Category: Covid-19

In a recent study posted to the medRxiv* preprint server, researchers evaluated the association between new inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) diagnoses in New York City (NYC) and the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

Several studies have shown an increased presentation of autoimmune diseases linked with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), such as IBD. It is an autoimmune disorder typically observed in late childhood, and its pathogenesis involves a mix of genetic predisposition, microbial exposure, and infections.

In the present study, researchers fitted an autoregressive integrated moving average model (ARIMA) to the number of cases of Crohns Disease (CD) and Ulcerative Colitis (UC) between January 2016 and March 2020 to forecast the case numbers for the subsequent 21 months (between April 2020 and December 2021), with 80% and 95% prediction intervals using the forecast library.

They retrieved the data for the period between 2015 and 2021 from four collaborating institutions using electronic medical records (EMRs), in particular, the date of diagnosis for 349 CD and 145 UC cases diagnosed in NYC pediatric clinics between 2016 and 2021. They also evaluated the robustness of results to monthly versus quarterly periods, data from three participating institutions for the period between 2011 and 2021.

As demographic variables, gender, birth month/year, and age at diagnosis were available for all the participants; therefore, these were accounted for during the study analysis.

The researchers used the Pearson chi-square test and pairwise proportion tests with Holms correction to compare the pre-pandemic versus pandemic periods, taking April 2020 as the first month of the COVID-19 pandemic. Further, they plotted the total cases by month with loess regression and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) using ggplot2 stratified by pandemic versus pre-pandemic diagnosis to show seasonal patterns in IBD diagnoses.

The CD model was ARIMA (0,0,0) with a residual standard deviation of 7.07, a mean absolute scaled error of less than one, and the forecast was uniform across the 80% and 95% prediction intervals. Likewise, the UC model was ARIMA (1,0,0) with a lag-1 autocorrelation (AR1) of 0.30, the residual standard deviation of 2.00, and the forecast varied slightly across the intervals.

For UC and CD, ARIMA analysis forecasted an average of 1.91 and 4.65 monthly cases with 80% and 95% prediction intervals, respectively. The Durbin-Watson statistic showed no evidence of AR1 for CD for the pre-or pandemic period and UC for the pandemic period.

Patients diagnosed with IBD during pre-pandemic versus post-pandemic times had similar demographic characteristics, including gender, age at diagnosis, country of residence, ethnicity, and race.

Two participating institutions, viz., Downstate and Maimonides, showed opposing results in terms of IBD cases during the pre-pandemic and pandemic times; however, they did not show any other differences. Accordingly, the former had a larger share of cases during the pandemic than during the pre-pandemic time (9.6% vs. 4.3%); however, the latter had fewer cases during the pandemic than during the pre-pandemic time (10.2% vs. 17.5%).

The authors also observed a significant increase in CD diagnoses in NYC in March and April 2020. In the loess plots, the authors observed more CD diagnoses than expected in June and July 2020 during the pandemic than in the pre-pandemic times.

In Q3 of 2020, the authors noted more CD cases than forecasted; likewise, in Q4 of 2020, there were more UC cases than forecasted. For CD, there were 26 cases compared with the upper limit of 95% prediction interval of 23 in the ARIMA analysis.

Robustness checks using monthly data demonstrated similar rates for the CD and UC cases during July and September 2020 and May and October 2021, respectively. Overall, a trend was apparent towards elevation in UC diagnoses over time, with eight cases compared with the upper limit of 95% prediction interval of 6.1.

Overall, the study findings suggested the possible risk of increased IBD diagnoses among pediatric patients in NYC, especially CD, due to increased SARS-CoV-2 cases. Decreases in SARS-CoV-2 cases did not decrease CD and UC diagnoses, suggesting reduced importance of SARS-CoV-2 infections as a pathogenic IBD trigger or reduced ability to drive IBD pathogenesis. The authors emphasized the need for a follow-up investigation of changes in IBD incidence using the current data infrastructure.

medRxiv publishes preliminary scientific reports that are not peer-reviewed and, therefore, should not be regarded as conclusive, guide clinical practice/health-related behavior, or treated as established information.

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Association between the COVID-19 pandemic and inflammatory bowel disease presentation in New York City - News-Medical.Net

She didnt quite recognize herself when she first saw the photo. Arms crossed, face partly covered with a white mask, standing defiantly in blue hospital scrubs, seeming to square off with a man in sunglasses holding a U.S. flag over his shoulders.

Lauren Leander had never been to a protest before she joined fellow nurses at the Arizona state Capitol in April 2020 on a day off from the COVID-19 ward at Banner University Medical Centerin Phoenix. She was hoping to silently confront a loud and rowdy group demanding that Gov. Doug Ducey lift all restrictions that aimed to curb the pandemic, then at its initial phase.

The woman in the photo looked strong. Leander, reflecting on that day two years later, said that wasn't the way she felt that day.

I felt really small at the time, she said during aninterview this yearI felt like a little nurse that wanted people to take this thing seriously. Like, wear a mask and listen to us.

Leander would end up getting a lot of people to hear her message after the photo of her at the Capitol was posted on azcentral.com andprinted in The Arizona Republic. The image resonated with people and buzzed around the nation and globe.

Duringthe next two years, Leanders life would alter drastically. Some of the changes spurred because she happened to be captured in a photothat forever froze a split second of time.

Much of that day was a blur for Leander, who spent the better part of the afternoon standing outside the grounds of the Capitol.

She had no vivid memory of the man who passed her carrying a flag. She didnt recall ignoring the questions from photographer Michael Chow, himself clad in an N95 mask, asking her what hospital she worked in.

It was a stream of people, she said. It was just nonstop.

People coughed on her as they passed, saying they were spreading to her the virus they were convinced was fake. Some questioned whether she was an actual critical care nurse or an actress.

Leander had read false theories about the pandemic online. But here were real-life people who believed them and were spouting them. And, to boot, coming up with conspiracy theories about her on the spot.

It was a good opportunity to really look them in the eye and figure out who those people were and what they had to say, Leander said.

As it happened, the day would also allow Leander to take a close look at herself and figure out who she was.

That introspection started after she came home. She was tired from hours of standing outdoors. She curled up for a nap.

She woke up to her phone buzzing with messages. The photo had started circulating. People were talking about the nurse who silently counterprotested at the Capitol. Friends had recognized her and were letting her know about the image.

Within days, Leanderwould become the most widely recognized nurse in the United States.

