Fourteenmore Mainers have died and another 1,359coronavirus cases reported across the state, Maine health officials said Saturday.
Saturdays report brings the total number of coronavirus cases in Maine to 160,857,according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Thats up from 159,498 on Friday.
Of those, 117,814have been confirmed positive, while 40,043were classified as probable cases, the Maine CDC reported.
Eight men and six women have succumbed to the virus, bringing the statewide death toll to 1,658.
One was from Androscoggin County, one from Cumberland County, one from Franklin County, two from Kennebec County, two from Penobscot County, one from Sagadahoc County, one from Somerset County, one from Waldo County, one from Washington County and three from York County.
Of those, nine were 80 or older, three were in their 60s and two in their 50s.
The number of coronavirus cases diagnosed in the past 14 days statewide is 14,121. 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 up from 12,762 on Friday.
The new case rate statewide Saturday was 10.15 cases per 10,000 residents, and the total case rate statewide was 1,201.86.
Maines seven-day average for new coronavirus cases is 1,070.1, up from 1,049.3 the day before, up from 775.3 a week ago and down from 1,071.4 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, 3,698 Mainers have been hospitalized at some point with COVID-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus. Of those, 418 are currently hospitalized, with 108 in critical care and 57 on a ventilator. Overall, 54 out of 384 critical care beds and 214 out of 321 ventilators are available.
The total statewide hospitalization rate on Saturday was 27.63 patients per 10,000 residents.
Cases have been reported in Androscoggin (16,636), Aroostook (7,840), Cumberland (31,865), Franklin (4,140), Hancock (4,805), Kennebec (15,656), Knox (3,679), Lincoln (3,335), Oxford (8,212), Penobscot (18,734), Piscataquis (2,121), Sagadahoc (3,272), Somerset (6,919), Waldo (4,074), Washington (2,945) and York (26,714) counties. Information about where an additional 10 cases were reported wasnt immediately available.
An additional 3,457 vaccine doses were administered in the previous 24 hours. As of Saturday, 969,927 Mainers are fully vaccinated, or about 75.7 percent of eligible Mainers, according to the Maine CDC.
As of Saturday afternoon, the coronavirus had sickened 65,195,602 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 849,748 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.
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Two startlingly different figures for what is ostensibly the same count have been released within days of each other: the government reported 150,000 Covid-19 deaths days before the UKs lead statistical agency reported a death toll of more than 175,000.
The difference between the two figures is stark but easily explained: the governments figures count only those deaths that are known to have occurred within 28 days of a positive coronavirus test. The Office for National Statistics, on the other hand, counts all deaths where the virus was mentioned on the death certificate.
But regardless of the counting method, the numbers represent individual human tragedies. So, what do we know about the 175,000 people whose deaths have been recorded to date?
The pandemic has taken the greatest toll on elderly people: across the UK since the start of the pandemic more than seven in 10 registered deaths have been among those aged 75 or older. Meanwhile, deaths among those aged 44 or younger made up under 2% of the total.
Nevertheless, the proportion of deaths made up by older people has changed over the course of the pandemic.
During the first wave, which continued for most of 2020, three-quarters of all deaths were among those aged 75+. In subsequent waves this fell, in part thanks to vaccinations, decreasing to 59% of all deaths during the period where Delta dominated.
Vaccination rates are highest among elderly people, NHS figures show.
ONS analysis covering the first 10 months of 2021 shows risk of death involving Covid-19 to be 28 times higher among unvaccinated people than among the vaccinated population.
The data shows that deaths involving Covid-19 have been consistently lower for vaccinated people, which the ONS defines as people who received their vaccine at least 21 days beforehand, compared with unvaccinated people a trend apparent across all age groups.
Throughout the whole of the pandemic, gender disparities regarding coronavirus deaths have been evident. According to ONS figures regarding coronavirus deaths registered up to 31 December 2021, men made up 94,433 or 54% of total coronavirus deaths within this period, despite the fact that men make up only 49% of England and Wales population.
Although these percentages remained roughly similar throughout the pandemic, there were variations of this disproportionality between the different waves.
Within the Delta wave, 58% of deaths were of males, whereas the lowest proportion of male deaths took place within the Alpha wave at 53%. The theories as why this is include differences in lockdown behaviour between the sexes, men being more likely to drink, smoke and experience obesity; and differing immune responses.
The spread of Covid deaths has not been even across the country: the crude death rate remains highest in the north-west, driven by the high number of deaths in 2020 after high case rates in the UK in the early part of the pandemic.
