To date, a total of 2,528 cases with SARS-CoV-2 variants have been identified and investigated in residents of Dallas County, including 288 cases of B.1.1.7 (Alpha); 4 cases of B.1.351 (Beta); 1,825 cases of B.1.617.2 (Delta); 30 cases of B.1.427 (Epsilon); 28 cases of P.1 (Gamma); 14 cases of B.1.526 (Iota); 5 cases of C.37 (Lambda); 4 cases of B.1.621 (Mu); 326 cases of B.1.1.529 (Omicron); and 3 cases of P.2 (Zeta). Four hundred and thirty-seven cases have been hospitalized and 57 have died. Forty-eight COVID-19 variant cases were reinfections. Seven hundred and nine people were considered fully vaccinated before infection with a COVID-19 variant.
As of 4/22/2022, a total of 473 confirmed and probable cases were reported in CDC week 15 (week ending 4/16/22), which is a weekly rate of 17.9 new cases per 100,000 residents.
As of the week ending 4/16/2022, about 81% of Dallas County residents age 12 years and older have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, including 98% of residents age 65 years and older; 86% of residents between 40-64 years of age; 78% of residents 25-39 years of age; 68% of residents 18-24 years of age; and 62% of residents 12-17 years of age. In the cities of Addison, Coppell, Highland Park, Irving, and Sunnyvale, greater than 94% of residents 18 years of age and older have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. In the cities of Cedar Hill, Desoto, Farmers Branch, Garland, Lancaster, and University Park, greater than 81% of residents 18 years of age and older have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine
About 45.7% of COVID-19 cases diagnosed in Week 15 were Dallas County residents who were not fully vaccinated. In Dallas County, 55,219 cases of COVID-19 breakthrough COVID-19 infections in fully vaccinated individuals have been confirmed to date, of which 3,980 (7.2%) were hospitalized and 691 have died due to COVID-19.
Of all Dallas County residents tested for COVID-19 by PCR during the week ending 4/16/2022 (CDC week 15), 4.7% of respiratory specimens tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. For week 15, area hospital labs have continued to report elevated numbers and proportions of respiratory specimens that are positive for other respiratory viruses by molecular tests: parainfluenza (4.78%), rhinovirus/enterovirus (34.01%), and RSV (3.02%).
There are currently 10 active long-term care facility outbreaks. A cumulative total of 6,455 residents and 4,363 healthcare workers in long-term facilities in Dallas have been diagnosed with COVID-19. Of these, 1,337 have been hospitalized and 911 have died. About 16% of all deaths reported to date have been associated with long-term care facilities.
There has been 1 outbreak of COVID-19 in a congregate-living facility (e.g. homeless shelters, group homes, and halfway homes) reported within the past 30 days. A cumulative total of 1,135 residents and staff members (840 residents and 295 staff) in congregate-living facilities in Dallas have been diagnosed with COVID-19.
New cases are being reported as a daily aggregate, with more detailed data dashboards and summary reports updated on Friday evenings, available at: https://www.dallascounty.org/departments/dchhs/2019-novel-coronavirus/daily-updates.php.
Local health experts use hospitalizations, ICU admissions, and ER visits as three of the key indicators as part of determining the COVID-19 Risk Level (color-coded risk) and corresponding guidelines for activities during our COVID-19 response. The most recent COVID-19 hospitalization data for Dallas County, as reported to the North Central Texas Trauma Regional Advisory Council, can be found at www.dallascounty.org/covid-19 under Monitoring Data, and is updated regularly. This data includes information on the total available ICU beds, suspected and confirmed COVID-19 ER visits in the last 24 hours, confirmed COVID-19 inpatients, and COVID-19 deaths by actual date of death. The most recent forecasting from UTSW can be found here.The most recent COVID-19 Data Summaries for Dallas County, TX can be found at the bottom of this page.
WASHINGTON Vice President Kamala Harriss coronavirus infection is raising questions that some in the nations capital wish would remain unspoken: Is it safe for President Biden to attend the so-called nerd prom, otherwise known as the White House Correspondents Dinner? Should the dinner even be held?