Leander did not always want to be a nurse. She changed majors at Arizona State University a few times before settling on it. A voice in the back of my head just told me nursing one day, she said.

She knew she had found her calling on a volunteer trip to Guatemala. The difference she made in giving one-on-one attention to people who didnt get health care regularly resonated with her.

She explored other jobs in the medical field, but nothing spoke to her like nursing. There was something about nursing, Leander said. Im your person. Im here for you. Im your advocate, tell me what you need. Its something so unique to nursing.

Leander worked in the critical care unit of Banner University Medical Center, a unit that she said, pre-pandemic, worked as a well-oiled machine.

On a typical shift, she would deal with rattlesnake bites, respiratory failureor variousdiseases. On some shifts, she was part of the code team, meaning she would be called into action when someone had shallow breathing or weak heart beats.

We were always busy, she said. We were just damn good at it.

Then came the pandemic.

A unit would be dedicated solely to dealing with COVID-19 patients. Leander volunteered to work with them.

She said she did so because she realized she was young, healthy and living alone. Other nurses were pregnant, she said, or mothers to young children.

The first COVID-19 patient at her hospital was a 27-year-old woman who was pregnant. Leander provided care for her, at times performing manual compressions on her chest to help her breathe. When that patient died, the death hit her hard.

That changed everything for me, she said. The woman was not older or with preexisting conditions, the markers that were supposed to lead to death. Leander realized she was not just susceptible to the virus, but could die from it.

In the early days of the pandemic, there was little known about how the virus was spread and, Leander said, little availability of protective equipment.

Leander said she worked with her first COVID-19 patients wearing a paper surgical mask and a paper gown that left her neck exposed. In this outfit that medical guidance would later show to be inadequate she would work on patients, including compressing on their chests to keep them breathing, leaving her covered in their secretions.

We were in next to nothing, she said.

Leander settled into a confining pace: work, home and back to work. She knew she was exposed to the virus every time she worked and didnt want to spread it to her friends or family.

Leander saw news coverage of re-open rallies in other cities. She saw that nurses had come out to counterprotest, dressed in surgical scrubs and wearing masks. In Denver, nurses blocked traffic, momentarily stopping a convoy of cars that circled that state's Capitol.

On the morning of April 20, Leander got word that there was a reopen rally planned for the Arizona state Capitol in Phoenix. It happened to be her day off.

She texted some nurse friends to see if she could gather an impromptu group to mirror what had been done in Denver. Anyone interested, come join me, she said, recounting the general message she sent in texts messages and through social media. Weve got to go. We have to be there.

Leander heard the crowd at the Capitol before she saw them. There were horn honks as cars circled the streets around the government buildings.

I got goosebumps, she said. This is going to be big.

She and three other nurses stood on 17th Avenue, along a raised crosswalk that led from the Wesley Bolin Plaza to the three buildings that housed the state House, state Senate and executive officers.

Signs had phrases such as, Economic suicide is not the answer or Give me freedom or give me COVID. The few attendees with masks were those carrying long guns across their bodies, some dressed in Hawaiian shirts indicative of the extremist group, Boogaloo Boys. There were scattered signs showing support of the QAnon conspiracy theory.

On the plaza, a crowd listened to speeches shouted through a microphone passed around to willing speakers. One man said he would rather die of the novel coronavirus than have his freedom restricted. Another, who would briefly draw the attention of law enforcement, suggested that Democratlawmakers needed to be shot.

After the speeches, the crowd made its way to the Capitol. And right past the line of nurses.

Leander and her fellow nurses had decided to stay silent, not engaging or arguing with the protesters. I was not there to start a fight, she said.

But she was surprised that their mere presence inspired such ire.

We were triggering for them, Leander said.

The nurses became the target of invective. It seemed like everyone who passed by had a mean comment.

She and her handful of fellow nurses were vastly outnumbered.

It was a David and Goliath moment, she said. I was looking up at this beast that had been created and was spreading like wildfire.

It was like there was two pandemics: the virus and misinformation.

One man, wearing wrap-around sunglasses, had a U.S. flag attached to a pitchfork he held above his head. He walked close past Leander.

It was the shot that Chow, The Republic photographer, has envisioned when he saw Leander standing ramrod straight on the crosswalk. Chow framed Leander in his viewfinder and waited for someone to enter the frame opposite her.

When this pitchfork-carrying man did, he snapped. Though the resulting image cut off the tines of the pitchfork.

'That's the one there': A photo of a protesting nurse in Phoenix goes viral

The photographer tried to get Leanders name. She did not respond to his question.

But someone verified to the photographer that the woman was indeed a nurse. It was Sandra Leander, the mother of Lauren Leander.Though, she declined to give Chow her daughter's name.

Sandra Leander was there because Lauren Leander had called her parents to tell them of her plan to be at the protest.Sandra, sensing her daughter wanted her there for moral support, decided to head to the Capitol.

Her father, Tom, had obligations for his job with Fox Sports Arizona, where he hosted the pre-and post-game shows for the Phoenix Suns. While the NBA had stopped playing games, Leander was hosting interview shows and lookbacks at classic games to help the channel fill the schedule.

Looking back, Tom Leander said during a phone interview this month that he was glad he wasnt there. When your youngest child and only daughter is in a situation like that, Im not sure how I would have handled it, he said.

At the Capitol, Sandra Leander texted her daughter, trying to find out where she was amid the sea of people. Then, she spotted her at the crosswalk on 17th Avenue. It was the first time the two had seen each other without a barrier between them in two months.

Sandra said, during an interview this month, that she caught her daughter's eye and they nodded at each other.

Leander and the nurses moved with the crowd to the Capitol mall. She stood in front of the stone building, now a museum, that sits at the center of the mall.

At that point, a reporter from a television station approached her. Leander knew the reporter through her father, Tom, and felt comfortable talking to him.

Im here for my patients, she said. I am here for the people that are dying alone. Im here for the people that cant see their families in the last moments of their life. Im here for the people that are truly sick and that are overflowing our ICUs at this moment.

As she spoke, protesters gathered around trying to engage her further. But Leander ignored them as best she could. She stayed silent.

Sandra Leander had stayed distant from her daughter before. But, here in front of the old Capitol building, she got close enough to hear what protesters were saying while they walked past.

"I heard people say they hoped she caught the virus and dies," Sandra Leander said. "I heard pretty much every vile word you can think of."

