Colorado hospitals response to COVID-19 ranked 17th among all 50 states and the District of Columbia, according to The Commonwealth Funds national health care scorecard, an annual report that ranks state health care systems on various metrics based on how well states provide high-quality, accessible and equitable health care.
For the first time, the scorecard focused specifically on how well states managed COVID-19 in 2022.
Anuj Mehta, a pulmonary care physician at Denver Health, told CPR in March while Colorado's COVID-19 numbers are better in recent weeks than earlier in the pandemic, most hospitals remain incredibly busy with non-COVID patients who are much sicker and tend to stay in the hospital for longer periods of time than before the pandemic.
He said health care systems across the state continue to face significant staffing issues, which may worsen as health care workers finally take a moment to reflect on the immense psychological trauma they have suffered in the last two years.
Colorado ranked 12th in fully vaccinated adults who also received a booster dose with 44 percent of Colorado adults having received a vaccine and booster shot.
The state also ranked 12th best in preventing excess deaths associated with COVID-19 with 281 deaths per 100,000 people in the state.
The lowest COVID-19 metric was in the number of hospital shortages. Colorado hospitals went 59 days with shortages placing the state 28th nationally.
Colorado ranked 12th overall in health care performance. Hawaii, Maine, Vermont, Washington and Oregon landed in the top five. Alabama, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Mississippi and Georgia rounded out the bottom.
The state saw its highest marks in hospital patient experience and fitness, but also in preventable hospitalizations. It also saw its highest improvements in hospital 30-day mortality, the number of adults who report fair or poor health and avoidable ER visits.
However the good numbers came with some stark reminders of Colorados mental health crises.
The state ranked among the worst at 45th in deaths by suicide, 46th in alcohol related deaths which nearly doubled from 15 deaths per 100,000 people to 24 deaths per 100,000. The state also saw drug overdoses severely increase along with the rest of the nation.
We have had some of the nation's highest rates of adult and youth suicide. We've got an opioid epidemic on our hands, said Vincent Atchity, the President and CEO of the non-profit Mental Health Colorado. So we're in a critical condition on the extreme side of things in so many ways.
One glaring metric was a 10 percent jump in adults with unmet mental illness needs, up to 32 percent. Colorado ranked 48th in that category.
Vaccines developed early in the COVID-19 pandemic still provide strong protection against severe disease, hospitalization, and death. But SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, continues to mutate. Many of these mutations alter the spike protein, which the virus uses to enter and infect cells. These mutations help the virus to dodge the immune systems attack.
Current vaccines prompt the creation of antibodies and immune cells that recognize the spike protein. However, these vaccines were developed using the spike protein from an older variant of SARS-CoV-2. This has made them less effective at preventing infection with newer variants. Researchers have found that immune cells called T cells tend to recognize parts of SARS-CoV-2 that dont mutate rapidly. T cells coordinate the immune systems response and kill cells that have been infected by the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
A vaccine that prompted the body to create more T cells against SARS-CoV-2 could help prevent disease caused by a widerange of variants. To explore this approach, an NIH-funded research team led by Dr. Marulasiddappa Suresh from the University of Wisconsin, Madison studied two experimental vaccines that included compounds to specifically provoke a strong T-cell response in mice.
Using mice that could be infected with SARS-CoV-2, the team tested the vaccines ability to control infection and prevent severe disease caused by an earlier strain of SARS-CoV-2 as well as by the Beta variant, which is relatively resistant to antibodies raised against earlier strains. The results appeared on May 17, 2022, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
When the researchers vaccinated the mice either through the nose or by injection, the animals developed T cells that could recognize the early SARS-CoV-2 strain and the Beta variant. The vaccines also caused the mice to develop antibodies that could neutralize the early strain. However, they failed to create antibodies that neutralized the Beta variant.
The team exposed the mice to SARS-CoV-2 around 3 to 5 months after vaccination. Vaccinated mice had very low levels of virus in their lungs compared with unvaccinated mice and were protected against severe illness. This was true of infection with the Beta variant as well. This showed that the vaccine provided protection against the Beta variant despite failing to produce effective antibodies against it.
To understand which T cells were providing this protection, the researchers selectively removed different types of T cells in vaccinated mice prior to infection. When they removed CD8 (killer) T cells, vaccinated mice remained well protected against the early strain, although not against the Beta variant. When they blocked CD4 T (helper) cells, levels of both the early strain and Beta variant in the lungs and severity of disease were substantially higher than in vaccinated mice that didnt have their T cells removed.
These results suggest important roles for CD8 and CD4 T cells in controlling SARS-CoV-2 infection. Current mRNA vaccines do produce some T cells that recognize multiple variants. This may help account for part of the observed protection against severe disease from the Omicron variant. Future vaccines might be designed to specifically enhance this T cell response.