The flashy event, where journalists, politicians and policy wonks mingle with celebrities, is returning in person on Saturday after a two-year absence because of the pandemic. It will be the first time a president has attended since 2016. Expected attendance: 2,600.
As the nation lurches out of the acute phase of the pandemic and into what some are calling the new normal, the dinner like so much of American life is prompting a good deal of risk-benefit calculation. Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, Mr. Bidens top medical adviser for the coronavirus, said on Tuesday that he had decided not to attend because of my individual assessment of my personal risk.
But Mr. Biden, who at 79 is two years younger than Dr. Fauci, will be there, as will his wife, Jill Biden. The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, told reporters on Tuesday that Ms. Harriss diagnosis had not changed the presidents thinking about the dinner, which she described as an opportunity to talk about the importance of journalism in the world.
Just like many Americans, he makes risk assessments, Ms. Psaki said, adding, Thats an event hes attended many times in the past, and he made a decision through consultations that it was an event he could attend and wanted to attend again.
On Wednesday, after this article was published online, the White House made a slight shift in course; Ms. Psaki told reporters that the president might wear a mask at the dinner when he was not speaking, and would not attend the eating portion so he could attend in a safe way.
In interviews, public health experts were largely, though not entirely, supportive of Mr. Bidens choice. The organizers of the dinner are taking precautions, including requiring all attendees to be vaccinated and to provide proof of a negative Covid test taken that day. With vaccines and antiviral drugs available, some experts said, the time for shunning large gatherings is in the past, at least for most healthy people.
The dinner, in a cavernous ballroom at the Washington Hilton, is not the only large-scale event the president was scheduled to attend this week. On Wednesday, he delivered a eulogy at the funeral of Madeleine K. Albright, the former secretary of state an event that drew an estimated 1,400 mourners, most of them masked. On Sunday, Mr. Biden will travel to Minnesota to speak at a memorial service for former Vice President Walter Mondale.
Many public health experts are making calculations of their own. Dr. Carlos del Rio, an infectious disease specialist at Emory University, said he had just returned from Lisbon, where he was among 8,000 attendees of the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases. It was a risk that, with precautions, he was willing to take.
Everybody was vaccinated, everybody was masked except when speaking, he said. But we also went to restaurants and did other things, and I didnt get infected, so I feel very good about that.
Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist who is leading a new program on pandemic preparedness at Brown Universitys School of Public Health, said she recently attended a large indoor conference and was one of the few wearing masks. She has not gotten Covid-19 and does not want to, but, she said, I am also not completely rearranging my life trying to dodge it.
Everyone has a different risk tolerance, and experts say it is important not to judge other peoples choices. But the president, being the president, has an obligation to the public to not get sick, said Dr. Arthur L. Caplan, the director of N.Y.U. Langones division of medical ethics. He said Mr. Biden should not attend the dinner, ticking off the reasons in an email.
He is high-risk and occupies a very high office at a time of war, Dr. Caplan wrote, adding: He must be hypersafe. The correspondents dinner is highly optional. With the V.P. sick, he really needs to protect himself. His office imposes a duty of precaution.
Ms. Psaki conceded that Mr. Biden could contract Covid, adding that if he did, the White House would be very transparent about it. She said the White House took numerous precautions beyond those of most workplaces to protect Mr. Biden, including social distancing, regular testing and wearing masks during meetings.
Yet she also noted that the president was traveling more lately, having concluded that getting out into the country was vitally important to him, to his presidency, to the American people.
Still, there is an uneasy feeling here and a worry that maybe a gathering of 2,600 people, including journalists and politicians who have spent more than two years warning about the dangers of the pandemic, may not be the best look.
Well, there is a question of whether its EVER appropriate to engage in an exercise in gaudy, celebrity-drenched self-adulation, David Axelrod, a Democratic strategist who was a senior adviser to President Barack Obama, wrote in an email, but thats a separate question.
However, Mr. Axelrod added, The country plainly is eager to move on, and people are regularly gathering in public places stadiums, theaters, restaurants and, as a political matter, Im sure the president is eager to embrace the sense that the siege is largely behind us.
