Sure, there are official CDC quarantine guidelines and a new state hotline and website for people who test positive. You should consult both. But sometimes its good to hear from another human. These Oregonians share what was hard and what helped them get through.
Tyson Bittrich
Courtesy of Tyson Bittrich
Name: Tyson Bittrich
Variant: probably delta.
Days in isolation: 13
Most useful coping strategies: living on separate floors, buying a pulse oximeter.
Tyson Bittrich, 40, is a musician whos studying renewable energy engineering at the Oregon Institute of Technology in Wilsonville.
He started feeling cruddy on the Tuesday after Halloween. He went to get a test on Thursday with his partner, but it took two days to get the results.
Saturday morning I woke up and I couldnt smell my coffee. I couldnt smell my oatmeal. And sure enough, my results came back Saturday afternoon that I was a positive case, he said.
Bittrich says hed been doing all the right things: wearing a mask; getting vaccinated twice with Pfizer.
I guess there was a sense of surprise and also guilt or shame or something, Bittrich said.
When you test positive for something like this, its not just like a: Oh, wow. Im in harms way. Its: Oh, wow, Im letting the team down.
Before testing positive, Bittrich and his partner were cooking, eating, sleeping, even practicing yoga together. But when he tested negative, they wore masks whenever they got close. Friends offered to put his partner up for the duration, but they decided to stay together and distance, especially because there are two floors in their apartment.
I stayed in the top floor and she stayed in the bottom floor. Since I was feeling fairly crummy, she took care of me. I would have not made it through as well without her of course.
They separated their toiletries in the bathroom. She cooked and when they ate together he sat 15 feet away. They separated their toothbrushes, but didnt sanitize the door handles in the apartment, figuring the greater risk was from breathing in aerosolized virus, rather than via contaminated surfaces.
He contacted any friends and bandmates that he thought he might have infected, but hasnt heard that anybody else caught COVID-19 from him. After testing positive at Zoomcare, Bittrich talked online to an advice nurse.
The advice I got from the nurse, which I followed, was just keep track of two vitals, high fever and your oxygen saturation, he said.
He bought a pulse oximeter, delivered to the house by Target for about $30, to keep track of his oxygen levels. He took his temperature and measured his oxygen saturation three times a day.
I didnt get my taste back until Thanksgiving, but it gave me peace of mind, right? That Im not doing the wrong thing by not going into urgent care, he said.
Bittrichs partner did not get the virus, even though they were in close proximity before he started feeling sick. Their theory is that shed received a booster three weeks earlier, so she had high levels of antibodies to ward off infection.
The times I felt the scariest were the days when my lungs felt the heaviest and head felt like an over-inflated balloon.
Natasha Schwartz
Courtesy of Natasha Schwartz
Name: Natasha Schwartz
Variant: omicron
Days in isolation: 20
Advice: Take the time you need to recover five days wont be enough for some health workers. Use a primary care doctor or immediate care/urgent care clinic, rather than the emergency department. An Apple watch can serve as a heart rate and oxygen-saturation monitor.
Schwartz is an acute care nurse at Oregon Health & Science University, working in the emergency general surgery unit. She lives with her partner, a medical student at OHSU, and has been vaccinated and boosted. Schwartz says shes spent the last two years limiting her social contact to avoid the virus.
Schwartz believes she was likely exposed at work by a patient or co-worker. Until recently, OHSU only tested patients on her unit for COVID-19 if they were showing symptoms, she said.
Her symptoms started on Dec. 23. At first, it was just a headache.
I get migraines, so I thought it was just another migraine, Schwartz said, and then as my shift progressed, I developed some congestion.
After her shift she got a rapid PCR test, and through that OHSUs occupational health program found out she was positive for COVID-19.
She felt angry, defeated, and guilty that shed gotten the virus in spite of wearing a mask and PPE at work and being so careful to protect herself from exposure over the last two years.
I was at work and I knew that I could have been contagious, you know, two days prior to that. Just thinking about potentially exposing my co-workers and patients to COVID really was the biggest thing, she said.
Understanding how much more contagious the omicron variant is than previous variants has helped her with those feelings.
Schwartz called her unit and let the charge nurse and her manager know shed tested positive, and asked her to share the news with the people shed interacted with.
Christmas was coming up and people were going to probably go see family members and you know elderly relatives and I just didnt want people to potentially infect their family members over the holidays, she said.
She canceled her own in-person Christmas with her parents and video chatted over Zoom instead.
Schwartz takes a medication that suppresses her immune system and is considered immunocompromised. At home, she monitored her heart rate and oxygen levels using an Apple watch, kept track of her temperature, and took Tylenol.
