The Daily Item
Pennsylvania hospitalizations from COVID-19 decreased by 138 on Saturday, ending a run of 18 consecutive days with increases.
According to data released by the state Department of Health, there were 7,378 people hospitalized with COVID-19 on Saturday, a day after the state surpassed 7,500 hospitalizations for the first time in the pandemic.
The state also recorded 23,775 new infections, the smallest increase in four days, but the 12th day in a row with at least 20,000 new cases.
The 18 highest one-day totals for new COVID-19 cases have come in the past 18 days.
There were 361 new infections in the Valley, the third straight day with more than 100 and the 11th in a row with at least 200. Northumberland County registered 179 new cases the 11th day in a row with at least 100 cases. Union County added 92 cases, while Snyder added 61 and Montour 29.
Statewide there were 185 new deaths, the most in three days, but none were in the four Valley counties. It was the fifth day in a row with at least 100 deaths linked to the coronavirus statewide.
Through 15 days, January 2022 is the ninth-deadliest month of the 23-month pandemic in Pennsylvania, averaging 127 deaths per day. In December 2021, the third-deadliest month of the pandemic, the state averaged 105 per day.
All 67 Pennsylvania counties continued to see high community transmission of the disease on Friday, meaning at least 100 new cases per 100,000 residents over the previous seven days, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Nationwide, 99.53 percent of counties were showing high levels of transmission. The CDC reports 0.19 percent only 6 counties nationwide are showing low levels. All 50 states have high levels of community transmission. There are 13 counties nationwide that arent seeing high levels of community transmission.
According to the CDC, 74.8 percent of Pennsylvanians age 18 and older are fully vaccinated.
Anyone who has had two doses of the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines or a single dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is considered fully vaccinated, according to the CDC.
It was the first time since Dec. 27 COVID-19 hospitalizations in the state decreased. From Dec. 27 to Jan. 14, there were 3,157 new hospitalizations.
The number of patients being treated with severe symptoms also remained high there were 1,144 in intensive care units (ICUs), down 13, and 724 were breathing using ventilators, up three.
There were 184 patients hospitalized locally on Saturday, down one the second consecutive day with a small decrease.
There were 129 patients at Geisinger in Danville, 20 at Geisinger-Shamokin both the same as reported Friday and 34 at Evangelical Community Hospital, down one. Geisingers main campus in Danville had 35 patients in the ICU and 25 on a ventilator, both the same as Friday. Shamokin had six in the ICU.
At Evangelical, there were 10 patients in the ICU down one and two on a ventilator.
At the United States Penitentiary (USP) in Lewisburg, there were 140 active inmate cases and two staff infections, according to the federal Bureau of Prisons, the same numbers as reported since Thursday.
At Allenwood, there were 130 inmate cases at the low-security unit along with two staff cases even with Fridays report. At the Allenwood medium-security facility, there were 8 inmate cases, even with the total reported Friday. There were seven inmate and one staff case at USP Allenwood, also the same as Friday.
There were 22 inmate cases up five Saturday and 29 staff cases up three at the State Correctional Institution in Coal Township, according to the state Department of Corrections (DOC). Statewide, there were 844 inmate cases up 125 and 698 staff cases up 21.
There were 33 staff cases and 11 resident cases at the Selinsgrove State Center, the same numbers as reported since Thursday.
There were 10 staff cases and less than five client cases at Danville State Hospital. At the North Central Secure Treatment Unit there were positive cases among staffers at the boys unit and among residents in boys and girls units, along with five cases among staffers in the girls unit, according to the state Department of Human Services (DHS). Infection totals at those facilities did not change since Friday.
DHS does not report case numbers when they are fewer than five to avoid identifying individuals.
Over the past two years, the United States has seen more than 63 million Covid-19 cases, with some people infected more than once. More than 240 million people in the US have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine. More than 60 million have received three.
While Covid-19 infections are never a good thing, these numbers still add up to a glimmer of good news: A large majority of Americans now have some immunity against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. Thats a big step toward defanging the disease.
