NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) Since the pandemic hit the United States one year ago, most American parents have been guiding children through virtual school andproviding companionship and entertainment in the absence of friends.
For parents of special needs children,like Renee Howard,the challenges have been even greater.
Its just been a full time, hands-on assignment for us, 24/7 since March, said Howard, whose9-year-old son, Jackson has Down syndrome.
He still requires a lot of heavy interaction, heavy care, kind of like a toddler would, frankly, she said.
In the Norfolk public school system, Jackson gets speech and occupational therapies, and an aide to help him in the classroom.
At home, thats impossible to replicate.
Howard works full-time, and she and her husband have two other children attending school virtually.
The effectiveness of the therapies he would get in school versus delivered overZoom, its very easy for him to just turn away or say no, she said. I think he just has not made the progress thathe would have if he were in school.
Howard is also uncertain about sending Jackson back to school safely.
He doesnt understand, hes not going to keep a mask on, she said.
As a child, Jackson may not be eligible for the vaccine for months or even years, and medical experts say people with Down syndromeare at greater risk for serious illness if theycontract COVID-19.
Howard recently discovered a line of defense for her son: as his caregivers, she and her husband are high priority within Virginias vaccine administration program.
A lot of people probably dont realize as caregivers, theyre eligible for the vaccine, she said. If we had known that earlier, maybe we wouldve had it by now.
In mid-February, the Howards registered as 1a.Three weeks later,they still havenot received an invitation to register foran appointment.
They could be waiting weeks longer, according to Liza de la Cruz, a spokesperson for the Norfolk Public Health Department.
As 1as are identified, they are worked into the schedule. As we complete the transition to the state COVID registration system, identifying remaining 1a individuals will be easier, she said. Once again, as we identify them, we will work them into our schedule as quickly as possible.
10 On Your Side is now working to get answers from the Virginia Department of Healthaboutwhy anyone in 1a would have to wait weeks or months for a vaccine.
Look for continuing coverage here on WAVY.com.
RNA worked for COVID-19 vaccines. Could it be used to treat cancer and rare childhood diseases? The Philadelphia Inquirer
Local 5 Chief Political Correspondent & Investigative Reporter Rachel Droze sat down with Gov. Kim Reynolds to talk about Iowa's continued COVID-19 response.
Author: weareiowa.com
Published: 9:00 PM CST March 7, 2021
Updated: 9:00 PM CST March 7, 2021
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., seen here talking to reporters on Thursday, has called for bipartisan support for the House vote on the Senate-amended coronavirus relief legislation. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images hide caption
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., seen here talking to reporters on Thursday, has called for bipartisan support for the House vote on the Senate-amended coronavirus relief legislation.
House Democrats are expected to pass the final version of a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package on Tuesday, thus delivering on Democrats' campaign promises and cementing a major legislative victory for the Biden administration.
The Senate voted 50-49 to approve the plan on Saturday, with all Democrats voting in support of the measure and all Republicans opposed following a marathon debate of more than 24 hours. President Biden lauded the Senate passage in remarks Saturday.
The colossal package would bring a new round of payments to Americans still battling against the economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, and it includes an increase to the child tax credit and an extension of supplemental unemployment benefits through Sept. 6.
Democrats are eager to get the final bill to Biden's desk for his signature before current federal unemployment benefits expire on March 14.
In a statement on Saturday, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said he expects the president to be able to sign the legislation early this week.
"Democrats are delivering on our promise to take action to defeat this virus and provide the assistance the American people need until our economy can reopen safely and fully," the Maryland Democrat added.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said on Saturday that the package, known as the American Rescue Plan, will "save lives and livelihoods."
"The House now hopes to have a bipartisan vote on this life-saving legislation and urges Republicans to join us in recognition of the devastating reality of this vicious virus and economic crisis and of the need for decisive action," she said in a statement.
But bipartisan support is unlikely. Republicans have roundly criticized the legislation and Democrats' strategy of going it alone in the Senate via the process of budget reconciliation to pass the package without any Republican support.
In a CNBC interview on Wednesday, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., called the bill a "wish list from the progressives," a label that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., echoed on the Senate floor Saturday.
"Democrats decided their top priority wasn't pandemic relief," he said. "It was their Washington wish list. It was jamming through unrelated policy changes they couldn't pass honestly. A colossal missed opportunity for our nation."