At one point, Sandra Leander put herself between a protester and her daughter. As she did so, she could feel her blood boiling.

"If I didn't leave, I would have been in trouble," Sandra Leander said.

The protesters entered the lobby of the Executive Tower. Leander and her fellow nurses waited outside.

After a while, the crowd subsided. Leander went back to the crosswalk along 17th Avenue. But, she said, after seeing the same handful of cars drive around, she decided to call it a day and head home.

Leander had been fostering two kittens at her apartment. She curled up with them and fell asleep.

After her nap, she realized that The Republic photo was getting attention.

The photo was on the front page of the April 21, 2020, edition of The Arizona Republic.

Sandra Leander said she remembered picking up the newspaper from the driveway, opening it. "My mouth dropped open," she said.

Tom Leander also saw the photo for the first time on The Republic's front page.

The quiet conviction she had, he said, of his reaction. Theres chaos surrounding her and her just being silent and strong. Thats what really captured everybodys attention and respect.

The next day, Lauren Leander spoke with a Republic reporter. That story attached a name to the viral photo. And more people wanted to speak to Leander.

She spoke with local TV news outlets. Then came the calls from national outlets. It snowballed from there, Leander said.

She appeared on Chris Cuomos show on CNN. She appeared on ABCs Good Morning America. She appeared on The View. There were podcasts and radio shows.

In normal times, such a media tour would have involved flights and hotel rooms. But, in the midst of the pandemic, Leander appeared on all these shows remotely over video conference. Her mother, the former TV reporter, gave her tips on lighting.

Leander knew that this attention would be fleeting. She wanted to use the opportunities she had to speak up for others in her profession, to try to get people to pay attention to the toll the virus was taking.

It was not something I planned for myself, not something I tried to get, not something I would have ever wanted, she said. For whatever reason, I was just the person who was supposed to be there.

Leander started using her sudden popularity to raise money to send food and medical supplies to the Navajo and Hopi communities, which had been hit hard by the pandemic. Her campaign raised more than $250,000.

Beyond the media appearances, Leander was still working shifts in the critical care unit of Banner hospital. The pace became unrelenting and Leander had no idea how long it would continue.

Leander said she received a few messages on Instagram from people who were at the April 20 protest and later became sick with COVID-19. That event was a super spreader, she said.

The messages were apologetic, she said, with the people thanking her for her work and expressing regret for attending the protest.

In the first weeks of the pandemic, Leander said she and her fellow nurses felt celebrated. People were ordering food to be delivered to the hospital to feed the staff. It was an unexpected show of community generosity.

But that ended abruptly, Leander said, after Memorial Day. There was a very clear end to it, Leander said.

She would send messages and photos to her parents. In one, sent on July 4, 2020, she was dressed in full plastic protective gear, including a helmet with a wide face shield. Tom Leander thought it looked like something given to astronauts by NASA.

Tom Leander posted the photo on Twitter with a message about how peoples actions affect his daughter and other health care workers. Here she is celebrating her 4th of July tonight, he wrote.

There was no end to the work in the COVID-19 unit. And, still, no end to what Leander saw as the infection of disinformation.

Some patients refused to believe they had COVID-19, she said. She took verbal darts from family members of patients who felt the same way. Thats the stuff that sticks with you, she said. Thats the stuff that wears on you.

Leander never contracted the virus herself, despite the constant exposure.

Thats a testament to masks, she said. Thats a testament to vaccines.

Over time, the attention died down. The invitations to appear on television shows slowed to a trickle. Her social media mentions and messages became normal.

All around Leander at the hospital, nurses were feeling burnout and, by December 2020, started to leave.

Leander said there were unfulfilled promises about hazard pay, new protective equipment and extra staffing.

I held out as long as I could, she said. Finally, it got to the point where I had to admit I couldnt do it anymore.

She stuck around until March 2021, just after an appearance on ABC's "GMA3" meant to mark the one-year anniversary of the pandemic. Leander said she didnt feel any excess pressure to stay because of her fleeting media profile. She simply stayed as long as she could, and that was longer than some, working ajob she saw as a calling.

I felt like I was leaving my family, she said.

Soon after she left, her body rebelled.

After two days, pea-sized welts developed on her wrists and ankles. They then spread to her back and ears. They were hives, something new for Leander. Her doctor gave her steroids and with some rest, they went away.

Original post:

How a photo changed the life of a nurse who worked the COVID-19 unit of a Phoenix hospital - The Arizona Republic

The state Department of Health reported 403 new COVID-19 infections on Sunday, the 10th consecutive day with fewer than 1,000 and the 16th time in 17 days the state hit that mark.

There were three new infections in the four Valley counties for the second consecutive day. It was the fifth time in eight days the number was three or fewer.

All three new cases were in Northumberland County.

There was only one new death reported statewide. Sunday ended a streak of five consecutive days with at least one new death in the Valley.

Fifty-nine of Pennsylvanias 67 counties were seeing low levels of COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions (CDC) latest updates. Eight counties, including all four in the Valley, were at the medium level. For the third week in a row, there were no counties in Pennsylvania registering high levels of COVID-19.

The COVID-19 community level is determined by the higher of the new admissions and inpatient beds metrics, based on the current level of new cases per 100,000 population in the past 7 days. The reports are updated weekly.

According to data from the CDC and Johns Hopkins University, across the nation, new cases were down 7 percent over the past week, hospitalizations were down 13 percent and deaths linked to COVID-19 were down 31 percent. In Pennsylvania, the number of new COVID cases was down 19 percent over the last week, deaths were down 23 percent and hospitalizations were down 18 percent.

The CDC reported 77 percent of Pennsylvanians 18 and older were fully vaccinated, while 67.5 percent of all residents were fully vaccinated.

As of noon Sunday, there were 503 hospitalizations statewide, down 16 from Saturday. It was the 20th consecutive day hospitalizations have dropped statewide. It was the fewest COVID hospitalizations statewide since Aug. 2, 2021.

Statewide, there were 75 in intensive care units (ICUs), down eight from Saturday's report, and 51 were breathing using ventilators, the same figure as reported Saturday.

There were 30 patients hospitalized locally for the third consecutive day. There were 23 patients at Geisinger in Danville, five at Evangelical Community Hospital in Lewisburg and two at Geisinger Shamokin.

Geisingers main campus in Danville had seven patients in the ICU and three on a ventilator. Both of Geisinger Shamokins COVID patients are being treated in the ICU.

