Daily Archives: February 3, 2022

Eighteenmore Mainers have died and another 1,402coronavirus cases reported across the state, Maine health officials said Thursday.

Thursdays report brings the total number of coronavirus cases in Maine to 178,501,according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Thats up from 177,099 on Wednesday.

Of those, 131,530have been confirmed positive, while 46,971were classified as probable cases, the Maine CDC reported.

Eight men and 10 women have succumbed to the virus, bringing the statewide death toll to 1,777.

Two were from Androscoggin County, two from Aroostook County, two from Cumberland County, two from Kennebec County, three from Oxford County, three from Penobscot County, two from Waldo County and two from York County.

Of those, six were 80 or older, six were in their 70s, four in their 60s, one in their 50s and one in their 40s.

The number of coronavirus cases diagnosed in the past 14 days statewide is 14,177. This is an estimation of the current number of active cases in the state, as the Maine CDC is no longer tracking recoveries for all patients. Thats up from 14,159 on Wednesday.

The new case rate statewide Thursday was 10.48 cases per 10,000 residents, and the total case rate statewide was 1,333.69.

Maines seven-day average for new coronavirus cases is 998, down from 1,015.4 the day before, down from 1,028.9 a week ago and up from 706.7 a month ago.

The most cases have been detected in Mainers younger than 20, while Mainers over 80 years old account for the largest portion of deaths. More cases have been recorded in women and more deaths in men.

So far, 3,979 Mainers have been hospitalized at some point with COVID-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus. Of those, 346 are currently hospitalized, with 80 in critical care and 31 on a ventilator. Overall, 52 out of 380 critical care beds and 245 out of 322 ventilators are available.

The total statewide hospitalization rate on Thursday was 29.73 patients per 10,000 residents.

Cases have been reported in Androscoggin (17,967), Aroostook (8,525), Cumberland (37,075), Franklin (4,416), Hancock (5,206), Kennebec (17,185), Knox (4,251), Lincoln (3,771), Oxford (8,817), Penobscot (20,090), Piscataquis (2,254), Sagadahoc (3,718), Somerset (7,503), Waldo (4,415), Washington (3,139) and York (30,169) counties.

An additional 1,339 vaccine doses were administered in the previous 24 hours. As of Thursday, 977,759 Mainers are fully vaccinated, or about 76.4 percent of eligible Mainers, according to the Maine CDC.

As of Thursday morning, the coronavirus had sickened 75,701,825 people in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as caused 894,569 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.

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18 more Mainers have died and another 1,402 coronavirus cases reported across the state - Bangor Daily News

HOLYOKE, Mass. (WWLP) The Stop the Spread COVID-19 testing locations in Holyoke are closed Friday.

According to Holyoke City Hall, the sites located at Holyoke Community College and the War Memorial are closed due to inclement weather and will be reopened for its regular scheduled day.

It is advised to call ahead at other locations near you due to weather. Visit: Find a COVID-19 test

The drive-up site at HCC is open Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. and Tuesday and Thursday from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m.

The walk-up site located at 310 Appleton Street is open Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Rain will mix with and transition to freezing rain, sleet and snow from northwest to southeast Thursday night. Lows will be in the upper 20s.

Plan on sleet and snow for the Friday morning commute. The wintry mix will last into Friday afternoon but will taper off too sleet and snow showers. Well have lighter sleet/snowaccumulationssouth of the Mass Pike with higher amounts in Franklin and northern Berkshire Counties. It is likely there will be some lingering slush/ice on road surfaces for the Friday evening commute. Highs will be around 30.

Continued here:

COVID-19 testing at HCC closed Friday due to weather - WWLP.com

Two years into the pandemic, the coronavirus is killing Americans at far higher rates than people in other wealthy nations, a sobering distinction to bear as the country charts a course through the next stages of the pandemic.

Cumulative deaths

throughout the pandemic

Cumulative deaths

during the Omicron wave

Cumulative deaths throughout the pandemic

Cumulative deaths during the Omicron wave

Cumulative deaths

throughout the pandemic

Cumulative deaths

during the Omicron wave

The ballooning death toll has defied the hopes of many Americans that the less severe Omicron variant would spare the United States the pain of past waves. Deaths have now surpassed the worst days of the autumn surge of the Delta variant, and are more than two-thirds as high as the record tolls of last winter, when vaccines were largely unavailable.

With American lawmakers desperate to turn the page on the pandemic, as some European leaders have already begun to, the number of dead has clouded a sense of optimism, even as Omicron cases recede. And it has laid bare weaknesses in the countrys response, scientists said.

Death rates are so high in the States eye-wateringly high, said Devi Sridhar, head of the global public health program at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, who has supported loosening coronavirus rules in parts of Britain. The United States is lagging.

Some of the reasons for Americas difficulties are well known. Despite having one of the worlds most powerful arsenals of vaccines, the country has failed to vaccinate as many people as other large, wealthy nations. Crucially, vaccination rates in older people also lag behind certain European nations.

