Jennifer Law and her husband, Matthew, at their wedding in 2008. He died of the virus in November.
Some feel unacknowledged, struggling to manage the aftermath of their partners deaths amid an unending health crisis.
It was really difficult for me because I felt like, man, Im all alone, said Pamela Addison, 37, a teacher in Waldwick, N.J. Her husband, Martin, a speech pathologist who worked in a hospital, died of the virus in April. If Covid wasnt here, all of our husbands would still be here.
Ms. Addison eventually sought out other Covid-19 widows to talk to, and other women have managed to find each other by joining Facebook bereavement groups, which are also open to men. They have forged ties similar to those found among other clusters of women whose husbands died unexpectedly and prematurely, including military spouses or widows of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The women on the Zoom call in July who live in the Chicago area have since become friends who meet for dinner and check in daily with quick texts.
Widows of the coronavirus recounted a painful set of commonalities: the experience of frantically taking care of their husbands when they fell ill, worrying about when to take them to a hospital and feeling haunted by the images of their partners dying without loved ones beside them.
The generation that Im from, we took care of our husbands thats how we were raised, said Mary Smith, of Pekin, Ill., who lost her 64-year-old husband, Mike, to the virus. That was our job, to be their cheerleader. Theyre used to having that, and all of a sudden youre not there.
After her husband died, she scrolled through his phone and found the lonely pictures he had snapped from his hospital bed. His food, in a cardboard container. The oxygen machines. A selfie as he wore breathing equipment.
Chinese travelers at a railway station in Beijing, China, wear face masks to protect themselves from the new coronavirus on Jan. 21, 2020. The virus was first identified in Wuhan, China, in Dec. 2019, and since then has quickly spread worldwide. Kevin Frayer/Getty Images hide caption
Chinese travelers at a railway station in Beijing, China, wear face masks to protect themselves from the new coronavirus on Jan. 21, 2020. The virus was first identified in Wuhan, China, in Dec. 2019, and since then has quickly spread worldwide.
Exactly one year ago today, the World Health Organization first learned of a cluster of a few dozen pneumonia cases in Wuhan, China of "unknown" origin. The cause, of course, would turn out to be the coronavirus behind the current pandemic. Here's a by-the-numbers summary of the toll the virus has taken on countries across the globe since that fateful day.
For the first two months of the pandemic nearly all reported cases were in China. But after a massive lockdown in Wuhan and other provinces, China quickly turned the corner. Today it has one of the world's lowest casualty figures with less than 100,000 reported cases and less than 5,000 deaths, according to statistics maintained by Johns Hopkins University.
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Yet even as China gained control over its outbreak, the virus was spreading exponentially in countries on every continent of the planet. And nowhere has the toll been more severe than in the United States. Today the U.S. ranks highest when it comes to both its total reported case count of 19.7 million and its death toll of more than 342,000. Even when countries are ranked by reported cases as a percentage of their population, the U.S. ranks in the top five. And the U.S. also currently has the highest number of daily new reported cases and daily new deaths.
When considered in purely numerical terms, other hard-hit countries include India with 10.3 million reported cases, Brazil with 7.6 million, Russia with 3.1 million, France with 2.7 million, the United Kingdom with 2.4 million, Turkey with 2.2 million, Italy with 2.1 million, Spain with 1.9 million and Germany with 1.6 million. Practically all of these countries also rank in the top 10 on the number of deaths. Brazil, for instance, has had more than 193,000, India more than 148,000. And practically all are currently seeing the world's highest numbers of new reported cases and deaths.
Several countries that don't make it into the top 10 tallies of cases and deaths still bear mentioning. In the Americas for instance, Colombia and Argentina now have about 1.6 million reported cases a piece. Mexico, with 1.4 million, is close behind. And Mexico also has one of the world's highest death tolls with nearly 125,000 lives lost to date. In the Middle East, Iran has fared particularly poorly with about 1.2 million cases and more than 55,000 deaths. And while it seemed for a time that African countries might escape the brunt of the pandemic, South Africa has now seen its total case count surpass 1 million.