At Evangelical, the only patient in the ICU was on a ventilator.

As of midday Sunday, there were fewer than five active cases among those receiving services and no staff cases at the Selinsgrove Center. The state Department of Human Services (DHS) does not report specific numbers if they are fewer than five to avoid identifying individuals.

At Danville State Hospital, there were no active infections among those receiving services and fewer than five cases among staff members, the same reports since late last week. At the North Central Secure Treatment Unit, there were no reported cases among youth or staff at the boys or girls facilities.

There were no active cases among staffers or inmates at the State Correctional Institution in Coal Township, according to the state Department of Corrections (DOC). Statewide, there were 19 inmate cases and another 29 staff cases both the same figures as reported Saturday. Eight prisons statewide have inmate cases as of Sunday morning, while 16 prisons have staff infections.

Federal prisons in Lewisburg and Allenwood were at Level 1 operational levels of COVID mitigation, the lowest level of modifications in the federal Bureau of Prisons mitigation plans. It means prisons have resumed normal operations while inmates and staffers wear masks indoors. No cases were reported among prisoners or staff at either facility.

As of Sunday morning, there were 49 federal prisons nationally at Level 1 (the lowest), 30 were at Level 2 and 19 were at Level 3.

Institution operational levels (Level 1, Level 2, or Level 3) are based on the facilities COVID-19 medical isolation rate, combined percentage of staff and inmate completed vaccinations series and their respective county transmission rates. At each level, an infection prevention procedure or modification to operations such as inmate programming and services may be made to mitigate the risk and spread of COVID-19 in accordance with BOP pandemic guidance.

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Pennsylvania records 10th straight day with fewer than 1,000 new COVID-19 infections; 3 reported in Valley - Sunbury Daily Item

COVID-19 testing is one of the best tools we have for keeping our communities safe especially as more people return to offices and masking requirements are lifted.

With more testing options, you might be wondering when and how to get a test. Were summing up the basics.

When should I test?

Which test is best to take?

The best test is the one thats available to you. If you have an at-home test on hand, use that. If you see anavailable appointment for a testing site, schedule it. One exception is when a specific test is required for your situation (like for traveling or returning to work).

Are all tests accurate?

All tests can be used to assess if someone currently has COVID-19. Its rare for someone to get a positive test result if theyre not infected (called a false positive).

False negatives are more common with antigen tests than with PCR tests especially at the beginning of an infection. Thats why some kits will include two tests. Follow the instructions on the box for when to space out the tests for accurate results.

Should I quarantine or isolate before I test and as I wait for my results?

Knowing when to quarantine or isolate can be a little confusing, so keep these guidelines in mind:

Where can I get a test?

Its a good idea to always have a few tests on hand so youre prepared for any circumstance.

What should I do with my at-home COVID-19 test results?

Apositive test resultmeans that you likely have a current infection, and you shouldisolateand informclose contacts.

Currently, there are two ways to notify the state and people around you aboutyour positive at-home test result:

Weve seen a steady decline in COVID-19 infections, and thats worth celebrating. But were not out of the woods yet! By following proper protocol for exposures, we can keep moving toward a brighter path. Learn more atdoh.wa.gov/testing.

Read the rest here:

When is a COVID-19 test right for you? - The Spokesman Review

What we know about the COVID-19 BA.2 subvariant

Updated: 9:55 AM EDT Mar 27, 2022

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THURSDAY. WE'RE BACK TO THE 60S BY FRIDAY. JENNIFER: NEW DEVELOPMENTSN I THE COVID PANDIC.EM OMICRON SUBVARIANTA. B2 HAS BECOME MORE PREVALENT IN THE UNITED STATES. MEANTIME, VACCINE MANUFACTURERS ARE CLOSE TO PRODUCING A SHOT FOR KIDS UNDER THE AGE OF 5. JOINGIN US, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF BIOLOGY AT LOYOLA UNIVERSITY, WE HAVE DR. CHRISTOPHER THOMPSON JOINING US AGAIN. THANKS FOR JOINING US THIS MORNING. >> THANK YOU FOR HAVING ME. JENNIFER: WHAT IS THE LATEST ON THE BA.2 VARIT?AN >> IT SEEMS TO BE GETTING MORE PREVALENT WORLDWIDE. 'SIT STILL NOT THE PRIMARY ONE CIRCULATGIN IN THE U.S. ROU ORIGINAL OMICRON IS STILL PREVALENT HERE. IT SMSEE TO BE MEOR TRANSMIBL, MORE INFECTIOUS. IT DOESN'T SEEMO T CAUSE MORE SEVERE DISEASE. THIS IS GOING TO BE SIMILAR TO OMICRON, EXCEPT IT MAYE B EASIER TO CATCH THIS ONE. >> IT SEEMS THAT MTOS OF THE PEOPLE BEING HOSPITALIZED ARE THOSE NOT VACCINATED. >> VACCINATION SEEMS TO BE VERY PROTECTIVE DEFENSE SEVERE DISEASE AND AGAINST DEATH. JENNIFER: WE'VE BEEN RUNNING A STORY ALL MORNING LONG ABOUTHE T POSSIBILITY OF A FOURTH BOOSTER FOR PEOPLE 50 AND OLDER. DO WE KNOW IF THIS IS REALLY NECESSARY? >> WE DON'T YET. AGAIN, LIKE YOU JUST IDSA, THE PEOPLE WHORE A GETTING THE SICKEST WITH THIS HAVEN'T BEEN VACC INATED AT ALL. SO A FOURTH BOOSTER SHOT WOULD CERTAINLY IROMPVE HOW WE'RE DOING AND PRENTGVE SIT, IF THE COST WOULD OUTWEIGHHE T BENEFITS. WE NEED TO GET MORE INFO. JENNIFER: WITH TRANSMISSION RATES GOING DOWN, AIRLINES ARE ASKING THE WHITE HOU TSEO REMOVE MASK MANDATES FOR TRAVEL. IS THAT TIME TO MAKE THAT HAPPEN. >> IT'S BEEN HARD TO FIGURE OUT WHERE THE OFF-RAMP IS FOR MASKING. THE GHHI QUALITY MASKS,HE T QN95S HAVE BEEN PROTECTIVE. THE CLOTH MASKS WITH OMICRON AND BA.2RE A LESS PROTECTIVE. AIRLINES HAVE GOOD FILTRATION SYSTEMS. I DON'T KNOW HOW OFTEN THEY CHANGE THEM,UT B THEY HAVE GOOD FILTRATION SYSTEMS. THE MANDATE, IT MAY BE TIME FOR THAT TO GO AWAY. I WOULD STILL WEAR A MASK INN A EN CLOSED OR CROWDED SPACE. JENNIFER: WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE POSSIBLE VACCINE FOR KIDS UNRDE THE AGE OF 5? >> SO THE DATA IS NOT AS GREAT AS IT WAS FOR ADULTS. WE'RE SEEING GREAT PROTECTION AGAINST SEVERE DISEASE AND AGAINST DEATH, BUT THATAS W PRETTY RARE FOR KIDS ANYWAY. WHAT WE ARE SEEGIN IS ABOUT A 30 TO 40 PERCENT PROTECTION AGASTIN GETTING THE INFECTION IN THE FIRST PLACE BY THE DETECTION METHODS WE HAVE. IT WOULD BE BENEFICIAL. IT'S NOT AS GOOD AS WHAT THE ADULTS WERE GETTING. JE

