Two years ago this month, the World Health Organization formally declared a pandemic caused by a novel coronavirus. See how the world has coped through the lenses of more than 80 photographers in dozens of countries https://t.co/9Em2Vo0wIw pic.twitter.com/l7Omp1URcO
— National Geographic (@NatGeo) March 3, 2022
Doctors praise Biden’s "test to treat" covid plan but worry about the details https://t.co/tDelPjo9qp
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) March 4, 2022
Since the beginning of the pandemic the CDC now estimates infections are close to 140 million in the United States https://t.co/7Q0MGrFQ6j pic.twitter.com/YjxsldRm3I
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) March 5, 2022
The Pentagon today lifted its mask requirement for the building for the first time since the Delta variant broke out last summer. Occupancy is now up to <50%, versus <25%, "gathering size has increased and there’ll be more options for seating in the food court."
— Caitlin Doornbos (@CaitlinDoornbos) March 2, 2022
Key Covid metrics are declining, but global health experts say the pandemic is far from over https://t.co/jzxfxNmgGz
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) March 4, 2022
… The United States reported nearly 533,300 cases for the week ending Feb. 24, a 36% decline over the previous week that has cascaded through every state in the nation, according to an analysis by Emily Pond, a research data analyst for the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center and Center for Health Security.
The nation reported 12,194 deaths over the same time period, a 22% decline nationally, according to Pond’s analysis. Yet a dozen states still experienced an increase in fatalities, pushing the cumulative number of U.S. deaths to more than 945,000…
Vaccinations in the United States remain stagnant, said William Moss, the CRC vaccinology lead and executive director of the International Vaccine Access Center. Slightly more than 215 million people in the United States have been fully vaccinated, just below 66% of the total population…
“We know that the SARS-CoV-2 virus is not going to disappear, that we are going to continue to encounter it in our lives,” Nuzzo said. “That’s why it’s important to get vaccinated. It’s not yet endemic. We’re still at very high levels of case numbers even though they’re falling.”
The scientific community does not yet know what an endemic level of infections for COVID-19 looks like, she added.
“We don’t know if it will fall on a seasonal pattern, although there is increasing belief that it will,” she said. “But we don’t know what that season will look like and when it will start and when it will end. We’re not there. But we are having a conversation given that this virus is not going away.”
What Will Our #COVID19 Future Be Like?
An optimistic scenario is for #SARSCoV2 to settle into a less disruptive flulike pattern. A more pessimistic scenario is for the virus to continue to generate variants that evade immunity & can infect many people.https://t.co/6CdEPwdnY8
— MicrobesInfect (@MicrobesInfect) March 4, 2022
Eschew wishcasting:
… An optimistic scenario is for SARS-CoV-2 to settle into a less disruptive flulike pattern, producing wintertime outbreaks with hospitalization and mortality rates lower than we saw in 2020 and 2021. A more pessimistic scenario is for the virus to continue to generate variants that evade immunity and are capable of infecting large numbers of the population.
While it is difficult to know how endemic coronavirus will manifest, there are two important characteristics worth monitoring in the coming months and years: the frequency and severity of outbreaks. These two factors will delineate the disruption caused by the coronavirus going forward…
A big unknown is whether SARS-CoV-2 can continue to produce variants that skirt around the immune system like Delta and Omicron. If the virus has this capacity, outbreaks could occur several times a year, much like during 2021. This endemic pattern might hold for a few more years or indefinitely. On the other hand, if the capacity to produce highly immune evasive variants is tapped out, future versions of the virus might be less aggressive and produce fewer outbreaks, perhaps once a year during winter, much like the flu…
A popular narrative is that the virus will become progressively milder over time and that perhaps Omicron is the first evidence of this progression. Unfortunately, this is most likely wishful thinking. Though Omicron has been milder, the next impactful variant could easily be more deadly, as Delta was.
