The corporate logo of the UnitedHealth Group appears on the side of one of their office buildings in Santa Ana, California, U.S., April 13, 2020. REUTERS/Mike Blake
Oct 14 (Reuters) - UnitedHealth Group Inc (UNH.N) said it expected COVID-19 to have a smaller impact on its profit next year as infections decline and more people get vaccinated, sparking a rally in the shares of U.S. health insurers.
The company, the largest U.S. health insurer, on Thursday also put to rest concerns of an impact from the Delta variant in 2021 by raising its profit outlook.
A surge in infections in July and August caused by the more infectious variant had increased hospital costs, but cases have declined since then.
Chief Financial Officer John Rex said current market estimates were "beginning to calibrate" the company's 2022 outlook. Analysts expect UnitedHealth to post adjusted earnings per share of $21.60, according to Refinitiv data.
"Investors were waiting to get that visibility into the company's framework around 2022 and clearly the company provided a confident initial outlook for next year," Stephens analyst Scott Fidel said.
While not every health insurer has had the same momentum as UnitedHealth, its comments bode well for the rest of the sector, he added.
UnitedHealth shares surged 6%, while rivals Humana Inc (HUM.N), Cigna Corp (CI.N) and Centene Corp (CNC.N) were between 2% and 3% higher.
UnitedHealth said it expected 2021 adjusted earnings per share between $18.65 and $18.90, compared with $18.30 to $18.80 previously. It maintained its forecast for a COVID-related hit at $1.80 per share.
The insurer said the profit outlook accounted for a possible surge in high-cost procedures that had been delayed during the Delta surge and were slowly returning to normal levels.
The postponement of the procedures helped it beat earnings expectations for the quarter ended Sept. 30.
The company reiterated its long-term earnings per share growth outlook of 13% to 16%.
Reporting by Manojna Maddipatla in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila and Aditya Soni
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Chicago Bears running back Damien Williams has been placed on the reserve/COVID-19 list, further depleting the team's backfield.
Already without starter David Montgomery, who is on injured reserve with a knee injury, the Bears could be without Williams as well on Sunday when they host the Packers. Vaccinated players need to be asymptomatic and test negative twice at least 24 hours apart to be removed from the COVID-19 list.
Khalil Herbert assumes the role as likely starter for the Bears. A sixth-round rookie out of Virginia Tech, Herbert had 75 yards on 18 carries in last week's win 20-9 road win against the Raiders.
The only other running back on the Bears' 53-man roster is Ryan Nall, a third-year player who has three career snaps and no carries.
This story will be updated.
(Photo: Chris Unger / Getty Images)
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), speaks during a news conference on the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak in Geneva, in March 2020. Stefan Wermuth/Bloomberg via Getty Images hide caption
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), speaks during a news conference on the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak in Geneva, in March 2020.
The World Health Organization has announced the establishment of a scientific advisory group aimed at identifying the origin of COVID-19 and to better prepare for future outbreaks of other deadly pathogens.
The WHO's Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins on Novel Pathogens, or SAGO, will include scientists from the U.S., China and about two dozen other countries. It will be charged with answering the question of how the novel coronavirus first infected humans a mystery that continues to elude experts more than 18 months into the crisis. The group will also be responsible for establishing a framework to combat future pandemics
Maria Van Kerkhove, the head of WHO's emerging disease unit, called the establishment of the new group "a real opportunity right now to get rid of all the noise, all the politics surrounding this and focus on what we know, what we don't know."
The team will be selected from more than 700 applications from experts in fields including epidemiology, animal health, ecology, clinical medicine, virology, genomics, molecular epidemiology, molecular biology, biology, food safety, biosafety, biosecurity and public health, the WHO said in a statement.
"The emergence of new viruses with the potential to spark epidemics and pandemics is a fact of nature, and while SARS-CoV-2 is the latest such virus, it will not be the last," WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. "Understanding where new pathogens come from is essential for preventing future outbreaks with epidemic and pandemic potential, and requires a broad range of expertise."
The establishment of the group comes as China has continued to resist efforts to study the possible origin of the virus there. After an initial investigation by the WHO, Beijing rejected a plan for a second phase of the probe in July that might delve into various hypotheses about the origin of the virus, including that it escaped from a Chinese government lab in the city of Wuhan.
The so-called "lab-leak theory" was initially dismissed by WHO, but has nonetheless gained traction in recent months, fueled in part by Beijing's secrecy. Many scientists contend that a lab leak is much less likely than the alternative that the novel coronavirus has a natural origin.
Beijing did not immediately react to the announcement of the new task force.
Despite the WHO's initial findings, Tedros has called for audits of Wuhan laboratories, including the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which some scientists believe may be the source of the virus that caused the first infections in China.
Some of the proposed SAGO members were on the original 10-person WHO team that studied possible origins in China, including Chinese scientist Yungui Yang of the Beijing Institute of Genomics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
An editorial co-authored by Tedros that was published in Science on Wednesday said SAGO would "quickly assess the status of SARS-CoV-2 origin studies and advise WHO on what is known, the outstanding gaps, and next steps."