When the human body is infected by the virus or encounters a fragment of the pathogen in a vaccine, our immune systems change in subtle but important ways. Across a huge swath of the population, these changes could eventually help transform Covid-19 from a world-stopping catastrophe into a mild annoyance.
Antibodies, proteins that attach to the virus, are a critical part of the immune response and are often the center of discussions about protection from Covid-19. But they rise during infection and decline naturally over time. Fortunately, antibodies are not the whole story when it comes to the immune system.
Other, longer-lasting tools against infection are hiding inside our bones. The immune system draws on stem cells living in bone marrow to produce an array of components that we dont hear as much about. They form many kinds of white blood cells that jump into action right away when they encounter a virus for the first time, and that essentially take notes to start planning for the next infection.
Its this immune system memory thats key to long-term protection against Covid-19. Whats reassuring is that as white blood cells get more practice against SARS-CoV-2, they seem to get better at containing the virus even when it evolves into new variants. That appears to be happening in the omicron wave of Covid-19.
Omicron is the most transmissible variant of the coronavirus known to date. It also appears to be better at dodging immune protection from Covid-19 vaccines. Cases have reached record levels in many parts of the United States, and hospitals are once again straining under the burden.
But the fraction of cases leading to hospitalizations and deaths appears to be far smaller compared to other variants. While there are more reports of breakthrough infections and reinfections with omicron, many previously exposed people report mild, cold-like symptoms.
One reason is that the virus itself appears to have mutated in a way that leads to fewer dangerous complications. Yet its also clear that widespread immunity is absorbing some of the worst effects of the disease, a hopeful trend that is likely to continue in 2022 and beyond.
The world is full of so many things that can make us sick viruses, bacteria, parasites, fungi, even mutated versions of our own cells. The threats are varied and unrelenting, but so too is our immune system. Its an orchestra of cells, proteins, organs, and pathways that all harmonize to keep invaders at bay. In simplified form, heres how.
When a pathogen like the coronavirus enters the body for the first time, it confronts the innate immune system, which provides generalized protection against all pathogens, but isnt always enough to prevent illness on its own. After an infection takes root, the immune system launches a more targeted response with whats known as the adaptive immune system.
Neutralizing antibodies form the pillar of the adaptive immune system. The virus is studded with spike proteins (giving it its namesake corona, meaning crown in Latin), which attach to human cells to begin the infection process. Y-shaped antibodies can attach to the spikes on the virus and prevent it from entering cells, thereby neutralizing the pathogen. The parts of a virus that can trigger an immune response are known as antigens.
In general, neutralizing antibodies keep you from getting infected in the first place, said Lewis Lanier, chair of the microbiology and immunology department at the University of California San Francisco.
Neutralizing antibodies are picky about the parts of the virus they recognize, known as epitopes. If those attachment points on the virus change, as they do in many coronavirus variants, antibodies can become less effective. In the months following an infection or immunization, the amount of these neutralizing antibodies declines as well. Thats expected. Making antibodies takes a lot of energy, so the body makes fewer of them after an infection is gone.
That decline may sound worrisome, but the immune system has other powerful tools in its shed. To start, there are non-neutralizing antibodies. These dont directly interfere with how the virus functions, but they can help the immune system detect infected cells and mark them for destruction. This is a crucial task because viruses cant make copies of themselves on their own: They need to commandeer a host cell to reproduce. Once a virus enters a cell, its not accessible to neutralizing antibodies, but non-neutralizing antibodies that learned to recognize infected cells can still raise the alarm.
The task of eliminating infected cells falls to a group of white blood cells known as cytotoxic T cells, sometimes called killer T cells. They arise from stem cells in bone marrow and cause infected cells to self-destruct, without messing with normal cells.
T cells, they cannot prevent infection, said Lanier. The only way a T cell can recognize you have an infection is after a cell has been infected.
Helper T cells are another important white blood cell variety. They spur the production of antibodies by a different group of white blood cells called B cells. B cells form in bone marrow and then migrate to lymph nodes or the spleen.
After an infection or a vaccination, some B cells and T cells stick around, becoming memory B cells and T cells. They sit idle, sometimes for decades, waiting to see if a pathogen returns. If it does, they can quickly reactivate.