While the virus is not driven toward becoming milder, other factors, like protection from prior infections, vaccinations, boosting and drugs, should help reduce disease severity, hospitalization rates, time spent in the hospital and the risk of death from Covid. For instance, mRNA vaccination has already reduced the likelihood of hospitalization and death to roughly one-tenth of that for the unvaccinated. It is important that vaccine effectiveness continues to be monitored and that vaccine formulations are updated as needed so that any loss of protection can be countered through boosting.
Given all this uncertainty, we should not become complacent. The coronavirus is wily and much more transmissible than influenza. We need to keep a watchful eye even though we now appear to be entering a lull in activity, because it is uncertain how long any lull will last. We shouldn’t assume Covid will ultimately become a mild flulike nuisance. Instead, stay prepared: Get vaccinated and boosted, listen to public health advisories, keep some at-home Covid tests on hand and use them if you’re exposed or feeling sick and mask up when needed. And keep an eye on the frequency and severity of future outbreaks.
======
While it's too soon to declare COVID-19 endemic, now is the time to focus on building better public health infrastructure, say IDSA President @McQHoya81 and member @ChidaNatasha in a new interview with @ABC.
— IDSA (@IDSAInfo) March 3, 2022
China to handle COVID clusters in a targeted, science-based manner https://t.co/qDWV1CoryS pic.twitter.com/sPTPBArCXL
— Reuters (@Reuters) March 5, 2022
China will cope with local COVID-19 outbreaks in a “science-based, targeted” manner to maintain the normal order of life, according to a government work report released at the open of the country’s annual meeting of parliament on Saturday.
China will stick to preventing inbound COVID infections and the domestic resurgence of the disease while continuing to refine its epidemic measures, according to the report.
The country will also step up research into coronavirus variants and their prevention and accelerate researching and developing vaccines and effective medicines against COVID, the report said.
In a separate document issued on Saturday, China’s state planner the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said the country will organise research into COVID vaccination using products based on different technologies and increase the coverage of COVID boosters.
China will further speed up the domestic research, development and approval of COVID-19 medicines in accordance with epidemic control needs, and coordinate efforts on production, storage and quality supervision.
China will also enhance cross-border trade to ensure the unimpeded trade of vaccines and materials needed to produce them, the NDRC said in the document.
Coronavirus LIVE: India Records Over 6,000 Fresh COVID-19 Cases https://t.co/Sfk9ETOP8V pic.twitter.com/7SX7FXnPQR
— NDTV News feed (@ndtvfeed) March 5, 2022
Over 3 crore beneficiaries in 15-18 age group fully vaccinated against Covid-19 https://t.co/kMTNHByWTD
— TOI India (@TOIIndiaNews) March 5, 2022
(Crore = 10 million)
Indonesia, Malaysia to ease COVID curbs on foreign visitors further https://t.co/OkGRgpmGZ2 pic.twitter.com/AivMQdDHLq
— Reuters (@Reuters) March 5, 2022
======
Almost a third of people report at least one ongoing symptom between 6 and 12 months after their coronavirus infection, a survey of 152,000 people in Denmark has found. https://t.co/TofTeRJmSo
— Reuters Health (@Reuters_Health) March 5, 2022
?: If not for the war in Europe, the story below might’ve been one of world’s biggest today. The largest-ever study comparing those who got COVID-19 and recovered and those who never got infected reveals major lasting health problems for the former group. https://t.co/1ihdgyEpno
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) March 5, 2022
… Because so many deaths were due to respiratory failure, many colleagues I talked with expected to find progressive pneumonia with lung destruction as the cause. However, researchers discovered something entirely different: blood clots in the lungs (also referred to as pulmonary emboli). Furthermore, they found countless additional smaller clots in many other organs as well. (Note that experts distinguish between clot and thrombus and embolus but for simplicity, we’ll call them all clots.)
These findings are particularly topical now, following an important article just published in Nature Medicine. Researchers utilized the vast databases of the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to examine more than 150,000 people who had survived Covid-19 infections and compared them with millions of people in the VA database who were similar in age, sex and other features but who did not develop Covid-19.
