Category: Corona Virus

PORTLAND, Ore. Oregon continued an unprecedented surge in coronavirus cases on Thursday, easily doubling the single-day record for cases as it stood last week and breaking the record for the third day in a row.

The Oregon Health Authority reported 7,615 new COVID-19 cases, the highest number ever seen on a single day in the nearly two years since the pandemic began. This is after setting a record with 6,203 cases on Wednesday,4,540 cases on Tuesday, and with 3,534 cases last Thursday. Prior to that, the single-day high was 3,207 cases, set during the height of the Delta variant surge.

The state's overall test positivity rate also continued to spike, with 23.3% of total tests returning a positive result.

Testing is in high demand, OHA said Wednesday, with state officials noting a high volume of tests being performed this week. The number of COVID-19 tests reported Thursday was 38,880 one of the highest single-day counts since the pandemic began.

The OHA expects that it will begin receiving nearly 1.1 million rapid test kits this week, under an aforementioned plan to distribute the at-home kits throughout the state. Starting next Monday, the OHA's warehouse is expected to receive five trucks per week for five weeks in a row until the order is fulfilled.

"Since iHealth Labs is planning to ramp up product of the test kits, Oregons order may be fulfilled ahead of schedule," the agency said.

Hospitalizations due to COVID-19, while rising, have not spiked at the same dramatic rate as overall cases perhaps lending credence to indications that the Omicron variant, while highly transmissable, produces less serious forms of illness. Still, health experts worry that infections will become so widespread that cases requiring hospitalization will overwhelm healthcare systems.

"Sudden surges of COVID-19 infections can lead to more people needing medical care than our hospital systems can treat at one time.," the OHA said. "Reducing the number of infections also prevents healthcare systems from exceeding their capacity."

As of Thursday morning, there were 588 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 across Oregon, 65 more than on Wednesday. There were 110 patients in intensive care units, two more than the day prior.

Statewide, there were 42 available adult ICU beds out of 645 total (7% availability) and 221 available adult non-ICU beds out of 4,072 (5% availability).

Cases and deaths

The new confirmed and presumptive COVID-19 cases reported today are in the following counties: Baker (17), Benton (317), Clackamas (756), Clatsop (45), Columbia (49), Coos (219), Crook (41), Curry (42), Deschutes (159), Douglas (91), Grant (14), Hood River (27), Jackson (441), Jefferson (62), Josephine (105), Klamath (70), Lake (4), Lane (623), Lincoln (74), Linn (204), Malheur (33), Marion (501), Morrow (34), Multnomah (1,598), Polk (275), Sherman (2), Tillamook (21), Umatilla (306), Union (27), Wallowa (1), Wasco (21), Washington (1,333) and Yamhill (103).

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Coronavirus Watch: Oregon breaks COVID-19 case record for the third day running - KDRV

The omicron variant quickly took over the global coronavirus landscape after it was first reported in South Africa in late November, 2021. The U.S. became the 24th country to report a case of omicron infection when health officials announced on Dec. 1, 2021, that the new strain had been identified in a patient in California.

How do scientists know what versions of the coronavirus are present? How quickly can they see which viral variants are making inroads in a population?

Alexander Sundermann and Lee Harrison are epidemiologists who study novel approaches for outbreak detection. Here they explain how the genomic surveillance system works in the U.S. and why its important to know which virus variants are circulating.

Genomic surveillance provides an early warning system for SARS-CoV-2. The same way a smoke alarm helps firefighters know where a fire is breaking out, genomic surveillance helps public health officials see which coronavirus variants are popping up where.

Labs sequence the genome in coronavirus samples taken from patients COVID-19 tests. These are diagnostic PCR tests that have come back positive for SARS-CoV-2. Then scientists are able to tell from the viruss genome which coronavirus variant infected the patient.

