So how effective are COVID-19 vaccinations for children age 5 to 11?
There are emerging data suggesting that protection against infection wanes for vaccinated children in this age group. But that shouldnt be a surprise, some experts say, as vaccination series without a booster shot generally have been less effective in protecting against infection from the Omicron variant of the coronavirus than earlier strains, and children in this age group arent eligible for a booster.
The good news is that recent data a study from the New York State Department of Health that hasnt been peer reviewed, and a report published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention underscore that COVID-19 vaccinations for children are protective against severe illness and hospitalization.
The main finding is that the vaccines are highly protective versus Omicron hospitalizations for children ages 5-11. That and their remarkable safety is why they should be widely adopted by parents to keep their kids and families [and] contacts protected from severe disease, Dr. Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in La Jolla, wrote in an email. We knew vaccines arent working well against Omicron infections, and both reports reinforced that finding.
Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, chief of infectious diseases at Stanford University School of Medicines pediatrics department, said that whats far more important in determining a vaccines helpfulness is its effectiveness against severe illness and hospitalization not in avoiding runny noses caused by COVID-19.
It would be nice to stop every runny nose. But thats not globally important right now. What we need to stop are people from getting hospitalized, getting put on ventilators and dying. And we need to stop clogging up our hospitals, so that people dont come in and die of heart attacks or strokes because they cant get a bed, said Maldonado, who has helped conduct clinical trials of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in children at Stanford.
Even though children are less likely to get hospitalized than adults, COVID-19 is still causing a level of deaths high enough that the pandemic is considered one of the leading causes of death in children. More than 1,500 children up to age 17 have died of COVID-19 nationwide, including 61 in California.
Los Angeles County on Thursday reported its 10th pediatric COVID-19 death in a teenager. This, like all deaths related to COVID-19, is a tragic loss, which will have a profound impact on this childs family and friends, Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said.
Orange County has reported five pediatric COVID-19 deaths; three have occurred since December, including two children who previously were in good health one younger than 5 who was ineligible for vaccination, and a 17-year-old girl who declined the vaccination and died from COVID-related multisystem inflammatory syndrome.
I have seen children on ventilators. I have seen kids who have been incredibly sick from this virus, Maldonado said.
Most hospitalized children are unvaccinated, health officials in Southern California have said. Child COVID-19 deaths are especially tragic because that age group isnt supposed to have high rates of death for any reason.
Yes, three-quarters of all deaths occurred in people over 65 so far. But children arent supposed to die, Maldonado said. Proportionately speaking, COVID deaths are in the top 10 causes of death in kids because theyre not supposed to die. Not in this world, not in the United States, in 2022.
Health experts have been worried about low vaccine uptake in children age 5 to 11. Only a little more than one-quarter of U.S. children are fully vaccinated, while 58% of adolescents age 12 to 17 are. In California, fewer than one-third of children are fully vaccinated, compared with 65% of adolescents.
In L.A. County, areas where vaccination rates are below the countywide average of 29% for the 5-to-11 age group are in lower-income areas such as the northeast San Fernando Valley, the Antelope Valley, South L.A., southeast L.A. County and the Eastside. Areas with higher-than-average vaccination rates include wealthier areas such as Malibu, Hollywood Hills, the southern San Fernando Valley, the Westside and the Palos Verdes Peninsula.
The CDC report showed data that found that vaccine effectiveness against hospitalizations when Delta or Omicron was dominant was 74% for children age 5 to 11. Out of 23 fully vaccinated children in this age group whose records were available, two were hospitalized, while out of 262 unvaccinated children, 59 were hospitalized.
Vaccine effectiveness against hospitalization was initially 92% for those age 12 to 15, and 94% for those 16 and 17, in the roughly five months after the primary vaccination series was completed. After that time, it fell to 73% for those age 12 to 15, and 88% for 16- to 17-year-olds still respectable numbers.
The New York data, analyzing information from Dec. 13 to Jan. 30, said vaccine effectiveness against any kind of infection for those age 5 to 11 dropped from 68% to just 12%, and for those age 12 to 17, fell from 66% to 51%. Still, our data support vaccine protection against severe disease among children 5-11 years, the authors of the New York study wrote.
Overall, both studies show that the vaccines work they dont prevent infections incredibly well, but we never thought that they would prevent all infections. What we were aiming for was preventing hospitalizations and deaths. And they do that, Maldonado said. The studies found that the vaccines are safe, and we know that the vaccines prevented children from being hospitalized during a major surge.
Maldonado said she and other vaccine experts expected there would be waning immunity from the COVID-19 vaccines, and so the future question that needs to be posed is when boosters would be a good idea, and in what circumstance.