The United States has fallen even further behind in administering booster shots, leaving large numbers of vulnerable people with fading protection as Omicron sweeps across the country.

Other large,

high-income

countries

Share of population

fully vaccinated

Share of population

with booster dose

Other large,

high-income

countries

Share of population fully vaccinated

Share of population with booster dose

Share of population

fully vaccinated

Other large,

high-income

countries

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The resulting American death toll has set the country apart and by wider margins than has been broadly recognized. Since Dec. 1, when health officials announced the first Omicron case in the United States, the share of Americans who have been killed by the coronavirus is at least 63 percent higher than in any of these other large, wealthy nations, according to a New York Times analysis of mortality figures.

In recent months, the United States passed Britain and Belgium to have, among rich nations, the largest share of its population to have died from Covid over the entire pandemic.

For all the encouragement that American health leaders drew from other countries success in withstanding the Omicron surge, the outcomes in the U.S. have been markedly different. Hospital admissions in the U.S. swelled to much higher rates than in Western Europe, leaving some states struggling to provide care. Americans are now dying from Covid at nearly double the daily rate of Britons and four times the rate of Germans.

The only large European countries to exceed Americas Covid death rates this winter have been Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Greece and the Czech Republic, poorer nations where the best Covid treatments are relatively scarce.

The U.S. stands out as having a relatively high fatality rate, said Joseph Dieleman, an associate professor at the University of Washington who has compared Covid outcomes globally. Theres been more loss than anyone wanted or anticipated.

As deadly as the Omicron wave has been, the situation in the United States is far better than it would have been without vaccines. The Omicron variant also causes less serious illness than Delta, even though it has led to staggering case numbers. Together, vaccines and the less lethal nature of Omicron infections have significantly reduced the share of people with Covid who are being hospitalized and dying during this wave.

In Western Europe, those factors have resulted in much more manageable waves. Deaths in Britain, for example, are one-fifth of last winters peak, and hospital admissions are roughly half as high.

But not so in the United States. Record numbers of Americans with the highly contagious variant have filled up hospitals in recent weeks and the average death toll is still around 2,500 a day.

Chief among the reasons is the countrys faltering effort to vaccinate its most vulnerable people at the levels achieved by more successful European countries.

Twelve percent of Americans 65 and over have not received either two shots of a Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine or one Johnson & Johnson shot, which the C.D.C. considers fully vaccinated, according to the agencys statistics. (Inconsistencies in C.D.C. counts make it difficult to know the precise figure.)

And 43 percent of people 65 and over have not received a booster shot. Even among the fully vaccinated, the lack of a booster leaves tens of millions with waning protection, some of them many months past the peak levels of immunity afforded by their second shots.

In England, by contrast, only 4 percent of people 65 and over have not been fully vaccinated and only 9 percent do not have a booster shot.

Its not just vaccination its the recency of vaccines, its whether or not people have been boosted, and also whether or not people have been infected in the past, said Lauren Ancel Meyers, the director of the University of Texas at Austins Covid-19 modeling consortium.

Unvaccinated people make up a majority of hospitalized patients. But older people without booster shots also sometimes struggle to shake off the virus, said Dr. Megan Ranney, an emergency physician at Brown University, leaving them in need of extra oxygen or hospital stays.

In the United States, cases this winter first surged in more heavily vaccinated states in the Northeast before moving to less-protected states, where scientists said they worried that Omicron could cause especially high death tolls. Surveys suggest that the poorest Americans are the likeliest to remain unvaccinated, putting them at greater risk of dying from Covid.

Americas Omicron wave has also compounded the effects of a Delta surge that had already sent Covid deaths climbing by early December, putting the United States in a more precarious position than many European countries. Even in recent weeks, some American deaths likely resulted from lengthy illnesses caused by Delta.

But Omicron infections had edged aside Delta by late December in the United States, and epidemiologists said that the new variant was most likely responsible for a majority of Covid deaths in the U.S. today.

These are probably Omicron deaths, said Robert Anderson, the chief of mortality statistics at a branch of the C.D.C. And the increases were seeing are probably in Omicron deaths.

Still, the United States problems started well before Omicron, scientists said. Americans began dying from Covid at higher rates than people in western European countries starting in the summer, after the United States had fallen behind on vaccinations. During the Delta surge in the fall, Americans were dying from Covid at triple the rate of Britons.

By tracking death certificates that list Covid as a cause of death or as a contributing factor, Dr. Anderson said, the C.D.C. is able to ensure that it is counting only those people who died from Covid and not those who might have incidentally tested positive before dying for unrelated reasons.

It is too early to judge how much worse the United States will fare during this wave. But some scientists said there were hopeful signs that the gap between the United States and other wealthy countries had begun to narrow.