I see the next generation of vaccines being able to provide immunity to current and future COVID-19 variants by stimulating both broadly-neutralizing antibodies and T cell immunity, Suresh says.
This research summarywaspublishedby the National Institutes of Health on June 7, 2022.
The FDA is expected to quickly authorize for emergency use the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for kids under 5 and the Moderna vaccines for kids under 6. Both options could be used in children as young as 6 months old.
The CDCs panel of expert advisers will consider whether to recommend the shots administration during meetings on Friday and Saturday. Once CDC Director Rochelle Walensky signs off on a recommendation, children are expected to begin receiving shots by Tuesday. Children under 6 who receive the Moderna vaccine will get two 25-microgram doses, four weeks apart. The Pfizer vaccine is two 3-microgram doses three weeks apart, followed by a third dose at least eight weeks later.
Some panel members signaled concern that parents may get confused by the products different dose regimens particularly since the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine doesnt offer much protection after two doses, while Modernas primary series is complete with two doses.
I have a lot of concern that many of these kids will not get the third dose, Jeannette Yen Lee, a biostatistics professor at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, said of the Pfizer vaccine. Its a struggle to get people in for two, she added, noting that booster uptake for older populations is also low.
Michael Nelson, chief of UVA Healths asthma, allergy and immunology division, urged the manufacturers to quickly gather data on the prospect of vaccinating these children against Covid at the same time they receive other routine immunizations.
If we dont get a quick answer to the coadministration question, it will serve as a barrier to completion of the three-dose series for [the Pfizer] vaccine and likely for the Moderna vaccine, he said. Having to get it in isolation is going to be a great challenge to families and children here in the U.S.
Peter Marks, FDAs top vaccine regulator, started the daylong meeting pointing to the burden of Covid hospitalizations for young children during the recent Omicron wave at rates that have equaled or exceeded those for other common childhood vaccine-preventable diseases like the flu. More than half of children under 5 who have been hospitalized for Covid did not have underlying health conditions, and 202 in the 6-month to 4-year-old age group have died of the disease as of May 11.
The intervention were talking about here is one that is something that we have accepted in the past to try to prevent deaths from influenza, he said. Here we have a different pathogen, but one that has created a lot of havoc just the same.
The Biden administration is girding for a slog in convincing parents to quickly vaccinate their young children. Summer vacations and young children receiving various levels of schooling before age 5 along with misinformation about vaccines could depress early turnout. Many young children also contracted Covid during the Omicron surge, which could convince parents to hold off on immunizing them until theyre further removed from their natural infections.
Recent polling by the Kaiser Family Foundation suggests about 20 percent of parents are eager to vaccinate their children under 5 as soon as theyre allowed, while nearly 40 percent plan to wait and see how the vaccine works and another 40 percent are reluctant to immunize at all.
Just 29 percent of U.S. children ages 5 to 11 are fully vaccinated against Covid, compared to nearly 56 percent of 12- to 15-year-olds and 67 percent of 16- and 17-year-olds, according to CDC data ending April 30.
The FDA analyzed the vaccines ability to induce neutralizing antibody responses in kids that were comparable to young adults, a concept known as immunobridging. Both met the agencys success criteria.
Real-world efficacy against the Omicron variant in the 6-month-to-5-year-old age group for Modernas vaccine ranged from 36 percent to 51 percent, and efficacy estimates were generally consistent with rates seen in observational studies of adults during the same variant waves, the FDA said.
Preliminary analyses of the Pfizer vaccine showed efficacy of 80 percent in kids under 5 against disease, though only 10 Covid cases were reported among study participants before the data cutoff date in April, limiting confidence in that figure.
Panel member Amanda Cohn of the CDC expressed concern that parents will compare efficacy percentages put forward by the companies and base which product they pick solely on those numbers.
My level of confidence in that number ... I do not have any idea what that number will end up being, she said of the 80 percent figure for Pfizers vaccine, adding that she does think it is effective.
In both companies data, there were several unknowns that reflect the current state of adult vaccination in the U.S., including duration of effectiveness and how well vaccination protects against outcomes like long Covid, the FDA said. Children will likely need booster doses in the future, given adults experience with waning antibody protection, reviewers said.
Adverse reactions like headaches and fatigue were more common in teens than in younger kids, likely because they received larger vaccine doses, the FDA said. Fever was reported more frequently among the youngest vaccine recipients.
The manufacturers did not report any events in their trials that met the CDC definition for probable or confirmed myocarditis or pericarditis two types of heart inflammation that have been detected as potential side effects of the messenger RNA vaccines, particularly for males ages 12 to 39.
The FDAs reviews of Pfizers and Modernas data come after months of angst from parents who felt strung along by statements that Covid-19 vaccines would be available for the countrys youngest children by early 2022, only to see dates shift. The FDA scheduled an advisory committee meeting in February to consider a two-dose primary series of Pfizers vaccine, only to pull back once the data suggested a third dose could bolster its effectiveness.