Then there are nations where the case and death counts don't look as serious until they are considered as a share of the population. Countries where the virus has wrought this outsized impact include the Czech Republic, Belgium, Panama and Slovenia, where the caseload per capita ranges from 5,000 to 6,000 per 100,000 people as well as, when it comes to deaths per capita, Peru, where 116 people per 100,000 have died.
China is not the only nation that showed the coronavirus can be contained. Other standouts include South Korea, with about 60,000 cases and 900 deaths, and Vietnam, with 1,465 cases and just 35 deaths.
The recipients were supposed to get their first doses of the Moderna vaccine on Wednesday at a clinic run by the Boone County Health Department, according to a statement from the West Virginia National Guard.
Instead, they were given a Regeneron antibody product, which is used to treat Covid-19.
"The moment that we were notified of what happened, we acted right away to correct it, and we immediately reviewed and strengthened our protocols to enhance our distribution process to prevent this from happening again," said Maj. Gen. James Hoyer, adjutant general of the West Virginia National Guard, in the statement.
The National Guard is leading the planning and logistics for distributing the vaccine.
The Boone County Health Department said it has notified the 42 people and offered to give them the Covid-19 vaccine on Thursday.
Officials said it was an isolated incident but did not explain how the mix-up occurred when reached for further comment.
Boone County is south of Charleston, the state capital.
The National Guard said that the Department of Health and Human Resources would follow up with those who received the antibodies as a precaution.
Dr. Clay Marsh, the state's Covid-19 czar, said there were no risks to the 42 people.
"The product administered are antibodies that fight COVID-19," Marsh said in the statement. "In fact, this product was the same one that was administered to President Trump when he became infected. While this injection is not harmful, it was substituted for the vaccine. But this occurrence provides our leadership team an important opportunity to review and improve the safety and process of vaccination for each West Virginian."
The National Guard said that 7,855 were vaccinated on Wednesday in West Virginia.
Gary Carden, 63, has owned and managed Nespelem's only tavern for about 25 years. Earlier this year, he spent a month in the hospital with COVID-19. Eilis O'Neill/Eilis O'Neill hide caption
Gary Carden, 63, has owned and managed Nespelem's only tavern for about 25 years. Earlier this year, he spent a month in the hospital with COVID-19.
Gary Carden sits on the reclining chair in front of the tavern he's owned and managed for two and half decades in the north central Washington town of Nespelem, on the Colville Reservation. The 63-year-old is on the concrete porch with his two dogs, Sissy and Harold.
"She's the older dog," he says, "and that's probably the best thing that happened to her is finding her a small buddy, 'cause he's so active and keeps her active."
Carden's normally active too, not just running the tavern but riding horses and motorcycles. But, one day this past June, he felt out of breath and exhausted.
"And my sister came walking in," Carden recalls. "And she says, 'God, brother, you don't look good. Do you want me to call the ambulance?' " He replied, "Yeah, I think you better. There's something wrong."
Carden thought he had heat exhaustion. But it was COVID-19. He was transferred to a hospital about 100 miles away, in the city of Wenatchee, Wash.
He spent a month there a week of that time on a ventilator.
"It's tough," Carden remembers. "It was tough. I was even ready to give up."
The Colville Tribal Council has been doing its best to insulate its community from the pandemic.
In mid-March, the council closed the reservation to non-essential travel. And, when members tested positive for the coronavirus, the council helped them isolate by providing portable toilets, mobile homes and even hotel rooms as needed.
But COVID-19 cases are hitting record highs throughout the state. And the reservation's borders are fluid, so even the tribe's extensive precautions haven't been enough to fully protect Colville members. About 300 people on the Colville Reservation have tested positive for the coronavirus.
That's a big hit for a small community of 5,000 people. The infection rate on the reservation is twice that of Washington state's most populous county.
"We got hit so hard," says Larry Smith, a doctor on the reservation who runs two of its four clinics.
Smith says it was scary to see so many COVID-19 patients.
"Probably 80% of the people that I see have some risk factors whether it's hypertension, diabetes, or autoimmune disease," he says.