By sequencing enough coronavirus genomes, scientists are able to build up a representative picture of which variants are circulating in the population overall. Some variants have genetic mutations that have implications for prevention and treatment of COVID-19. So genomic surveillance can inform decisions about the right countermeasures helping to control and put out the fire before it spreads.

For example, the omicron variant has mutations that diminish how well existing COVID-19 vaccines work. In response, officials recommended booster shots to enhance protection. Similarly, mutations in omicron reduce the effectiveness of some monoclonal antibodies, which are used both to prevent and treat COVID-19 in high-risk patients. Knowing which variants are circulating is therefore crucial for determining which monoclonal antibodies are likely to be effective.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention leads a consortium called the National SARS-CoV-2 Strain Surveillance (NS3) system. It gathers around 750 SARS-CoV-2-positive samples per week from state public health labs across the U.S. Independent of CDC efforts, commercial, university and health department laboratories sequence additional specimens.

Each type of lab has its own strengths in genomic surveillance. Commercial laboratories can sequence a high number of tests, rapidly. Academic partners can provide research expertise. And public health laboratories can supply insight into local transmission dynamics and outbreaks.

Regardless of the source, the sequence data is generally made publicly available and therefore contributes to genomic surveillance.

When a lab sequences a SARS-CoV-2 genome, it uploads the results to a public database that includes when and where the coronavirus specimen was collected.

The open-access Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data (GISAID) is an example of one of these databases. Scientists launched GISAID in 2008 to provide a quick and easy way to see what influenza strains were circulating across the globe. Since then, GISAID has grown and pivoted to now provide access to SARS-CoV-2 genomic sequences.

The database compares a samples genetic information to all the other samples collected and shows how that particular strain has evolved. To date, over 6.7 million SARS-CoV-2 sequences from 241 countries and territories have been uploaded to GISAID.

Taken together, this patchwork of genomic surveillance data provides a picture of the current variants spreading in the U.S. For example, on Dec. 4, 2021, the CDC projected that omicron accounted for 0.6% of the COVID-19 cases in the U.S. The estimated proportion rose to 95% by Jan. 1, 2022. Surveillance gave a stark warning of how quickly this variant was becoming predominant, allowing researchers to study which countermeasures would work best.

Its important to note, however, that genomic surveillance data is often dated. The time between a patient taking a COVID-19 test and the viral genome sequence getting uploaded to GISAID can be many days or even weeks. Because of the multiple steps in the process, the median time from collection to GISAID in the U.S. ranges from seven days (Kansas) to 27 days (Alaska). The CDC uses statistical methods to estimate variant proportions for the most recent past until the official data has come in.

Earlier in 2021, the CDC and other public health laboratories were sequencing about 10,000 COVID-19 specimens per week total. Considering that hundreds of thousands of cases have been diagnosed weekly during most of the pandemic, epidemiologists considered that number to be too small a proportion to provide a complete picture of circulating strains. More recently, the CDC and public health labs have been sequencing closer to around 60,000 cases per week.

Despite this improvement, there is still a wide gap in the percentages of COVID-19 cases sequenced from state to state, ranging from a low of 0.19% in Oklahoma to a high of 10.0% in North Dakota within the past 30 days.

Moreover, the U.S. overall sequences a much smaller percentage of COVID-19 cases compared to some other countries: 2.3% in the U.S. compared to the 7.0% in the U.K., 14.8% in New Zealand and 17% in Israel.

Imagine if researchers collected COVID-19 tests from only one neighborhood in an entire state. The surveillance data would be biased toward the variant circulating in that neighborhood, since people are likely transmitting the same strain locally. The system might not even register another variant that is gaining steam in a different city.

Thats why scientists aim to gather a diverse sample from across a region. Random geographically and demographically representative sampling gives researchers a good sense of the big picture in terms of which variants are predominant or diminishing.

There are a few reasons patients are generally not informed about the results if their specimen gets sequenced.

First, the time lag from specimen collection to sequence results is often too long to make the information clinically useful. Many patients will have progressed far into their illness by the time their variant is identified.

