Category: Covid-19

Harrisburg, PA - The Department of Health today shared its weekly update on Pennsylvanias COVID-19 case investigation and contact tracing data and encouraged Pennsylvanians to download theCOVID Alert PA app, as more than 778,000 have already done to aid in contact tracing efforts. There are 59 counties in the substantial level of COVID-19 transmission rate.

When you are diagnosed with COVID-19, we have public health professionals standing by to contact as many Pennsylvanians as possible to help inform close contacts and mitigate spread. In order for these proven health practices to be effective, we need residents to play their part and answer the call and participate in the case investigation, Acting Secretary of Health Alison Beam said. If residents participate in these proven public health practices as well as downloading the COVID Alert PA app, we can truly help mitigate the spread of this virus and keep our friends, family and loved ones safe.

Thecontact tracing processis not possible without a case investigation by a public health professional. Across the commonwealth, there are 258 case investigators who reach out to incoming cases who are younger than 19 and older than 64 to find out where they went and with whom they came into contact in order to prevent outbreaks while infectious. This case investigation typically takes between 30 and 60 minutes to complete. For those who are between 19 and 64 years old and reside in an area without their own county or municipal health department, they will be contacted by a contact tracer to complete a Connect & Protect Form to initiate a digital case investigation in effort to connect to more people.

For this reporting week between Sunday, January 24 and Saturday, January 30, there were 39,179 COVID-19 cases statewide. Of those cases reported within that week, 20 percent, or 7,836 cases, had a case investigation started within 24 hours of receiving the positive report. Public health professionals will continue calling to complete the case investigation after the 24-hour period. An additional six percent, or 2,351 cases, had a case investigation started within 48 hours.

Although public health professionals may call to start the case investigation, the case may not answer the call on the first attempt. The Department of Health leaves voicemails, texts, and sends a letter to the home requesting a return call. There were 7,934 people, or 20 percent of cases, in this reported week that were successfully contacted by a public health professional statewide.

In addition to the traditional case investigations, contact tracers will call to reach the case and share a Connect & Protect Form to initiate a digital case investigation. There are now a total of 325 contact tracers working to assist this process specifically. For this reporting week between January 24 and January 30, Contact tracers made 12,937 calls to reach 64 percent, or 8,227 individuals, successfully. Of the 7,030 that were sent forms, 43 percent, or 3,018 were returned. Since the implementation of the form on December 21, 2020 until January 30, we have received over 7,167 completed forms.

Therefore, there were 10,952 individuals, or roughly 28 percent of cases, who successfully completed a case investigation this week.

After the initial case investigation is complete, contact tracing begins. Within the same time period of January 24 to January 30, there were 1,509contact tracing staff working with local and county health entities, partner organizations and the Regional Response Health Collaboration Program within the Department of Human Services as well as volunteers from Co-County Wellness in Berks County and Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health. These staff monitored 5,761 contacts who were identified during the case investigations.

Currently, all of the allotted 1,090 people have been hired through Insight Global. Some of these staff have been promoted to perform case investigations to meet the immediate needs of increased caseloads. There are 50 case investigators, 40 supervisors, and 10 resource coordinators who also help to refer Pennsylvanians to services during quarantine across the commonwealth.

Since the implementation of the Contact Tracing Management System in early October through January 23 in those areas of the state where Pennsylvania Department of Health is responsible for contact tracing, 73,575 of 98,075 contacts, or 75 percent of the total contacts identified, were effectively reached to communicate their quarantine status and offer ongoing symptom monitoring.

Between January 24 and January 30 there have been:

On September 22, the department launchedCOVID Alert PA, a free mobile app that uses Bluetooth technology to let a person know that they have been exposed to COVID-19 without compromising the identity or location of either the person using the app, or of the person to whom they may have been exposed.

The Department of Health has made updates the COVID Alert PA app to allow 13- through 17-year-old residents with parental consent to download the app and four new languages. This app is interoperable with16 other states that also utilize the same notification exposure app technology.

In addition to the traditional case investigations and contact tracing process, there have been 1,347 cases that confirmed their positivity and uploaded their random IDs through the app. These uploads generated 649 exposure alerts to persons who have downloaded the app on their phones and who were in close contact (six feet for 15 minutes or more) to the case. Of those who received the alerts, 92 individuals requested a call back for further assistance from a trained contact tracer.