Drugmakers Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics said a small study found its Tamiflu-like pill reduced the infectious virus in some of the people tested.
WASHINGTON An experimental COVID-19 pill has shown promising results in a preliminary study, the companies developing the drug said Saturday.
In a press release, drugmakers Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics said a small study found its Tamiflu-like pill molnupiravir helped reduced the amount of time someone was infected.
The study showed after a five-day treatment, 42% of the 182 non-hospitalized participants had reduced COVID-19 infections compared to the placebo. Other studies on the drug are still underway, so the full results haven't been released at this time.
Merck Research Laboratory's Dr. Roy Baynes, senior vice president and head of global clinical development and chief medical officer, said the company is continuing to make progress investigating the drug in both outpatient and hospital settings. He added that the company plans to release more updates on molnupiravir "when appropriate."
Officials said of the 202 treated participants, there were four serious adverse events, however, none were considered to be drug-related.
We are very pleased to share our initial Phase 2 infectivity data at this important conference, which remains at the forefront for critical clinical scientific information in infectious diseases, shared Dr. Wendy Painter, Chief Medical Officer of Ridgeback Biotherapeutics. At a time where there is unmet need for antiviral treatments against SARS-CoV-2, we are encouraged by these preliminary data.
The lead investigator on the study, Dr. William Fischer, said in a statement that if more findings support molnupiravir's treatment of the coronavirus, this "could have important public health implications, particularly as the SARS-CoV-2 virus continues to spread and evolve globally."
For most people, the new coronaviruscauses mild or moderate symptoms. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and death.
The United States has more than 28 million confirmed cases of COVID-19, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
As of Monday, the U.S. had more than 525,000 deaths from the virus. Worldwide, there are more than 116 million confirmed cases with more than 2.5 million deaths.
CLIFF ISLAND, Maine In different times, a taxi met visitors at the wharf to take them to any destination on this H-shaped islands dirt roads.
Few visitors come now. But the taxi is still parked up the road with its back window emblazoned with a simple message in bold yellow lettering: Sorry! No Taxi Service Due to COVID-19.
It is one of the most immediately visible ways that life has changed on the island in Casco Bay that is part of Maines largest city, but is a remote last stop on the ferry from the mainland. Cliff Island has yet to see a confirmed case of the coronavirus in nearly a year since the pandemic arrived in Maine, infecting more than 45,000 statewide and more than 3,700 in Portland.
That is a distinction few others can boast and the Cliff Islands roughly 45 year-round residents want to keep. North Haven, which briefly attempted to ban outside visitors when the pandemic began, saw 15 cases in a week last fall. Swans Island, the lobstering village off the Blue Hill Peninsula with a population of about 320, saw its first confirmed case just a few weeks ago.
Low population is one factor that has helped some island communities skirt the worst of the virus so far. But Cliff Islands success also reflects the strength of residents collective decisions to prioritize public health and community efforts that enabled more vulnerable islanders to avoid their typically common trips to the mainland while vital services continued.
Clockwise from left : A Casco Bay Lines employee brings in the ramp onto the ferry while stopped at Cliff Island on March 4; The entrance to Cliff Island with posted coronavirus guidelines; The Casco Bay Lines ferry approaches the island; The Casco Bay Lines ferry prepares to depart from Cliff Island. Credit: Natalie Williams / BDN
We were hunkered down here, said Cheryl Crowley, a longtime Cliff Island resident active in several initiatives to help sustain the islands year-round population.
Cliff Islands population, like Maines as a whole, skews older. Taxi driver Chester Pettengill, who is also custodian of the one-room schoolhouse with only three students and meets the ferry each day to bring mail from the dock to the post office, is in his 80s. He was the inspiration for other islanders to take the virus seriously, Crowley said.
Some Maine towns saw a rush of visitors with the onset of the pandemic last spring, but Cliff Island residents wrote letters to longtime summer visitors asking them to delay trips to minimize risk. Between fewer visitors and trips to the mainland, passenger revenue to Cliff Island last year was down 29 percent through November, according to Casco Bay Lines, which operates ferries to the seven islands off the coast of Portland. Cliff Island is one of two major islands in the harbor Great Diamond Island being the other that have recorded no virus cases.