Parents and advocates for children under 5 to get access to vaccines erupted over a POLITICO report in April that the Biden administration was leaning toward authorizing both Pfizer-BioNTechs and Modernas products at the same time to make it easier to promote the shots, a move some believed resulted in regulators sitting on Modernas application while Pfizer continued to collect data and complete its submission. FDA Commissioner Robert Califf later insisted there would be no holdup on Modernas application, but the advisory committee meeting schedule ultimately ensured both vaccines would be considered head-to-head.
Parents who spoke during the public comment period Tuesday and Wednesday indicated they were still angry at the perceived delay, noting that most children who end up receiving Pfizers three-dose series wont be fully vaccinated by the time the school year starts.
We have waited too long, and too many families have suffered already, said Fatima Khan, cofounder of Protect Their Future, a grassroots group that has advocated for vaccine access for the youngest kids.
Arnold Monto, the committees acting chair and a University of Michigan infectious disease expert, said the 18-month gap in making Covid vaccines available to the youngest children in the U.S. was a function of needing to take extra care with trialing the immunizations, along with determining how best to vaccinate older Americans as the pandemic evolved.
To say there have been delays, unnecessary delays, is not representing the true situation, which involved not working with adults but with a vulnerable, younger population for whom special care is necessary, he said.
June 15, 2022 - (Tarrant County) Tarrant County Public Health hosts numerous pop-up COVID-19 clinics across Tarrant County each week in partnership with public and private organizations listed below. Each site has the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines and at times the Johnson & Johnson. Children five and older are eligible for the vaccination. Parents need to bring proof of the childs age and their own ID for the vaccination. Booster vaccinations are available at all of the vaccination locations.
TCPH would like to bring a COVID-19 vaccination clinic to businesses, churches and organizations in the community who are interested in hosting a pop-up clinic. Its easy and free to host a clinic.In addition to the vaccination opportunities below, the cities of Arlington, Fort Worth, Mansfield, North Richland Hills, Hurst, and Tarrant County College have also added opportunities for vaccinations. To find a local vaccine site, the County created a vaccine finder page:VaxUpTC website.
Pop-Up COVID-19 locations:
Our Lady of GuadalupeWednesday, June 22: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.4100 Blue Mound Rd.Fort Worth, TX 76106
Vaxmobile Haltom City Public Library Thursday, June 23: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.4809 Haltom Rd. Haltom City, TX 76117
Cornerstone Assistance Network Thursday, June 23: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.3500 Noble Ave.Fort Worth, TX 76111
Bedford Public Library Friday, June 24: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.2424 Forest Ridge Dr.Bedford, TX 76021
Tarrant County Public Health CIinics:
Northwest Public Health CenterMonday to Friday:8 a.m. to 12 p.m.and1 to 5 p.m.3800 Adam Grubb RoadLake Worth, TX 76135
Bagsby-Williams Health CenterMonday to Friday:8 a.m. to 12 p.m.and1 to 5 p.m.3212 Miller Ave.Fort Worth, TX 76119
Southeast Public Health CenterMonday to Friday:9 a.m. to 12 p.m.and1 to6p.m.536 W Randol MillArlington TX, 76011
Main Public Health CenterMonday to Friday:8 a.m. to 12 p.m.and1 to 6 p.m.1101 S. Main StreetFort Worth, TX 76104
Southwest Public Health CenterMonday to Friday:8 a.m. to 12 p.m.and1 to 5 p.m.6551 Granbury RoadFort Worth, TX 76133
Watauga Public Health CenterMonday to Friday:8 a.m. to 12 p.m.and1 to 5 p.m.6601 Watauga RoadWatauga, TX 76148
CNN
Rohit Kumar Rai and his wife have both lost family members in India to Covid-19, so they know how serious the disease can be. Thats why they have been living so carefully in Texas until their 4-year-old son can be vaccinated as well.
That means reining in playdates and school attendance when cases are higher, an inconsistency that can frustrate their son, he said.
Sometimes you are saying its OK to go, and sometimes you are saying not, Rai said his son complains to him.
Vaccines against Covid-19 have meant many steps closer to normalcy for much for the United States, but not everyone has access yet.
This week, the US Food and Drug Administration is expected to review data on the Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines for younger children. If the FDA gives authorization and the US Centers for Disease Control recommends them later in the week, Covid-19 vaccination shots may be administered to the youngest Americans as soon as June 21.
Parenting young children can be isolating as it is, said Vaile Wright, senior director of health care innovation at the American Psychological Association. Add precautions to protect unvaccinated children, and it can be even harder to get support from the community. The research shows that parents of children under 18 have been reporting extremely high levels of stress over the pandemic, she said.
While some families hesitate or refuse to vaccinate their young children, for many, the news brings a huge sigh of relief.
