These maps look at which counties, when adjusted for population, have had the highest number of coronavirus cases, and compares them to the statewide rate. The first map looks at the total number of cases per 100,000 residents since the start of the outbreak two years ago, while the second map looks only at the latest 30 days.
CDC offers a new tool to check COVID-19 rates.
If you have plans to go on vacation soon, but are wondering about COVID-19 numbers in the area you are headed, well the CDC has now dropped a new tool to help you.
The new tool offered by the Center For Disease Control and Prevention helps to decipher the severity of COVID-19 in each county within a state.
Simply, go to the CDC website, search for the county in question within that state and receive instant results on numbers and severity in the area.
The data is broken down into three major categories, low, medium or high depending on the number of hospital beds being used, hospital admissions, and the total number of new COVID-19 cases in that area.
The new protocol was created to help community members decide the best preventive steps to take based on the latest data within each area.
The CDC suggests masking up indoors in those areas within counties with high severity levels. The CDC also suggests getting vaccinated against COVID-19.
The new tool can be found by visiting the CDC website here, and entering in the needed information.
For more information on COVID-19, visit the CDC website here or visit the Jackson-Madison Co. Regional Health Dept. website here.
To find more news related to COVID-19 click here.
Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine revealed this week that he has suffered from a long-lasting COVID-19 symptom during his experience with long COVID-19.
Details: Kaine said in an interview with The Washington Post that he continues to face COVID-19 symptoms almost two years after his diagnosis.
What he said: I tell people it feels like all my nerves have had like five cups of coffee, Kaine told The Washington Post. I can feel every nerve ending in my body right now.
The number of active COVID-19 outbreaks at McHenry County schools and youth organizations fell to two Friday, down from four last week, the Illinois Department of Public Healths weekly report shows.
An outbreak is defined as three or more cases within 14 days where the people involved are connected in some way for example, a shared classroom, school bus or club.
The youth-related outbreaks in McHenry County that remained active as of Friday, according to the IDPH, included one at Chauncey H. Duker School in McHenry with fewer than five cases among students, and one at Oak Knoll Early Childhood Center in Cary with fewer than five cases among staff and students.
Cases among kids generally have plummeted since a January high, IDPH data shows. McHenry County is one of 12 counties statewide with youth-related outbreaks still active.
On Jan. 22, the seven-day rolling average of new daily COVID-19 cases in McHenry County was 57 among newborns to 4-year-olds, 161 among 5- to 11-year-olds, and 173 among 12- to 17-year-olds, the state reported. On Friday, the rolling average in McHenry County was three new cases each day for newborns to 4-year-olds, six for 5- to 11-year-olds, and five for 12- to 17-year-olds.
COVID-19 hospitalizations in Lake and McHenry counties fell again Thursday, marking a drop 46 of the last 47 days, state data shows.
The total number of people hospitalized for COVID-19 in the two-county region declined to 62 as of Thursday, the IDPH reported.
Hospital intensive care unit availability across McHenry and Lake counties was 27% as of Thursday, remaining the same as the day before but still remaining the best its been since Aug. 6, according to IDPH data.
In McHenry County alone, 5.4% of medical and surgical hospital beds remain available on average, according to the seven-day rolling average the county reported Friday. An average of 24.8% of ICU beds and 90.6% of ventilators were available.
Hospitalizations for COVID-19-like illness decreased nine of the past 10 days in the county as of Friday.
Statewide, the number of hospitalizations tied to COVID-19 decreased to 843 patients as of Thursday, the IDPH reported. Of those hospitalized, 153 patients were in the ICU and 77 were on ventilators.
An additional 195 COVID-19 vaccine doses were administered to McHenry County residents Thursday, according to the IDPH, bringing the total number administered locally to 506,346. The state reported that 102,175 booster shots have been administered in McHenry County.
A total of 198,972 residents, or an estimated 64.48% of McHenry Countys population, now are fully vaccinated, meaning theyve received all doses recommended for the vaccine they were given.
Statewide, 21,157,960 vaccine doses have been administered, according to state data.
Across Illinois, 80.8% of those age 5 and older have received at least one dose of a vaccine against COVID-19, and 71.8% are fully vaccinated, the IDPH reported Friday. Those rates are 84.7% and 75.5% for those age 12 and older, 86.1% and 76.7% for people 18 and older, and 95% and 87.4% for those age 65 and older, respectively.
The level of transmission in McHenry County remained low under the framework released last week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the McHenry County Department of Health reported Friday.
That means the county saw fewer than 200 cases per 100,000 residents over the past seven days; the number of people being admitted to the hospital for COVID-19 was fewer than 10 per 100,000 residents, also over seven days; and the percent of staffed in-patient beds occupied by COVID-19 patients was less than 10%, as measured by a seven-day average, according to the CDC.