The seasonal Cliff Island Store is the islands sole business, with residents usually traveling to the mainland for groceries and other necessities. To dissuade that, Crowley, along with her husband and daughters, use a Google spreadsheet to track requests. There are printed forms for the residents who do not use computers to handwrite their orders.
They worked with Hope MacVane, the seasonal stores owner, to order in bulk from Portland-area distributors, which ship the groceries by ferry to the island. Crowley and her daughters divide them up at the community center, allowing families to pick them up in a socially distanced manner. Volume was highest early in the pandemic, but the effort continues.
MacVane never officially reopened the island store last summer. The business usually serves islanders as well as tourists who stop on a ferry or stay for longer in a rental home. Not wanting to encourage crowds, MacVane expanded grocery deliveries by switching to an online store in the summer, making it possible to turn around orders quicker. The community was supportive.
Clockwise from left: Residents walk down one of the dirt roads on Cliff Island on March 4. There are no paved roads on the H-shaped island; The coastline of Cliff Island is pictured; Cheryl Crowley, a longtime Cliff Island resident, gives a tour of the H-shaped island. Credit: Natalie Williams / BDN
One of our big goals was, how do we keep us safe, but also how do we keep islanders safe? she said. And part of opening would mean that we would have people coming on to the public wharf to come up to the store.
As the pandemic persisted into the fall, virus precautions yielded benefits for its youngest residents. Elementary schools on Cliff Island and Peaks Island are the only two city schools that have been open for in-person learning five days a week since September.
The benefits are exponential, said Kelly Hasson, the teacher leader for both schools.
In-person learning and a lack of confirmed cases still come with health precautions. Island schools shut down like all others in March of last year, then upgraded ventilation systems over the summer before students returned. On Cliff Island, teacher Jenny Baum set up tables outdoors last fall, enabling students to learn outside for several months before cold weather forced them back into the one-room schoolhouse.
Clockwise from left: Teacher Jenny Baum (right) talks about teaching on Cliff Island as her students approach her; Cliff Island School students search for items such as birch bark, feathers and lichens outside their one-room schoolhouse on March 4; First-grader Fiona Anderson (left) and third-grader Chloe Blonquist look for various objects outdoors during a school activity; Fourth-grader Edward Anderson climbs in a tree at the end of the school day. Credit: Natalie Williams / BDN
Though the temperature barely cracked 20 degrees on a sunny Thursday, the schools three students spent the last half-hour of their day on a treasure hunt for lichen, birch bark and other natural objects found around the schoolhouse. Engaging with the island, Baum said, helps offset some of the loss of in-person connection due to the pandemic.
The students no longer take a ferry to the elementary school on nearby Long Island twice a week and art classes are by Zoom rather than having a teacher visit from the mainland. They wrote letters to the islands veterans for Veterans Day and made evergreen sprays for winter residents for Christmas.
Baum, originally from New York City and in her third year teaching on Cliff Island, says she feels very fortunate to be teaching here during the pandemic. She leaves sparingly, not wanting to risk her health or that of her students.
Many of Cliff Islands oldest residents rarely left, too. But some recently got on the ferry to Long Island for their first COVID-19 vaccinations. After Maine expanded eligibility to people aged 60 and older, Crowley was busy again, helping eligible residents to find appointments.
MacVane, who is from the island but now lives on the mainland and works as a teacher most of the year, has not been back to Cliff Island since closing the store last fall. Her parents still live there, but the family has tried to avoid large gatherings due to the pandemic.
She misses it, following along with live feed cameras until she can return.
Its a special place, she said. It holds a special place in so many hearts.
The Dalai Lama leaves the Zonal Hospital in Dharmsala, India, on Saturday after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine. Ashwini Bhatia/AP hide caption
The Dalai Lama leaves the Zonal Hospital in Dharmsala, India, on Saturday after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine.
Updated at 2:12 p.m. ET
The Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, left his home on Saturday to receive his first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine and promote vaccination against the coronavirus, in what was his first public appearance in over a year.
The 85-year-old scrapped plans to receive the injection at home, opting instead to travel to a clinic in Dharamsala, India, where he's lived since fleeing China after a failed uprising in 1959.