She experienced a wide range of symptoms: fever, body aches, severe fatigue and shortness of breath. Five days after she tested positive, her symptoms worsened and she decided to see a doctor. She was too sick to walk around the house or prepare food for herself.
My heart rate was getting really elevated and I was just having so much physical pain from the body aches. I just really wasnt able to move much, she said.
To avoid a long wait in the emergency department, she emailed her primary care doctor and ended up getting seen at an immediate care facility. There, she was prescribed monoclonal antibodies, and treated through an at-home infusion service.
I think the hardest part of it was getting access to care and the fear that, if I needed to go to the hospital, the system is just really overwhelmed. Even as a nurse, I may not have access to the care I need, she said.
Schwartz said after three weeks, shes mostly recovered and getting ready to return to work. She believes the antibody treatment helped.
However, she still has lingering symptoms. She wears a heart monitor to track her heart rate, which is still elevated.
Her partner only had symptoms for a few days and has no residual symptoms.
Schwartz says her doctors recommended that she quarantine for a full 20 days because of her compromised immune system, which might lead a person to shed the virus for a longer period of time.
Shes returning to work. New guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention allow hospitals with staffing shortages and high patient demand to return COVID-19 positive staff to work after just five days of quarantine, with or without a negative test.
Those guidelines have been condemned by nursing organizations, including the Oregon Nurses Association where Schwartz sits on the board.
Schwartz says OHSU is requiring a negative antigen test first from anyone returning five to 10 days after their symptoms start, an additional step she finds reassuring.
But after her experience with COVID-19, shes concerned about the pressure other nurses may face to work while they are still sick.
Even if my symptoms had improved and I wasnt contagious, theres no way I could have gone back to safely taking care of patients after five days, she said.
Her advice to other nurses is to take the time they need to recover and to accept their physical limitations.
Aarti Kamalahasan
Courtesy of Aarti Kamalahasan
Name: Aarti Kamalahasan
Variant: omicron
Days in quarantine: five
Advice: Get your kids their boosters as soon as you can.
Kamalahasan is an instructional coach for a large school district in Washington County. Shes recently remarried and lives with her husband and a 22 year-old daughter who works in health care. Her son, who is in high school, splits his time between living with her and with his dad.
Kamalahasan and her children have a history of asthma, so shes been afraid COVID-19 could hit them all particularly hard. She got a booster for herself, and pushed to get both her children boosters in mid-December, as soon as they qualified.
After Christmas, her son got a Snapchat message from a school friend who had tested positive for COVID-19. Within a few days, that had snowballed into five or six friends whod all tested positive.
Kamalahasan spent several days hunting for at-home antigen tests after both her son and daughter started experiencing possible symptoms exhaustion and a scratchy throat but was unable to find them anywhere.
They decided to assume they were positive until they knew otherwise.
Tests were hard to come by, and we didnt know what to do, she said. We finally got both of them into their pediatrician and they tested positive. And then I started showing symptoms later that day.
Kamalahasan usually works in-person, supporting and coaching other teachers. She got permission to shift to online-only work.
She went through a rollercoaster of symptoms: serious nausea, chills, a headache and body aches, and shortness of breath.
I kept telling myself, this is mild, she said.
Kamalahasan says they stuck to her sons parenting schedule, so he quarantined at his dads house. Her adult daughter, who usually lives with her, also ended up quarantined at a separate home.
Neither got as sick as she did, but not being able to see her children while they were sick was the hardest part of the experience. Shed try to listen to how their breathing sounded over the phone.
I was just not able to sleep at all, constantly texting, calling, snapchatting. My kids were like, mommy were okay. Im like, okay, but Im going to call you again in an hour.
They were all able to manage their symptoms with over the counter pain medication, lots of hydration, and their inhalers. Mainly what we realized we needed was loads and loads of rest, she said.
Ultimately, knowing her children had their boosters was a major relief. She wasnt afraid theyd wind up hospitalized.
Science had my back, she said.
She was able to finally get antigen tests from Walmart and all three have now tested negative.
Name: Eva McCarthy
Variant wave: wild-type (original)
Days in quarantine: 21
Advice: Accept that it may take time to fully recover and be ready to adapt your routines.
McCarthy practices family medicine in Sublimity, Oregon.
She had a mild case of COVID-19 in the relatively early days of the pandemic, before vaccines were available, in November 2020.
McCarthy was symptomatic for about a week with sinus congestion and upper respiratory symptoms.
At the time, there were much longer isolation guidelines in place, so she had to wait a full 21 days before returning to in-person work.