To Smith, the numbers have been overwhelming.
"For six weeks, we were seeing four to five cases every single day," he says.
Vice-chair of the tribal council Joel Boyd says when cases are up in neighboring communities, it's difficult hard to keep the virus out.
"When you do go off-reservation, there's communities that almost pride themselves on not wearing masks, and it's a serious danger," he says.
Boyd says the most serious outbreaks came from tribal members going off-reservation.
The current outbreak started when a group of about 10 people from the Colville Reservation went to a nearby town in mid-November, before Washington state's governor closed indoor dining again.
"Everyone was getting in their last little hurrah, I guess you would call it," Boyd says. "And unfortunately, that was all it took for us to get a nice little outbreak."
Many people on the reservation live in large, multi-generational households, so the virus spreads rapidly within families.
To try to contain the reservation's current outbreak, the tribal council took a new step: It imposed a curfew to try to keep people from gathering after work.
"A lot of people that have got it recently they're being pretty vocal about, you know, how they got it and that they're sorry for spreading it," Boyd says. "And I'm thankful that they're sharing that to prevent it from happening again."
Boyd says people telling their stories about how they got infected is an important way to spread the word on the reservation about need to take precautions.
Tavern owner Gary Carden says he often shares the story of how he almost died so others on the reservation can learn from what happened to him.
Carden says that during his time in the hospital, "I even told them doctors, you know, 'Hey, I quit. Pull these tubes out.' "
A young intern sat down at his bedside and gave him a pep talk.
"He says, 'Gary, don't give up,' " Carden recalls. " 'You've made it through the hard part. You've got 20-plus years still to go. Hang in there. You've almost got it licked.' "
Nerissa Black works as a telemetry nurse at the Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital in Valencia, Calif. Since early December, she's been tasked with caring for six critically ill patients per shift instead of four. Nerissa Black hide caption
Nerissa Black works as a telemetry nurse at the Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital in Valencia, Calif. Since early December, she's been tasked with caring for six critically ill patients per shift instead of four.
California's telemetry nurses, who specialize in the electronic monitoring of critically ill patients, normally take care of four patients at once. But ever since the state relaxed California's mandatory nurse-to-patient ratios in mid-December, Nerissa Black has had to keep track of six.
And these six patients are really sick: they all need constant electronic heart monitoring and many of them are being treated simultaneously for a stroke and COVID-19, or a heart attack and COVID-19. With more patients than usual needing more complex care, Black says she's worried she'll miss something or make a mistake.
"We are given 50% more patients and we're expected to do 50% more things with the same amount of time," says Black, who has worked at the Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital in Valencia, Calif., for the past seven years. "I go home and I feel like I could have done more. I don't feel like I'm giving the care to my patients like a human being deserves."
We are given 50% more patients and we're expected to do 50% more things with the same amount of time.
Nerissa Black, telemetry nurse
As COVID-19 patients continue to flood California emergency rooms, hospitals are increasingly desperate to find enough staff to care for all them. The state is asking nurses to take care of more patients simultaneously than they normally would, watering down what many nurses and their unions consider their most sacrosanct job protection: a law existing only in California that puts legal restrictions on the nurse-to-patient ratio.
"We need to temporarily very short-term, temporarily look a little bit differently in terms of our staffing needs," said Gov. Gavin Newsom, after he quietly allowed hospitals to adjust their nurse-to-patient ratios on Dec. 11. Normally, California law requires a hospital to first get approval from the state before tinkering with those ratios; Newsom's move gave hospitals presumptive approval to work outside the ratio rules immediately.
Since then, 170 hospitals, mainly in Southern California, have been operating under the new pandemic ratios: They can require ICU nurses to care for three patients instead of two. Emergency room and telemetry nurses may now be asked to care for six patients instead of four. Medical-surgical nurses are looking after seven patients instead of five.
This is catastrophic and we cannot dodge this math. We are simply out of nurses, out of doctors, out of respiratory therapists.
