The Utah health department is preparing to transition all COVID-19 testing to the health care system in the coming weeks; however, officials sent a reminder Monday that public health testing is still available in the state up until that happens.
The Utah Department of Health released its testing sites for the week on Monday, which includes dozens of sites across the state. As the number of people getting tested declines, none of the sites require a reservation.
Some of the regular daily locations are closed Monday for Presidents Day. That list includes:
The full list of testing site locations, testing times and other important information regarding COVID-19 testing can be found online, here.
The health department won't provide its daily COVID-19 case update Monday because of the holiday. Those daily updates, which originated in March 2020, will also be phased into weekly reports by the end of next month as Utah health care systems take over testing.
Utah's seven-day, running average of new cases dropped to 1,055 new cases per day compared to nearly 11,000 on Jan. 18, as the health department reported on Friday. The state's "test over test" seven-day average rate of positive tests also fell from 47% on Jan. 21 to 26% on Feb. 12.
Even though the demand for tests has fallen as the number of new cases has declined, the health department still recommends certain people get tested should they experience symptoms.
Gov. Spencer Cox, who announced the upcoming, gradual move to a "steady state," said Friday that Utah is in a "much better place" than it was when COVID-19 was first reported to be in the state nearly two years ago. That's because it's easier to find COVID-19 testing now, and there is also a vaccine and treatments that can help reduce the effects of the coronavirus that didn't exist in March 2020.
"We have tools today that we didn't have two months ago, including widespread home tests and antiviral pills," the governor, added in his reasoning to scale back Utah's pandemic response. "It's now time to transition out of an emergency posture and into a manageable risk model."
Cox went on to say Friday that testing, either at home or through various health care systems, will still be important after March 31. He said the state health department will also continue to oversee disease surveillance, data collection, vaccinations and public awareness of the coronavirus.
"This is not the end of COVID," he said, "but it is the beginning of treating COVID as we do other seasonal respiratory viruses."
I had no particular ambition to write about the pandemic, but it was like a giant tree trunk that fell across my path, said Ian McEwan, whose forthcoming novel, Lessons, follows a British man from the 1940s to his twilight years in 2021, when hes living alone in London during lockdown, looking back on his life. Its going to be in literary novels simply because theres no way around it, if youre writing a socially realist novel.
Anne Tylers French Braid, which comes out next month, follows a Baltimore family from the late 1950s to the upheaval of 2020, when a retired couple finds unexpected joy after their adult son and their grandson come to live with them to ride out the pandemic. Nell Freudenbergers novel in progress, tentatively titled The Limits, explores the feelings of dread and uncertainty that the virus unleashed, and features a teenager struggling to balance remote learning with caring for a child, a biologist unnerved by climate change and a doctor who feels helpless as he treats Covid patients.
In Isabel Allendes Violeta, the narrators life is bookended by two pandemics, the Spanish flu and the coronavirus, a strange symmetry that she reflects on as shes dying in isolation. The experience of the whole planet frozen in place because of a virus is so extraordinary that I am sure it will be used extensively in literature, Ms. Allende said in an email. It is one of those events that mark an era.
Theres been no shortage of pandemic-themed content, from TV shows and documentaries, to long-form nonfiction, poetry and short stories. But novels often take longer to gestate, and the first wave of pandemic-inflected literary fiction is arriving at a nebulous moment, when the virus has started to feel both mundane and insurmountable, and its unclear when the crisis will end, making it an unwieldy subject for fiction writers.
You couldnt yet have the great coronavirus novel, because we dont know how this story ends yet, said the writer and critic Daniel Mendelsohn.
Feb. 21, 2022, 9:57 p.m. ET
As the first trickle of Covid-centric novels began last year, some critics questioned whether the pandemic could yield worthwhile literature. I am a little fearful of the onslaught of Covid-19 fiction heading toward us in the coming years, the reviewer Sam Sacks wrote in The Wall Street Journal.
Last November, when the English author Sarah Moss published her novel The Fell about a woman who defies a mandatory quarantine order after shes exposed to Covid a handful of reviewers in Britain panned it for recreating the grueling experience of lockdown.