It said that "[all] hypotheses must continue to be examined," including the "studies of wildlife sold in markets in and around Wuhan, China (where cases of COVID-19 were first reported in December 2019); studies of SARS-like coronaviruses circulating in bats in China and Southeast Asia; studies on prepandemic biological sampling around the world; and other animal susceptibility studies."
"As well, laboratory hypotheses must be examined carefully, with a focus on labs in the location where the first reports of human infections emerged in Wuhan," it said, adding, "A lab accident cannot be ruled out until there is sufficient evidence to do so and those results are openly shared."
In the summer of 2020, half a year into the coronavirus pandemic, scientists traveled into the forests of northern Laos to catch bats that might harbor close cousins of the pathogen.
In the dead of night, they used mist nets and canvas traps to snag the animals as they emerged from nearby caves, gathered samples of saliva, urine and feces, then released them back into the darkness.
The fecal samples turned out to contain coronaviruses, which the scientists studied in high security biosafety labs, known as BSL-3, using specialized protective gear and air filters.
Three of the Laos coronaviruses were unusual: They carried a molecular hook on their surface that was very similar to the hook on the virus that causes Covid-19, called SARS-CoV-2. Like SARS-CoV-2, their hook allowed them to latch onto human cells.
It is even better than early strains of SARS-CoV-2, said Marc Eloit, a virologist at the Pasteur Institute in Paris who led the study, referring to how well the hook on the Laos coronaviruses binds to human cells. The study was posted online last month and has not yet been published in a scientific journal.
Virus experts are buzzing about the discovery. Some suspect that these SARS-CoV-2-like viruses may already be infecting people from time to time, causing only mild and limited outbreaks. But under the right circumstances, the pathogens could give rise to a Covid-19-like pandemic, they say.
The findings also have significant implications for the charged debate over Covids origins, experts say. Some people have speculated that SARS-CoV-2s impressive ability to infect human cells could not have evolved through a natural spillover from an animal. But the new findings seem to suggest otherwise.
That really puts to bed any notion that this virus had to have been concocted, or somehow manipulated in a lab, to be so good at infecting humans, said Michael Worobey, a University of Arizona virologist who was not involved in the work.
These bat viruses, along with more than a dozen others discovered in recent months in Laos, Cambodia, China and Thailand, may also help researchers better anticipate future pandemics. The viruses family trees offer hints about where potentially dangerous strains are lurking, and which animals scientists should look at to find them.
Last week, the U.S. government announced a $125 million project to identify thousands of wild viruses in Asia, Latin America and Africa to determine their risk of spillover. Dr. Eloit predicted that there were many more relatives of SARS-CoV-2 left to find.
I am a fly fisherman, he said. When I am unable to catch a trout, that doesnt mean there are no trout in the river.
When SARS-CoV-2 first came to light, its closest known relative was a bat coronavirus that Chinese researchers found in 2016 in a mine in southern Chinas Yunnan Province. RaTG13, as it is known, shares 96 percent of its genome with SARS-CoV-2. Based on the mutations carried by each virus, scientists have estimated that RaTG13 and SARS-CoV-2 share a common ancestor that infected bats about 40 years ago.
Both viruses infect cells by using a molecular hook, called the receptor-binding domain, to latch on to their surface. RaTG13s hook, adapted for attaching to bat cells, can only cling weakly to human cells. SARS-CoV-2s hook, by contrast, can clasp cells in the human airway, the first step toward a potentially lethal case of Covid-19.
To find other close relatives of SARS-CoV-2, wildlife virus experts checked their freezers full of old samples from across the world. They identified several similar coronaviruses from southern China, Cambodia, and Thailand. Most came from bats, while a few came from scaly mammals known as pangolins. None was a closer relative than RaTG13.
Oct. 14, 2021, 6:25 p.m. ET
Dr. Eloit and his colleagues instead set out to find new coronaviruses.
They traveled to northern Laos, about 150 miles from the mine where Chinese researchers had found RaTG13. Over six months they caught 645 bats, belonging to 45 different species. The bats harbored two dozen kinds of coronaviruses, three of which were strikingly similar to SARS-CoV-2 especially in the receptor-binding domain.
In RaTG13, 11 of the 17 key building blocks of the domain are identical to those of SARS-CoV-2. But in the three viruses from Laos, as many as 16 were identical the closest match to date.
Dr. Eloit speculated that one or more of the coronaviruses might be able to infect humans and cause mild disease. In a separate study, he and colleagues took blood samples from people in Laos who collect bat guano for a living. Although the Laotians did not show signs of having been infected with SARS-CoV-2, they carried immune markers, called antibodies, that appeared to be caused by a similar virus.
Linfa Wang, a molecular virologist at the Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore who was not involved in the study, agreed that such an infection was possible, since the newly discovered viruses can attach tightly to a protein on human cells called ACE2.
If the receptor binding domain is ready to use ACE2, these guys are dangerous, Dr. Wang said.
Paradoxically, some other genes in the three Laotian viruses are more distantly related to SARS-CoV-2 than other bat viruses. The cause of this genetic patchwork is the complex evolution of coronaviruses.
