Our analysis revealed six main categories of reasons for refusing a COVID-19 vaccination. Reasons include low perceived benefits of getting vaccinated, a low subjective risk, concerns of potential adverse effects from the vaccine, poor health literacy, mistrust and spiritual and religious beliefs (see Table 1).
Several posts show that social media users did not trust the newly developed mRNA-based vaccines or had some reservations about gene-based vaccines in general. According to these posts, users thought that vaccination with mRNA-vaccines had not yet been sufficiently investigated or that they were not as effective as attenuated or inactivated vaccines, which is why they did not consider vaccination with the existing vaccines to be necessary or sensible.
"Pfizer's vaccines and other vaccines against COVID-19 are experiments, not vaccines. These are novel genetic technologies that have never been used on humans before. An mRNA molecule can never stimulate the immune system the way a vaccination can." [User 33]
Furthermore, the analysis shows that users viewed their personal risk of getting infected with COVID-19, suffering from a severe course of the disease and developing serious complications from an infection as low. Therefore, vaccination was not regarded necessary. Mild symptoms, a young age and a good subjective health status were reported as relevant factors leading to that evaluation.
"I already had Corona, I only had a slight cough for two days, it didn't bother me at all. I'd rather get Corona than have anything injected into my blood. Everyone as they like." [User 140]
In addition, some users emphasized that their own immune system was strong enough to deal with a possible infection and therefore they did not need vaccination. According to their own statements, some of the users relied on preventive and supportive measures like a balanced diet or taking supplemental vitamins to bolster up their immune system, rendering vaccination, in their opinion, unnecessary.
"I am asthmatic, but I would never be vaccinated against Corona. I don't have to weigh that. We have an immune system. I live a healthy life with lots of vitamins. I don't deny Corona, but I'm not afraid of it." [User 47]
Moreover, some users on social media stated that prior infections with COVID-19 made them immune to reinfection, including immunity to mutations of the virus, and therefore a vaccination was not necessary. In line with that, some users believed that a prior infection offered more natural protection than the vaccines.
"No one needs this vaccination, because once you have Corona you are immune." [User 4]
Another reason to refuse vaccination were users' concerns about various potential side effects and possible vaccine-related damage. Some users justified rejecting vaccination citing the lack of long-term studies and insufficient reliable information about side effects and consequential damages. Among others, these fears were related to the risk of getting cancer, changes and damages to their genetic makeup, infertility and death. These concerns were often associated with past vaccine and drug scandals.
"I don't get vaccinated, I'm afraid of side effects. Thalidomide, for example, should not be ignored either. There are no long-term studies, but everyone should do what they want." [User 121]
Users emphasized their objection especially regarding the possible approval of vaccine use for women during pregnancy. This was based on the lack of data supporting safe use in these cases and concerns about the effects of vaccination on the unborn child.
"Who does that?! I'm sorry, that's irresponsible. No one knows what happens to the unborn child, no one can take that responsibility on themselves! It's a pure human experiment." [User 296]
Our analysis also showed that vaccination was refused due to other pre-existing health conditions and allergies, as only little information was available on possible interactions between existing health impairments and COVID-19 vaccines. Personal experiences with physical reactions or vaccine damages from past vaccinations were further reported reasons that led to rejection of the vaccines.
"I am chronically ill and take a lot of medication, I have very great respect for vaccination. There is no data on the side effects and interactions in connection with the medication. That is too meagre for me." [User 160]
Another reason for users refusing vaccination was that some did not feel sufficiently informed about the vaccination and that the available information was perceived as incomprehensible.
No, I don't feel informed enough because the text is too difficult to understand." [User 124]
This lack of transparent and user-oriented information in some cases resulted in the spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories. The lack of knowledge led to a general mistrust and a negative attitude towards information on the disease itself and vaccines among some of the users. These beliefs, which were mostly based on misinformation or conspiracy theories, led to strong downplaying or denial of COVID-19 among users and a subsequent lack of willingness to get vaccinated.
"Corona vaccination is seen as protection. However, these vaccinations have the opposite effect. They are killings with the intention of reducing the world's population. Survive or die together? Which would also be romantic." [User 261]
Mistrust in authorities, political stakeholders or in representatives of the pharmaceutical industry also played an important role. There weredoubts about the reliability and integrity of information and the intentions of certain groups, organizations or institutions in promoting vaccination, which users attributed to previous misconduct. For example, users were convinced that the pharmaceutical industry had a mere financial interest in promoting vaccination against COVID-19.
"Unfortunately, I cannot trust the pharmaceutical industry, as much as I would like to. I would get vaccinated, but my mistrust is far too great. I have also not yet received anything that would build my trust. In the past, the pharmaceutical industry has acted unethically and immorally and knowingly harmed people. They have put their sales first, for example with the Duogynon scandal. [...]" [User 140]
Furthermore, the rapid development and approval of the vaccines compared to previous vaccines against other diseases was another reason given by users for refusing vaccination. They expressed concern that the vaccines were not sufficiently tested and that long-term negative physical consequences could not be ruled out. The partial emergency approval of the vaccines also led to concerns.
"I'm not going to have it injected. Normally a vaccine is researched for years. And now I'm supposed to get injected with something that was mixed together in a very short time?" [User 186]
In addition, vaccines from specific manufacturers were sometimes rejected. Users justified this with differences in perceived effectiveness and suspected side effects of vaccines from certain manufacturers. The respective country of development or production also played a role in rejecting these vaccines.
"I'd rather die before I get vaccinated with the Russian or Chinese vaccine." [User 70].
Spiritual or religious beliefs, such as the protection by God or the protective effect of precious stones, also led to a refusal of vaccination against COVID-19 by some users.
"I don't believe in this vaccination and this vaccination will not help us, I believe in God, in Jesus Christ and only he can help us, save us and protect us from this virus." [User 219]
Sixty percent of Americans, including 75 percent of children, had been infected with the coronavirus by February, federal health officials reported on Tuesday another remarkable milestone in a pandemic that continues to confound expectations.
