New COVID-19 cases in U.S. soar to highest levels on record
More than a year after the vaccine was rolled out, new cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. have soared to their highest level on record at over 265,000 per day on average, a surge driven largely by the highly contagious omicron variant. New cases per day have more than doubled over the past two weeks, eclipsing the old mark of 250,000, set in mid-January, according to data kept by Johns Hopkins University. The fast-spreading mutant version of the virus has cast a pall over Christmas and New Year’s, forcing communities to scale back or call off their festivities just weeks after it seemed as if Americans were about to enjoy an almost normal holiday season. Thousands of flights have been canceled amid staffing shortages blamed on the virus. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert, said Wednesday that there is no need to cancel small home gatherings among vaccinated and boosted family and friends. But “if your plans are to go to a 40- to 50-person New Year’s Eve party with all the bells and whistles and everybody hugging and kissing and wishing each other a happy new year, I would strongly recommend that this year we not do that,” he said. The threat of omicron and the desire to spend the holidays with friends and loved ones have spurred many Americans to get tested for COVID-19. Aravindh Shankar, 24, flew to San Jose, California, on Christmas from West Lafayette, Indiana, to be with family. Though he felt fine, he decided to get tested Wednesday just to play it safe since he had been on an airplane. He and his family spent almost an entire day searching for a testing appointment for him before he went to a site in a parking lot next to the San Jose airport. “It was actually surprisingly hard,” Shankar said about trying to find a test. “Some people have it harder for sure.” The picture is grim elsewhere around the world, especially in Europe, with World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus saying he is worried about omicron combining with the delta variant to produce a “tsunami” of cases. That, he said, will put “immense pressure on exhausted health workers and health systems on the brink of collapse.” The number of Americans now in the hospital with COVID-19 is running at around 60,000, or about half the figure seen in January, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. While hospitalizations sometimes lag behind cases, the hospital figures may reflect both the protection conferred by the vaccine and the possibility that omicron is not making people as sick as previous versions. COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. have climbed over the past two weeks from an average of 1,200 per day to around 1,500. Public health experts will be closely watching the numbers in the coming week for indications of the vaccines’ effectiveness in preventing serious illness, keeping people out of the hospital, and relieving strain on exhausted health care workers, said Bob Bednarczyk, a professor of global health and epidemiology at Emory University. CDC data already suggests that the unvaccinated are hospitalized at much higher rates than those who have gotten inoculated, even if the effectiveness of the shots decreases over time, he said. “If we’re able to weather this surge with hopefully minimal disruptions to the overall health care system, that is a place where vaccines are really showing their worth,” Bednarczyk said. It’s highly unlikely that hospitalization numbers will ever rise to their previous peak, said Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security at the Bloomberg School Public Health. Vaccines and treatments developed since last year have made it easier to curb the spread of the virus and minimize serious effects among people with breakthrough infections. “It’s going to take some time for people to get attuned to the fact that cases don’t matter the same way they did in the past,” Adalja said. “We have a lot of defense against it.” But even with fewer people hospitalized compared with past surges, the virus can wreak havoc on hospitals and health care workers, he added. “In a way, those hospitalizations are worse because they’re all preventable,” he said. Several European countries, including France, Greece, Britain, and Spain, also reported record case counts this week, prompting a ban on music at New Year’s celebrations in Greece and a renewed push to encourage vaccination by French authorities. WHO reported that new COVID-19 cases worldwide increased 11% last week from the week before, with nearly 4.99 million recorded Dec. 20-26. But the U.N. health agency also noted a decline in cases in South Africa, where omicron was first detected just over a month ago. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Omicron sweeps across nation, now 73% of new U.S. COVID cases
Omicron has raced ahead of other variants and is now the dominant version of the coronavirus in the U.S., accounting for 73% of new infections last week, federal health officials said Monday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention numbers showed nearly a six-fold increase in omicron’s share of infections in only one week. In much of the country, it’s even higher. Omicron is responsible for an estimated 90% or more of new infections in the New York area, the Southeast, the industrial Midwest, and the Pacific Northwest. The national rate suggests that more than 650,000 omicron infections occurred in the U.S. last week. Since the end of June, the delta variant had been the main version causing U.S. infections. As recently as the end of November, more than 99.5% of coronaviruses were delta, according to CDC data. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said the new numbers reflect the kind of growth seen in other countries. “These numbers are stark, but they’re not surprising,” she said. Scientists in Africa first sounded the alarm about omicron less than a month ago, and on November 26, the World Health Organization designated it as a “variant of concern.” The mutant has since shown up in about 90 countries. Much about the omicron variant remains unknown, including whether it causes more or less severe illness. Early studies suggest the vaccinated will need a booster shot for the best chance at preventing omicron infection, but even without the extra dose, vaccination still should offer strong protection against severe illness and death. “All of us have a date with omicron,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “If you’re going to interact with society, if you’re going to have any type of life, omicron will be something you encounter, and the best way you can encounter this is to be fully vaccinated.” Adalja said he was not surprised by the CDC data showing omicron overtaking delta in the U.S., given what was seen in South Africa, the U.K., and Denmark. He predicted spread over the holidays, including breakthrough infections among the vaccinated and serious complications among the unvaccinated that could stress hospitals already burdened by delta. Dr. Eric Topol, head