In the meantime I did telemedicine from home and received a lot of pies and chicken soup on my porch, which I couldnt taste but were very thoughtful, she said.
Even though McCarthy considers herself lucky to have had had only a mild case, she says she still hasnt fully recovered her sense of taste and smell.
Speaking with co-workers who are more recently recovering from COVID, there is a general consensus of surprise over how long the alteration in taste and smell has lasted and how it has changed the things we used to enjoy. For example, I no longer like cilantro or sour foods. Lemon, lime, and orange flavors also have a bad aftertaste and my tolerance of spice has gone way down (and Im Korean so that is sad), she said.
I also hear from colleagues and patients that brain fog and fatigue is real and it has affected work performance for some.
McCarthy wishes shed received better guidance on what to expect, and how long symptoms can last for some people.
Everyones recovery will be slightly different, and in her experience, it helps to focus on the things you can control. Change what you eat to accommodate your new taste buds, or spend more time walking and stretching rather than jumping right back into high intensity workouts.
I also want people to remain fully vigilant of the potential to get re-infected as I have personally known people who have had it again after being fully vaccinated, she said. While I hope that I will not get re-infected and have been boosted, I am not ruling it out and I dont think my taste buds could tolerate another round of COVID.
Every time a new variant comes along, COVID-19 vaccine and drug makers reassess their recipes to see if they work against an evolving viruslike Omicron, which has spread quickly around the globe in little more than a month.
Since the start of the pandemic in December 2019, the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that causes COVID-19 has mutated multiple times, giving rise to different variants. Because most vaccines were designed to recognize the original SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, or at least parts of it, more mutated variants like Omicron are better at escaping protection offered by the vaccines, although they still prevent severe disease.
Last month, vaccine makers talked about tweaking the formula to have an Omicron-specific vaccine handy, if needed. But Omicron wont be the last variant, says Stephen Zeichner, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Virginia Medical Center. Its pretty clear that the virus continues to evolve and going forward there is a need for a universal COVID-19 vaccine or even a universal coronavirus vaccine.
Since 2020, in preparation for the next deadly coronavirus outbreak, which experts think is only a matter of time, some scientists started developing vaccines that protect against multiple coronaviruses. Many efforts currently focus on known sarbecoviruses, which include SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2, and some SARS-like bat viruses that have the potential to jump from animals to humans.
Early tests in animal models are showing promising results. The great thing about having such vaccines is that they could handle potentially new [SARS-CoV-2] variants as well as the next horrible spillover viruses thatll come down the road, says structural biologist Pamela Bjrkman at the California Institute of Technology, who is developing a universal vaccine for some SARS-like viruses.
Omicron, the latest version of the virus classified as a variant of concern by the World Health Organization on Nov. 26, 2021, has nearly 50 genetic mutations compared to the original SARS-CoV-2 strain. More than 30 of these are on the club-shaped spikes protruding from the virus surface that facilitate its entry into host cells. The spike is also the region of the virus that COVID-19 vaccines target to prevent serious disease.
Human coronaviruses were first identified in the mid-1960s and rarely caused severe disease. But that changed in 2002, when a fatal respiratory illness caused by a new coronavirus SARS-CoV linked to cave-dwelling bats emerged in China and spread to 29 countries, infecting nearly 8,000 people, and leaving more than 700 dead. A decade later, another new coronavirus, MERS-CoVthat emerged in Saudi Arabia and presumably originated in batshas infected more than 2,000 people in 37 countries and killed nearly 900 to date. The danger posed by coronaviruses originating in animals became even more apparent with SARS-CoV-2, which has resulted in nearly 332 million confirmed worldwide cases and more than five million deaths since its emergence in late 2019.
While short-sightedness and limited funding have hindered the development and testing of these vaccines, recent investments like the non-profit Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations $200 million program and the National Institutes of Healths $36.3 million research fund means that pan-coronavirus virus vaccinesat least for SARS-like virusesmay be a reality sooner than many imagined.
The goal of such vaccines is to generate a broad immune response against multiple coronaviruses and its variants.
The effort that is farthest along is a vaccine developed by researchers at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, which has been tested in humans as part of a Phase I trial. The vaccine, which borrows technology developed for making universal flu vaccines, entails a soccer ball-shaped nanoparticle with 24 faces decorated with multiple copies of the original SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. Peer reviewed research conducted in monkeys showed the vaccines ability to generate antibodies that neutralize and block the entry of SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 and its major variants (excluding Omicron, which was not tested) into animal cells. The repetitive and ordered display of the coronavirus spike protein on a multi-faceted nanoparticle may stimulate immunity in such a way as to translate into significantly broader protection, Kayvon Modjarrad, co-inventor of the vaccine, stated in a press release. His team is currently analyzing the Phase I data. National Geographic reached out to Walter Reed multiple times for more details, but they declined to comment until the results of the Phase I trials are published.