The highly contagious Omicron variant was responsible for much of the toll. In December 2021, as the variant began spreading, only half as many people had antibodies indicating prior infection, according to new research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
While the numbers came as a shock to many Americans, some scientists said they had expected the figures to be even higher, given the contagious variants that have marched through the nation over the past two years.
There may be good news in the data, some experts said. A gain in population-wide immunity may offer at least a partial bulwark against future waves. And the trend may explain why the surge that is now roaring through China and many countries in Europe has been muted in the United States.
A high percentage of previous infections may also mean that there are now fewer cases of life-threatening illness or death relative to infections. We will see less and less severe disease, and more and more a shift toward clinically mild disease, said Florian Krammer, an immunologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York.
It will be more and more difficult for the virus to do serious damage, he added.
Administration officials, too, believe that the data augur a new phase of the pandemic in which infections may be common at times but cause less harm.
At a news briefing on Tuesday, Dr. Ashish Jha, the White Houses new Covid coordinator, said that stopping infections was not even a policy goal. The goal of our policy should be: obviously, minimize infections whenever possible, but to make sure people dont get seriously ill.
The average number of confirmed new cases a day in the United States more than 49,000 as of Monday, according to a New York Times database is comparable to levels last seen in late July, even as cases have risen by over 50 percent over the past two weeks, a trend infectious disease experts have attributed to new Omicron subvariants.
Dr. Jha and other officials warned against complacency, and urged Americans to continue receiving vaccinations and booster shots, saying that antibodies from prior infections did not guarantee protection from the virus.
During the Omicron surge, infections rose most sharply among children and adolescents, according to the new research. Prior infections increased least among adults aged 65 and older, who have the highest rates of vaccination and may be most likely to take precautions.
Evidence of previous Covid-19 infections substantially increased among every age group, Dr. Kristie Clarke, the agency researcher who led the new study, said at a news briefing on Tuesday.
Widespread infection raises a troubling prospect: a potential increase in cases of long Covid, a poorly understood constellation of lingering symptoms.
Up to 30 percent of people infected with the coronavirus may have persistent symptoms, including worrisome changes to the brain and heart. Vaccination is thought to lower the odds of long Covid, although it is unclear by how much.
The long-term impacts on health care are not clear but certainly worth taking very seriously, as a fraction of people will be struggling for a long time with the consequences, said Bill Hanage, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Even a very small percentage of infected or vaccinated people who develop long Covid would translate to millions nationwide.
While the focus is often on preventing the health care system from buckling under a surge, we should also be concerned that our health care system will be overwhelmed by the ongoing health care needs of a population with long Covid, said Zo McLaren, a health policy expert at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
There are still tens of millions of Americans with no immunity to the virus, and they remain vulnerable to both the short- and long-term consequences of infection, said Dr. Tom Inglesby, director of the Center for Health Security at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
April 28, 2022, 1:27 p.m. ET
Betting that you are in the 60 percent is a big gamble, he said. For anyone whos not been vaccinated and boosted, I would take this new data as a direct message to get that done or expect that the virus is likely to catch up to you if it hasnt already.
Although cases are once again on the upswing, particularly in the Northeast, the rise in hospitalizations has been minimal, and deaths are still dropping. According to the agencys most recent criteria, more than 98 percent of Americans live in communities with a low or medium level of risk.
Even among those who are hospitalized, were seeing less oxygen use, less I.C.U. stays and we havent, fortunately, seen any increase in deaths associated with them, said the C.D.C.s director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky. We are hopeful that positive trends will continue.
The country has recorded about a five-fold drop in P.C.R. testing for the virus since the Omicron peak, and so tracking new cases has become difficult. But the reported count is far less, about 70-fold lower, said Dr. Walensky, reflecting a true and reliable drop in our overall cases.
New subvariants of Omicron, called BA.2 and BA.2.12.1, have supplanted the previous iteration, BA.1, which began circulating in the country in late November and sent cases soaring to record highs in a matter of weeks.
Of course, even more have been infected now, because BA.2 will have infected some who avoided it thus far, Dr. Hanage said.
By February, three of four children and adolescents in the country had already been infected with the virus, compared with one-third of older adults, according to the new study.
That so many children are carrying antibodies may offer comfort to parents of those aged 5 and under, who do not qualify for vaccination, since many may have acquired at least some immunity through infection.
But Dr. Clarke urged parents to immunize children who qualify as soon as regulators approve a vaccine for them, regardless of their prior infection. Among children who are hospitalized with the virus, up to 30 percent may need intensive care, she noted.
Although many of those children also have other medical conditions, about 70 percent of cases of multisystem inflammatory disease, a rare consequence of Covid-19 infection, occur in otherwise healthy children.
As a pediatrician and a parent, I would absolutely endorse the children get vaccinated, even if they have been infected, Dr. Clarke said.
Some experts said they were concerned about long-term consequences, even in children who have mild symptoms.
Given the very high proportion of infection in kids and adults that happened earlier this year, I worry about the rise in long Covid cases as a result, said Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale University who is studying the condition.
To measure the percentage of the population infected with the virus, the study relied on the presence of antibodies produced in response to an infection.
C.D.C. researchers began assessing antibody levels in people at 10 sites early in the pandemic, and have since expanded that effort to all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. The investigators used a test sensitive enough to identify previously infected people for at least one to two years after exposure.
The researchers analyzed blood samples collected from September 2021 to February 2022 for antibodies to the virus, and then parsed the data by age, sex and geographical location. The investigators looked specifically for a type of antibody produced after infection but not after vaccination.
Between September and December 2021, the prevalence of antibodies in the samples steadily increased by one to two percentage points every four weeks. But it jumped sharply after December, increasing by nearly 25 points by February 2022.
The percentage of samples with antibodies rose from about 45 percent among children aged 11 years and younger, and among adolescents aged 12 to 17 years, to about 75 percent in both age groups.