Second, the information is often not relevant for patient care. Treatment options are largely the same regardless of what variant has caused a COVID-19 infection. In some cases, a doctor might select the most appropriate monoclonal antibodies for treatment based on which variant a patient has, but this information can often be gleaned from faster laboratory methods.

As we begin 2022, it is more important than ever to have a robust genomic surveillance program that can capture whatever the next new coronavirus variant is. A system that provides a representative picture of current variants and fast turnaround is ideal. Proper investment in genomic surveillance for SARS-CoV-2 and other pathogens and data infrastructure will aid the U.S. in fighting future waves of COVID-19 and other infectious diseases.

Continued here:

From delta to omicron, here's how scientists know which coronavirus variants are circulating in the US - The Conversation US

ST. LOUIS In the midst of a new surge inCOVIDcases, another concern is taking the spotlight.

Its being called flurona. Despite the very catchy name, its a term for when a person tests positive for the flu and the corona virus at the same time. Both are common, so doctors say its not unexpected that some people would be infected simultaneously.

Flurona is not a new disease, and its not a new variant of COVID. Doctors said the flu virus and COVID-19 are from two different virus families. Although uncommon, last years flu season also saw a handful of cases of flu and COVID in the same person at the same time.

Infectious disease experts say being infected with both at the same time is obviously not good, but theres no clear indication that this is a particularly bad combination. One way to reduce your risk of becoming severely ill with either virus is to get vaccinated, wear a mask in crowded spaces, and wash your hands often. Since both the flu and COVID are respiratory diseases, they can cause similar symptoms like a cough, runny nose, sore throat, fever, headache, and fatigue, according to the World Health Organization. Both are spread through droplets and aerosols when an infected person breaths, speaks, coughs or sneezes. Doctors go on to say because its winter and cold, more people are indoors, which brings a higher risk of upper respiratory infections. The most at-risk people are those with breathing issues, the elderly, and those suffering from chronic illnesses.

There is not enough data to suggest if rates of hospitalization are higher for those infected with both the flu andCOVIDcompared to if someone just had one of the viruses. Last years flu season was mild, doctors are hoping for the same this year, but are bracing for more cases as area hospitals are already overwhelmed with outbreaks of the omicron variant.

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Understanding flurona: person has the flu and the coronavirus simultaneously - fox2now.com

There appears to be yet another layer to America's coronavirus testing chaos: People may not test positive on rapid nasal tests until after they're infectious, which would make the tests an unreliable measure of whether it's safe to gather.

The big picture: Rapid tests have been hailed as a way to weather the Omicron surge without mass disruption to everyday life. But they've been in short supply for weeks, and now new research along with loads of anecdotal evidence suggests there may be significant limitations to their usefulness with this variant.

Driving the news: A small preprint study released Wednesday found that, among a case study of 30 people who took nasal rapid antigen tests and saliva PCR tests at the same time, four of them transmitted the virus following a false negative rapid antigen test.

State of play: The study builds on emerging evidence that saliva swabs may be better for detecting Omicron than nasal swabs.

Our thought bubble: Almost everyone I talk to professionally or personally knows someone who tested negative on a rapid antigen test but positive on a PCR test (the gold standard), or who tested negative on rapid tests while symptomatic for days before getting a positive test, or who attended a gathering where someone had a negative rapid test ahead of time but went on to infect others with COVID.

What they're saying: "We have seen far too many people who are clinically ill who are in their third and fourth day of negative antigen tests but test positive by PCR," said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

The bottom line: If you can get ahold of a rapid test, and you test negative on it, that may still not mean it's safe to visit your elderly grandparents or that you can go to work without worrying about spreading the virus.

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Rapid nasal COVID tests feared to be returning false negatives - Axios

Louisiana notched a new single-day record for COVID-19 infections Thursday, reporting more than 14,000 additional cases, as the highly contagious omicron variant continues to rip across the state at an unprecedented clip with no sign yet of slowing down.