Its not like I am expecting some miracle vaccine; like as soon as he gets it it is going to end, Rai said. He might get Covid, he might be affected, but the worst-case scenario wouldnt happen. Thats my ultimate goal for my kid.
Some families who felt left behind and are eagerly anticipating their childrens vaccinations shared what it was like to raise youngsters in the Covid-19 pandemic and what they are most hopeful for in the future.
For Jennifer Reimers Gaydo, who lives in upstate New York, forgotten is the word that comes to mind when raising a young child during the Covid-19 era.
Everybody else has moved on, and we have not, she said. In peoples desire to move on, its almost like they blocked (the fear of being unvaccinated) out.
Reimers Gaydos husband is a doctor, so their family reduces risk to their 3-year-old son, Jim, wherever possible.
My husband is a front-line worker so with Jim not vaccinated its like, Is this coming for me in my own home? she added.
Precautions mean no more music and movement classes, limited playtime with kids his age, and his relationship with his grandparents reduced to a computer screen.
There was excitement and fanfare when adults got access to the vaccine, then when it was extended to teens, but the youngest members of our population have been spending all this time lonely and ignored, she said.
Along with fears about physical safety and concerns around social needs, parenting young children during the pandemic without an available vaccine means constant conversations between families about whether they are doing the right things for their kids, Jason Jackson in Michigan said.
One of Jacksons three children is not yet eligible to be vaccinated, but until his youngest can be protected, his 7-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter also have to take precautions to protect their little brother, he said. None of them go to school in person, and none take indoor swimming lessons.
My daughter, she is really extroverted. And so, I pulled up to the playground, and she said, Yes, theres a car here that means I can meet a new friend. This is the best day of my life! Jackson recalled. That was freaking depressing.
We were just like, Oh my god, what are we keeping our kids from?
Getting a vaccine for their 3-year-old son would be a huge relief from the battle between physical and social health for their kids, he said.
I honestly think everyone wants the same things. Everyone wants to get things back to normal. Its just that we have a very, very different pathway of what we think is best to get us there, Jackson said. Our best pathway of getting back to normal is this vaccine.
Sometimes, even when she is playing outdoors, Sarah Enders 4-year-old daughter chooses to wear a mask.
She was diagnosed with leukemia about a year ago, and she knows that getting Covid-19 could make her really sick, Enders in Oregon said.
She understands that there are things she doesnt get to do because of the fact that she doesnt have the shot, she added.
Her diagnosis came as the rest of the US started to open back up from Covid-19, but Enders family had to clamp down even harder for her daughters safety.
You go through the diagnosis of your child having cancer, and thats when you really need to rely on the world around you and your community, she said, whether its emotional support or physical support, and we really couldnt do that because we had to keep her protected.
Her family is looking forward to everyone in the home having the vaccine in hopes they can send their children back to school.
I struggle with people who are unwilling to get vaccinated, unwilling to wear masks and things like that because they feel its their right not to, Enders said. But our children who dont have that option and that flexibility are the ones suffering from that.
Gabriele Goulet and her family started both parenthood and the pandemic in a terrifying way.
On March 12, 2020, her first child was born early and couldnt breathe on his own, so he needed to stay in the neonatal intensive care unit. Shortly afterward, their state, Utah, shut down because of Covid-19.
Goulet and her husband drove down empty freeways every day to see their son at the hospital, entering the building where the National Guard was deployed to help with the demand from the virus, she said.
Becoming a parent in that time has really shaped the type of parent that I am, and Im probably overprotective, Goulet said.
They locked down when their first son was born, and they stayed as isolated as possible as the years passed and they had their second child, she said.
But now that her second maternity leave is over, she and her husband need to go back to their offices, and their kids will need to go to day care after years of not even going inside grocery stores, she said.
Goulet and her husband worry about the transition out of isolation with two unvaccinated kids, she said. Now, she said she just hopes they can stave off infection until the kids are eligible for the vaccine.
I do totally understand and respect other peoples perspectives like it does seem like these vaccines are coming out pretty quickly, Goulet said, but she trusts her pediatricians advice to get the shots.
I think were probably going to cry when were in the pediatricians office because its been over two years that weve been looking forward to this.
Top image: Gabriele Goulets son spends time with his dad social distancing from his grandparents. (Courtesy Gabriele Goulet)
Now that the region has enough vaccines to protect everyone, including the most vulnerable, it is time to turn vaccines into immunity, PAHO Director says.
Washington D.C. 15 June 2022 (PAHO) As COVID-19 cases continue to rise in the Americas for the eighth week running, PAHO Director, Carissa F. Etienne, has called on countries to increase efforts towards achieving the World Health Organization (WHO) target of 70% vaccination coverage by mid-2022.
Last week, countries of the region reported more than 1.2 million new cases of COVID-19, an 11% hike from the previous week.
Thanks to the commitment of donors and national governments, we now have the supplies and financial and technical support to help countries reach the 70% target, the Director said during a media briefing today.