He was photographed exposing his right shoulder to receive a vaccine known as Covishield in India, which was developed by the University of Oxford and drug firm AstraZeneca. In a video message afterward, the Dalai Lama said, "I took [the vaccine] so I want to share [that] more people should have courage to take this injection."
This comes as India and other countries try to ramp up vaccination distribution to outrun the coronavirus and its variant forms. India currently has the world's second-highest COVID-19 caseload, with over 11 million confirmed cases. To date, more than 157,000 people have died of the disease in India.
Globally, there are more than 116 million cases of COVID-19, according to Johns Hopkins University. A quarter of those cases are in the U.S., where more than 522,000 have died of the disease since the pandemic began.
On Monday, high-ranking government Indian officials, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, publicly touted receiving their vaccines. Afterward, Modi tweeted: "I appeal to all those who are eligible to take the vaccine. Together, let us make India Covid-19 free."
India, like the U.S. and other parts of the world, has seen its share of vaccine-related controversy, some of which relates to the speed with which the medicines have rolled out. Unlike the Dalai Lama, Modi and others received shots of a homegrown vaccine called COVAXIN, which the Indian government approved for use in January, even before clinical trial data on its efficacy was released. The decision to authorize early prompted concern from scientists and public health experts.
Some of that debate was put to rest on Wednesday, when Bharat Biotech, the company making the COVAXIN vaccine, released preliminary analysis of phase 3 clinical trials showing its doses 81% effective in preventing infection.
Globally, vaccination efforts are moving slowly. The U.S. has fully vaccinated the greatest number of people, at 28.7 million, which amounts to 8.6% of its population. In raw numbers, India ranks third, having fully vaccinated 3.5 million, but that's a miniscule fraction of its population of 1.36 billion.
Still, India could eventually become a powerhouse in the world's fight against COVID-19. It already makes most of the world's vaccines, and companies are already ramping up manufacturing capacity. India is expected to make 3.5 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccine, second only to the U.S., which is expected to make 4 billion, according to Deloitte.
"India is in a much different position than most lower- to middle-income countries, in that they have the capacity to develop and manufacture vaccines," said Andrea Taylor, an associate professor at Duke's Global Health Innovation Center. Whether that will result in faster rollout within the country isn't clear, she says.
This is the third in a series of stories by AL.com to reflect on the 1-year mark of the COVID-19 pandemic reaching Alabama. Each day leading up to March 13 we will elevate the voices of those impacted.
The COVID-19 pandemic has tested health care workers like few others.
For the past year, Alabamas healers have faced a crucible of dying patients, long shifts, limited equipment, makeshift ICUs, and overrun vaccination sites. All of that while crowds wont wear a mask, some still calling the virus a hoax, and armchair experts convinced theyve figured out more than the entire medical scientific community.
Then, when the days dying efforts are done, many return home to children struggling with virtual school, partners who carry them through trying times and extended families they havent seen in months, always worried that they could be spreading the same virus they work so hard to fight.
I felt like at its worst it was like going into battle every day, said Dr. Elizabeth Marshall-Smith, chief operations officer of the Pinnacle Physician Group in Tuscaloosa. I could potentially get sick, I could bring it home to my family. Thats hard to deal with. I appreciate my kids and husband.
For the more than 10,000 Alabamians whove died of COVID -- and thousands of other patients who got close -- health care workers in full personal protective armor were the patients only links to the outside world, thanks to visitation restrictions.
With no visitors for COVID positive patients, patients and families put their trust in me, a complete stranger, to take care of them in the most critical time of their life, said ICU travel nurse and Fairhope native Rebekah Roe.
It takes a toll.
There have been times I have felt extreme sadness, said Kristopher Haskins, nurse manager of the COVID-19 unit at USA Health University Hospital in Mobile. I have witnessed people pass away while their families could only watch over social media platforms, health care professionals break down in tears and society lose faith in each other and their political leaders.
For their efforts, they are often hailed as heroes, but some also talked of being pulled unwillingly into the political conflicts and conspiracy theories of the day as the pandemic raged on.
A national medical emergency turned into a political stand, said Felicia Sanders, an occupational therapy worker at UAB. Wearing a mask meant this. Not wearing a mask meant this. Coronavirus doesnt have anything to do with politics and it has killed so many people.