Yet there is no shortage of reminders that the siege may not, in fact, be largely behind us.
The Gridiron Dinner, another gathering of A-listers in the capital, turned into a superspreader event this month. More than 70 attendees later tested positive for the coronavirus, including three members of Mr. Bidens cabinet Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo as well as Mayor Eric Adams of New York.
The Gridiron freaked everybody out, Sally Quinn, the Washington journalist, socialite and widow of Ben Bradlee, the former executive editor of The Washington Post, told Axios. I know a number of people who are not going because they are not wanting to chance it, she added, referring to the correspondents dinner.
The annual gala, hosted by the White House Correspondents Association, has been a fixture of Washington political life for decades.
Accompanied by a long weekend of spinoff parties, the event raises money for scholarships and honors journalists for distinguished White House coverage. It typically features celebrity entertainment this years featured guest is Trevor Noah and a roast of the president. But the gala has drawn criticism for coming across as an unseemly bacchanal in which journalists cozy up to the people they cover. The New York Times has not allowed its reporters to attend since 2007.
President Donald J. Trump shunned the dinner during his four years in office. The pandemic kept Mr. Biden away last year.
The correspondents association is clearly aware of the sensitivities. Youve had lots of questions, its president, Steven Portnoy of CBS News, wrote to members in an email this month. So heres an update from me on our Covid-19 mitigation strategy.
Citing advice from Dr. Fauci, who suggested same-day testing in addition to a vaccination requirement when asked if large-scale events should proceed, Mr. Portnoy said guests would be required to provide proof of vaccination and a same-day negative antigen test via Bindle, a verification app.
He also added some advice of his own, telling members that if they were eligible for a fourth dose of vaccine, they should consider getting one.
As for Mr. Biden, Dr. Leana Wen, a former Baltimore city health commissioner who has been a vocal proponent of returning to pre-Covid routines, said the president must ask what is important to him. The mitigation measures at the dinner mean Mr. Biden is likely to avoid severe disease if he gets infected, she said. If he wants to avoid infection entirely, she added, he should not go.
However, that is not what living with Covid looks like, and I think that it is very important for him to model that ultimately what Americans should care about is avoiding severe disease, Dr. Wen said, adding, Especially if there are precautions such as testing and vaccination, he needs to show that we can resume our prepandemic lives.
Dr. Wen said she would not be attending the dinner for a different reason: I was not invited.
3 ways pediatricians can help persuade caregivers to have their children vaccinated.
By Doug Harris Published: April 29, 2022
Some parents are hesitant to have their children vaccinated against COVID-19. Pediatricians are in a unique position to help drive COVID-19 vaccine discussions with parents and ease caretakers concerns. Heres how they can accomplish that.
The FDA approved a COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 5 to 11 in late October, providing a welcome tool to help pediatricians protect their patients. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, more than 12.9 million children have tested positive for the virus. And those who were not vaccinated against COVID-19 have seen worse outcomes. For example, one study found that twice as many unvaccinated children ages 5 to 11 were hospitalized, compared with their vaccinated peers as the Omicron variant spiked earlier this year.
Despite these developments and statistics, COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy persists among parents. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 36% of parents with children ages 5 to 11 years old say they definitely will not get them vaccinated. Meanwhile, only 11% will only have their children vaccinated if mandated, and 10% are taking a wait-and-see stance.
Some parents cite access and transportation issues, as well as reservations about second doses and boosters. Others harbor a level of distrust and express a desire to learn more about the vaccine, including how it affects other children. Vaccine hesitancy may also be higher among parents of color, suggesting it could exacerbate health inequities that have been heightened by the pandemic.
So, how can pediatricians approach these delicate conversations, and also work to encourage and persuade parents to vaccinate their children against COVID-19? Here are three suggestions:
Pediatricians have always played a crucial role in arming parents with reliable information. They can do the same with COVID-19 by bringing a sensitive, science-based approach to vaccine discussions.