Our priority now should be turning vaccines into immunity, ensuring that the doses we have are making it into peoples arms and saving lives.
But while 16 countries and territories of the region have already vaccinated 70% of eligible populations, and Colombia, Bermuda and El Salvador are close behind at 65%, 11 others have yet to reach even 40% coverage.
Since the start of COVAX in 2021, PAHOs Revolving Fund has delivered over 142 million vaccines to countries in the Americas, and thanks to the commitment of donors and governments, the region now has the necessary financial and technical support to help all countries reach the 70% target, Dr. Etienne said.
It is therefore crucial that countries redouble their efforts to protect those most at risk, she added, including the elderly and immunocompromised, health professionals and pregnant women.
To achieve this, they must tailor efforts to address the concerns that still surround vaccines and collaborate with communities to develop outreach strategies in areas where coverage is poor.
As some countries begin to scale back local vaccination centers such as those in grocery stores, schools and local marketplaces, Dr. Etienne urged governments to continue to use resources wisely and try to reach people where they are.
The COVID-19 pandemic is not a short-term problem, the PAHO Director said. And with PAHOs latest Essential Health Services survey revealing that routine immunizations were heavily disrupted by the pandemic, it is vital that countries integrate COVID vaccination into their national immunization programs so that we have robust services in place to deliver routine vaccines, expand COVID coverage and better prepare for future emergencies.
Dr. Etienne also highlighted that the recent cases of monkeypox and acute hepatitis further underscore the need to build more resilient health systems that can respond quickly to new and emerging risks. To ensure this, PAHO is working to support and train healthcare providers to help reduce the shortfall of 600,000 public health workers in the region.
Now is the time for countries to take everything we have learned from the response to the pandemic, and commit to investing in stronger, more resilient health systems, she said.
Turning to the COVID-19 situation in the region, in North America over the past week, cases increased by 71% in Mexico, and the United States reported a 2% increase in hospitalizations and 4.2% rise in ICU admissions.
South America reported a 20% hike in cases, while in the Caribbean, the number of new infections increased by 3.7%.
Central America was the only sub-region to report a downward trend, with a 32% reduction in COVID-19 cases and a 36% fall in deaths.
Reuben Arasaratnam, M.D.
DALLAS June 15, 2022 Individuals should weigh their own personal health and risk levels in deciding when to receive a second booster of the COVID-19 vaccine, UTSouthwestern infectious diseases experts advise.
Patients who are immunocompromised due to a chronic condition or medications that curb the immune system should get a second booster shot when they are eligible. But if youre healthy, have received your first booster, your risk of catching the virus is low, and if youre planning to travel during the summer, its reasonable to wait until closer to your travel time to get the second booster, said Reuben Arasaratnam, M.D., Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine.
What the booster does is re-awaken the immune system so that it is specifically poised to fight COVID-19, he said.
In late May, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention strengthened its recommendations to saypeople 50 or older should get a second booster shot if at least four months have passed since their first booster.Evidence has shown that antibodies generated from the first booster begin to wane after about four months. Others included in the guidance are people 12 and older who are moderately or severely immunocompromised.
Pearlie Chong, M.D.
Pearlie Chong, M.D., Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine, said the side effects of a second booster would be similar to what an individual experienced with their first booster shot. You might get chills or fatigue, but it would be transient, and the benefits outweigh the risks.
Dr. Chong said that individuals considering a second booster shouldnt feel discouraged upon hearing that antibodies will wane after several months.
The protective value of the booster continues beyond that time because our immune system has multiple types of protection. And some parts of our immune system, such as B-cells and T-cells, are not easily measurable, but they are continuing to protect, Dr. Chong said. A single booster shot continues to provide high levels of protection against severe disease.
Drs. Arasaratnam and Chong shared their perspectives on a recent episode of What to Know, a video series produced by UTSouthwestern to provide information on medical topics for the community.
Dr. Chong is a Dedman Family Scholar in Clinical Care.
About UTSouthwestern Medical Center
UTSouthwestern, one of the nations premier academic medical centers, integrates pioneering biomedical research with exceptional clinical care and education. The institutions faculty has received six Nobel Prizes, and includes 26 members of the National Academy of Sciences, 17 members of the National Academy of Medicine, and 14 Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigators. The full-time faculty of more than 2,900 is responsible for groundbreaking medical advances and is committed to translating science-driven research quickly to new clinical treatments. UTSouthwestern physicians provide care in more than 80 specialties to more than 100,000 hospitalized patients, more than 360,000 emergency room cases, and oversee nearly 4 million outpatient visits a year.
Dr. Anthony Fauci has not recently been in close contact with President Biden or other senior government officials, the institute he leads said in a statement.Credit...Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times
WASHINGTON Maybe it was only a matter of time.
Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, President Bidens top medical adviser for the coronavirus pandemic, has tested positive for the virus and is experiencing mild symptoms, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said on Wednesday.