Warning that the risk of getting infected with coronavirus has never been greater, Gov. John Bel Edwards on Thursday urged Louisianans to mask up and get vaccinated but stopped short of issuing any mitigation measures to slow the virus spread.

"Theres a very good chance that just about everyone Im speaking to today has COVID, just got over it or knows someone with COVID, Edwards said.

This week marked the start of a new semester for Louisianas schoolchildren, and although the states Office of Public Health has recommended universal masking in K-12 classrooms, some school districts arent taking the advice.

Echoing State Superintendent of Education Cade Brumley, the governor said its up to local school districts to decide whether masks are appropriate, pointing out that unlike earlier phases of the pandemic, vaccines are now available for kids aged 5 and up.

Quite frankly, I wish more school districts I wish all of them would take the recommendations, Edwards said. But at this point in time, Im not going to impose that mandate from my position as governor.

With cases skyrocketing, the number of patients getting admitted to the hospital with COVID-19 is also increasing, though a smaller percentage of those infected are requiring hospitalization during this wave than previous surges, a sign that the virus is causing milder illness, said Dr. Joe Kanter, the states top public health official.

There were 1,412 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 in Louisiana as of Wednesday, increasing by 125 patients since the day before, according to the latest Health Department data. The use of ventilators increased by 12 patients from the day before with a total of 60 patients requiring the intervention.

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In another sign that the virus is less deadly, between four and five percent of patients are requiring mechanical ventilation in this latest surge, a rate far lower than previous waves, when the intervention was needed for 15 to 20 percent of patients, Kanter said.

Though there are far more infections during this wave, hospitalizations are rising at the same rate as that seen during this summer's delta wave, which culminated in a pandemic peak of 3,022 patients in mid-August.Still, if enough people are infected, patients may still reach a number that may overwhelm hospitals, which are short staffed due to burnout and infections among workers.

"It is simple math: even if it is less virulent, and it is, if many more people on an order of magnitude that were seeing are getting infected, then youre still putting enormous demand on the health care delivery system," Edwards said.

Louisiana counted 14,077 confirmed and probable cases in Thursday's report. Of more than 230,000 tests reported over the last seven days, 46,766 returned positive results, a positivity rate of more than 20 percent, the state Health Department reported.

The new variant is also causing more reinfections, Edwards said. In November, 563 people contracted the virus again after a previous infection. That number jumped to 11,278 reinfections in December, when the omicron variant took over.

The sheer prevalence of COVID-19 in Louisiana is unprecedented, Kanter said. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention categorizes a community as being at the highest risk of transmission when theres over 100 cases per 100,000 people. Louisiana is currently at 1,030 infections per 100,000 people.

"This surge came on very quickly. The hope and expectation is that it will subside very quickly," Kanter said. "We haven't hit that peak yet. We're hoping it comes soon."

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COVID infections hit another daily record in Louisiana as hospitalizations rise - The Advocate

(Washington, DC)The Districts reported data for January 4, 2022 includes1,326new positive coronavirus (COVID-19) cases, bringing the Districts overall positive case total to 106,819.

The District reported that two additional residents lost their lives due to COVID-19.

Tragically, 1,222 District residents have lost their lives due to COVID-19.

Visit coronavirus.dc.gov/data for interactive data dashboards or to download COVID-19 data.

Below is the Districts current Key Metrics Summary Table.

Below is the Districts aggregated total of positive COVID-19 cases, sorted by age and gender.

Below is the Districts aggregated total of positive COVID-19 cases, sorted by ward of residence.

Below is the Districts aggregated total of positive COVID-19 cases, sorted by neighborhood of residence.

Below is the Districts aggregated total of positive COVID-19 cases, sorted by race.

Below is the Districts Hospital Census and hospital bed availability at District hospitals.

Below is the ventilator use and availability at District hospitals.

The District currently has 44 intensive care unit (ICU) beds available in hospitals out of 345 total ICU beds.