By February 2022, roughly 64 percent of adults aged 18 to 49 years, about 50 percent of those aged 50 to 64 years and about 33 percent of older adults had been infected, according to the study.
Despite the record high cases during the Omicron surge, the reported statistics may not have captured all infections, because some people have few to no symptoms, may not have opted for testing or may have tested themselves at home.
According to one upcoming C.D.C. study, there may be more than three infections for each reported case, Dr. Clarke said.
Noah Weiland contributed reporting from Washington.
Colin Carlson, a biologist at Georgetown University, has started to worry about mousepox.
The virus, discovered in 1930, spreads among mice, killing them with ruthless efficiency. But scientists have never considered it a potential threat to humans. Now Dr. Carlson, his colleagues and their computers arent so sure.
Using a technique known as machine learning, the researchers have spent the past few years programming computers to teach themselves about viruses that can infect human cells. The computers have combed through vast amounts of information about the biology and ecology of the animal hosts of those viruses, as well as the genomes and other features of the viruses themselves. Over time, the computers came to recognize certain factors that would predict whether a virus has the potential to spill over into humans.
Once the computers proved their mettle on viruses that scientists had already studied intensely, Dr. Carlson and his colleagues deployed them on the unknown, ultimately producing a short list of animal viruses with the potential to jump the species barrier and cause human outbreaks.
In the latest runs, the algorithms unexpectedly put the mousepox virus in the top ranks of risky pathogens.
Every time we run this model, it comes up super high, Dr. Carlson said.
Puzzled, Dr. Carlson and his colleagues rooted around in the scientific literature. They came across documentation of a long-forgotten outbreak in 1987 in rural China. Schoolchildren came down with an infection that caused sore throats and inflammation in their hands and feet.
Years later, a team of scientists ran tests on throat swabs that had been collected during the outbreak and put into storage. These samples, as the group reported in 2012, contained mousepox DNA. But their study garnered little notice, and a decade later mousepox is still not considered a threat to humans.
If the computer programmed by Dr. Carlson and his colleagues is right, the virus deserves a new look.
Its just crazy that this was lost in the vast pile of stuff that public health has to sift through, he said. This actually changes the way that we think about this virus.
Scientists have identified about 250 human diseases that arose when an animal virus jumped the species barrier. H.I.V. jumped from chimpanzees, for example, and the new coronavirus originated in bats.
Ideally, scientists would like to recognize the next spillover virus before it has started infecting people. But there are far too many animal viruses for virologists to study. Scientists have identified more than 1,000 viruses in mammals, but that is most likely a tiny fraction of the true number. Some researchers suspect mammals carry tens of thousands of viruses, while others put the number in the hundreds of thousands.
To identify potential new spillovers, researchers like Dr. Carlson are using computers to spot hidden patterns in scientific data. The machines can zero in on viruses that may be particularly likely to give rise to a human disease, for example, and can also predict which animals are most likely to harbor dangerous viruses we dont yet know about.
It feels like you have a new set of eyes, said Barbara Han, a disease ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, N.Y., who collaborates with Dr. Carlson. You just cant see in as many dimensions as the model can.
Dr. Han first came across machine learning in 2010. Computer scientists had been developing the technique for decades, and were starting to build powerful tools with it. These days, machine learning enables computers to spot fraudulent credit charges and recognize peoples faces.
But few researchers had applied machine learning to diseases. Dr. Han wondered if she could use it to answer open questions, such as why less than 10 percent of rodent species harbor pathogens known to infect humans.
She fed a computer information about various rodent species from an online database everything from their age at weaning to their population density. The computer then looked for features of the rodents known to harbor high numbers of species-jumping pathogens.
Once the computer created a model, she tested it against another group of rodent species, seeing how well it could guess which ones were laden with disease-causing agents. Eventually, the computers model reached an accuracy of 90 percent.
Then Dr. Han turned to rodents that have yet to be examined for spillover pathogens and put together a list of high-priority species. Dr. Han and her colleagues predicted that species such as the montane vole and Northern grasshopper mouse of western North America would be particularly likely to carry worrisome pathogens.
Of all the traits Dr. Han and her colleagues provided to their computer, the one that mattered most was the life span of the rodents. Species that die young turn out to carry more pathogens, perhaps because evolution put more of their resources into reproducing than in building a strong immune system.
These results involved years of painstaking research in which Dr. Han and her colleagues combed through ecological databases and scientific studies looking for useful data. More recently, researchers have sped this work up by building databases expressly designed to teach computers about viruses and their hosts.
In March, for example, Dr. Carlson and his colleagues unveiled an open-access database called VIRION, which has amassed half a million pieces of information about 9,521 viruses and their 3,692 animal hosts and is still growing.
Databases like VIRION are now making it possible to ask more focused questions about new pandemics. When the Covid pandemic struck, it soon became clear that it was caused by a new virus called SARS-CoV-2. Dr. Carlson, Dr. Han and their colleagues created programs to identify the animals most likely to harbor relatives of the new coronavirus.
SARS-CoV-2 belongs to a group of species called betacoronaviruses, which also includes the viruses that caused the SARS and MERS epidemics among humans. For the most part, betacoronaviruses infect bats. When SARS-CoV-2 was discovered in January 2020, 79 species of bats were known to carry them.
But scientists have not systematically searched all 1,447 species of bats for betacoronaviruses, and such a project would take many years to complete.
By feeding biological data about the various types of bats their diet, the length of their wings, and so on into their computer, Dr. Carlson, Dr. Han and their colleagues created a model that could offer predictions about the bats most likely to harbor betacoronaviruses. They found over 300 species that fit the bill.
Since that prediction in 2020, researchers have indeed found betacoronaviruses in 47 species of bats all of which were on the prediction lists produced by some of the computer models they had created for their study.