Theres a reason we get colds over and over again; theres a reason we get the flu over and over again respiratory viruses are notorious for not providing long-lasting immunity, Maldonado said.
What emerging data do show is that, at least for adults and older kids, some months after the primary vaccination series, youre going to need a booster while theres an active ongoing transmission.
Now, are we going to need a booster if Omicron drops off and we dont see lots of virus circulating? We may be able to hold off for a bit on another booster, Maldonado said. But I do think we at some point may need another booster. I just dont know when that is.
Figuring out ideal vaccination schedules for kids is more complicated than for adults because childrens bodies can operate in dramatically different ways.
It may end up that scientists will suggest kids age 5 to 11 will need a booster and will then make adjustments to the primary vaccination series, such as changing the interval between doses or the dosage.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
In his State of the Union address on Tuesday, President Biden struck a cautiously optimistic note about the COVID-19 pandemic as it enters its third year.
The White House followed up with a detailed strategy for the pandemic's next phase including vaccinating here and abroad, testing, antiviral treatments, improving the quality of indoor air, expanding the nation's capacity to track and treat new variants and supporting people with long-term consequences of COVID.
The Centers for Disease Control has also issued new guidelines suggesting most Americans can take off their masks.
We set out, in the wake of the State of the Union, to assess the state of the pandemic with some of the country's foremost researchers, both at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta and at the University of Pittsburgh.
That's where virologist Paul Duprex alerted 60 Minutes last year about the dangers of coronavirus variants -- well before Delta and Omicron battered the United States.
Dr. Jon LaPook: It's been about one year since we last spoke for 60 Minutes. Is the pandemic over?
Paul Duprex: The pandemic is not over. But we're in a very different place today than we were one year ago.
Dr. Jon LaPook: How so?
Paul Duprex: There have been multiple more variants. But we're moving in a direction where there are not as many people who are in hospital because of the disease. And we've got many more people vaccinated. And we understand a lot about first shots, second shots, and now boosters. So, it's a totally different landscape.
Duprex, born in Northern Ireland, is head of the Center for Vaccine Research at the University of Pittsburgh. He's hopeful the virus will continue to mutate into a milder form.
Dr. Jon LaPook: Is it possible that the coronaviruses that now cause the common cold long ago began as fiercely, as dangerous, as deadly as SARS-CoV-2 and that, over time, it became weaker and weaker? Now we have the common cold?
Paul Duprex: Oh, I would say it's more than possible. I would say it's very likely. But we just have to wait and see where the virus ends up, and that's just good science. Scientists follow the virus, keep a close eye on it, and we understand how that virus changes over time and where it will go.
Keeping a close eye on the virus at the Centers for Disease Control is director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the former chief of infectious diseases at Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital. She was tapped by President Biden to lead an agency struggling to communicate effectively with the public.
This past week, Dr. Walensky took us behind the scenes at the agency that's been fighting infectious diseases since it was formed in the 1940s to combat malaria.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky: So here we are in our genomic sequencing lab.
Dr. Jon LaPook: This is the first time you've allowed a film crew back here?
Justin Lee: That is accurate.
Justin Lee leads the genomic sequencing laboratory and showed us how positive COVID test samples from all over the world are processed so genetic information can be extracted and analyzed in this sequencer to look for new variants of the virus.
Justin Lee: This was our most recent sequencing run.
Each square represents one person's COVID test sample.
Dr. Jon LaPook: And about what percentage are Omicron?
Justin Lee: From the U.S. samples that are collected recently, 99% are Omicron.
Dr. Jon LaPook: Wow. So out of 96 wells, only one of them is yellow? Only one is Delta?
Justin Lee: Only one is Delta.
Since first being identified in the United States just three months ago, Omicron and its sub-variants have almost entirely replaced the Delta variant, which had caused more severe disease.
Earlier in the pandemic, the CDC was lagging behind in genetic sequencing. Now, hundreds of millions of dollars in emergency funding have helped create a nationwide early detection system.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky: We want to be able to detect about 0.1% of any new variant if it comes into this country with 99% certainty.
Dr. Jon LaPook: And are you getting any kind of a hint that there's some new variant of concern?
Justin Lee: No. Not right now. Nope. I mean, we're tracking things but there's nothing that appears to be, you know, the next omicron.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky: We breathe a heavy sigh of relief when we don't see anything
But no threat is too small. In one COVID-19 briefing, we witnessed Dr. Walensky ask staff for an update on what some are nicknaming "Deltacron,"a genetic hybrid of the Delta and Omicron variants. It's only been found rarely in the U.S. and Dr. Walensky says the CDC does not consider it a threat at this time.
