Several times during this pandemic, I have written essays about America as if the country was my patient. The current situation has me thinking along those lines again.
Doctors, like anyone else, love to give good news. We see the value of hope but also recognize that honesty must be our North Star. I would love to be the good guy here and tell my patient that it's time to be discharged from this chapter of our lives. But a doctor's job is to fully assess the situation and lean into the nuance, as opposed to simple axioms.
Time for a physical
So let's examine America, the patient. On the one hand, the numbers are going down. Cases of Covid-19 are more than a third lower this week than they were last week and the lowest they've been since July, according to the latest data from Johns Hopkins University. And the number of people hospitalized is about a fifth of what it was during the country's mid-January peak. Even deaths, the so-called lagging indicator, have been falling; they're at their lowest point in two months.
A closer look
But in medicine, we cannot rely on lab results and a medical history. We need to perform a thorough and detailed exam. And when we do that, a more complete picture of the patient emerges.
Truth is, America, my patient still has an active infection. Although the numbers are falling, they are still painfully high: The country is averaging just under 37,000 new cases of Covid-19 a day. It's as if saying the patient used to have a very high fever but now only has a moderately high fever. The point is, it's still too high. We wouldn't stop treating the patient's infection at this point but rather complete the course of treatment and care.
There's also the issue of understanding the effects the illness may have on my patient in the future. In this case, it means acknowledging an entirely new disease: long Covid.
Many Americans are enduring the lingering effects of a past infection, battling health conditions like fatigue, brain fog, shortness of breath, cardiac issues. The list of long Covid symptoms is lengthy and varied; there are no answers as to who and why, nor are there easy, one-size-fits-all treatments.
And, even more important, there are still about 30,000 Americans hospitalized for Covid and, on average, more than 1,250 deaths a day. That's the equivalent of about two jumbo jets dropping out of the sky every day.
My patient still needs lots of care.
Other factors at play
Despite the less red and inflamed transmission map, it still shows there's a lot of virus out there. If the virus came in the form of a raindrop, parts of our country would still be getting drenched.
I have often imagined how different things would be if we could have actually seen the virus -- little green particles circulating around people's noses and mouths and becoming airborne. What if we had been able to witness its destruction and journey into blood vessels and lungs? This invisible enemy circumvented our basic human ability to detect a threat and, as a result, made us more likely to ignore and even deny it.
I would remind my patient we have been here before. We experienced moments of genuine hope earlier and then witnessed how quickly things can change. In the summer of 2021, the Delta variant surprised us, and in December, Omicron blindsided us. Both times, the spikes caused by these variants followed declarations of victory heralding the end of the pandemic.
And while studies suggest that BA.2 is not more likely to lead to hospitalization than BA.1, another patient that I've been keeping an eye on, the United Kingdom, is seeing cases and hospitalizations starting to trend up again after declining steadily since mid-January. Sometimes, doctors gain a lot of information from watching how other patients are faring.
Again, I get it. I would love to look at these past two years in the rearview mirror as well, but we need to learn the lessons of this pandemic and apply that knowledge in real time. Today. Now.
Delta and Omicron represent two cautionary tales in the span of a few months. It would be shortsighted to ignore that reality, believing it will never happen again.
A blend of science and judgment
The International Epidemiology Association's Dictionary of Epidemiology defines a pandemic as "an epidemic occurring worldwide, or over a very wide area, crossing international boundaries and usually affecting a large number of people."
Two years ago, when we made the decision to use the word pandemic on CNN, before the CDC or WHO, it was fairly straightforward -- fundamentally, it was an exercise in math and data analysis. My producers and I spent a lot of time looking at whiteboards where we kept tabs on the growing numbers and locations of Covid-19 cases. One day, I remember thinking, "If this isn't the very definition of a pandemic, I don't know what is. So why is no one else calling it that?"
And so we did.
Although the line was clear entering the pandemic, it will be much fuzzier as we approach endemicity. A disease is considered endemic when it is a "constant presence ... within a given geographic area or population group." It would also be predictable in its rate of spread without causing the level of disruption it does in a pandemic.
