon LaPook: How so?

Paul Duprex: There have been multiple more variants. But we're moving in a direction where there are not as many people who are in hospital because of the disease. And we've got many more people vaccinated. And we understand a lot about first shots, second shots, and now boosters. So, it's a totally different landscape.

Duprex, born in Northern Ireland, is head of the Center for Vaccine Research at the University of Pittsburgh. He's hopeful the virus will continue to mutate into a milder form.

Dr. Jon LaPook: Is it possible that the coronaviruses that now cause the common cold long ago began as fiercely, as dangerous, as deadly as SARS-CoV-2 and that, over time, it became weaker and weaker? Now we have the common cold?

Paul Duprex: Oh, I would say it's more than possible. I would say it's very likely. But we just have to wait and see where the virus ends up, and that's just good science. Scientists follow the virus, keep a close eye on it, and we understand how that virus changes over time and where it will go.

Keeping a close eye on the virus at the Centers for Disease Control is director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the former chief of infectious diseases at Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital. She was tapped by President Biden to lead an agency struggling to communicate effectively with the public.

This past week, Dr. Walensky took us behind the scenes at the agency that's been fighting infectious diseases since it was formed in the 1940s to combat malaria.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky: So here we are in our genomic sequencing lab.

Dr. Jon LaPook: This is the first time you've allowed a film crew back here?

Justin Lee: That is accurate.

Justin Lee leads the genomic sequencing laboratory and showed us how positive COVID test samples from all over the world are processed so genetic information can be extracted and analyzed in this sequencer to look for new variants of the virus.

Justin Lee: This was our most recent sequencing run.

Each square represents one person's COVID test sample.

Dr. Jon LaPook: And about what percentage are Omicron?

Justin Lee: From the U.S. samples that are collected recently, 99% are Omicron.

Dr. Jon LaPook: Wow. So out of 96 wells, only one of them is yellow? Only one is Delta?

Justin Lee: Only one is Delta.

Since first being identified in the United States just three months ago, Omicron and its sub-variants have almost entirely replaced the Delta variant, which had caused more severe disease.

Earlier in the pandemic, the CDC was lagging behind in genetic sequencing. Now, hundreds of millions of dollars in emergency funding have helped create a nationwide early detection system.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky: We want to be able to detect about 0.1% of any new variant if it comes into this country with 99% certainty.

Dr. Jon LaPook: And are you getting any kind of a hint that there's some new variant of concern?

Justin Lee: No. Not right now. Nope. I mean, we're tracking things but there's nothing that appears to be, you know, the next omicron.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky: We breathe a heavy sigh of relief when we don't see anything

But no threat is too small. In one COVID-19 briefing, we witnessed Dr. Walensky ask staff for an update on what some are nicknaming "Deltacron,"a genetic hybrid of the Delta and Omicron variants. It's only been found rarely in the U.S. and Dr. Walensky says the CDC does not consider it a threat at this time.

COVID-19 briefing

Dr. Rochelle Walensky: Anything more on Deltacron?

Dr. Mahon: No. I mean, it's out there.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky: But we're still in the, like, handful of cases?

Dr. Mahon: Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky: Not in the hundreds of thousands of cases?

Dr. Mahon: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky: Ok.

Recently, news about the pandemic in the United States has been encouraging. Hospitalizations, cases and deaths are dropping and effective antiviral treatments are becoming much more available for those who do get sick. Dr. Walensky has announced a new set of guidelines meaning, right now, about 90% of Americans can choose to drop their masks.

Dr. Jon LaPook: You hear the word "endemic" a lot.

Dr. Jon LaPook: What exactly does that mean?

Dr. Rochelle Walensky: You're at a steady state. Your pandemic or your disease is neither increasing nor decreasing.

Dr. Jon LaPook: So will there be a moment where it's at such a low level that, even though it's still on every continent, say, we're not calling it a pandemic anymore?

Dr. Rochelle Walensky: I think we'll get there. You know I do think that we will get to a place with this disease where we live with a relatively low level all year long and that maybe we have some surges during respiratory virus season. Those surges are annoying and for some, they will likely be tragic. But they are not to the tune of two and three thousand deaths a day. I think we live that way with influenza.

Dr. Walensky has learned to be cautious after telling fully vaccinated Americans back in May 2021 they could take off their masks.