Daniel Becker, a disease ecologist at the University of Oklahoma who also worked on the betacoronavirus study, said it was striking the way simple features such as body size could lead to powerful predictions about viruses. A lot of it is the low-hanging fruit of comparative biology, he said.
Dr. Becker is now following up from his own backyard on the list of potential betacoronavirus hosts. It turns out that some bats in Oklahoma are predicted to harbor them.
If Dr. Becker does find a backyard betacoronavirus, he wont be in a position to say immediately that it is an imminent threat to humans. Scientists would first have to carry out painstaking experiments to judge the risk.
Dr. Pranav Pandit, an epidemiologist at the University of California at Davis, cautions that these models are very much a work in progress. When tested on well-studied viruses, they do substantially better than random chance, but could do better.
Its not at a stage where we can just take those results and create an alert to start telling the world, This is a zoonotic virus, he said.
Nardus Mollentze, a computational virologist at the University of Glasgow, and his colleagues have pioneered a method that could markedly increase the accuracy of the models. Rather than looking at a viruss hosts, their models look at its genes. A computer can be taught to recognize subtle features in the genes of viruses that can infect humans.
In their first report on this technique, Dr. Mollentze and his colleagues developed a model that could correctly recognize human-infecting viruses more than 70 percent of the time. Dr. Mollentze cant yet say why his gene-based model worked, but he has some ideas. Our cells can recognize foreign genes and send out an alarm to the immune system. Viruses that can infect our cells may have the ability to mimic our own DNA as a kind of viral camouflage.
When they applied the model to animal viruses, they came up with a list of 272 species at high risk of spilling over. Thats too many for virologists to study in any depth.
You can only work on so many viruses, said Emmie de Wit, a virologist at Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, Mont., who oversees research on the new coronavirus, influenza and other viruses. On our end, we would really need to narrow it down.
Dr. Mollentze acknowledged that he and his colleagues need to find a way to pinpoint the worst of the worst among animal viruses. This is only a start, he said.
To follow up on his initial study, Dr. Mollentze is working with Dr. Carlson and his colleagues to merge data about the genes of viruses with data related to the biology and ecology of their hosts. The researchers are getting some promising results from this approach, including the tantalizing mousepox lead.
Other kinds of data may make the predictions even better. One of the most important features of a virus, for example, is the coating of sugar molecules on its surface. Different viruses end up with different patterns of sugar molecules, and that arrangement can have a huge impact on their success. Some viruses can use this molecular frosting to hide from their hosts immune system. In other cases, the virus can use its sugar molecules to latch on to new cells, triggering a new infection.
This month, Dr. Carlson and his colleagues posted a commentary online asserting that machine learning may gain a lot of insights from the sugar coating of viruses and their hosts. Scientists have already gathered a lot of that knowledge, but it has yet to be put into a form that computers can learn from.
My gut sense is that we know a lot more than we think, Dr. Carlson said.
Dr. de Wit said that machine learning models could some day guide virologists like herself to study certain animal viruses. Theres definitely a great benefit thats going to come from this, she said.
But she noted that the models so far have focused mainly on a pathogens potential for infecting human cells. Before causing a new human disease, a virus also has to spread from one person to another and cause serious symptoms along the way. Shes waiting for a new generation of machine learning models that can make those predictions, too.
What we really want to know is not necessarily which viruses can infect humans, but which viruses can cause an outbreak, she said. So thats really the next step that we need to figure out.
But there is one group that remains particularly vulnerable to catching the virus: little kids. There is still no vaccine for children under five -- and there won't be one for at least few more months. Even then, it's not clear how widely it will be available.
Yet kids are getting infected in large numbers.
Three quarters of children in the United States have had Covid-19, according to a new study by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The CDC stressed it is still not known how long this kind of infection-induced immunity lasts, or whether all people who tested positive for Covid antibodies continue to have protection from their prior infection.
For that reason, the CDC says it is still important for people to stay up to date on their Covid-19 vaccines, getting the recommended shots and boosters.
For many parents of the youngest children, this means the pandemic won't be over until they can get their kids vaccinated.
"Young children who are unable to mask and cannot yet be vaccinated have been at higher risk throughout the pandemic, and they remain at higher risk now. Try to limit their time in these settings and look for ways to improve ventilation," said CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Leana Wen.
More than 10,000 children between the ages of 6 months and 12 years are enrolled in Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine trials at study sites around the world.
Pfizer and BioNTech expect to submit data from these trials focused on children younger than 5 in the coming months. That age group is the only one for which a Covid-19 vaccine has not been authorized in the US.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden, said last week that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is weighing whether to consider emergency use authorization for both the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna Covid-19 vaccines for young children at the same time, rather than looking at them separately.
It has expanded approval of the Covid-19 drug remdesivir to treat patients as young as 28 days and weighing about 7 pounds.
YOU ASKED. WE ANSWERED.
Q: Should older children get the booster?
A: Yes -- there seems to be a significant boost to immunity following the booster shot.
They will also share the data with the European Medicines Agency and other regulatory bodies.
In an analysis of 140 children with no evidence of prior Covid-19 infection, antibody levels against the original strain of the SARS-CoV-2 virus were six times higher one month after a booster than a month after the second vaccine dose.
READS OF THE WEEK
Beijing tests 20 million residents amid 'fast and furious' Omicron outbreak
Shanghai has for weeks been under a strict home lockdown as officials try to contain an outbreak there. Public discontent has been mounting, with residents struggling to secure food and medical access.
Beijing started testing all residents of Chaoyang, a bustling district home to the city's business center and foreign embassies, on Monday morning, in the first of three rounds of testing to be conducted over a five-day period, Nectar Gan and CNN's Beijing Bureau report. Residents and office workers formed long lines at makeshift testing centers throughout the day.
"The outbreak in Beijing is coming fast and furious," Xu Hejian, a spokesperson for the Beijing municipal government, said at a news conference.
Family members of Covid-19 ICU patients are at risk of PTSD
Often, family members come away from the experience with symptoms of anxiety, depression and PTSD, according to a new study published Monday in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.
