Manfredi, 5, receives his first dose of a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine at Nuovo Regina Margherita Hospital, as Italy begins vaccinating 5-11 year-olds, in Rome, Italy December 15, 2021. REUTERS/Yara Nardi
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ROME, Dec 18 (Reuters) - The highly contagious Omicron variant of the coronavirus is spreading quickly in Italy, with new cases identified in the country's north and south, the national health institute (ISS) said on Saturday.
The ISS reported that its network of regional laboratories had so far identified 84 Omicron cases, "a strong acceleration" from 55 early on Friday.
Thirty-three of the cases were found in the northern region of Lombardy, around Milan, and a further 20 in the southern region of Campania, centred on Naples.
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ISS President Silvio Brusaferro said the spread of Omicron was "widely expected, in line with what we have seen in other countries, and we will probably see an increase in cases in coming days".
Italy, the first Western country to be hit by the COVID-19 pandemic early last year, has seen new infections and deaths rising in recent weeks, but daily caseloads remain well below some other European countries such as Britain and Germany.
Italy reported 120 coronavirus-related deaths on Friday against 123 the day before, while the daily tally of new infections rose to 28,632 from 26,109.
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Reporting by Gavin Jones; Editing by Catherine Evans
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Los Angeles County health officials reported 3,512 new coronavirus cases on Sunday, more than double the number of cases recorded just a few days before.
That tally follows 3,730 new cases reported in LA. County on Saturday the highest single-day total in months sparking concerns of another winter surge stoked by holiday festivities. Meanwhile, COVID-19 hospitalizations are on the rise in California as the Omicron variant spreads.
There were 3,557 COVID-19 patients in the states hospitals as of Saturday, an increase of roughly 13% from two weeks before, according to The Times hospitalization tracker. On Sunday, L.A. County reported that 742 people were hospitalized with COVID-19, and nine people died from the virus.
Businesses in L.A. County are reporting notable outbreaks among workers, including 132 staff members who recently tested positive at SpaceX corporate headquarters in Hawthorne; 85 workers at the FedEx shipping center near Los Angeles International Airport; and 28 staff at Gjelina, a popular Venice restaurant.
California recorded 49 cases of the Omicron variant as of Wednesday, with 38 of those in L.A. County. Thats much lower than the 184,700 identified cases of the Delta variant, which remains the states dominant strain.
Health officials expect the number of Omicron cases to rise, as the variant is believed to be more contagious than Delta and better at evading immunity generated by vaccines or previous infections. Experts say vaccines still offer protection against severe illness and death caused by Omicron.
Although there are early indications that Omicron might cause less severe illness than other variants, hospitals could be overwhelmed if enough people are infected, health officials say. That comes as the system already faces multiple challenges, including significant staffing shortages and increased demand for other healthcare services such as flu treatment and procedures that were put on hold earlier in the pandemic.
Orange and Riverside counties on Friday reported their first documented cases of the Omicron variant. In Orange County, the variant was found to have infected a fully vaccinated man who had recently traveled domestically outside California and experienced mild illness, public health authorities said.
In Riverside County, the variant infected a 41-year-old fully vaccinated man who was tested in L.A. County on Dec. 8, public health officials said.
Outbreaks have forced the postponement of sporting events, including the Los Angeles Rams home game against the Seattle Seahawks scheduled for Sunday, which was moved to Tuesday, and the Anaheim Ducks road game against the Calgary Flames slated for Tuesday, which has not yet been rescheduled.
Nationally, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention forecasts that there could be more than 1 million new coronavirus cases recorded the week of Christmas. By contrast, around Halloween, there were 500,000 new weekly cases.
All Jonah Simons said he wanted was a coronavirus cure to save the world.
This holiday season, the 10-year-old Florida boy is back with a different request for Santa.
"Dear Santa, it's me Jonah. Do you remember me? I was the one who asked for a covid cure," he wrote in a letter addressed to the North Pole and shared with CNN. "btw, ty so much for the vaccine! You helped save lives. This year, can I please have a Santa costume to spread your joy around the world?"
His mother, Doe Simons, says Jonah composes his Santa letters himself, without help from his parents.
With a relentless virus and threats of the Omicron variant still plaguing a weary nation, Jonah has big plans for the Santa suit.