What we know about the COVID-19 BA.2 subvariant

Updated: 9:55 AM EDT Mar 27, 2022

As the omicron subvariant BA.2 has become more prevalent in the United States, vaccine manufacturers are close to producing a shot for children under the age of 5. Loyola University Maryland associate professor of biology Christopher Thompson explains what we know about the BA.2 subvariant.

As the omicron subvariant BA.2 has become more prevalent in the United States, vaccine manufacturers are close to producing a shot for children under the age of 5. Loyola University Maryland associate professor of biology Christopher Thompson explains what we know about the BA.2 subvariant.

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What we know about the COVID-19 BA.2 subvariant - WBAL TV Baltimore

More than three-quarters of Utahns support Gov. Spencer Coxs steady state COVID-19 plan to start treating the virus like the flu and other diseases with limited outbreaks rather than as an ongoing emergency, according to the latest Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics poll.

And while 40% of Utahns believe it will still take a year or more for life to get back to normal from a pandemic that plagued the world for more than two years, thats down from 57% in January and 51% in February,during the last surge in cases.

Another 17% of Utahns say theyve already moved on.

The reality is, Utahns are looking at the situation and they are ready to transition now, said Jason Perry, director of the University of Utahs Hinckley Institute of Politics. Perry said because the governors plan has the backing of so many Utahns, it shows Cox and legislative leaders have found the mark for Utah on COVID-19.

The poll found 77% approved of the shift in the states COVID-19 response announced by Cox in mid-February, as case counts driven by the incredibly transmissible omicron variant of the virus were falling after reaching record-breaking highs. Just 18% disapproved, and 4% didnt know.

When it comes to getting past the pandemic, in addition to the 17% who say their lives are back to normal now a response added for the first time to the poll 13% of Utahns arent sure when that will happen, while 9% say it will take one to two months; 14%, three to six months; 7%, six to 11 months; 18% one year; and 22%, several years.

The poll was conducted March 9-21 by Dan Jones & Associates for the Deseret News and the Hinckley Institute of Politics of 804 registered voters in Utah. The results have a margin of error of plus or minus 3.45 percentage points.

The governors spokeswoman, Jennifer Napier-Pearce, said the state remains on track to meet the March 31 deadline Cox set for turning most of the testing and treatments for the virus over to private health care providers. Contracts the state has for providing those services will remain in place, however, to deal with any future surges.

Daily reports on cases, hospitalizations and deaths are also scheduled to end, but the state will keep watching for new COVID-19 outbreaks, including through measuring the presence of the virus in wastewater, as well as promoting vaccinations.

The governors office was pleased with the poll results.

We appreciate that the vast majority of Utahns see the wisdom in downshifting the states response to the pandemic even as we remain ready to ramp up quickly if we experience a spike, Napier-Pearce said. Were especially grateful to our health care and public health workers for getting us to this point.

Going forward, she said the state will continue to monitor the spread of the virus, focus on promoting vaccinations and follow other lessons learned over the past two years.

Although mask mandates are being lifted in other states to mark the change in how the virus is being managed, thats not the case in Utah. The Utah Legislature, which limited the powers of state and local leaders to respond to public health emergencies, overturned mask mandates approved in Salt Lake and Summit counties in January.

Dozens of people join the Concerned Coalition Public Health Rally at the Capitol in Salt Lake City on Saturday, Jan. 29, 2022, where participants demanded partisan politics be removed from Utahs public health policies.

Mengshin Lin, Deseret News

Perry said the governors announcement on COVID-19 may not dramatically change anyones behavior, but it does send an important message to Utahns.

Its symbolic in a very clear way, where the state of Utah is saying were not going to see elected leaders having press conferences about COVID routinely, he said. This is not something were expecting our government to be heavily involved in by the end of March.

The upbeat attitude of many Utahns comes as the United States faces yet another potential surge in COVID-19, this time from so-called stealth omicron, a subvariant known by scientists as BA.2 thats believed to be even more transmissible than its predecessor and is responsible for new surges in Europe.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that as of the week ending March 19, the subvariant makes up just under 35% of all COVID-19 cases in the United States and more than 21% of the cases in the region that includes Utah.

So far, 210 subvariant cases have been identified in Utah as part of the 1,500 to 3,000 positive test samples subjected weekly to genome sequencing by the state laboratory, said Kelly Oakeson, the Utah Department of Healths chief scientist for bioinformatics and next generation sequencing.

Utahs subvariant cases are climbing, Oakeson said, but not as fast as previous variants, including delta, which turned Utah into the nations hot spot for COVID-19 last fall. Still, he said within a week or two, Utah will catch up to New York, where BA.2 is now the dominant variant.

There is some hope, Oakeson said. We know boosters work really well against severe disease and hospitalization. So if a good proportion of the population is boosted, thats going to help. We know there is some immunity and protection if youve been previously infected with the original omicron against BA.2.

There no doubt will be breakthrough cases and exceptions among those whove had omicron, he said.

But the idea is in the population as a whole, theres enough immunity out there that we shouldnt see another big, huge increase in hospitalizations and deaths, Oakeson said. However, he added, this virus has thrown us for a loop time and time again, and always likes to throw us curve balls so I dont want to be, you know, too optimistic.

Count Janice Gravenmier, a West Valley City dental office manager, among the Utahns who approve of the governors COVID-19 plan.