Carmela Coyle, President and CEO, California Hospital Association
Nurses have taken to the streets in protest, holding socially distanced demonstrations across the state, shouting and carrying posters that read: "Ratios Save Lives." The union, the California Nurses Association, says the staffing shortage is a result of bad hospital management, of taking a reactive approach to staffing rather than proactive: laying nurses off over the summer, then not hiring or training enough for winter.
"What we're seeing in these hospitals is their just-in-time response to a pandemic that they never prepared for: just-in-time staffing, just-in-time resources, not staffing up, calling nurses in on a shift at the very last minute to boost profits," says Stephanie Roberson, the government relations director for the California Nurses Association. "And we're seeing how nurses are being stretched even thinner."
Unionized nurses in California held a rally Aug. 5 as part of a National Day of Action to increase awareness, they say, of ways nurse staffing ratios in hospitals can have an impact on patient safety. Nerissa Black hide caption
Unionized nurses in California held a rally Aug. 5 as part of a National Day of Action to increase awareness, they say, of ways nurse staffing ratios in hospitals can have an impact on patient safety.
But hospitals say this is an unprecedented crisis that has spiraled beyond their control. In the current surge, four times as many Californians are testing positive for the coronavirus compared to the summer peak. As many as 7,000 new patients could soon be coming to California hospitals every day, according to Carmela Coyle, who heads the California Hospital Association.
"This is catastrophic and we cannot dodge this math," she says. "We are simply out of nurses, out of doctors, out of respiratory therapists."
The state has asked the federal government for staff, including 200 medical personnel from the U.S. Department of Defense, and it's tried to reactivate the California Health Corps, an initiative to recruit retired health workers to come back to work, but that has yielded few people with the qualifications needed to care for hospitalized COVID-19 patients.
Hiring contract nurses from temporary staffing agencies or other states is all but impossible right now, Coyle says.
"Because California surged early during the summer and other parts of the United States then surged afterward," she says, "those travel nurses are taken."
Hospitals' next step is to try "team nursing," Coyle says, pulling nurses from other departments, like the operating room, for example, and partnering them with experienced critical care nurses to help care for COVID-19 patients.
Joanne Spetz is an economics professor who studies health care workforce issues at the University of California, San Francisco. She says hospitals should have started training nurses for team care over the summer, in anticipation of a winter surge, but they didn't, either because of costs hospitals lost a lot of revenue from canceled elective surgeries that could have paid for that training or because of excessive optimism.
"California was doing so well," she says. "It was easy for all of us to believe that we kind of got it under control, and I think there was a lot of belief that we would be able to maintain that."
The California Nurses Association has good reason to be defensive when it comes to the integrity of the patient ratio law, Spetz says. It took 10 years of lobbying and activism before the bill passed the state legislature in 1999, then several more years to overcome multiple court challenges, including one from then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
"I'm always kicking their butt, that's why they don't like me," Schwarzenegger famously said of nurses, drawing broad ire from the nurse's union and its allies.
Nurses prevailed in the court of public opinion and in law; rules that put a legal cap on the number of patients per nurse finally took effect in 2004. But the long battle has made nurses fiercely protective of their win. They've even accused hospitals of using the pandemic to try to roll back ratios for good.
"This is the exercise of disaster capitalism at its finest, where [hospital administrators] are completely maximizing their opportunity to take advantage of this crisis," says Roberson.
Hospitals deny they want to change the ratio law permanently, and Spetz says it's unlikely that they'd succeed if they tried.
The public can see that nurses are overworked and burned out by the pandemic, she adds, so there would be little support for cutting back their job protections once it's over.
"To go in and say, 'Oh, you clearly did so well without ratios when we let you waive them, so let's just eliminate them entirely,' I think, would be just adding insult to moral injury," Spetz says.
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The deaths involved three men in their 70s: two from Wasilla and one from Anchorage, the state health department said.
Wednesdays and Thursdays identical case counts were slightly higher than the trend of fewer cases reported in recent weeks after a surge through November and into early December. State health officials have expressed cautious optimism about the overall decline, though more recently they expressed worry that holiday-related travel and celebrations could drive case numbers up again.