Below is the Districts total lives lost due to COVID-19, sorted by race.

Below is the Districts total lives lost due to COVID-19, sorted by sex.

Below is the Districts total lives lost due to COVID-19, sorted by age.

Below is the Districts total lives lost due to COVID-19, sorted by ward of residence.

Guidance has been published for healthcare providers, employers and the public to provide information on what to do if you have been diagnosed with or are a contact of someone who has COVID-19.

Residents are encouraged to get vaccinated at one of our free walk-up vaccination sites located throughout the District. For more information, please visit vaccines.gov.

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Coronavirus Data for January 4, 2022 | mayormb - Executive Office of the Mayor

The wildfire-like spread of the Omicron variant may have inspired you, like many Californians, to snap up a few rapid coronavirus test kits if you could find them, that is.

And when you started worrying that youd caught the coronavirus, you may have put one of those kits to use. You carefully swabbed the insides of both nostrils, mixed your sample with a few drops of reagent, placed it on a test strip and waited 15 minutes to see your results.

But after doing all that and gasping with either relief or dismay you may have overlooked the kits last instruction: to report your results.

Some test kits advise you to call your healthcare provider. Others want you to use the test makers app.

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Home testing leads to marked underestimates of case numbers, Dr. Robert Wachter, chair of UC San Franciscos Department of Medicine, said in an email. Clearly many hundreds of thousands of people are now diagnosing themselves with positive home tests (generally plus symptoms) and these are not reported.

Even if you do try to report your results, the information isnt likely to move the needle on the publics understanding of the virus. Thats because theyre not included in the data health officials use to produce their reports and policies.

So the more people test themselves at home, the less the official numbers about new infections and positivity rates (that is, the percentage of tests that detect the virus) will provide an accurate picture of the publics health.

Thats not necessarily a bad thing its just a cautionary note about the data we rely on as we chart a path through the pandemic.

Experts say theres always been a disconnect between the reported coronavirus case counts and the truth. Because many people who catch the virus experience few or no symptoms, many infections go unreported.

Similarly, test positivity rates tend to be inflated because the people most likely to show up at a testing center are the ones with COVID-19-like symptoms. Large organizations that require all their members to be tested regularly invariably have lower positivity rates than sites that test only people who think they might be sick.

Testing more people more often, as a number of other developed countries do, could help identify outbreaks and limit their spread. But for a variety of reasons, a growing reliance on at-home rapid tests kits may not help public health officials in their battle to track and understand the pandemic.

There are a number of situations that might prompt people to test themselves. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests taking a self-test if you have COVID-19 symptoms or have been exposed or potentially exposed to an individual with COVID-19. (The symptoms to look out for, the CDC says, include fever or chills, cough, shortness of breath, fatigue and sore throat.)

Another good self-test time, the agency advises, is before gathering with people who are at greater risk of being infected, such as those who are unvaccinated, elderly or have weakened immune systems. Or maybe you want to attend an event that requires proof of a negative test.

What do you do after you take the test? If it comes back positive, health officials say you should isolate at home, alert the people with whom youve been in close contact, and tell your healthcare provider. The L.A. County Department of Public Health also has a hotline for you to call (833) 540-0473 if you have questions, need referrals or need help in notifying your close contacts.

A department spokeswoman said that we will be documenting and interviewing those that do call us with positive results. But the department does not want to be contacted about negative test results.

Nor are health officials generally including the home test results in the confirmed case counts. One reason is that the low-cost rapid tests are antigen tests, while clinics and county test centers use polymerase chain reaction tests, which are better at detecting infections in their early stages. Then theres the question of whether people taking tests at home are using them correctly or reporting the results accurately.

Verification of results is a huge issue for rapid at-home tests, said Gigi Kwik Gronvall, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. Thats why if you need a coronavirus test result to board a plane, she said, you either need to have a PCR test that was done in a lab or you could go to a site that could give you [an antigen] test but its verified somebodys doing it for you and they see its done correctly.