"I want to wear it and go around the neighborhood and spread Santa's joy, ask people what they want for Christmas," the fifth-grader told CNN.
Jonah's mother says she's not positive whether her son still believes in Santa Claus.
"But Jonah has experienced Santa-like moments. For example, last year he sent his Xmas wish out into the universe and it came true to a certain extent," she says.
"I think writing that letter, even if he didn't believe in Santa, for him was the ability to exert some control over the problem (of the pandemic). It was his way to communicate his feelings and express what he wished would happen."
Helping others is nothing new for Jonah
Jonah has been spreading joy in his community of Parkland for years.
Growing up in Parkland, where a 2018 massacre left 17 people dead at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, has had an effect on Jonah and other local children, his mother says.
"What happened here had a lot of impact on children here. He was in middle school, and his school was on lockdown that day," she says. "I think that like Jonah, you're getting kids here who are civic minded and want to make a difference ... When he sees the impact his help has on others, he wants to do more to help."
Jonah turned 10 in July, and in lieu of gifts he asked his family and friends to donate to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. His birthday effort raised $1,000 in donations from family and friends all over -- even his favorite employees at the local Publix store, his mother says.
"It was so long, I got bullied for it," he says. "Some people called me a girl."
Jonah's good deeds are not limited to birthdays. He works to help his community all year, including donating and sorting food for the homeless with the organization Feeding South Florida, and packing holiday gifts for children.
Doe Simons says her son's charity begins close to home with his grandparents, who are in their 90s and live nearby. Jonah takes out their garbage every week, holds car doors open for them and helps them with their walkers up the elevator, she says.
He's a would-be doctor whose medicine is love
Jonah has long found ways to spread happiness. At age 3 he started dressing up as a doctor to visit loved ones who were ill.
"Ever since he was a little kid, he always wanted a doctors' outfit," says his father, Joe Simons. "He would dress as a doctor because his medicine was love. He would visit family members at the hospital, check their vitals, talk to the nurses and prescribe a special medicine for them: love."
At the start of the pandemic, Jonah asked his parents to buy him a "pandemic suit" with the personal protective equipment that health care workers wear at the hospital. He told them he wanted one in case he needed to visit relatives at the hospital and prescribe his love medicine.
Jonah hasn't needed to do that yet, so he mostly wears the outfit at home when he's treating his stuffed bear.
"His bear is very well taken care of," his mother says.
Jonah has big plans for his 11th birthday
"She really turned him on to being a public servant," Doe Simons says.
Jonah wants to be a lot of things when he grows up. Most days he tells people he wants to be a doctor, a lawyer or a police officer. But he thinks he can make a bigger difference as the leader of the free world.
"My best goal is to be a president," he says. "That way, I can make changes to a lot of things and make decisions that help other people."
Until then, he'll continue helping people in his community.
Jonah already has big plans for his 11th birthday next July. He's hoping that Covid-19 will be a thing of the past by then, so he can go to sleepaway camp without a mask.
He's also signed up to be an ambassador for the homeless. And once again he plans to use his birthday to raise money for charity. Maybe he'll even wear his Santa suit.
The news Friday did nothing to help.
The coronavirus and school shootings aren't related, but it seems the way we gather in public as a society -- to work, to learn, to travel and to live -- is evolving in uncomfortable ways.
A feedback loop of worry persists
That a vague rumor on TikTok could disrupt so many people for a day showed the power of social media and the fear of danger in the classroom, created by school shooting after school shooting.
As CNN reported, school districts in states ranging from Minnesota to Texas shut down schools on Friday "in response to a wave of videos, some mentioning specific schools, suggesting that students avoid coming to class on Dec. 17." Districts in other states, including Georgia, beefed up security and let parents know they were on top of things.
Why did this happen? What's befuddling is that no one seems to know exactly how the rumor began.
TikTok blamed local media reports for amplifying a trend it said was not actually on its platform.
There's a valid debate over how journalists should approach this type of story. Amplifying a joke or a rumor about school shootings is bad. If schools are shutting their doors and putting parents and students on edge, it is news.
One federal law enforcement source told CNN's Brian Fung and Geneva Sands the fear is that the news coverage of the hoax inspires an actual school shooter.