Dr. Fauci, the institutes director, was positive on a rapid antigen test, the agency said in a statement. It added that he was fully vaccinated against the virus and had been boosted twice. He is taking Paxlovid, the Pfizer antiviral therapy authorized by the Food and Drug Administration for treatment of Covid-19, an agency spokeswoman said.
News that Dr. Fauci, one of the worlds foremost infectious disease specialists and a household name thanks to the pandemic, had fallen victim to the coronavirus reverberated across Washington and the country. The positive test was the first for Dr. Fauci, who is 81.
But with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimating that more than half of Americans have contracted Covid-19, he is hardly the only big-name sufferer. Xavier Becerra, the secretary of health and human services, tested positive on Monday for the second time in less than a month. Representative Maxine Waters, Democrat of California, who is 83, announced on Tuesday that she had tested positive; she had also done so in April.
Dr. Fauci has not been in close contact with Mr. Biden or other senior government officials recently and will isolate and continue to work from his home, the statement from his institute said. He will return to his office once he tests negative.
But he had been making public appearances. The AIDS Clinical Trials Group a network of hundreds of researchers conducting studies to improve treatment of H.I.V. and related infections is meeting in Washington this week, and Dr. Fauci, whose laboratory work has been focused on H.I.V./AIDS, addressed the group in person on Tuesday.
Along with other top federal health officials, Dr. Fauci was expected to testify on Thursday before the Senate health committee on the state of the pandemic. An official said that Dr. Faucis institute was working with committee staff members to arrange for a remote appearance.
While much of the nation appears to be trying to move on, the coronavirus remains a pervasive threat. According to a New York Times database, more than 100,000 new cases are still being identified each day in the United States a figure that has stayed roughly flat during June. Many experts believe the number is an undercount because so many people are taking at-home tests whose results are not recorded with public health authorities.
While cases are declining in the Northeast and the Midwest, cases and hospitalizations are surging in the West and the South. Reports of deaths, however, remain low. Fewer than 350 deaths are being reported each day, The Timess database shows, down from more than 2,600 a day at the height of the Omicron surge.
Dr. Fauci has spent half a century in government and has advised seven presidents, beginning with Ronald Reagan, on epidemic and pandemic threats.
But the coronavirus pandemic turned him into a political lightning rod. His public urging of health precautions like mask-wearing and social distancing made him a frequent target of critics who questioned or opposed such measures.
Perhaps more than anyone, he knows how infectious the coronavirus is. This spring, he decided against attending the White House Correspondents Dinner a gathering of prominent political and news media figures that featured an appearance by the president because of my individual assessment of my personal risk, he said then. At the time, Dr. Fauci was preparing for other public engagements, including commencement speeches at Princeton and the University of Michigan.
The correspondents dinner, which drew more than 2,000 guests to a packed hotel ballroom, ended up spreading the virus among many journalists and other attendees.
Its a matter of time before we all get infected, honestly; this virus has become so transmissible, Dr. Carlos del Rio, an infectious disease specialist at Emory University, said on Wednesday. What I tell people is that at some point in time you will encounter this virus, because we are doing more things and getting together. And if you are going to encounter the virus, youd better be vaccinated and boosted.
There are moments when one can dive into the sustained dream of a book and stay there for hours. The spring of 2020 was not one of those times. If you werent actively battling COVID-19 or grieving a loved one, your life was likely all of a sudden relentlessly logistical: the sudden evaporation of childcare, the Tetris of fitting multiple working adults inside one tiny apartment, the paranoid wiping down of groceries. Reading often felt impossible, even for those of us who love to read. How could anyone focus long enough, amid all the chaos and grief, to absorb complex ideas? Instead, I found myself flicking through the latest headlines and my multiple email inboxes, or obsessively checking COVID-19 case statistics in my area. The world was on fire, and it was hard to tear my eyes away.
It wasnt just bad for readers. Early 2020 was simply a very bad time to publishand publicizea book. First-time author and Atlantic staff writer Olga Khazan, whose book Weird: The Power of Being an Outsider in an Insider World came out on April 7, reflected on the experience of releasing a book into a giant dumpster fire on Twitter a year later: I realized I felt guilty for feeling so robbed, and honestly just acknowledging the guilt and frustration was a good step forward. The publishing industry mostly moved online, and suddenly publicists couldnt easily send out physical review copies, whether because of supply-chain issues or because the books were trapped in offices that were now inaccessible. Libraries and physical bookstores closed, launch events were canceled, and publishers hadnt quite figured out Zoom yet.
Still, once I was finally able to focus, sometime in the fall, I found that among the galleys and not-so-new releases I had packed into boxes were titles that I immediately longed to talk to someone about. The nine works below, a selection of excellent books released between March and June 2020, include some of those gems. Each illuminates some underappreciated aspect of contemporary life or allows us to see the greater context beyond our own circumstancesperspective that the early days of the pandemic swept away.