Other universal coronavirus vaccine efforts involve targeting a slow evolving, genetic and structurally similar region on the viruseswhere antibodies bind as part of a bodys immune response to a foreign invaderor additionally engaging the bodys immune cells called T cells.
Zeichner, for instance, is focusing on the fusion peptide region, which is part of the coronavirus spike protein that aids the entry of the virus into host cells, to develop a pan-coronavirus vaccine. It is extremely conserved among all coronaviruses, he says. It doesnt mutate very much. Along with colleagues, he tested a proof-of-concept vaccine using a SARS-CoV-2 fusion peptide and early results indicated that in pigs the vaccine provided some protection against a different coronavirus, called porcine epidemic diarrhea virus, that doesnt infect humans. His team is now collaborating with researchers at Virginia Tech and the International Vaccine Institute in Seoul to further develop and continue testing the vaccine against different SARS-CoV-2 variants and other coronaviruses.
Bjrkman and her colleagues, on the other hand, are focusing on a more specific target: the spike proteins receptor-binding domain (RBD). Its the region of the spike to which most antibodies bind to prevent SARS-CoV-2 from entering the host cell; it is also the region within which mutations occur, giving rise to variants. For the vaccine, they used RBD proteins from up to eight virusesincluding the original SARS-CoV-2 and other SARS-like coronaviruses isolated from batsthat were fused onto a nanoparticle with 60 faces. By injecting this vaccine into mice, Bjrkman and her colleagues found the animals produced diverse antibodies, which in follow-up experiments blocked infections caused by several SARS-like viruses, including coronavirus strains not used to create the vaccines.
To Bjrkman, this suggests that the animals immune system might be learning to recognize common features between the coronaviruses and that her mosaic vaccine, with pieces selected from multiple viruses, might be useful when new SARS-like viruses or new SARS-CoV-2 variants emerge. Her team is currently gearing up to test the vaccine in humans.
Vaccine researcher Kevin Saunders at the Duke Human Vaccine Institute is also focusing on the RBD, but a very specific part of it, to make a pan-SARS-like virus vaccine. When the pandemic began in early 2020, Saunders and his colleagues began hunting for antibodies that would inactivate SARS-like viruses. They examined antibodies present in frozen stored cells of an individual who recovered from SARS-CoV infection and another individual previously infected with COVID-19.
They identified a potent antibody dubbed DH1047 occurring in cells from both patients that could block infections in which mice that had been injected withseveral bat and human coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-2 variants. A closer look revealed the antibody bound to the same small section of the spike proteins RBD in different coronaviruses, which became the vaccine target.
By injecting monkeys with multiple copies of this SARS-CoV-2 RBD piece fused to a nanoparticle, Saunders and his colleagues demonstrated the vaccines ability to protect against not just SARS-CoV-2 but several other coronavirus infections. The team is now testing different iterations of this nanoparticle vaccine by introducing RDB sections from other coronaviruses to broaden the hosts immune response.
Sometimes you make hundreds of versions of these [vaccines] and test them in animals before deciding on a version to study in humans, says Julie Ledgerwood, deputy director and chief medical officer at the National Institutes of Healths Vaccine Research Center. Its not simple, she says.
Meanwhile, scientists are also trying to figure out how these vaccines could cover not just SARS-like viruses but MERS and other more distantly-related coronaviruses too. The sequence diversity and structural differences between coronaviruses that fall into different groups is going to be a challenge, Saunders says. Some scientists propose a different vaccine for different coronavirus families.
For now, though, the need for at least a pan-SARS-like coronavirus vaccine cannot be ignored. Were no longer thinking of this as itll be great to have this for the next pandemic, Saunders says. Were thinking of this as a great tool to stop this pandemic.
President Biden will give his first press conference of the year at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, which comes the night before the one-year anniversary of his inauguration. Questions about how his administration has handled the pandemicwhich is entering its third yearare likely to come up. While the Biden administrations approach has been different than Trump's, it has encountered its own challenges, especially in regard to keeping up with the Delta and Omicron variants. Here are some of the other recent headlines you might have missed.