But what is considered disruptive may be very different in one country compared with another, even from one person to the next. Progressing into this next phase will be based on a blend of science and judgment.
What the exam reveals
So if America were my patient, the question I would be asking: Is it really time to downgrade the country's present-day condition from pandemic to endemic?
It's analogous in some ways to deciding when to discharge my surgical patients to the general care floor from the intensive care unit.
I make rounds in the intensive care unit, carefully reviewing each patient's chart -- full of lab results, metrics and data. And then I sit at the bedside, watching, examining and understanding how they really feel. Can they stand on their own, put a fork to their mouth and a comb through their hair? Are their basic bodily functions returning to normal, and can they get by independently? It is a judgment call. Two people can have the same vital signs but be in very different places.
If America were my patient, what would I see when I sit at its bedside? Beyond 1,300 people dying a day, I would make note that almost 60,000 people died of Covid-19 during the month of February alone. In other words, more people died of Covid-19 in one month than die of the flu during a bad year.
So the question ultimately is: What is too disruptive? What are we willing to tolerate? At what point do we as a society throw up our hands and say, "We can't do any better than this," so let's call this level of sickness and death "endemic," accept the numbers and move on with our lives?
And of course, my patient, America, lives on a planet with lots of other patients, all part of an intricate ecosystem. We must realize that America's health is dependent on the health of all the other patients on the planet: When any one of us is at risk, we are all at risk.
Finding a measure of peace and quiescence
None of this is easy. It's why epidemiologist and author Dr. Larry Brilliant said that "endemic" is a terrible word.
"Smallpox was 'endemic' when it killed somewhere between a third and half a billion people in the 20th century. Malaria is endemic, and it's killing millions. Tuberculosis is endemic. And HIV/AIDS was sort of thrown out of people's consciousness by just labeling it 'endemic,' " he said.
Brilliant, who is CEO of Pandefense Advisory anda senior adviser at the Skoll Foundation, was a key player on the WHO team that eradicated smallpox.
He pointed out that the technical definition of "endemic" is a disease that is generating an expected number of cases, to the expected community and the expected time. "And because [Covid-19] is a baby of a disease ... it's way too early to try to figure out what is endemicity. We have to wait for it to become a teenager and see how it behaves," he said.
Brilliant prefers the term "quiescent." "We want this thing to be quiet," he said.
He recalled that in the early days of 2020, he and other epidemiologists and public health experts speculated that the illness would come in waves.
"A wave is a really good metaphor to think about this. Sometimes, the waves come in a bunch at a time, and sometimes there's not a wave for hours, even days. Some waves are too small to really be called waves. But every once in a while, there's a rogue wave, this tsunami."
He explained, "what we want is the interval [between waves] to be long and the water in the waves to be quiescent. And that's what we're trying to say when people use the word 'endemic.' ... To say that the pandemic has gone endemic is failure -- it's not success. We haven't put it where we want it. So it's the wrong way of thinking about it."
Plus, said Brilliant, saying that the pandemic is over means "we give up our duty of care."
He believes we still have a duty of care to the immunocompromised, the elderly, the vulnerable and, yes, even the unvaccinated, because they are the ones disproportionately dying.
Life with an endemic disease
Humans are increasingly living side by side with pathogens that were once in the wild but then took hold among us. We might not like it, and sometimes the pathogen comes too close for comfort, but we learn to live with it.
Take the parasite malaria. For millennia, it killed off wide swaths of the global population. In fact, the mosquito, which transmits the parasite that causes disease, is one of the most prolific killers of humans worldwide.
Inarguably, the course of humanity has been shaped by malaria: It's believed to have contributed to the fall of Rome, and for hundreds of years, it helped protect Africa from European colonization even as it infected the local population. (And it's why the gene for sickle cell anemia, which is protective against malaria, never died off evolutionarily.) In this country, Presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln grappled with it. The disease stunted the physical and economic growth of the rural South through the 1930s, and it is why the precursor to the CDC was founded.