If a bat infected with one coronavirus catches a second one, the two different viruses may end up in a single cell at once. As that cell begins to replicate each of those viruses, their genes get shuffled together, producing new virus hybrids.
In the Laotian coronaviruses, this gene shuffling has given them a receptor-binding domain thats very similar to that of SARS-CoV-2. The original genetic swap took place about a decade ago, according to a preliminary analysis by Spyros Lytras, a graduate student at the University of Glasgow in Scotland.
Mr. Lytras and his colleagues are now comparing SARS-CoV-2 not just to the new viruses from Laos, but to other close relatives that have been found in recent months. Theyre finding even more evidence of gene shuffling. This process known as recombination may be reshaping the viruses from year to year.
Its becoming more and more obvious how important recombination is, Mr. Lytras said.
He and his colleagues are now drawing the messy evolutionary trees of SARS-CoV-2-like viruses based on these new insights. Finding more viruses could help clear up the picture. But scientists are divided as to where to look for them.
Dr. Eloit believes the best bet is a zone of Southeast Asia that includes the site where his colleagues found their coronaviruses, as well as the nearby mine in Yunnan where RaTG13 was found.
I think the main landscape corresponds to north Vietnam, north Laos and south China, Dr. Eloit said.
The U.S. governments new virus-hunting project, called DEEP VZN, may turn up one or more SARS-CoV-2-like viruses in that region. A spokesman for USAID, the agency funding the effort, named Vietnam as one of the countries where researchers will be searching, and said that new coronaviruses are one of their top priorities.
Other scientists think its worth looking for relatives of SARS-CoV-2 further afield. Dr. Worobey of the University of Arizona said that some bat coronaviruses carrying SARS-CoV-2-like segments have been found in eastern China and Thailand.
Clearly the recombination is showing us that these viruses are part of a single gene pool over hundreds and hundreds of miles, if not thousands of miles, Dr. Worobey said.
Colin Carlson, a biologist at Georgetown University, suspects that a virus capable of producing a Covid-like outbreak might be lurking even further away. Bats as far east as Indonesia and as far west as India, he noted, share many biological features with the animals known to carry SARS-CoV-2-like viruses.
This is not just a Southeast Asia problem, Dr. Carlson said. These viruses are diverse, and they are more cosmopolitan than we have thought.
The interest in the origins of the pandemic has put renewed attention on the safety measures researchers are using when studying potentially dangerous viruses. To win DEEP VZN grants, scientists will have to provide a biosafety and biosecurity plan, according to a USAID spokesman, including training for staff, guidelines on protective equipment to be worn in the field and safety measures for lab work.
If scientists find more close cousins of SARS-CoV-2, it doesnt necessarily mean they pose a deadly threat. They might fail to spread in humans or, as some scientists speculate, cause only small outbreaks. Just seven coronaviruses are known to have jumped the species barrier to become well-established human pathogens.
Theres probably a vast range of other coronaviruses that end up going nowhere, said Jessica Metcalf, an evolutionary ecologist at Princeton University.
Still, recombination may be able to turn a virus going nowhere into a new threat. In May, researchers reported that two coronaviruses in dogs recombined in Indonesia. The result was a hybrid that infected eight children.
When a coronavirus that we have monitored for decades, that we think of as just something our pets can get, can make the jump we should have seen that coming, right? Dr. Carlson said.
After a brutal summer surge, driven by the highly contagious Delta variant, the coronavirus is again in retreat.
The United States is recording roughly 90,000 new infections a day, down more than 40 percent since August. Hospitalizations and deaths are falling, too.
The crisis is not over everywhere the situation in Alaska is particularly dire but nationally, the trend is clear, and hopes are rising that the worst is finally behind us.
Again.
Over the past two years, the pandemic has crashed over the country in waves, inundating hospitals and then receding, only to return after Americans let their guard down.
It is difficult to tease apart the reasons that the virus ebbs and flows in this way, and harder still to predict the future.
But as winter looms, there are real reasons for optimism. Nearly 70 percent of adults are fully vaccinated, and many children under 12 are likely to be eligible for their shots in a matter of weeks. Federal regulators could soon authorize the first antiviral pill for Covid-19.
We are definitely, without a doubt, hands-down in a better place this year than we were last year, said Dr. Nahid Bhadelia, director of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases Policy and Research at Boston University.
But the pandemic is not over yet, scientists cautioned. Nearly 2,000 Americans are still dying every day, and another winter surge is plausible. Given how many Americans remain unvaccinated, and how much remains unknown, it is too soon to abandon basic precautions, they said.
Weve done this again and again, where we let the foot off the pedal too early, Dr. Bhadelia said. It behooves us to be a bit more cautious as were trying to get to that finish line.
When the first wave of cases hit the United States in early 2020, there was no Covid vaccine, and essentially no one was immune to the virus. The only way to flatten the proverbial curve was to change individual behavior.