President Biden released a 200-page pandemic strategy almost a year ago and he has struggled to execute key parts of it, The Washington Post reported on Monday. Some of Bidens biggest challenges on executing that plan have been beyond his control, including courts that delayed and then blocked his vaccination-or-test mandates; Republicans who fought calls for masking and promoted vaccine disinformation; and, most significantly, an unpredictable virus that has evolved to evade some protections conferred by vaccines even as it became more transmissible, said the report. But many say the United States would have been better prepared to deal with the viruss curveballs if the administration had more quickly delivered on promises to improve testing and real-time virus surveillance and encouraged masking nationwide, rather than focusing so heavily on vaccines.
The White House is going to make 400 million N95 masks available for free at thousands of locations across the nation, Politico reported on Tuesday night. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its guidance on Friday saying N95 and KN95 masks offer the highest levels of protection, but whatever product you choose, it should provide a good fit.
The White Houses website to receive free COVID-19 tests had some initial issues in its beta launch on Tuesday, Politico reported. Some residents in multi-unit dwellings tried to register to have tests delivered but received error messages saying tests already had been ordered for their address, said the report. An administration official said the problem was not widespread and that orders are being prioritized for people in areas facing disproportionate COVID-19 cases and deaths the first 20% of test orders processed will be for people in vulnerable ZIP codes.
The Small Business Administrations watchdog issued a report on Tuesday about the agencys oversight of a grant recipients portal for COVID-19 related resources and information, as authorized by the CARES Act. SBA made sure the grant recipient created and launched the hub on time and that the hub worked well and met the technical requirements, said the SBA inspector general. However, SBA did not ensure the grant recipient adhered to applicable federal procurement requirements when contracting for services to implement the information and training portal, among other oversight shortcomings.
Challenges to the vaccine mandate for federal contractors are now before four federal appeals courts, Bloomberg Law reported.
Joshua Sharfstein, professor of the practice at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins who was previously principal deputy commissioner of Food and Drug Administration from 2009 to 2011, wrote in The New York Times on Monday how the FDA and CDC can better work together on the pandemic response. His suggestions are on testing guidance, reviewing and explaining booster shots and providing guidance to parents of young kids. While the agencies have different authorities, the usual division of labor, however, has not worked well during the pandemic, wrote Sharfstein. The public has been confused by the lack of clarity around how recommendations are made for vaccines and by the finger-pointing when problems arise.
Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who is vaccinated and boosted, tested positive for COVID-19 on Sunday. He was experiencing very mild symptoms, and is able to work remotely, said Joint Staff Spokesperson Col. Dave Butler.
Smithsonian museums in Washington, D.C. and the National Zoo have adopted modified schedules until further notice starting Monday after a similar temporary schedule earlier this month due to staffing shortages as a result of COVID-19. This newly modified schedule reflects the continued need to reduce operations due to ongoing staff shortages while accommodating the needs of the public by opening more museums on weekends, said a press release.
The Veterans Affairs Department is delaying its deployment of a new electronic health records system at the VA Central Ohio Healthcare System from March 5 to April 30 due to a surge in coronavirus cases. A significant number of the workforce at the facility (approximately 209 employees) are unable to work, doubling the number of employees reporting this status the previous week and one of the largest changes in this status across all VA medical facilities nationwide, said a press release from VA on Friday. VA officials are continuously reviewing the conditions at upcoming implementation sites to ensure local conditions allow for a safe deployment.
Help us understand the situation better. Are you a federal employee, contractor or military member with information, concerns, etc. about how your agency is handling the coronavirus? Email us at newstips@govexec.com.
LONDON With Omicron cases beginning to fall, Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain said on Wednesday that coronavirus restrictions in England would be eased next week, a move likely to mollify critics in his restive Conservative Party at a time when he is besieged by career-threatening political scandals.
After a raucous question-and-answer session in Parliament that was overshadowed by the prime ministers own political woes, Mr. Johnson said that requirements for mask wearing and showing proof of vaccination would be lifted. The government is also no longer advising people to work from home.
As Covid becomes endemic, we will need to replace legal requirements with advice and guidance urging people with the virus to be careful and considerate of others, Mr. Johnson said.
The prime minister has pointed to Britains robust vaccine booster program and widespread testing alongside a drop in coronavirus cases as the rationale for the policy shift, even as scientists and public health experts warn that it is too early to declare the virus merely a mundane part of everyday life.
Mr. Johnson also said the government planned to eventually end the legal requirement to self-isolate which now expires on March 24 and that he might bring forward that date, likening it to how people are not legally required to isolate after contracting the flu.
He said he had met with his cabinet on Wednesday morning to review the limited curbs now in place and to discuss the latest health data.
The expected shift in coronavirus policy comes as the prime minister is under intense political pressure, from both opposition lawmakers and leaders in his own party, over claims that he lied to Parliament about parties held in Downing Street during a lockdown.