COVID-19 briefing
Dr. Rochelle Walensky: Anything more on Deltacron?
Dr. Mahon: No. I mean, it's out there.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky: But we're still in the, like, handful of cases?
Dr. Mahon: Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky: Not in the hundreds of thousands of cases?
Dr. Mahon: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky: Ok.
Recently, news about the pandemic in the United States has been encouraging. Hospitalizations, cases and deaths are dropping and effective antiviral treatments are becoming much more available for those who do get sick. Dr. Walensky has announced a new set of guidelines meaning, right now, about 90% of Americans can choose to drop their masks.
Dr. Jon LaPook: You hear the word "endemic" a lot.
Dr. Jon LaPook: What exactly does that mean?
Dr. Rochelle Walensky: You're at a steady state. Your pandemic or your disease is neither increasing nor decreasing.
Dr. Jon LaPook: So will there be a moment where it's at such a low level that, even though it's still on every continent, say, we're not calling it a pandemic anymore?
Dr. Rochelle Walensky: I think we'll get there. You know I do think that we will get to a place with this disease where we live with a relatively low level all year long and that maybe we have some surges during respiratory virus season. Those surges are annoying and for some, they will likely be tragic. But they are not to the tune of two and three thousand deaths a day. I think we live that way with influenza.
Dr. Walensky has learned to be cautious after telling fully vaccinated Americans back in May 2021 they could take off their masks.
White House Press briefingDr. Rochelle Walensky: Once you are fully vaccinated, two weeks after your last dose, you can shed your mask.
But the party only lasted a few months. New CDC research during a surge of the delta variant forced her to tell the country that masks should go back on.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky: I will never forget the gut punch on that Friday night when I first saw the data out of Barnstable County, Massachusetts, that demonstrated that there were vaccinated people that were transmitting it to other people. We said, "we have to put our masks back on."
Dr. Jon LaPook: Do you think communicating, "We don't know," was done well enough to the public from the very beginning?
Dr. Rochelle Walensky: You know (sigh)...
Dr. Jon LaPook: Or, "it may change."
Dr. Rochelle Walensky: There were so many times where we were optimistic. There were so many times where we didn't know. And since my getting here what I said is, "we're gonna lead with the science." The implication was that science was black and white, and in fact, in an ever-evolving virus, and a two-year-long pandemic, the science isn't always black and white. It's-- it's oftentimes shades of gray.
Dr. Jon LaPook: But from the point of view of the taxicab driver who drove me here a couple days ago, he remembers it as, "They told us you could take your mask off and then they changed their mind."
Dr. Rochelle Walensky: Right.
Dr. Jon LaPook: One recent poll showed that less than half the American public trusts the CDC when it comes to advice about the virus. Do you take it personally?
Dr. Rochelle Walensky: I certainly don't love to see statistics like that. But I think they will get better as we emerge from this pandemic.
During her 13 months on the job, Dr. Walensky has been on a mission to improve public trust in the agency. She's done more than 90 press conferences and hundreds of interviews. She told us she wants Americans to know the crucial work the CDC's 13,000 scientists, medical professionals, and public health workers do around the world.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky: Do they know that we deliver antiretroviral therapy to 12 million people around the world every year?
Dr. Jon LaPook: With AIDS?
Dr. Rochelle Walensky: With AIDS. No. Do they know that we're working to eradicate polio? Do they know that when somebody gets sick with salmonella, that we look for the source? Do they know that we're responsible for, you know, opioid statistics in the country?
Dr. Walensky took us into the CDC's emergency operations center -- a command post normally packed during disease outbreaks.
Dr. Jon LaPook: I hear phrases like "command center," "deployments," "task forces." It's kind of got a military sound to it. It feels like it's war.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky: We have to act like this is war. We are at war against this virus.
A top priority has been improving the collection and analysis of data. Dr. Walensky showed us how, at the beginning of the pandemic, fewer than 200 hospitals, clinics, and doctors' offices could send automated information on things like diagnoses, outcomes, and immunizations.
Dr. Jon LaPook: How could you do your work with so little data?
Dr. Rochelle Walensky: Boy, did we have to work hard to put the pedal to the metal and create the infrastructure. We've built that in the last year. So we now have in December of 2020, we had 6,500 facilities. And end of last year, we had over 10,000 facilities, and we have more work to do.
Dr. Walensky says they can now better use data to gain insight into things like the effectiveness of vaccinations.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky: Here we're looking at deaths. And we can map it towards the unvaccinated versus in the people who've received two doses of a vaccine, versus people who've been boosted. And so you see this massive difference between vaccinated and unvaccinated.