Dr. Timothy Amass, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and the lead author of the study, drew comparisons with experiences in situations of conflict. "When you put that in a hospital, the sudden change in health status is Mom or Dad was healthy yesterday and now they're in the ICU on life support," he said.
Amass and his team surveyed family members in the months after a loved one was admitted to the ICU with Covid-19 in 12 hospitals across the country. Many of the people studied had experienced limited visitation and contact with the patient.
The study found that of the families that responded to the survey, 201 out of 316 (about 63%) had significant symptoms of PTSD.
Opinion: More Covid-19 funding is needed to stay ahead in the next battle
Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House Covid-19 response coordinator, is warning that the US is in a complicated moment in the pandemic.
And while deaths in the US are declining from their most recent peak, hundreds of Americans are still dying from Covid-19 each day.
The US has a choice to make, he says. "We can wait and see what happens next, or we can use this moment as an opportunity to prepare. We can invest in the strategies that will save lives, protect our most vulnerable, keep schools open and keep the economy going when the next surge hits.
"After more than two years of the pandemic and numerous surges, the right answer is clear: We need to prepare now so we can finally get ahead of this virus and be ready for whatever challenges lie ahead," he writes.
"We can do this. But we need funding to make it happen."
TOP TIP
If you have several boxes of Covid-19 home tests stashed away, you might want to use them before they expire to err on the side of caution.
The Food and Drug Administration, the body that authorizes these tests in the US, says on its website it doesn't recommend using at-home diagnostic tests after expiration dates as parts of them may degrade or break down and potentially give inaccurate test results.
But as manufacturers change the expiration dates for some distributed tests as they get more data, many are left wondering if it is that simple.
"Since it takes time for test manufacturers to perform stability testing, the FDA typically authorizes at-home Covid-19 tests with an expiration date of about four to six months from the day the test was manufactured, based on initial study results," said Dr. William Schaffner, professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.
"Once the test manufacturer has more stability testing results, such as 12 or 18 months, the test manufacturer can contact the FDA to request that the FDA authorize a longer expiration date. When a longer expiration date is authorized, the test manufacturer may send a notice to customers to provide the new authorized expiration date, so the customers know how long they can use the tests they already have."
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PENNSYLVANIA, USA The Pennsylvania Department of Health confirms 2,564additional positive cases of COVID-19, bringing the statewide total to 2,815,518on Thursday, April 28.
There were 12new deaths identified by the Pennsylvania death registry. The statewide total of deaths attributed to COVID-19 is 44,641, according to the department.
NEW: Get COVID-19 information from the U.S. Governmentat covid.gov
View the CDC COVID data trackerhere.
Watch more stories about the coronavirus pandemic on WNEP's YouTube page.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released data this week estimating 57.7% of people nationally, including 64% of Arkansans, had been infected with covid-19 at some point, as of late February.
Back up: how was this data collected?
The estimates are from an ongoing study using blood samples drawn for routine medical screenings unrelated to covid-19. Nationally, the sample size was 45,810, and from Arkansas, the CDC tested 1,349 samples.
The samples are tested for antibodies that are produced in response to infection but not to vaccination.
State Epidemiologist Mike Cima said the purpose of such studies is to "understand the breadth of spread of covid-19 within our communities," especially when an increasing number of people are diagnosing infections using at-home tests, the results of which are typically not reported to state health departments.
What did the data say about Arkansans?
Overall, the CDC estimates 64% of Arkansans have been infected, but the percentage changes depending on age group.
An estimated 81.3% of Arkansas children up to age 17 have been infected, compared to an estimated 74.6% of children nationally.
Among people 65 and older, the percentage who have been infected was estimated to be 35.7% in Arkansas and 33.2% nationwide.
Do people who have been infected need to be vaccinated?
Cima said even if someone has been infected, it is recommended they get vaccinated.
"We would encourage anybody who has not been vaccinated to start their vaccination series, regardless of whether they've been previously infected or not." Cima said.
Children age 5 and older are eligible for the Pfizer vaccine. The other vaccines authorized in the United States, from Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, are available to people aged 18 and older.
What are vaccination rates like in Arkansas at this point?
According to the CDC, 66.5% of Arkansans had received at least one dose as of Tuesday. However, there is a wide disparity in vaccinations by age group.
The CDC says just 23.1% of Arkansas children 5-11 have received at least one dose. The percentage is higher, 55.9%, for Arkansas children 12-17.
Of Arkansas adults 18 and older, 78.0% have received at least one shot. The percentage rises to 95.0% among Arkansans 65 or older.
Read more about the CDC data and a recent uptick in covid-19 cases from reporter Andy Davis.
CAMDEN, N.J. No one thought Frank Talarico Jr. was going to live. Not his doctors, his nurses or his wife, a physician assistant who works part time at the Camden, N.J., hospital where he spent 49 days fighting to survive Covid-19.
A 47-year-old police sergeant, he was not vaccinated against the coronavirus. Unconvinced of the vaccines merits, he figured he was young and fit enough to handle whatever illness the virus might cause.
He was wrong.
If its an eye opener for somebody so be it, Sergeant Talarico said recently at his home in Pennsauken, N.J., about five miles northeast of Camden. He plans to get the vaccine as soon as the doctors he credits with saving his life at Virtua Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital give him final medical clearance.
If I was vaccinated, he said, I have to think I wouldnt have gotten as sick as I did.
Though police work inherently carries with it the possibility of violent or lethal encounters, for the last two years Covid-19 has been the leading cause of death for law enforcement officers in the United States.
When Covid vaccines were first offered in December 2020, law enforcement officers frontline workers who, like doctors and nurses, are required to interact closely with people in crisis were prioritized for shots that have since been proven to significantly lower the risk of serious illness and death.
But over the next year, as some police unions tried to block vaccine mandates, at least 301 police, sheriff and correction officers died of complications from Covid-19, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial, a nonprofit that tracks line-of-duty fatalities. Since January, Covid has continued to outpace other top causes of line-of-duty deaths.
