Category: Corona Virus

Once again, Britain is experiencing a festive season hit by waves of Covid-19 infections. Last year, Christmas and New Year were spoiled by the appearance of the Alpha variant. This time, it is Omicron that has sent case numbers soaring. Christmas cancellations have swept through Britains restaurants, pubs and clubs and left the country on the brink of another bleak New Year as the NHS warns once more that it is facing the threat of being overwhelmed by spiralling numbers of seriously ill patients.

The scenario has raised fears that this now represents the shape of Christmases to come. Social restrictions and lockdown threats could become our normal festive fare.

It is a dispiriting prospect. But is it realistic? Are we justified in drawing close parallels between this Christmas and last years? These are key questions because, in trying to answer them, we may also find clues to the likely path of the entire pandemic.

At first glance, the two years look strikingly similar, with case numbers rocketing in only a few weeks in the UK. However, hospitalisations and deaths from Covid-19 remain very low so far this year, with latest research suggesting that the new variant appears to trigger fewer cases of severe illness than its viral predecessors.

Scientists have generally treated these results studies as good news but have also counselled caution. Daily Covid-19 case numbers are still rising they reached a record 122,000 on Friday and it was estimated that 1.7m people had Covid-19 in the UK last week.

Crucially, most of the new cases have occurred in young adults, which has led some researchers to warn that if Omicron starts to affect older more vulnerable people in greater numbers, hospitalisations could still jump. On the other hand, a huge number of people especially the elderly have now been give vaccines and boosters and will have gained considerable protection against Omicron. It remains to be seen how these different factors affect figures. At present, data is still being gathered and it is too early to be sure. At the same time, policy decisions to protect public health still have to be taken.

The problem is highlighted by infectious disease epidemiologist Professor Mark Woolhouse of Edinburgh University. There is inevitably a lag between infection and hospitalisation, he told the journal Nature last week. But in the meantime, policy decisions have to be made, and that is not straightforward.

Many scientists believe evidence is now suggesting that this idea may be correct. Recent studies in Scotland, England and South Africa all point in this direction. My gut feeling is that this variant is the first step in a process by which the virus adapts to the human population to produce more benign symptoms, says Dr Julian Tang, Professor of Respiratory Sciences at Leicester University. In a sense, it is to the viruss advantage if it affects people in a way that that they dont get too sick because then they can walk around and mingle in society and spread the virus even more.

Some health officials have predicted that Covid-19 could end up behaving like influenza, which requires a new vaccine to deal with new strains that appear every year. However, Professor Martin Hibberd, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, argues that coronaviruses like those that already cause common colds do not behave this way: They do not appear as new strains every year. The reason we get colds in winter is because our immunity to coronaviruses does not last very long. And this virus seems to be more similar to those that cause common colds. In other words, we may still need to think about giving vaccines to protect against Covid-19 every year because immunity will always slip.

That does not mean we face doom and gloom for the next five years, adds Tang. I think the virus will evolve itself out of the pandemic strain very soon and become milder, more transmissible to the point where you may only need to think about vaccinating the more vulnerable members of the population.

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Omicron: bleak New Year or beginning of the end for the pandemic? - The Guardian

Imagine how many more lives could have been saved and suffering could have been avoided had more ... [+] people followed science-backed Covid-19 precautions from the start of the pandemic. (Photo by Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images)

Today, December 23, in addition to being National Pfeffernuse Day, is supposed to be the Festivus Holiday. Thats according to the Frank Costanza character on the super-syndicated TV showSeinfeld. And Festivus is supposed to begin with the airing of grievances. So, in the words of the elder Costanza, I got a lot of problems with some of you people and now you're gonna hear about it. Here are 10 such grievances for 2021 all focused on, surprise, surprise, the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic:

Nothing lasts forever, with the possible exception of the 1996 movie The English Patient. Back in 2020, many experts warned that this pandemic would continue for about two plus years into 2022. Such a time course would be similar to what was seen with the 1918 influenza pandemic. That flu pandemic began with a herald wave in the Spring of 1918 and went through surges in the two subsequent Winters before dissipating in the Spring of 1920. So staying vigilant and buckling for about two or so years is not the same as doing it forever.

An anti-mask protestor holds a sign during a rally outside Downing Street in London, England. (Photo ... [+] by Hollie Adams/Getty Images)

Sure, you may feel that you owe it to world to share the amazing bottom half of your face with everyone. But come on folks. Its a face mask not a cinder block attached to your genitals. If wearing a face mask is the worst thing that you have to do today, your life aint bad at all.

