President Bidens Covid diagnosis on Thursday comes as his request to Congress to approve billions of dollars in additional pandemic aid remains stalled, with lawmakers unable to agree over how much to spend and how to pay for it.
While some lawmakers and officials have held out hope that those funds could be incorporated into future legislation, Republicans have demanded that any additional coronavirus aid be paid for by repurposing money already approved by Congress. The White House and top Democrats have pleaded for additional funds as much as $22.5 billion early this year to pay for more vaccines, testing, therapeutics and research to combat future variants.
Democratic leaders dropped a $15.6 billion emergency aid package from a catchall spending package in March, after governors in both parties and some House Democrats balked at plans to pay for part of it by clawing back some stimulus funds that were awarded to states as part of the 2021 American Rescue Plan. Negotiators then haggled over a smaller $10 billion package, but that preliminary deal also collapsed amid an election year debate over immigration restrictions at the southern border.
Because 60 votes are required to advance most legislation in the evenly divided Senate, at least 10 Republicans needed to join all 50 senators who caucus with Democrats for any aid package to move forward. The impasse, however, directly contradicts the overwhelming bipartisan consensus behind sending more than $50 billion this year in emergency aid to Ukraine.
Republicans have recently signaled that they would likely refuse to restart talks over how to provide more pandemic aid, after the administration decided to repurpose $10 billion in federal Covid-19 aid meant for virus testing and protective gear. Senator Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah and a key negotiator, accused the White House in June of giving him patently false information over how much money was left for the coronavirus response effort.
Washington operates on a relationship of trust between the respective parties, the administration and Congress, Mr. Romney said at the time. For the administration to provide information to us that was patently false is something which dramatically attacks that trust.
Democrats have privately and publicly acknowledged regret that they had dropped the initial pandemic package from the government funding legislation in March.
Personally I think we made a mistake not funding that, Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the majority leader, told reporters earlier this month. Frankly, we did it because states were complaining about how they needed the money from the federal government.
Almost every state has a surplus, a very substantial surplus because we sent them so much money, and some of them are now using it for tax cuts, he added. Thats absurd.
It remains unclear whether lawmakers will reach agreement on another round of coronavirus aid, though it is possible it could be merged with other spending packages later this year.
But publicly, Trump lied.
He lied at the gathering of the worlds elite in Davos, Switzerland on January 22, saying, Its one person coming in from China. We have it under control. Its going to be just fine. He lied days later in Michigan, declaring that everythings going to be great and falsely claiming, We pretty much shut it down coming in from China. He later said the virus was going to have a very good ending for it. And with an eye toward Wall Street, he lied to the entrepreneurs in India, declaring as far as what were doing with the new virus, I think that were doing a great job.
But the markets fell again that day Trump spoke in New Delhi, creating their biggest two-day slide in four years, and things were about to get worse. None of Trumps magic words would prevent the Dow from losing 37 percent of its value from February to March, shocking the market when it dropped almost 3,000 points on March 16 its worst single-day plummet in history.
Those final days of February 2020 set the tone for the rest of Trumps terrible year. Joe Bidens turnaround on Super Tuesday in early March robbed him of his socialist foil, Bernie Sanders. Days later, Trumps shaky Oval Office address on the coronavirus did little to reassure a jittery nation. His blustery social media posts didnt move the needle either the virus, after all, didnt have a Twitter account. And in the coming months, the racial reckoning following the death of George Floyd would underscore just how out of touch Trump was with Black Americans.
Over the summer, the president who had equivocated about the violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., found himself in a bunker under the executive mansion when a small fire ignited at nearby St. Johns Episcopal Church during protests in Lafayette Park. When the bunker move leaked to the press, Trump exploded with anger for fear that it made him look weak. He horrified much of the nation by using the military and federal police to clear nonviolent demonstrators from the park, posing for an awkward photo-op in front of the damaged church, bible in hand.