Students today are growing up with shooting drills to protect themselves against the unlikely but possible event of shootings, and masks to ward off the deadly virus.
"Every day it feels like I'm wading through this quicksand that keeps trying to pull me under," said Angela, a teacher at a small, alternative high school in Washington state. "I'm trying to reach the edge, but I can't quite grab it," she said.
Reality is setting in
On the pandemic front, Americans who have done everything right -- vaccinations, boosters and masks -- face the predicament of realizing the advice from the government may well change in a month or two as the virus changes.
Public health officials may have always said fighting the disease would require a layered approach, but their guidance has evolved in confusing ways as the virus has evolved. Masks were not recommended for the public. Then they were recommended. Then they were required in some places. Then it was OK for the vaccinated to drop them. Now they're recommended again and required in some places.
Vaccines were pushed as the main way to address the virus. They still are. But boosters have been added into the equation.
What should now be abundantly clear is that two-dose vaccines alone won't stop Covid-19, new variants may still emerge and masks are not going anywhere. It feels like we are still very far removed from a post-pandemic reality.
Vigilance and vaccines are still required. It's a matter of how many people die and whether hospitals are overwhelmed as we get there.
The answer, as always: it depends.
"Think about your vaccine as a very good raincoat," said CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician and professor of health policy and management at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health. "If you are going out into a drizzle, you're probably going to be well protected and not get wet.
"But if you're going into a thunderstorm, there's a higher chance of you getting wet, despite that very good raincoat."
I'm honestly not sure how much it's raining right now, but outbreaks of Covid-19 in hypervaccinated professional sports leagues, shuttered Broadway shows and reports of filling hospitals make for a cloudy forecast.
Just when it feels like something approaching a pre-pandemic level of ease is on the horizon, there's a new spike.
People are worried and worn out
General unease might not be a quantifiable thing, but there's evidence of frustration in public opinion polling.
In January 2020, less than half said things were going "pretty / very badly." Now, it's almost two-thirds.
Nearly half of people said they were angry about how Covid-19 has affected their daily lives. Both Republicans and Democrats felt worn out, but Republicans were much more likely to report anger.
To say Americans are "on edge" is just about the most hackneyed turn of phrase in the news business, but this holiday season it might actually be true.
Covid-19s accelerating spread has hampered operations and slowed sales at some companies in a matter of days, but many say they hope precautions adopted during previous surges will help them motor through this one.
Restaurants were among businesses most immediately hit.
The latest:
Large parts of Canada are starting to hunker down, with new restrictions and lockdowns coming into effect as anotherwave of COVID-19 fuelled by the Omicron variant saw thousands of new cases across the country over the weekend.
Quebec and Nova Scotia set new records for their daily case counts on Sunday while Ontario reported4,177additional infections,800 more than the previous day.
Other parts of the country were also experiencing a surge in new cases unseen since before the summer as the Omicron variant, identified by the World Health Organization as a potential concern only last month, became increasingly entrenched in Canada.
And while hospitalizations have remained steady in Ontario and some other parts of the country, a recent spike in the number of severe cases in Quebec has added to concerns the rest of the country could soon follow.
In response to the growing wave, several provinces have started to re-impose tighter public health restrictionsonly days before the start of the holiday season, many of which apply to both the vaccinated and unvaccinated.
In Ontario, new limits on indoor gatherings came into effect Sunday as the provincial government struggled to get escalating case counts under control while similar restrictions were set to come down in British Columbia and Quebec on Monday.
Similar restrictions were set to come down in British Columbia and Quebec on Monday.
Quebec reported 3,846 new cases on Sunday, setting an all-time high for the province's daily tally for the second time in three days, while the number of hospitalizations and people in intensive care because of COVID-19 continued to increase.
Dr. Adalsteinn Brown, head of the Ontario COVID-19 Science Table, had warned Thursday that while hospitalizations in his province had remained fairly steady, he expected a spike in two to three weeks.
"It does cause serious disease," Brown said in discussing the science table's latest modelling. "Hospital rates have risen in South Africa where it first took hold. It's not just a case of the sniffles."
A Quebec government health-care research institute also said Thursday that it expects more than 700 non-ICU hospitalizations in the province, and more than 160 people in intensive care, within two to three weeks.