Meanwhile, COVID-19 vaccines for children younger than 5 may be approved in the coming months, so these conversations with parents could become more frequent and important. As trusted health care providers, pediatricians will be in a unique position to lead and influence the conversation with parents about the next phase of COVID-19 vaccination.
If you liked this article, sign up for Pediatrics Today SmartBrief. Its among SmartBriefs more than 250 free industry-focused email newsletters.
Doug Harris is a health care editor at SmartBrief. Connect with him on LinkedIn.
As the United States transitions out of a pandemic footing and into a new normal, it is also undergoing a shift in which Covid-19 metrics most accurately tell the story of the pandemic. The old standbys case numbers, namely arent as reliable anymore. So whats going to replace them?
At least three data sets are now being watched closely by the public health experts who spoke to Vox. Together, they help shed light on whats happening now, whats likely to happen, and how well were doing at dealing with whats already happened over the course of the pandemic.
The first, hospital data, covers the present, showing the level of severe illness in a given area and the strain being put on the local health care system. The second, new data on emerging variants, concerns the future and the potential for radical mutations to send the pandemic spinning out into a dangerous new direction. And the third, data on long Covid, reaches from the past and further into the future, as scientists attempt to gain a better grasp of the collateral damage the virus has left in its wake after infecting roughly 60 percent of the US population in the past two years.
Keep in mind that the most important pandemic metrics have been a moving target since 2020. The percentage of tests that came back positive was watched closely as an indication of how widespread the virus was in a given place at a given time. But nowadays, with so many people taking at-home antigen tests and never reporting the results to anyone, most experts consider that metric now to be unreliable. Case numbers, the raw count of positive tests, were an obvious signal to watch for a long time too; not only did they track the crests and dips of different waves, any growth in cases was predictably followed by a rise in hospitalizations and deaths in the subsequent weeks.
But many experts have stopped tracking cases too closely as well. They have the same reporting problem if you get a positive at-home test result but dont report it, your case doesnt show up in the official count but its more than that. Covid-19 is going to be around in the future, as society and the economy are adjusting to a new reality in which most people are expected to tolerate a certain risk of contracting Covid-19. If the public health goal is no longer to constrain case numbers, then they arent as meaningful in telling us whether or not our public health strategy is achieving its goals.
Instead, what many public health experts are tracking now is severe illness, meaning hospitalizations and deaths. The data coming out of local hospitals can still give us a good idea of the toll Covid-19 is exacting, the strain its putting on local health systems, and early indications that existing immunity may be fading.
Im not watching case rates. We expect there to be lots of mild cases, Bill Schaffner, the medical director of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases and a professor at Vanderbilt University, told me. But if hospitalization rates start to go up, theres probably more substantial waning immunity from vaccines and previous infections.
This is a new phase in the pandemic. Theres broader testing, vaccines, treatments, and new variants. Public health interventions are ending, leaving individuals to make their own risk assessments and choices about how to protect themselves. All of that demands a new approach to the coronavirus data that has become omnipresent in the last two years.
The dozen public health experts I contacted for this story were unanimous: They will watch hospital data most closely going forward. Some of those experts are still keeping tabs on cases as a general sign of the trends on the ground and because of the potential effect of long Covid to have a lasting effect in even mild cases.
But others said they were discarding cases as a major indicator, given the reporting limitations and the reality that society is shifting into a new phase of the pandemic where contracting Covid-19 is treated, for many people, as a tolerable risk. Theyre relying instead on metrics that measure the amount of severe disease in a community.
The vaccines cannot prevent every infection but are excellent in terms of preventing severe disease, and so I am looking at that metric as our metric of success in managing Covid-19 in this country, Monica Gandhi, an infectious diseases doctor at the University of California San Francisco, told me.
The overall number of hospitalizations is a good indicator of how prevalent Covid-19 is in a given community at a given time. But some number of Covid-19 hospitalizations may end up proving incidental, like if a person came to the hospital for a different reason and merely tested positive for the coronavirus as part of routine screening.