We know that some people are still gathering for the holidays, so we could start to see an uptick in cases starting as early as the next week or two, so were really just encouraging Alaskans to continue to be vigilant, said Joe McLaughlin, an epidemiologist with the state health department.
Residents in the Yukon-Kuskokwim region accounted for more than a quarter of the cases reported by the state Thursday. Tribal health authorities separately reported 43 new cases in the region on Wednesday and 26 cases on Tuesday, including 18 in Bethel, 13 in Akiachak and 12 in Chefornak over that two-day period.
Coronavirus-related hospitalizations remain lower than they were in November. Health officials say a hunker-down order in Anchorage thats moving to a less restrictive phase Friday played a role in the decline, as did voluntary actions taken by people around the state. The number of tests completed statewide in recent weeks has also been down.
In total, 205 Alaskans and one nonresident with COVID-19 have died this year. Alaskas overall death rate per capita is among the lowest in the country, but officials say the states vast geography and vulnerable health care system make it difficult to compare with other states.
The state was promised more than 60,000 doses when Alaska received its first shipments of COVID-19 vaccine in mid-December. Hospital workers, emergency personnel, and residents and staff at long-term care facilities were prioritized to receive the first doses. State officials said they expect more than 50,000 doses next month and on Thursday announced that the next group of people eligible to receive the vaccine would include Alaskans over 65, followed by frontline essential workers.
By Thursday morning, 13,271 Alaskans had received vaccinations, according to the states vaccine information site, which has not been updated since Monday. Health officials say they expect the pace of vaccine distribution will pick up in next month.
Around the state, 73 Alaskans with COVID-19 were hospitalized as of Thursday and another six were suspected to have the virus. Just over 8% of adults in Alaska hospitals have COVID-19. In Anchorage, where the sickest patients are often treated, there were 18 intensive care unit beds available out of 69.
Of the 367 infections reported Wednesday among Alaska residents, there were 130 in Anchorage plus six in Chugiak, seven in Eagle River and one in Girdwood; 27 in Fairbanks; 20 in Wasilla; 10 in Palmer; 10 in Juneau; 10 in Bethel; seven in North Pole; six in Kodiak; four in Utqiagvik; three in Soldotna; two in Homer; two in Kenai; two in Houston; two in Petersburg; two in Unalaska; one in Sterling; one in Delta Junction; one in Sutton-Alpine; and one in Ketchikan.
Among communities smaller than 1,000 people not named to protect privacy, there were 51 in the Bethel Census Area; 50 in the Kusilvak Census Area; three in the Fairbanks North Star Borough; two in the Valdez-Cordova Census Area; one in the northern Kenai Peninsula Borough; one in the Southeast Fairbanks Census Area; one in the Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area; one in the Northwest Arctic Borough; one in the Yakutat plus Hoonah-Angoon region; and one in the Bristol Bay plus Lake and Peninsula boroughs.
There were seven cases reported among nonresidents, including one in Anchorage, one in Utqiagvik and five in Unalaska.
While people might get tested more than once, each case reported by the state health department represents only one person.
It is not clear how many of the people who tested positive for the virus were showing symptoms. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates about a third of people with COVID-19 are asymptomatic.
The statewide test positivity rate as of Thursday was 4.92% over a seven-day average. Health experts say anything above 5% can indicate inadequate testing and potentially widespread community transmission. The state reached a peak of over 9% test positivity in mid-November.
News Release
Wednesday, December 30, 2020
Results from a study of 19 deceased patients suggests brain damage is a byproduct of a patients illness.
In an in-depth study of how COVID-19 affects a patients brain, National Institutes of Health researchers consistently spotted hallmarks of damage caused by thinning and leaky brain blood vessels in tissue samples from patients who died shortly after contracting the disease. In addition, they saw no signs of SARS-CoV-2 in the tissue samples, suggesting the damage was not caused by a direct viral attack on the brain. The results were published as a correspondence in the New England Journal of Medicine.