Its not just a little bit above firearm fatalities and traffic fatalities, said Troy Anderson, a retired Connecticut State Police sergeant who is now director of safety and wellness for the memorial. Its heads and shoulders above.
Its unthinkable that were still in this place, he added.
Sergeant Talaricos ordeal began Christmas Eve, as Omicron infections were soaring across the country, inundating hospitals and stretching staffing levels nearly past breaking points.
Before it was over, the patrol officer who was less than a year away from retirement after 24 years on the job was hospitalized twice.
After being rushed to the hospital the second time, he had a foot-long blood clot removed from his lung, a procedure that prevented certain death but caused his heart to nearly stop beating. He was placed on advanced life-support while still on the operating table. For two days a machine did the work of his heart and lungs.
It wasnt long before his kidneys began to fail, requiring dialysis.
One of the many hard moments was the day his daughter, a 19-year-old college freshman, visited him for what they both feared could be a final goodbye. Conscious but hooked to a ventilator, Sergeant Talarico was unable to speak.
He would try and mouth words around the breathing tube, said Jackie Whitby, a cardiac care nurse who was also in the room. He had tears in his eyes. She had tears in her eyes.
Retelling the story more than two months later, Sergeant Talarico started to cry again.
About half of the 14 officers in his police department, in Merchantville, N.J., have been vaccinated, he said. The departments chief of police did not return calls.
Sergeant Talarico said he had tried to persuade reluctant colleagues to get vaccinated.
I say, Just look at me and look what I went through, he said.
Many of the nations largest police departments, including Los Angeles, New York and Newark, have required employees to be vaccinated. Correction officers in New Jersey also have been ordered to get shots or risk being fired.
In Newark, New Jerseys largest city, nine police employees have died of Covid-19. But there have been no Covid fatalities since the citys vaccination mandate was implemented in September after an unsuccessful legal challenge by the police and fire unions.
April 28, 2022, 1:27 p.m. ET
Roughly 96 percent of Newarks public safety officers have now had at least two shots of either the Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine or one shot of Johnson & Johnsons, said Brian OHara, Newarks public safety director.
The last member of Newarks Department of Public Safety to die from Covid was Richard T. McKnight, a 20-year employee who processed detainees. He was not vaccinated, said Mr. OHara, who spoke at the funeral.
Days after Mr. McKnights death in August, his wife, who was sick with Covid, also died, Mr. OHara said.
Their 9-year-old daughter is left with no parents, he said.
A 340-bed hospital, Virtua Our Lady of Lourdes was treating 26 patients for Covid the day Sergeant Talarico was first admitted. Within two weeks, 81 patients were hospitalized with the virus.
January was the worst month of my career, said Dr. Vivek Sailam, a cardiologist who has worked at Our Lady of Lourdes for 14 years.
As Sergeant Talarico began to slowly recover, against the odds, staff members started to rally around him, referring to him as their miracle patient.
You get better, Im taking you to dinner, Dr. Sailam told Sergeant Talarico when he came off a ventilator for the second time.
A nurse, Shawn McCullough, devised a system using a letter board that enabled Sergeant Talarico to communicate while intubated. A physical therapist, Wendy Hardesty, insisted that he be strong enough to climb the three steps into his home before he was discharged for the second time on Feb. 18.
The mental trauma thats been on these nurses and what theyve witnessed the amount of death and agony. This is what everybody needed, Dr. Sailam said. Everybody needed this victory.
After being hospitalized with pneumonia for three weeks at Christmastime, Sergeant Talarico was discharged, but was so weak that his wife, Christine Lynch, set up folding chairs throughout their house so he could make it from a chair in the living room and rest before he went to the bathroom.
At 5 one morning, as he struggled to breathe, Ms. Lynch called the ambulance again.
Sergeant Talarico was readmitted with the foot-long blood clot in his lungs. Known as a pulmonary embolism, it has become a common side effect of Covid-19 for hospitalized patients.
The device used to remove it has only been available since 2018, said Dr. Joseph Broudy, who said the new technology enabled him to extract the embolism largely intact.
Had that not been possible, Dr. Broudy said, he probably would not have survived.
Sergeant Talarico and Ms. Lynch, his second wife, had been married for less than a year when he was told in late December that he had been exposed to the virus by a colleague. Soon, the newlyweds were both sick.
Ms. Lynch, a physician assistant who was vaccinated, said she initially shared her husbands reluctance to take the shot. Sergeant Talarico said he believed that the vaccine approval had been rushed, and he questioned its safety.
Looking back, he said he wished Ms. Lynch, 33, had kicked his butt to get vaccinated. Had he been older, with health risk factors other than high blood pressure, she said she would have.
Before getting sick, Sergeant Talarico said he worked out regularly, and for three years had participated in the Police Unity Tour, a three-day bicycle ride to Washington held each May to honor fallen officers as their names are added to a memorial in the capital.
Ive been healthy all my life, he said. I guess I just did have the mentality that if I do get it, Ill be one of the ones to have it mild. And that sure wasnt the case.
Tom Buckley, a senior vice president at the hospital, estimated that the billable cost of treating someone as sick as Sergeant Talarico would be roughly $400,000 to $500,000; Sergeant Talarico said he had not gotten the final bill from his insurance company for the cost of his care.
About three weeks after being released from the hospital for good, Sergeant Talarico returned with bagels, pizza and a promise for the staff members who fought to keep him alive. He told us he would get vaccinated, said Correinne Newman, a nursing director.
The gesture brought Ms. Whitby, who had the day off but was contacted through FaceTime, to tears.
Him being a cop and me being a nurse we essentially put our lives on the line and put other people first, she said.
Having him say, You know what? Im going to get the vaccine as soon as I possibly can.
I feel like thats him supporting us.
TAMPA In a blockbuster ruling last week, federal judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle struck down a requirement that people wear masks on public transportation including planes to limit the spread of COVID-19.
