SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (KRON) Well, its that time of year again when a stuffy nose, a cough, or sinus issues might be flaring up again. At the same time, many adults are scheduling the COVID-19 booster shots, and kids are working on getting their first doses of the vaccine.
You may be wondering, is it safe to get a booster shot, or a first dose, if youre experiencing cold symptoms?
The simple answer is yes. Dr. Peter Chin-Hong joins KRON4 in an exclusive interview to explain.
NEW YORK (WKBW) New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced a COVID-19 vaccine incentive aimed at outdoor enthusiasts Wednesday.
The 'Take Your Shot for an Outdoor Adventure' sweepstakes will offer a chance to win prizes tailored to anglers, hunters, and other outdoor enthusiasts.
"New York State is known for its outdoor gems and rich sporting traditions, and this important vaccine incentive reflects that," said Hochul. "As we pass another milestone with 90 percent of New Yorkers having received their first dose, we need to keep the pace of vaccination going. By getting vaccinated, you can protect yourself whether you're indoors or outdoors. Don't delay."
There will be 2,000 entrants allowed and five grand prizes winners will be randomly selected to receive their choice of deluxe fishing, hunting and birding packages. There will be 25 entrants randomly selected to receive their choice of second tier fishing and hunting packages.
The 2,000 who enter will receive the following:
Information on how to enter will be available on the DEC website beginning December 1.
Governor Kathy Hochul today announced enhanced direct messaging efforts to increase COVID-19 vaccination and booster rates among New Yorkers as the holidays approach. The direct messaging program is part of the State's ongoing and comprehensive campaign to ensure vaccination and eligibility news reaches New Yorkers directly, activating more messengers on the ground. Today, the State launched its seventh SMS text message, being rolled-out in English and Spanish. The text reminds New Yorkers to celebrate a safe holiday with loved ones by ensuring children 5 years and older are vaccinated against COVID-19, and eligible New Yorkers 18 and older receive theirbooster dose.
"This direct messaging effort is part of New York's multilayered campaign to engage New York families to ensure everyone in their household is vaccinated and up-to-date with all recommended vaccine doses,"GovernorHochul said. "As part of our vast public information strategy, utilizing SMS text messaging and Excelsior Pass notifications - we can reach more New Yorkers with these important messages, and inspire even those who are fully boosted to help others in their communities. When you get vaccinated and get your booster, you continue to not only protect yourself, but your loved ones. Vaccines are critical to enjoying a safe and healthy holiday season with family and friends and I strongly encourage New Yorkers to get vaccinated to help prevent the spread of this deadly virus."
Being rolled-out in English and Spanish, individuals who initially received their vaccine and consented to receiving text messages while at a mass vaccination site will receive the following message:
For a safe holiday, help everyone in your family get vaccinated.NYers5+ should receive the COVID-19 vaccine and eligible 18+ a booster. Visit:ny.gov/vaccine
In addition to the SMS text campaign, New York State createdadedicated websitewith information about booster doses, additional doses,eligibility, frequently asked questions, and resources for providers on-the-ground to support in the dissemination of information to eligible populations as well asa new micrositefor information on children 5 - 11. To date since boosters have been available, NYS has sent seven text messages reaching 2.5 million New Yorkers. The State also continues to communicate with Excelsior Pass holders through push notification messaging, including aboutbooster doses.
We also continue our work to community-based trusted messengers on the ground, audience-specific pop-up strategies and traditional advertising efforts such as the new PSAS launched for5-11-year-oldsand the State's #VaxtoSchoolefforts. To learn more and schedule your free vaccine or booster dose appointment, visithere.
South African scientists have detected a new COVID-19 variant in small numbers and are working to understand its potential implications.
The variant called B.1.1.529 has a very unusual constellation of mutations, which are concerning because they could help it evade the bodys immune response and make it more transmissible, scientists told reporters at a news conference on Thursday.
The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) said 22 positive cases of the new variant have been recorded in the country following genomic sequencing.
Unfortunately we have detected a new variant which is a reason for concern in South Africa, virologist Tulio de Oliveira told a news conference.
The variant has a very high number of mutations, he said. Its unfortunately causing a resurgence of infections, he added.
It has also been detected in Botswana and Hong Kong among travellers from South Africa, he said.
Health Minister JoePhaahla said the variant was of serious concern and behind an exponential increase in reported cases, making it a major threat.
Daily infections jumped to more than 1,200 on Wednesday, up from about 100 earlier this month.