But a lot of people didnt care because they thought it was a hoax.
Even those who werent on the front lines of COVID units felt the strain, as their everyday lives were turned upside-down just like the rest of us.
I grew overwhelmed with the blurring boundaries between work and home, feeling like a failed mother struggling to educate three children at home, building a home workout space and trying to stay COVID-free, said Dr. Leesha Ellis-Cox, a psychiatrist in Hoover.
Health workers also had to miss out on personal triumphs and tragedies, births and funerals, family reunions and holidays.
I have lost several loved ones, said Janel A. Lowman, an associate manager of community outreach at USA Health Michell Cancer Institute in Mobile. And during those times, it was especially hard for family members not being able to grieve together because of the pandemic.
Teri Killough, a 20-year veteran neonatal nurse from Odenville, had to wait outside as her daughter gave birth to her first grandchild.
I wasnt able to be in hospital with my daughter and son in law but had an awesome tailgate party in the parking lot, Killough said.
Many described feeling a sense of gratitude for the things that werent taken away.
It makes you so grateful for life, said Dr. Richard Menger, a surgeon in Mobile who deployed with the Navy Reserve to New York City in the early months of the pandemic. Its impacted my day-to-day interactions. These small problems arent real problems.
Brooke Olson, a registered nurse at USA Health Childrens & Womens Hospital in Mobile, said she felt a sense of pride in watching her coworkers rise to the occasion of the pandemic.
Of all the emotions experienced during the pandemic, most of all I feel proud, Olson said. Proud to watch my coworkers and community pull together to come up with new ideas to navigate the challenges the pandemic has brought on. Ive seen nurse leaders pray over their staff, community praying over local hospitals during lights on Mobile, as well as nurses stepping out of their comfort zones to help where needed.
And for Olson and many others, there is a sense of optimism that there are better days ahead.
I believe like a bone heals stronger than it was before it was broken, we will come through this pandemic with a new strength and resiliency, Olson said.
You can read the stories of these and other health care workers impacted by the pandemic in the posts below:
Firefighter Ben Thompson: COVID gave a better understanding of what keeps us safe
Healthcare worker Felicia Sanders: I still meet people who think (COVID)s a hoax
Nurse Brooke Olson: Well come through COVID with new strength and resiliency
Dr. Elizabeth Marshall-Smith on COVID: It was like going into battle every day
Community outreach manager Janel Lowman: COVID started an emotional rollercoaster
Dr. Amy Thompson hopeful but frustrated during COVID
Neonatal nurse, grandmother Teri Killough on COVID: I miss hugs
Dr. Leesha Ellis-Cox chooses to find the light, even in the midst of COVID
ICU travel nurse Rebeckah Roe: COVIDs lessons will change us for the better
Nurse Jill Stone: Pandemic has made me feel exhausted
Nurse manager Kristopher Haskins: COVID brought sadness, moments of complete awe
Surgeon Richard Menger: Seeing New York COVID deaths left me grateful for life
Professor Errol Crook: COVIDs unequal impacts create sense of urgency
Nurse anesthetist Katherine Thompson: COVID worrisome ... because whats next?
To see all the stories of Alabamians impacted by COVID, go here.
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Think about one year ago.
On Feb. 2, the Super Bowl was played in front of more than 62,000 fans packed into Miamis Hard Rock Stadium. A month later, 18,548 watched the Penguins play the Carolina Hurricanes on March 8 at PPG Paints Arena.
A few days after that, the NHL, NBA and NCAA basketball shut down completely.
Movie theaters, museums, live concert venues, schools, restaurants, bars just about any place where people gathered in public soon followed suit.
A deadly virus that took root in China in late 2019 swept the globe.
A ripple turned into a wave, sparing no one, sickening 114 million and killing more than 2.5 million worldwide, including 523,000 Americans and more than 24,000 Pennsylvanians.
Almost one year from the day when the first cases of covid-19 were diagnosed in Pennsylvania on March 6, 2020 in Delaware and Wayne counties there is cautious optimism.
Infections are down.
Vaccines are being administered.
There is hope that someday soon, a new normal will emerge.
But with this milestone comes questions about the handling of the virulent illness that killed without prejudice, wreaked havoc with the world economy and spawned a vast societal divide between those who took the warnings seriously and those who continue to dismiss health officials pleas to wear masks, maintain social distancing and get the vaccine.