As the contact tracing program expands, the Department of Health continues to work in partnership with over 150 organizations, in addition to the county and municipal health departments, through regional partnerships to help gather and answer questions, identify problems and find solutions to improve contact tracing efforts within the region. Each regional partnership has met at least once, and includes public health staff, health providers, academic institutions, community organizations, and other stakeholders interested in helping to coordinate and engage around contact tracing efforts.

Organizations and entities interested in partnering in these efforts should reach out toRA-DHCONTACTTRACING@pa.gov.

You can find more information on the states contact tracing efforts at the Department of Healths websitehere.

The Wolf Administration stresses the role Pennsylvanians play in helping to reduce the spread of COVID-19:

Updated Coronavirus Links: Press Releases, State Lab Photos, Graphics

Community preparedness and procedures materials

MEDIA CONTACT: April Hutcheson - ra-dhpressoffice@pa.gov

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Department of Health Jan. 24-30 Update On COVID-19 Investigations, Contact Tracing, Monitoring Efforts: Pennsylvanians Urged To 'Answer the Call' And...

AUSTIN (KXAN) Dr. Valentina Hoyos Velez didnt realize she was an artist until the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

Hoyos Velez, a breast oncologist and assistant professor at the Baylor College of Medicine, typically treats cancer patients and is a researcher who focuses on immunotherapies in her laboratory.

I always thought we need to get better treatments, treatments that dont have so much toxicities, that are better tolerated, and that actually can cure cancer, Hoyos Velez said. The more I learned about it, the more I, in my opinion, thought that immunotherapy is the way of the future for that.

Trying to simplify explanations about immunotherapies to patients, paired with spending more time at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, Hoyos Velez tried to get creative with cartoons.

I realized that many people were refusing to get the vaccine because they didnt really understand how it worked, and there was a lot of misconceptions about it that I found online, and my patients would ask me things that really just made no sense, Hoyos Velez said. So I said, Well, maybe Ill just put a pause on the explaining cancer for now and just focus on explaining the vaccines to patients.'

She recorded explanations to go along with her illustrations and launched a YouTube channel, called Immune Cartoons, where she uploaded videos in English and Spanish explaining how COVID-19 vaccines work.

What I tried to do is to get the information in an easy way so that people can go towards the right the correct information, Hoyos Velez said.

Its our responsibility the scientists, the doctors, the people that know that all these things that people are saying are not accurate to ourselves put the right information out there, she said.

Other medical professionals are catching on to her efforts.

I stumbled upon the video with the cartoon, said Delores Vandegrift, a pediatric nurse practitioner in Edison, New Jersey. The pictures with the illustrations, its very easy to understand. I found it to be very useful.

Not everybody understands medical terminology, Vandegrift said. We talk in medical terms, and the average person that is especially not in health care or in medicine, they dont know what those big words mean, and what happens? They get more afraid of it.

Vandegrift has forwarded the videos to some of her patients, one of which said it helped influence their decision to get vaccinated when eligible.

Thats encouraging, according to state officials involved in the pandemic response.

Anything we can do to simplify the messages about COVID-19, and the the serious effects that it has on individuals, and then what we can all do, to protect ourselves and protect our loved ones, I think is a great thing to do, Seth Christensen, chief of media and communications for the Texas Division of Emergency Management, said.

TDEM is involved in coordinating shipments of personal protective equipment and hospital supplies, as well as medical personnel. The agency also works alongside local, state and federal partners to organize aspects of COVID-19 testing and vaccinations.

Simplifying that message, not speaking like were coming out of a scientific textbook, I think is something that Ive tried to do so that everyone has the ability to understand the negative effects of the disease, and the positive effects of what we can do to slow the spread of COVID-19 in our communities, said Christensen, who had not seen the cartoons.

Perhaps most surprising for Hoyos Velez was the popularity of her Spanish videos.

The Spanish version took off a lot more than the English one, which I was surprised about, Hoyos Velez said, noting that friends in other countries have talked about adding other foreign subtitles.

Ashley Miznazi contributed to this report.

Go here to see the original:

Texas doctor creates cartoons to explain the science behind COVID-19 - WAVY.com

If a student tests positive, like I said, a provider would reach out to them and talk to them about their history, could they identify someone theyve been in close contact with, are they having any symptoms, said Wesner-Harts. If we have to, we could do a confirmatory PCR test, but its going to depend on their own history.