Before the detection of the new variant, authorities had predicted a fourth wave to hitSouthAfricastarting around the middle of December, buoyed by travel ahead of the festive season.
The NICD said in a statement Thursday that detected cases and the percentage testing positive are increasing quickly in three of the countrys provinces including Gauteng, which includes Johannesburg and Pretoria.
A cluster outbreak was recently identified, concentrated at a higher education institute in the capital Pretoria, the NICD said.
Although the data are limited, our experts are working overtime with all the established surveillance systems to understand the new variant and what the potential implications could be, it said.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, South Africa has recorded about 2.95 million cases of COVID-19, of which 89,657 have been fatal.
Scientists said the new B.1.1.529 variant has at least 10 mutations, compared with two for Delta or three for Beta.
What gives us some concerns (is) that this variant might have not just have enhanced transmissibility, so spread more efficiently, but might also be able to get around parts of the immune system and the protection we have in our immune system, said researcher Richard Lessells.
So far the variant has been seen spreading especially among young people.
But the coming days and weeks will be key to determining the severity of the variant, Lessells said.
Professor Helen Rees, of the WHOs African Regional Immunization Technical Advisory Group, urged people not to panic.
[Currently] we are trying to identify how widely spread this is. There will be a lot of work looking at: Is it more transmissible? Is it associated with any more severity of disease? Does it render the vaccines less effective? Rees told Al Jazeera.
In the meantime, our big request to the world, in terms of vaccinating the African region, is please get the vaccines out into the region because as we know variants dont stay in one country, she added.
South Africa has requested an urgent sitting of a World Health Organization (WHO) working group on virus evolution on Friday to discuss thenewvariant.
Health Minister Phaahla said it was too early to say whether the government would impose tougher restrictions in response to the variant.
South Africa was the first country to detect the Betavariantlast year.
Beta is one of only four labelled of concern by the WHO because there is evidence that it is more contagious and vaccines work less well against it.
With coronavirus infection rates back on the rise, many Americans are wondering why the U.S. is, once again, experiencing surge in cases and hospitalizations, despite widespread vaccinations.
The U.S. is now reporting more than 94,000 new COVID-19 cases each day -- up by 47% since late October. And 35 states -- nearly all of them in the north or mountain region -- have seen an uptick in daily cases of 10% or more in the last two weeks.
Just under 53,000 COVID-19 positive patients are currently receiving care in hospitals across the country -- up by more than 7,000 patients from earlier this month.
Several states -- including Michigan, Maine and New Hampshire -- are experiencing record-breaking surges.
Experts say a confluence of factors is likely driving the country's recent increases in infections, including the more than 100 million Americans who remain completely unvaccinated, cold weather and relaxed restrictions, the highly transmissible delta variant, and waning vaccine immunity.
According to health officials, the vast majority of infections and severe hospitalizations continue to be among the unvaccinated.
This September, federal data showed that unvaccinated individuals have a 5.8 times greater risk of testing positive for COVID-19, and a 14 times greater risk of dying from it, as compared to those fully vaccinated.
"The thing we are concerned about is the people who are not vaccinated, because what they're doing is they're the major source of the dynamics of the infection in the community," Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House's chief medical adviser, said during an appearance on ABC's "This Week" on Sunday. "The higher the level of dynamics of infection, the more everyone is at risk."
People wait in the line to clear through the TSA checkpoint at Miami International Airport on Nov. 24, 2021, in Miami.
Across the country, more than 100 million Americans remain completely unvaccinated -- 81 million of whom are currently over the age of 5, and thus are eligible to be vaccinated.
The significant number of unvaccinated individuals -- about 30.5% of the total population -- leaves millions at-risk and completely unprotected against the virus.
With winter arriving, and the holiday season on the horizon, many Americans are spending more time indoors, as the weather gets colder. COVID-19, as well as other respiratory illnesses, has been shown to spread more in indoor settings, and when people are forced to be in close proximity to one another.
Millions of Americans are also once again traveling, taking to the air, the railways and the highways. A total of 53.4 million people are expected to travel for Thanksgiving, up 13% from 2020, according to estimates from AAA.
Although masking is required in all forms of public transportation, across the country, COVID-19 restrictions are sparse, with few jurisdictions now requiring face coverings or social distancing.
Passengers wait in line inside the terminal at Newark Liberty International Airport in Newark, N.J., Nov. 24, 2021.
"We're seeing cases trickle up, this is probably likely due to waning immunity, but also because of the colder temperatures people are gathering indoors and adhering less to social distancing and masking," John Brownstein, an epidemiologist at Boston Children's Hospital and an ABC News contributor, told "World News Tonight." "Unfortunately, that is a recipe for an increase in transmission this holiday season."