However, the institute said it was less confident than usual in its projections because its data on the Omicron variant was based on a single study conducted in South Africa, which has a significantly lower vaccination rate than Quebec.
Meanwhile, Nova Scotia, which imposed new restrictions starting Friday, also reported a new daily record of new infections on Sunday with 476 cases while New Brunswick said it had 108 new cases and Newfoundland and Labrador reported 61 cases.
N.L.'schief medical officer of health, Dr. Janice Fitzgerald, said there were 127 active reported cases of COVID-19 in the province, though nobody is in hospital due to the virus.
Education Minister Tom Osborne nonetheless said schools would close for the holiday break beginning Tuesday rather than Thursday and students are to prepare for possible online learning when classes resume on Jan. 4.
N.L. Premier Andrew Furey said everyone has seen the spread of Omicron in other parts of the country and wants to avoid the same situation in his province.
"The spectre of a surge is on our doorstep and we need to address it now before we suffer the same fate. I know it couldn't come at a worse time," he said.
The sudden onset of a fifth wave of COVID-19 has pushed testing capacities in many parts of the country to the limit, with long waits for tests and public health officials warning people with symptoms to self-isolate even if they haven't been tested.
Michelle Hoad, chief executive officer of the Medical Laboratory Professionals' Association of Ontario, said a pre-existing shortage of technicians combined with the sudden explosion of new cases and tests due to Omicron has pushed already overtaxed labs to the limit.
"The sudden surge in testing now is showing all the cracks in our system," Hoad said.
"And it is not just a problem in Ontario, it's across the entire country. So this shortage of medical lab technologist is a problem in every single province and territory."
The fifth wave has also sparked a rush for booster shots as the Omicron variant has caused a surge of infections among both vaccinated and unvaccinated Canadians.
Ontario's science advisers have said two doses of COVID-19 vaccine are only 35 per cent effective against the variant three months after being administered, while a third dose bumps efficacy up to 75 per cent.
The province on Monday will open booster eligibility to all residents aged 18 or over who received their second dose at least three months ago. Other provinces are also expanding their booster campaigns to protect against Omicron.
As of Sunday, more than274.5million cases of COVID-19 had been reported worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University. The reported global death toll stood at more than 5.3 million.
In Europe, tens of thousands of Vienna residents turned out Sunday night to participate in a "sea of lights" commemoration for the more than 13,000 Austrians who have died in the coronavirus pandemic.
In Asia, Sri Lanka will require the showing of a COVID-19 vaccination certificate compulsory for entry to public places starting from Jan. 1, in a renewed attempt to prevent another spike in infections.
In Africa,South Africa will donate just over twomillion doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine to other African countries to boost the continent's COVID-19 vaccine drive, the government said.
In the Americas,Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro had a "direct and relevant" role in spreading disinformation about the country's electoral process during live streams on social media, a federal police document reviewed by Reuters said.
Good evening. Im Karen Kaplan, and its Friday, Dec. 17. Heres the latest on whats happening with the coronavirus in California and beyond.
Lets be real: Almost everything we hear about the Omicron variant sounds scary. It seemed to come out of nowhere just a few weeks ago and already accounts for well over half of coronavirus cases in London. In South Africa, it reduced the effectiveness of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to just 33%. In California, its infecting people who are not only fully vaccinated but got their booster shots too.
Even its name sounds a little too much like ominous.
But many scientists who are looking at the early Omicron data are feeling a little ... well ... hopeful.
Is this the end of the pandemic? asked one of them, University of Johannesburg coronavirus analyst Pieter Streicher.
Why does he think thats even a possibility? It boils down to two apparent attributes of the Omicron variant: It spreads like wildfire, and its less likely to make people severely ill.
As my colleague Melissa Healy explains, a strain that is both highly transmissible and much less virulent is exactly the type that becomes an endemic nuisance virus. It never goes away, but it doesnt do that much damage.
Four other coronaviruses ones that cause the common cold have already achieved this status. They make their hosts sick enough to cough or sneeze out infectious particles but not so sick they stay home and miss the chance to spread those germs to others. Each infection leaves some immunity in its wake, but most people remain susceptible most of the time. The virus and humanity reach a stalemate.