By October, Trumps lies about COVID caught up with him when he was hospitalized, ill with a potentially deadly disease after nearly a year of flouting the rules, believing that wearing a mask would, as he told aides, make him look like a pussy.
After he was discharged from Walter Reed, and with the lighting just so, Trump strode up the steps to the Truman Balcony. Though still highly contagious, he tore off his mask before stepping inside. Reporters on the lawn, though, noticed something odd: Trump immediately backtracked out to the balcony again before returning inside, as if recreating his entrance. And thats what he did: He was using the moment to film a video marking his so-called triumph over COVID.
Dont be afraid of COVID. Dont let it dominate your life, Trump said.
Pfizer, one of the world's biggest pharmaceutical companies, will spend $470 million to expand its vaccine research facilities about 40 kilometres north-west of New York City, where the company hopes to maintain its edge in the field of messenger RNA, the technology behind its coronavirus inoculation.
The drug company will construct a building and renovate existing facilities on its campus in Pearl River, New York, which has been the focal point for laboratory research driving its vaccine programmes, including the one for the coronavirus in partnership with BioNTech.
Discussions about expanding Pearl River began before the pandemic, and Pfizers coronavirus research put more strain on its facilities. Scientists there were responsible for designing the vaccine, testing it on animals and conducting other quality checks and analysis.
They have also carried out research and development work on vaccines including Pfizers Prevnar for potentially lethal pneumococcus, the worlds best-selling vaccine until the coronavirus shot arrived.
Weve been in a constant situation of running out of space, said Steve Bjornson, vice president and chief operating officer of vaccine research and development, in an interview. Were trying to keep up with the portfolio and enable the expansion of mRNA capacity.
The coronavirus vaccine, Comirnaty, has almost doubled Pfizers annual revenue, bringing more than $36 billion in 2021 sales alone. Pfizer is aiming to replicate that success by applying mRNA to other diseases.
Expanding Pearl River will bring additional lab space to develop a new portfolio of mRNA vaccines hoped to prevent influenza and other viral pathogens, Mr Bjornson said.
It will also benefit existing projects, such as Pfizers experimental vaccine against respiratory syncytial virus, which uses a more traditional technology.
Pfizers board signed off on the 24,154 square foot expansion at the end of June. The drug company, which is headquartered in Manhattan, aims to complete the Pearl River construction in the first quarter of 2026.
This is a critical time for vaccine science, and were at the centre of it and we want to stay there, Mr Bjornson said. When anyone thinks of Pfizer, I hope they think of vaccines and that we are, in effect, the best and most advanced mRNA player in the world.
Unmasked travellers wait in long lines at a security checkpoint at Denver airport on July 5, 2022. Many airports and airlines no longer require mask use or social distancing, and many don't require pre-flight testing. David Zalubowski / AP
The Pearl River campus, which straddles farmland and forest, hosts more than 1,000 Pfizer employees, hundreds of whom worked on the coronavirus vaccine. The expansion will create lab capacity for up to 370 additional staff.
Mr Bjornson said he hopes the state-of-the-art facilities will give Pfizer an edge in an increasingly competitive battle for scientists with expertise in mRNA vaccines.
The company considered building facilities in other biotechnology hubs, such as Cambridge, Massachusetts, and San Francisco, but ultimately decided Pearl River's proximity to New York City, the Hudson Valley, Connecticut and New Jersey was preferable.
You have access to a wide variety of lifestyles, he said.
Pfizer recently made a separate $29 million investment to establish a lab in Pearl River that is used to study potentially dangerous infectious agents such as the coronavirus.
The lab, commissioned in December 2020, has a biosafety level 3 rating, qualifying it to study infectious agents or toxins that may be transmitted through the air and cause lethal infections. Pfizer is committing another $20m to double the capacity of the lab.
Updated: July 23, 2022, 9:40 AM
CHARLESTON, W.Va. State Coronavirus Czar Dr. Clay Marsh says now is a good time for state residents to get up to date on their COVID-19 vaccinations.