It's an understatement to say man has been living with malaria for a very long time. And although we may not have eradicated it from the face of the Earth or completely tamed it, we have learned to coexist with it and reduced it to an endemic disease in a shrinking number of countries. The United States eradicated it in 1951.
How did we do that? By arming ourselves with knowledge. Through scientific research, we learned about where malaria comes from and how it is spread. We developed mitigation strategies and medications to blunt its impact.
And our work is still not done: In 2020, malaria killed an estimated 627,000 people, the vast majority of them children in sub-Saharan Africa.
Early detection, rapid response
Many experts, including Brilliant, are pretty sure that Covid-19 is here to stay. Like the common cold (also often caused by a coronavirus) or the flu, it's expected to be part of our lives for the next 10, 50 or 100 years, and life will never be quite the same again.
But we can improve the situation and learn to live with it.
"We want the disease to occur in places that we expect it, in the numbers that we expect, so we know how to deal with it," Brilliant said. "You can go to Hawaii on vacation and not worry. Your kids can go to school. And you don't need to worry about going to dinner with your parents or your grandparents. Maybe it's quiet and you have to still wear masks. Maybe it's quiet and you still have to be tested before you go someplace. But it's not on the front page every day."
The key, said Brilliant, is two-part: early detection and rapid response.
For that to happen, we have to have good monitoring tools and be nimble going into and out of protective mode. Maybe that means we carry a mask in our coat pocket during wintertime, just like we take an umbrella when the forecast predicts rain; maybe we keep a box of rapid tests and a packet of antivirals in the bathroom cabinet for when we are under the weather; maybe we close a school but like we do with the flu -- with surgical precision, using a scalpel instead of a chainsaw.
The good news, Brilliant said, is that moving forward, our tools -- vaccines, surveillance, tests, treatments, prophylactics -- will only get better.
The inescapable fact is that we live in the era of pandemics. There are simply more and more opportunities for a pathogen, like the SARS-CoV-2 virus, to come in contact with the human population, make the jump and take hold. It's a dance we are increasingly doing because we are infringing more and more on the microbes' territory. Population growth, deforestation, climate change all contribute to this.
These pathogens are going to keep emerging in humans, but pandemics are not inevitable. Humans have evolved to create remarkable public health tools to prevent that, just as long we are smart and humane enough to use them.
My patient -- America -- is still in precarious health and will have to be careful moving forward to maintain all of the gains and continue making progress. Both the patient and doctors will have to remain vigilant and act quickly if there's any new infection.
It's just not time for my patient to completely drop their guard, however much we would all like that to happen. We can and should be hopeful, but honesty must lead the way, full and transparent.
CNN's Andrea Kane contributed to this report.
United Airlines, which was one of the first major businesses to mandate vaccination against the coronavirus, will allow workers who were granted religious or medical exemptions from receiving a shot to return to their jobs at the end of this month.
About 2,200 United employees received exemptions last year. They were placed on unpaid leave or were moved to roles that did not involve in-person contact with customers. Those employees will be able to return to their normal positions on March 28.
We expect Covid case counts, hospitalizations and deaths to continue to decline nationally over the next few weeks, and, accordingly, we plan to welcome back those employees, Kirk Limacher, Uniteds vice president for human resources, said in a note to employees on Thursday.
The airlines plans were reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal.
United announced its vaccine mandate in early August, one of the first major corporations to do so. By October, nearly all of the airlines 67,000 employees had been inoculated in one of the largest and most successful corporate vaccination efforts at the time. About 200 employees were later fired for failing to comply with the policy, and all new hires are required to be vaccinated.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, Scott Kirby, the airlines chief executive, had written letters to the families of employees who had died from the virus, a practice that he once described as the worst thing that I believe I will ever do in my career. As the Delta variant began its spread over the summer, he decided to do something about it.
We concluded enough is enough, he said in an interview with The New York Times last year. People are dying, and we can do something to stop that.
In January, Mr. Kirby said the vaccine mandate had saved the lives of an estimated eight to 10 United employees since late September. In his note on Thursday, Mr. Limacher said vaccinated employees were remarkably safe compared with those who had been approved for an exemption, five of whom had died since November.