Fiebre Tropical, by Julin Delgado Lopera (March 4, 2020)
What makes this novel is the swaggering, vulnerable, bilingual voice of Francisca, the 15-year-old narrator newly arrived in Miami, much to her chagrin. This wasnt a Choose Your Own Migration multiple-choice adventure with (a), (b), and (c) laid out at the end of each page and you could simply choose (b) Stay in Bogot, you idiot. Cachaco, please, she thinks. Shed rather wear all black and listen to the Cure than get involved in the youth group at the evangelical church that forms her relatives social and emotional world. That is, until she catches the interest of Carmen, the pastors charismatic daughter. As the two become more intimate, Francisca cant tell whether shes feeling Jesus or falling desperately, confusedly in love. There are gorgeous interludes depicting her mother and grandmother at around Franciscas age, in 1970s Bogot and 1950s Cartagena, filled with the same yearning and stubbornness. Its a coming-of-age story in triplicate, where dreams dont quite pan out in messy realityincluding the glamorous vision of the U.S. that draws the family there in the first place. But the longing that suffuses the writing has its own beauty.
Some Assembly Required: Decoding Four Billion Years of Life, from Ancient Fossils to DNA, by Neil Shubin (March 17, 2020)
Evolutionary biologist Neil Shubin wants us to know that feathers didnt in fact develop specifically to help animals fly, nor did lungs or legs appear to help animals walk on land. This absorbing book traces how monumental evolutionary changes actually happen, and Shubins answers are illuminating even to people who think they know how evolution works. Life as we know it, the reader learns, was actually formed by a grand process of bricolage, where body parts like feathers and lungs appeared, then eventually conferred advantages on their owners to serve different purposes than what they initially arose to do. (Evolution, in other words, is kind of like MacGyver.) Our own genomes are littered with randomly duplicate genes and the viruses that once infected our ancestors; we now use that DNA to make proteins crucial for pregnancy and the formation of memories. Through the stories of scientists like Susumu Ohno, who used cardboard cutouts to theorize about gene duplication, and Barbara McClintock, who won a Nobel Prize for discovering that certain genes move around within a genome, one gets a sense of how quickly our understanding of genetics has progressedand how human the scientific endeavor is.
The Everlasting, by Katy Simpson Smith (March 24, 2020)
This time-skipping novel tells the stories of four characters living in Rome at vastly different historical moments: an aquatic biologist named Tom in 2015; Giulia de Medici, self-conscious of her African heritage, in 1559; Felix, a closeted monk in 896; and Prisca, a 12-year-old girl who becomes a Christian martyr in 165. All come to Rome from elsewhere, all are haunted by unattainable love, and all are desperately lonely. A metal fishhook performs a decisive role in each arc. And Satan himself interjects throughout, responding to the characters rhetorical questions with snark and affectionhe can relate to their romantic anguish; he's never gotten over his breakup with God. The Everlasting meditates on faith, contingency, and human longing through a wealth of period detail in each setting: Who knew that spending time in a putridarium, a room beneath monasteries where the corpses of monks were seated on toilets to rot, could be so riveting? From seeing what changes and what stays the same in these glimpses of the Eternal City, an intimate sense of history arises.
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Afterlife, by Julia Alvarez (April 7, 2020)
Alvarezs first book for adults in 14 years is a quiet, philosophical novel, fraught with questions of what we owe to others and to ourselves. It also happens to be a page-turner. Antonia is a recently retired English professor whose beloved husband died nine months ago, and all of her instincts are to practice self-care and hold herself apart from otherswhich, throughout the story, can seem necessary, selfish, or both. That slippage is the central point of the novel. Antonia is always piously lecturing her three sisters about personal responsibility: Take care of yourself so you dont become a burden on others, she says, and they set their phones to play the sound of church bells when she calls. But then her erratic sister Izzy goes missing and a pregnant 17-year-old undocumented Mexican immigrant named Estela takes shelter in Antonias garage, and Antonia is caught between her own inclinations and the memory of her husband, Sam, who would likely help others in need even at a cost to himself. A bleak world of self-protections, she thinks close to the end. Did she really want to live in it? Antonias constant self-questioning anchors this deft work, showing readers the thoughts of a woman who decides to do the right thing despite herself.
The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power, by Deirdre Mask (April 14, 2020)
Addresses are sort of like flush toilets, I concluded after reading this wide-ranging exploration of the subject: an assumed part of modern life you only really see once you go somewhere without them. Mask traces the origins of addressing systems beginning in Enlightenment-era Europe, when burgeoning nation-states were eager to collect more detailed information about its citizens in order to provide them with services, but also to tax, conscript, and surveil them. Today, simply giving someone an addressa resident of a Kolkatan slum, or a homeless person in the U.S.could help lift them out of poverty by allowing them to open bank accounts and apply for jobs. Charming historical facts abound, including a chapter describing the way ancient Romans likely navigated a city largely without street names. But the books most striking point is how passionately people throughout history have felt about the names of their streets, from reunified Berlin to Tehran, South Africa, and Hollywood, Florida. They invite such heated debate, Mask writes, because they are about powerthe power to name, the power to shape history, the power to decide who counts, who doesnt, and why.