These days youve got podcast hosts, politicians, and all sorts of other people with no real medical and scientific training and experience spouting off misinformation about Covid-19. Also, just because someone is a medical doctor or has some type of science degree doesnt mean that he or she is qualified to offer real Covid-19 advice. Would you let a podcast host defend you in a criminal court case? Or an ice hockey player quarterback your team in the Super Bowl? Or a proctologist perform heart surgery on you?

Check the sources of the information and their qualifications. Getting medical advice from an anonymous social media account would be like getting medical advice from the graffiti in a public bathroom stall.

Being asked to wear a face mask or provide proof of vaccination like everyone else when you want to watch Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway in a movie theater isnt the same as racial discrimination. And its certainly not the same as The Holocaust.

The Covid-19 pandemic has revealed a lot of the structural racism that has long existed in society. Persons of color have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic. For example, Black and Latinx Americans have died at approximately twice the rate as White Americans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Then theres whats been happening to many Asian American. As I have covered previously for Forbes, the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic has uncovered anti-Asian racism and hate that has been going on for years, long before people started popularizing terms like the kung-flu virus. The following tweet thread described some of this:

Yet, many people still refuse to acknowledge such structural racism and take concrete steps to fixing these problems.

Sure, you may be able to make money selling supplements or hydrogen peroxide nebulizers by claiming that they can somehow prevent or cure Covid-19. But for Petes and everyone elses sake, can you please stop putting profits over people? Your misinformation and disinformation may be hurting and potentially killing people.

Over 241.5 million people, which is 72.7% of the U.S. population, have already received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccines, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). So how come keys, magnets, paper clips, anvils, and other metallic objects arent freaking flying around or sticking to everyone? Again, trying to discredit Covid-19 vaccines or other science-backed Covid-19 prevention measures may serve your political or business agenda. But you may be doing real harm to many, many people.

Remember this video from The Daily Show with Trevor Noahthat captured the numerous times then-U.S. President and current Mar-A-Lago resident Donald Trump claimed that the pandemic was rounding the corner in 2020:

That was a freaking huge corner. Clearly the pandemic was nowhere close to being finished in 2020. And it hasnt rounded that so-called corner in 2021. Yet, a number of politicians have continued to push for premature relaxation of Covid-19 precautions. For example, the U.S. prematurely relaxed face mask and social distancing recommendations in mid-May. And like with many things that are premature, that left a messy situation and many people rather confused. Soon thereafter, the Delta variant came along and well, in the words of Ron Burgundy, That escalated quickly. Then in the Fall and early Winter of 2021, some politicians like Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said stuff like Real America is done with #COVID19, as you can see here:

To that, many people responded with what was essentially an OMG. And the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) seems to have responded with Omicron.

If you think you are really free to do anything that you want, try going to your workplace completely naked or use a restaurant table as a toilet. Better yet. Try doing the same thing at the house or private country club of one of those politicians claiming that face mask requirements are infringing on your personal liberties. Rules and requirements are in place because many people are just plain selfish and wont do whats good for society. Whether or not you take Covid-19 precautions affects many people around you. For example, the protection offered by the vaccines increases as more and more people around you get vaccinated too. Thats how herd immunity works.

Welcome to 2021 when politicians trolled Big Bird after the Sesame Street character encouraged people to get the Covid-19 vaccine. Science-backed Covid-19 precautions are not political opinions. Fighting for science is not playing politics.

One things for sure. Society is not going to be the same once the pandemic is over. Thats how time and history work. Dont be one of those people always longing for a return to your high school days. High school was actually kind of awful for many people. Like it or not, the future is going to be different. So you might as well start adapting. Things could even end up being better than they were before 2020.

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Festivus 2021: Here Is An Airing Of 10 Covid-19 Coronavirus Grievances - Forbes

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Each week, we answer frequently asked questions about life during the coronavirus crisis. If you have a question you'd like us to consider for a future post, email us at goatsandsoda@npr.org with the subject line: "Weekly Coronavirus Questions." See an archive of our FAQs here.

I hear a lot of talk in the news these days about the omicron variant and the kind of disease it might cause: mild, moderate, severe. Could you explain those terms?

As the omicron variant spreads around the globe, everyone wants to know: Will it cause mainly mild disease? Moderate? Severe?