Marsh said during Fridays state coronavirus media briefing, the Omicron BA.5 variant will likely arrive in West Virginia soon.
We can anticipate that BA.5 will come and have its full strength felt in West Virginia in the next several weeks, Marsh said.
The state Department of Health and Human Resources COVID-19 dashboard currently has active cases at 3,358. There were 992 cases confirmed in Fridays update. The state has 325 COVID-related hospitalizations.
Marsh said this is the right time to go to the states vaccine calculator.
If youre due for another shot. If youre due for a booster or a second booster or even if youre due to get your primary seriesthis is really your best time to do it, Marsh said.
State InterAgency Task Force Director Jim Hoyer said the states vaccination rates continue to make a slow, steady climb. Hoyer said he had personal experience in recent days when a fully vaccinated man and woman in their 80s were able to survive the COVID infection.
Ive seen up close and person what the governor (and the whole team) continue to press on these vaccinations and the additional doses for people over the age of 50, Marsh said.
The state reported no new deaths in Fridays update. Total coronvirus deaths are at 7,121.
Current active cases per county include: Barbour (18), Berkeley (180), Boone (57), Braxton (16), Brooke (19), Cabell (170), Calhoun (8), Clay (15), Doddridge (9), Fayette (115), Gilmer (11), Grant (19), Greenbrier (68), Hampshire (36), Hancock (31), Hardy (34), Harrison (143), Jackson (42), Jefferson (86), Kanawha (344), Lewis (31), Lincoln (37), Logan (82), Marion (112), Marshall (51), Mason (62), McDowell (60), Mercer (168), Mineral (47), Mingo (50), Monongalia (180), Monroe (26), Morgan (19), Nicholas (64), Ohio (46), Pendleton (4), Pleasants (11), Pocahontas (16), Preston (38), Putnam (137), Raleigh (194), Randolph (26), Ritchie (11), Roane (26), Summers (22), Taylor (26), Tucker (15), Tyler (7), Upshur (49), Wayne (56), Webster (19), Wetzel (24), Wirt (6), Wood (162), Wyoming (53).
A drone pilot delivers aid to people in the Catapilco, Valparaiso Region of Chile during the COVID-19 lockdown. Texas A&M researchers examined whether drones could also be used to deliver COVID-19 test kits.
Marcelo Hernandez/Getty Images
Researchers at theTexas A&M University School of Public Health have developed a new COVID-19 test distribution method that uses drones to quickly deliver at-home diagnostic tests to individuals who suspect they have COVID-19.
The coronavirus pandemic showed that a key part of controlling the spread of a contagious disease is to quickly and accurately identify who has been infected. This allows for distancing and quarantining of infectious people to reduce transmission. At the same time, it is important to limit contact between people who need to be tested, others seeking diagnosis and health care workers administering tests. Home test kits have made it possible for people to get an accurate diagnosis without coming into contact with others but getting tests to people who need them can be a challenge, something drone deliveries could overcome.
COVID-19 diagnostic tests that use a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique are highly accurate but take hours to process, and it can sometimes take days for patients to get results back. In contrast, faster antigen-based tests can give results in as little as 15 to 30 minutes. Home antigen test kits allow people who suspect they may have COVID-19 to test themselves at home, which can limit exposure to other patients at testing sites as well as health care workers administering tests. Getting faster results while minimizing exposure to other people is a one way to further limit the spread of the disease.
In a new article published in theJournal of Intelligent & Robotic Systems, Murray Ct, associate professor at the Texas A&M School of Public Health, and colleagues from the University of Houston developed a new technique for scheduling the delivery of COVID-19 diagnostic tests using a truck to dispatch the drones and drones to deliver the tests. The researchers tested various scenarios to better understand the capability of their approach.
Ct and colleagues approach examine their problem as separate truck and drone components. First, they optimize the truck schedule to minimize travel distance and then focus on minimizing drone delivery time. The first stage of their proposed method works to find a feasible set of truck and drone routes. The second stage uses a heuristic algorithm that tries different combinations of routes to find improvements to their initial solution.