After some initial mix-ups, states are now reporting any antigen test results they collect separately from PCR results, Gronvall said.

Dr. Sara H. Cody, Santa Clara Countys health officer and public health director, agreed with Wachter that the new infections reported by health officials each day are an undercount. But that may not be as big a drawback as it would have been at the start of the pandemic.

Back then, Cody said, health officials followed every case so carefully because it really, really mattered in our understanding of the pandemic and informing our policy choices. But now, she said, were in a place in the pandemic thats quite different.

Even with limited testing, officials know that case counts will increase rapidly because of the Omicron variant. Whats most important to us now, she said, is that we measure our hospital resources to make sure people who need acute care can get it. And with vaccination and booster rates high in her county, Cody added, its hard to tell at this point how many of the newly infected there will eventually need a hospital bed.

Wachter, Cody and other health experts said policymakers focus is shifting away from the reported case counts to other measures, such as hospitalizations and positivity rates. Granted, positivity rates are thrown off by the exclusion of at-home test results. But Cody said its still meaningful to have an apples-to-apples comparison of positive test rates over time.

Santa Clara County has been doing around 20,000 tests a day, and its positivity rate was around 1.5% in early December, Cody said. As of Tuesday, she said, it was nearly 10.5%.

Despite the data issues they create, at-home antigen tests are still an important complement to PCR tests, Cody said. They alert people who need to isolate and reduce the chances that they are going to go on and infect others, which is important broadly to public health.

Besides, the L.A. County health department says, coronavirus case counts arent as meaningful as the trends they reveal.

As is true with many reportable diseases, the reported numbers have never captured all cases, a department spokeswoman said. But they have provided trendlines for us to better understand what is happening and to contribute to modeling what is likely to be the most accurate numbers.

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If you give yourself a COVID test, who tracks the results? - Los Angeles Times

CHICOPEE, Mass. (WWLP) COVID-19 testing in Massachusetts may be impacted due to the snow Friday morning.

The state is urging residents to call your testing location to ensure it is open as closures are expected.

The drive-through testing site at the Eastfield Mall in Springfield will continue Friday despite snow in the forecast. Testing will be conducted from 8 a.m. until 3 p.m. Testing lines have been long so youre advised to register in advance.

Molecular and antigen tests (not PCR) are available at the Holyoke Medical Center Auxiliary Conference Center located on 20 Hospital Drive in Holyoke, Monday through Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Holyoke Community College and the War Memorial testing sites are closed Friday due to the inclement weather. HCC COVID-19 testing will reopen on Saturday from 7 to 11 a.m.

The Easthampton drive-through testing site is by appointment only. As of Friday morning, appointments were book through Tuesday, January 11.

To find a testing location near you visitMass.gov.

22News called the following locations to verify COVID-19 testing Friday:

You should get a test for COVID-19 if:

Testing may also be advised if you are unvaccinated and have recently traveled out of Massachusetts, and you may consider using a self-test before joining indoor gatherings with others who are not in your household.

For detailed information, visit the CDCs webpage:Testing for COVID-19

You can also call 2-1-1, a 24-hour state-supported telephone hotline.

If you develop symptoms of COVID-19, even if they are mild, please contact your healthcare provider and a test site near you to schedule a test. You can alsocheck your symptoms online.

Symptoms may appear2-14 days after exposureto the virus andmay include:

VisitFind a COVID-19 Testto search for a testing site near you.

Many sites may require pre-screening, a referral and/or an appointment.

Pleasecontact the site prior to arrival.

COVID-19 testing for symptomatic individuals and close contacts is usually covered by insurance and available at no cost to you.

Additionally, many test sites in the Commonwealth test uninsured individuals for free. If you are uninsured, please call your local test site to confirm before making an appointment.