Early studies suggest that many people could have asymptomatic or mild cases rather than severe, in part because many more people are now vaccinated or have had previous disease. There's not yet enough data for a definitive answer.

And then there's the question of what exactly "mild," "moderate" and "severe" mean vis-a-vis COVID.

It turns out that question isn't so easy to answer. That's because doctors and patients have different concerns when assessing COVID.

Doctors think in terms of how your lungs and other organs are doing and what treatments might be required.

"SARS-CoV-2 is a respiratory virus that causes COVID, and the designations refer largely to how well a patient's lungs are able to oxygenate and what treatment is necessary to keep the illness from progressing," says Stanford University infectious disease physician Dr. Abraar Karan.

"So when we move from mild to severe, we mean how easy or how difficult is it for you to breathe and maintain certain oxygen levels in your blood, and what treatments, if any, should we be using."

Patients, meanwhile, think in terms of how horrible they might feel. This is an important distinction because some patients can have very low oxygen levels without many other symptoms or could have bad symptoms such as high fever and a painful headache but have normal oxygen levels.

So what does a mild case look like? A mild case could mean barely any symptoms and a quick return to feeling normal. But so-called mild cases aren't always ... well, mild. The National Institutes of Health guidelines for treatment categorize mild COVID as" [i]ndividuals who have any of the various signs and symptoms of COVID-19 (e.g., fever, cough, sore throat, malaise, headache, muscle pain, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, loss of taste and smell) but who do not have shortness of breath, dyspnea (difficult or labored breathing), or abnormal chest imaging."

"At board of health meetings I've heard discussions of people designated as 'mild' but they couldn't get out of bed for three days," says Shira Doron, a hospital epidemiologist at Tufts Medical Center in Boston.

Indeed, NPR reporter Will Stone had a case of COVID that would be classified as "mild" by the guidelines that Dr. Karan cites. And here's Stone's self-report:

"Fatigue had enveloped me like a weighted blanket...[n]ext, a headache clamped down on the back of my skull. Then my eyeballs started to ache. And soon enough, everything tasted like nothing...It was a miserable five days. My legs and arms ached, my fever crept up to 103 and every few hours of sleep would leave my sheets drenched in sweat."

Not exactly what you think of when you hear the word "mild."

As for moderate, patients in that category would experience shortness of breath or difficulty breathing. If you're using a device called a pulse oximeter to monitor your breathing, you should seek medical attention if the concentration of oxygen in your blood falls below 94%.

To make matters more complicated, the World Health Organization updated its descriptors in November and they're different than those used by NIH. Rather than mild, moderate, and severe, WHO uses the terms "non-severe" "severe" and "critical." It defines non-severe as "absence of signs of severe or critical disease." Critical disease covers individuals who have respiratory failure, septic shock and/or multiple organ dysfunction.

So what's a patient to do?

First off, Karan urges that anyone with symptoms get tested to see if it's actually COVID-19 you have. It is flu season and other viral and bacterial infections are circulating. If you don't have COVID and your symptoms worsen, you might benefit from a targeted therapy for what you do have, such as a flu antiviral or an antibiotic.

And perhaps you shouldn't worry about figuring out the right adjective for your case, suggests Dr. William Schaffner, professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University and medical director of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases. It's more important to alert your physician to what you're experiencing, he says.

"Be very specific about symptoms," says Schaffner, "including temperature, any difficulty breathing and your oxygen saturation rate if you are using a pulse oximeter. We need these benchmarks to put people and their doctors on alert that symptoms could be progressing and they need to be seen. And always tell the doctor if you or someone with you just have this feeling that things are going south."

One more note on the subject of COVID terminology. Dr. Waafa El-Sadr, chair of global health at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, has another description she'd like to see made more precise: "breakthrough infections." That's what cases are COVID are called in people who are fully vaccinated and in some cases boosted.

"We should be saying post-vaccination infections instead," says El-Sadr. "Breakthrough implies the vaccine has failed, when we knew from day one that these vaccines were never expected to protect 100% from developing infections. What they do is decrease the risk of getting infected and of hospitalization."

El Sadr says that just when we need unvaccinated people to go ahead and get their shots, "the term breakthrough may be undermining the importance of being vaccinated and boosted."