Using a real-world scenario, they were able to find a good routing schedule within approximately one hour of computing time. The researchers then developed a way of showing their methods effectiveness based on the total time needed to complete the deliveries, the number of people involved in the process and the virus transmission rate compared to face-to-face testing. They found that the proposed truck and drone delivery method could reduce transmission during testing by a factor of 7.5. For example, if the rate of transmission was 100 per day, the proposed research has the potential to reduce this rate to 13.3 per day.
Their study demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed delivery scheduling method, which could also be used in other applications such as testing of other infectious diseases like influenza. The researchers also note that their model could be used for both rural areas, where patients are spread over long distances, and urban areas, where many patients live in a single region. Another future direction the researchers note is investigating how driving restrictions like speed limits, traffic lights and traffic congestion influence truck and drone scheduling methods.
COVID-19-related hospitalizations are still rising in San Diego County, but this summer's wave is proving different from other surges. Most patients are coming in with less severe illness and fewer people are dying, according to officials from local hospital systems.
"It is across the board much less acute," Sharp HealthCare Chief Operating Officer Brett McClain said.
Right now, about 460 San Diego County residents are hospitalized with COVID-19, a fourfold increase since May. But the situation is significantly better than it was last summer and this past winter.
Sharp has about 160 COVID-19 patients, the most of any hospital system in the county. Yet, McClain said, there are far fewer being admitted to the intensive care unit or put on ventilators.
"The overall picture is a less-acute variant, thank goodness," McClain said. "That said, we are seeing a similar surge of a higher acute nature with those that are older and more frail."
It remains unclear if officials are seeing less severe illness because the BA.5 variant is milder or due to the "wall" of protection built up with vaccinations or previous infections or a mix of both.
"We certainly have less patients with this surge that are requiring ventilation than ever before, and thats great because our antiviral [treatments] are working," said UC San Diego Health's chief medical officer, Dr. Chris Longhurst.
Fewer deaths
Longhurst said he also saw some patients presenting with milder illness, and, according to data from UC San Diego, recent infections are not as deadly as before.
"Whats circulating now probably has a mortality rate of less than the flu," Longhurst said.
Recently, a Los Angeles County USC Medical Center official said just 10% of patients admitted with COVID-19 were being hospitalized because of illness caused by the virus. Longhurst said that was not the case in San Diego.
"Up to two-thirds of patients admitted to the hospital are being admitted for COVID, as opposed to with COVID," he said. "The LA County data seems a little bit off to us."
Many San Diegans hospitalized with COVID have underlying medical conditions that the virus makes worse, so it can be difficult to pinpoint what is driving the serious cases.
Scripps Health officials say their situation is similar to the other hospital systems. Scripps Chief Medical Officer Dr. Ghazala Sharieff said about 10% of hospitalizations were "incidental" case findings, meaning that people are testing positive while being admitted for something else.
Staffing worries
COVID-19 aside, officials at Sharp and Scripps are seeing unusually high volumes of non-COVID-related emergency room and urgent care visits. And the virus is hitting hospital staff hard. Sharp alone had 700 employees out with COVID-19 on Thursday.
"We have to replace those staff, right, with others to be able to take care of the patients," McClain said.
Sharieff is wondering whether staffing will again reach the point where surgeries and other procedures will have to be delayed.
"Are we going to get to that crossroads at some point where we have to start delaying surgeries again?" Sharieff said. "None of us wants to do that, right? Were already seeing delayed care across the country Id hate to get to that point. So I think Its time for us to take a pause. We all know what to do: just be extra careful."
Sharieff is also worried about San Diegans who are experiencing lingering effects from infections, typically referred to as "long COVID".
"Ive heard so many people in the last couple of weeks say its just like flu," Sharieff said. "Flu doesnt necessarily give you these long-term complications like COVID is doing."
Officials are continuing to recommend that people use the state's CA Notify phone system. It was pioneered in San Diego and can let people know if they have come in close contact with someone who has the virus.