Cases, hospitalisations and deaths
For a detailed breakdown of cases across the country, check outCharting the Spread.
This post will be updated throughout the day as numbers are announced, so if your state or territory is not mentioned, check back later.
VIC: 14 deaths, 6,786 new cases (5,042 RAT / 1,744PCR), 345 people in hospital,48 in ICU, eight on ventilators
NSW: 14 deaths, 8,752 new cases (6,036 RAT / 2,716 PCR),1,293 people in hospital,71 in ICU, 31 on ventilators
QLD: 5 deaths,5,583 newcases (4,039 RAT / 1,544 PCR), 394 people in hospital, 34 in ICU
ACT:583 new cases,41 people in hospital, onein ICU
TAS:820new cases, 11 people in hospital, two in ICU
NT: One death, 716 new cases, 123 people in hospital, 10 on ventilators, three in ICU
SA: Three deaths, 1,378 new cases, 205 people in hospital, 12 in ICU, three on ventilators
WA:263 new cases, three people in hospital
Germany will offer its population a new protein-based Covid-19 vaccine comparable to conventional flu jabs this week, in the hope of swaying a sizeable minority that remains sceptical of the novel mRNA technology used in the most commonly used vaccines.
About 1.4m doses of the Nuvaxovid vaccine developed by the US biotech company Novavax are to arrive in Germany this week, the countrys health minister, Karl Lauterbach, confirmed last Friday. A further million doses are to arrive the week after, with the German governments total order for the year 2022 amounting to 34m doses.
Novavaxs product has until now been used only in Indonesia and the Philippines, but it was permitted for use in the EU last December. It is still awaiting authorisation in the US, as some concerns about the companys production capacity persist.
Unlike the novel mRNA vaccines produced by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna or viral vector made by AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson, Nuvaxovid is a protein subunit vaccine. It contains a non-infectious component on the surface of the Sars-CoV-2 virus, which induces a protective immune response when the bodys immune cells come into contact with it.
Novavax announced in June last year that its vaccine had proven more than 90% effective against symptomatic infections with the Alpha variant, in trials including nearly 30,000 volunteers in the US and Mexico.
The company says its product is similarly effective against the Delta and Omicron variants, especially after a booster shot administered six months after the second jab. Germanys Paul Ehrlich Institute notes that the data proving the vaccines efficacy against more infectious variants remains limited.
Surveys in Germany suggest a considerable interest in the Novavax jab among the 19.8 million people in the country who have so far declined to take a jab against Covid-19. Out of 4,000 unvaccinated hospital workers surveyed in Berlin, 1,800 expressed an interest in the protein-based vaccine.
In the northern state of Lower Saxony, the health ministry said 6,000 people had put their name on a waiting list for Nuvaxovid by early February.
Some scientists question whether the new vaccine will prove a gamechanger in a country whose overall vaccination rate has been flatlining at about 75% for months. Lars Korn, a co-author of a current survey of anti-vaccine attitudes conducted by the University of Erfurt, told the public broadcaster ZDF that two-thirds of respondents would continue to completely reject any form of vaccination.
The vaccine deployment in December 2020 signaled a turning point in the COVID-19 pandemic. By the end of May 2021, 40% of the U.S. population was fully vaccinated. But as vaccination rates lagged over the summer, new surges of COVID-19 came, including Delta in the summer of 2021, and now the Omicron variant, which comprises the majority of cases in the U.S.
Researchers around the world have reported that Omicron is more transmissible than Delta, making breakthrough and repeat infections more likely. Early research suggests this strain may cause less severe illness than Delta and the original virus, however, health officials have warned an Omicron-driven surge could still increase hospitalization and death ratesespecially in areas with less vaccinated populations.
The United States as of Feb. 18 reached 933,154 COVID-19-related deaths and 78.3 million COVID-19 cases, according to Johns Hopkins University. Currently, 64.6% of the population is fully vaccinated, and 43.1% have received booster doses.