Fran Kritz is a health policy reporter based in Washington, D.C., who has contributed to The Washington Post and Kaiser Health News. Find her on Twitter: @fkritz

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What are the symptoms for mild, moderate and severe COVID? : Goats and Soda - NPR

Tennis and Coronavirus: Denis Shapovalov Covid Positive Before ATP Cup  Bloomberg

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Tennis and Coronavirus: Denis Shapovalov Covid Positive Before ATP Cup - Bloomberg

"It's clinically, psychologically impossible to do this year in and year out," Scotty Silva, respiratory care director at Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico, told CNN. "Even the strongest respiratory therapists that I have (have) broken down at times."

In Omaha, Nebraska, the staff is "very worried about what's to come after the holidays" and is urging people to get vaccinated to protect themselves and others against severe illness, Covid-19 ICU nurse Haleigh Seizys at Nebraska Medical Center said Wednesday.

"Day to day, things are tough," Seizys told CNN's Ana Cabrera. "I have a patient who is not doing well. It takes a lot of time and effort from several different people to try and help these patients improve.

"I truly am exhausted," she said, although she remains motivated to "help whoever I can."

The US averaged 1,303 Covid-19 deaths a day over the last week, 14% higher than a month prior, according to Johns Hopkins data.

Earlier hopes have been crushed

Clinical nurse manager Dominick Armijo was filled with hope when vaccines were approved, he said. He was the first person in New Mexico to get the shot.

"We thought the cases were going down with the vaccination," he told CNN. "Then all of a sudden, it was like, 'Wham-bam, here we go again.'"

He couldn't have accounted for the number of people who refused the vaccine and then filled up his ICU, he said -- people like Angela Byers.

"I was an anti-vaxxer but not anymore," she told CNN. "This is hard, this is really hard. This has knocked me for a loop.

"I wish I had gotten vaccinated sooner. I wouldn't be here. That's the regret."

"I genuinely wish that they could come and follow me for just an hour so they could see how much their feet hurt and see how many people are trying to hold back tears day to day, and they can see the trauma these patients are going through," she said. "These people are dying very traumatic deaths, and it's so hard to watch."

"We need to watch that very closely," he told CNBC on Wednesday, noting that it's not clear whether the uptick is due to Delta or if "it's an early indicator of rising Omicron infections winding up in the hospital."

"We're not panicking," she said. "We have the resources we need."

New vaccine and booster mandates

"The vaccines are working, and they're working well to keep people out of the hospital and to keep people from dying from Covid-19. So, we don't need those type of shutdowns, but we do need more people to get vaccinated and boosted," Bowser said Wednesday at a news conference.

Grocery stores, retail stores and museums would not be required to check for proof of vaccines, and religious institutions are exempt, officials said. Eligible students in Washington, DC, schools are also mandated to get vaccinated by March 1.

"These steps will help limit a potential outbreak on our campus and in our community and protect those most vulnerable to this virus," a statement from Duke said.

In California, health care workers -- already under a vaccine mandate -- will be required to get a booster shot, and students will be tested before returning to school in January, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday.

Covid-19 testing crunch arrives

With the surge of Omicron cases -- and Christmas and New Year's fast approaching -- the demand for Covid-19 tests is greatly exceeding current supply and has resulted in long lines nationwide, as well as a risk of positive cases not being detected.

More treatments get authorized

Paxlovid is not for pre- or post-exposure prevention of Covid-19 and "is not a substitute for vaccination in individuals for whom Covid-19 vaccination and a booster dose are recommended," the FDA said.

CNN's Deidre McPhillips, Jamie Gumbrecht, Amanda Sealy, Aya Elamroussi, DJ Judd, Laura Ly, Sam Feist, Kristina Sgueglia, Stella Chan, Sarah Fortinsky, Adrienne Winston and Daniel Maraccini contributed to this report.

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For the second Christmas in a row, hospital workers will face the trauma of Covid-19 patient deaths - CNN

If you cant get tests, you have to decide how much risk youre willing to take, said Dr. Robert Wachter, professor and chairman of the department of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. Would I still get together if I couldnt find a test? In a relatively low risk situation, with everyone boosted and vaccinated and everyone feels fine, I probably would. If someone is at high risk and I couldnt get a test, I think Id be inclined to have people wear masks and keep the windows open. Id do the best I could to keep everyone as safe as possible.

Omicron moves fast, and many public health experts say people with potential exposures to the virus should test sooner than advised for previous variants. The current guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says vaccinated people dont have to quarantine if they have had close contact with someone who has Covid-19, but that they should get tested five days later. Testing experts, however, say thats probably not soon enough for Omicron.