Dr. Jon LaPook: It's kind of stunning.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky: It is stunning. 41 times the risk of dying from COVID-19 in December of 2021 if you are unvaccinated compared to if you are boosted.
Virologist Paul Duprex used an animation to show how the body creates more and more immune cells with each shot of vaccine. That's why almost every immunization we get, like measles and polio, takes more than one dose to be long-lasting.
Paul Duprex: There are lymph nodes all across the body. When we get immunized, the vaccine is taken up by the lymph nodes in the armpit. These white cells are produced. These white memory cells patrol the body. And whenever the second immunization occurs, they remember. They explode in the lymph nodes. And those memory cells are able to produce antibodies but they're also able to recognize infected cells and take those cells out really quickly, before those cells start producing more virus in the body.
Dr. Jon LaPook: So months or even years after a vaccination these memory cells may be there kind of asleep
Paul Duprex: But with one click of an infection, they wake up and they explode into action.
Dr. Jon LaPook: And with each vaccination, the amount of immunity goes up?
Paul Duprex: Yes. You can think of it like a staircase. The first vaccination, we're up one step. The second vaccination, maybe we get to the third step. And the boost, we're up at step ten. So we get this really faster, more robust response as we vaccinate once, twice, and then boost.
The CDC says research is ongoing to determine if, down the line, periodic COVID-19 immunizations will be needed, just like the annual flu shot.
The coronavirus vaccines were developed so quickly because scientists at the National Institutes of Health and elsewhere had already done the research needed to understand coronavirus's molecular structure. Last fall, the NIH asked Paul Duprex to join a team to study other viruses that can harm humans.
Dr. Jon LaPook: So kind of a most wanted list?
Paul Duprex: Some of the most deadly agents are represented here.
The NIH has prioritized these seven viral families that cause potentially lethal illnesses like Ebola, Lassa fever, and encephalitis. Duprex says more transmissible viruses emerging from any of these families could unleash another global pandemic.
Dr. Jon LaPook: What are scientists doing in the lab today?
Paul Duprex: Looking at the three-dimensional structure of these, understanding the genetics, understanding how they evolve, how quickly they change. By understanding the viruses we're ready to fight them whenever they come along and cause trouble.
Like so many Americans, Dr. Rochelle Walensky is taking advantage of a new phase in the pandemic. But as we head towards what may be the off-ramp of the pandemic, she told us she is taking nothing for granted.
Dr. Jon LaPook: The country is waking up.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky: Yeah.
Dr. Jon LaPook: Does it excite you or scare you?
Dr. Rochelle Walensky: We're tip-toeing back into it. And how energizing and exciting to be able to do that right now? And yet, we've been hit with so many curve balls, right? And so my job is to protect the public against those curve balls. And so we have to be, you know, vigilant to make sure that those curve balls don't come.
Produced by Denise Schrier Cetta. Associate producer, Katie Brennan. Broadcast associate, Eliza Costas. Edited by Warren Lustig.
Dr. Jonathan LaPook is the chief medical correspondent for CBS News.
The official global death toll from COVID-19 eclipsed 6 million on Monday - underscoring that the pandemic, now entering its third year, is far from over.
The milestone, recorded by Johns Hopkins University, is the latest tragic reminder of the unrelenting nature of the pandemic even as people are shedding masks, travel is resuming and businesses are reopening around the globe.
Remote Pacific islands, whose isolation had protected them for more than two years, are just now grappling with their first outbreaks and deaths, fueled by the highly contagious Omicron variant.
Hong Kong, which is seeing deaths soar, is testing its entire population of 7.5 million three times this month as it clings to mainland China's "zero-COVID" strategy.
As death rates remain high in Poland, Hungary, Romania and other Eastern European countries, the region has seen more than 1.5 million refugees arrive from war-torn Ukraine, a country with poor vaccination coverage and high rates of cases and deaths.
And despite its wealth and vaccine availability, the United States is nearing 1 million reported deaths on its own.
Death rates worldwide are still highest among people unvaccinated against the virus, said Tikki Pang, a visiting professor at the National University of Singapore's medical school and co-chair of the Asia Pacific Immunization Coalition.
"This is a disease of the unvaccinated - look what is happening in Hong Kong right now - the health system is being overwhelmed," said Pang, the former director of research policy and cooperation with the World Health Organization. "The large majority of the deaths and the severe cases are in the unvaccinated, vulnerable segment of the population."
It took the world seven months to record its first million deaths from the virus after the pandemic began in early 2020. Four months later another million people had died, and 1 million have died every three months since, until the death toll hit 5 million at the end of October. Now it has reached 6 million - more than the populations of Berlin and Brussels combined, or the entire state of Maryland.