The nation is easing pandemic restrictions as the Omicron virus wave recedes. If a new variant emerges or case counts rise again, the airline may adjust course, Mr. Limacher said.
As the Omicron surge of the coronavirus continues to wane, Los Angeles County has been lifting COVID-19 mandates, including indoor masking and vaccine verification in certain settings.
But with those guardrails removed, how will health officials detect signs of potential surges?
The obvious tools of tracking new coronavirus cases and COVID-19 hospitalizations are still in place. But there are seven other indicators that L.A. County plans to monitor as part of an early warning system, according to Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer.
These can alert us early to concerning trends that might lead to higher COVID-19 transmission or increased illness severity, she said.
The county still needs to be prepared for worst-case scenarios that could warrant a return to universal masking such as if COVID-19 vaccines fail to provide robust protection against a new variant of concern, leaving people at higher risk for severe illness.
Then, weve got to look at everything else thats in the toolbox, which is going to be the distancing and the masking, she said.
But while preparedness is always important, based on current trends, Ferrer doesnt anticipate returning to universal masking indoors anytime soon.
I dont actually see that sort of in the near horizon at all, she said.
According to the latest available data, L.A. Countys report card remains in solid shape across all seven of the tracked metrics.
Variants: The percentage of collected coronavirus specimens that are a new variant of concern. The goal is to have fewer than 5%; there are currently no new variants of concern, as defined by the World Health Organization.
Emergency rooms: The percentage of coronavirus-related emergency room visits over a weekly period. The goal is to have fewer than 5%; the latest figure is 4.3%.
Low-income areas: The case rate for L.A. Countys lowest income areas. The goal is to have fewer than 100 cases a week for every 100,000 residents in poor areas; the most recent rate is 51.
L.A. County also will monitor the number of outbreaks in four specific settings of concern:
Nursing homes: The goal is to keep the number of weekly outbreaks at skilled nursing facilities at fewer than 11 a week; there were four in the most recent week.
K-12 school settings: The aim is to keep the number of outbreaks at fewer than four a week; there were four in the most recent week.
Homeless shelters: Officials are seeking to keep the number of outbreaks in settings involving people experiencing homelessness to fewer than 11 a week; there were eight in the most recent week.
Worksites: Authorities want to keep the number of outbreaks at worksites to fewer than 100 a week; there were 30 in the most recent week.
The only rubric that caused health officials moderate concern was the number of new outbreaks in K-12 settings. But that number, too, has been declining. There were four in the most recent week and seven the week before. Between four and nine outbreaks a week represents a moderate level of concern, and 10 or higher a high level of concern, according to the county.
However, just because the relative risks are lower now than earlier in the year doesnt mean caution isnt still warranted. L.A. County continues to strongly recommend masking indoors for staff and students, even after state requirements lift Friday night. L.A. County also is recommending weekly testing of unvaccinated people at school sites.
If there are alerts in two or more areas that reach a moderate or high level of concern, well conduct an in-depth review of contributing factors and consider changes to community-prevention strategies, Ferrer said.
In the meantime, Angelenos have been able to enjoy mask-free outings for nearly a week.
Ferrer said in a recent interview the countys decision to lift the mask mandate was not based on political pressure, though she acknowledged there had been a loud group of people pushing for its end.
Instead, she said the decision was made in light of new guidelines established by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which found on March 3 that L.A. County no longer was an area where universal mask wearing indoors was recommended.
Ferrer is still strongly recommending universal mask wearing in indoor public settings regardless of vaccination status, a recommendation echoed by California state health officials.
I obviously want everybody to keep a mask on, Ferrer said in the interview. Im very clear about what I think is the safest way to get through the next few weeks, and that is to go ahead and keep a mask on.
While theres been much attention paid to critics of the mask order, Ferrer noted that a lot of people are still wearing their masks. Those who are still wearing them are often quieter, she said, and anticipates they will continue to wear their masks for some time to come and feel very comfortable wearing their masks.