This is why we a decline in neutralizing antibody counts isnt always a disaster. Even if concentrations of neutralizing antibodies dip so low that they can no longer prevent an infection, other parts of the immune system can spool up to make sure the virus doesnt do too much damage.
There is a window of time after virus gets into the body before it really starts manifesting disease in the person, said Deborah Fuller, a professor of microbiology at the University of Washington School of Medicine. That window of time enables the immune system that has been vaccinated and has memory immune responses to recall very quickly and shut down the virus before it actually causes disease.
Some health officials now say that Covid-19 is so rampant that most people are likely to become infected at some point. Its hard to process whats actually happening right now, which is most people are going to get Covid, Janet Woodcock, acting commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration told the Senate health committee on Tuesday. What we need to do is make sure the hospitals can still function, transportation, other essential services are not disrupted while this happens.
However, waves of infection can crest just as quickly as they form. Countries like the United Kingdom and South Africa experienced awful omicron spikes but subsequently saw precipitous drops in cases thereafter. Omicron cases also appear to be leveling off in some parts of the US, a sign that a decline may be ahead.
Whether these spikes in Covid-19 cases lead to severe health outcomes hinges on the teamwork of B cells, T cells, and antibodies, and how they hold up against any new mutations in the virus. Its an area of active research for scientists.
Vaccines and prior infection may not prevent you from being infected by the next waves of variants, but it may well keep you out of the hospital, Lanier said.
For the past two years, with recurring spikes in Covid-19 cases, neutralizing antibodies have taken center stage. Were really more concerned right now in the middle of the pandemic about the durability of that antibody because what were trying to do is prevent transmission, said Fuller. But that could change.
Neutralizing antibodies remain a key benchmark for vaccines: Scientists judge the success and timing of vaccines in part by measuring the number of antibodies they provoke in our blood, and how long the antibodies stick around. When the mRNA vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech were in development, they demonstrated that they could elicit a high level of neutralizing antibodies. Further clinical trials showed that this translated to more than 90 percent efficacy in preventing illness.
The next test is how well antibody production ramps back up if the same virus invades again. It can take up to two weeks to generate antibodies after being exposed to a virus for the first time, but production can ramp up much faster during a second infection.
At the same time, a virus is rarely the same when it comes back. Viruses mutate frequently as they reproduce, and RNA viruses like SARS-CoV-2 are especially prone to change. Versions of the virus with distinct groupings of mutations are categorized as variants, like omicron, delta, and alpha. Our immune systems are getting stronger and faster, but changes to the virus still have the potential to throw them for a loop.
Already, some companies are developing omicron-specific vaccines, but they may not hit the market for months. The reformulated shots may be too little, too late. In the meantime, we have to rely on the immunity we already have, including boosts to our antibody counts that come from booster doses of Covid-19 vaccines.
There is still much to learn about how all the elements of the immune system work together over time to hold off Covid-19, and some of the answers will only become evident with time. And the odd behavior of omicron is forcing researchers to rethink what theyve learned.
The good news is that many aspects of our immune system also appear to handle the latest variant well. From what Ive seen, the T cell responses are still working rather well against omicron, said Brianne Barker, a vaccine researcher at Drew University. I think that weve still got a bit of time in which immune protections will remain intact.
Immunity will continue building across the population and will blunt the sharp edges of the pandemic, even as the virus changes. Covid-19 is unlikely to go away entirely. As it circulates, it will continue to mutate and may cause sporadic outbreaks. But our immune systems are making progress.
As you expose the human body, even to the same antigen over and over again, our immune system evolves as well, Fuller said. What were starting to see in people with third immunizations is an antibody [response] that is broader.
Its a good sign that improvements in our immune system are likely to outpace changes in the virus. But the pandemic has also made it clear that there is nothing about its trajectory we can take for granted. While the cells within us may shield against infection, its still a good idea to limit transmission of the virus in any other way we can. The fewer people it infects, the fewer unpleasant surprises ahead.