White House Press briefingDr. Rochelle Walensky: Once you are fully vaccinated, two weeks after your last dose, you can shed your mask.

But the party only lasted a few months. New CDC research during a surge of the delta variant forced her to tell the country that masks should go back on.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky: I will never forget the gut punch on that Friday night when I first saw the data out of Barnstable County, Massachusetts, that demonstrated that there were vaccinated people that were transmitting it to other people. We said, "we have to put our masks back on."

Dr. Jon LaPook: Do you think communicating, "We don't know," was done well enough to the public from the very beginning?

Dr. Rochelle Walensky: You know (sigh)...

Dr. Jon LaPook: Or, "it may change."

Dr. Rochelle Walensky: There were so many times where we were optimistic. There were so many times where we didn't know. And since my getting here what I said is, "we're gonna lead with the science." The implication was that science was black and white, and in fact, in an ever-evolving virus, and a two-year-long pandemic, the science isn't always black and white. It's-- it's oftentimes shades of gray.

Dr. Jon LaPook: But from the point of view of the taxicab driver who drove me here a couple days ago, he remembers it as, "They told us you could take your mask off and then they changed their mind."

Dr. Rochelle Walensky: Right.

Dr. Jon LaPook: One recent poll showed that less than half the American public trusts the CDC when it comes to advice about the virus. Do you take it personally?

Dr. Rochelle Walensky: I certainly don't love to see statistics like that. But I think they will get better as we emerge from this pandemic.

During her 13 months on the job, Dr. Walensky has been on a mission to improve public trust in the agency. She's done more than 90 press conferences and hundreds of interviews. She told us she wants Americans to know the crucial work the CDC's 13,000 scientists, medical professionals, and public health workers do around the world.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky: Do they know that we deliver antiretroviral therapy to 12 million people around the world every year?

Dr. Jon LaPook: With AIDS?

Dr. Rochelle Walensky: With AIDS. No. Do they know that we're working to eradicate polio? Do they know that when somebody gets sick with salmonella, that we look for the source? Do they know that we're responsible for, you know, opioid statistics in the country?

Dr. Walensky took us into the CDC's emergency operations center -- a command post normally packed during disease outbreaks.

Dr. Jon LaPook: I hear phrases like "command center," "deployments," "task forces." It's kind of got a military sound to it. It feels like it's war.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky: We have to act like this is war. We are at war against this virus.

A top priority has been improving the collection and analysis of data. Dr. Walensky showed us how, at the beginning of the pandemic, fewer than 200 hospitals, clinics, and doctors' offices could send automated information on things like diagnoses, outcomes, and immunizations.

Dr. Jon LaPook: How could you do your work with so little data?

Dr. Rochelle Walensky: Boy, did we have to work hard to put the pedal to the metal and create the infrastructure. We've built that in the last year. So we now have in December of 2020, we had 6,500 facilities. And end of last year, we had over 10,000 facilities, and we have more work to do.

Dr. Walensky says they can now better use data to gain insight into things like the effectiveness of vaccinations.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky: Here we're looking at deaths. And we can map it towards the unvaccinated versus in the people who've received two doses of a vaccine, versus people who've been boosted. And so you see this massive difference between vaccinated and unvaccinated.

Dr. Jon LaPook: It's kind of stunning.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky: It is stunning. 41 times the risk of dying from COVID-19 in December of 2021 if you are unvaccinated compared to if you are boosted.

Virologist Paul Duprex used an animation to show how the body creates more and more immune cells with each shot of vaccine. That's why almost every immunization we get, like measles and polio, takes more than one dose to be long-lasting.

Paul Duprex: There are lymph nodes all across the body. When we get immunized, the vaccine is taken up by the lymph nodes in the armpit. These white cells are produced. These white memory cells patrol the body. And whenever the second immunization occurs, they remember. They explode in the lymph nodes. And those memory cells are able to produce antibodies but they're also able to recognize infected cells and take those cells out really quickly, before those cells start producing more virus in the body.

Dr. Jon LaPook: So months or even years after a vaccination these memory cells may be there kind of asleep

Paul Duprex: But with one click of an infection, they wake up and they explode into action.

Dr. Jon LaPook: And with each vaccination, the amount of immunity goes up?

Paul Duprex: Yes. You can think of it like a staircase. The first vaccination, we're up one step. The second vaccination, maybe we get to the third step. And the boost, we're up at step ten. So we get this really faster, more robust response as we vaccinate once, twice, and then boost.