That is what the first round of stay-at-home orders, business closures, mask mandates and bans on large gatherings aimed to do. There is still debate over which of these measures were most effective, but numerous studies suggest that, collectively, they made a difference, keeping people at home and curbing the growth of case numbers.
These policies, combined with voluntary social distancing, most likely helped bring the early surges to an end, researchers said.
And then the measures would be lifted, maybe memories would fade, said Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University.
Eventually, cases would rise again, and similar patterns would play out. Businesses and local governments would reimplement restrictions, while people who had begun venturing out into the world again would hunker down and mask up.
During last winters surge, for instance, the percentage of Americans who reported going to bars or restaurants or attending large events declined, according to the U.S. Covid-19 Trends and Impact Survey, which has surveyed an average of 44,000 Facebook users daily since April 2020.
The curve is shaped by public awareness, Dr. Nuzzo said. Were sort of lurching between crisis and complacency.
Delta arrived during a period of deep pandemic fatigue, and at a moment when many vaccinated Americans felt as though they could finally relax. Data suggests that the new variant prompted less profound behavioral change than previous waves.
In mid-July, just 23 percent of Americans said that they always wore a mask in public, the lowest percentage since March 2020, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, which compiles data from several sources.
By Aug. 31, the peak of the Delta wave, that figure had risen to 41 percent, although it remained far below the 77 percent of people who reported wearing masks during the winter surge.
If you just look around, people are much more living a normal life or a pre-Covid life, said Dr. Christopher Murray, director of the institute.
Still, even modest changes in behavior can help slow transmission, especially in combination, and Delta prompted changes at both the individual and organizational levels. Schools adopted new precautions, companies postponed reopenings, and organizations canceled events, giving the virus fewer opportunities to spread.
Meanwhile, more temperate autumn weather arrived, making it possible for Americans in many regions of the country to socialize outside, where the virus is less likely to spread.
Oct. 14, 2021, 6:25 p.m. ET
Were in a shoulder season, where its cooler in the South than it is in the middle of the summer and its warmer in the North than it is in the middle of the winter, said David OConnor, a virologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Indeed, many of the current virus hot spots are in the northernmost parts of the country, from Alaska to Minnesota, where even cooler temperatures may be sending people back inside.
Behavioral change is a temporary, short-term way to drive cases down. The true end to the pandemic will come through immunity.
The Delta wave was the first major, national surge to occur after vaccines had become widely available, providing many adults with substantial protection against the virus. (Delta also probably led more Americans to get vaccinated.)
At the same time, the variant was so infectious that it spread rapidly through vulnerable populations, conferring natural immunity on many unvaccinated Americans.
Although neither vaccination nor prior infection provides perfect protection against the virus, they dramatically reduce the odds of catching it. So by September, the virus had a substantially harder time finding hospitable hosts.
Delta is running out of people to infect, said Jeffrey Shaman, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Columbia University.
The fact that case numbers are falling does not mean that the country has reached herd immunity, a goal that many scientists now believe is unattainable. But the rising levels of vaccination and infection, combined with more modest behavioral changes, may have been enough to bring the surge to an end.
The State of Vaccine Mandates in the U.S.
Its a combination of immunity, but also people being careful, said Joshua Salomon, an infectious disease expert and modeler at Stanford University.
Indeed, scientists said that a combination of factors, which might be different in different parts of the country, would ultimately determine when and why the virus waxed and waned.
The different surges and waves depend on how big were the waves before that one, how many people have been vaccinated, when the schools reopened, the different variants, said Alessandro Vespignani, director of the Network Science Institute at Northeastern University in Boston.
There is some randomness involved, too, especially because small numbers of superspreaders seem to play a disproportionate role in setting off outbreaks. About 10 to 20 percent of the people are responsible for 80 to 90 percent of the infections, said Christina Ramirez, a biostatistician at the University of California, Los Angeles.
That means that two similar communities might find themselves on radically different trajectories simply because one highly infectious person happened to attend a crowded indoor event, fueling a major outbreak.
Some patterns still defy explanation. In March and April, for instance, Michigan was hit hard by the Alpha variant, Deltas slightly less infectious predecessor.
Other states were largely spared, for reasons that remain unclear, Dr. Murray said. Why was Michigan the only state with a large Alpha surge in spring? he said. We have no idea.
What comes next is hard to predict, but cases may not necessarily continue their steady decline, scientists warned.
Britain and Israel, which both have higher vaccination rates than the United States, are still struggling with outbreaks.
That should be a wake-up call, said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. Do not go back into the pre-Fourth-of-July mind-set again, where everybody thought it was done and over with.
Most experts said they would not be surprised to see at least a small increase in cases later this fall or this winter as people begin spending more time indoors and traveling for the holidays.
But because the vaccines remain highly effective at preventing hospitalization and death, any coming winter spikes may be less catastrophic than last years.
Its not likely that it will be as deadly as the surge we had last winter, unless we get really unlucky with respect to a new variant, Dr. Salomon said.
The emergence of a new variant remains a wild card, as does the possibility that the protection afforded by vaccination could start to wane more substantially.
Our own behavior is another source of uncertainty.