Most school districts in Lancaster County continued to see surging numbers of COVID-19 cases in the second week of school following the holiday break.
Cocalico saw the biggest jump, going from nine to 76 cases.
Columbia Borough and Pequea Valley school districts reported decreases, with Columbia seeing the biggest drop, from 30 to 10 cases all at Park Elementary School.
Here are the number of COVID-19 cases reported by Lancaster County school districts this week, as of 5 p.m. Friday, with each districts total enrollment in parentheses. Numbers were not available from the Elizabethtown Area district.
(Districts report cases in various ways. Data from school districts without an asterisk reflects total cases reported this week; data from school districts beginning with an asterisk reflects total cases reported within the last 14 days; and data from school districts beginning with two asterisks reflects current active cases.)
*Cocalico (2,931): 76 (32 at Cocalico Middle School; 22 at Cocalico High School; 10 at Denver Elementary; seven at Reamstown Elementary School and five at Adamstown Elementary School).
Week of Jan. 8: Nine.
Columbia Borough (1,262): 10 (10 at Park Elementary School).
Week of Jan. 8: 30.
**Conestoga Valley (4,013): 58 (20 at Conestoga Valley High School; 14 at Fritz Elementary School; 12 at Huesken Middle School; five at Brownstown Elementary School; four at Leola Elementary School and three at Smoketown Elementary School).
Week of Jan. 8: 22.
**Donegal (2,818): 72 (35 at Donegal High School, 15 at Donegal Junior High School, 18 at Donegal Intermediate School and 4 at Donegal Primary School.)
Week of Jan. 8: 12.
**Eastern Lancaster County (2,768): 111 (56 at Garden Spot Secondary Campus, 30 at Blue Ball Elementary School, 14 at New Holland Elementary School and 11 at Brecknock Elementary School).
Week of Jan. 8: 61.
Elizabethtown Area (3,691): N/A
Week of Jan. 8: 124.
Ephrata Area (4,130): 87 (30 at Ephrata High School; 20- at Ephrata Middle School; 11 at Highland Elementary School, eight at Akron Elementary School, seven at Clay Middle School; six at Fulton Elementary School and five at Ephrata Intermediate School).
Week of Jan. 8: 19.
Hempfield (6,818): 155 (31 at Hempfield High School; 29 at Landisville Middle School; 22 at Mountville Elementary School; 15 each at East Petersburg Elementary School and Landisville Intermediate Center; 14 at Centerville Middle School; 11 at Landisville Primary Center; seven at Rohrerstown Elementary School; six at Farmdale Elementary School and five at Centerville Elementary School).
Week of Jan 8: 59.
**Lampeter-Strasburg (2,828): 63 (31 at Martin Meylin Middle School; 17 at Lampeter-Strasburg High School; 13 at Hans Herr Elementary School and two Lampeter Elementary School).
Week of Jan 8: 18.
**Lancaster (10,384): 493 (127 at McCaskey Campus; 38 at Wheatland Elementary School; 33 at Washington Elementary School; 31 at Lafayette Elementary School; 18 each at Jackson and Reynolds middle schools; 28 each at Burrowes and Price elementary schools; 28 at Price Elementary School; 27 each at King Elementary School and Martin School; 22 at Hamilton Elementary School; 20 at Carter & McCrea Elementary School; 17 at Smith-Wade-El Elementary School; 15 at Lincoln Middle School; 13 at Wharton Elementary School; 11 at Wickersham Elementary School; and 10 each at Fulton and Ross elementary schools).
Week of Jan 8: 356.
**Manheim Central (2,910): 21 (Seven at Doe Run Elementary School six at Manheim Central High School, five at Manheim Central Middle School, and three at Baron Elementary School).
Week of Jan 8: 13.
Manheim Township (5,946): 262 (82 at Manheim Township High School, 59 at Manheim Township Middle School, 36 at Landis Run Intermediate School, 26 Reidenbaugh Elementary School, 16 at Bucher Elementary School, 12 each at Nitrauer and Schaeffer elementary schools, 10 at Neff Elementary School, and nine at Brecht Elementary School.)
Week of Jan 8: 261.