But that wasnt the first time decisions in the fierce debate over pandemic safety regulations have come out Tampas federal courthouse.
In three separate cases, veteran U.S. District Judge Steven Merryday who was nominated by President George H.W. Bush and has been on the bench since 1992 weighed in on cruise ship regulations and vaccine mandates, ruling each time against the COVID-19 requirements.
In June, Merryday issued a 124-page decision throwing out the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Preventions safety rules for cruise ships as they readied to begin carrying passengers from Florida again.
In granting a preliminary injunction in Floridas legal challenge to the cruise rules, the judge said the CDC hadnt adequately justified the need for the regulations on how cruises could restart. He also said Florida faced a sufficient likelihood of continued economic harm.
The CDCs claim that it had authority to impose measures such as shutting down ships sidelined in March 2020 after onboard COVID-19 outbreaks was a breathtaking, unprecedented, and acutely and singularly authoritarian claim, the judge wrote. He also wondered in his order if the CDC could or should have shut down sexual intercourse in the United States to prevent the spread of AIDS, syphilis or herpes.
The CDCs conditional sail order was a phased plan for restarting cruises that included expanded COVID-19 testing capabilities on board and having nearly all passengers and crew vaccinated in order to sail without test cruises first.
Gov. Ron DeSantis office declared Merrydays ruling a major victory.
In December, Merryday issued a preliminary injunction blocking President Joe Bidens vaccine requirement for federal contractors.
The judge said Floridas lawsuit fighting that vaccine regulation showed a substantial likelihood that there was no authority to make such a requirement.
Merryday said the extent of any absenteeism by contractors and subcontractors, any procurement delay or any cost increases attributable to COVID-19 were unexplained.
In other words, the extent of any procurement problem, past or future, attributable to COVID-19 is undemonstrated and is merely a hastily manufactured but unproven hypothesis about recent history and a contrived speculation about the future, the judge wrote.
Similar rulings have been issued by judges in other states.
In February, a Navy commander and a Marine lieutenant colonel testified before Merryday about their religious reasons for resisting the militarys COVID-19 vaccine requirement.
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Each had been denied a religious exemption and faced possible discharge if they didnt comply.
Both the military members who were allowed to testify anonymously said they were Christians and concerned that vaccines would put impurities in their bodies. For me it would be a sin, the lieutenant colonel said.
Both also expressed concern about fetal cell lines, used in the research and development of various vaccines and many common medicines.
Said Amy Powell, an attorney for the Department of Justice: We would rather people not be in the military than place other service members at risk.
Merryday issued an injunction allowing the military members to continue serving without punishment pending a final judgement in the case.
He said the Religious Freedom Restoration Act requires the military to give an exemption to a service member who has a sincere religious objection to the vaccine unless there is a compelling governmental interest and no less-restrictive alternatives are available.
The Navy and Marine Corps failed manifestly to meet that requirement, the judge said.
Tampa Bay: The Times can help you find the free, public COVID-19 testing sites in the bay area.
Florida: The Department of Health has a website that lists testing sites in the state. Some information may be out of date.
The U.S.: The Department of Health and Human Services has a website that can help you find a testing site.
The COVID-19 vaccine for ages 5 and up and booster shots for eligible recipients are being administered at doctors offices, clinics, pharmacies, grocery stores and public vaccination sites. Many allow appointments to be booked online. Heres how to find a site near you:
Find a site: Visit vaccines.gov to find vaccination sites in your ZIP code.
More help: Call the National COVID-19 Vaccination Assistance Hotline.
Phone: 800-232-0233. Help is available in English, Spanish and other languages.
TTY: 888-720-7489
Disability Information and Access Line: Call 888-677-1199 or email DIAL@n4a.org.
OMICRON VARIANT: Omicron changed what we know about COVID. Heres the latest on how the infectious COVID-19 variant affects masks, vaccines, boosters and quarantining.
KIDS AND VACCINES: Got questions about vaccinating your kid? Here are some answers.
BOOSTER SHOTS: Confused about which COVID booster to get? This guide will help.
BOOSTER QUESTIONS: Are there side effects? Why do I need it? Heres the answers to your questions.
PROTECTING SENIORS: Heres how seniors can stay safe from the virus.
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ByMichael Newman
New research may explain why so many vaccinated and boosted individuals experienced breakthrough coronavirus infections caused by the omicron variant. Researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health have uncovered evidence that while fully vaccinated and boosted people produce a high level of antibodies that work against the original strain of SARS-CoV-2, the same tiny defenders don't do as well in preventing the omicron strain from attacking healthy cells.
The research findings were posted online in the Journal of Clinical Investigation Insight.
"Previous research has shown vaccine-induced antibodies respond to the original strain of SARS-CoV-2 by inhibiting the virus's ability to bind to angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 [commonly known as ACE2], the receptor on a cell's surface through which SARS-CoV-2 gains entry," says study senior author Joel Blankson, professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "Our study suggests those same antibodies yield less ACE2 inhibition with the omicron strain, opening the door to a breakthrough COVID-19 infection."
Joel Blankson
Professor, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
To conduct their study, Blankson and his colleagues analyzed two types of immune responses to SARS-CoV-2: the humoral immune response, marked by virus-specific antibodies circulating in the bloodstream and produced by B lymphocytes, or B cells; and the cellular immune response, which is a direct attack on the virus by T lymphocytes, or T cells. Researchers observed these immune responses in 18 healthy and fully vaccinated people, ages 23-62, who experienced breakthrough infections within 14 to 92 days after receiving a booster COVID-19 vaccine. Of the participants, 14 received a booster of the Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccine, one was boosted with the Moderna mRNA vaccine, and the remaining three had an mRNA booster following their initial dose of the Johnson & Johnson viral vector vaccine.
The humoral and cellular immune responses of those participants with breakthrough infections were compared with those from a control group of 31 participants, ages 21-60, who received similar COVID-19 vaccinations and boosters and had no prior infection with SARS-CoV-2.