Synthesizing Gravity: Selected Prose, by Kay Ryan (April 14, 2020)
In 1976, when she was 30, Kay Ryan bicycled across the United States in order to decide, once and for all, whether to become a poet. Today shes about as decorated as a poet can bea Pulitzer Prize winner, two-term U.S. poet laureate, and a MacArthur fellow. Synthesizing Gravity is the first collection of her prose, written over three decades; it includes an essay that tells the story of that cross-country bike ride, as well as ones that dissect her favorite poets: Philip Larkin, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Marianne Moore, Stevie Smith. Its a little ironic that I have so many quotes from this book dutifully recorded, considering that one essay elaborates on the danger of notebooks. (Almost everything is supposed to get away from us, she argues.) Even her criticism inspires envy and an urge to jot down everything she writes: Nobel Prizewinning poet Joseph Brodsky was born to be posthumous, she tells us, and Annie Dillard could get high C out of a potato. What she advocates for is a life of simplicity, repetition, and solitude, and her insights are so bracing that the collection feels like a palate cleanser for everything thats overwhelming about our world.
Read: You wont remember the pandemic the way you think you will
Sansei and Sensibility, by Karen Tei Yamashita (May 5, 2020)
In this collection, Yamashitas characters are all growing up as sansei, the relatively pampered children of a generation of Japanese Americans who had been sent to internment camps during World War II. Theyre grappling with the weight of a history their parents never talk about. One protagonist considers what it means to apply the KonMari method to artifacts from the camps; a woman locked in her dead aunts apartment becomes interested in the Japanese antiques and old groceries she left behind. Throughout, theres a pleasingly casual sense of intimacy. One of the stories is, in fact, a timeline of important events in Los Angeless Japanese American community, while another incorporates recipes from Yamashitas friends and family, with directions like Toss, and serve with sake and beer. Play cards. Oh, and the books latter half consists of extremely witty sendups of all of Jane Austens completed novelsyes, even Lady Susanset in the Southern California of Yamashitas childhood. Eligible teens attend prom instead of fancy balls and Emma is now Emi, afire with plans to start the Japanese American revolution. The transplanted stories are fun (who doesnt love an Austen adaptation?) and also revealing, as this particular milieu is rife with unspoken expectations about what station in life the young protagonists are meant to attain.
One Mighty and Irresistible Tide: The Epic Struggle Over American Immigration, 1924-1965, by Jia Lynn Yang (May 19, 2020)
For most of this countrys past, Yang points out, it had been firmly established that being an American was inextricably tied to European ancestry. Her book charts the long, agonizing fight to recast the U.S. as a nation of immigrants, in which lawmakers and activists created a story about the countrys core values that became popular more recently than one might expect. This history is bookended by two laws: the Immigration Act of 1924, which barred nearly all new Asian immigrants and established national quotas based on eugenics and white nationalism, and the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which eliminated these quotas and banned discrimination against immigrants based on race or ethnicity. Its a fascinating and often sobering picture of how immigration in America has been shaped by a host of factorsforeign affairs, political expediency, anti-Communist hysteria, and principled, determined lawmakersand valuable context for the still-roiling battles over what it means to be an American. In the end, Yang argues, those of us who believe in multiculturalism as one of our countrys fundamental values have unfinished work if were to create a vision that recognizes and actively embraces our country's unprecedented diversity.
Read: How I came to love my epic quarantine reading project
The Dragons, the Giant, the Women, by Waytu Moore (June 2, 2020)
It feels nearly impossible to write about ones experiences as a 5-year-old with the clarity and narrative surety of a novelist, and yet thats exactly what Moore does in this memoir, which chronicles her familys escape from Liberia to the United States after civil war breaks out in 1989. The hardship itself commands attentionthe family, including three children, walks for weeks, passing through checkpoints surrounded by volatile soldiers and dead bodies. But Moores storytelling abilities and structural ingenuity are what made this one of my favorite books of 2020; after reading it I felt, despite everything that was going on, mildly outraged that people werent gushing about it on every platform. As Moores family flees, we feel her fathers and grandmothers terror and, simultaneously, the confusion of a child who weaves her own mythology of princes and dragons to make sense of the chaos. And, at a crucial juncture in their escape, the memoir leaps in time to Moore as a young woman in America, adjusting to racism and her identity as a West African immigrant, not to mention the buried trauma of her childhood. Her search for the female soldier who helped smuggle them out of the country brings her back to Liberia and a conclusion that moved me to tears.
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