Thats why some experts said they were also looking specifically at the number of ICU patients admitted with Covid-19, more likely to be a real indicator of a severe Covid case, and the number of deaths attributed to the virus. Increases in those numbers would be a sign of something worrisome, either the virus evolving to become more lethal or existing immunity starting to wane.
ICU beds filling up would also mean the hospital runs the risk of not being able to care for all of its patients, which could worsen outcomes for patients and even contribute to unnecessary deaths. As Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at Johns Hopkins University, told me, seeing hospital operations compromised because of an influx of Covid-19 admissions is one of the things that would cause him serious concern.
A rising mortality rate could also be a sign that the virus is evolving to become more dangerous. When I asked David Celentano, who leads the epidemiology department at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, what in the metrics would freak him out, he said: A major increase in mortality, which might be associated with a new variant. That is my nightmare.
For now, hospitalizations (down 8 percent over the last two weeks), ICU occupancies (down 21 percent), and deaths (down 25 percent) are still declining from their omicron peak. That is part of the reason that, in spite of a recent uptick in case numbers, the US government and businesses are continuing to push toward resuming normal activities. Theyre not trying to restrain case numbers anymore; these measures of severe illness have become paramount instead.
Data on new variants were top of mind for all of the public health experts I consulted. Radical mutations in the coronavirus are one development that could disrupt societys attempt to get back to normal. New variants are identified through genomic sequencing, though clues about emerging iterations of the virus can also be found in sewage, which is becoming a more integral part of our Covid-19 surveillance network.
Whenever any new variant is identified, experts told me that they are interested in three specific data points: how easily can it be transmitted, whether it causes more severe illness, and how easily it evades immunity from vaccines and previous infections.
If we had a virus that were to some degree substantially transmissible and could notably evade the protection of our vaccines, then wed be in trouble, Schaffner said.
The other set of data that will determine Covid-19s long-term consequences is on long Covid. Such long-term symptoms after an infection have loomed large over the pandemic, inspiring fears that a mild case of Covid-19 could still end up affecting patients for months after they ostensibly recover.
But there is still a lot we dont know about long Covid. Some preliminary surveys have suggested as many as 30 percent of people who get infected with Covid-19 may end up having persistent symptoms. But experts are doubtful the number is actually that high and are pushing for standardized attempts to quantify the problem. In the coming months and years, we should start to get an empirical understanding of how many people are affected, who they are, and what the consequences have been.
We need a much better study of long Covid. It is real and will likely lead to a sustained cost in terms of chronic illness for a large number of people, but how large that number is remains uncertain, William Hanage, a Harvard University epidemiologist, told me. Claims that 30 percent of people who recover have long Covid are not credible. However, even 1 percent would mean a lot.
The US government, businesses, and society at large are making the pivot to living with Covid-19. The virus is going to be with us going forward, so from hospitals to sewers to long Covid, its through these three metrics that the next revelations about where things are heading will be found.
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COVID-19 transmission rates are back up to the medium level in some Bay Area counties, according to the CDC.
In San Mateo County, the positivity rate is near 6% with nearly 800 new cases in the past day, but what theyre not seeing is the ICU hospital beds filled with COVID patients for the most severe cases.
In many cases, infection rates are even higher than they were during the height of the delta variant. But health officials say the new BA.2 variant thats infecting most people now is not causing as many severe illnesses.
At the peak of the delta surge, we had 25 people in the hospital, in Marin County, 10 in ICU, said Marin County Public Health Officer Dr. Matt Willis. Right now, were seeing only six total in the hospital, none in the ICU.
So despite the infectious nature of this variant, many people are feeling safer now about being out in public, even maskless.
I think its pretty safe, said Avash Pardhootman of San Francisco. Hospitalizations and deaths are low, so I think its looking upwards for the world, and everyone as whole.
And it took a lot for Pardhootman to get there after losing his father to COVID in 2021.
For a long time, it seemed like things may never turn around.
It did for a while, especially when things were crazy, peak pandemic but now I think the outlook is much different, said Pardhootman.
One of the Bay Areas top experts on COVID says shes started to return to a more normal lifestyle despite a rise in cases in some areas.