Weve all had the COVID. Ive had it. My whole family had it. Some of the girls at work have had it. And weve all been fine. It hasnt been too bad. I know the older people and immunocompromised have more trouble, she said. But when she caught the virus a few months ago, it felt like a cold.

I had to stay home from work but I did the housecleaning, scrubbing walls and cleaning stuff, Gravenmier said, while taking care of other family members with COVID-19. The grandchildren were like me, they were bouncing off the walls and having fun. They didnt care.

Gravenmier, who still has to wear a mask at work and helps keep surfaces at the dental office clean by repeatedly wiping them down, said she isnt worried about the subvariant. But she said the concerns that her employer and others in the health care field continue to have mean it could be a year before life returns to normal.

Its going to be a while, she said.

Kory Jasperson, of Bountiful, who retired from a post with a genetics laboratory last December, also agrees with the governor that its time to deal with COVID-19 differently.

Ultimately, returning back to a little of normalcy is going to have to happen at some point. This has been going on for two years, Jasperson said. I think most people are kind of, not necessarily done with it I mean theres still precautions that are needed but I think overall we have to start going back to some normalcy.

Still, he said he believes it will take several years to get back to pre-pandemic life.

Everybody is, for the most part, hyped up about COVID. I completely believe in COVID. Its (had) significant ramifications across the world but theres a group of the population that will have a hard time returning to normal life, Jasperson said, even as he and others resume shopping and other everyday activities without masks.

Theres always a possibility that a variant will be a superspreader, will be more lethal, or it will have more significant ramifications than the previous variant, or whatever the case may be, he said, although not particularly concerned about the BA.2 subvariant.

I think I am a little bit tired of worrying about it, but thats not necessarily the main reason, Jasperson said, because he and those close to him are vaccinated and boosted. Unless youre just going to stick in your house and then not ever go outside, youre ultimately always going to have the opportunity of getting infected.

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Poll: Why Utahns say its time to treat COVID-19 like other diseases - Deseret News

Covid-19 redefined the 9 to 5 workday. Here's what's next. - Dallas Business Journal  The Business Journals

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Covid-19 redefined the 9 to 5 workday. Here's what's next. - Dallas Business Journal - The Business Journals

Adults in hospital who have Covid-19 and the flu at the same time are at much greater risk of severe disease and death compared with patients who have Covid-19 alone or with other viruses, research shows.

Patients with co-infection of SARS-CoV-2, which causes Covid-19, and influenza viruses were over four times more likely to require ventilation support and 2.4 times more likely to die than if they only had Covid-19, experts found.

Researchers say the findings show the need for greater flu testing of Covid-19 patients in hospital and highlight the importance of full vaccination against both Covid-19 and the flu.

The team from the University of Edinburgh, University of Liverpool, Leiden University and Imperial College London, made the findings in a study of more than 305,000 hospitalized patients with Covid-19.

The research delivered as part of the International Severe Acute Respiratory and emerging Infection Consortium's (ISARIC) Coronavirus Clinical Characterisation Consortium is the largest ever study of people with Covid-19 and other endemic respiratory viruses.

ISARIC's study was set up in 2013 in readiness for a pandemic such as this.

The team looked at the data of adults who had been hospitalized with Covid-19 in the UK between 6 February 2020 and 8 December 2021.

Test results for respiratory viral co-infections were recorded for 6965 patients with Covid-19. Some 227 of these also had the influenza virus, and they experienced significantly more severe outcomes.

In the last two years we have frequently witnessed patients with Covid-19 become severely ill, at times leading to an ICU admission and the employment of an artificial ventilator to help with breathing. That an influenza infection could give rise to a similar situation was already known, but less was understood about the outcomes of a double infection of SARS-CoV-2 and other respiratory viruses."

Dr Maaike Swets, PhD student, University of Edinburgh and Leiden University

Professor Kenneth Baillie, Professor of Experimental Medicine at the University of Edinburgh, said: "We found that the combination of Covid-19 and flu viruses is particularly dangerous. This will be important as many countries decrease the use of social distancing and containment measures. We expect that Covid-19 will circulate with flu, increasing the chance of co-infections. That is why we should change our testing strategy for Covid-19 patients in hospital and test for flu much more widely."

Professor Calum Semple, Professor of Outbreak Medicine and Child Health at the University of Liverpool, said: "We are seeing a rise in the usual seasonal respiratory viruses as people return to normal mixing. So, we can expect flu to be circulating alongside Covid-19 this winter. We were surprised that the risk of death more than doubled when people were infected by both flu and Covid-19 viruses. It is now very important that people get fully vaccinated and boosted against both viruses, and not leave it until it is too late."

Dr Geert Groeneveld, doctor at Leiden University Medical Center's infectious diseases department, said: "Understanding the consequences of double infections of SARS-CoV-2 and other respiratory viruses is crucial as they have implications for patients, hospitals and ICU capacity during seasons that SARS-CoV-2 and influenza circulate together."

Professor Peter Openshaw, Professor of Experimental Medicine at Imperial College London, said: "Being infected with more than one virus is not very common but it's important to be aware that co-infections do happen. The vaccines that protect against Covid-19 and flu are different, and people need both. The way that these two infections are treated is also different so it's important to test for other viruses even when you have a diagnosis in someone who is hospitalized with a respiratory infection. This latest discovery by the ISARIC consortium again adds significantly to improving the way we manage patients."

The findings have been published in The Lancet. The research was funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and by the Department of Health and Social Care through the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) as part of the UK Government's Covid-19 rapid research response.

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Combination of Covid-19 and flu linked to greater risk of severe disease, death - News-Medical.Net

A grave in Tehran in March 2020. Photo: Newsha Tavakolian/Magnum Photos

Live long enough in a pandemic and you will see the entire narrative landscape shift, even flip, sometimes more than once.

As recently as a month ago, Americans of a certain cast of mind could have still looked to China and indeed all of East Asia, Southeast Asia, and Oceania with some plausible pandemic envy. Those early lockdowns in Wuhan were brutal, yes; some of the surveillance testing, contact tracing, and quarantine measures imposed in places like South Korea and Singapore were very restrictive, true; closed borders and reentry policies in Australia and New Zealand went further than those of any country in Europe or the Americas; and while the Sinovac vaccines werent as effective as those made by Moderna or Pfizer, the success of true zero COVID policies through the region meant that in many places, shots got into arms without anything like a major COVID surge ever having taken place.