Stacker compiled a list of the counties with highest COVID-19 vaccination rates in California using data from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services and Covid Act Now. Counties are ranked by the highest vaccination rate as of Feb. 17, 2022. Due to inconsistencies in reporting, some counties do not have vaccination data available. Keep reading to see whether your county ranks among the highest COVID-19 vaccination rates in your state.
Population that is fully vaccinated: 47.6% (37,457 fully vaccinated) 32.0% lower vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 139 (109 total deaths) 33.2% less deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 21,007 (16,526 total cases) 6.1% less cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 48.2% (5,921 fully vaccinated) 31.1% lower vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 163 (20 total deaths) 21.6% less deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 11,380 (1,398 total cases) 49.2% less cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 50.0% (138,829 fully vaccinated) 28.6% lower vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 275 (763 total deaths) 32.2% more deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 24,217 (67,246 total cases) 8.2% more cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 51.4% (28,018 fully vaccinated) 26.6% lower vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 314 (171 total deaths) 51.0% more deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 22,918 (12,485 total cases) 2.4% more cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 51.7% (20,536 fully vaccinated) 26.1% lower vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 194 (77 total deaths) 6.7% less deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 22,152 (8,806 total cases) 1.0% less cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 52.0% (1,562 fully vaccinated) 25.7% lower vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 0 (0 total deaths) 100.0% less deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 10,349 (311 total cases) 53.8% less cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 52.1% (114,210 fully vaccinated) 25.6% lower vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 165 (361 total deaths) 20.7% less deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 17,479 (38,312 total cases) 21.9% less cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 52.1% (469,101 fully vaccinated) 25.6% lower vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 230 (2,072 total deaths) 10.6% more deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 24,978 (224,854 total cases) 11.6% more cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 52.5% (24,094 fully vaccinated) 25.0% lower vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 231 (106 total deaths) 11.1% more deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 16,327 (7,495 total cases) 27.0% less cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 52.7% (245,687 fully vaccinated) 24.7% lower vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 274 (1,278 total deaths) 31.7% more deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 27,618 (128,752 total cases) 23.4% more cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 52.8% (83,132 fully vaccinated) 24.6% lower vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 210 (330 total deaths) 1.0% more deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 26,634 (41,903 total cases) 19.0% more cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 53.7% (34,585 fully vaccinated) 23.3% lower vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 191 (123 total deaths) 8.2% less deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 16,859 (10,855 total cases) 24.7% less cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 53.9% (15,300 fully vaccinated) 23.0% lower vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 137 (39 total deaths) 34.1% less deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 22,467 (6,379 total cases) 0.4% more cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 54.2% (10,201 fully vaccinated) 22.6% lower vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 69 (13 total deaths) 66.8% less deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 15,893 (2,989 total cases) 29.0% less cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 55.5% (1,209,682 fully vaccinated) 20.7% lower vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 292 (6,372 total deaths) 40.4% more deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 26,407 (575,690 total cases) 18.0% more cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 55.6% (305,969 fully vaccinated) 20.6% lower vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 260 (1,429 total deaths) 25.0% more deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 23,846 (131,310 total cases) 6.5% more cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 57.5% (1,419,737 fully vaccinated) 17.9% lower vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 245 (6,049 total deaths) 17.8% more deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 24,574 (607,114 total cases) 9.8% more cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 58.8% (12,674 fully vaccinated) 16.0% lower vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 97 (21 total deaths) 53.4% less deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 20,509 (4,419 total cases) 8.4% less cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 58.8% (57,033 fully vaccinated) 16.0% lower vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 216 (209 total deaths) 3.8% more deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 22,425 (21,746 total cases) 0.2% more cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 59.5% (453,453 fully vaccinated) 15.0% lower vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 265 (2,021 total deaths) 27.4% more deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 22,561 (171,946 total cases) 0.8% more cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 59.5% (594,636 fully vaccinated) 15.0% lower vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 