I have two children. Theyre vaccinated. Im vaccinated and boosted and we have been living and Ill tell you I was on a plane last week when they dropped the mask mandates and not very many people are masking on planes, said Dr. Monica Gandhi of UCSF.
Gandhi said people should feel safer because 60% of the population has now been exposed to the virus and 75% of kids under the age of 17 have built up natural antibodies. But she said COVID is here to stay.
For one thing, its in 29 species of animals, said Gandhi. Its not going to go away. But, what we have to do is prevent severe disease and we have very high levels of immunity in the Bay Area so we have to start living with it.
But some people arent quite ready to drop the masks just yet and will rely on testing and keep to their small circles until they feel more comfortable that the worst of covid is behind us for good.
I work in the public, and I dont know where everyone has been, so its better to be safe than sorry for now at least, said Nisha Aeri of Belmont.
And with large gatherings for proms, Mothers Day and graduations on the horizon, Marin Countys health leader is still warning people to be wise about masking and getting tested before those big get-togethers.
Theyre easily available. Theyre accurate. In terms of positive treat it as a positive result, said Dr. Willis.
In the current stage of the pandemic, many Berkeley residents are using self-tests, like the BinaxNOW COVID-19 tests, to monitor whether they have the virus. Before, residents relied on testing sites that reported data to the local health department. Credit: Amir Aziz
When the Grand Princess cruise ship docked in Oakland in March 2020 and the entire country began scrambling for information on the new virus at its shore, a local sewage agency activated a tool that has become key in responding to this pandemic and future ones.
East Bay Municipal Utilities District manages sewage lines that run through Berkeley, Oakland and the East Bay, roughly bounded by Hayward, Crockett and San Ramon, and processes an average of 50 million gallons of water daily.
The agency has always tested and treated this supply to meet state and federal standards, but it began navigating unknown territory when the ship with COVID-19 patients arrived in the Bay Area and asked EBMUD to take its wastewater.
Working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, state public health agencies and scientists at Stanford and UC Berkeley, EBMUD found they could check the water for COVID-19 and ultimately assess it for new variants, like delta, omicron and BA.2.
People who swim in the Bay were also concerned about getting COVID, said Alicia Chakrabarti, EBMUD manager of wastewater management, describing the haze of confusion around COVID-19 in the early months of the pandemic. The agency was able to determine that the waters were safe, both for workers in their plants and people who access the waters recreationally.
In April, the state department of public health started processing the samples locally instead of at UC Berkeley. That data is available on theironline dashboard.
Berkeley has its own health department and began using the EBMUD data in the fall of 2020. It was the first time the city ever accessed sewage data for its public health strategy, according to Health Officer Dr. Lisa Hernandez.
In the months since, officials have used the numbers to track the presence of the virus in the community as a supplement to diagnostic tests (like those from testing sites). Sewage typically detects case jumps about a week before testing, and eventually hospitalizations, reflect the same.
This predictive tool helps the city determine when they need to do more education and outreach about COVID-19, Hernandez said.
Were able to capture a broader part of our community with wastewater testing because we know that not everyone that needs to get tested, doesnt always want to, or can, get tested, Hernandez said.
Because the sewage lines are interconnected throughout the East Bay, the data is purely population-level meaning officials cant track individual homes or blocks but it can be specified as catchment areas, which can split up the city into regions, Hernandez said.
The numbers from sewage data have matched up to and in some cases, preceded county data from diagnostic tests. For example, EBMUD Director of Wastewater Eileen White said the numbers from different pipes showed COVID-19 numbers being higher in Oakland than Berkeley throughout the pandemic, due to a range of socioeconomic and health factors.
Other regions, like Santa Clara County, also used this wastewater data to predict the presence of the omicron variant in their cities. Hernandez said Berkeley actually found out about the omicron variant from traditional channels due to a large outbreak at Kaisers Oakland Medical Center in December 2021, but it is a useful tool to monitor for other variants and spikes in cases.
Berkeley is currently experiencing a small spike in cases, which Hernandez attributed to spring break travel and the more contagious variant, BA.2. Berkeley Unified School District reported a significant uptick in cases on Thursday, saying its schools saw 91 cases this week more than three times as many as the previous week.