A recent outbreak of Omicron Covid infections in Norway after a holiday office party in November gives us clues about the best time to test based on how quickly an Omicron exposure can convert to an infection, said Dr. Wachter. The party was held in a restaurant on a Friday, and everyone was vaccinated. Of 80 confirmed and suspected cases, nearly 75 percent were detected on the Sunday, Monday and Tuesday after the party. That suggests that the best times to test are on days 2, 3 and 4 after exposure.

Dec. 23, 2021, 6:12 p.m. ET

So if you think youve been exposed to an infected person, or youve been traveling through airports and are worried that you picked up the virus, the best time to start testing is probably on day 2 and 3 after the event. If you can, test daily or every other day at least through day 6. And if you know you were exposed to an infected person, its a good idea to limit your contacts and mask up around others for about a week after the exposure.

Yes. Dont test immediately after an exposure or high-risk gathering and assume you are in the clear, since it can take a few days for the virus to reach detectable levels. Doing it too soon is like a pregnancy test, said Dr. Panagis Galiatsatos, a pulmonary and critical care medicine physician at Johns Hopkins Medicine. If you test too soon, it means nothing.

The advice changes if you already are experiencing Covid symptoms. In that case, you should get tested right away. Try taking a rapid test on the day symptoms start, and if thats negative, take another test a few days later.

If your first test is negative after youve had a known exposure (or attended a high-risk gathering), you should test again two or three days later, taking precautions in the interim.

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Covid-19 At-Home Testing and PCR, Rapid Testing Questions: What to Know - The New York Times

With coronavirus cases surging once again, frustrated Americans arestruggling to get testeddays before Christmas as long lines and increased demand overwhelm some facilities across the country.

The catalyst has been the rapid spread of the Omicron variant,which has become the dominant strain in the USin a matter of weeks and has led to a slew of new measures to combat the spread.

With millions traveling or planning to join large family gatherings, there is a rush to get tested and many people are running out of luck, either with getting tests at clinics or with buying at-home test kits.

Long lines were seen this week in New York City, Boston and Miami, as well as Ohio and Minnesota.

At the same time, CVS Health and Walgreens the two largest pharmaceutical chain stores in the US are limitingthe number of at-home Covid kits customers can buy due to significant demand, they announced.

The demand is only going to grow, said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

And while the Biden administration plans to provide 500 million new tests by next month, the holiday test surge is happening now.

A former assistant secretary of the US Health and Human Services Department is concerned the co pledge on tests will not meet the demand, he said.

"Unless we have a billion or 2 billion a month, I think we're still going to have to be selective to make sure that we keep people who can die from the disease from dying from the disease," Adm. Dr. Brett Giroir told CNN.

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The latest on the coronavirus pandemic and Omicron variant: Live updates - CNN

Confirmed cases of COVID-19 have passed 277.1 million globally, according to Johns Hopkins University. The number of confirmed deaths has now passed 5.37 million. More than 8.85 billion vaccination doses have been administered globally, according to Our World in Data.

Australia reintroduced COVID-19 curbs such as mandated mask wearing indoors, capacity limits and QR code check-ins to cover most of the population on Thursday as daily infections hit a fresh record, fuelled by the highly infectious Omicron variant. The changes for 17 million people two days before Christmas mark a reversal of the country's plans for a permanent reopening.

Britain reported more than 100,000 new daily COVID-19 cases for the first time since widespread testing was introduced, with 106,122 on Wednesday compared with 90,629 on Tuesday. The rapid spread of the Omicron variant has driven a surge in cases, according to government data. Britain also said it would start vaccinating vulnerable children aged five to 11 against COVID-19.

The Chinese city of Xian has imposed a new lockdown and issued travel restrictions on its 13 million residents. A new COVID-19 outbreak has seen community cases tick higher. The daily count of domestically transmitted COVID-19 infections with confirmed symptoms in Xian has increased for six consecutive days since December 17.

India's capital New Delhi has banned Christmas parties and other celebrations ahead of New Year to contain a possible surge in the Omicron coronavirus variant, as the city reported the country's highest number of cases along with Maharashtra state. India has reported no deaths from the variant so far. Its health minister has said most known cases are asymptomatic.

France has cancelled its order for Merck & Co's COVID-19 antiviral drug following disappointing trial data. It hopes instead to receive Pfizer's competing drug before the end of January, the health minister said on Wednesday.

Nigeria destroyed more than a million doses of expired AstraZeneca vaccines on Wednesday in a bid to assure a wary public that they have been taken out of circulation. The destruction came more than a week after health authorities said some COVID-19 doses donated by Western nations had a shelf life that left only weeks to administer the shots.

Daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases per million people in selected countries.

Image: Our World in Data

"Overall, we find evidence of a reduction in the risk of hospitalization for Omicron relative to Delta infections, averaging over all cases in the study period," the researchers said of the study, which analyzed data from PCR-test confirmed cases in England between December 1 and December 14.

Scientists are racing to answer questions about the virulence and severity of Omicron to help governments respond to the variant, which is spreading at breakneck speed.

The British research follows a South African study on Wednesday which found that people diagnosed with Omicron in South Africa between October 1 and November 30 were 80% less likely to be admitted to hospital than those diagnosed with another variant in the same period.

Imperial College researchers said the risk of any visit to hospital with Omicron was between 20% and 25% lower than with Delta.

The first global pandemic in more than 100 years, COVID-19 has spread throughout the world at an unprecedented speed. At the time of writing, 4.5 million cases have been confirmed and more than 300,000 people have died due to the virus.

As countries seek to recover, some of the more long-term economic, business, environmental, societal and technological challenges and opportunities are just beginning to become visible.

To help all stakeholders communities, governments, businesses and individuals understand the emerging risks and follow-on effects generated by the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, the World Economic Forum, in collaboration with Marsh and McLennan and Zurich Insurance Group, has launched its COVID-19 Risks Outlook: A Preliminary Mapping and its Implications - a companion for decision-makers, building on the Forums annual Global Risks Report.

Companies are invited to join the Forums work to help manage the identified emerging risks of COVID-19 across industries to shape a better future. Read the full COVID-19 Risks Outlook: A Preliminary Mapping and its Implications report here, and our impact story with further information.

The United States has authorized Pfizer Inc's antiviral COVID-19 pill for people aged 12 and older at risk of severe illness, the first oral and at-home treatment as well as a new tool against the fast-spreading Omicron variant.

Pfizer's antiviral regimen, Paxlovid, was nearly 90% effective in preventing hospitalizations and deaths in patients at high risk of severe illness, according to data from the company's clinical trial. Recent lab data suggests the drug retains its effectiveness against Omicron, Pfizer said.

Pfizer raised its 2022 production projections to 120 million courses of treatment from 80 million and said it was ready to start immediate delivery in the United States. The treatment's two-drug regimen includes a new medicine and a second older antiviral called ritonavir.

The US government will have 265,000 treatment courses available by January and supply will ramp up in subsequent months, White House COVID-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients told a briefing. The government expects to receive the 10 million courses it has ordered within six months.

"Paxlovid's approval is a major milestone that marks another step towards making COVID-19 a much more manageable infection," said Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Institute for Health Security.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

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COVID-19: What you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic on 23 December - World Economic Forum

As evidence grows that the Delta and Omicron variants of the coronavirus are causing breakthrough infections in people who were once considered fully vaccinated, momentum seems to be growing to change the definition of that term to include booster shots.

Some workplaces and college campuses are now mandating that vaccination include boosters. The governor of New York said that state officials planned to change the definition of fully vaccinated to include receiving a booster dose, and Britains government wont be far behind. The N.F.L. last week issued a booster shot mandate for team staff members who work closely with players.

And the speculation is growing that we may have to get boosters regularly in future years as new variants emerge.

A few months ago, confirming full vaccination status was as simple as showing a card or QR code with proof that the required number of shots had been completed within six months. But in a world of multiple vaccines with varying effectiveness, and a variety of mixing and matching strategies, it will soon be harder to say who is fully vaccinated.

A consensus will eventually emerge. But here is what some health experts had to say as another year of living with the pandemic was nearing a close.

For now, U.S. health officials say you are fully vaccinated two weeks after your second shot of a two-dose vaccine like Pfizers or Modernas or after a single-dose vaccine like Johnson & Johnsons. They have not (yet) expanded that definition to include a booster shot.

At a White House press briefing on Wednesday, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the agency is continuing to follow the science around Omicron before it decides to expand the definition. However, the agency does recommend that people get booster shots.

So does Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nations top infectious disease expert, who said at the same press briefing, If you are unvaccinated, get vaccinated. And particularly in the arena of Omicron, if you are fully vaccinated, get your booster shot.

Other countries, like Britain and South Africa, also do not require booster shots for someone to be considered fully vaccinated.