Thats what we all hope, said Dr. Stanley Perlman, a University of Iowa virologist who has studied coronaviruses for decades.
The preliminary findings about Omicron are based on population studies from South Africa and experiments conducted in labs. Observations from countries around the world back them up, but it will be another week or so before theres enough hard data to be convincing.
Sandile Cele, a researcher at the Africa Health Research Institute in Durban, South Africa, studies the Omicron variant.
(Jerome Delay / Associated Press)
Thus far, COVID-19 death rates across South Africa have dropped considerably despite the Omicron wave. If that continues to be the case for the next two or three weeks and there is no massive surge in hospitalizations, it may well mark turning point in [the] pandemic, according to Dr. Shabir Madhi, an infectious-disease expert at the University of the Witwatersrand.
Some scientists insist that kind of thinking is premature. Omicrons behavior in the U.S. may be different than its behavior in South Africa, since the population there is much younger, among other differences.
Plus, Omicrons propensity to spread may negate its lighter touch: If the variant is half as likely to make people severely ill but twice as transmissible, itll be a wash.
And then theres the ever-present possibility that a new mutation will come along and change the game again. The coronavirus could become easier to contain or it could make things worse.
William Hanage, an epidemiologist at Harvards School of Public Health, is among those who arent ready to breathe a sigh of relief.
Only a fool would bet against Mother Nature, he said.
California cases and deaths as of 4:28 p.m. Friday:
Track Californias coronavirus spread and vaccination efforts including the latest numbers and how they break down with our graphics.
Someday, the pandemic will be over. But for many of those who lost loved ones, life will never return to normal. Its not just the emotional toll of knowing that parents, spouses or other cherished people are gone for good. Its the way their absence affects the trajectory of their lives.
Janelly, Melanie, Leanna and Sergio Ayala all of them 10 or younger are in this unfortunate category. Their father, 37-year-old Sergio Ayala, died of COVID-19 in January. In addition to being a doting parent, he was a breadwinner with a good job as a field supervisor at his brother-in-laws pest control company. He was also taking steps to become a barber and own his own business.
Once that dream was fulfilled, he had planned to start college savings funds for all four of his children. His partner, Lizeth Sanchez, was going to go back to school and study sociology. Instead, she will stick with her job at a medical device manufacturing company. She worries that shell only be able to send one of their children to college.
The family Sergio Ayala left behind is hardly alone, my colleague Alejandra Reyes-Velarde reports. In California, COVID-19s victims include a disproportionate share of younger Latinos people whose families relied on them for financial support.
There are a variety of reasons why COVID-19 has been particularly unkind to this demographic. To name a few: Theyre more likely to work in essential jobs that increase their exposure to the coronavirus; they have higher rates of conditions like obesity and hypertension that are associated with severe COVID-19; and they are more likely to live in crowded and multigenerational homes, increasing the risk that if one family member catches the coronavirus, others will too.
When you add it all up, Latinos in California have lost roughly 370,000 years of potential life due to COVID-19, according to UCLA biostatistics researcher Jay Xu.
A month after his death, Sergio Ayalas corner cubicle was cluttered with his belongings at PestCal Exterminators.
(Nick Agro / For The Times)
Some of those years would have been spent making families more financially secure and creating opportunities for upward mobility. Instead, those left behind will be struggling just to stay where they are and hoping they dont fall further behind.
Prior to the pandemic, about 38% of Latinos in California were in the middle class, and more than half were in the lowest income bracket, according to a report from the California Latino Economic Institute. Thanks to the pandemic, many of those in the first category have slipped into the second.
A survey by the Pew Research Center found that, a year into the pandemic, 44% of Americans said either they or someone in their household had lost a job or taken a pay cut because of the pandemic. Among Latinos, that figure was about 60%.
When Latinos struggle, the whole state struggles.
If Latinos are left behind, thats going to have a significant impact on Californias overall economy, said Mindy Romero, a political sociologist at USC. You cant leave behind your most populous community.
Sanchez will do the best she can for her children, without Ayalas help. But deaths like his have the potential to widen the class divide in the decades to come.
See the latest on Californias vaccination progress with our tracker.
Winter is coming.