But despite the enormity of the figure, the world undoubtedly hit its 6 millionth death some time ago. Poor record-keeping and testing in many parts of the world has led to an undercount in coronavirus deaths, in addition to excess deaths related to the pandemic but not from actual COVID-19 infections, like people who died from preventable causes but could not receive treatment because hospitals were full.
Edouard Mathieu, head of data for the Our World in Data portal, said that, when countries' excess mortality figures are studied, as many as nearly four times the reported death toll have likely died because of the pandemic.
An analysis of excess deaths by a team at The Economist estimates that the number of COVID-19 deaths is between 14.1 million and 23.8 million.
"Confirmed deaths represent a fraction of the true number of deaths due to COVID, mostly because of limited testing, and challenges in the attribution of the cause of death," Mathieu told The Associated Press. "In some, mostly rich countries, that fraction is high and the official tally can be considered to be fairly accurate, but in others it is highly underestimated."
The United States has the biggest official death toll in the world, but the numbers have been trending downward over the last month.
The world has seen more than 445 million confirmed COVID-19 cases, and new weekly cases have been declining recently in all regions except the Western Pacific, which includes China, Japan and South Korea, among others, the World Health Organization reported this week.
Although the overall figures in the Pacific islands seeing their first outbreaks are small compared to larger countries, they are significant among their tiny populations and threaten to overwhelm fragile health care systems.
"Given what we know about COVID ... it's likely to hit them for the next year or so at least," said Katie Greenwood, head of the Red Cross Pacific delegation.
Tonga reported its first outbreak after the virus arrived with international aid vessels following the Jan. 15 eruption of a massive volcano that was followed by a tsunami. It now has several hundred cases but - with 66% of its population fully vaccinated - it has so far reported people suffering mostly mild symptoms and no deaths.
The Solomon Islands saw the first outbreak in January and now has thousands of cases and more than 100 deaths. The actual death toll is likely much higher, with the capital's hospital overwhelmed and many dying at home, Greenwood said.
Only 12% of Solomon Islanders are fully vaccinated, though the outbreak has provided new impetus to the country's vaccination campaign and 29% now have at least one shot.
Global vaccine disparity continues, with only 6.95% of people in low-income countries fully vaccinated compared to more than 73% in high-income nations, according to Our World in Data.
In a good sign, at the end of last month Africa surpassed Europe in the number of doses administered daily, but only about 12.5% of its population has received two shots.
The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is still pressing for more vaccines, though it has been a challenge. Some shipments arrive with little warning for countries' health systems and others near the expiration date - forcing doses to be destroyed.
Eastern Europe has been particularly hard hit by the omicron variant, and with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a new risk has emerged as hundreds of thousands of people flee to places like Poland on crowded trains. Health officials there have been offering free vaccinations to all refugees but have not been making them test upon arrival or quarantine.
"This is really tragic because great stress has a very negative effect on natural immunity and increases the risk of infections," said Anna Boron-Kaczmarska, a Polish infectious disease specialist. "They are in very high stress, being afraid for their lives, the lives of their children, their family members."
The Biden administration plans to begin stockpiling millions of at-home tests and pills for COVID treatment, as part of a new96 page planthat charts the future of the federal efforts to confront the pandemic.
"We've reached a new moment in the fight against COVID-19. Because of the significant progress we've made as a country, the determination and resilience of the American people, and the work we've done to make tools to protect ourselves widely available, we are moving forward safely, getting back to our more normal routines," White House COVID-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients told reporters last week.
The plan, first outlined by President Biden during hisState of the Union address, aims to strike a balance between efforts to ease restrictions imposed to curb the virus while ramping up efforts to address the danger future variants could pose. Zients has discussed the White House's work on the new playbook in recent weeks; he told reporters that the administration was consulting a wide array of public health experts, local governments, and agencies to finalize the plan.
--Alex Tin contributed to this report
(WXYZ) The number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 in Michigan is now below 1,000, less than two months after the state set a record.
According to the latest information from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, there are 777 adults hospitalized with confirmed cases of COVID-19 and another 64 with suspected cases of COVID-19. That's as of March 7.
The state dropped below 1,000 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 last Friday, and the numbers have continued to decrease.
Compare that to Jan. 10, when the state set a record with 4,580 people in the hospital with confirmed cases of COVID-19. In less than two months, the number of hospitalizations has dropped more than 80%.
According to the state, metro Detroit still has the most people hospitalized with 120 people hospitalized in Oakland, Macomb and St. Clair counties and 234 people hospitalized in Detroit, Monroe, Washtenaw and Wayne counties.