Though the current average case rate (about 38 daily) citywide is much lower than the numbers observed at the height of the omicron surge this winter, Hernandez emphasized that these numbers are higher than they were this month in 2021 and 2020.
Testing has fallen considerably from levels during the omicron surge, when lines once again wrapped around testing sites, and appointments were difficult to come by. Because residents have the additional tool of self-tests to monitor COVID-19 infections, Hernandez said its about 50-50 whether cases are caught by an official diagnostic test (which is reported to the city health department) or a self-test.
That can lead to less data for the city, but Hernandez said the self-tests are still more of a blessing than a curse, because people can rapidly get information about whether they have COVID or not and hopefully do the right thing.
Funding for testing sites is also falling, and while city testing and vaccine sites are still free without insurance, others like Curative have started charging for certain options like the fastest rapid test. Testing sites may become less available as the government reallocates funding into other priorities, and Hernandez said this could be a time when population-wide data through wastewater becomes even more important.
I think wastewater sampling is going to be a definite, strong tool in our surveillance toolbox, Hernandez said.
Hernandez and officials at EBMUD also hope it can be adapted to test for things like the common flu, or respiratory syncytial virus, a common respiratory virus. White and Chakrabarti said these processes are still in the initial stages, and private labs have expressed interest in analyzing the wastewater to spot other bacteria and viruses.
EBMUD was not designed to take samples for COVID-19 or other viruses, and the process has been a huge lift for the agency, especially when its workers (half of whom work at plants and cannot be remote) were coming down with the virus during the worst parts of the surge, White said.
She added that Gov. Gavin Newsoms pandemic plan includes wastewater surveillance, and utility agencies that do similar work are hoping for additional support on the local and federal levels.
Its a very time-consuming effort, but its the right thing to do, White said. Weve always treated wastewater to protect public health, and now were looking for opportunities on how we can take wastewater and turn it into a resource.
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By NANCY WEST, InDepthNH.org
CONCORD Two state Senators Lou DAllesandro, D-Manchester, and Bill Gannon, R-Sandown, attended Thursdays session via video because they both had tested positive for COVID-19, DAllesandro said Friday.
DAllesandro said it wasnt the first time, that in the past he attended remotely when recovering from surgery, but it is a controversial topic at the State House because it is not allowed in the House of Representatives.
The faces of DAllesandro and Gannon were seen on screens at the front of the Senate chambers in the State House and they both fully participated and voted on the bills before them. There was no mention Thursday as to the reason for the temporary change.
The Senate has been gracious, DAllesandro said.
He said he tested positive for COVID-19 on Monday and was isolating at home for five days and after isolating will wear a face mask when he leaves the house for five days.
DAllesandro said he has had a headache, cold symptoms and a sore throat, but overall is not feeling too badly.
DAllesandro said Gannon mentioned to him that he had tested positive as well. Efforts to reach Gannon Friday were unsuccessful and Senate President Chuck Morse, R-Salem, didnt respond to a request for comment, nor did House Speaker Sherman Packard, R-Londonderry.
In stark contrast to the Senate, Packard has refused to allow House sessions to include members who are sick or disabled to vote and participate remotely.
A lawsuit against Packard filed by former House Minority Leader Renny Cushing, D-Hampton, who has since died of cancer and complications due to COVID-19, argues disabled members at high risk of getting COVID-19 should be allowed to participate remotely.
The 1st Circuit Court of Appeals recently remanded the lawsuit back to U.S. District Court for further proceedings.
DAllesandro was critical of the House not allowing remote participation for their members.
Thats not consistent with good government, DAllesandro said. Im feeling pretty good, just a headache, sore throat and runny nose.
Sen. Tom Sherman, D-Rye, a physician who is running for governor, said the big news of Thursdays session was Morses flexibility, allowing a Democrat and a Republican to participate remotely.
There was rigorous debate. Everyone could participate, Sherman said. What the Senate president did was model how we can handle this if we have more surges or more pandemics in the future.