The results are clear and very significant: Compared with similar people who had not been infected with SARS-CoV-2, those who recovered from infection had many more blood clots, heart problems and strokes. The extent of the differences across the 20 different cardiovascular conditions is among the greatest of any clinical study I have read. It is jaw-dropping.
The study is telling us something we don’t particularly want to hear, but that is a critical piece of information for many reasons. First, it will help those trying to understand long Covid; second, it can help direct prevention and treatment decisions for those with active Covid-19 as well as those who survived the disease; and finally, it likely will contribute to an improved understanding of the very complicated dance of clotting and anti-clotting that goes on within each of our bodies every day…
It is altogether uncertain what comes next, but the fact that almost 80 million Americans have been infected makes a cohesive plan for their health care a necessity. Experts will draw up basic guidelines to help patients know the best path forward. Though, once again similar to the field of AIDS medicine, much will be done by trial and error as some people will be followed too intensely and others not intensely enough. Over time, a crisp and simple “if this, then that” sensible approach will likely emerge.
It would be nice to think that this sort of information would be powerful to convince people still unwilling to receive the Covid-19 vaccine or the booster shot by providing simple and horrifying truths about the aftermath of the disease. Up till now, the core of the hesitancy has not been influenced by facts and figures.
This new welter of facts, though, may be different (hope springs eternal). The suddenness of the pandemic and the suddenness of so many deaths were unspeakably tragic. Yet, for those patients and families who have managed to stay Covid-free over the last two years, the fear of Covid and the urgent desire to protect oneself may have been dulled by time and the relatively mild symptoms that were widely reported with the last variant of concern.
But now, with an elevated risk of heart disease, stroke and blood clots as a possible long-term effect of Covid-19 – conditions that can be chronic and slowly debilitating – perhaps the VA researchers will do something that almost a million American deaths has not: frighten a broad swath of the vaccine-hesitant into rolling up their sleeves and taking the shots.
Laurie Garrett had a bit of a reputation as a Cassandra, back before 2019. Can’t really blame her for taking a victory lap now…
I was in the Guangzhou wet market BEFORE it was shut down, during the 2003 #SARS outbreak. Yes @K_G_Andersen these #Wuhan images look like what I saw & photographed. I'd add:
– workers & animal dealers often are barefoot, even shirtless
MORE https://t.co/O6W2j5t8qS— Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) March 2, 2022
3/…be caged adjacent to one another, leading to fighting & fear responses
– shoppers closely inspect animals, including removing them from cages bare-handed
– in winter the windows & vents are closed, so aerosolized fecal matter etc fill the air
– key buyers are restaurants.— Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) March 2, 2022
Ocugen Inc said on Friday U.S. regulators have declined to issue an emergency use authorization (EUA) for Covaxin, the COVID-19 vaccine developed by its Indian partner Bharat Biotech, for use in individuals aged 2 to 18 years. https://t.co/Q9a9xMq7Rg
— Reuters Health (@Reuters_Health) March 4, 2022
======
More COVID-19 prevention measures are going away in New York City and Los Angeles as big cities push for normalcy after two grueling years of the pandemic. https://t.co/yrnyRNQYaN
— The Associated Press (@AP) March 4, 2022
Relieved to see items highlighted in @nychealthy guidance on vax requirements. Ideally wish there were "recommended actions for facilities" that requires facilities to provide high-quality masks to anyone that needs them just as Dept of Buildings requires bathroom facilities. https://t.co/DtHbNsKVwh pic.twitter.com/KQbrLXkw2E
— Jay Varma (@DrJayVarma) March 4, 2022
Just a complete fabrication. If you actually believe people were kicked off Twitter for simply questioning America's Covid policies, go look at the last 18 months of my mentions. You'll find thousands of people who've been doing exactly that with no problem whatsoever. https://t.co/V71shnWvBC
— James Surowiecki (@JamesSurowiecki) March 5, 2022
The problem for Covid skeptics and anti-maskers who've gained big social-media followings and made a lot of money is that with cases dwindling and mask mandates being lifted, they're running out of things to complain about. So they're going to try to play the censorship card.