While L.A. Countys coronavirus community level is low essentially meaning the hospital system is not under severe strain transmission rates are still considered substantial, at 89 cases a week for every 100,000 residents. That means theres just a fair amount of virus still circulating, Ferrer said at a briefing Thursday.
To get to a moderate coronavirus transmission level, the rate will need to dip below 50 cases a week for every 100,000 residents; for low transmission level it needs to be below 10.
Once those numbers drop, I think everybody will feel a lot more comfortable easing the strong recommendation to wear masks, Ferrer said, and instead perhaps suggesting only those at higher risk of COVID or those living with people at higher risk keep their masks on in indoor public settings.
Ferrer said Thursday she will be looking closely to see whether case rates rise after the mandatory masking order at schools and child-care sites lifts.
Within a few weeks, well see whether or not we have more transmission at schools, Ferrer said. If we start seeing some significant increases in outbreaks which is transmission that happens at school well have to go back and revisit this guidance. Because the last thing anybody wants is more transmission in schools.
L.A. County also has prepared a five-step plan to respond quickly should signs of a new uptick in infection emerge.
Outbreaks: Workplaces are required to report three or more coronavirus cases detected within a 14-day period, and officials will recommend measures the employers take to keep outbreaks under control.
Testing: Ensure access to free and accessible testing, especially in areas with high case rates.
Therapeutics: Ensure a vast network of providers with anti-COVID drugs. Distribution of some of these drugs remains uneven countywide, and is low in places like South L.A., East L.A., parts of the San Fernando, San Gabriel, Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys, and Malibu. Some wealthier areas are seeing higher levels of drug distribution, including the Hollywood Hills and the Palos Verdes Peninsula.
Vaccinations: Maintain a network of 300 mobile vaccine teams and 1,000 fixed vaccination sites. Officials also want to increase the number of health plans that provide vaccines to people who cant leave home for health reasons.
Surveillance: Analyze 15% to 25% of collected coronavirus samples countywide and sequence them to identify variants, and expand wastewater testing to detect coronavirus infection trends.
Hidalgo County on Thursday reported four coronavirus-related deaths and 603 cases of COVID-19.
Of the four individuals who died due to the virus, three were not vaccinated, according to the report from the Hidalgo County Health and Human Services Department. The youngest person who died was a man in his 50s from Edinburg.
The people who tested positive are in the following age groups:
The county also reported 91 people are currently hospitalized with COVID-19, including 82 adults and nine children.
Of the 91 people hospitalized with COVID-19, 35 patients are in intensive care units, including 34 adults and one child.
On Thursday, schools across Hidalgo County reported one staff member and 15 students tested positive for the virus.
A total of 4,825 staff members and 16,572 students have tested positive for the virus since the county started reporting school-related infections on Aug. 18, 2021.
Since the pandemic began, 193,947 people have tested positive for the virus, and 3,842 people have died due to the virus in the county.
There are currently 1,197 reported active cases of COVID-19 in the county.
We end our hour observing the two-year anniversary of when the pandemic came to Greater Boston with a conversation about joy.
Two years of COVID have brought a lifetime's share of loss, grief and loneliness. But there has to be a way to acknowledge the births, marriages, graduations, new friendships, and personal accomplishments of the last two years without dishonoring everything that's been lost.
We do just that with two Boston journalists, Kara Baskin, a correspondent for The Boston Globe, and Meghan Kelly, multi-platform editor for WBUR, as well as hear from listener callers about their own moments of joy and pride over the course of the pandemic.
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) On March 10, 2020, the first cases of COVID-19 were confirmed in South Dakota, bringing the state into the coronavirus pandemic that was sweeping the world. Now, two years later, the state is seeing a decline in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations as deaths from the virus reached 2,848.
At the start of 2022, active COVID-19 cases were higher than at any other point in the pandemic, peaking at 36,155 cases on January 25. As of Thursday, March 10 active cases have dropped to 3,117. The sharp decline in cases following the surge in January is fascinating according to Dr. David Basel, Averas Vice President of Clinical Quality. The health system went from having 200-210 patients across a four-state region at Omicrons peak to now only 50.