Predicting an outbreak is not like predicting the weather, because youre dealing with human behavior, said Nicholas Reich, a biostatistician at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. And thats a fundamentally really hard thing to predict: new policies that would come into force, peoples reactions to them, new trends on social media, you know the list goes on and on.
But our behavior is, at least, under our control, and it remains a critical variable as we head into the winter, scientists said. By and large, they did not recommend canceling holiday plans; many said they themselves would be celebrating with friends and relatives. But they did suggest taking sensible precautions.
There is still time to be vaccinated or encourage loved ones to be vaccinated before Thanksgiving. Wearing masks in certain high-risk settings, hosting events outdoors when the weather is nice and taking rapid Covid tests before holiday gatherings are all common-sense strategies for reducing risk, experts said.
It doesnt mean Lockdown Christmas No. 2, said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan. But it does mean that we should all just be mindful that this is not completely over yet.
Montana, for instance, is facing new highs this week in coronavirus hospitalizations, with 533 Covid-19 patients in hospitals as of Wednesday, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services. This eclipses the high set in November, before vaccines were readily available, according to HHS and data from the Covid Tracking Project.
The percentages of ICU beds used for Covid-19 patients in Montana, along with neighboring Idaho and Wyoming, are among the highest in the country, HHS data showed.
"Sadly, today I'm here to tell you that we've lost the war. That Covid is here to stay," Dr. Steven Nemerson, chief clinical officer with Saint Alphonsus Health System in Boise, Idaho, said Wednesday. "And the reason it is here to stay is because we cannot vaccinate enough of the public to fully eradicate the disease."
The day that the first vaccine was released last December was the pandemic's equivalent of D-Day, Nemerson said, and Covid-19 will be a recurring problem for years to come because the US failed to meet the challenge.
"There are episodes, at least on an annual basis, that we'll have to deal with," Nemerson said Tuesday during a briefing hosted by the state Department of Health and Welfare.
Hospitalizations at Saint Alphonsus have declined recently, Nemerson said, but that's doing little more than giving exhausted health professionals a chance to come up for air, particularly as workers face hostility from some Covid-19 patients and families.
"None of us are superhuman, and we all have a limit to how much work we're able to do, and how much stress and despondency we're able to handle," he said, "and that's compounded by the fact that too many people are coming into our hospitals questioning what we do."
In other parts of the country, some hospitals remain stretched thin. Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, New Mexico and Texas have 15% or less of their ICU capacity available to Covid-19 and non-Covid-19 patients, according to HHS data.
Abiding with vaccination regulations
At Boeing, with many of its 140,000 employees working stateside, the aerospace giant announced that its US-based employees will need to show proof of vaccination or "have an approved reasonable accommodation" by December 8.
Around 31,000 inspections have been conducted, which includes installation of proper signage and checking for proof of vaccination, the mayor said.
Around 6,000 warnings were issued, according to NYC Small Businesses Services commissioner Jonnel Doris, yet de Blasio said only 15 businesses following the warnings were still found to be in violation and fined.
"To all the small business owners, to all the employees who made this work: Thank you," de Blasio said.
The city's overall vaccination rate has increased by 9% since the city's mandate began, he said.
As for public employees in other cities, approximately 812 Boston city employees are still not in compliance with the city's Covid-19 regulations, down from 1,400 reported last week, according to a statement from Mayor Kim Janey's office. These employees have been placed on unpaid leave.
The Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation's second-largest, has pushed back its deadline for teachers and employees to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 until Friday, according to a district spokesperson.
Boosters are up more than first doses, data shows
While health officials work to get as many first doses into the arms of Americans as possible, federal health data shows that the rate of boosters being administered is outpacing initial inoculations.
A preprint of a National Institutes of Health study, which has yet to be peer-reviewed or published, suggests that mixing boosters in different combinations among the three vaccines produced a robust immune response.
"The most important takeaways are two things. One is that all of these different nine combinations are safe, as in there are no new or different side effects, so all of these appear to be safe," CNN medical analyst and emergency physician Dr. Leana Wen told CNN on Wednesday.
"The second big takeaway is that all of these combinations induced a pretty strong, robust antibody response. So that actually justifies the mix-and-match approach," she said.
CNN's Andy Rose, Laura Ly, Maggie Fox, Jen Christensen, Deidre McPhillips, Rob McLean, Alex Harring and Mallory Simon contributed to this report.
The new committee, known as the Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens, will differ in several respects from the team that the W.H.O. sent to China. Because that team visited Wuhan, China had considerable influence over its membership. That is not the case for the new committee, a permanent panel that Dr. Van Kerkhove said would begin with frequent, closed-door meetings on the coronavirus.
In soliciting applications, the W.H.O. asked potential committee members for a statement about any conflicts of interest, in addition to a cover letter and rsum. That appeared to be an attempt to head off critics who complained that a member of the previous team, Peter Daszak, an animal disease specialist, was too closely tied to a Wuhan virology institute at the center of lab leak theories to offer a dispassionate assessment. Dr. Daszak has said that his expertise on China and coronaviruses made him well-suited to participate in the earlier trip.