All of that seemed like an unimaginable triumph. Now, after a brutal Omicron wave punishing its largely unvaccinated elderly, Hong Kong has a cumulative death toll approaching Canadas. (In February, it was 25 times lower.) Omicron spikes elsewhere in the region in South Korea, in Singapore have proved less threatening, given higher rates of vaccination among the elderly. But panicked lockdowns imposed again in China suggest that the countrys leadership, at least, believes an enormous amount of pandemic vulnerability remains enough to justify a total shutdown of Shenzhen, a city of almost 20 million and such a critical economic and manufacturing hub that American observers immediately started raising their expectations for inflation.

Narrative turnabouts are not new with Omicron. Some are familiar: The disease wasnt spread through the air, then it was; masks werent worth it, early on, then became not just essential but badges of personal vigilance, then only useful if they were KN95s. Some narrative shifts were more obscure: Omicron was said to be mild, though it is roughly as severe as the original strain in immunologically nave populations. Others have been somewhat memory-holed, as when much of the public-health Establishment spent the fall of 2020 suggesting that herd immunity would be reached when 60 or 70 percent of the country was infected or vaccinated, a threshold we have now long since surpassed with nothing like herd immunity in sight; or when it spent the summer of 2021 insisting that breakthrough cases were exceedingly rare and breakthrough deaths essentially nonexistent, when in fact probably a quarter of all American deaths since Delta have been among the vaccinated. Some reversals were technical, as when rapid tests were first considered imprecise, became indispensable during Omicron, then had their efficacy in preventing transmission called into question. Some had to do with policy: School closures were once part of a first-response wave of restrictions, but a growing understanding of the relatively low risk to kids and real costs of keeping them home has meant schools are now broadly viewed as among the most important places to remain open. And some had to do with personal behavior, as when many of the same people who spent 2020 yelling at Thanksgiving travelers and arguing that responsibility to protect others should dominate ones personal behavior spent 2021 reasoning that vaccines had absolved us all of that responsibility. Many of those who once reacted in horror to Let it rip proponents began wondering if anything at all could have stopped the early spread in its tracks.

Our experience of the pandemic has been littered with bad-faith argumentation and instigation, but most of these narrative reversals are not that, or even signs of what Harvards William Hanage has called the motivated reasoning of the pandemic. One narrative replacing another is one description of the scientific method, and among the many astonishing features of this pandemic is how quickly science was able to process and respond perhaps without adequate speed, but at least fast enough for vaccines to be designed within two days, manufactured within two months, and rolled out to the vast majority of the world within two years. But the unsteady narratives of COVID-19 are reminders that, as sure as we might have been about how to interpret our experience of it, the stories we told ourselves about what we were dealing with and what we should be doing to protect ourselves were often incomplete, clouded by much more uncertainty and ignorance, wishful thinking and reflexive panic, than we were ever comfortable acknowledging.

There is one data point that might serve as an exceptional interpretative tool, one that blinks bright through all that narrative fog: excess mortality. The idea is simple: You look at the recent past to find an average for how many people die in a given country in a typical year, count the number of people who died during the pandemic years, and subtract one from the other. The basic math yields some striking results, as shown by a recent paper in The Lancet finding that 18.2 million people may have died globally from COVID, three times the official total. As skeptical epidemiologists were quick to point out, the paper employed some strange methodology modeling excess deaths even for countries that offered actual excess-death data and often distorting what we knew to be true as a result. A remarkable excess-mortality database maintained by The Economist does not have this problem, and, like the Lancet paper, the Economist database estimates global excess mortality; it puts the figure above 20 million.

As a measure of pandemic brutality, excess mortality has its limitations but probably fewer than the conventional data weve used for the last two years. Thats because it isnt biased by testing levels in places like the U.S. and the U.K., a much higher percentage of COVID deaths were identified as such than in places like Belarus or Djibouti, making our pandemics appear considerably worse by comparison. By measuring against a baseline of expected death, excess mortality helps account for huge differences in the age structures of different countries, some of which may have many times more mortality risk than others because their populations are much older. And to the extent that the ultimate impact of the pandemic isnt just a story about COVID-19 but also one about our responses to it lockdowns and unemployment, suspended medical care and higher rates of alcoholism and automobile accidents excess mortality accounts for all that, too. In some places, like the U.S., excess-mortality figures are close to the official COVID data among other things, a tribute to our medical surveillance systems. In other places, the numbers are so different that accounting for them entirely changes the picture of not just the experience of individual nations but the whole world, scrambling everything we think we know about who did best and who did worst, which countries were hit hardest and which managed to evade catastrophe. If you had to pick a single metric by which to measure the ultimate impact of the pandemic, excess mortality is as good as were probably going to get.

So what does it say? A year ago, it seemed easy enough to divide pandemic outcomes into three groups with Europe and the Americas performing far worse than East Asia, which appeared to have outmaneuvered the virus through public-health measures, and much of the Global South, especially sub-Saharan Africa, which looked to have been spared mostly by its relatively young population. Today, a crude count of official deaths, not excess mortality, suggests the same grouping: North America and Europe have almost identical death counts with official per capita totals eight times as high as Asia, as a whole, and 12 times as high as Africa. South Americas death toll is higher still ten times as high as Asia and 15 times as high as Africa.

The excess-mortality data tells a different story. There is still a clear continent-by-continent pattern, but the gaps between them are much smaller, making the experiences of different parts of the world much less distinct and telling a more universal story about the devastation wrought by this once-in-a-century contagion. According to The Economist, Europe, Latin America, and North America have all registered excess deaths ranging from 270 to 370 per 100,000 inhabitants; excess mortality in Asia is estimated between 130 to 330; in Africa, the range is 79 to 220. These numbers are not identical, but, all things considered, they are remarkably close together. The highest of the low-end estimates is barely three times the lowest; the highest of the high-end estimates is not even twice as high as the lowest.

If you adjust for age, as the Economist database does separately, the differences among continents grow more dramatic suggesting a reversal of outcomes, rather than a convergence. Outside of Oceania, Europe and North America were among the best in the world at preventing deaths among the old, and they were several times better at protecting their elderly, of whom they had many more, than Africa and South Asia. East Asia performed better, but only slightly: Canada is in line with China, Germany just marginally worse than South Korea, Iceland in the range of Japan. By almost any metric, Oceania remains an outlier: The Economist estimates zero excess deaths among the elderly in New Zealand, for instance, and gives the whole region an excess-mortality range of negative 31 to positive 37 per 100,000 residents, meaning its possible fewer people died there than wouldve had we never even heard of SARS-CoV-2.