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Day one of weekly COVID-19 testing moves smoothly at UNCW - WECT

When it comes to kids getting back in school she stands with the guidance the CDC recently released. She feels ok with kids getting back into the classroom as long as school districts have extensive safety measures in place and are properly distancing, using masks, sanitizing and following other safety procedures.

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Parent Survival Guide: U.S. sees increase in kids with COVID-19 - Live 5 News WCSC

The West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) reports as of February 8, 2021, there have been 1,999,295 total confirmatory laboratory results received for COVID-19, with 125,106 total cases and 2,131 total deaths.

DHHR has confirmed the deaths of a 69-year old female from Berkeley County and a 73-year old male from Berkeley County.

The suffering this virus causes must be stopped, said Bill J. Crouch, DHHR Cabinet Secretary. West Virginia, I implore you to continue to take steps to keep yourselves and loved ones healthy.

CASES PER COUNTY: Barbour (1,153), Berkeley (9,241), Boone (1,484), Braxton (756), Brooke (1,946), Cabell (7,312), Calhoun (217), Clay (361), Doddridge (432), Fayette (2,507), Gilmer (659), Grant (1,019), Greenbrier (2,326), Hampshire (1,449), Hancock (2,535), Hardy (1,242), Harrison (4,631), Jackson (1,614), Jefferson (3,451), Kanawha (11,445), Lewis (928), Lincoln (1,165), Logan (2,553), Marion (3,514), Marshall (2,914), Mason (1,709), McDowell (1,304), Mercer (4,015), Mineral (2,531), Mingo (2,008), Monongalia (7,365), Monroe (910), Morgan (891), Nicholas (1,102), Ohio (3,478), Pendleton (601), Pleasants (779), Pocahontas (569), Preston (2,468), Putnam (3,962), Raleigh (4,355), Randolph (2,283), Ritchie (582), Roane (477), Summers (682), Taylor (1,042), Tucker (477), Tyler (591), Upshur (1,578), Wayne (2,483), Webster (275), Wetzel (1,030), Wirt (332), Wood (6,709), Wyoming (1,664).

Delays may be experienced with the reporting of information from the local health department to DHHR. As case surveillance continues at the local health department level, it may reveal that those tested in a certain county may not be a resident of that county, or even the state as an individual in question may have crossed the state border to be tested. Such is the case of Hardy County in this report.

Read more from the original source:

COVID-19 Daily Update 2-8-2021 - West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources

FILE PHOTO: Health workers administer a COVID-19 vaccine at a drive-thru vaccination centre at Batchwood Hall, amid the outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in St Albans, Britain, February 5, 2021. REUTERS/Paul Childs

LONDON (Reuters) - A COVID-19 booster in the autumn and then annual vaccinations are very probable, Britains vaccine deployment minister said on Sunday as countries race to administer injections in the face of new variants.

Britain has already injected over 12 million first doses of COVID-19 vaccines and is on track to meet a target to vaccinate everyone in the top most vulnerable groups by mid-February.

Among coronavirus variants currently most concerning for scientists and public health experts are the so-called British, South African and Brazilian variants, which appear to spread more swiftly than others.

We see very much probably an annual or a booster in the autumn and then an annual (vaccination), in the way we do with flu vaccinations where you look at what variant of virus is spreading around the world, Nadhim Zahawi told the BBCs Andrew Marr Show.

AstraZeneca said on Saturday its vaccine developed with the University of Oxford appeared to offer only limited protection against mild disease caused by the South African variant of COVID-19, based on early data from a trial.

Britain reported on Sunday a further 15,845 cases and 373 deaths within 28 days of a positive test, according to official figures.

The success of the UKs vaccine rollout, however, is spurring debate about how soon the government can ease broader lockdown restrictions, amid plans to reopen schools in England in March.

As some nations consider a vaccine passport to enable the easing of travel measures, Zahawi said Britain would not introduce such a system but people could seek proof from their doctor if needed.

Thats not how we do things in the UK. We do them by consent, he said. We yet dont know what the impact of vaccines on transmission is and it would be discriminatory.

Reporting by Costas Pitas; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Susan Fenton

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UK says COVID-19 booster and annual vaccinations very probable - Reuters

(Reuters) - The United States reported a 25% drop in new cases of COVID-19 to about 825,000 last week, the biggest fall since the pandemic started, although health officials said they were worried new variants of the virus could slow or reverse this progress.