On Wednesday, a member of his Conservative Party, Christian Wakeford, defected to the opposition Labour Party in protest over the scandal.
Under the current rules, introduced in December under what was called Plan B, people in England have been urged to work from home if possible and instructed to wear face coverings in confined spaces such as public transportation.
The government also introduced a requirement for people entering nightclubs and some large sporting events to show a pass proving that they had either been vaccinated or had recently tested negative for coronavirus.
In December, nearly 100 Conservative lawmakers rebelled over the imposition of the vaccine certification restrictions. And just before Christmas Mr. Johnson did not tighten restrictions despite calls from scientists worried about skyrocketing cases of the Omicron variant and the resulting pressure on the health service.
The Plan B measures were scheduled to expire on Jan. 26, and by announcing a relaxation this week, Mr. Johnson could deflect some attention from the furor over the Downing Street parties.
Cases in Britain remain high but are down 39 percent in the most recent seven-day period compared with the previous week. While Downing Street said that about 17,000 people remained hospitalized in England alone, daily hospital admissions of Covid patients there have also begun to fall after peaking on Jan. 9, according to the Our World in Data project at Oxford University.
The average number of daily deaths, which lag behind cases, is up to 264, a 107 percent increase over two weeks, according to a New York Times database.
Healthcare workers are pictured at a testing center for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Buenos Aires, Argentina January 6, 2022. REUTERS/Agustin Marcarian/File Photo
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BRASILIA, Jan 19 (Reuters) - COVID-19 infections are reaching new peaks in the Americas with 7.2 million new cases and more than 15,000 COVID-related deaths in the last week, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said on Wednesday.
"The virus is spreading more actively than ever before," PAHO Director Carissa Etienne told a briefing.
The Caribbean has had the steepest increase in infections since the start of the two-year-old pandemic, the regional agency said. In North America, the United States and Canada are experiencing a surge of COVID-19 hospitalizations.
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Given a shortage of testing, PAHO recommended that countries prioritize rapid antigen tests for people with COVID-19 symptoms and who are at risk of spreading the virus.
Even though more than 60% of people in Latin America and the Caribbean have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, Omicron is spreading rapidly in all regions, said PAHO Incident Manager Sylvain Aldighieri.
The variant's advance in coming weeks and months will depend on public health measures to contain it, including use of masks and social distancing and above all vaccinations, to reduce the severity of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, he said.
Brazil reported a record 137,103 cases of the coronavirus in 24 hours as Omicron spread in Latin America's largest country, the Health Ministry said on Tuesday, as new infections soared above the previous daily record of 115,228 in June last year.
Brazil has the world's third highest death toll from COVID-19 after the United States and Russia, according to a Reuters tally. read more
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Reporting by Anthony Boadle; Editing by Howard Goller
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
HONG KONG, Jan 19 (Reuters) - Thousands of people in Hong Kong volunteered on Wednesday to adopt unwanted hamsters after a mass cull order from the government over COVID-19 fears raised alarm that panicky owners would abandon their pets.
Authorities ordered on Tuesday 2,000 hamsters from dozens of pet shops and storage facilities to be culled after tracing a coronavirus outbreak to a worker in the Little Boss petshop, where 11 hamsters subsequently tested positive for COVID-19.
Scientists around the world and Hong Kong health and veterinary authorities have said there was no evidence that animals play a major role in human contagion with the coronavirus.
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But having pursued a policy of zero tolerance for COVID-19, Health Secretary Sophia Chan said on Tuesday she could not rule out any transmission possibilities and therefore the government could take no chances.
Soon after, health workers in hazmat suits were seen walking out of pet shops around the city carrying red plastic bags into their vans. Some 150 of the petshop's customers were sent into quarantine.
Public broadcaster RTHK said some hamster owners were seen handing over their animals at a government facility in the New Territories, while groups swiftly formed on social media to identify new owners for unwanted pet rodents.
Ocean, 29, a hamster owner and the administrator of 'Hong Kong the Cute Hamster Group' on the Telegram social media app, said the group was contacted by almost 3,000 people willing to take care of unwanted animals temporarily.
Three young owners were pressured by their families to get rid of their hamsters even though they all owned them for more than half a year, said Ocean, who declined to give her last name fearing angry reactions from those who support the cull.
"Many pet owners are unfamiliar with the exact risks and give up their hamsters, she said.
Bowie, 27, one of those who volunteered in the group, is now the owner of two new hamsters.
"This is ridiculous," said Bowie, who already owned three other hamsters. "Animals life is also life. Today it can be hamsters or rabbits, tomorrow it can be cats or dogs.