The number of children in the hospital with confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 29 cases. It peaked at 117 on Jan. 14.
COVID-19 cases have continued to drop significantly from the peak earlier this year with the omicron surge. On Monday, the state reported an average of 552 new cases per day over the weekend, the lowest daily case average since the summer of 2020.
Additional Coronavirus information and resources:
View a global coronavirus tracker with data from Johns Hopkins University.
See complete coverage on our Coronavirus Continuing Coverage page.
It's commonly referred to as the Spanish Flu, but that's a misnomer, as there's no consensus it started in Spain. If you call it the 1918 Influenza pandemic, that's not quite accurate either. The CDC says flu season in the United States typically ramps up in October and peaks between December and February. Dr. Carl Fichtenbaum says that pandemic wasn't like that.
"It lasted far more than a flu season. It lasted for a couple of years around the world," he says. "There were different waves at different times in different countries."
Fichtenbaum is a professor of infectious diseases at the University of Cincinnati. He says records from several countries show three waves of flu.
"Most likely it did exactly what the coronavirus is doing now, which is that there were changes, there were mutations. There were variants."
Fichtenbaum says the records of the period aren't good enough to demonstrate how the virus changed from wave to wave. He says medicine looked a lot different then.
"There were no vaccines," he says. "There was no specific treatment. There was actually very little in the way of oxygen that was really available for the treatment. There were no intensive care units."
There are some similarities between the influenza and coronavirus pandemics. Fichtenbaum says the human response to the 1918 illness is very familiar.
"Some physicians recognized that this was probably a respiratory illness and that people should be wearing masks. Other people objected to the idea of wearing masks. What a strange phenomena," he says. "And there were people who said you should be separated out if you're sick. Let's put all the sick people together and keep them away from the healthy people."
The flu stuck around, by some accounts until 1920. Some historians point to a fourth wave that hit a few scattered American cities, and assorted nations. After that, the virus petered out.
"There were no longer big spikes, because probably most people had been infected by then and had developed a measure of immunity so it wasn't spreading quite as much," Fichtenbaum says. "And it wasn't spreading at times when we wouldn't expect influenza to spread."
Fichtenbaum says the pandemic ended not because of a vaccine. There wasn't one. It wasn't masking, or isolation that stopped it either. He says it ended because of herd immunity. But that immunity came at a cost. There were an estimated 675,000 deaths in the United States, and at least 50 million deaths worldwide.
The pandemic transformed the world in a lot of ways. Fichtenbaum says it led to more medical research and better ideas about public health. He says those are the most important lessons.
"Unfortunately most humans have a very short memory. And we do not learn very well from history. We are very suspect," he says. "There's this kind of feeling that 'Well, you need to really prove to me that this works.' "
Fichtenbaum says both pandemics, influenza and the coronavirus, revealed a number of flaws in society: a lack of critical thinking skills, along with poor messaging, conflicting recommendations, and bad decisions from public health officials, politicians and military leaders.
"When you are not an open-minded, critical thinker willing to look at history, you are destined to make the same mistakes that were made at the time of a previous pandemic, because all emergency situations threaten people in such a way that makes it hard to make decisions."
Fichtenbaum says had more people learned from history, there would have been fewer deaths from COVID-19.
This story is part of a series as WVXU looks at the COVID-19 pandemic and the effects its had on our world.
Do I still need the vaccine or a booster if Ive already had Covid-19? South China Morning Post
Public health experts are warning local leaders to prepare for a future COVID-19 outbreak as cases continue to drop.
Whats happening: The seven-day average for COVID-19 cases in the United States hovered around 59,000 cases per day last week, a sign that the coronavirus outbreak is still here, though dropping compared to winter peaks.
What to expect: Public health experts recently told The Guardian that leaders should use the ongoing lull period to prepare for future outbreaks.
What theyre saying: Abraar Karan, an infectious disease physician at Stanford University, told The Guardian the pandemic isnt over and that officials should use the time right now to prepare for the next COVID-19 variant, which could be more transmissible.
The bottom line: Jason Salemi, an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of South Florida College of Public Health, told The Guardian: We need to expect the unexpected with COVID-19.
An order of four at-home COVID-19 tests sent out by the federal government in January 2022. (Photo: Alix Martichoux/Nexstar)
(NEXSTAR) The website to order another batch of free at-home COVID-19 test kits from the federal government is now live, the White House announced Monday.
In January, the government allowed every residence to request one order of four tests. Now, each residential address is entitled to an additional four tests.
To request a second batch of tests, go to COVIDtests.gov and click Order Free At-Home Tests. From there, you enter your name and residential address. (If youre having trouble getting the website to recognize your address, check here for common issues.)