New cases of the virus have now fallen for four weeks in a row to the lowest level since early November, according to a Reuters analysis of state and county reports. The steepest drop was in California, where cases in the week ended Feb. 7 fell 48%. Only Oregon, Puerto Rico, Arkansas and Vermont saw cases rise. (Open tmsnrt.rs/2WTOZDR in an external browser to see a state-by-state graphic.)

At least three new variants of the novel coronavirus are circulating in the United States, including the UK variant B.1.1.7 that is 30% to 40% more contagious, according to researchers.

Im asking everyone to please keep your guard up, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said on Monday. The continued proliferation of variants remains a great concern and is a threat that could reverse the recent positive trends we are seeing.

The average number of COVID-19 patients in hospitals fell by 15% to 88,000 last week, also a record percentage drop, according to a Reuters analysis of data from the volunteer-run COVID Tracking Project. It was the lowest average number in hospitals since late November.

Death fell 2.5% last week to 22,193. Excluding a backlog of deaths reported by Indiana, fatalities were down 9.5% last week. Deaths are a lagging indicator and usually fall several weeks after cases and hospitalizations drop.

Cumulatively, nearly 464,000 people have died from the virus in the United States, or one in every 704 residents.

Nationally, 7.3% of tests of tests came back positive for the virus, down from 8.5% the prior week, according to data from the COVID Tracking Project.

Graphic: GRAPHIC-COVID-19 global tracker: here

Graphic by Chris Canipe, writing by Lisa Shumaker, editing by Tiffany Wu

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U.S. COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations log biggest weekly drops since pandemic started - Reuters

A 10-year-old Latino boy from East County who died on Jan. 23 is now the regions youngest COVID-19-related death, according to San Diego Countys latest coronavirus tracking report released Friday.

It was a day for grim records. In addition to the youngest, a 106-year-old man, also from East County, became the oldest local COVID-related death among the 2,777 announced to date.

Previously, the youngest to suffer such stark consequences after novel coronavirus infection was a 19-year-old man who died on Jan. 3. The previous-oldest COVID-19 casualty was a 104-year-old woman from the north central part of the county who died on Jan. 1, according to county records.

Both the oldest and youngest were said to have had other health problems present in addition to testing positive for the virus. Thirty-seven of the 39 deaths announced in Fridays report had other health problems present.

It was not immediately clear why it took nearly two weeks for the 10-year-old boys death to be reported to the public. Generally, the county health department has said in the past, reporting delays can be caused by the time it takes to process death certificates or to a lag in a hospital reporting the loss to public health.

As is always the case, the county released no information on the specific circumstances including what other illnesses were involved in the losses. Such details are not connected to individual deaths for fear that doing so may make it easier to identify those who have died.

Generally, death has been very uncommon among those who are younger than age 18. According to provisional death counts listed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 67 children age five through 14 have died after a confirmed coronavirus infection among more that 421,000 COVID-related deaths nationwide. That figure is known to be incomplete given the sometimes weeks-long reporting delays.

While the community continues to record the deaths of those hospitalized during the patient surge in December and January, the local pandemic continues to run far below previous daily new case totals that topped 4,000 several times after the holidays.

Fridays report, though, showed a slight uptick. After two days under 1,000, the daily case total was 1,453 Thursday following Wednesdays tally of 1,598.

Total COVID-related hospitalizations continued to fall, reaching 1,183 with 353 in intensive care beds.

Link:

Ten-year-old boy is San Diego's first pediatric COVID-19 death - The San Diego Union-Tribune

Infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci says President Biden told him from the outset: "We're going to make some mistakes along the way. We're going to stumble a bit. And when that happens, we're not going to blame anybody. We're just going to fix it." "Boy, was that refreshing," Fauci says. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images hide caption

Infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci says President Biden told him from the outset: "We're going to make some mistakes along the way. We're going to stumble a bit. And when that happens, we're not going to blame anybody. We're just going to fix it." "Boy, was that refreshing," Fauci says.

Less than three weeks into the new Biden administration, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the infectious disease expert who has headed up the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984, is encouraged by the new president's approach to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"It was very clear what President Biden wanted ... and that is that science was going to rule," Fauci says. "That we were going to base whatever we do, our recommendations or guidelines ... on sound scientific evidence and sound scientific data."