Across the entire pandemic the virus has claimed 23,659 lives in the region, equivalent to a crude death rate of 321 per 100,000 population, higher than any other both by absolute numbers and rate.
Among the four nations of the UK, Wales recorded the highest death rate of 291 coronavirus deaths per 100,000 population, driven partly by the fact that it has the highest proportion of people aged 65-plus of the UKs constituency countries. The UK-wide crude death rates stood at 262 deaths per 100,000 registered deaths at the end of 2021.
At the start of the pandemic with essential workers going out to work while anyone who could stayed home research focused on the link between occupation and Covid mortality risk.
The ONS last published data on this topic in early 2021, analysing close to 8,000 deaths involving coronavirus within the working age population across England and Wales to the end of 2020, showing that those working in close proximity to others had higher death rates.
Again, men were more exposed, making up nearly two-thirds of these deaths, with male workers in the care and leisure sectors and other public-facing jobs experiencing higher death rates. Female death rates were highest among machine operatives, those in the caring and leisure industries, and other customer-facing occupations.
Among healthcare occupations, nurses had statistically significantly higher rates of death involving Covid-19 when compared with those of the same age and sex in the population.
The ONS conducted provisional analysis, looking at deaths involving coronavirus between 2 March and 15 May 2020. The analysis found that, when taking into account size and age variations across different ethnicities, the mortality rate was highest among black men.
After adjusting for region, population density and other sociodemographic characteristics, the raised risk of death for black people was two times greater for men and 1.4 times greater for women compared with white people.
The analysis was updated in May 2021 and found that the mortality risk for black people relative to white British people was reduced in the second wave. Nevertheless, most black and South Asian groups remained at higher risk than white British people in the second wave even after adjustments, according to the ONS.
Although the ONS data does not cover the whole of the pandemic, there remains evidence that minority ethnic people were at a higher risk of contracting and dying from Covid-19 compared with their white counterparts.
I said, I am an RNA scientist. I can do anything with RNA, Dr. Karik recalled telling Dr. Weissman. He asked her: Could you make an H.I.V. vaccine?
Oh yeah, oh yeah, I can do it, Dr. Karik said.
Up to that point, commercial vaccines had carried modified viruses or pieces of them into the body to train the immune system to attack invading microbes. An mRNA vaccine would instead carry instructions encoded in mRNA that would allow the bodys cells to pump out their own viral proteins. This approach, Dr. Weissman thought, would better mimic a real infection and prompt a more robust immune response than traditional vaccines did.
It was a fringe idea that few scientists thought would work. A molecule as fragile as mRNA seemed an unlikely vaccine candidate. Grant reviewers were not impressed, either. His lab had to run on seed money that the university gives new faculty members to get started.
By that time, it was easy to synthesize mRNA in the lab to encode any protein. Drs. Weissman and Karik inserted mRNA molecules into human cells growing in petri dishes and, as expected, the mRNA instructed the cells to make specific proteins. But when they injected mRNA into mice, the animals got sick.
Their fur got ruffled, they hunched up, they stopped eating, they stopped running, Dr. Weissman said. Nobody knew why.
For seven years, the pair studied the workings of mRNA. Countless experiments failed. They wandered down one blind alley after another. Their problem was that the immune system sees mRNA as a piece of an invading pathogen and attacks it, making the animals sick while destroying the mRNA.
Eventually, they solved the mystery. The researchers discovered that cells protect their own mRNA with a specific chemical modification. So the scientists tried making the same change to mRNA made in the lab before injecting it into cells. It worked: The mRNA was taken up by cells without provoking an immune response.
(Washington, DC) - The Districts reported data for January 12, 2022 includes1,525new confirmed positive coronavirus (COVID-19) cases, bringing the Districts overall confirmed positive case total to 120,327.The District also reports 119 new probable cases, bringing the overall positive probable cases since October 15, 2021to7,806.
The District reported that five additional residents lost their lives due to COVID-19.
Tragically, 1,245 District residents have lost their lives due to COVID-19.
Visit coronavirus.dc.gov/data for interactive data dashboards or to download COVID-19 data.Below is the Districts current Key Metrics Summary Table.
Below is the Districts aggregated total of confirmed positive COVID-19 cases, sorted by age and gender.