Masking has been shown to reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission, and is still recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in crowded outdoor settings and for activities with close contact with others who are not fully vaccinated.
In the U.S., federal data shows that the delta variant accounts for 99.9% of new coronavirus cases. According to the CDC, delta is far more transmissible than prior variants.
Many of the country's northern states were not as hard hit by the delta surge over the summer. Those states are just now feeling the impacts of the delta variant. Comparatively, states like Florida, which bore the brunt of the summer delta surge, are reporting very low COVID-19 infection numbers.
"We're seeing is pockets of surges across this country, the Midwest being one but also in the Northeast," Brownstein said
Travellers with their luggage arrive at Covid-19 Testing location at the airport in Los Angeles on Nov. 23, 2021, where up to two million people are expected to travel over the Thanksgiving Day holidays.
The delta variant spreads more easily among vaccinated people than prior versions of the virus, though vaccinated people are still far less likely to spread the virus compared to unvaccinated people.
Although the vast majority of infections and severe hospitalizations are among the unvaccinated, breakthrough positive COVID-19 cases among the vaccinated do appear to be on the rise, due to waning immunity, according to health officials.
"There's no doubt that immunity wanes. It wanes in everyone. It's more dangerous in the elderly, but it's across all age groups," Fauci said earlier this month, citing data from Israel and the U.K., where more people were vaccinated sooner and began to first document waning immunity.
Experts stress that the vaccines remain highly effective against severe COVID-19 illness.
Boosters are now recommended for everyone 18 and older, at least six months after an initial Pfizer or Moderna vaccination, or two months after a Johnson & Johnson shot.
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Another 548 coronavirus cases have been reported across Maine, health officials said Thursday,
Thursdays report brings the total number of coronavirus cases in Maine to 118,489,according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Thats up from 117,941 on Wednesday.
Of those, 84,543have been confirmed positive, while 33,946were classified as probable cases, the Maine CDC reported.
No new deaths were reported Thursday, leaving the statewide death toll at 1,303.
The number of coronavirus cases diagnosed in the past 14 days statewide is 8,143. This is an estimation of the current number of active cases in the state, as the Maine CDC is no longer tracking recoveries for all patients. Thats down from 8,349 on Wednesday.
The new case rate statewide Thursday was 4.09 cases per 10,000 residents, and the total case rate statewide was 885.30.
Maines seven-day average for new coronavirus cases is 634.3, down from 687.9 the day before, up from 533.9 a week ago and up from 463.1 a month ago. That average peaked on Tuesday 693.7.
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, 3,097 Mainers have been hospitalized at some point with COVID-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus. Of those, 327 are currently hospitalized, with 108 in critical care and 39 on a ventilator. Overall, 55 out of 372 critical care beds and 203 out of 306 ventilators are available.
That breaks the previous record of 314 hospitalizations set on Wednesday, continuing a trend of surging hospitalizations driven largely by the unvaccinated, according to state health officials.
The total statewide hospitalization rate on Thursday was 23.14 patients per 10,000 residents.
Cases have been reported in Androscoggin (12,800), Aroostook (5,106), Cumberland (24,100), Franklin (2,915), Hancock (3,510), Kennebec (11,591), Knox (2,361), Lincoln (2,119), Oxford (6,221), Penobscot (13,725), Piscataquis (1,562), Sagadahoc (2,397), Somerset (5,239), Waldo (2,821), Washington (2,355) and York (19,648) counties. Information about where an additional 19 cases were reported wasnt immediately available.
An additional 3,448 vaccine doses were administered in the previous 24 hours. As of Thursday, 911,290 Mainers are fully vaccinated, or about 71.2 percent of eligible Mainers, according to the Maine CDC.
As of Thursday morning, the coronavirus had sickened 48,098,413 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 775,542 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.
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STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. Families around the five boroughs will have access to paid time off to get their kids coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccines after the City Council passed legislation Tuesday.
Parents and legal guardians will have four hours of paid leave for each vaccine injection for each of their children, or to care for kids who experience side effects from the injections.
Employers will have the opportunity to ask for documentary proof of kids vaccinations, and the bills primary sponsor, outgoing Councilwoman Vanessa Gibson (D-the Bronx), said it allows families the best opportunity to get their kids vaccinated.