The kits will be shipped out by the United States Postal Service starting this week.
If you didnt request a first shipment, you can now place two separate orders totaling eight COVID tests, according to the USPS.
At the end of February, nearly half ofthe 500 million free COVID-19 teststhe Biden administrationrecently made available to the publicstill had not been claimed as virus cases plummeted and people felt less urgency to test. On the first day of theWhite House test giveawayin January,COVIDtests.govreceived over 45 million orders. However, officials said fewer than 100,000 orders a day were coming in about a month later.
The Biden administration has also been making free at-home tests available through libraries, clinics and other community venues. It has also worked with pharmacies and community centers to distribute free, highly protective N95 masks.
The number of COVID-19 cases has dropped sharply from its winter peak of omicron. The country is now seeing an average of about 48,000 cases and 1,500 deaths every day for the past week.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
CLEVELAND Right now, there is no clear cause or cure for long COVID, or Post-Acute Sequelae of SARS CoV-2 infection, known as PASC.
Depending on the study, some estimates are 30-40% of COVID-19 patients will experience at least one symptom a month after initial infection.
All three major hospital systems in Northeast Ohio have clinics dedicated to treating COVID long-haulers.
The reCOVer Clinic at Cleveland Clinic has been open a year now, and the push for answers isnt slowing down, and neither is the patient population.
Doctor William Lago is the medical director at the reCOVer Clinic. He says they're seeing about 125 new patients a month.
"We had a large backlog to begin with," said Lago when they opened in February 2021. "Every time we thought it would slow down, COVID would raise its head, and we got more patients, and we anticipate that we're going to continue to grow."
He anticipates the clinic will be here for at least another year or two.
They are treating people like 35-year-old Hinda Stockstill.
"How long is this going to last? When am I going to get better? Am I going to get 100% better? Those are all the things that run through my mind every single day," she said.
Stockstill is a COVID-19 long-hauler. Life changed for Hinda in December 2020 when she contracted COVID-19 and went from a healthy 30-something with a future as bright as her smile to nearly bed-ridden with pain and despair.
"The symptoms never changed," she said. "It felt like every day I had COVID."
Her symptoms are head to toe. She's fighting tooth and nail and says healing finally began after months of suffering.
Her mother told her about the reCOVer Clinic opening at the Cleveland Clinic.
A graduate of the University of Dayton now living in Cincinnati, Hinda made the trip up to Cleveland. She said had she not found her way up to the reCOVer Clinic, "I think I would've lost my mind."
"A lot of the patients who come to us are frustrated," said Lago. "They feel like no one really understands whats wrong with them.
Lago said confirming to the patient that long COVID is real, their symptoms are real, and so is hope for healing is important.
"Our goal right now is trying to get people back to functioning, normal lives," he said.
"The main thing we focus on is trying to improve their symptoms," said Lago. "If we can improve somebody's symptoms to where they're less short of breath, to where they have enough energy to get up and take care of their kids or go to work every day, it makes a huge difference. And hearing that from patients, from a provider's standpoint, makes it worth it."
The most common symptoms they say are fatigue, brain fog, and shortness of breath.
"For me, I think some of the neurological symptoms are the most perplexing," said Brittany Baloun, clinical lead at the reCOVer Clinic.
She says 60-70% of the people they treat are women. Their largest patient population is people ages 40 to 50.
"Everybody's journey with this is unique; with the way they present, with the way that they heal and move forward," said Baloun.
Healing is happening, including for Stockstill.
"My improvement isn't a linear or a straight-line progression," she said. "I get better, and then I seem to regress. And then I improve even more."
Stockstill also found healing in online support groups where she said there's a tsunami of people and emotions.
"Anger, because some people who are long haulers feel they did everything right and they still got sick," said Stockstill. "Feeling misunderstood..."
She still has a list of health complications, but she'll keep fighting, and says she shares her story to encourage others to do the same, and for us all to have empathy for each other.
"I have a lot of fire," smiled Stockstill. "I have a lot of tenacity! I call myself a firecracker long-hauler because I don't give up."
Lago says it is not unheard of to see reactions from a viral infection, but the scale and scope were seeing with COVID is different.
He said they're not seeing anything yet specific to the different variants.
Baloun and Lago say they have long-haul patients who had a very mild, acute phase of initial infection all the way to people who had severe illness.
They also said that they have both unvaccinated and vaccinated patients. The CDC says the best way to prevent long COVID is to try and prevent getting COVID-19, and the best way to do that is with vaccination for those who are eligible.