Were at about a quarter of the admits that we had in February compared to now, Basel said.
Its a question people across the world have been asking for two years: When will the COVID-19 pandemic end? While the coronavirus continues to mutate and spread widely, the disease will remain a pandemic. But, when enough immunity is achieved, through vaccination or infection and mutations become less severe, COVID-19 is expected to become endemic.
According to Basel, the end may be in sight if you look closely at the positivity rates and declining hospitalizations.
It very much appears that COVID is going to become endemic kind of like influenza where it is going to be here at a certain level and its probably going to have some peaks and valleys throughout the year, Basel said.
Basel says while many people may be testing at home for COVID-19 and not reporting to the state, the positivity rate can help determine the current community spread of the virus. Basel says recent positivity rates below 10%, and sometimes dipping below 5%, is a good indication that under-testing is not happening right now. In Thursdays update from the South Dakota Department of Health (DOH) the positivity rate was reported at 5.9%
If were just under-testing then that test positivity rate would still be staying high telling us were not testing enough people. In fact, the percent positive on our tests right now is down, Basel said.
Currently there are 96 people hospitalized with COVID-19 in South Dakota. At the peak of Omicron, hospitalizations reached 423 on January 23, 2022. Basel says the steep decline is a good indicator of where the community spread is at in South Dakota.
While cases and hospitalizations continue to trend downwards, COVID-19 deaths have held steady with 18 deaths being reported by the DOH so far this week. Basel says that its important to remember that deaths often lag a few weeks behind downward trends in the rest of COVID-19 numbers. He adds that some of the hospitalized COVID patients in the Avera Health system have been hospitalized since fall of 2021 receiving treatment for the virus.
Weve got patients still dying from COVID almost every day, Basel said. So, if this was a normal influenza year and we had that many it would be the worst influenza year on record.
Moving forward, Basel says we can expect the pandemic to turn into an endemic like influenza where there are peaks and valleys with localized outbreaks throughout the year. In former pandemics, Basel says that each peak was followed by peaks that became lower and lower each time.
Certainly, we hope that continues to be the case where this is kind of the new normal where we have to be aware of COVID, but we can go back to a closer-to-normal way of daily living, Basel said.
With the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and states beginning to loosen mask mandates, the pandemic is not yet over according to health experts. Basel says the country would need to remain at this low level of community spread for a while longer before endemic status is achieved.
In the meantime, Basel recommends testing for those experiencing cold and flu like symptoms whether with an at-home test or by going to a testing location. He also encourages immunocompromised people to continue masking if there is an increased risk associated with COVID-19 infection.
As Avera Health marks the two-year anniversary, Basel expressed his gratitude to the frontline workers who worked tirelessly over the past two years for their work.
Its been a grind and continues to be a grind, he said.
The health system has performed over 690,000 COVID-19 tests in the past two years with 88,000 positive results. In that time, they have hospitalized over 8,300 people for COVID-19, provided over 15,000 treatments for the virus and delivered over 200,000 vaccinations.
Its been a difficult and challenging time for our medical providers and front-line caregivers. They are the true heroes of this story, Bob Sutton, President and CEO of Avera Health, said Thursday in a statement. Theyve seen a lot of severe illness and death. They rejoiced with those who recovered and went home. They grieved with families who lost a loved one. Numerous times, they stood in for family members who were not able to be there at end of life, or held a phone or tablet as families said their good-byes.
Basel also said that he was thankful to the public for taking masking and testing guidelines seriously over the past two years to help curb surging cases.
We know how much of an impact this has had on each and all of our lives, Basel said.
Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel during a ceremony to honor medical teams dealing with the pandemic in Jerusalem last summer.Credit...Abir Sultan/EPA, via Shutterstock
JERUSALEM Benjamin Netanyahu, the former prime minister of Israel, tested positive for the coronavirus on Wednesday, according to a statement from his conservative Likud party.