MINNEAPOLIS -- The novel coronavirus of 2019 is not yet old news, but it is evolving as patients and physicians endure the latest surge in this summer of 2022.
"I think the shortness of breath piece is less than what we saw early on," Dr. Mark Sannes, an infectious disease physician at HealthParters, explained to WCCO. "The cough and fever piece looks very similar. It is a different disease in the sense that we are seeing a lot less severe illness now than we did early on in the pandemic."
The HealthPartners system of hospitals and clinics is spread throughout the Metro, including Methodist Hospital in St. Louis Park. According to administrators, there have been 337 people hospitalized with COVID-19 over the last 30 days, including seven currently in the ICU or on a ventilator.
Data from the Minnesota Department of Health shows the rates of hospitalization, while increasing, are stilla fraction of what they were last winteror even in the fall of 2021. Unvaccinated adults over 65, moreover, are more than 8x as likely to suffer from a severe case of COVID-19 requiring hospitalization than those adults who are vaccinated.
At HealthPartners, Dr. Sannes noted many of patients at the hospital with COVID-19 are also vaccinated, but Dr. Sannes insisted those numbers must be put into context.
"It's not COVID that sent them to the hospital," he explained. "I think it's reflective on what's happening in the community. They're coming in with heart attacks or a stroke and something totally unrelated to COVID. They only happen to have COVID because of how transmissible it is in the community."
As for patients suffering from severe cases of COVID-19, Dr. Sannes said the major symptom reported among patients is fatigue.
"There used to be a lot more pneumonia," he added. "If you're in your 80s or 90s and you're sick enough to be hospitalized and you test positive for COVID-19, weakness might be your presenting thing."
New studies are also showing how COVID-19 symptoms are evolving, including a report fromZoe Healthin the U.K., showing signs of the Omicron COVID-19 variantdiffer from more prominent symptoms at the start of the pandemic.
As for how to move forward as a community in this latest surge, Dr. Sannes maintained people should evaluate their own risks and think of those around them.
indoors with a large group of people, I better be thinking about whether I should be wearing a mask."
Jonah Kaplan is WCCO and CBS News Minnesota's investigative reporter and has built a strong reputation for his balanced and in-depth coverage of high-impact issues including the economy, immigration, education, public safety, and the military, among others.
This is not the summer of kissing strangers or gallivanting all day until the sun goes down. No; this summer we are once again drowning in oceans of our own perspiration, thanks to dangerously high temperatures, and anxiously hiding out from the newest Covid-19 variant.
We may not be able to beat the heat (or existential dread), but doggone it, we can have fun anyway. Here's how you can enjoy the rest of the summer that won't put you at as high of a risk of Covid-19 infection and heat exhaustion.
Outside
Take an umbrella to the park. Hear me out -- sitting out under the sun without a shady respite will roast you, stuff you and make you fit to be served at Thanksgiving dinner. It might feel silly to spend a day outside underneath an umbrella when it's not raining, but at least your skin will be partially protected from the sun's oppressive rays. Imagine yourself in the Victorian era, strolling through a regal garden under a dainty parasol.
Seek shade in nature. It's definitely too hot to go on a desert hike right now. But if you live near a botanical garden or arboretum, take advantage of the natural shade and breezes. You might even happen upon some birds or other forest creatures, and you can observe their tricks for keeping cool.
Inside
WASHINGTON White House pandemic response coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha delivered a grim message on Friday about the ever-evolving coronavirus pathogen that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates has infected more than 140 million Americans, including President Biden.
This virus is going to be with us forever, Jha said during a press briefing otherwise devoted to an update on the presidents health. Its really, really important that people build up their immunity against this virus, he added, emphasizing that vaccination is the best means of doing so.
It was a bracing reminder that any hopes of fully eradicating the coronavirus are long gone. And while many Americans have sought a return to normal life, the coronavirus continues to cause economic and social disruptions.