Octorara Area (2,118): 32 (15 at Octorara Junior/Senior High School, 10 at Octorara Elementary School, four at Primary Learning Center and three at Octorara Intermediate School).
Week of Jan 8: 17.
Penn Manor (5,378): 53 (12 at Penn Manor High School, 15 at Manor Middle School, 7 at Marticville Middle School, 5 at Central Manor Elementary School, 4 each at Pequea Elementary School and Hambright Elementary School, 2 each at Eshleman Elementary School and Conestoga Elementary School and 1 each at Letort Elementary School and Martic Elementary School)
Week of Jan. 8: 27.
Pequea Valley (1,467): 26 (Nine at seven at Pequea Valley High School, seven at Paradise Elementary School, six at Pequea Valley Intermediate School and four at Salisbury Elementary School).
Week of Jan 8: 28.
**Solanco (3,182): 53 (14 at Bart-Colerain Elementary School, nine at Quarryville Elementary School, eight at Solanco High School, seven each at Smith and Swift middle schools and four each at Clermont and Providence elementary schools).
Week of Jan 8: 17.
**Warwick (3,835): 65 (18 at Warwick High School, 12 at Lititz Elementary School, 10 each at Bonfield and Kissel Hill elementary schools and Warwick Middle School and five at John Beck Elementary School).
Week of Jan 8: 46.
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A group of self-described weed nuns cheered a study that found cannabis may help prevent COVID-19 infections.
We are, naturally, pleased that science is catching up with ancient wisdom, Sister Kate of the Sisters of the Valley told The Sun.
An Oregon State University study, released last week, found two compounds in marijuana may bind to the COVID-19 spike protein, preventing its entry to healthy cells.
Its wonderful progress to have the scientific community say were already determined that there are compounds in hemp that can prevent infection, so now, we can just get on to studying dosage, said the nun, whose legal name is Christine Meeusen said. Thats progress.
Dr. Richard van Breeman, of OSUs Global Hemp Innovation Center, said that the two compounds, cannabigerolic and cannabidiolic acids, could help prevent and treat COVID-19.
They are not controlled substances like THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, and have a good safety profile in humans, he added.
Meeusens northern-California-based feminist collective the Sisters of the Valley, which is unsurprisingly not affiliated with the Catholic Church grows its own pot, which it uses to create holistic health products. It started with just 12 plants, but grew to over $1 million in annual revenue before the pandemic.
So we created something that is nonreligious, but its spiritual and its very eco-feminist in nature.
Google will require anyone going to one of its US offices or facilities to have received a negative molecular test for COVID-19, the company informed employees Thursday in a memo obtained by CNBC. Workers going to the office regularly will have to get tested weekly, chief health officer Karen DeSalvo said in the memo, and employees have been asked to report their vaccination status and wear surgical-grade masks indoors.
Google spokesperson Lora Lee Erickson confirmed to The Verge that a new temporary COVID-19 policy is now being implemented, one where anyone accessing our sites in the US are expected to obtain a recent negative COVID-19 molecular test before coming onsite and that its offering various kinds of tests at no cost.
Google offers free at-home testing to full-time employees and contract workers through BioIQs PCR-based nasal swab tests, Erickson said, but Bloomberg reported this week that full-time employees also have access to molecular tests from Cue Health that can give results in just a few minutes. Contractors, on the other hand, are specifically being offered the mail-in BioIQ tests, according to a tweet from the Alphabet Workers Union, which means they must wait longer for a result. Erickson tells us that some Google contractors at the companys datacenters have access to rapid on-site testing using the Cue machines, though.
The changes arrive as COVID-19 cases have surged across the country and as the omicron variant spreads. These new policies add to Googles directive from December requiring employees to get vaccinated or risk being forced to take leave and eventually be fired. The company delayed its mandatory return to the office to some point this year in August.
This week, Meta also upped its health policies for employees, requiring anyone returning to its offices when they open at the end of March to have received a booster dose of a vaccine.
Omicron is pushing Covid-19 hospital admissions among children to record levels in the U.S. and the U.K. Doctors say the variants infectiousnessand not any increased severityis probably mostly responsible.