The CDC says research is ongoing to determine if, down the line, periodic COVID-19 immunizations will be needed, just like the annual flu shot.

The coronavirus vaccines were developed so quickly because scientists at the National Institutes of Health and elsewhere had already done the research needed to understand coronavirus's molecular structure. Last fall, the NIH asked Paul Duprex to join a team to study other viruses that can harm humans.

Dr. Jon LaPook: So kind of a most wanted list?

Paul Duprex: Some of the most deadly agents are represented here.

The NIH has prioritized these seven viral families that cause potentially lethal illnesses like Ebola, Lassa fever, and encephalitis. Duprex says more transmissible viruses emerging from any of these families could unleash another global pandemic.

Dr. Jon LaPook: What are scientists doing in the lab today?

Paul Duprex: Looking at the three-dimensional structure of these, understanding the genetics, understanding how they evolve, how quickly they change. By understanding the viruses we're ready to fight them whenever they come along and cause trouble.

Like so many Americans, Dr. Rochelle Walensky is taking advantage of a new phase in the pandemic. But as we head towards what may be the off-ramp of the pandemic, she told us she is taking nothing for granted.

Dr. Jon LaPook: The country is waking up.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky: Yeah.

Dr. Jon LaPook: Does it excite you or scare you?

Dr. Rochelle Walensky: We're tip-toeing back into it. And how energizing and exciting to be able to do that right now? And yet, we've been hit with so many curve balls, right? And so my job is to protect the public against those curve balls. And so we have to be, you know, vigilant to make sure that those curve balls don't come.

Produced by Denise Schrier Cetta. Associate producer, Katie Brennan. Broadcast associate, Eliza Costas. Edited by Warren Lustig.

Dr. Jonathan LaPook is the chief medical correspondent for CBS News.

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America's virus trackers show cautious optimism over state of coronavirus pandemic - 60 Minutes - CBS News

(WXYZ) The number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 in Michigan is now below 1,000, less than two months after the state set a record.

According to the latest information from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, there are 777 adults hospitalized with confirmed cases of COVID-19 and another 64 with suspected cases of COVID-19. That's as of March 7.

The state dropped below 1,000 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 last Friday, and the numbers have continued to decrease.

Compare that to Jan. 10, when the state set a record with 4,580 people in the hospital with confirmed cases of COVID-19. In less than two months, the number of hospitalizations has dropped more than 80%.

According to the state, metro Detroit still has the most people hospitalized with 120 people hospitalized in Oakland, Macomb and St. Clair counties and 234 people hospitalized in Detroit, Monroe, Washtenaw and Wayne counties.

The number of children in the hospital with confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 29 cases. It peaked at 117 on Jan. 14.

COVID-19 cases have continued to drop significantly from the peak earlier this year with the omicron surge. On Monday, the state reported an average of 552 new cases per day over the weekend, the lowest daily case average since the summer of 2020.

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View a global coronavirus tracker with data from Johns Hopkins University.

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Number of Michiganders hospitalized with COVID-19 drops below 1,000 - WXYZ 7 Action News Detroit

The official global death toll from COVID-19 eclipsed 6 million on Monday - underscoring that the pandemic, now entering its third year, is far from over.

The milestone, recorded by Johns Hopkins University, is the latest tragic reminder of the unrelenting nature of the pandemic even as people are shedding masks, travel is resuming and businesses are reopening around the globe.

Remote Pacific islands, whose isolation had protected them for more than two years, are just now grappling with their first outbreaks and deaths, fueled by the highly contagious Omicron variant.

Hong Kong, which is seeing deaths soar, is testing its entire population of 7.5 million three times this month as it clings to mainland China's "zero-COVID" strategy.

As death rates remain high in Poland, Hungary, Romania and other Eastern European countries, the region has seen more than 1.5 million refugees arrive from war-torn Ukraine, a country with poor vaccination coverage and high rates of cases and deaths.

And despite its wealth and vaccine availability, the United States is nearing 1 million reported deaths on its own.

Death rates worldwide are still highest among people unvaccinated against the virus, said Tikki Pang, a visiting professor at the National University of Singapore's medical school and co-chair of the Asia Pacific Immunization Coalition.

"This is a disease of the unvaccinated - look what is happening in Hong Kong right now - the health system is being overwhelmed," said Pang, the former director of research policy and cooperation with the World Health Organization. "The large majority of the deaths and the severe cases are in the unvaccinated, vulnerable segment of the population."