That Game of Thrones warning also applies to the real world, where the rapidly spreading Omicron variant and the destructive Delta variant are threatening to overwhelm hospitals in the coming weeks.
Californias COVID-19 forecasting models show that a winter surge could be worse than this summers Delta wave, which stretched hospitals to their limits in much of the state.
We will, in fact, see a pretty significant surge in our cases, said Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer.
Thats already happening in Riverside County, which hasnt had a break since patients sickened by Delta began filling hospitals months ago. Its been so bad that patients have had to wait up to five hours just to be transferred from an ambulance gurney to a bed in the ER, said Bruce Barton, director of emergency management there.
Colder weather and holiday gatherings could make the situation even worse. And if patients go to hospitals, theyre likely to find them short-staffed because exhausted employees have left the industry.
The combination of Delta and Omicron is a perfect storm for overwhelming our hospital system that is already strained, said Dr. Regina Chinsio-Kwong, a deputy health officer for Orange County.
The problem isnt limited to California. Omicron cases in the U.S. are doubling about every two days, said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC says there could be more than 1 million new coronavirus cases next week; around Halloween, there were 500,000 in a week.
President Biden didnt mince words when he described the threat on Thursday: For [the] unvaccinated, we are looking at a winter of severe illness and death, he said. That was followed by the usual pitch to protect yourself and others by getting vaccinated and boosted.
Infections are also spiraling in the United Kingdom, hitting record highs. That prompted France to tighten entry rules for travelers from the U.K. In addition, Greece and Italy tightened entry requirements for all visitors this week while Portugal extended stricter border controls that were already in effect.
In the Netherlands, where a partial lockdown has been in place since November, the government ordered elementary schools to begin Christmas break a week early in hopes of heading off an Omicron surge. Dutch leaders also followed Britains lead by accelerating their booster shot campaign.
Back in the U.S., the CDC is easing up on schools by backing test-to-stay policies that let students remain in classrooms after theyve been exposed to an infected person but only if the exposed students are asymptomatic and test negative for a coronavirus infection. The CDC says the change will minimize disruptions for students without putting them at increased risk.
Previously, the guidance was for students to quarantine at home for 10 days if they came in close contact with an infected person. As of Friday, both policies are considered viable options. (Some schools may want to continue with quarantines because the monitoring needed for test-to-stay can be costly.)
The CDC said its decision was influenced by the experience of school districts in Chicago and L.A. County, which kept case rates in check when they implemented test-to-stay policies. L.A. Unified was not one of them more than 2,000 LAUSD students enter quarantine in a typical week but the nations second-largest school district was already planning to shift to a policy like the one endorsed by the CDC.
The CDC also made a change to its COVID-19 vaccine recommendations, saying Americans would be better off with either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna shots than with the one from Johnson & Johnson. The updated advice was based on a reassessment of the risk of developing rare but serious blood clots after getting the J&J shot, as well as a recognition that the other vaccines have proved more effective.
Until now, all three vaccines were treated as if they were equally good. The fact that the J&J offering came in a single dose was expected to be an advantage, since it offered a simpler path to full immunization. But it hasnt proven nearly as popular as its two-dose counterparts: Of the more than 200 million Americans who are fully vaccinated, only about 16 million got the J&J shot.
Although its not preferred, the J&J vaccine will remain an option for Americans who arent comfortable with the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines.
And speaking of the Pfizer vaccine, a very-low-dose version being tested in 2- to 4-year-olds did not prompt a strong enough immune response after two shots, the company said. The company will now test three doses to see if protection improves.
The dosage being tried is one-tenth the adult dose, and Pfizer said it had no plans right now to increase it. The two-dose version for 5- to 11-year-olds is one-third the adult dose.
Its not clear how long this setback may delay a COVID-19 vaccine for the youngest children. If the three-dose series is shown to work in a clinical trial, Pfizer and BioNTech said theyd seek emergency use authorization sometime before the end of June 2022.
Boxes containing the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine are loaded for shipping at the Pfizer Global Supply Kalamazoo manufacturing plant in Portage, Mich., on Dec. 13, 2020.
(Morry Gash / Associated Press)
This picture was taken just over a year ago as the biggest immunization drive in American history got underway. Its from a Pfizer manufacturing plant in Michigan, and the green forklift speeding by is moving boxes of COVID-19 vaccine.