Conflicts of interest of members of the last group put a huge cloud over the head of the World Health Organization, said Lawrence Gostin, who directs the ONeill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University. Of the new advisory group, he added: Its a committee with a proper charge, and a proper global mandate none of that happened before.
For the W.H.O., Professor Gostin said, the new committee serves several purposes. In choosing a larger group reflecting a wider range of expertise and geographic regions, the organization can try to amass widespread international support for its work and underscore Chinas intransigence, he said.
Crucially, forming the new group could also help shore up the W.H.O.s standing with its key Western backers, none more important than the United States. Despite the agencys attempt to act deferentially toward China during the pandemic, Professor Gostin said, China had repeatedly stonewalled the organization and concealed crucial information.
Now, he said, the organization needed to pay heed to the desires of Europe and the United States not least because Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the W.H.O. director-general, is counting on their support as he seeks re-election in May.
The Pennsylvania Department of Health reported 5,253 new coronavirus cases Thursday.
The health department has generally reported around 4,000 to 5,000 new cases per day over the last few weeks. The average over the last seven days is 4,591 new daily cases.
Statewide, 2,978 COVID-19 patients are being treated in hospitals, including 664 patients in intensive care units. The state is reporting 53 fewer people in hospital beds compared to Wednesday.
Hundreds of people in central Pennsylvania are being treated in hospitals for the coronavirus. The WellSpan Health System reported 290 COVID-19 patients were in its hospitals as of Wednesday. Penn State Health reported 113 COVID-19 patients were being treated in its hospitals Wednesday.
The department also reported 108 new coronavirus deaths Thursday. Its the third day in a row the state has seen more than 100 coronavirus deaths. Since the pandemic began, 30,336 deaths in Pennsylvania have been tied to COVID-19.
On Wednesday, Pennsylvania hit a milestone: 70% of the states adults are now fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Its been an arduous path to hit that target. In late May, the state announced 70% of adults had received at least one dose of the vaccine, so it took months before that same percentage achieved full vaccination.
Every county in Pennsylvania is seeing high transmission of COVID-19, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The state is nearing 1.5 million COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic. With todays new data, the state has now registered 1,496,399 coronavirus cases.
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The latest forecast predicts 740,000 to 762,000 reported deaths by November 6. It's third consecutive week of a projected decrease in newly reported deaths.
The latest CDC forecast predicts 500 to 10,100 new confirmed Covid-19 hospitalizations likely to be reported by November 5 -- a fifth straight week of projected declines. As of October 12, there were 64,332 people hospitalized with Covid-19, according to US Health and Human Services data.
In terms of cases, there was no predicted increase or decrease.
Children represented nearly a quarter of weekly reported Covid-19 cases, the AAP said.
The infection rate still remains well above what's needed -- which Dr. Anthony Fauci said Sunday should be below 10,000.
And with winter threatening to send people indoors and increase spread, experts worry cases could go back up again. The risk is higher for children, many of whom are still not yet eligible for vaccination.
In the meantime, some schools have leaned on preventative measures to protect students, like masking, distancing and testing. In Massachusetts, Gov. Charlie Baker is planning to deploy 200 members of the National Guard to assist in school testing for Covid-19.
But vaccination remains the best tool to fight the pandemic, experts say.
And some regions are doing better than others.
Overall, the numbers aren't as promising. As of Tuesday night, only 56.5% of the US population was fully vaccinated, according to CDC data.
"We need the overwhelming proportion of those unvaccinated people to be vaccinated and then we can be quite confident that if we can do that, you will not see a resurgence," said Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
More than 104,000 people in the US died of Covid-19 between June and September 2021, according to Johns Hopkins University data. Vaccines were widely available to all US adults at the time, but an "overwhelming majority" of those who died were unvaccinated, according to the KFF analysis.
If all adults age 18 or older were vaccinated, more than 90,000 additional lives could have been saved between June and September. About half of those preventable deaths -- about 49,000 -- occurred in September alone, according to the foundation's analysis.
Hospital system 'deeply disappointed' by Texas vaccine mandate ban
While many experts and officials are encouraging institutions to enact vaccine mandates to protect employees, students and customers, some are fighting their efforts.
On Monday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order prohibiting any entities from requiring individuals to get vaccinated.
"The COVID-19 vaccine is safe, effective, and our best defense against the virus, but should remain voluntary and never forced," said Abbott.
"This flies in the face of public health guidance and is really not the right thing to be doing in the middle of a pandemic," CNN medical analyst Dr. Leana Wen told CNN's John King on Tuesday.
Dr. Marc Boom, president and CEO of Houston Methodist said the hospital system is reviewing Abbott's executive order and its possible implications while still expecting employees and physicians to be vaccinated.
"As the first hospital system in the country to mandate the COVID-19 vaccine for employees and physicians, we are deeply disappointed in the governor's order that tries to prohibit such mandates," Boom said in a statement, noting that the system's employees and physicians are 100% compliant.
"We have fulfilled our sacred obligation to keep our patients safe, putting them first. Not only are our patients safe as a result, but we are able to remain healthy at work and be there for our community when it needs us the most."