It can take a few days to get your test results and while you are waiting, you should stay home and limit your contact with anyone else. If you test positive for COVID-19, you should self-isolate until you are no longer infectious, and notify your close contacts that they may have been exposed to COVID-19.

*This list is not all possible symptoms. Please call your medical provider for any other symptoms that are severe or concerning to you.

Aclose contactis someone you have been inside with and were within 6 feet of for at least 10-15 minutes while symptomatic or in the 2 days before symptom onset. You can be a close contact of someone who didnt have symptoms if you were inside with them or and were within 6 feet of for at least 10-15 minutes in the 10 days after they tested positive or in the 2 days before their positive test was taken. A close contact can also be someone who had direct contact with the droplets of a COVID-19 case (e.g., being coughed on) while not wearing a mask or face covering.

There are 2 types of COVID-19 testing:Virus TestingandAntibody Testing.

Virustesting is the type that tells you if you currently have COVID-19. These tests are typically done using a nasal swab, oral swab, or saliva sample, and then sent to a lab. There are two types of this testing:

Antibodytesting detects the presence of antibodies to COVID-19 in your blood. Antibodies are produced during an infection with COVID-19 or by vaccination.

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COVID-19 testing in Massachusetts impacted due to snow - WWLP.com

Washington to expand access to coronavirus tests, to help contain spread of COVID-19  KOMO News

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Washington to expand access to coronavirus tests, to help contain spread of COVID-19 - KOMO News

Sex and the City always existed in a fantasy version of New York City, but in its HBO Max sequel, And Just Like That, theres a different sort of illusion at work. In the opening scene, Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), Charlotte (Kristin Davis) and Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) are waiting for a table at a very crowded, very indoor restaurant.

Remember when we legally had to stand six feet apart from one another? Carrie quips.

And just like that Covid is over. At least it is in this shows Manhattan, as well as in a cohort of other series that try, wishfully, to press the epidemiological fast-forward button.

In the real world, the Omicron variant may be driving case counts into the stratosphere, but on TV, the pandemic is playing dead. In the Season 11 premiere of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry Davids HBO comedy of ill manners, chaos breaks out during a party (specifically, a premature funeral) at Albert Brookss house when Larry finds a closet stuffed with Purell, toilet paper and KN95 masks, exposing the Lost in America director as having been a Covid hoarder.

You know during the pandemic. The one that is definitely over.

For nearly two years now, representing (or avoiding) Covid on TV has been a choice among bad options. Most shows ignored it altogether. A few, like Social Distance on Netflix, made the pandemic a direct subject, earnestly if clunkily.

But maybe most awkward have been the series that acknowledged Covid existed but declared or implied it was over long before Covid decided it was over. NBCs time-skipping This Is Us played the pandemics greatest hits throughout Season 5 quarantine, video calls, pandemic unemployment but this weeks Season 6 premiere suggests that the show has moved on. Season 2 of HBO Maxs Love Life, a story that spans several years, includes one pandemic episode, then begins the next in a version of 2021 where an audience is sitting unmasked in New Yorks La MaMa theater.

Some prime-time series about doctors, police and other emergency workers made fitful efforts to depict Covid, but their mask discipline sagged over time. Greys Anatomy, for instance, brought the pandemic full-on to Seattle Grace hospital in fall 2020. By fall 2021, it opened with the disclaimer that it now portrays a fictional, post-pandemic world which represents our hopes for the future.

These are all understandable choices, and maybe the only creatively practical ones. But they make for some potent cognitive dissonance. When I watched a post-pandemic Greys episode recently on Hulu, it opened with a pre-roll ad urging me to get a booster shot.

For programs that simply try to show how people live daily life, the pandemics challenges are both subtler and more pervasive than those presented by past catastrophes. After 9/11, there was no need for homeland-security alerts to impinge on Friends, and the subsequent fixation on terrorism was even a natural driver of plot for action thrillers.