The countys seven-day incidence rate decreased slightly to 112.12 new cases over the past seven days per 100,000 residents as of Sunday, according to the county health department.
McHenry County now has seen 75,240 total cases, including 453 deaths and 43 deaths that likely were caused by COVID-19 but have not been confirmed. That tally is up 41 cases from Thursday. No new deaths were reported Friday.
Neighboring Lake Countys health department reported a total of 122,227 cases and 1,337 deaths through Thursday. To the south, Kane Countys health department reported 124,659 cases and 1,104 deaths as of Friday.
Statewide, the IDPH tallied 1,329 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday. Another 40 deaths also were logged, bringing the totals to 3,037,199 cases, 32,926 confirmed deaths and 4,182 probable deaths.
Among McHenry County ZIP codes, Crystal Lake (60014) has the highest total number of COVID-19 cases with a total of 12,266 confirmed, according to county data. McHenry (60050) follows with 8,605.
The McHenry County health department reports ZIP code data only for parts within McHenry County, a department spokeswoman said. Any discrepancies between county and IDPH numbers likely are because of the datas provisional nature and because each health department finalizes its data at different times, she said.
The following is the rest of the local breakdown of cases by ZIP code: Woodstock (60098) 7,692 cases; Lake in the Hills (60156) 7,241; Huntley (60142) 6,012; Cary (60013) 5,698; Algonquin (60102) 5,318; Johnsburg and McHenry (60051) 4,595; Harvard (60033) 3,742; Marengo (60152) 2,730; Wonder Lake (60097) 2,652; Crystal Lake, Bull Valley and Prairie Grove (60012) 2,643; Spring Grove (60081) 1,525; Fox River Grove (60021) 1,160; Island Lake (60042) 966; Richmond (60071) 712; Hebron (60034) 428; Barrington (60010) 336; Union (60180) 293; and Ringwood and Wonder Lake (60072) 191.
Few of Covid-19s peculiarities have piqued as much interest as anosmia, the abrupt loss of smell that has become a well-known hallmark of the disease. Covid patients lose this sense even without a stuffy nose; the loss can make food taste like cardboard and coffee smell noxious, occasionally persisting after other symptoms have resolved.
Scientists are now beginning to unravel the biological mechanisms, which have been something of a mystery: The neurons that detect odors lack the receptors that the coronavirus uses to enter cells, prompting a long debate about whether they can be infected at all.
Insights gleaned from new research could shed new light on how the coronavirus might affect other types of brain cells, leading to conditions like brain fog, and possibly help explain the biological mechanisms behind long Covid symptoms that linger for weeks or months after the initial infection.
The new work, along with earlier studies, settles the debate over whether the coronavirus infects the nerve cells that detect odors: It does not. But the virus does attack other supporting cells that line the nasal cavity, the researchers found.
The infected cells shed virus and die, while immune cells flood the region to fight the virus. The subsequent inflammation wreaks havoc on smell receptors, proteins on the surface of the nerve cells in the nose that detect and transmit information about odors.
The process alters the sophisticated organization of genes in those neurons, essentially short-circuiting them, the researchers reported.
Their paper significantly advances the understanding of how cells critical to the sense of smell are affected by the virus, despite the fact that they are not directly infected, said Dr. Sandeep Robert Datta, an associate professor of neurobiology at Harvard Medical School, who was not involved in the study.
Its clear that indirectly, if you affect the support cells in the nose, lots of bad things happen, Dr. Datta said. The inflammation in the adjacent cells triggers changes in the sensory neurons that prevent them from working properly.
Indeed, many complications of Covid appear to be caused by the immune systems friendly fire as it responds to infection by flooding the bloodstream with inflammatory proteins called cytokines, which can damage tissue and organs.
This might be a general principle: that a lot of what the virus is doing to us is a consequence of its ability to generate inflammation, Dr. Datta said.
March 3, 2022, 9:38 p.m. ET
The new study is based on research carried out at Zuckerman Institute and Irving Medical Center at Columbia University in New York; the New York University Grossman School of Medicine; the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York; Baylor Genetics in Houston; and the School of Medicine at the University of California, Davis. The research was published online in Cell in early February.
The scientists examined golden hamsters and human tissue specimens from 23 patients who succumbed to Covid. After the hamsters were infected with the original coronavirus, scientists tracked the damage to their olfactory systems over time.
(How do you know a golden hamster has lost its sense of smell? You dont feed it for several hours and then bury Cocoa Puffs in its bedding, said Benjamin tenOever, a professor of microbiology at NYU Langone Health and an author of the new research. Hamsters that can smell will find the cereal in seconds.)