of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, said other countries had seen omicron’s fast growth, but the U.S. data showed “a remarkable jump in such a short time.” Topol also said it’s unclear how much milder omicron really is compared with other variants. “That’s the big uncertainty now,” Topol said. “We have to count on it being a lot of hospitalizations and a lot of severe disease from omicron.” CDC’s estimates are based on thousands of coronavirus specimens collected each week through university and commercial laboratories and state and local health departments. Scientists analyze their genetic sequences to determine which versions of the COVID-19 viruses are most abundant. On Monday, the CDC revised its estimate for omicron cases for the week that ended December 11, after analyzing more samples. About 13% of the cases that week were from omicron, not the 3% previously reported. The week before, omicron accounted for just 0.4% of cases. CDC officials said they do not yet have estimates of how many hospitalizations or deaths are due to omicron. Though there remain a lot of new infections caused by the delta variant, “I anticipate that over time that delta will be crowded out by omicron,” Walensky said. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
States easing virus restrictions despite experts’ warnings
With the U.S. vaccination drive picking up speed and a third formula on the way, states eager to reopen for business are easing coronavirus restrictions despite warnings from health experts that the outbreak is far from over and that moving too quickly could prolong the misery. Massachusetts on Monday made it much easier to grab dinner and a show. In Missouri, where individual communities get to make the rules, the two biggest metropolitan areas — St. Louis and Kansas City — are relaxing some measures. Iowa’s governor recently lifted mask requirements and limits on the number of people allowed in bars and restaurants, while the town of Lawrence, home to the University of Kansas, now lets establishments stay open until midnight. Mike Lee, who owns Trezo Mare Restaurant & Lounge in Kansas City, said he hopes increased vaccine access, combined with warmer weather, will improve business. “I think that people are excited to put this past them and be able to start to get back to their ways of doing things,” Lee said. The push to reopen comes as COVID-19 vaccine shipments to the states are ramping up. Nearly 20% of the nation’s adults — or over 50 million people — have received at least one dose of vaccine, and 10% have been fully inoculated 2 1/2 months into the campaign to snuff out the virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Johnson & Johnson shipped out nearly 4 million doses of its newly authorized, one-shot COVID-19 vaccine Sunday night to be delivered to states for use starting on Tuesday. The company will deliver about 16 million more doses by the end of March and a total of 100 million by the end of June. That adds to the supply being distributed by Pfizer and Moderna and should help the nation amass enough doses by midsummer to vaccinate all adults. The White House is encouraging Americans to take the first dose available to them, regardless of manufacturer. In New York City, where limited indoor dining has resumed, officials said the J&J vaccine will help the city to inoculate millions more people by summer, including through door-to-door vaccinations of homebound senior citizens. But the efforts come with strong warnings from health officials against reopening too quickly, as worrisome coronavirus variants spread. On Monday, the head of the CDC, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, urgently warned state officials and ordinary Americans not to let down their guard, saying she is “really worried about reports that more states are rolling back the exact public health measures that we have recommended.” “I remain deeply concerned about a potential shift in the trajectory of the pandemic,” she said. “We stand to completely lose the hard-earned ground that we have gained.” Cases and hospitalizations have plunged since the end of January, and deaths have also dropped sharply, but they are still running at dangerously high levels and have even risen slightly over the past several days. “We cannot be resigned to 70,000 cases a day and 2,000 daily deaths,” Walensky said. Overall, the outbreak has killed more than a half-million Americans. The vaccine already is contributing to a decrease in severe cases and deaths among older people, and is “quickly becoming a bigger contributor” nationally, Justin Lessler, an expert in infectious diseases at Johns Hopkins University, said in an email. “I suspect we will see it overtake natural infection as the biggest driver of immunity late spring earliest, more likely midsummer,” Lessler said. Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease specialist at Johns Hopkins University, said he believes states and cities have leeway to ease some restrictions because hospitals no longer are at capacity in most communities. But “I do think that masks are likely going to need to be kept in place for some time until we get more of our vulnerable populations vaccinated,” he said. “It is important for restaurants who are increasing their capacity to remember that we are still in a pandemic and to continue to follow some of those rules,” Adalja said. The Biden administration wants to see all three vaccines distributed evenly, while also acknowledging that the easy-to-handle J&J vaccine will be used in pop-up mobile sites and locations without freezer storage capacity. States are hoping that the surging vaccine supply will help tamp down new infections. In Massachusetts, Gov. Charlie Baker lifted restaurant capacity limits entirely. Theaters can open at 50% capacity, with a maximum of 500 people. And capacity limits across all businesses have been raised to 50%. Las Vegas on Monday became the latest of the nation’s largest school districts to return children to classrooms. Pre-K children to third graders will go back two days a week, with other grades to be phased in by early April. And in California, Gov. Gavin Newsom and legislative leaders reached an agreement aimed at getting most children back in classrooms by the end of March. Under the deal announced Monday, school districts could receive up to $6.6 billion if they reopen by March 31. The U.S. ranks fourth in the world, behind Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Britain, in the number of doses administered relative to the population, according to data compiled by the University of Oxford. President Joe Biden fell well short of his goal of setting up 100 new federally operated mass-vaccination sites by the end of February, with just seven up and running. White House vaccination coordinator Jeff Zients also acknowledged that scheduling of vaccination appointments “remains too difficult in too many places.” But he said the White House is working with states to improve scheduling systems and is exploring federal support for call centers to make it easier for people to get appointments. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