— James Surowiecki (@JamesSurowiecki) March 5, 2022
An insubordinate anti-vaxxer is currently the commanding officer of a guided-missile destroyer. Navy leaders won't deploy the warship while he's in charge—they don't trust him.
But a judge won't let them reassign him, citing his "religious freedom." https://t.co/uy6cur1O2c
— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) March 4, 2022
If this were a thriller script, it would be rejected as implausible:
… That judge, Steven Douglas Merryday, is a George H.W. Bush nominee who sits on a federal trial court in Florida. He gained notoriety in 2021 after blocking a CDC order that limited cruise ship operations due to the pandemic. So, when the far-right Liberty Counsel sought to halt President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for the armed forces, they took their case to Merryday’s court. Predictably, they prevailed: In February, Merryday ruled that the mandate violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, siding with the plaintiffs, Navy Commander John Doe and Lieutenant Colonel Jane Smith. (I’ve applied these pseudonyms to the officers because the court granted them anonymity.)
But Merryday did not merely exempt Doe and Smith from the mandate. Rather, he handed down a sweeping restraining order that prohibited the Navy from taking any “adverse action” against the plaintiffs because of their unvaccinated status. Specifically, he barred the Navy from reassigning them for any reason whatsoever.
This order created immediate problems. An active-duty member of the Marine Corps, Smith is slated to take command of a Combat Logistics Battalion later this year. As Lieutenant General W.M. Jurney attested, this commander must disembark at ally nations all over the world. Many of these countries require all U.S. service members to be vaccinated against COVID before stepping on their shores. Because she is unvaccinated, Smith is not “worldwide deployable,” in Jurney’s words. And yet Merryday has forced the Navy to deploy her.
But Doe poses the bigger threat. He is currently the commanding officer of a warship that may soon set sail. If he falls seriously ill at sea—which is more likely because he refuses the vaccine—he may thwart the entire mission. The issue, however, goes deeper than that. In declarations, Vice Admiral D.W. Dwyer and Captain Frank Brandon explained that Doe’s anti-vax beliefs are part of a broader pattern of insubordination. Brandon testified that last November, he spoke with Doe on Doe’s ship one day before its scheduled departure. Doe was experiencing multiple symptoms of COVID, and appeared to have a relatively severe case; he could, Brandon recalled, “barely speak.” Yet Doe refused to get tested—a clear violation of protocol—and attended a briefing in a cramped room with about 60 other people. Brandon ordered Doe to get a test, which revealed that he did, indeed, have COVID, and exposed dozens of others to the virus.
Doe engaged in other deceptive behavior. For instance, when requesting leave, he concealed the fact that he was flying to another state, which would have triggered a mandatory risk assessment. After Brandon discovered this subterfuge, he learned that Doe had traveled to a high-risk area, requiring five days’ quarantine upon return. Doe did not inform his Executive Officer of this extended absence, creating a “significant and very rare” disruption “across the waterfront” during a crucial phase of ship preparation. Brandon concluded that Doe “intentionally deceived me,” “put his crew at risk,” “failed to comply with the Navy’s COVID-19 policies,” and engaged in “negligent behavior” in “performance of his duties.”…
In light of these fears, the Department of Justice pleaded with Merryday to pause his decision. On Wednesday, he declined. Merryday scorned the notion that Doe might get sick, writing that he is “triumphantly fit and slim and strong.”…
(If this were a thriller, Floriduh Judge would *literally* embrace Officer Doe, catch some triumphantly fit and slim and strong ‘rona, and die horribly in time to let the destroyer sail off to defend our allies.)
COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Friday / Saturday, March 4-5Post + Comments (35)