The virus did not invade neurons, the researchers learned, only the cells that play supporting roles in the olfactory system. But that was enough to alter the function of the nearby neurons, leading to a loss of smell.
New Zealands Covid reckoning. For much of the past two years, the coronavirus was a phantom presence in New Zealand. Now, the island nation is being hit by a major outbreak of the Omicron variant, with the virus spreading at an extremely fast rate.
N.F.L. drops protocols. The league and the players union agreed to suspend all Covid-19 protocols, effective immediately. The N.F.L., which is not in season, is the first of the major professional sports leagues in the United States to halt its coronavirus-related policies
The immune response altered the architecture of genes in the neurons, disrupting production of odor receptors, said Marianna Zazhytska, a postdoctoral fellow at the Zuckerman Institute and one of the papers first authors, along with a graduate student, Albana Kodra.
It is not the virus itself causing all this reorganization its the systemic inflammatory response, Dr. Zazhytska said. The nerve cells are not hosting the virus, but they are not doing what they did before.
The ability of the olfactory receptors to send and receive messages is disrupted. But the neurons dont die, and so the system can recover after the illness resolves.
Earlier work at the Zuckerman Institute showed that neurons that detect smells have complex genomic organizational structures that are essential to the creation of odor receptors, and the receptor genes communicate among themselves very intensively, said Stavros Lomvardas, one of the papers corresponding authors.
We saw early on that upon infection, the genomic organization of these neurons changes completely theyre unrecognizable compared to how they normally are, Dr. Lomvardas said.
There is a signal released from the infected cells that is received by the neurons that normally detect odors, and tells them to reorganize and stop expression of olfactory receptor genes, he said.
He suggested this may represent an evolutionary adaptation that offers a form of antiviral resistance and whose main purpose may be to prevent the virus from entering the brain. That was a relief for us, he said. That was one piece of good news.
Philadelphia residents no longer need to wear masks in most indoor settings, starting immediately, the citys health commissioner, Dr. Cheryl Bettigole, announced on Wednesday.
With Philadelphia reporting an average of 295 new coronavirus cases per day, down from almost 4,000 during the Omicron peak, city authorities say it is safe to stop enforcing the mandate.
The change in policy came as other U.S. cities and counties have rapidly relaxed their mask mandates, including Chicago, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles County, New York City and Boston.
Last month, Philadelphia announced a new tiered Covid response system, which ties restrictions to specific benchmarks for new daily cases, hospitalizations, test positivity rates and the rate at which cases are rising. The metrics have improved enough that Philadelphia can move to the all clear level, where vaccines and masks are no longer required in most indoor spaces, the Health Department said.
The mask mandate remains in place in health care settings and on public transit, and businesses and other institutions are allowed to require masks or proof of vaccination if they choose to do so.
Masks will no longer be required in Philadelphia schools starting March 9, if the situation continues to improve.
Philadelphia is unique in that we are the poorest big city in the country, making us more vulnerable to Covid-19 than many other places, Dr. Bettigole said. She added that Philadelphians had shown a commitment to each other during the pandemic, perhaps best demonstrated by our willingness to wear masks for the past six months to help decrease transmission to those that remain at risk.
Almost 70 percent of Philadelphians are fully vaccinated, according to a New York Times database, but the number of people receiving their first doses has stalled, as they have nationally.
Other places in the United States that announced changes to mask policies this week:
Maines state government said on Wednesday that it would lift its statewide mask requirement for schools on March 9, after which school districts will be responsible for setting mask policies.
Education officials in Chicago, one of the largest U.S. public school systems, say they might soon end the citys mandate in schools.
Los Angeles County is poised to lift its indoor mask requirement for unvaccinated residents on March 4.
The NFL and NFL Players Association have suspended all leaguewide COVID-19 protocols effective immediately, pausing two years of largely successful efforts to play through the pandemic.
Teams received a memo Thursday morning detailing the decision, which was "based on current encouraging trends regarding the prevalence and severity" of the coronavirus.
Many of the league's most severe protocols had been dropped by the end of the 2021 season, including mandatory testing for asymptomatic players and staff, requirements to wear contact tracing devices and distancing limitations in weight rooms and cafeterias.
There is no football activity underway at club facilities at this point in the offseason, and the earliest it can begin is April 4 for teams that have hired new coaches. But Thursday's change will still affect coaches and other staff members who are attending this week's scouting combine in Indianapolis or who work year-round in local markets. Those employees will no longer face surveillance testing, regardless of vaccination status, or mask requirements.
Teams can choose to impose their own mask policies if desired, and the memo does leave open the possibility of reverting to a level of protocols if circumstances warrant.
"Should there be a reason to reimpose aspects of the protocols or to take other measures," the memo notes, "we will work closely with clubs, the NFLPA and our respective experts, and local, state and federal public health officials to continue to safeguard the health of the NFL community."