We found that the brains of patients who contract infection from SARS-CoV-2 may be susceptible to microvascular blood vessel damage. Our results suggest that this may be caused by the bodys inflammatory response to the virus said Avindra Nath, M.D., clinical director at the NIHs National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) and the senior author of the study. We hope these results will help doctors understand the full spectrum of problems patients may suffer so that we can come up with better treatments.
Although COVID-19 is primarily a respiratory disease, patients often experience neurological problems including headaches, delirium, cognitive dysfunction, dizziness, fatigue, and loss of the sense of smell. The disease may also cause patients to suffer strokes and other neuropathologies.
Several studies have shown that the disease can cause inflammation and blood vessel damage. In one of these studies, the researchers found evidence of small amounts of SARS-CoV-2 in some patients brains. Nevertheless, scientists are still trying to understand how the disease affects the brain.
In this study, the researchers conducted an in-depth examination of brain tissue samples from 19 patients who had died after experiencing COVID-19 between March and July 2020. Samples from 16 of the patients were provided by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in New York City while the other 3 cases were provided by the department of pathology at the University of Iowa College of Medicine, Iowa City. The patients died at a wide range of ages, from 5 to 73 years old. They died within a few hours to two months after reporting symptoms. Many patients had one or more risk factors, including diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular disease. Eight of the patients were found dead at home or in public settings. Another three patients collapsed and died suddenly.
Initially, the researchers used a special, high-powered magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner that is 4 to 10 times more sensitive than most MRI scanners, to examine samples of the olfactory bulbs and brainstems from each patient. These regions are thought to be highly susceptible to COVID-19. Olfactory bulbs control our sense of smell while the brainstem controls our breathing and heart rate. The scans revealed that both regions had an abundance of bright spots, called hyperintensities, that often indicate inflammation, and dark spots, called hypointensities, that represent bleeding.
The researchers then used the scans as a guide to examine the spots more closely under a microscope. They found that the bright spots contained blood vessels that were thinner than normal and sometimes leaking blood proteins, like fibrinogen, into the brain. This appeared to trigger an immune reaction. The spots were surrounded by T cells from the blood and the brains own immune cells called microglia. In contrast, the dark spots contained both clotted and leaky blood vessels but no immune response.
We were completely surprised. Originally, we expected to see damage that is caused by a lack of oxygen. Instead, we saw multifocal areas of damage that is usually associated with strokes and neuroinflammatory diseases, said Dr. Nath.
Finally, the researchers saw no signs of infection in the brain tissue samples even though they used several methods for detecting genetic material or proteins from SARS-CoV-2.
So far, our results suggest that the damage we saw may not have been not caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus directly infecting the brain, said Dr. Nath. In the future, we plan to study how COVID-19 harms the brains blood vessels and whether that produces some of the short- and long-term symptoms we see in patients.
This study was supported by NIH Intramural Research Program at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NS003130) and an NIH grant (NS109284).
NINDS (https://www.ninds.nih.gov) is the nations leading funder of research on the brain and nervous system.The mission of NINDS is to seek fundamental knowledge about the brain and nervous system and to use that knowledge to reduce the burden of neurological disease.
About the National Institute on Aging (NIA):NIA leads the U.S. federal government effort to conduct and support research on aging and the health and well-being of older people. Learn more about age-related cognitive change and neurodegenerative diseases via NIAsAlzheimer's and related Dementias Education and Referral (ADEAR) Centerwebsite. For information about a broad range of aging topics, visit themain NIA websiteandstay connected.
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH):NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.
NIHTurning Discovery Into Health
Lee MH, Perl DP, Nair G, Li W, Maric D, Murray H, Dodd SJ, Koretsky AP, Watts JA, Cheung V, Masliah E, Horkayne-Szakaly I, Jones R, Stram MN, Moncur J, Hefti M, Folkerth RD, Nath A. Microvascular Injury in the Brains of Patients with COVID-19. New England Journal of Medicine, December 30, 2020 DOI: 10.1056/NEJMc2033369.
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Year in Review: Timeline of COVID-19 pandemic, local health leaders have hope for 2021 WWMT-TV
He couldnt get the vaccine, so I thought let me get it for him, in honor of him, said Brigid Roberson.