Mandate bans have been especially relevant to health care systems, where some professionals have resigned over such measures and others have advocated for them to protect their colleagues and their vulnerable patients.
It also found that more Americans, 30%, expect it to take more than a year to get back to normal pre-Covid life, up from 9% who thought this in early June.
Fewer people are also saying they've returned to their normal life -- 22% now compared with 28% in June -- or saying it will happen in the next six months -- 13% compared with 36% in June -- according to the poll.
Moderna proposes a smaller vaccine dose
Since the US has approved booster doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine for some vulnerable Americans -- and officials are weighing approval for the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson boosters -- Moderna on Tuesday urged the FDA to authorize a 50-microgram dose, according to documents released ahead of a key meeting.
The company said this dose increases protection against the coronavirus while helping to keep the worldwide vaccine supply higher.
That dose is half the size of the 100-microgram doses used in the primary series of the two-dose vaccine.
Moderna is requesting authorization for the smaller dose at least six months after the second dose for certain groups: people age 65 and older; people ages 18 to 64 who are at high risk of severe Covid-19; and people ages 18 to 64 whose exposure to the coronavirus in their settings or jobs put them at risk for Covid-19 complications or severe illness.
On Thursday, the FDA's independent vaccine advisers are expected to discuss and vote on whether to recommend authorization of boosters for the Moderna vaccine. On Friday, the advisers are scheduled to discuss and vote on whether to recommend authorization of boosters for Johnson & Johnson's vaccine. Both vaccines are already authorized for use in people age 18 and older. VRBPAC members will also hear a presentation on Friday on "mix and match" booster doses.
CNN's Naomi Thomas, Deidre McPhillips, Julian Cummings, Rosalina Nieves and Jamie Gumbrecht contributed to this report.
Youth COVID-19 cases continue to be a concern for Michigans health officials, as the states case rates continue to climb and children remain less protected against infection.
The Department of Health and Human Services estimated that 425 children under the age of 12 become infected with coronavirus each day over the last week, which is 50 more per day than a week ago.
For one, children younger than 12 are not yet eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine, and less than 50% of teens who are eligible have gotten vaccinated. That could change later this fall, but in the meantime, the younger populations have less protection against developing COVID-19.
Another key factor is the return to in-person learning in schools, and the lack of mask requirements that were in place last year.
K-12 schools are by far the most common setting for reported COVID-19 outbreaks, with 393 active outbreaks as of Oct. 7. The next highest setting was long-term care facilities with 138 active outbreaks, and childcare programs with 42.
Throughout the state, 222 school districts have mask policies in K-12 settings. Another 36 began the year with mask requirements but rescinded them, and 275 districts never had a requirement.
According to an analysis by the University of Michigans School of Public Health, schools with few mask rules have reported significantly more cases per 100,000 students than schools with partial or full mask requirements.
While children tend to have less severe cases of COVID-19 compared to older adults, they arent invincible to serious illness. Pediatric hospitalizations have been steadily increasing since August.
With an in-patient census for patients 18 and younger at about 31 per day, hospitals are seeing the most young patients since early June. That census was around 60 at the peak of the spring surge, but was below 15 for most of the summer.
Below is a closer look at the latest state and county coronavirus data, according to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Vaccinations: 63.1% of eligible residents have received at least one dose
Another 54,895 Michigan residents have gotten their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine since the start of the month, pushing the rate of 12 and older residents with a shot from 62.5% to 63.1%.
Its a slow climb, but the state is now up to more than 5.4 million residents at least partially vaccinated, and more than 5 million fully vaccinated (58.7%).
Below is a breakdown by age group of Michigan residents who have gotten one or more shots and those who are fully immunized as of Tuesday, Oct. 12.
The interactive map below shows the number of who have people 12 and older who have received as least one dose of vaccine so far. The numbers are based on residence of the vaccine recipient vs. where the the vaccine was given.
You can hold your cursor over a county to see the underlying data, which includes a breakdown by four age groups: Those 65 and older; ages 64 to 50; ages 49 to 20, and under 20. It includes numbers on vaccines initiated and completed.
Cannot see the map? Click here.
Below is a chart that ranks counties from most vaccinated to least vaccinated. Cannot see it? Click here.
At least 309,943 people have now received a third dose of either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines. Thats nearly a 50% increase from last weeks total.
Third doses of the Pfizer vaccine are now endorsed for people older than 65, long-term care facility residents, people 18-64 with underlying medical conditions and people whose occupations or work settings pose a risk.
Third doses of the Moderna vaccine are available to immunocompromised individuals, including those who have received an organ transplant. The FDA could soon approve a Moderna booster for more people, as its advisory committee is scheduled to consider further recommendations Thursday, Oct. 14.
New cases: The state is averaging 3,745 new confirmed cases a day
That seven-day average is up 7.3% from last week when Michigan was reporting 3,491 cases per day.
Cases have been on the rise since late July, when the health department was reporting less than 500 cases per day. While 42 state are seeing cases plateau or decline over the last two weeks, Michigan is one of the eight that continue to see an upward climb.