After losing 300,000 Americans in less than a year, health officials were thrilled to see injections going into arms. It seemed like nothing short of a miracle that the shots along with similar ones produced by Moderna were developed in a matter of months and were at least 94% effective in clinical trials.
A year later, the U.S. death toll from COVID-19 stands above 800,000 despite the widespread availability of multiple vaccines. People who are fully vaccinated are 14 times less likely to die of the disease than people who are unvaccinated, according to the CDC. But numbers like that have a hard time breaking through the wall of misinformation that has scared millions of people away.
Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, said he and other experts underestimated how the spread of misinformation could hobble the astounding achievement of the vaccines.
DETROIT (AP) The city of Detroit is approaching the one-year anniversary of its rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines as officials continue to urge residents to get vaccinated or receive booster shots.
The city says more than 424,000 doses have been administered to residents 5 and older since frontline medical worker and first responders began receiving vaccines on Dec. 23, 2020.
Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic in early 2020, more than 2,600 Detroit residents have died from the disease. But the citys vaccination rate of 44%, which includes children 5 and older, still is far below Michigans overall rate.
Additional Coronavirus information and resources:
View a global coronavirus tracker with data from Johns Hopkins University.
See complete coverage on our Coronavirus Continuing Coverage page.
Visit our The Rebound Detroit, a place where we are working to help people impacted financially from the coronavirus. We have all the information on everything available to help you through this crisis and how to access it.
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As the omicron variant of COVID-19 quickly spreads across the United States, public health experts fear that Texas health care system could once again be overwhelmed by the disease within weeks.
Its really accelerating fast, said Dr. Peter Hotez, a virologist at Baylor College of Medicine. I think were going to be in the middle of it by Christmas.
The new variant of the coronavirus was detected in Texas for the first time earlier this month, and outbreaks and surging case counts have since been tied to the strain. Although COVID-19 hospitalizations remain relatively low in most of the state, a fast-rising number of people are testing positive for the virus in the states urban centers. Hospitals in the Texas Panhandle and El Paso are again filling up with COVID-19 patients, according to data from the Texas Department of State Health Services.
As of Thursday, there have been 116 confirmed coronavirus cases related to the omicron variant in Texas, the state health department said. Although the delta variant is still prominent in Texas, medical researchers predict omicron will soon become the dominant strain. Early evidence suggests omicron may be milder but spreads faster and more often to vaccinated people, medical experts said. They expect that people who have been fully vaccinated and recently gotten a booster shot will still be much better protected from serious illness or death.
Still, medical researchers are trying to determine how severe omicron-related infections are on unvaccinated individuals or even the less-recently vaccinated, since evidence of more mild infections is based largely on anecdotal cases among a younger population, like in South Africa. With Texas lagging vaccination rates and an already-depleted hospital workforce, public health experts in the state fear omicron could become devastating for the health care system even if the variant ends up largely causing only relatively mild illness.
Those rural counties where we have low vaccination rates and have lost hospital infrastructure, those I think we should be the most concerned about, said Rebecca Fischer, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the Texas A&M University School of Public Health. The past 20 months we have seen hospitals close, weve seen hospitals lose their staff. We are not in a great place with our health care infrastructure to handle another mass influx of cases.
As of Friday, about 20% of people hospitalized in the El Paso and Panhandle hospital regions had COVID-19, according to state health data, putting them above the 15% marker previously used to indicate whether local officials could enact some restrictions. New infections in Dallas County are more than three times higher than they were two weeks ago. And the states positivity rate which calculates the percentage of COVID-19 tests that come back positive has inched to nearly 10%, putting the state in the so-called red zone, in which federal officials urge more restrictions to limit the virus spread.
Although its often unclear whether omicron or delta is behind current infections, local news reports have highlighted ever-climbing numbers of cases in areas throughout the state, with some notable ones tied to the new variant.
This week, the University of Texas at Austin reported a spike in coronavirus cases that is believed to be driven by the omicron variant. Nearly 80 cases were confirmed among students in two days this week, compared with less than 30 cases the entire previous week, according to the Austin American-Statesman. The increase came days after three UT-Austin cases were deemed likely to be related to the new strain and contracted through community spread.