HOUSTON Brigid Roberson is one of the 15,000 healthcare workers to get the COVID-19 vaccine at Memorial Hermann Hospital.
She got the shot to honor her grandfather, who died from COVID-19 earlier this month.
Roberson describes her grandpa, James Avery, as 92 years young. He was living in a nursing home, so she hadnt touched him or held his hand since January due to COVID-19 restrictions.
Sometimes he went from depression to being mad. He would call and say, 'You dont love me.' He felt we put him there and left him there. Our hands were tied, because we couldnt get into the nursing home to see him, said Roberson, the regional director of security for Memorial Hermann Hospital.
She hoped the COVID-19 vaccine would change that. But earlier this month, her beloved grandfather got the virus. He died the same morning the first shipment of vaccines arrived at Memorial Hermann Hospital. She was in the room watching when the first frontline healthcare worker in Houston received the vaccine.
When he sat there and got his shot, it was so emotional for me. I literally was sitting there with these big tears on my face, because I thought if they had just had the vaccine a little earlierit could have helped (my grandfather) to maybe live, Roberson said.
Nursing home residents in Houston are getting their shots now. Just this week, Texas moved on to phase 1B of vaccine distribution, so people 65 years old and older and people with underlying conditions can get vaccinated, too.
Roberson proudly got her vaccine wearing a T-shirt honoring her grandfather.
He couldnt get it, so I thought let me get it for him, in honor of him, Roberson said.
She hopes everyone eligible to get the vaccine right away, because every shot thats administered gives everyone else hope for the future.
Harrisburg, PA - The Pennsylvania Department of Health today confirmed as of 12:00 a.m., December 31, that there were 8,992 additional positive cases of COVID-19, bringing the statewide total to 640,325.
There are 5,962 individuals hospitalized with COVID-19, near double the peak in the spring. Of that number, 1,178 patients are in the intensive care unit with COVID-19. Most of the patients hospitalized are ages 65 or older, and most of the deaths have occurred in patients 65 or older. More data is availablehere.
The trend in the 14-day moving average of number of hospitalized patients per day has increased by nearly 5,500 since the end of September.
Statewide percent positivity for the week of December 18 December 24 stood at 15.1%.
The most accurate daily data is available on the website, with archived data also available.
As of 11:59 p.m. Wednesday, December 30, there were 306 new deaths reported for a total of 15,978 deaths attributed to COVID-19. County-specific information and a statewide map are available on the COVID-19 Data Dashboard.
Mask-wearing is required in all businesses and whenever leaving home. Consistent mask-wearing is critical to preventing the spread of COVID-19.
There are 54,828 individualswho have a positive viral antigen test and are considered probable casesand 637 individualswho have a positive serology test and either COVID-19 symptoms or a high-risk exposure.
There are 3,265,129 individuals who have tested negative to date.
In nursing and personal care homes, there are 53,220 resident cases of COVID-19, and 9,730 cases among employees, for a total of 62,950 at 1,470 distinct facilities in all 67 counties. Out of our total deaths, 8,872 have occurred in residents from nursing or personal care facilities. A county breakdown can be found here.
Approximately 19,256 of our total cases are among health care workers.
COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution
Pennsylvania hospitals began receiving shipments of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine the week of Dec. 14 and Moderna COVID-19 vaccine the week of Dec. 21.
Through Dec. 31:
A spreadsheet of facilities that have received vaccine can be found here.
Statewide The Wolf Administration has since noon, Dec. 30:
The Wolf Administration stresses the role Pennsylvanians play in helping to reduce the spread of COVID-19:
Updated Coronavirus Links: Press Releases, State Lab Photos, Graphics
All Pennsylvania residents are encouraged to sign up for AlertPA, a text notification system for health, weather, and other important alerts like COVID-19 updates from commonwealth agencies. Residents can sign up online at www.ready.pa.gov/BeInformed/Signup-For-Alerts.
MEDIA CONTACT: April Hutcheson - RA-DHpressoffice@pa.gov
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