Patient Gender
Total Confirmed Positive Cases
%
Female
%
Male
%
Unknown
%
All
120,327*
100
63,884
100
55,065
100
1,378
100
Unknown
246
<1
90
<1
127
<1
29
2
0-18
22,917
19
11,440
18
11,133
20
344
25
19-30
33,641
28
19,210
30
14,069
26
362
26
31-40
24,597
20
12,940
20
11,350
21
307
22
41-50
14,477
12
7,444
12
6,856
13
177
13
51-60
11,444
10
5,703
9
5,652
10
89
6
61-70
7,475
6
3,847
6
3,591
7
37
3
71-80
3,498
3
1,913
3
1,565
3
20
2
81+
As Covid's omicron variant continues to rip across the United States, causing record numbers of infections and hospitalizations, new coronavirus myths keep bubbling up.
The variant has been the subject of constant scientific scrutiny since it was first detected in South Africa in late November. Recent studies have unveiled its strengths and weaknesses: It's four times more transmissible than the delta variant, it causes less severe physical symptoms than previous variants, and Covid boosters significantly increase your protection against it.
In total, the World Health Organization has collected data from more than 5,800 studies surrounding Covid-19 from all over the world. But despite the data, pandemic falsehoods are still circulating and omicron seems to have given some of them new life.
CNBC Make It asked a trio of leading infectious disease experts for the biggest Covid misconceptions they're hearing right now. Here's what they said:
It's true that vaccinated people can catch omicron: A two-dose regimen of Pfizer's Covid vaccine only provides 22.5% protection against symptomatic infection from omicron, according to an early study from South Africa last month.
But crucially, the study observed, getting vaccinated helps keep your symptoms mild if you do get sick, reducing your chances of hospitalization or death. And if you add a booster shot, your protection against symptomatic infection rises significantly to 75%, according to real-world data from the U.K.
"The vaccine does work, and that's been clearly shown by both death rates and hospitalization rates when comparing vaccinated people to unvaccinated people," says Dr. Mark Sawyer, an infectious disease specialist at Rady Children's Hospital who served on theU.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory committeethat approved Covid vaccines in 2020.
Not all states publicly track patients' vaccination status in hospitals, but the ones that do back up Sawyer's claims.
According to data compiled by Time, unvaccinated people account for a large percentage of hospitalized Covid patients in states like South Carolina, Montana and Mississippi. And recent data from New York State found that unvaccinated residents had a 13-times higher risk for hospitalization than vaccinated residents amid the state's omicron surge in late December.
That's because the vaccines prompt your body to produce an arsenal of Covid-fighting immune cells that work together to fend off the virus. Antibodies, which help prevent you from getting sick, are only the first line of defense: If you do get infected, your body's vaccine-induced T cells target and destroy virus-infected cells to make your symptoms less severe.
Dr.David Hirschwerk, an infectious disease specialist and medical director at Northwell Health's North Shore University Hospital, says he constantly reminds people that the "value of the vaccine" extends to reducing severe illness and hospitalizations.
"Hopefully, we can keep reminding ourselves about that fact," he says.
Dr. Shaun Truelove, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, says he's seen lots of portrayals of omicron as "super mild" and "flu and cold-like."
While omicron's physical symptoms can sometimes resemble the flu or common cold, its rate of transmission is much higher. It's more transmissible and better at evading existing antibodies than previous Covid variants, too.
In other words, Truelove says, omicron is far more severe than the cold or influenza. And it's the reason hospitals across the country have gone into emergency mode in recent weeks, declaring they're at full capacity, he adds.
"Even if it's same severity [of symptoms], it produces in terms of numbers way more hospitalizations and deaths," he says. "I think people keep missing that point."
Additionally, omicron is still a form of Covid. If you catch it, even if your symptoms are mild, you're still enabling the virus to keep circulating and the more Covid spreads, especially in unvaccinated populations, the more chances it has to potentially mutate into another dangerous variant.
It's been more than a year since the first Covid vaccine was administered in the U.S. Since then, nearly 250 million people across the country have received at least one vaccine dose, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Yet Sawyer says much of the country's unvaccinated population is still concerned about "what we might not know about these vaccines," particularly in terms of long-term safety.
"We have given hundreds of millions of doses of these vaccines, including in young children, five to 11," Sawyer says. "So if there was some mysterious side effect that was going to emerge, we would see it by now and know about it."
Long-term vaccine side effects are extremely rare. For example, J&J's one-shot vaccine carries a very small risk of "thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome," a severe blood clotting disorder. Pfizer and Moderna's mRNA vaccines can increase the risk of myocarditis, a heart inflammation condition, in men under age 29 but those cases are often mild, typically resolving on their own.