255 (2,543 total deaths) 22.6% more deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 24,349 (243,273 total cases) 8.8% more cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 60.1% (115,817 fully vaccinated) 14.1% lower vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 98 (189 total deaths) 52.9% less deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 15,080 (29,080 total cases) 32.6% less cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 61.0% (10,995 fully vaccinated) 12.9% lower vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 288 (52 total deaths) 38.5% more deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 24,713 (4,458 total cases) 10.4% more cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 62.1% (61,965 fully vaccinated) 11.3% lower vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 121 (121 total deaths) 41.8% less deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 16,903 (16,862 total cases) 24.5% less cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 62.3% (9,003 fully vaccinated) 11.0% lower vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 35 (5 total deaths) 83.2% less deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 21,255 (3,070 total cases) 5.0% less cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 63.2% (178,956 fully vaccinated) 9.7% lower vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 148 (419 total deaths) 28.8% less deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 19,204 (54,369 total cases) 14.2% less cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 63.6% (718 fully vaccinated) 9.1% lower vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 0 (0 total deaths) 100.0% less deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 11,160 (126 total cases) 50.1% less cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 65.1% (88,209 fully vaccinated) 7.0% lower vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 97 (132 total deaths) 53.4% less deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 14,065 (19,066 total cases) 37.2% less cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 65.2% (292,077 fully vaccinated) 6.9% lower vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 95 (427 total deaths) 54.3% less deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 18,736 (83,869 total cases) 16.3% less cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 65.5% (260,819 fully vaccinated) 6.4% lower vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 139 (554 total deaths) 33.2% less deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 17,158 (68,344 total cases) 23.3% less cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 65.8% (1,021,348 fully vaccinated) 6.0% lower vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 175 (2,721 total deaths) 15.9% less deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 19,035 (295,432 total cases) 15.0% less cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 67.4% (58,505 fully vaccinated) 3.7% lower vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 124 (108 total deaths) 40.4% less deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 17,606 (15,273 total cases) 21.3% less cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 67.9% (303,002 fully vaccinated) 3.0% lower vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 143 (640 total deaths) 31.3% less deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 19,769 (88,267 total cases) 11.7% less cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 69.1% (152,441 fully vaccinated) 1.3% lower vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 131 (289 total deaths) 37.0% less deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 17,389 (38,342 total cases) 22.3% less cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 70.4% (44,192 fully vaccinated) 0.6% higher vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 145 (91 total deaths) 30.3% less deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 20,915 (13,136 total cases) 6.6% less cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 70.6% (306,525 fully vaccinated) 0.9% higher vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 157 (682 total deaths) 24.5% less deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 20,378 (88,451 total cases) 8.9% less cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 70.7% (597,890 fully vaccinated) 1.0% higher vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 162 (1,372 total deaths) 22.1% less deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 21,184 (179,216 total cases) 5.3% less cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 71.5% (2,269,354 fully vaccinated) 2.1% higher vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 201 (6,374 total deaths) 3.4% less deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 18,188 (577,597 total cases) 18.7% less cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 71.8% (7,207,914 fully vaccinated) 2.6% higher vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 296 (29,691 total deaths) 42.3% more deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 27,463 (2,757,043 total cases) 22.7% more cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 74.0% (202,124 fully vaccinated) 5.7% higher vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 92 (250 total deaths) 55.8% less deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 17,280 (47,212 total cases) 22.8% less cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 77.0% (380,819 fully vaccinated) 10.0% higher vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 87 (431 total deaths) 58.2% less deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 16,706 (82,584 total cases) 25.4% less cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 77.7% (106,974 fully vaccinated) 11.0% higher vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 92 (127 total deaths) 55.8% less deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 18,709 (25,771 total cases) 16.4% less cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 80.0% (2,670,929 fully vaccinated) 14.3% higher vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 