The Senate president cant tell the House what to do, Sherman said. Leaders are people who lead by example. It was a wonderful solution.
One more person has died of COVID-19 in New Hampshire as the number of hospital patients being treated for the virus rose Friday.State health officials said the person who died was a Strafford County man age 60 or older. His death was associated with a long-term care facility. There have been 2,480 deaths attributed to COVID-19 in New Hampshire since the beginning of the pandemic.The New Hampshire Hospital Association said there were 95 people in the state's hospitals who have tested positive for COVID-19, down one from Thursday. The number of patients being treated for serious COVID-19 cases rose by three to 26.Health officials said the number of known active cases of COVID-19 fell to 2,887.** Town-by-town: COVID-19 case data | Vaccination data **
One more person has died of COVID-19 in New Hampshire as the number of hospital patients being treated for the virus rose Friday.
State health officials said the person who died was a Strafford County man age 60 or older. His death was associated with a long-term care facility. There have been 2,480 deaths attributed to COVID-19 in New Hampshire since the beginning of the pandemic.
The New Hampshire Hospital Association said there were 95 people in the state's hospitals who have tested positive for COVID-19, down one from Thursday. The number of patients being treated for serious COVID-19 cases rose by three to 26.
Health officials said the number of known active cases of COVID-19 fell to 2,887.
** Town-by-town: COVID-19 case data | Vaccination data **
For the last few years, we have been closely monitoring and reporting on COVID-19 related fraud enforcement efforts by federal agencies. We detailed those findings in our Health Care Enforcement 2020 Year in Review & 2021 Outlook (2020 Year in Review) and 2021 Year in Review & 2022 Outlook (2021 Year in Review).
In the 2021 Year in Review, we reported on Attorney General Merrick Garland's May 2021 announcement of the creation of an interagency COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force and we also detailed two major takedowns executed by this Task Force in May and September 2021. In addition, we covered a number of the substantive areas toward which federal enforcement authorities had turned their focus in 2021, including fraud against the Provider Relief Fund and fraud related to the provision of COVID-19 related health care services, among others.
Last week, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced another significant takedown that it described as build[ing] on the success of the May 2021 COVID-19 Enforcement Action. As part of this enforcement effort, criminal charges were announced against 21 defendants across the country for their alleged involvement in various COVID-19 related fraud schemes that resulted in over $149 million in COVID-19 related false billings to federal programs and theft from federally-funded pandemic assistance programs.
Generally speaking, the alleged schemes at issue in this takedown were very similar to the enforcement actions that we reported on in our 2021 Year in Review:
We also highlighted in the 2021 Year in Reviewthat interagency cooperation and a focus on individual wrongdoers were hallmarks of COVID-19 related fraud enforcement. This most recent enforcement action was another example of both trends. The DOJ press release on this takedown credits several strike forces and U.S. Attorneys Offices across the country with prosecuting the many cases included in this announcement and also notes the involvement of 11 different federal agencies in this enforcement effort. These agencies included the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the OIG, and CMS, as well as the Offices of Inspector General to several federal agencies including the U.S. Postal Service, the Department of Defense, the Department of the Interior, the Department of Labor, and the Food and Drug Administration, among others. With respect to individual liability, this most recent enforcement action - like previous actions - targeted individual business owners (e.g., the owners of laboratories accused of misusing patient information to bill for unnecessary services) and health care providers (e.g., medical professionals billing for sham telemedicine encounters, selling fake vaccines, and falsifying vaccine cards).
Stay tuned for future updates.
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The California Occupational Safety & Health Standards (Cal/OSHA) Board recently voted to revise and readopt the COVID-19 emergency temporary standards (ETS) for the third time.The third revised ETS is expected to take effect the first week of May and will remain in place until December 31, 2022.
The changes between the third revised version of the ETS and the current second version are summarized below.
Cal/OSHA will likely update its website to provide the formal text of the third revised ETS and related FAQs when the third revised ETS becomes effective.You can access that website here: https://www.dir.ca.gov/dosh/coronavirus/ETS.html