But there was something else that Biden promised, which Fauci found equally reassuring: "He said, 'We're going to make some mistakes along the way. We're going to stumble a bit. And when that happens, we're not going to blame anybody. We're just going to fix it.' "

"Boy, was that refreshing," Fauci says.

Fauci has worked with seven presidents, from Ronald Reagan to Joe Biden. Much of his career has been devoted to researching viruses and the immune system. During the AIDS epidemic, he made major contributions to the understanding of how HIV affects the immune system and was instrumental in developing drugs that could prolong the lives of people with HIV.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Fauci became something of a medical celebrity as a member of the former administration's coronavirus task force who publicly disagreed with President Donald Trump about COVID-19 treatment, the value of masks and about the timeline for reopening. In return, Trump called Fauci an "idiot" and tweeted about firing him.

"What I think happened is that the [Trump] White House, in general the president was looking for people who were saying things that were compatible with what his feeling was about, where he wanted to go," Fauci says.

Looking ahead, Fauci says the pandemic is far from over especially as the virus mutates and new strains emerge. He says controlling the spread of the virus will help tamp down mutations. The key is to vaccinate "as many people as quickly and as efficiently as you possibly can" and "to double down on the public health measures of uniform wearing of masks, physical distancing, avoiding congregate settings particularly indoors."

Fauci notes that any vaccination efforts should address the needs of the larger global population.

"You've got to be able to get with the help of the developed world the entire world vaccinated," he says. "As we allow this infection to exist to any degree in any part of the world, it will always be a threat. So we've got to approach this the way we approach smallpox, the way we approach polio, and the way we approach measles and other devastating global outbreaks."

On the major new mutations in the coronavirus and how that affects our strategy to fight it

I think people need to understand something that's very important: RNA viruses SARS-CoV-2 is an RNA virus will mutate, and the more the virus replicates, the more opportunity you give it to mutate. So when you have so much infection in the community, as we have had in the United States over the last few months, where you literally have hundreds of thousands of new infections per day we were up to between 300,000 to 400,000 [cases] a day. We're down now between 100,000 to 200,000 per day. But we still have 3,000 to 4,000 deaths per day. That means the virus has almost an open playing field to replicate, [which] means you give it an opportunity to mutate.

So even though this is a challenge, we should not be set back by this. We can meet the challenge and you meet the challenge by first getting a handle on the degree of mutations by doing good genomic surveillance, No. 1, but No. 2, by doing whatever you can to prevent the replication of the virus by vaccinating as many people as quickly and as efficiently as you possibly can.

And also to double down on the public health measures of uniform wearing of masks, physical distancing, avoiding congregate settings, particularly indoors.

One of the things that we do know is that the vaccines that we have, although they are less effective in preventing disease ... when you look at serious disease with hospitalizations and deaths, the vaccines still have a pretty important, positive effect even on the mutants.

But we don't want to get confident about that. We've got to be able to match future vaccines and upgrade them to be able to be directed specifically at these troublesome mutants that have evolved.

On the misleading idea that a good way to conquer COVID-19 might be to simply let more people get infected and gain immunity that way

[Trump] wanted to focus on things other than the pandemic. So anyone who would come in, like [coronavirus adviser] Dr. [Scott] Atlas, and say, "Just let people get infected, you'll get herd immunity and everything will be fine" was a welcome strategy or a welcome philosophy.

But as it turns out and we know right now very clearly that that was an incorrect strategy, if you actually pursued a strategy of "don't try and intervene. Don't wear a mask. Don't worry about congregate settings, just let the virus take its course and try and protect the vulnerable." ... We cannot effectively protect the vulnerable [that way], because they were such an important part of our population.

So if you look at the number of people right now who have died, it's close to 450,000 people. And if you look at the seroprevalence in the country how many people already will have gotten infected there are certain areas where it's high, 20-plus%. But as an average for the country, it's probably somewhere less than 20%, which means that if you wanted to get the 70 or 85% of the people that need to be infected to give you herd immunity, a lot more people will have died. We've already had 430,000 [to] 450,000 people who have died, and we aren't even anywhere close to herd immunity.