In the country-by-country data, the divergences grow even bigger. Perhaps most striking, given both self-flagellating American narratives about the pandemic and current events elsewhere on the globe, is that the worst-hit large country in the world was not the U.S., which registered the most official deaths of any country but ranks 47th in per capita excess mortality, or Britain, which ranks 85th, or even India, which ranks 36th. It is Russia, which has lost, The Economist estimates, between 1.2 million and 1.3 million citizens over the course of the pandemic, a mortality rate more than twice as high as the American one.

Russia is not an outlier. While we have heard again and again in the U.S. about the experience of the pandemic in western Europe sometimes in admiration, sometimes to mock it has been eastern Europe that, of any region in the world, has the ugliest excess-mortality data. This, then, is where the pandemic hit hardest in the countries of the old Warsaw Pact and formerly of the Soviet bloc. In fact, of the ten worst-performing countries, only one is outside eastern Europe. The worlds worst pandemic, according to the data, has been in Bulgaria, followed by Serbia, North Macedonia, and Russia, then Lithuania, Bosnia, Belarus, Georgia, Romania, and Sudan. (Have you read much about pandemic policy in any of these countries?) Peru, which had what is often described as the most brutal pandemic in the world, ranks 11th with the smallest gap, among those countries with the most devastating pandemics, between the official COVID data and the estimated excess mortality. (You probably havent read much about Peru, either, but its lockdowns were severe for months, only one member of each household was allowed out once a week. At one point, an exemption was extended allowing for children under the age of 14 to leave their homes for 30 minutes of exercise per day, so long as it was conducted less than 500 meters away.)

Because The Economist allows you to explore how excess mortality evolved over time, country by country, the data also clearly showcases the pandemic as a tale of two years a mitigation year, 2020, and a vaccination year, 2021. Early in the vaccine-distribution phase, with the U.K. and U.S. moving most quickly, it was striking how so few of the countries that had done well in preventing spread in 2020 were doing well in providing vaccines quickly. Over the course of 2021, many of those gaps disappeared, with countries across East Asia and Oceania eventually accelerating their vaccine distribution and parts of Europe that were slow at the outset starting to catch up too. But the U.S. took the opposite course. In 2020, the U.S. had done a bit worse than average among its OECD peers. In 2021, when pandemic outcomes were often determined by the relative uptake of American-made vaccines, the U.S. did much, much worse than that. In country after country in Europe, the pandemic killed a fraction as many last year as it had the year before. In the U.S., it killed more. A year ago, it was possible to defend the American record as merely below average worse than it should have been but not, judging globally, cataclysmically bad. Today, it is cataclysmically bad, which is both outrageous and ironic, given that it is largely American vaccine innovation that has changed the pandemic landscape for the rest of the world the rest of the rich world, at least.

On February 1, 2021, just after the inauguration of Joe Biden, the U.S. had registered, according to The Economist, 178 excess deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, quite close to Britains 166, Belgiums 162, and Portugals 201. Fast-forward a year and those gaps have exploded. The U.S. has now registered 330 excess deaths per 100,000 meaning our total has roughly doubled. In Britain, the excess mortality grew only 30 percent; in Portugal, it was 17 percent.

The gaps between deaths in the U.S. and countries that had done better in the first year of the pandemic, like Germany or Iceland, have gotten even bigger. If the U.S. had the same cumulative excess mortality of Germany, it would have had 600,000 fewer deaths. If it had the excess mortality of Iceland, it would have had a million fewer deaths and would have only lost about 100,000 Americans in total.

How did this happen? The answer is screamingly obvious, if also, in its way, confusing: The U.S. drove an unprecedented vaccine-innovation campaign in 2020, which empowered much of the world to turn the page on the pandemics deadliest phases, then, in 2021, utterly failed to take advantage of its power itself. But what is perhaps even more striking is that American vaccination coverage isnt just bad, by the standards of its peers, but getting worse. About two-thirds of Americans have received two shots of vaccine, a level that is in line with Israel and not far off from the U.K., though below many other wealthy countries. (And even in the U.K., vaccination was more effectively directed toward the old.) But over the last six months, the country has had an opportunity to make up that gap with boosters and has simply not taken it. Only 29 percent of Americans have had a booster shot of vaccine, which puts us behind Slovenia, Slovakia, and Poland and means that less than half of those people happy to be vaccinated a year ago have chosen to get a third shot through Delta and Omicron. Booster campaigns seem like an obvious opportunity for easy public-health gains, yet remarkably few Americans seem to think its worth the trouble. Why? For everything we think we know about the pandemic and how people have responded to it, that one remains a maddening mystery.

Thank you for subscribing and supporting our journalism. If you prefer to read in print, you can also find this article in the March 28, 2022, issue of New YorkMagazine.

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What Excess Mortality Tells Us About the COVID-19 Pandemic - New York Magazine

(Precision Vaccinations)

In the United States, reported tuberculosis (TB) disease diagnoses fell 20% in 2020 and remained 13% lower in 2021 than TB disease diagnoses made before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to preliminary U.S. CDC data published on March 11, 2022.

The new data suggest that the pandemic has substantially affected TB trends in the U.S.

Before COVID-19, TB disease diagnoses typically declined between 1% and 2% each year.

The 2020 and 2021 declines may be related to factors associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, including an actual reduction in incidence and delayed or missed TB diagnoses.

Philip LoBue, MD, FACP, FCCP, Director of CDC's Division of Tuberculosis Elimination, commented in a media statement issued on March 24, 2022,"Delayed or missed tuberculosis disease diagnoses are threatening the health of people with TB disease and the communities where they live."

"A delayed or missed TB diagnosis leads to TB disease progression and can result in hospitalization or death and the risk of transmitting TB to others."

"The nation must ensure that healthcare providers understand how to diagnose and distinguish TB disease from potential cases of COVID-19."

TB prevention and control activities are essential public health functions for communities throughout the U.S.

To assist in these efforts, U.S. CDC launched theThink. Test. Treat TBcampaignto help raise awareness of TB and recognize the importance of TB prevention.

Starting a conversation with your doctor is the first step to protecting your family, friends, and community from TB disease.

TB is often prevented by the BCG vaccine, which is deployed millions of times each year.

Note: The CDC statement was edited for clarity and manually curated for mobile readers.

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COVID-19 Impacted Tuberculosis in the U.S. - Precision Vaccinations