147 (4,914 total deaths) 29.3% less deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 23,190 (774,146 total cases) 3.6% more cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 80.2% (1,340,020 fully vaccinated) 14.6% higher vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 101 (1,683 total deaths) 51.4% less deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 15,562 (260,093 total cases) 30.5% less cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 81.0% (934,099 fully vaccinated) 15.7% higher vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 102 (1,179 total deaths) 51.0% less deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 16,913 (195,099 total cases) 24.4% less cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 82.7% (729,192 fully vaccinated) 18.1% higher vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 86 (756 total deaths) 58.7% less deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 14,690 (129,496 total cases) 34.4% less cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 83.2% (637,551 fully vaccinated) 18.9% higher vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 78 (595 total deaths) 62.5% less deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 16,138 (123,709 total cases) 27.9% less cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 84.4% (1,626,513 fully vaccinated) 20.6% higher vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 110 (2,130 total deaths) 47.1% less deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 16,320 (314,619 total cases) 27.1% less cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 86.3% (223,426 fully vaccinated) 23.3% higher vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 99 (255 total deaths) 52.4% less deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 13,828 (35,791 total cases) 38.2% less cases per 100k residents than California
Population that is fully vaccinated: 87.8% (159,066 fully vaccinated) 25.4% higher vaccination rate than California Cumulative deaths per 100k: 475 (860 total deaths) 128.4% more deaths per 100k residents than California Cumulative cases per 100k: 35,418 (64,183 total cases) 58.3% more cases per 100k residents than California
Childrens seeming imperviousness to Covid-19s worst effects has been one of the biggest mysteriesand reliefsof the pandemic. Now the reasons are coming into focus, scientists say: Children mobilize a first line of defense known as the innate immune system more effectively than adults.
Although some children do fall seriously ill after coming down with Covid-19, the most have mild symptoms or no symptoms at all. Unlike other respiratory viruses such as the flu or respiratory syncytial virus, SARS-CoV-2 doesnt hit children nearly as hard as it does adults or the elderly.
For more than a year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has collected data on hospitalizations for Covid-19 in the United States and broken it down by age, race and vaccination status. But it has not made most of the information public.
When the C.D.C. published the first significant data on the effectiveness of boosters in adults younger than 65 two weeks ago, it left out the numbers for a huge portion of that population: 18- to 49-year-olds, the group least likely to benefit from extra shots, because the first two doses already left them well-protected.
The agency recently debuted a dashboard of wastewater data on its website that will be updated daily and might provide early signals of an oncoming surge of Covid cases. Some states and localities had been sharing wastewater information with the agency since the start of the pandemic, but it had never before released those findings.
Two full years into the pandemic, the agency leading the countrys response to the public health emergency has published only a tiny fraction of the data it has collected, several people familiar with the data said.
Much of the withheld information could help state and local health officials better target their efforts to bring the virus under control. Detailed, timely data on hospitalizations by age and race would help health officials identify and help the populations at highest risk. Information on hospitalizations and death by age and vaccination status would have helped inform whether healthy adults needed booster shots. And wastewater surveillance across the nation would spot outbreaks and emerging variants early.
Without the booster data for 18- to 49-year-olds, the outside experts whom federal health agencies look to for advice had to rely on numbers from Israel to make their recommendations on the shots.
Kristen Nordlund, a spokeswoman for the C.D.C., said the agency has been slow to release the different streams of data because basically, at the end of the day, its not yet ready for prime time. She said the agencys priority when gathering any data is to ensure that its accurate and actionable.
Another reason is fear that the information might be misinterpreted, Ms. Nordlund said.
Dr. Daniel Jernigan, the agencys deputy director for public health science and surveillance said the pandemic exposed the fact that data systems at the C.D.C., and at the state levels, are outmoded and not up to handling large volumes of data. C.D.C. scientists are trying to modernize the systems, he said.
We want better, faster data that can lead to decision making and actions at all levels of public health, that can help us eliminate the lag in data that has held us back, he added.
The C.D.C. also has multiple bureaucratic divisions that must sign off on important publications, and its officials must alert the Department of Health and Human Services which oversees the agency and the White House of their plans. The agency often shares data with states and partners before making data public. Those steps can add delays.
The C.D.C. is a political organization as much as it is a public health organization, said Samuel Scarpino, managing director of pathogen surveillance at the Rockefeller Foundations Pandemic Prevention Institute. The steps that it takes to get something like this released are often well outside of the control of many of the scientists that work at the C.D.C.