On the origin of the FDA's "emergency use authorization," which has been used to speed COVID-19 vaccines to market

To get a drug out as quickly as you possibly can, based on the fact that the benefit looks like it was better than the risk and you didn't have to fully show efficacy yet, originated way back during the years of HIV. Compassionate use of a drug even before you get an emergency use authorization originated way back in the days of HIV, because we didn't have compassionate use to any great extent until we got into the situation with HIV in the early and mid 1980s. So there's a very good connection between some of the things that we're doing now with interventions for COVID-19 that actually originated way back when we were doing HIV in its very early years.

On two things he learned from the AIDS epidemic that he's applying to the COVID-19 pandemic now

One of them is the importance of getting the community involved and dealing with the community and their special needs. ... We have a disparity here that is striking and needs to be addressed that if you look at the incidence of infection and the incidence of serious disease, including hospitalization and deaths, brown and Black people suffer disproportionately more than whites. ...

So I think that shines a bright light on what we probably should have done all along and certainly must do in the future, is to address those social determinants of health that actually lead to the great disparity of suffering in COVID-19 among brown and Black people. We had the same sort of thing with the disparities of infection in certain demographic groups with HIV. So from an epidemiological standpoint, there were similarities there.

We also learned the importance of fundamental basic science in getting solutions. ... Back in the early days, getting infected with HIV was a virtual death sentence for the overwhelming majority. ... It was the fundamental basic science of targeted drug development that allowed us to develop combinations of drugs first single drugs and then a couple at a time, and then triple and more combinations of drugs that ultimately completely transformed the lives of people living with HIV, to the point where you went from a virtual death sentence to being able to lead essentially a normal life, as well as not infecting anybody else. ...

We know now that something we've called "treatment as prevention" [works] which means if you treat someone who's living with HIV and suppressed the level of virus to below detectable, you make it essentially impossible for that person to infect someone else. So we got there through basic science.

On being vilified by AIDS activists early on in the AIDS crisis, who believed the government should expand access to experimental medicines, and how that compares to being vilified during the COVID-19 pandemic by people who are anti-science and anti-mask

That really is a stark contrast. The [AIDS] activists were justified in their concerns that the government (even though they weren't doing it deliberately) were not actually giving them a seat at the table to be able to have their own input into things that would ultimately affect their lives. So, even though they were very theatrical, they were very iconoclastic, they seemed like they were threatening, ... never for a single moment did I ever feel myself threatened by the AIDS activist.

In fact, one particular situation, I think, was very telling. At a time when there was a lot of pushback against the government and not listening to the valid concerns of the activists, I was invited to go down and I went with just one of my staff at the time to go down essentially alone to the gay and lesbian community center in the middle of Greenwich Village to meet with what must have been anywhere from 50 to 100 activists in this meeting room. Just me and one of my staff. And they were angry with the federal government because they felt the federal government was not listening to them, and they were right I think they had a really good point.

Not for a second, did I feel physically threatened to go down there, not even close. I mean, that's not the nature of what the protest was. And I think one of the things about it was that not only were they not threatening at all in a violent way, but ultimately they were [also] on the right side of history.

On his early research into the AIDS epidemic, visiting gay bathhouses to gain a better understanding of the then-mysterious outbreak that was killing gay men

This was the very, very early years of the outbreak. In fact, it may even have been before we even discovered that HIV was the cause. And we were seeing these large numbers of mostly gay men who were formerly otherwise well, who were being devastated by this terrible, mysterious disease. And it was so concentrated in the gay community that I really wanted to get a feel for what was going on there that would lead to this explosion of a sexually transmitted disease. So I did. I went to the Castro District [of San Francisco]. I went down to Greenwich Village and I went into the bathhouses to essentially see what was going on.

And the epidemiologist in me went, "Oh, my goodness, this is a perfect setup for an explosion of a sexually transmitted disease!" And the same thing going to the gay bars and seeing what was going on. And it gave me a great insight into the explosiveness of the outbreak of a sexually transmitted disease. So I think it was important, because it gave me a really on-the-ground feel for what was actually dynamically going on.

On whether COVID-19 will be with us forever like influenza

I don't think we need to make that assumption. That certainly is a possibility that you would have enough virus floating around and changing from year to year, that you would have to treat it in some respects, the way we treat seasonal influenza, where you have to upgrade the vaccine almost every year.