Some health experts say the most crucial lessons come from missteps by government officials that left the nation largely unguarded against the virus, then slowed attempts to contain it, including:
Dismissing warnings in January 2020 that a virus paralyzing Wuhan, China, would spread quickly to the United States if immediate preventive measures were not taken
Failing to develop quick, easily accessible and accurate methods of testing large numbers of people for the virus
Drafting rigid guidelines limiting who could be tested, permitting many who were infected to unknowingly become super-spreaders
A catastrophic level of unpreparedness regarding personal protective gear available to health care workers
A failure to protect nursing home residents who proved the most vulnerable and accounted for more than a third of all covid-19 deaths in the nation
An inefficiency in distributing a vaccine that was developed in record time
A system of contact tracing that has fallen short, with only about 50% of infected people nationwide and statewide contacted providing information about their interactions with others
Pittsburgh-based infectious disease expert Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, was among the first to say the rapidly spreading respiratory virus in China would become a worldwide pandemic.
The story of this pandemic was our government was not prepared and did not have enough competent people in place to be able to do this, he said.
What needed to happen in the United States at that time was a policy that they were going to meet cases as they came by setting up extensive testing and also having enough contact tracers, thinking about hospital capacity and personal protective equipment early on, Adalja said.
From the start, he called for measures protecting nursing home patients, knowing they were among the most susceptible.
To date, more than 160,000 patients and staff at nursing homes and other long-term facilities across the nation have died from covid-19, according to an AARP Public Policy Institute/Miami University Scripps Center study.
None of that really happened in January, February or half of March and when things did happen, they were so fouled up, he said.
Government directives about who could get tested proved deadly, he said.
You could only test someone if theyd been to China in the last 14 days. We knew that this virus was already outside of China. In fact, it was in France around Christmas time. And you could only test people that had lower respiratory tract symptoms, Adalja said. If they had a sore throat, they were not allowed to be tested, so they went on their merry way to spread the infection.
He believes the divide among elected officials about the seriousness of the outbreak gave the virus time to spread unchecked.
You had a president that thought the more we test the worse we look or that this was going to magically disappear, said Adalja. All of that underscores how badly this whole thing has been handled.
Shane Dunlap | Tribune-Review
A demonstrator stands atop her car with a sign as demonstrators rallied against the closure of business in Pennsylvania on Grant Street in Pittsburgh on April 20, 2020.
But Dr. Donald Whiting, Allegheny Health Networks chief medical officer, said its important to understand the crisis was unprecedented in this century.
The rapidity with which the medical community locally, nationally and internationally really connected to share best practices was phenomenal, he said.
Ventilators in the beginning were thought to be the right thing to do and then soon after that we found out that wasnt necessarily the right thing to do in all situations. There were other techniques for maintaining ventilation that were better. That was disseminated very, very rapidly by free sharing of the information, he added.
While President Trump was criticized for referring to the coronavirus as the Chinese virus or Kung Flu, vaccine expert Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia, said the Chinese government should shoulder its fair share of the blame.
China wasnt a very good neighbor here. When that virus was killing people in Wuhan, it shouldnt have required a whistleblower to tell the world what was going on, Offit said.
Offits reference is to Dr. Li Wenliang, who sounded an early alarm about the emergence of what would become known as covid-19 in Wuhan, but was rebuffed by the government. He died Feb. 7, 2020, of the virus.
But Offit isnt letting the Trump administration off the hook. In particular, he blames it for failing to quickly develop a test.
I mean if you look at South Korea, Japan, other countries were much better at developing a test, testing to see where the disease was, quarantining people who were either infected or exposed to those who were infected. We didnt do that well at all and I think weve paid an enormous price, said Offit. We have 20% of the worlds deaths and 4% of the worlds population.
Dr. Donald Yealy, UPMCs chair of emergency medicine, said the U.S. governments initial response to covid-19 was problematic.
I think the federal government responded in a fashion that was very similar to how they responded to previous respiratory pathogen outbreaks. In this case, that wasnt soon enough or advanced enough, both in the mitigation efforts and then also in some of the therapeutic efforts, said Yealy.