For Sawyer, the vaccine's benefits greatly outweigh its risks. As of Friday, roughly 63% of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated,accordingto the CDC. Of those fully vaccinated, approximately 38% have received a booster dose, which experts say is critical in protecting yourself against omicron.
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A medical worker takes care of a patient at the intensive care unit (ICU) of Hospital das Clinicas amid the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Porto Alegre, Brazil January 14, 2022. REUTERS/Diego Vara
SAO PAULO, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Brazil had 48,520 new cases of the novel coronavirus reported in the past 24 hours and 175 deaths from COVID-19, the Health Ministry said on Saturday.
The South American country has now registered 22,975,723 cases since the pandemic began, while the official death toll has risen to 659,934, according to ministry data.
Register
Reporting by Carolina Mandl; editing by Jonathan Oatis
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
As the Covid-19 pandemic enters its third year, the world is settling in for the moment the disease becomes endemicand less disruptiveat least in the U.S. Against that is the race to vaccinate while anticipating new variants.
The coronavirus that causes Covid-19 has continued to turn up winning numbers in the evolutionary lottery, alighting on mutations that can help it survive and thrive. With uneven Covid-19 vaccine uptake in the developed world and slow rollout in poorer nations, virologists say the virus has ample avenues to generate more variants that could challenge immune defenses developed through vaccination, infection or both.
Posted: Jan 15, 2022 / 07:20 PM HST / Updated: Jan 15, 2022 / 07:20 PM HST
HONOLULU (KHON2) The Kauai War Memorial Convention Hall testing site will be open on Monday, Jan. 17 to accommodate the extremely high demand for coronavirus testing in Kauai.
Mahalo to all the staff and volunteers who are working tirelessly at the Convention Hall to help keep our community safe, said Mayor Derek S. K. Kawakami.
The testing center will be offering free rapid PCR COVID-19 testing with same-day results between Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
There will be 500 tickets handed out each day that include an appointment time for that same day.
Alden Alayvilla, Kauai countys Public Information Officer, said that tickets are available on a first-come, first-served basis so they are often gone by 9 a.m.
This ticketing system is meant to prevent extended lines and crowds due to the current high demand for testing, said Alayvilla. Testing at this site is not for those who are experiencing symptoms. If you are sick with COVID symptoms, please seek testing at a drive-thru or clinical site.
Find more COVID-19 news: cases, vaccinations on our Coronavirus News page
The testing center is located at 4191 Hardy St. in Lhue. Kauai also has a list of other available testing options as well.
JAKARTA, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Indonesia reported 1,054 new COVID-19 cases on Saturday, the highest daily increase in three months, as the government braces for a new wave of coronavirus infections driven by the spread of the Omicron variant.
The world's fourth most populous country grappled with a devastating second wave of infections in July, driven by the spread of the Delta variant.
Daily case numbers dropped to around 200 by December, before rising this month amid reports of local transmission of the Omicron variant.
Register
"Local transmission has been found and Jakarta has become an infection cluster," Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said in a statement on Saturday. "We need to coordinate with regional government to tighten mobility and strengthen health protocols, (give) booster vaccine shots and strengthen health facilities."
He did not elaborate on what restrictions local authorities might impose. Officials usually review pandemic-related measures each Monday.
Indonesia detected its first COVID-19 case of the more contagious Omicron variant on Dec. 16. Confirmed case numbers have reached more than 500 since then and officials have said infection rates could peak in February.
The southeast Asian nation started its vaccine booster programme for the general public this week.
Register
Reporting by Bernadette Christina Munthe; Writing by Gayatri Suroyo; Editing by Mike Harrison
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Together with our partners, COVAX is leading the largest vaccine procurement and supply operation in history, with deliveries to 144 countries to date.
But the work that has gone into this milestone is only a reminder of the work that remains.
As of 13 January 2022, out of 194 Member States, 36 WHO Member States have vaccinated less than 10% of their population, and 88 less than 40%.
COVAXs ambition was compromised by hoarding/stockpiling in rich countries, catastrophic outbreaks leading to borders and supply being locked. And a lack of sharing of licenses, technology and know how by pharmaceutical companies meant manufacturing capacity went unused.
COVAX is working with governments, manufacturers and partners to ensure that when countries receive vaccines they can get them to people quickly.
With updated vaccines in the pipeline, now is the moment for all citizens to demand that governments & pharmaceutical companies share health tools globally & bring an end to the death & destruction cycles of this pandemic, limit new variants and drive a global economic recovery.