The performance of vaccines and boosters, particularly in younger adults, is among the most glaring omissions in data the C.D.C. has made public.
Last year, the agency repeatedly came under fire for not tracking so-called breakthrough infections in vaccinated Americans, and focusing only on individuals who became ill enough to be hospitalized or die. The agency presented that information as risk comparisons with unvaccinated adults, rather than provide timely snapshots of hospitalized patients stratified by age, sex, race and vaccination status.
But the C.D.C. has been routinely collecting information since the Covid vaccines were first rolled out last year, according to a federal official familiar with the effort. The agency has been reluctant to make those figures public, the official said, because they might be misinterpreted as the vaccines being ineffective.
Ms. Nordlund confirmed that as one of the reasons. Another reason, she said, is that the data represents only 10 percent of the population of the United States. But the C.D.C. has relied on the same level of sampling to track influenza for years.
Some outside public health experts were stunned to hear that information exists.
We have been begging for that sort of granularity of data for two years, said Jessica Malaty Rivera, an epidemiologist and part of the team that ran Covid Tracking Project, an independent effort that compiled data on the pandemic till March 2021.
A detailed analysis, she said, builds public trust, and it paints a much clearer picture of whats actually going on.
Concern about the misinterpretation of hospitalization data broken down by vaccination status is not unique to the C.D.C. On Thursday, public health officials in Scotland said they would stop releasing data on Covid hospitalizations and deaths by vaccination status because of similar fears that the figures would be misrepresented by anti-vaccine groups.
Feb. 21, 2022, 9:57 p.m. ET
But the experts dismissed the potential misuse or misinterpretation of data as an acceptable reason for not releasing it.
We are at a much greater risk of misinterpreting the data with data vacuums, than sharing the data with proper science, communication and caveats, Ms. Rivera said.
When the Delta variant caused an outbreak in Massachusetts last summer, the fact that three-quarters of those infected were vaccinated led people to mistakenly conclude that the vaccines were powerless against the virus validating the C.D.C.s concerns.
But that could have been avoided if the agency had educated the public from the start that as more people are vaccinated, the percentage of vaccinated people who are infected or hospitalized would also rise, public health experts said.
Tell the truth, present the data, said Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine expert and adviser to the Food and Drug Administration. I have to believe that there is a way to explain these things so people can understand it.
Knowing which groups of people were being hospitalized in the United States, which other conditions those patients may have had and how vaccines changed the picture over time would have been invaluable, Dr. Offit said.
Relying on Israeli data to make booster recommendations for Americans was less than ideal, Dr. Offit noted. Israel defines severe disease differently than the United States, among other factors.
Theres no reason that they should be better at collecting and putting forth data than we were, Dr. Offit said of Israeli scientists. The C.D.C. is the principal epidemiological agency in this country, and so you would like to think the data came from them.
It has also been difficult to find C.D.C. data on the proportion of children hospitalized for Covid who have other medical conditions, said Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, chair of the American Academy of Pediatricss Committee on Infectious Diseases.
The academys staff asked their partners at the C.D.C. for that information on a call in December, according to a spokeswoman for the A.A.P., and were told it was unavailable.
Booster shots. A flurry of new studies suggests three doses of a Covid vaccine or even just two can provide long-term protectionfrom serious illness and death. The studies come as U.S. health officials have said that they are unlikely to recommenda fourth dose before the fall.
C.D.C. data. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has published only a tiny fraction of the Covid data it has collected, including critical data on boosters and hospitalizations, citing incomplete reports or fears of misinterpretation. Critics say the practice causes confusion.
Ms. Nordlund pointed to data on the agencys website that includes this information, and to multiple published reports on pediatric hospitalizations with information on children who have other health conditions.
The pediatrics academy has repeatedly asked the C.D.C. for an estimate on the contagiousness of a person infected with the coronavirus five days after symptoms begin but Dr. Maldonado finally got the answer from an article in The New York Times in December.