There is a way, if done properly, to avoid that, and that is, for example, if we successfully vaccinate 70 to 85% of the people in the United States and dramatically diminish the level of infection if we were living in a vacuum in only the United States, then I don't think we'd have to worry about seasonal turnover and having to match. But we live in a global community and unless we get the rest of the world adequately vaccinated and unless we don't have the opportunity of this virus to mutate in a place that doesn't have access to vaccines, we will always be threatened.

Fresh Air's interview with Dr. Fauci was recorded as part of a WHYY Zoom event at which Fauci accepted WHYY's annual Lifelong Learning Award.

Sam Briger and Seth Kelley produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Deborah Franklin adapted it for the Web.

See the article here:

Dr. Fauci On Vaccinations And Biden's 'Refreshing' Approach To COVID-19 - NPR

The good news is that Texas is finally seeing COVID-19 hospitalizations and cases trend downward after a holiday season marked by a record-breaking surge that pushed hospital systems and health care workers to their limits.

The bad news is that there are still more Texans getting sick and being hospitalized for the coronavirus than this summer, when the state was in the throes of the first wave.

And while vaccinations are reaching more people every day, health care experts warn that this doesnt mean Texas is out of the woods. They say people should remain vigilant and continue following safety guidelines like mask-wearing and social distancing, especially as new variants of the virus continue to emerge. With Super Bowl Sunday around the corner, many are concerned about super spreader events that could undo the modest progress the state has experienced in the past few weeks.

Cases peaked in mid-January at an average of more than 22,000 per day. By Thursday, the average had decreased to around 16,500 per day. COVID-19 hospitalizations have also dipped from an all-time high of more than 14,000 patients on Jan. 12 to 10,523 reported patients on Thursday.

Texas is still experiencing more than 40% more daily cases on average than it saw during the previous summer peak for confirmed cases.

The fact that things are decreasing, it doesn't mean that we [get] to relax because every time we've done that, things go back really, really bad, said Cesar Arias, a professor of infectious diseases at University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.

Broadly, Texas health officials say the reason for the recent dip in numbers is because the state is coming off a spike related to gatherings from Thanksgiving and the December holiday season. But a combination of vaccines for health care workers and a decrease in large gatherings could also be contributing to the downward trends, said Philip Huang, director of health and human services in Dallas County.

Vaidehi Shah, Waco-McLennan Countys senior epidemiologist, added even before the pandemic began, January and February usually didnt see as much travel a trend that has helped lower positive case rates this year.

Still, more than 37,000 Texans have died, and there is still a long way back to normal, Arias said.

Comparatively, we are nowhere near to where we should be, to be able to control this pandemic, Arias said. Were getting to the peak of that exposure, and theres probably much more people that are infected than we have been able to detect. So maybe its scratching the surface.

Shah said she hopes hospitalization patterns in Waco will continue to improve at similar rates. By the beginning of January, COVID-19 patients were being treated in more than 30% of hospital beds in that region, a number that has since dropped in half.

During the pandemic, Shah said the trend has been a rise in cases, followed by a rise in hospitalizations, then a rise in deaths.

And when the numbers go down, it goes in a similar pattern, Shah said. So [our region] did start seeing a reduction in cases about two to three weeks ago Were really hopeful well see that same thing with fatality numbers as well.

Medical professionals are also worried by the new COVID-19 mutations that have emerged in Texas and across the country over the past few months. The variants have the potential to be more contagious and could lead to another increase in case rates and hospitalizations down the line.

But Arias said hes hopeful proliferation of the COVID-19 vaccines will help mitigate that spread. While the vaccine may be effective on new mutations as well, Arias said there are still factors that prevent vulnerable populations, like people of color, from receiving a dose in the first place.

I dont think we still have a very good plan to cover those at the moment, Arias said. Those are most likely where these situations are going to emerge in terms of the system viruses or mutated viruses that transmit better. So aggressive vaccination is really the only way out.

Stephen Love, president of the Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council, said hes worried about Super Bowl parties as another source of spread. Love said while people are often vigilant in settings like grocery stores, that level of caution tends to diminish at small gatherings.

They get lax when they get home, Love said. I think a lot of the spread weve seen, especially during the holidays,and right after the holidays, didnt occur out in public it occurred in the home.

Mandi Cai contributed to this report.

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Texas COVID-19 cases trend down from record highs, still higher than summer - The Texas Tribune