White House COVID-19 response coordinator Ashish Jha. (Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters)
Dr. Jha is acknowledging the consensus among medical and public health experts that COVID-19 is with us for our lifetimes and beyond, Dr. Leana Wen, a public health expert closely aligned with the White House on the pandemic, told Yahoo News.
But this is not the COVID-19 of 2020, Wen said, pointing to the widespread availability of vaccines and treatments. We now have many tools that allow us to live with this coronavirus.
Biden is fully vaccinated and has received two booster shots. On Friday, he and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre both said his symptoms remained mild after the president tested positive for COVID on Thursday. The presidents infection returned the pandemic to the headlines after several months during which the war in Ukraine, inflation and gun control dominated news coverage.
President Biden, who recently tested positive for COVID-19, at the White House on Thursday. (Twitter/President Biden@POTUS/Handout via Reuters)
Some public health experts saw Bidens infection as a further sign of how complacent citizens have become. Like many Americans, Biden had ceased to wear a mask and had resumed travel, including abroad.
The president likes to interact and engage with the American public, Jean-Pierre said in response to a reporters question about whether Biden regretted the recent pace of his social and travel commitments.
Story continues
The several waves of the Omicron variant that have washed over the United States have suggested that the virus initially known as SARS-CoV-2 is becoming increasingly transmissible, though not necessarily more virulent. While that is good news for people who are vaccinated and boosted, it does mean that the virus will almost certainly find new ways to evade immune protections, if only to ultimately cause relatively mild illness.
Even as the BA.5 variant continues to drive new infections, a new, even more transmissible strain known as BA.2.75 has been detected in the United States.
The dominant strains are so contagious that its extremely difficult to avoid infection, Wen told Yahoo News.
But even if the coronavirus lingers for years to come, it is for the most part the unvaccinated and the unboosted who risk serious illness or death. More than 1 million Americans have died due to COVID-19 since the pandemic began.
Were at a point now where, I believe, where we can prevent nearly every COVID death in America, Jha said on Friday. The week ended with about 400 people dying daily from COVID-19 across the country.
DAYTON Health experts are warning people to take precautions as Covid-19 cases are rising across the Miami Valley, but some are willing to take the risk.
>>Majority of Miami Valley now under high COVID-19 community level
Last week, we were at 498 cases per 100,000 residents, said John Steele, Public Health-Dayton & Montgomery County. This week, were at 584 cases per 100,000 residents.
Steele says at this time last year, the numbers were around 100 cases per 100,000 residents.
News Center 7s Brandon Lewis spoke with Doctor Nancy Pook, Kettering Health Emergency Physician, about the latest spike and she says its different this time around.
We have seen an uptick in the number of people hospitalized in a daily basis for Covid so fortunately people are staying for a shorter interval of time in the hospital, she said. Were seeing fewer of those critical care patients on ventilators and while the number is still not zero, it is importantly different.
>>City of Dayton reinstates mask requirement for city employees
For some people, the virus is still a concern.
I took the vaccinations, said Malveena Marks of Dayton. Both of them, Moderna and the booster, but I dont know. I hope I dont get it. Thats the only thing you can hope for.
Others have noticed a change in peoples behavior, including Darren Staten of Miamisburg.
I think now every body is relaxed, he told Lewis. Even though they hear the cases are rising, no one is really wearing their mask, including me.
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Steele has noticed it as well.
I think with the cases being so low not too long ago, people were just trying to put it behind them trying to resume their normal lives, he said. But now that the cases are up steadily, people need to revisit that I think.
As people figure how to deal with the recent uptick in cases, some like Regan Lane of Oakwood think there is always a bit of chance of catching the virus.
Last time I had it was in January and I always get nervous, he said. Like do I have antibodies, do I not have antibodies anymore but its really whats going to happen is going to happen and if its here to stay, its here to stay. If its not, its not.
Doctor Pook of Kettering Health told Lewis that to slow the spread of Covid-19, people should avoid being public and traveling if they are sick.
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