As it became clear that the immunity conferred by the initial rounds of vaccines was waning, Israel announced in October that it would make a booster dose a requirement for its vaccine passport. It was believed to be the first country to do so, though it wouldnt be the last.

In late November, just before Omicron fast-forwarded booster programs around the world, the European Union began to discuss adding a nine-month expiration date to its digital certificates, a move it formally adopted this week.

Some of the E.U.s member nations, like Austria, had already enacted an expiration date for their residents. In France, where the certificates expire seven months after a second dose, all adults have until Jan. 15 to receive a booster, or their passes will no longer allow them access to places like restaurants and museums.

Early research indicates that the Omicron variant is somewhat less vulnerable to the bodys immune defenses. Booster shots help bolster your antibody response, said Michel Nussenzweig, an immunologist at Rockefeller University in New York.

Dec. 23, 2021, 6:12 p.m. ET

So, yes, you should get that additional jab, said Dr. Jesse L. Goodman, a former chief scientist at the Food and Drug Administration.

This booster dose has really protected people better against Delta, he said. Even without Omicron, theres good reason to get the booster dose.

You can still get infected even after a booster, but the shot will probably protect you against severe illness or death, he said.

New treatments. The Food and Drug Administration authorized in short succession the firsttwo pill treatments for Covid-19 from Pfizerand Merck. The new drugs, which can be taken at home with a doctors prescription, will be available to some Covid patients who are at higher risk of becoming severely ill.

It depends on what it is youre trying to prevent, said Dr. Celine Gounder, an infectious disease specialist at Bellevue Hospital Center who has previously advised the Biden administration.

A booster is more effective than just the first two shots at preventing hospitalization or death, she said.

Many U.S. public health experts continue to say that the two-dose regimen of Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna will protect most people against severe illness or death, as the vaccines are intended to do. A preliminary study in South Africa showed that two doses of the Pfizer vaccine were 70 percent effective against hospitalization, part of the early evidence cited by those supporting boosters.

The first two doses have been effective against infection with the Delta variant, but it is not yet clear how well they work against Omicron, said Dr. Paul Offit, the director of the Vaccine Education Center at Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia and an adviser to the Food and Drug Administration.

If the goal is protection against any form of illness, then two doses of the current mRNA vaccine will not protect you as well against mild illness, he said.

Like so much else since the pandemic started, expect a period of confusion as a patchwork of local, national and international governments evolve at different speeds. Any places that have so far required proof of vaccination offices, schools, airlines, concerts, sporting events, entire countries are likely to soon face questions about how and when to change the rules for admission.

Businesses are already facing uncertainty amid challenges to existing vaccine mandates, and the addition of boosters along with rapidly rising case counts have further confused things.

At BlackRock, an investment management company, the vaccination requirement at its New York offices has not evolved to include booster shots, Brian Beades, a company spokesman, said on Monday. But, as with vaccination policies around the world, he said, people are thinking about new considerations all the time.

Elian Peltier contributed reporting.

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What Does It Mean to Be Fully Vaccinated Against Covid-19? - The New York Times

It took Matthew Phillips four hours to get a coronavirus test.

Mr. Phillips, a 34-year-old Seattle resident, spent Wednesday morning refreshing dozens of websites on his laptop until he could find an appointment. And once he did get to a testing site, he spent another hour and a half in line before it was his turn.

He is now hoping he will get a negative result in time for his flight to Houston on Thursday to see his relatives for Christmas.

It does feel like dj vu, Mr. Phillips said. It feels like were just living in this recurring nightmare.

Indeed, a day after President Biden announced a renewed focus on testing as a way to combat the coronavirus, it was clear that the landscape for testing reflected many of the divisions and frustrations practical, political and otherwise of the nations overall response to the nearly two-year-old pandemic.

Across the country, people are preparing for out-of-state travel and indoor gatherings with multiple generations of the same family. Many are spending hours in line just to be turned away because the site ran out of tests. Some people without insurance are avoiding a test because of its hefty out-of-pocket price or fear that a positive result will mean missing work. And others, often in areas where infection runs rampant, are downplaying the viruss seriousness and avoiding testing altogether.

The fact theyre hard to come by suggests that there is a portion of people who really do put a lot of confidence in these tests, said Preeti Malani, a professor and chief health officer at the University of Michigan. But are the people who most need to be tested being tested?

With testing supply and promotion having taken a back seat amid the governments vaccine push, she said, testing remains not anywhere near where it needs to be.