A party spokesman, Yonatan Ulrich, said in the statement that Mr. Netanyahu, 72, feels well and that he was acting according to the countrys coronavirus guidelines. The former prime minister was in Parliament on Wednesday morning before being informed that he had tested positive in a routine P.C.R. test, according to Mr. Ulrich.
Under Ministry of Health guidelines, Mr. Netanyahu must now stay in isolation for at least five days and conduct rapid home tests on the fourth and fifth evenings of isolation. If the results of both tests are negative and no symptoms have appeared for 48 hours, Mr. Netanyahu will be able to leave isolation at the end of Day 5. A positive result would require him to remain in isolation until the end of Day 7.
Israel is just emerging from a fifth wave prompted by the Omicron variant of the virus, which saw confirmed cases soar to nearly 100,000 a day in the country. That number has now dropped to a daily average of about 6,500 new cases.
Mr. Netanyahu has received four vaccination shots, according to Mr. Ulrich. In January, Israel began offering fourth shots to people aged 60 and over as the country braced for a surge of infections from the highly contagious Omicron variant.
Israel lifted many of its remaining Covid restrictions on March 1, including ending limitations on gatherings, opening up the country to unvaccinated tourists and eliminating the need to present a digital proof of vaccination to enter restaurants and most other venues.
Another member of Israels Parliament Shirly Pinto, of the small, right-wing Yamina party led by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on Twitter on Wednesday that she, too, had tested positive for the virus. She said she was the 61st lawmaker in Parliament to have been infected, though she didnt specify what time period she was referring to.
Parliament has 120 seats, but two elections in the country since March 2020 have changed the makeup of the house during the course of the pandemic. Asked how many lawmakers had been infected in the current Parliament, a parliamentary spokesman, Uri Michael, said, Sorry, were not counting.
Source: Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University. The daily average is calculated with data that was reported in the last seven days.
Mr. Netanyahu was prime minister from 2009 until 2021 after serving a previous three-year term in the 1990s, making him the longest-serving prime minister in Israeli history. He is now the leader of the opposition in Parliament.
Alongside his parliamentary role, Mr. Netanyahu is fighting corruption charges in a trial now underway in the Jerusalem District Court. He was charged with bribery, breach of trust and fraud in three separate cases in 2019, accused of providing lucrative official favors to wealthy businessmen in exchange for material gifts like expensive cigars and Champagne, and less-tangible ones such as control over coverage of him and his family in a major news outlet.
An increasingly polarizing figure as he clung to power, Mr. Netanyahu led Israel into four tumultuous election cycles within two years. Unable to form a majority coalition after the last election in March 2021, he was eventually replaced by Mr. Bennett.
On Wednesday, Mr. Bennett, a former political ally who sat in several Netanyahu-led governments, wished Mr. Netanyahu, who is now a bitter rival, a speedy and complete recovery, writing on Twitter, Feel well!
Fourmore Mainers have died and another 289coronavirus cases reported across the state, Maine health officials said Thursday.
Thursdays report brings the total number of coronavirus cases in Maine to 231,758,according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Thats up from 231,469 on Wednesday.
Of those, 167,824have been confirmed positive, while 63,934were classified as probable cases, the Maine CDC reported.
Three men and a woman have succumbed to the virus, bringing the statewide death toll to 2,140.
One was from Androscoggin County, one from Hancock County, one from Penobscot County and one from York County.
Of those, two were 80 or older and two were in their 60s.
The number of coronavirus cases diagnosed in the past 14 days statewide is 7,710. This is an estimation of the current number of active cases in the state, as the Maine CDC is no longer tracking recoveries for all patients. Thats down from 8,544 on Wednesday.
The new case rate statewide Thursday was 2.16 cases per 10,000 residents, and the total case rate statewide was 1,731.60.
The most cases have been detected in Mainers younger than 20, while Mainers over 80 years old account for the largest portion of deaths. More cases have been recorded in women and more deaths in men.
So far, 4,426 Mainers have been hospitalized at some point with COVID-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus. Of those, 128 are currently hospitalized, with 28 in critical care and nine on a ventilator. Overall, 66 out of 355 critical care beds and 261 out of 328 ventilators are available
The total statewide hospitalization rate on Thursday was 33.07 patients per 10,000 residents.