It took the world seven months to record its first million deaths from the virus after the pandemic began in early 2020. Four months later another million people had died, and 1 million have died every three months since, until the death toll hit 5 million at the end of October. Now it has reached 6 million - more than the populations of Berlin and Brussels combined, or the entire state of Maryland.

But despite the enormity of the figure, the world undoubtedly hit its 6 millionth death some time ago. Poor record-keeping and testing in many parts of the world has led to an undercount in coronavirus deaths, in addition to excess deaths related to the pandemic but not from actual COVID-19 infections, like people who died from preventable causes but could not receive treatment because hospitals were full.

Edouard Mathieu, head of data for the Our World in Data portal, said that, when countries' excess mortality figures are studied, as many as nearly four times the reported death toll have likely died because of the pandemic.

An analysis of excess deaths by a team at The Economist estimates that the number of COVID-19 deaths is between 14.1 million and 23.8 million.

"Confirmed deaths represent a fraction of the true number of deaths due to COVID, mostly because of limited testing, and challenges in the attribution of the cause of death," Mathieu told The Associated Press. "In some, mostly rich countries, that fraction is high and the official tally can be considered to be fairly accurate, but in others it is highly underestimated."

The United States has the biggest official death toll in the world, but the numbers have been trending downward over the last month.

The world has seen more than 445 million confirmed COVID-19 cases, and new weekly cases have been declining recently in all regions except the Western Pacific, which includes China, Japan and South Korea, among others, the World Health Organization reported this week.

Although the overall figures in the Pacific islands seeing their first outbreaks are small compared to larger countries, they are significant among their tiny populations and threaten to overwhelm fragile health care systems.

"Given what we know about COVID ... it's likely to hit them for the next year or so at least," said Katie Greenwood, head of the Red Cross Pacific delegation.

Tonga reported its first outbreak after the virus arrived with international aid vessels following the Jan. 15 eruption of a massive volcano that was followed by a tsunami. It now has several hundred cases but - with 66% of its population fully vaccinated - it has so far reported people suffering mostly mild symptoms and no deaths.

The Solomon Islands saw the first outbreak in January and now has thousands of cases and more than 100 deaths. The actual death toll is likely much higher, with the capital's hospital overwhelmed and many dying at home, Greenwood said.

Only 12% of Solomon Islanders are fully vaccinated, though the outbreak has provided new impetus to the country's vaccination campaign and 29% now have at least one shot.

Global vaccine disparity continues, with only 6.95% of people in low-income countries fully vaccinated compared to more than 73% in high-income nations, according to Our World in Data.

In a good sign, at the end of last month Africa surpassed Europe in the number of doses administered daily, but only about 12.5% of its population has received two shots.

The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is still pressing for more vaccines, though it has been a challenge. Some shipments arrive with little warning for countries' health systems and others near the expiration date - forcing doses to be destroyed.

Eastern Europe has been particularly hard hit by the omicron variant, and with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a new risk has emerged as hundreds of thousands of people flee to places like Poland on crowded trains. Health officials there have been offering free vaccinations to all refugees but have not been making them test upon arrival or quarantine.

"This is really tragic because great stress has a very negative effect on natural immunity and increases the risk of infections," said Anna Boron-Kaczmarska, a Polish infectious disease specialist. "They are in very high stress, being afraid for their lives, the lives of their children, their family members."

The Biden administration plans to begin stockpiling millions of at-home tests and pills for COVID treatment, as part of a new96 page planthat charts the future of the federal efforts to confront the pandemic.

"We've reached a new moment in the fight against COVID-19. Because of the significant progress we've made as a country, the determination and resilience of the American people, and the work we've done to make tools to protect ourselves widely available, we are moving forward safely, getting back to our more normal routines," White House COVID-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients told reporters last week.

The plan, first outlined by President Biden during hisState of the Union address, aims to strike a balance between efforts to ease restrictions imposed to curb the virus while ramping up efforts to address the danger future variants could pose. Zients has discussed the White House's work on the new playbook in recent weeks; he told reporters that the administration was consulting a wide array of public health experts, local governments, and agencies to finalize the plan.

--Alex Tin contributed to this report

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Official COVID-19 death toll tops 6 million as pandemic ebbs in many places but roars on in others - CBS News