As we continue the fight against COVID-19 in our city, it is important that we continue to encourage all New Yorkers to get vaccinated and to ensure that every New Yorker, regardless of their age, has equitable access to potentially life-saving medicine, Gibson, who will become the Bronx Borough President next year, said. Healthcare and access to medicine is a fundamental right.
The new leave qualifications will become the citys Earned Safe and Sick Time Act, many parts of which took effect in response to the coronavirus
For newly-minted City Council Minority Leader Joe Borelli (R-South Shore), the latest addition to paid leave marks another hit to businesses around the five boroughs.
This is a paid sick leave on top of the already crushing anti-small business paid sick leave law we already have, he said.
Outgoing City Councilmembers Steve Matteo (R-Mid-Island) and Debi Rose (D-North Shore) voted against and in favor of the bill, respectively. Matteo, who did not respond to a request for comment, preceded Borelli as the City Council Minority Leader.
Rose said that she voted for the legislation, in part, because kids need to be accompanied by a parent or guardian to get their vaccination.
It would be counterproductive to expect families to sacrifice wages to protect their children from Covid-19 or care for them should they experience side effects from the inoculation. We must incentivize not penalize, she said. This is simply common-sense legislation.
In addition to its support in the City Council, Mayor Bill de Blasio had also pushed the legislation as the latest way to encourage vaccinations around the five boroughs.
Shortly after the Food and Drug Administration gave emergency use authorization for kids 5 to 11 years old to be vaccinated, de Blasio extended that leave to city workers.
We want to make it easy. We want to make it conducive. We want to say to parents, whatever it takes, were going to help you do it, he said Nov. 8. This is something parents deserve. You shouldnt have to choose between the paycheck and a healthier family.
Updated at 12:44 p.m. ET on November, 23 2021
In a world with perfect coronavirus tests, people could swab their nose or spit in a tube and get near-instant answers about their SARS-CoV-2 status. The products would be free, fast, and completely reliable. Positives would immediately shuttle people out of public spaces and, if needed, into treatment; negatives could green-light entry into every store, school, and office, and spring people out of isolation with no second thought. Tests would guarantee whether someone is contagious, or merely infected, or neither. And that status would hold true until each person had the chance to test again.
Unfortunately, that is not the reality we live innor will it ever be. No such test exists, K. C. Coffey, an infectious-disease physician and diagnostics expert at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, told me. Not for this virus, and not for any disease that I know of. And almost two years into this pandemic, imperfection isnt the only testing problem we have. For many Americans, testing remains inaccessible, unaffordable, and stillstill!ridiculously confusing.
Contradictory results, for instance, are an all-too-common conundrum. Cole Shacochis Edwards, a nurse in Maryland, discovered at the end of August that her daughter, Alden, had been exposed to the virus while masked at volleyball practice. Shacochis Edwards rapid-tested her family of four at home, while the high school ran a laboratory PCR on Alden. One week, 11 rapid antigen tests, 3 PCRs, and $125 later, their household was knee-deep in a baffling array of clashing results: Alden tested negative, then positive, then negative again, then positive again, then negative again; her father tested negative, then positive, then positive, then negative; Shacochis Edwards, who tested three times, and her son, who tested twice, stayed negative throughout. None of it was clear, she told me. Months after their testing saga, Shacochis Edwards is pretty sure the positives were wrongbut theres simply no way to know for sure.
Some conflicting results are just annoying. Others, though, can be a big problem when people misguidedly act on themunknowingly sparking outbreaks, derailing treatment, and squandering time and resources. And the confusion doesnt stop there. The tests come in an absurd number of flavors and packages, with subtle differences between brands. Theyre deployed in a disorienting variety of settings: doctors offices, community testing sites, apartment living rooms, and more. Theyre being asked to serve several very different purposes, including diagnosis of sick patients and screening of people who feel totally symptom-free.
Our tests are imperfectthats not going to change. The trick, then, is learning to deal with their limitations; to rely on them, but also not ask too much.
Tests are virus hunters. The best ones are able to accomplish two things: accurately pinpointing the pathogen in a person whos definitely infecteda metric called sensitivityand ruling out its existence in someone whos definitely not, or specificity. Tests with great sensitivity will almost never mistake an infected person for a virus-free onea false negative. High specificity, meanwhile, means reliably skirting false positives.
Our tests accomplish this in two broad ways. They search for specific snippets of the viruss genetic material, putting them in the category of molecular tests, or find hunks of pathogen protein, which is the job of antigen tests. (Most of the rapid tests you can find in stores are antigen, while PCR tests are molecular.) Both types will make mistakes, but whereas molecular tests repeatedly copy viral genetic material until its detectable, making it easier to root out the pathogen when its quite scarce, antigen tests just survey samples for SARS-CoV-2 proteins that are already there. That means theyre likelier to miss infections, especially in people with no symptoms.