A forthcoming study in South Carolina suggests that some of the same groups that were slow to embrace vaccination are also less likely to get tested. The survey of 15,000 people found that African American and Hispanic residents were less likely to get tested because of issues gaining access to testing, mistrust of the medical system, or fear of missing work and wages if they tested positive.

People who identified as conservatives were less likely to seek testing, too, because of a lack of concern about the virus, she said.

How can we get to them? said Melissa Nolan, a professor of epidemiology at the University of South Carolina and one of the authors of the study. And we cant just assume that they dont believe in testing or dont want to get tested.

In Nashville, the Metro Public Health Department is seeing long lines at its testing sites but health officials say numbers could be higher.

We want to see everybody who is going out and about and interacting with people test on a regular basis, Leslie Waller, the departments epidemiologist, said. We know that is not happening right now.

Ms. Waller noted that missing out on work, finding child care and other disruptions to daily life are making it difficult for people to show up.

Dec. 23, 2021, 8:56 p.m. ET

And if some were frustrated by the testing process, others were grateful.

At a city-run testing site in Nashville, Carol Cowart waited in line with her granddaughter, listening together to Taylor Swift songs, for about one hour.

They are moving really fast, Ms. Cowart said. Everyone seems to know what they are doing.

Ms. Cowart had been exposed after eating lunch with a friend on Saturday. She felt fine but wanted to play it safe. If I turn up positive, Ill have to eat Christmas dinner in my room, she said.

It was, she said, pretty frustrating only because people wont get vaccinated.

I mean, she continued, what is the deal about getting vaccinated?

Brian Orak, 36, a math and computer science high school teacher in New Jersey, said he had no interest in getting a test unless he started showing symptoms.

I wouldnt test because a positive test would have a profoundly negative effect on my ability to teach and go to school, said Mr. Orak, who is vaccinated and takes graduate classes in the evenings. I could miss exams, a presentation and my students would have an inferior learning experience.

Brandon Walker, 32, in Baltimore, said he regretted having to miss work to get tested.

He went to three testing sites on Wednesday to try to find a test. The first one turned him away, and the second was so swamped he could not even find a parking spot. When reached by phone on Wednesday afternoon, he had been waiting for three and a half hours, and still had not been called.

New treatments. The Food and Drug Administration authorized in short succession the firsttwo pill treatments for Covid-19 from Pfizerand Merck. The new drugs, which can be taken at home with a doctors prescription, will be available to some Covid patients who are at higher risk of becoming severely ill.

Ive done a lot of running around the city of Baltimore, trying to find somewhere to get tested at, he said. Ive used all my resources to try to beat the wave, but it doesnt work because everybodys trying to get it today.

Health officials in Livingston County, Mich., say that access to testing has not been a challenge there. Between providing tests directly to families with children in school, and the affordability of at-home tests for the countys mostly higher-income residents, testing has been at our fingertips, said Lindsay Gestro, emergency preparedness coordinator for the county.

But public health officials continue to feel frustrated by low testing numbers, she said. The countys high test positivity rate of 16 percent suggests that cases are being significantly undercounted.

I dont want to say that theyre over it theyre kind of done dealing with Covid, said Ms. Gestro, who noted that the largely conservative county never instituted Covid requirements beyond those imposed by the state. Many residents believe that Omicron is less serious than earlier variants, with some early reports from other countries suggesting that it produces milder cases.

More people have been getting tests in advance of holiday travel and gatherings, Ms. Gestro said, but she said that hesitancy to seek testing continued to contribute to the rapid spread of Covid in the county.

The effectiveness of testing at stopping the spread of the coronavirus has also been constrained, she said, by enduring confusion over quarantine protocols while waiting for test results or about when to get a test after exposure, or before potentially exposing others.

And for those who do decide to get tested, like Ashley Harper from Queens, they are still left facing hourslong wait times.

On Monday afternoon, one site ran out of tests before Ms. Harper and others who were waiting in line could get one. When she came back the next day, at 8 a.m., the line was already around the block.

After waiting for hours outside a mobile testing van on Wednesday, she finally got her test.

Its frustrating that I have to wait three hours to get tested, she said. Its frustrating that there arent more testing sites.

Still, experts stress that one negative result is not where the process ends.

Tests cant see whats in the future, said Gigi Gronvall, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. Some people look at it as a get-out-of-jail-free card when in fact its just a moment in time.

Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs and Jamie McGee contributed reporting.

Excerpt from:

Americans Hunt for Virus Tests and the Assurance of Safe Holiday Gatherings - The New York Times