To get into the reCOVer Clinic, you need to be referred by a Cleveland Clinic practitioner who identifies you meet the criteria of being at least a month out and having symptoms. They then run you through a series of questions and labs and tests, and come up with a game plan unique to you that pulls from 18 different specialists.
A lot of people dont have a PCR test to prove they had COVID. Testing wasnt widely available or accessible for a long time. They said dont let that be a barrier to seeking care.
And Cleveland Clinic says health insurance companies do recognize the diagnosis of long COVID and cover as they do others. The Cleveland Clinic has programs to help cover medical costs for people without insurance and say patients can speak with a financial counselor before visiting the reCOVer Clinic to talk about this kind of help.
Baloun and Lago want people to know long COVID is a legitimate medical condition and to seek treatment.
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View a global coronavirus tracker with data from Johns Hopkins University.
Confirmed cases of COVID-19 have passed 446.2 million globally, according to Johns Hopkins University. The number of confirmed deaths has now passed 5.99 million. More than 10.85 billion vaccination doses have been administered globally, according to Our World in Data.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced on Thursday that 93% of the US population now live in areas where COVID-19 levels are low enough that people do not need to wear masks indoors.
Pfizer is expected to provide around 10 million courses of its COVID-19 antiviral treatment Paxlovid to low- and middle-income countries this year, according to an official with the Global Fund, a healthcare NGO working to buy the pills from the drugmaker.
Germany will provide a further $1.5 billion to a global initiative for better access to COVID-19 vaccines for poorer countries, Finance Minister Christian Lindner said last Tuesday.
Daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases per million people in selected countries.
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The COVID Response Alliance to Social Entrepreneurs - soon to continue its work as the Global Alliance for Social Entrepreneurship - was launched in April 2020 in response to the devastating effects of the pandemic. Co-founded by the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship together with Ashoka, Echoing Green, GHR Foundation, Skoll Foundation, and Yunus Social Business.
The Alliance provides a trusted community for the worlds leading corporations, investors, governments, intermediaries, academics, and media who share a commitment to social entrepreneurship and innovation.
Since its inception, it has since grown to become the largest multi-stakeholder coalition in the social enterprise sector: its 90+ members collectively support over 100,000 social entrepreneurs across the world. These entrepreneurs, in turn, have a direct or indirect impact on the lives of an estimated 2 billion people.
Together, they work to (i) mobilize support for social entrepreneurs and their agendas; (ii) take action on urgent global agendas using the power of social entrepreneurship, and (iii) share insights from the sector so that social entrepreneurs can flourish and lead the way in shaping an inclusive, just and sustainable world.
The Alliance works closely together with member organizations Echoing Green and GHR Foundation, as well as the Centre for the New Economy and Society on the roll out of its 2022 roadmap (soon to be announced).
Countries around the world continue to ease their COVID-19 restrictions.
Belgium will relax almost all its remaining restrictions from today, including requirements to wear masks indoors and the need to show a COVID-19 pass for indoor venues from cafes to sports halls.
"I think it is an important page that we are turning. It is a symbol principally of our resilience and perseverance faced with a pandemic that gave us little chance to rest," Prime Minister Alexander De Croo told a news conference.
Turkey also eased similar restrictions last Wednesday, ending the need to wear masks indoors or outdoors where there is enough ventilation. A contact tracing app code will no longer be needed when entering places such as shopping malls or public institutions.
In France, rules requiring people to show a COVID-19 vaccine passport to access venues will be lifted from 14 March. However, it will remain in place for access to elderly home care centres.
And in Greece, a requirement to wear masks outdoors was lifted from Saturday.
Almost a third of people report at least one ongoing symptom between six and 12 months after their COVID-19 infection, a survey of 152,000 people in Denmark has found.
The study which is yet to be peer-reviewed includes one of the largest groups yet of people who were not hospitalized with COVID, and followed them for longer than other major studies, the researchers from Denmark's State Serum Institute said.
The questionnaire-based study suggests that the most commonly reported long-term symptoms are changes in sense of smell and taste, as well as fatigue.
Separately, a small US study of patients suffering from persistent symptoms long after COVID-19 found that nearly 60% had nerve damage possibly caused by a defective immune response a finding that could point to new treatments.
The study involved in-depth examinations of 17 people with so-called long COVID, a condition that arises within three months of a COVID-19 infection and lasts at least two months.
"I think what's going on here is that the nerves that control things like our breathing, blood vessels and our digestion in some cases are damaged in these long COVID patients," said Dr Anne Louise Oaklander, a neurologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and a lead author on the study published in Neurology: Neuroimmunology & Neuroinflammation.
Written by
Joe Myers, Writer, Formative Content
The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.