Although the researchers were not able to document that the breakthrough infections were from the omicron strain, they say it's a strong probability because the omicron variant accounted for more than 90% of the COVID-19 cases treated at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, where the study was conducted, during the time when the study participants became symptomatic.
Coverage of how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting operations at JHU and how Hopkins experts and scientists are responding to the outbreak
"When we tested antibody-mediated inhibition of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein binding to ACE2, we found that serum from study participants with breakthrough COVID-19most likely the result of omicron infectionhad antibodies that strongly stopped binding by the original strain virus as expected but didn't carry out that function as well when responding to the omicron strain," says Blankson.
The specific reduction in ACE2-inhibiting antibodies responding to omicron, Blankson says, differs from what was seen in previously studied breakthrough infections with the alpha variant. In those cases, infected individuals were found to have lower overall antibody levels to the original virus strain. The levels of antibodies that inhibited the spike protein binding to ACE2high for the original strain of the virus but reduced for omicronwere similar for both the participants with breakthrough infections and those in the control group.
Moreover, the level of cellular immunityas measured by the amount of responding T cells documentedremained strong in the breakthrough and control groups for both the original and omicron strains. This was shown in a second recent study, also co-authored by Blankson, looking at the blood plasma of 15 mRNA vaccine recipients.
"The comparable strong T cell responses for the original and omicron strains in both studies could explain why people, like our study participants, who have breakthrough COVID-19 cases typically experience only mild symptoms during the course of their illness," he explains.
COVID-19 is a viral infection that more than 508 million people have developed through April 2022. Its caused by a type of coronavirus called SARS-CoV-2. Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that cause respiratory infections.
Headaches are one of the most common symptoms of COVID-19. Data released from the COVID Symptoms Study in December 2021 revealed that headaches were one of the five most reported symptoms of the Omicron variant, along with:
COVID-19 has been linked to tension headaches and migraine. When headaches appear, they often appear as one of the early symptoms.
In most cases, headaches go away within a couple of weeks, but some people experience long-haul headaches for weeks or months after infection.
Keep reading to learn more about the symptoms of COVID-19 headaches and what you can do about them.
Many studies have confirmed that headaches are one of the most common neurological symptoms of COVID-19. When they appear, theyre generally the first symptom.
However, there are no specific characteristics of COVID-19-caused headaches that are different from other types of headache.
Its important to pay attention to whether the headache is more intense than youre used to or whether it occurs at an unusual time and not because of typical stressors.
Most people who experience COVID-19 headaches develop tension headaches with the following characteristics:
About a quarter of people who experience COVID-19 headaches also have migraine episodes. These headaches can occur in people without a history of migraine.
Migraine may cause:
People with COVID-19 who develop headaches also tend to develop:
In a 2022 study, researchers found that among 288 people with COVID-19, 22.2 percent developed neurological symptoms. Of these people, 69.1 percent developed headaches.
Headaches generally lasted for 7 days. They persisted for more than 30 days in 18 percent of people who developed headaches and more than 3 months in 10 percent.
In another 2022 study, researchers found that in a group of 905 people who developed COVID-19 headaches, half experienced headaches for longer than 2 weeks.
If you have a previous history of headaches, avoiding your known triggers may help reduce headache occurrence. Alcohol is a common trigger for migraine, so you may benefit from avoiding it.
A number of home remedies may help you manage your symptoms. These include:
Corticosteroids may help treat prolonged headaches that dont respond to other treatments.
In most people, COVID-19 causes mild or moderate symptoms that can be treated with rest and drinking fluids.
In rare cases, COVID-19 has been linked to thunderclap headaches. These headaches can cause severe pain that onsets within seconds.
Thunderclap headaches may be a sign of bleeding in the brain that requires prompt medical attention. Its critical to see medical attention immediately if you experience a severe headache that onsets quickly.
You should also seek emergency medical attention if you experience any of the emergency COVID-19 symptoms:
Note: People with dark skin may not be able to notice discoloration that indicates oxygen deprivation as easily as people with lighter skin.
If you have long-haul COVID-19 symptoms, its important to visit your doctor for an evaluation and to build a proper treatment plan.
Headaches are one of the most common symptoms of COVID-19. One review of studies found that among 6,635 people with COVID-19, 12.9 percent developed headaches or dizziness.
Another review found 10.9 percent of people with COVID-19 in a group of 7,559 reported headaches.
Women and younger people seem to be most prone to developing COVID-19 headaches.
Its not clear exactly why COVID-19 causes headaches, but both indirect and direct factors may contribute.
Its been suggested that the virus may invade your brain tissue, possibly through your olfactory system or by crossing the blood-brain barrier and promoting inflammation. Its possible that dysfunction of your hypothalamus or trigeminal nerve may also contribute.
Some people with COVID-19 may develop a cytokine storm (overproduction of pro-inflammatory molecules by the immune system). This reaction may lead to neuroinflammation that causes headaches.
Other factors like low oxygen levels to the brain, dehydration, or not eating normally can also all potentially contribute to the development of headaches.
Headaches are a common side effect of COVID-19 vaccines. Theyre reported by about half of people who receive vaccines and usually onset within 72 hours. Headaches can occur by themselves or with other symptoms like:
Headaches usually resolve within a few days.
Headaches that onset later can be a sign of a serious complication called cerebral venous thrombosis. The National Health Service recommends seeking emergency medical attention if you experience any of the following symptoms between 4 days to 4 weeks after your vaccine:
Headaches are one of the most reported symptoms of COVID-19. Tension headaches are most common, but about a quarter of people who report headaches experience migraine episodes. Migraine sometimes develops in people with no previous history.
COVID-19 can usually be managed with rest, but its important to visit a doctor if you develop emergency symptoms like shortness of breath or chest pain. Its also important to visit your doctor if you develop long-haul symptoms for a proper evaluation.