Teams are still required to comply with any state and local public health regulations.
The pandemic forced the NFL to cancel its 2020 offseason training and preseason, but it has played all regular-season and playoff games since, with a total of eight games being rescheduled. The full slate included an expansion of the postseason in 2020 and the regular season in 2021.
In some cases, the NFL's work on COVID-19 informed decisions by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other public health institutions.
The NFL finished the 2021 season with vaccination rates of 95% for players and nearly 100% for other football staff members. There were four known hospitalizations among players, coaches and on-field officials for COVID-19 between the start of training camp in 2020 and the end of the 2021 season.
City of Pasadena Announces Updated Mask Recommendations and COVID-19 Health Orders - Office of the City Manager City of Pasadena
COVID-19 trends in Massachusetts and in Cambridge have been moving in the right direction since the peak of the Omicron surge in January. Recently, Cambridge has seen a small uptick in COVID-19 cases. A review of these cases indicates that this uptick is attributable to cases affiliated with institutions of higher education in the city. While cases in the community have been decreasing steadily, higher ed cases have been increasing. From Monday - Wednesday of this week, for example, of the cases reported to the Cambridge Public Health Department (CPHD), only 18% were cases in the broader community, with the other 82% of cases being reported by the universities in Cambridge. CPHD and the City are working with our university and other community partners to continue monitoring trends.
Cambridge saw the peak in positive cases on January 8, 2022, and regional hospitalizations peaked in mid-January. Since then, COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations have decreased dramatically, as have viral loads in wastewater. Over the past few weeks, hospitalizations dropped by more than half in Massachusetts with significant declines in hospitalizations across all age groups. With fewer people seriously ill with COVID, the pressure on our health care systems is finally easing.
Today we are marking the completion of our second full year of living and working through the COVID-19 pandemic. We have shared this experience, but we will remember it in ways that are unique to each of us.
En Espaol
Dear School of Medicine Colleagues,
Please take a moment to read the below message from Wesley. We are at an important reflection point and transition period in this shared experience, and we should take time to process what we have been through and think about where we are going. I truly hope we will soon enter a period of healing. We all desperately need that.
Earlier this year, I shared that one of the ways I maintain a positive outlook is to remember how inspiring it is to work in a place that is making an incredible impact in research, clinical care, and education. This work is challenging and exhausting, but we are fortunate to do it alongside our colleagues who we would do anything to support.
Thank you for everything you do each day and everything that you will do as we continue to work together.
Sincerely,
Cristy
Cristy Page, MD, MPH
Executive Dean, UNC School of Medicine
Dear Colleagues,
Today we are marking the completion of our second full year of living and working through the COVID-19 pandemic. We have shared this experience, but we will remember it in ways that are unique to each of us.
In the future as we tell our personal stories of the pandemic, the exact number of months, weeks, and days will fade. We will never forget though the loss of family members, friends, and colleagues. Or, the time that passed between seeing grandchildren. The birthdays and holidays we missed. The year of virtual school. The anxiety of waiting for test results, the nights wondering if we will feel better in the morning, and the elation of vaccines.
Each of you will tell a story of doing work you never imagined building a field hospital, staffing a mobile vaccine unit, coordinating parking and logistics for testing and mass vaccine clinics. Sequencing hundreds of thousands of tests, managing vaccine trials, delivering infusions of monoclonal antibodies. These were projects without precedent. I hope we never have to do it again. Nevertheless, it is reassuring to know that we can.
We have learned enduring lessons and formed bonds that will carry through the rest of our careers. But, as we conclude our second full COVID year, its also natural to wish those lessons could have come through less painful means. The last two years have been hard. Physically, emotionally, morally, and spiritually. Youve worked too many hours, forgoing days off and vacations. Youve done it under unrelenting stress. Youve had conversations with patients that feel so unnatural to us as caregivers. We will wear these moral scars for years to come. This time has changed us all in ways that we dont yet understand.
In the present moment, we find ourselves in another time of transition. The mountainous peak of cases and hospitalizations caused by Omicron has fortunately declined. We are beginning to see a relaxation of many of the restrictions that have defined our daily lives throughout the pandemic. While many will rush to declare the pandemic over, you will still be working tirelessly as you have done for the last 730 days to care for very sick patients. Thankfully, we have new tools and treatments, but this is still exhausting work. While it feels like others are moving on, know that we will always do everything possible to support you.
Ill never forget the countless instances of empathy and small moments of grace that have defined the last two years. This pandemic has proven repeatedly that there is no way to predict what is coming next. Whatever that is, however, we will face it just as we have every other challenge. Day by day. Together.
Sincerely,
Wesley
Wesley Burks, MDDean, UNC School of MedicineCEO, UNC Health