Theyve known this for over a year and a half, right, and they havent told us, she said. I mean, you cant find out anything from them.
Experts in wastewater analysis were more understanding of the C.D.C.s slow pace of making that data public. The C.D.C. has been building the wastewater system since September 2020, and the capacity to present the data over the past few months, Ms. Nordlund said. In the meantime, the C.D.C.s state partners have had access to the data, she said.
Despite the cautious preparation, the C.D.C. released the wastewater data a week later than planned. The Covid Data Tracker is updated only on Thursdays, and the day before the original release date, the scientists who manage the tracker realized they needed more time to integrate the data.
It wasnt because the data wasnt ready, it was because the systems and how it physically displayed on the page wasnt working the way that they wanted it to, Ms. Nordlund said.
The C.D.C. has received more than $1 billion to modernize its systems, which may help pick up the pace, Ms. Nordlund said. Were working on that, she said.
The agencys public dashboard now has data from 31 states. Eight of those states, including Utah, began sending their figures to the C.D.C. in the fall of 2020. Some relied on scientists volunteering their expertise; others paid private companies. But many others, such as Mississippi, New Mexico and North Dakota, have yet to begin tracking wastewater.
Utahs fledgling program in April 2020 has now grown to cover 88 percent of the states population, with samples being collected twice a week, according to Nathan LaCross, who manages Utahs wastewater surveillance program.
Wastewater data reflects the presence of the virus in an entire community, so it is not plagued by the privacy concerns attached to medical information that would normally complicate data release, experts said.
There are a bunch of very important and substantive legal and ethical challenges that dont exist for wastewater data, Dr. Scarpino said. That lowered bar should certainly mean that data could flow faster.
Tracking wastewater can help identify areas experiencing a high burden of cases early, Dr. LaCross said. That allows officials to better allocate resources like mobile testing teams and testing sites.
Wastewater is also a much faster and more reliable barometer of the spread of the virus than the number of cases or positive tests. Well before the nation became aware of the Delta variant, for example, scientists who track wastewater had seen its rise and alerted the C.D.C., Dr. Scarpino said. They did so in early May, just before the agency famously said vaccinated people could take off their masks.
Even now, the agency is relying on a technique that captures the amount of virus, but not the different variants in the mix, said Mariana Matus, chief executive officer of BioBot Analytics, which specializes in wastewater analysis. That will make it difficult for the agency to spot and respond to outbreaks of new variants in a timely manner, she said.
It gets really exhausting when you see the private sector working faster than the premier public health agency of the world, Ms. Rivera said.
With the global death toll from Covid-19 approaching 6 million, the need to understand the origins of the pandemic is both pressing and grave. But the National Institutes of Health continues to withhold critical documents that could shed light on this question. This week, in response to ongoing litigation over public records related to coronavirus research funded by the federal agency, the NIH sent The Intercept 292 fully redacted pages rather than substantive material that could help us understand how the virus first came to infect humans.
One of hundreds of redacted pages the NIH sent to The Intercept this week in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
The lab-leak hypothesis is bolstered by a long history of accidents at facilities that study pathogens and the fact that one such laboratory that specializes in coronaviruses, the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, is located in the very city where the pandemic first began. As many have noted, China has not been forthcoming with information that could help us understand the origins of the pandemic, blocking access to a cave that may hold important clues, taking a database of information about coronaviruses offline, and refusing requests for records from the World Health Organization.
But the U.S. government, which funded some of the coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology through a New York-based research organization called EcoHealth Alliance, has also withheld information that could provide insight into the origins of the pandemic. The Intercept filed a Freedom of Information Act request in September 2020 for grants the NIH provided to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. At the time, only summaries of the research were publicly available. The NIH initially refused to provide the documents. It was only after The Intercept sued the federal agency that it agreed to provide thousands of pages of relevant materials.