Throughout the pandemic, children have been much less likely than adults to suffer severe illness from Covid-19, and doctors say that this appears to be true for Omicron, too. But sky-high case numbers mean that more children are ending up in the hospital both with Covid-19 and because of the disease, underscoring how a likely milder variant can still do more damage, simply by infecting more people.
AUSTIN (KXAN) The mass COVID-19 testing site at the Toney Burger Activity Center and Stadium will be closed for most of Saturday after it hit capacity early on Saturday morning.
The center, operated by Nomi Health, was due to be open between 9:45 a.m. and 6 p.m. on Saturday, according to Nomi Healths website.
However, in a tweet at 9:25 a.m., Austin ISD warned people to stay away from the site as it will close early for the day.
Please dont head to Burger for a test if youre not already there, the school district said.
A spokesperson for Nomi Health said the site experienced weather-related delays Saturday due to wind advisories in Central Texas.
People who are already in line will be tested for COVID-19. At that point, the center will close for the day, Nomi Health said.
We will be serving the people in line currently, but have stopped the line and will close early today, a spokesperson for Nomi Health said.
The site will not be open Sunday, but returns Monday starting at 8 a.m. No appointment is required.
Need a COVID-19 test? Find other options here.
A COVID-19 home test in the U.S. comes with a swab to swirl in the nostrils. But some users say they're swabbing the throat too even though that's not what the instructions say to do. "They may stab themselves," cautions Dr. Janet Woodcock, acting head of the Food and Drug Administration. Angus Mordant/Bloomberg via Getty Images hide caption
A COVID-19 home test in the U.S. comes with a swab to swirl in the nostrils. But some users say they're swabbing the throat too even though that's not what the instructions say to do. "They may stab themselves," cautions Dr. Janet Woodcock, acting head of the Food and Drug Administration.
Lots of folks on Twitter say that swabbing your throat in addition to your nose may be a better way of using your COVID-19 testing kit to detect the omicron variant. Is this true?
If you've used a do-it-yourself COVID-19 home test in the U.S. the "antigen" rapid tests that promise results in 15 minutes or so you know the drill. You typically swirl a cotton swab around in your nostrils, mix it with some liquid and then drop it on a test strip to await the results: positive or negative for the coronavirus.
But in recent weeks, there has been an online debate about where to stick that cotton swab. Although the directions specify a nasal swab on U.S. products, some medical professionals believe the test is more effective at detecting the coronavirus, and specifically the omicron variant, if the kit's swab is used in the throat and/or cheek in addition to the nose.
Why did this hack emerge and is there any medical science to back it up?
The idea of a throat swab is not in and of itself a radical step. Even though antigen test kits in the U.S. are designed for a nasal swab, home tests are designed for a throat swab in other countries in Canada and the U.K., for example.
The idea of improvising with a throat swab is connected to the omicron variant, which was identified in late November and has swept the world. Researchers increasingly believe omicron may replicate in the throat before the nose.
That was one of the findings of a study conducted at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. Researchers examined the ability of PCR tests to detect the variant by comparing diagnostic tests for 382 symptomatic COVID-19 patients who weren't hospitalized. In patients with the delta variant of the coronavirus, saliva swabs detected the virus 71% of the time, while nasal swabs found it 100% of the time. But in patients with omicron, researchers found the reverse: Saliva swabs detected the virus 100% of the time, while nasal swabs caught it 86% of the time.
The research has not been peer reviewed. And the tests used in the study were PCR tests, not antigen tests. (PCR tests are the gold standard and are administered typically in a health care facility; antigen tests are less precise and can be done at home. See this story for details on the differences.)
Nonetheless, the South African study has led some epidemiologists and immunologists in the U.S. to experiment with antigen tests by swabbing their throats or cheeks in addition to the nose when administering a self-test.
That's not an authorized use of the kits, reminds the Food and Drug Administration, which regulates the kits: "FACT: When it comes to at-home rapid antigen #COVID19 tests, those swabs are for your nose and not your throat," it said in a tweet issued on Jan. 7.