The Houston Chronicle reported Thursday that the new variant made up about 32% of COVID-19 hospitalizations in a city hospital system testing strain types, up from 13% on Dec. 11. Omicron traces are also being detected at more of the citys wastewater treatment plants.
The uptick in COVID-19 infections related to the omicron variant is part of a new wave of cases in the Houston area, with the Texas Medical Center reporting more than triple the number of positive cases last week, the Chronicle reported. The Harris County Public Health system this week reported its highest single-day total of positive cases in more than two months, and the mayor said he tested positive for the virus Friday.
What the new variant means for vaccinated individuals is still unclear, but UT-Austin projections released Thursday predict that the new variant could, in a worst-case scenario, lead to the most severe health care surges of the pandemic throughout the nation. More optimistically, the variant could lead to a less drastic spike in deaths and hospitalizations than what the country saw in January. The projections presume that omicron will be as severe as delta for unvaccinated individuals with no antibodies, and that vaccinated individuals will have significant but potentially less protection than they have against delta.
When delta raged in Texas this fall, the state health department reported that unvaccinated people were 13 times more likely to become infected with COVID-19 than fully vaccinated people, and were 20 times more likely to die.
Fischer does not expect that disparity to wane with omicron, and she and Hotez urged more Texans to get vaccinated as quickly as possible. About 56% of the states population is fully vaccinated, according to the health department, and more than 10 million Texans have not had any dose of the vaccine. About two million Texans are under 5 and therefore ineligible for vaccination.
Experts and local and state public health officials urged those who are already vaccinated to get a booster before traveling during the holidays if possible. Hotez, who is co-director of the Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, said a new study indicated older doses of the Pfizer vaccine may provide less protection against infection of omicron than with the delta variant.
It gets much better after the third dose, but even then [protection] begins to wane pretty quickly especially against symptomatic illness, he said. Its still holding up well against severe disease.
During what is expected to be a high surge, even fully vaccinated individuals should try to eat outdoors when visiting restaurants, gather in small groups, and simply be mindful of hygiene and the protection of those around them, the experts and officials said.
Our ultimate expectation, and in a way our hope given that we are not expecting the virus to magically disappear, is that we settle to a place where it does cause more mild diseases and that vaccines will prevent disease and death just as the flu shot does, Fischer said.
But with depleted health care resources and a high percentage of unvaccinated individuals, shes unsure if that hope will become reality anytime soon.
Disclosure: Texas Children's Hospital, the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
For immediate release: December 17, 2021(21-250)Spanish
Contact: DOH Communications
Public inquiries: State COVID-19 Information Hotline, 1-800-525-0127
OLYMPIA The Washington State Department of Health (DOH), is updating the health and safety requirements for high contact indoor sports in the wake of a multi-school, multi-county outbreak. The outbreaks are linked to a series of wrestling tournaments held in early December and are linked to an estimated 200 COVID-19 cases. Genomic sequencing recently confirmed at least three cases are omicron.
DOH takes these outbreaks very seriously and is changing the existing guidance by adding the following health and safety measures for all indoor, high-contact sports and activities (basketball, wrestling, water polo, and competitive cheer), effective immediately:
In addition, DOH wants to remind people of existing requirements for all K-12 sporting events that help keep athletes, staff, and families safer when attending these events:
DOH also recognizes some of the affected local health, education, or athletic leaders are choosing to postpone or cancel sporting events or pause sporting activities in order to stop further spread of the disease. There may be differences in how these activities are handled, so we would encourage people to be patient with any potential process or scheduling changes at the local level.
Omicron is a game-changer, but we know layered prevention measures slow the spread of COVID-19 in sports, schools, and communities. said Lacy Fehrenbach, Deputy Secretary for the COVID-19 response. Please get vaccinated, boosted, wear a well-fitting mask, and maintain your distance to help our kids stay healthy, stay in the game, and stay in school.
Vaccinations, in addition to testing and masking, will help keep our athletes healthy and allow everyone to continue to enjoy sporting events while also limiting the spread of disease, said Dr. Tao Sheng Kwan-Gett, Chief Science Officer. Getting a booster will make protection against the omicron variant even stronger. The booster vaccine is now available for everyone 16 years and older.
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