The pandemic, on the other hand, quelled action. Covid touched every aspect of mundane life. Masks limited facial expression. Real-life distancing practices meant that the basic engine of sitcoms people in a room or a bar or an office, talking was now fraught with angst.

Very occasionally, series have managed to capture this reality, as in the second and final season of HBOs naturalistic comedy Betty, whose young characters skateboarded through pandemic-era New York in various states of matter-of-fact maskedness.

The remake of Scenes From a Marriage split the difference oddly, opening with the fourth-wall-breaking image of the cast and crew working under Covid protocols, then letting its domestic dissolution play out sans masks.

More often, TV has breezed past the situation, or wished it away. As long as a year ago, series were declaring early victory over Covid. NBCs Mr. Mayor, which premiered last January, starred Ted Danson as the mayor of Los Angeles, a job in which managing public health is not a small detail. The pilot yada-yadas the pandemic away by having him mention that Dolly Parton bought everyone the vaccine. (A later episode does involve a lice outbreak.)

To its credit, a series like And Just Like That is at least trying to acknowledge the pandemic, rather than shunt it offscreen. It just does so in the past tense.

The Peloton on which Mr. Big (Chris Noth) takes his fateful last ride was a habit many other shut-ins of a certain income acquired during lockdown, which was also when he and Carrie began their evening ritual of listening to vinyl LPs. Anthony (Mario Cantone) runs a bakery, the offshoot of one more Covid-acquired sourdough hobby. And when Carrie calls Miranda out for her drinking in a recent episode, Miranda shoots back: I am drinking too much. Yes. We all were in the pandemic, and I guess I just kept going. Make mine a double.

Theres a note of wistful, wishful thinking in all this retconning of reality would that we could write a time jump into our own scripts! But theres also the simple matter of timing. TV generally works on a faster schedule than movies or books, but its not instantaneous (and shooting during Covid tends to take longer).

So TV creators suddenly conscripted, like educators and restaurant managers, into making public-health decisions they never expected to be part of the job description have been left to guess at Covids future like a hapless pop culture C.D.C.

In some cases, whats onscreen now is a time capsule from the heady early days of vaccine optimism. The post-Covid Curb season wrapped production a few mutations ago, in May, when the virus seemed to be fizzling into oblivion. (The executive producer Jeff Schaffer told The Hollywood Reporter that the season takes place Right now, if everyone had the brains to get vaccinated.) A comfy chic challenge in the newest Project Runway season, produced in spring, had contestants adapt those awful couch clothes that weve all been living in for over a year, presumably for a post-Covid future.

South Park, which released a two-movie Post Covid special on Paramount+ in November and December, has one of the quickest turnaround times in TV the first installment was released just as Omicron was discovered and the second worked in a reference to the variant. But it put the post in its Post Covid premise by using time travel and alternate reality to depict a future in which humanity had well, almost beaten the virus. (Maybe the most far-fetched twist is its resolution, in which, with the seriess frustrating both-sidesing, vaxxers and antivaxxers shower each other with apologies for getting so worked up during the plague years.)

Still, its striking that TV, whose strength is the ability to stay on top of the moment, has generally worked so hard to avoid the biggest thing to happen to its collective audience in the past two years. You could easily imagine face masks becoming a staple, even a clich, of period dramas some day a visual shorthand for the turbulent days of 2020 the way a shot of the corner of Haight and Ashbury says the 60s even as future rerun-watchers puzzle at why theyre nowhere to be found in the TV of our own time.

Maybe its only fitting that TV producers should muddle through this garbage storm like everyone else, unsure what the rules will be by airtime, wishing they knew where the pandemic fell on the spectrum between temporary emergency and permanent way of life. And Im sure plenty of viewers would rather be reminded of anything else.

But youre reminded anyway, if only by the twinge of uncanniness from seeing TV characters act as if the pandemic were history, even as youre still trying to get your hands on rapid antigen tests. I bet Albert Brooks has a ton of them.

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How TV Shows Are Moving Past the Coronavirus Pandemic - The New York Times