And even proponents of the throat swab stop short of endorsing the practice for the public without a green light from the FDA.
One of the most often quoted voices in favor of throat swabbing is Dr. Michael Mina, formerly an epidemiologist and immunologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and now the chief science officer at the testing company eMed. He has tweeted: "We should be rigorously looking into throat swabs to add some level of sensitivity" and "Throat swab + nasal may improve chances a swab picks up virus."
But Mina has gone on to tweet that the FDA was right to warn the public not to go against manufacturer's directions: "Telling US public not to go against directions is the *right* thing to do."
"The tests haven't been designed to do [throat swabs], so we don't know whether there are false positives or negatives," agrees Dr. Jill Weatherhead, assistant professor of adult and pediatric infectious diseases at Baylor College of Medicine. "It logically makes sense that you'd want to do it, but that's not how [the tests have] been developed or tested."
One potential problem could be the thicker viscosity of throat saliva, says Dr. Yuka Manabe, associate director of global health research and innovation and a professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. It's possible the sample would need to be filtered first, she says, to produce an accurate result.
That's not necessarily a critical concern, says Michael Daignault, an emergency physician who serves as chief medical adviser to Reliant Health Services, a medical testing company. He says that the nature of throat saliva could simply cause the test to display a message that the result is invalid rather than a false positive.
Another obvious potential problem, Manabe points out, is the length of the swab in some of the kits: "The swab that you use doesn't have a very long stick because it's just meant to be used in the front of your nose. So for you to get that into the back of your throat would not be very easy, truthfully, for some of the kits, depending on the length of the swab."
The public debate about the best way to swab has prompted a growing chorus of voices to call for new studies and a revamping of the kits and/or the instructions.
That kind of change is what Michal Tal is hoping for. Tal, an instructor at Stanford University's Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine and a visiting scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is a proponent of throat swabs. Before seeing anyone in person, she asks that they take a coronavirus test and swab not only their nose but their cheeks, the roof of their mouth, under their tongue and if they don't gag easily their throat near the tonsils.
"I'm feeling very frustrated that the FDA and CDC didn't jump on this and try to make more rapid changes," says Tal. "The virus is always two steps ahead and we don't adapt."
At a congressional hearing Monday, the acting head of the FDA, Dr. Janet Woodcock, noted that the National Institutes of Health has helped accelerate the authorization of new home tests so that they can get the FDA's signoff in just one or two days. But she said it may take a while for companies to change their test configurations to include larger swabs for the throat.
In the meantime, she warned people not to swab their throats with the current devices, which are designed as nasal swabs. "They may stab themselves," she said. "That would not be good."
Sheila Mulrooney Eldred is a freelance health journalist in Minneapolis. She has written about COVID-19 for many publications, including The New York Times, Kaiser Health News, Medscape and The Washington Post. More at sheilaeldred.pressfolios.com. On Twitter: @milepostmedia.
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) The Ohio Department of Health has released the latest number of COVID-19 cases in the state.
Numbers as of Thursday, Jan. 13 follow:
The 21-day case average is above17,600.
The department reported9,677people started the vaccination process, bringing the total to7,084,804, which is 60.61% of the states population. And24,987received booster shots.
The Ohio Hospital Association reported the following numbers related to COVID-19 patients:
Franklin County Public Health Commissioner Joe Mazzola said he thinks we should all be very concerned about the rate at which COVID-19 is spreading in the community. With vaccination rates steadying in the state, the ripple effect is being felt among young children in central Ohio. As the six-month mark for those who got a COVID-19 booster shot in early fall approaches, an Ohio State doctor said it is likely another booster will be needed soon.
TOPEKA (KSNT) - Shawnee County is considering a new program for non-emegency medical calls to 911. It's called the "Nurse Navigation Line" and would give emergency dispatchers another option for medical calls other than sending AMR.
Shawnee County Emergency Management and AMR Topeka/Shawnee County presented the possible program to the Shawnee County Commission Thursday. The new program is expected to cost around $60,000 a year and would be ran by Kansas licensed nurses.