Officers in protective suits walk outside a closed pet shop in Mong Kok district after a hamster cull was ordered to curb the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Hong Kong, China, January 19, 2022. REUTERS/Lam Yik
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The local Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA), which runs veterinary clinics, told Reuters "numerous" worried pet owners have been contacting them for advice.
"We urge the pet owners not to panic or abandon their pets," SPCA said in a statement.
SPCA listed ways to maintain strict personal hygiene for the safety of humans and animals, including never to kiss, cough at or snort near pets, and washing hands after handling them.
The average lifespan of a hamster is about two years, according to animal welfare groups.
'OVERBLOWN'
Aside from ordering the cull, authorities asked dozens of petshops to close, while imports and sales of small mammals were suspended. Buyers of hamsters after Dec. 22, 2021 were asked to hand them to authorities for culling and not leave them on streets.
Authorities set up a hotline for enquiries. It was unclear how many hamsters had been handed in.
Most Hong Kong newspapers featured pictures of people in hazmat suits in front of pet shops and illustrations of hamsters on their front page on Wednesday, with pro-Beijing Ta Kung Pao daily showcasing a tiny rodent inside a spiked virus particle.
Vanessa Barrs, professor of companion animal health at City University of Hong Kong, said the move to cull the hamsters up for sale could be justified on public health protection grounds, but fears of infection at home were overblown.
"Millions of people around the world have pets, and there have been no cases proven of pets transmitting infection to other humans," Barrs said.
"The theoretical risk is there, but it just doesn't happen."
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Additional reporting by Aleksander Solum; Writing by Marius Zaharia; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Online COVID-19 misinformation has undermined the adoption of behaviors that can prevent infection. A new study took a close look at online messages about COVID-19 in the early days of the pandemic.
The researchers found that there was initially less COVID-19 misinformation on Facebook and Twitter than misinformation about other medical topics.
Questionable health information is nothing new to social media. Unsupported opinions and companies claims about the benefits of their health products are common.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, health experts have recommended a series of behaviors designed to keep ourselves and others safe, including hand washing, mask wearing, and social distancing as well as vaccination, once vaccines became available.
Misinformation has persuaded some to ignore this guidance. And on February 15, 2020, World Health Organization Director General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described the spreading of misinformation as an infodemic.
The new study purports to be the first to compare the amount of COVID-19 misinformation with the amount of other health misinformation. The lead author, Prof. David Broniatowski, explained in a George Washington University press release:
At the start of the pandemic, governments and organizations around the world started paying attention to the problem of health misinformation online. [] But when you compare it to what was going on before the pandemic, you start to see that health misinformation was already widespread. What changed is that, when COVID-19 hit, governments and social media platforms started paying attention and taking action.
The study has been published in PLOS ONE.
The researchers analyzed about 325 million Facebook and Twitter posts from March 8 to May 1, 2020, comparing them to health-related posts from the same period in 2019. The team collected a snapshot of posts from 3 early months of the pandemic that is about to enter its third year.
But the significance of the teams insights extends beyond that period, or even the current pandemic, says co-author Prof. Mark Dredze, of Johns Hopkins:
Misinformation has always been present, even at higher proportions, before COVID-19 started. Many people knew this, which makes the ensuing misinformation spread during COVID-19 entirely predictable. Had we been more proactive in fighting misinformation, we may not have been in an anti-vaccination crisis today.
Medical News Today asked Dr. Jeffrey Layne Blevins, of the University of Cincinnatis Journalism and Political Science departments, if he feels that the study documents a situation that has worsened since spring 2020. He replied, Absolutely yes.
The whole hydroxychloroquine as COVID prevention and treatment thing seems quaint and ancient at this point, said Dr. Blevins.
He added: Weve already moved on to ivermectin as a treatment, drinking urine, and heaven only knows what else is coming down the pike. While the urine-drinking treatment hasnt seemed to gain traction, thankfully, the more likely long-term political front line around COVID will be the use of vaccines. The anti-vaxxers seemed pretty entrenched on this one, and it will be interesting to see if they adapt [Food and Drug Administration (FDA)]-approved treatments over ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, etc., in the future.
The study found that the COVID-19 posts were 1.13 times more likely to link to credible sources than health-related posts prior to the pandemic. But among the COVID-19 posts that linked to not credible sources, these sources were 3.67 times more likely to contain misinformation.
As to the somewhat optimistic view that there are plenty of credible sources online, Dr. Blevins noted, What we have to keep in mind, though, is whether or not the credible sources of information are getting the same level of attention as misinformation.