Even super-sensitive, super-specific tests can spit out more errors when theyre mishandled, or when people swab themselves sloppily. That can be pretty easy to do when instructions differ so much among brands, as they do for rapid antigen tests. (Wait 24 hours between tests! No, 36! Swivel it in your nose four times! No, five! Dip a strip in liquid! No, drop the liquid into a plastic strip! Wait 10 minutes for your result! No, 15!)
Read: The wrong way to test yourself for the coronavirus.
Random substances can also dupe certain tests: Soda, fruit juice, ketchup, and a bunch of other household liquids have produced rapid-antigen false positives, an oopsie that some kids in the United Kingdom have apparently been gleefully exploiting to recuse themselves from school. Manufacturing snafus can also trigger false positives, as recently happened with Ellume, a company that sells rapid antigen tests and had to recall some 2 million of them in the United States. (Sean Parsons, Ellumes CEO, told me that the issue is now under control and that his company is already producing and shipping new product to the U.S.)
Even when theyre perfectly deployed, tests can detect bits of the virus only at the moment a sample is taken. Testing negative for the virus isnt some sort of permanent identity; it doesnt even guarantee that the pathogen isnt there. Viruses are always multiplying, and a test that cant find the virus in someones nose in the morning might pick it up come afternoon. People can also contract the virus between the tests they take, making a negative, then a positive, another totally plausible scenario. That means a test thats taken two days before a Thanksgiving gathering wont have any bearing on a persons status during the event itself. People want tests to be prospective, Gigi Kwik Gronvall, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told me. None are.
Recently, I asked more than two dozen peopleco-workers, family members, experts, strangers on Twitterwhat they envisioned the perfect coronavirus test to be. The answers I got were all over the place.
People wanted tests that were cheap and accessible (which theyre currently not), ideally something that could give them a lightning-fast answer at home. They also, unsurprisingly, wanted totally accurate results. But what they wanted those results to accomplish differed immensely. Some said theyd test only if they were feeling unwell, while others were way more interested in using the tests as routine checks in the absence of symptoms or exposures, a tactic called screening, to reassure them that they werent infectious to others.
Read:Massachusetts actually might have a way to keep schools open
At least for now, certain tests will be better suited to some situations than others. The best test to use depends on the question youre asking of it, Coffey told me. When someones sick or getting admitted into a hospital, for instance, health-care workers will generally reach first for the most precise, sensitive test they can get their hands on. A missed infection here is high-stakes: Someone could be excluded from a sorely needed treatment, or put other people at risk. But lab tests are inconvenient for the people who take them, and very often slow. Samples have to be collected by a professional, then sent out for processing; people can be left waiting for several days, during which their infection status might have changed.
Using a rapid test can be much more convenient, especially if people feel unwell at homeand these tests do work great for that. But things get hairier when these products are used for screening purposes. Asymptomatic infections are a lot harder to detect in general, because theres no obvious bodily signal to prompt a test. Youre essentially randomly sampling, which means more errors will inevitably crop up, Linoj Samuel, a clinical microbiologist at the Henry Ford Health System in Michigan, told me. To patch this problem, the FDA has green-lit several rapid tests that tell users to administer them seriallyat least once every couple of days. A test that misses the virus one day will hopefully catch it the next, especially if levels are rising.
But for those hoping to narrow in on the people who are carrying the most virus in their airwayand probably pose the biggest contagious risk to othersrapid antigen tests might be enough to do the trick precisely because they are less sensitive. They wont catch all infections, but not all infections are infectious; a positive antigen result, at least, could be a decent indication that someone should stay home, even if theyre feeling perfectly fine. That logic isnt airtight, though. Antigen-positive is not precisely synonymous with infectious; antigen negatives cannot guarantee that someone is not. For SARS-CoV-2, we dont know the thresholdhow much virus you need to be carrying to be contagious, Melissa B. Miller, a clinical microbiologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, told me. People on the border of positivity, for instance, might still transmit.
People are turning to testing for asymptomatic check-ins that can give them peace of mind before a big event, or even give them the go-ahead to travel overseas. But a lot of these screening tests were initially designed to diagnose people who were already sickand the tests performance wont necessarily hold when theyre being repeatedly used on symptom-free people at home.