Cases have been reported in Androscoggin (22,233), Aroostook (12,226), Cumberland (47,566), Franklin (5,585), Hancock (7,133), Kennebec (22,312), Knox (5,763), Lincoln (5,071), Oxford (10,973), Penobscot (26,806), Piscataquis (2,920), Sagadahoc (4,923), Somerset (9,389), Waldo (5,901), Washington (4,167) and York (38,781) counties. Information about where an additional ninecases were reported wasnt immediately available.
An additional 588 vaccine doses were administered in the previous 24 hours. As of Thursday, 990,364 Mainers are fully vaccinated, or about 77.3 percent of eligible Mainers, according to the Maine CDC.
As of Thursday morning, the coronavirus had sickened 79,413,957 people in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as caused 963,869 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.
More articles from the BDN
Covid cases appear to be rising in older people as increased socialising, waning immunity and a more transmissible version of the Omicron variant threaten to fuel a resurgence of the virus.
Tests on nearly 100,000 swabs from homes across England reveal that, while infections have fallen overall since the January peak, one in 35 people tested positive between 8 February and 1 March, with cases either level or rising in those aged 55 and over.
Scientists on Imperial Colleges React-1 study said the R value the average number of people an infected person passes the virus to remained below 1 for those aged 54 and under, meaning cases were in decline. But for those aged 55 and over, R stood at 1.04.
The suspected uptick has raised concerns as older people are more prone to severe Covid and have had more time for their immunity to wane, as many had their booster vaccines several months ago.
The findings come as the latest government figures showed a sharp 46% rise in new recorded UK cases week on week to 346,059 over the past week and a 12% rise in hospitalisations to 8,950.
Prof Paul Elliott, director of the React study, said the rise was probably driven by factors including the lifting of all Covid legal restrictions in England on 24 February, more mixing between age groups and waning protection from booster shots.
One idea experts are investigating is whether hospitalisation rates are being driven by unshielding, where people who have been extremely careful for two years have emerged into a world where infections are still rife.
Another driver is thought to be the BA.2 form of Omicron, a relative of the original BA.1. While BA.2 does not seem to evade immunity any more than BA.1 or cause more severe disease, it spreads faster and increases R by 0.4 compared with BA.1, the Imperial researchers found. From what we see, BA.2 is more transmissible and may prolong the Omicron wave of the pandemic, Elliott said. Its taking over, so that could explain higher infection rates.
Since the first BA.2 cases were discovered in December, it has steadily gained ground and now accounts for about half of all Omicron cases in England, with levels currently highest in London. It is unclear how large a wave of infections and hospitalisations BA.2 could drive given widespread immunity from vaccines and past Covid infections.
A further push on vaccinations is due in early April when over-75s and the clinically vulnerable will be offered a fourth shot, or a fifth in the case of people with severely weakened immune systems. Additional doses of vaccine are almost certainly going to be necessary, said Prof Peter Openshaw, a member of the governments New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag).
Mark Woolhouse, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh, said it was impossible to make a sensible prediction about the size of any BA.2 wave but the situation needed close monitoring. The worry is that its hard to see anything happening in the next few weeks that will reverse the growth of BA.2 unless, that is, people decide on their own account to step up precautions.
Danny Altmann, professor of immunology at Imperial College, who is not on the React-1 study, said the recent rise was foreseeable. Well see a great deal more of this, along the lines of recent resurgent spikes in Scotland and Hong Kong, he said. Caseloads were by no means low or under control as we came out of all mitigations and, when you add in waning immunity and the enhanced transmissibility of BA.2, it looks like we are in for a difficult period, especially for the elderly.
He said a lack of measures such as mask-wearing and testing potentially left only the option of a wider push for fourth shots, beyond the over-75s but cautioned that very regular boosters may not be sustainable long-term.
Openshaw said the rise in cases and hospitalisations should remind people the pandemic is not over. I think its a shame that the message that seems to have got out to the population is that its all over and we dont need to be cautious any more, he said.