Some of these releases have proven newsworthy. The grant proposals received in an initial batch of documents in September revealed thatscientists working under the grant inWuhan were engaged in what most knowledgeable experts we consulted described as gain-of-function experiments, in which scientists created mutant bat coronaviruses and used them to infect humanized mice. The mutant viruses proved more pathogenic and transmissible in the mice than the original viruses. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, denied that the U.S. had funded gain-of-function work in Wuhan.
Communications received by The Intercept in December provided insight into the agencys ongoing and largely unsuccessful efforts to obtain records pertaining to the biosafety of the work conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. And another grant proposal from EcoHealth Alliance that we received from the NIH clarified the extent to which ongoing work now funded by the U.S. government is similar to the work under the now-suspended bat coronavirus grantthat has raised so many biosafety red flags and questions. We also learned that in 2020 the FBI sought documents related to the U.S.-funded coronavirus research in Wuhan.
But the most recent batch of documents, which the NIH sent The Intercept on Tuesday, underscores an ongoing lack of transparency at the agency.Even as members of Congress and scientists call for additional information that could shed light on the origins of the pandemic, 292 of 314 pages more than 90 percent of the current release were completely redacted. Besides a big gray rectangle that obscures any meaningful text, the pages show only a date, page number, and the NIAID logo. The remaining pages also contain significant redactions.
Evenwhen the redactions are technically justifiable under the Freedom of Information Act,public agencies typically havethe discretion to release documents anyway.In this inquiry, which could help us understand thehow this pandemic began and how we might avoid future outbreaks the presumption should be to give the public as much as information as possible, not the least.
The NIH still had more than 1,400 pages of relevant documents in its possession when it issued the almost entirely redacted release to The Intercept. Despite broad bipartisan agreementabout the need to better understandwhether research could have led to the deadliest disease outbreak in recent history, the agency appears to have no urgency to make this critical information public.
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) With February being heart month, Baystate Health is highlighting a treatment thats been used for decades for heart related conditions but is now saving the lives of some of the sickest COVID-19 patients.
Its called an ECMO. Its used as a last resort for COVID patients. But the cardiac surgeon 22News spoke with at Baystate said its showing results. Baystate Medical Center is the only hospital west of Boston that offers this procedure in the state.
ECMO stands for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. Heres how it works, the machine pumps the blood and brings oxygen to a persons body, and that allows the lungs to rest.
Doctor Daniel Engelman, the Baystate Cardiac Surgical Critical Care Medical Director, told 22News, And then we give all the antiviral treatments we can and then the body kind of takes over. And over time, I would say 50% of the people who go on this machine survive to the point where theyre walking out of the hospital. These are the people where 100% of them would have died.
Doctor Engleman add that while this treatment can be a literal lifesaver, he said the need for it could be avoided if people got vaccinated, and therefore protected themselves from serious illness or death. In fact, every person theyve used this treatment on here at Baystate, he said, was unvaccinated.
Fluvoxamine is often prescribed to treat depression, while ivermectin is used to treat parasitic infections.
UVA Health has signed on to a national study on whether two medications ivermectin and fluvoxamine can be used to treat COVID-19.
About 15,000 Americans in total are expected to be involved in the trial.
While we have some great new drugs for COVID-19 in outpatients supplies are limited and its still important to find potential new treatments, said Dr. Patrick E.H. Jackson, who is leading the clinical trial at UVA Health.
Because the drugs were studying are cheap and widely available, they could have a huge global impact if we find theyre effective for COVID treatment.
Fluvoxamine is often prescribed to treat depression, while ivermectin is used to treat parasitic infections. (The Food and Drug Administration currently recommends that ivermectin not be used to treat COVID-19, and a study published last week in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that the drug does not prevent severe COVID cases.)
To be eligible for the study, participants must be at least 30 years old and have tested positive for COVID within the previous 10 days. They also must have at least two COVID symptoms for seven days or less.
UVA Health says participants do not have to live near a research site, because the medications can be shipped to their homes at no cost.
Find more information on the trial by visiting activ6study.org or calling (833) 385-1880.
More Coronavirus News
Looking for more information? D.C., Maryland and Virginia are each releasing more data every day. Visit their official sites here:Virginia|Maryland|D.C.
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