You can help thwart the progression of the virus with early aggressive actions but you actually have to do them early. Each week or two that you wait, those same actions become less effective, he said.
Experts point to the 2014-16 Ebola crisis in West Africa, which killed 11,300, but was mostly prevented from spreading to the rest of the world, partly through intensive contact tracing and effective quarantining.
Nate Smallwood | Tribune-Review
Allegheny Health Networks medical professionals administer collection of samples for testing of covid-19 at their drive-up collection site in Monroeville on March 19, 2020.
Pennsylvania officials defend their efforts and point to citizens responsibility to follow mitigation measures.
State health department spokeswoman Maggi Barton said public health workers did as many case investigations as possible. Case investigations when information is gathered about who an infected person was around have to happen before contact tracing can begin. She said about 28% of all probable and confirmed covid cases have received a case investigation.
As cases rose to their peak, she said, it was not possible to contact all cases confirmed in one day.
The result was an online form introduced in December meant to gather more information from more people.
Dr. Maureen Lichtveld, dean of the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, pointed to an overall lack of accurate information being disseminated, particularly by the federal government.
She said permitting each state to handle the crisis in its own way was a deadly error.
This was handled in a silo-driven mode. Have the states do their own thing. The fundamental principle around crisis communication is that you need to be first out of the chute at messaging, you need to be credible and you need to be right, said Lichtveld. We struck out in all three areas. There were conflicting messages about masking, about distancing.
A shot in the arm
The approval of three vaccines has created hope.
But even the state and national vaccine efforts have been marked by missteps, experts said.
Pennsylvania ranks 33rd out of all U.S. states and territories in terms of the percentage of the population that has received at least one dose of the two-dose vaccines, according to The New York Times.
Kristina Serafini | Tribune-Review
Chief Quality Officer Tamra Minnier preps the arm of Childrens Hospital Emergency Medicine Physician Sylvia Owusu-Ansah prior to administering Pfizers covid-19 vaccine at UPMC Childrens Hospital of Pittsburgh on Dec. 14, 2020.
To date, about 10% of the U.S. population has been fully vaccinated and about 7% of Pennsylvanias residents have received the required two shots. The latest estimates put the states population at right around 12.8 million people, though only those 16 and up are eligible for vaccinations.
Dr. Debra Bogen, director of the Allegheny County Health Department, has expressed optimism as cases trend downward with the caveat that for now, we must stay the course.
I am hopeful that we will see the end of this pandemic sometime this year, she said.
The next pandemic
Experts say another pandemic will occur, but will the country be better prepared?
Adalja points to the U.S. handling of the 2009 H1 N1 pandemic as a template for responding to disease outbreaks.
Although there were massive flaws in the vaccine rollout program and a lot of misinformation early on, it was handled better, said Adalja. We were much more science-based where you had briefings from the CDC director almost on a daily basis and you had the experts speaking. What we saw in the United States during this pandemic was around February (2020) the CDC became bound, gagged and thrown in the trunk of a car.
Adalja has regularly expressed exasperation over what he sees as mistakes being repeated, going back to when states such as Pennsylvania shut down last spring. The ensuing backlash from residents led to restrictions being removed when it got closer to summer.
But in that interim, did they actually set up testing, contact tracing? Did they increase their public health infrastructure or their hospital capacity? No, said Adalja. So, then theyre all scratching their heads in the summer saying wow, weve got this surge! Where did it come from?
He said that today the U.S. still doesnt have the testing, tracing and isolation capacity it needs.
Nate Smallwood | Tribune-Review
Sample collection for covid-19 tests are administered at a Central Outreach Wellness Center testing site in the parking lot of the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium on March 24, 2020.
However, Whiting said there are lessons that have been learned from the pandemic, particularly in this region.
What weve learned locally is that people came together to do the right thing and certainly in our region, the situation was much less severe than anywhere else. People pulled together to help each other, said Whiting. I think one of the biggest things we learned is that a strong, national unified response based in science is really the key to getting the country best prepared the quickest.
Adalja sees opportunities ahead.
This pandemic, because it was so severe and it touched everyones life, I think that we will likely have an opportunity to fix some of these problems, to put in place a system that will be resilient to the next threat. Because there will be a next threat.
Hundreds of people lined up in their cars as the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank began another round of food distribution on April 6, 2020.
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