He explained, In todays world of cultural politics, it seems that a lot of people look to social media not necessarily to find the truth about anything, but rather to find information and commentary that supports their already-held views hence, what social scientists call confirmation bias.
Even so, says study co-author Dr. Sandra Crouse Quinn, of the University of Maryland:
At this point in the pandemic, it is critical for new research to further explore COVID-19 misinformation within the health misinformation ecosystem, [and] most importantly, how we can combat this challenge.
PENNSYLVANIA, USA The Pennsylvania Department of Health confirmed 18,207additional positive cases of COVID-19, bringing the statewide total to 2,506,132, on Wednesday, January 19.
There were 112new deaths identified by the Pennsylvania death registry on Tuesday.
The statewide total of deaths attributed to COVID-19 is 38,767, according to the department.
View the CDC COVID data trackerhere.
Watch more stories about the coronavirus pandemic on WNEP's YouTube page.
Headaches are a common symptom of the omicron variant of COVID-19, early studies suggest. (Photo: Getty Images)
(NEXSTAR) The omicron variant is forcing us to rethink what COVID-19 looks and feels like in its early days. While fever, coughing and loss of taste were the tell-tale early signs of the first strain of the coronavirus, early research suggests omicron manifests differently, especially early on in the illness.
One early symptom many are reporting is so mild and commonplace, it can be easy to miss: headaches.
A headache isnt just one symptom of the omicron variant its the second most common symptom, according to the ZOE Covid Study. The study is a joint effort created by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital, the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Kings College London, Stanford University School of Medicine and the health app ZOE.
The study found the only symptom more commonly reported by people infected with the omicron variant was a runny nose.
Similar findings came out of an early omicron case study in Norway, which tracked 81 people infected with the virus from a Christmas party outbreak. About 68% of the partygoers who contracted the virus reported headaches as a symptom.
Another study by the U.K.s Health Security Agency of COVID cases in December found headaches to be a common symptom, as well. The study also found people who caught the delta variant also reported headaches.
This collection of common symptoms have made omicron more easily confused with a cold than past COVID strains, especially for breakthrough cases among the vaccinated.
Dr. Maya N. Clark-Cutaia, who teaches at the New York University Meyers College of Nursing, told the New York Times that vaccinated peoples omicron symptoms often present like a really bad cold including headaches, body aches and a fever while unvaccinated people are more likely to see flulike symptoms and shortness of breath.
Another 538coronavirus cases have been reported across the state since the weekend, Maine health officials said Tuesday.
Tuesdays report brings the total number of coronavirus cases in Maine to 161,395,according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Thats up from 160,857 on Saturday.
Of those, 118,172have been confirmed positive, while 43,223were classified as probable cases, the Maine CDC reported.
No new deaths were reported Tuesday, leaving the statewide death toll standing at 1,658.
The count was markedly lower than recent Tuesdays because only a few Maine CDC staff were processing cases Monday due to the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday.
The number of coronavirus cases diagnosed in the past 14 days statewide is 13,178. 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 14,121 on Monday.
The new case rate statewide Tuesday was 4.02 cases per 10,000 residents, and the total case rate statewide was 1,205.88.
Maines seven-day average for new coronavirus cases is 891.9, down from 1,070.4 the day before, down from 992.1 a week ago and down from 913.9 a month ago.
The most cases have been detected in Mainers younger than 20, while Mainers over 80 years old make up the majority of deaths. More cases have been recorded in women and more deaths in men.
So far, 3,700 Mainers have been hospitalized at some point with COVID-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus. Of those, 400 are currently hospitalized, with 105 in critical care and 50 on a ventilator. Overall, 62 out of 384 critical care beds and 221 out of 321 ventilators are available.
The total statewide hospitalization rate on Tuesday was 27.64 patients per 10,000 residents.
Cases have been reported in Androscoggin (16,623), Aroostook (7,842), Cumberland (32,017), Franklin (4,140), Hancock (4,805), Kennebec (15,713), Knox (3,689), Lincoln (3,338), Oxford (8,227), Penobscot (18,787), Piscataquis (2,121), Sagadahoc (3,303), Somerset (6,971), Waldo (4,111), Washington (2,946) and York (26,748) counties. Information about where an additional 14 cases were reported wasnt immediately available.
An additional 1,422 vaccine doses were administered in the previous 24 hours. As of Tuesday, 970,715 Mainers are fully vaccinated, or about 75.8 percent of eligible Mainers, according to the Maine CDC.
As of Tuesday morning, the coronavirus had sickened 66,457,054 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 851,732 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.
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