Below is a chart that illustrates the seven-day rate of daily reported cases throughout the pandemic. Cant see the chart below? Click here.
Case trends are highest among 5-to-18-year-olds, unlike previous surges, which had larger proportions of cases in adults.
Of Michigans 83 counties, 61 counties reported an increase in weekly cases per 1 million residents for the week of Oct. 7-13, compared to the week prior.
Osceola, Arenac, Clare, Ogemaw and Montcalm counties have the highest weekly averages per capita. Of those counties, only Ogemaw has reported a decrease in new cases week-over-week.
Counties with the lowest per capita rates included Leelanau, Chippewa, Presque Isle, Wayne and Berrien counties.
Below is an online database that allows readers to see the number of new coronavirus cases in the past seven days compared to the previous week, as well as the per capita number that adjusts for population. The arrows indicate whether the total number of new cases reported in the last seven days has gone up or down compared to the previous seven days.
Cant see the database above? Click here.
The map below is shaded by the states six risk-assessment levels. This is based on new cases reported per day per million people for the week of Oct. 7-13.
The arrows on the map indicate whether the total number of new cases reported in the last seven days has gone up or down compared to the previous week. Readers can put their cursor over a county to see the underlying data. (Hint: You can drag the map with your cursor to see the entire Upper Peninsula.)
Cannot see the map? Click here.
Positivity rate: The seven-day average is 11% and rising
Michigans daily positive test rate is the highest it has been since the last week in April 2021, and its likely to continue climbing.
Of the 71,068 diagnostic tests processed between Monday and Tuesday, Oct. 11-12, about 12.3% came back positive for coronavirus. The highest rate reported to-date was 18% and came during the peak of the spring surge.
The rate was at 2% or less for most of the month of June, before beginning to climb in July. Daily rates jumped into the double digits last month, where theyve remained, indicating a high level of coronavirus transmission within the community.
There were 31 counties that reported positive test rates of 18% or higher during the week of Oct. 6-12, which is eight more than last week. Ogemaw leads all others with a rate of 29.7%, followed by Luce (29.5)%, Keweenaw (27.8%), Osceola (27%), Antrim (24.8%), and Iosco (24.8%).
Meanwhile, Baraga County (0.79%) was the only county with a positive test rate lower than the 5% threshold set by the World Health Organization to indicate high levels of community transmission. Washtenaw and Wayne counties were the next lowest at 5.4% and 5.9%, respectively.
The chart below allows you to look up any county by name to see the seven-day average positivity rate. The chart compares the average from the past seven days to the average for the previous week.
Cant see the database? Click here.
The interactive map below shows the seven-day average testing rate by county. You can put your cursor over a county to see the underlying data.
Cant see the map above? Click here.
Hospitalizations: 2,190 in-patients
As of Wednesday, Oct. 13, hospitals statewide were treating 2,166 adult patients with confirmed or suspected cases of COVID-19 and 24 children. There were 545 patients in the ICU, including 282 on ventilators.
The total COVID patient count was up 15% from one week prior, when there were 1,901 patients including 484 in the ICU. For context, the state surpassed 3,900 hospitalizations at the peak of all three prior surges, while the low points of the pandemic have been around 300 patients at a time.
COVID patients make up about 9% of adult in-patient hospital beds.
Deaths: The state is reporting 33 COVID deaths a day
Michigan was averaging 30 deaths per day a week ago, and 21 per day a month ago.
Evaluating the states COVID-19 death rate has become more challenging since the health department moved to reporting data three days per week. The average is also based on the day the deaths are reported by the state, not the date of death, so its difficult to fully illustrate the day-to-day trends.
In the 30 days ending Oct. 4, there were at least 887 deaths, of which 78% were 60 years or older. Of the deaths under 60, 109 were in their 50s, 49 in their 40s, 23 in their 30s, eight in their 20s, and six deaths between ages 0 and 19 years.
Since the start of the pandemic, Michigan has reported 21,459 confirmed COVID deaths, plus another 1,405 probable deaths, in which a physician and/or antigen test ruled it COVID-19 but no confirmatory PCR test was done.
Below is a chart illustrating the seven-day average for reported deaths throughout the pandemic. Cant see the chart below? Click here.
States overall risk assessment: All regions remain at highest risk level
In assigning the risk scores, Michigan Department of Health and Human Services looks at factors such as new cases and deaths, test positivity rates, and patients hospitalized with COVID-19.
There are six levels of risk, from low to levels A through E. For yet another week, all eight regions of the state are at risk level E.
Cant see the above map? Click here.
For more statewide data, visit MLives coronavirus data page.
To find a testing site near you, check out the states online test find send an email to COVID19@michigan.gov, or call 888-535-6136 between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. on weekdays.
Read more on MLive:
24 student COVID cases moves Ann Arbor elementary to remote learning
United States to reopen land borders for fully vaccinated in November
COVID-19 Q&A: Whats with natural immunity? How many deaths linked to the vaccine?
Michigan to begin changing how it funds mental health, addiction services