Part of the problem can be traced back to how the United States thinking on testing has evolved. Early on in the pandemic, regulatory agencies like the FDA prioritized tests for symptomatic patients; the agency has since noticeably shifted its stance, authorizing dozens of tests that can now be taken at home. But there are still some relics that have influenced how the tests have, and have not, been evaluated for use.
Tests such as the Abbott BinaxNOW, for example, were first studied as a rapid diagnostic that people could take shortly after their symptoms first appeared. It can now be used as a screener, when it is serially administered at home to asymptomatic people (which is why the tests are sold in packs of two). But to nab that expanded authorization from the FDA, the company didnt have to submit any data on the tests performance when it was serially administered at home, or how well it worked in asymptomatic people. Instead, the FDA has been green-lighting serial tests based on how well their results match up to PCR results in symptomatic people. They just have to detect 80 percent of the infections that the super-sensitive molecular tests do, in a clinical setting.
Read: The one Thanksgiving necessity America forgot to stock.
I asked the FDA why that was. The FDA does not feel that requiring specific serial-testing data from each manufacturer is necessary due to the current state of knowledge on serial testing, James McKinney, a spokesperson, told me. (Some companies that already have products for sale, including Abbott and Becton, Dickinson, are collecting additional data now under FDA advisement.)
The repurposing of tests feels a little weird, experts told me. I dont see how you can reuse the same data, for very different goals, Jorge Caballero, a co-founder of Coders Against COVID, whos been tracking coronavirus-test availability and performance, told me. That doesnt mean these tests are useless if you dont have symptoms. But without more evidence, were still determining exactly what theyre able to tell us when we self-administer them once, twice, or more, even as were feeling fine.
The results produced by a coronavirus test arent actually the end of the testing pipeline. Next comes interpretation, and thats a nest of confusions in its own right. Sure, tests can be wrong, but the likelihood that they are wrong changes depending on whos using them, how, and when. People dont always talk about what to do when theyre shocked by a resultbut that sense of surprise can sometimes be the first sign that the tests intel is wrong. People should have some confidence on how likely it is they have the disease when they test, Coffey told me. Ideally, the test should confirm what you already think.
Consider, for example, an unvaccinated person who starts feeling sniffly and feverish five days after mingling unmasked with a bunch of people at a party, several of whom tested positive the next day. That persons likelihood of having the virus is pretty high; if they test positive, they can be pretty sure thats right. Random screenings of healthy, vaccinated people with no symptoms and no known exposures, meanwhile, are way more likely to be negative, and positives here should raise at least a few more eyebrows. Some will be correct, but truly weird results such as these may warrant a re-check with a more accurate test.
Yet another wrinkle has become particularly relevant as more and more people get vaccinated. Tests, which look only for pieces of pathogens, cant distinguish between actively replicating virus that poses an actual transmission threat, and harmless hunks of virus left behind by immune cells that have obliterated the threat. A positive test for a vaccinated person might not mean exactly the same thing it does in someone who hasnt yet had a shotmaybe, positive for positive, theyre less contagious. Thats not to say that noninfectious infections arent still important to track. But positives and negatives always have to be framed in context: when and why theyre being taken, and also by whom.
Tests will have to be part of our future, for as long as this virus is with us. But understanding their drawbacks is just as essential as celebrating their perks. Unlike masks and vaccines, which can proactively stop sickness, tests are by default reactive, catching only infections that have already begun. In and of themselves, they dont stop transmission, Coffey told me. Its about what you do with the test. If you dont do anything with the result, the test did nothing.
This article previously misstated the type of coronavirus test manufactured by the company Ellume.
COLUMBUS (WCMH) The Ohio Department of Healthhasreleasedthe latest number of COVID-19 casesin the state.
As of Wednesday, Nov. 24, ODH reports a total of 1,660,131 (+6,751) cases, leading to 85,225 (+339) hospitalizations and 10,656 (+24) admissions into the ICU. A total of 6,715,557 people or 57.45% of the states population have at least started the vaccination process, according to ODH data, an increase of 12,165 from the previous day.
From Monday-Sunday last week, ODH reported 38,379 cases, the third consecutive week-to-week increase after cases declined for six straight weeks coming off a peak in the Delta variant wave of 48,580 weekly cases.
ODH reported 127 deaths Tuesday, bringing the total to 26,190. The state is updating the number only after death certificates have been processed, usually twice a week.
The 21-day case average now sits at more than 4,800.
The ODH stated Wednesday that, due to the Thanksgiving holiday, no numbers will be released Thursday and the totals will be added to Fridays numbers.