As Delta and now Omicron have hammered the United States, they said, so many people have become sick that those who survived are emerging with a certain amount of immunity from their past infections.

Although it is not clear how strong or long-lasting that immunity will be, especially from Omicron, Americans may slowly be developing the protection from past bouts with Covid that other countries generated through vaccinations at the cost, scientists said, of many thousands of American lives.

Weve finally started getting to a stage where most of the population has been exposed either to a vaccine or the virus multiple times by now, said Dr. David Dowdy, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Referring to American and European death rates, he continued, I think were now likely to start seeing things be more synchronized going forward.

Still, the United States faces certain steep disadvantages, ones that experts worry could cause problems during future Covid waves, and even the next pandemic. Many Americans have health problems like obesity and diabetes that increase the risk of severe Covid.

Share of population not fully vaccinated

Share of population age 65 and older

Share of adult population with obesity

Share of population not fully vaccinated

Share of population age 65 and older

Share of adult population with obesity

More Americans have also come to express distrust of the government, and of each other in recent decades, making them less inclined to follow public health precautions like getting vaccinated or reducing their contacts during surges, said Thomas Bollyky, director of the global health program at the Council on Foreign Relations.

A study published in the scientific journal The Lancet on Tuesday by Mr. Bollyky and Dr. Dieleman of the University of Washington found that a given countrys level of distrust had strong associations with its coronavirus infection rate.

What our study suggests is that when you have a novel contagious virus, Mr. Bollyky said, the best way for the government to protect its citizens is to convince its citizens to protect themselves.

While infection levels remain high in many states, scientists said that some deaths could still be averted by people taking precautions around older and more vulnerable Americans, like testing themselves and wearing masks. The toll from future waves will depend on what other variants emerge, scientists said, as well as what level of death Americans decide is tolerable.

Weve normalized a very high death toll in the U.S., said Anne Sosin, who studies health equity at Dartmouth. If we want to declare the end of the pandemic right now, what were doing is normalizing a very high rate of death.

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U.S. Has Far Higher Covid Death Rate Than Other Wealthy Countries - The New York Times

A look at some of the top headlines trending online today around the world including the latest on the Winter Olympics, a major snowstorm moving through the country, coronavirus developments surrounding the Omicron variant and much more.

Triple whammy of snow, ice and sleet in store for millions across South and Midwest (CNN)

Olympic spotlight back on China for a COVID-tinged Games (AP)

Activists say Olympic diplomatic boycotts simply not enough, call for further action against China (ABC)

White House no longer calling Russian invasion of Ukraine imminent (NY Post)

Russia condemns destructive US troop increase in Europe (BBC)

International Space Station to crash into the Pacific Ocean in 2031, NASA announces (CBS)

How much Covid immunity is out there? Figuring out is crucial and complicated (NBC)

When can kids get the COVID-19 vaccine? What parents need to know (CBS)

Why do some people get Covid when others dont? Heres what we know so far (CNBC)

When you should be using your at-home COVID tests (ABC)

Strained US hospitals seek foreign nurses amid visa windfall (AP)

Eminem, Dolly Parton, Duran Duran and Beck nominated for Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (cleveland.com)

US forces launch raid in Syria, civilians also reported dead (AP)

Sources: Hue Jackson may join Brian Flores lawsuit, claims to have proof that Browns incentivized tanking (Yahoo Sports)

Washington Football Team reveals Commanders as new name (Fox)

4 Are Charged in Overdose Death of Michael K. Williams (NY Times)

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Winter Olympics, heavy snow, coronavirus & more: Whats trending today - cleveland.com

Before the omicron wave ripped through the country, infecting even those with multiple doses of the Covid-19 vaccines, evidence was already emerging that the effectiveness of vaccines to protect against infection started to wane after several months. Booster shots were soon approved in response, to recharge peoples immunity against a virus that is still widespread.

By now, for some Americans, its been months since those booster shots. Israel, which has taken one of the most aggressive approaches to vaccination, is considering fourth doses for all adults. So that raises the question for boosted Americans: Am I going to need a fourth shot?

For now, experts say, it depends. If you are immunocompromised, yes, you should get a fourth shot and youre already eligible. For everyone else, the jury is still out, although a fourth shot doesnt appear to be immediately on the horizon.

Experts say that because immunocompromised people are more vulnerable right now, it makes sense for them to get another dose of the vaccines currently available. For everybody else, scientists are still assessing whether another dose is actually necessary, as well as what kind of dose it should be.

Immunocompromised people already qualify for four doses under the CDCs recommendations. Eligible patients include people who are receiving cancer treatment, people who have received an organ transplant, people with HIV infections, and people who have autoimmune disorders or who are taking medications that can suppress their immune system.

Immunocompromised people did not receive the same level of protection from the initial two-dose regiment of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, which is why they were one of the first groups made eligible for booster shots last fall. For them, three doses effectively serve as their first vaccine course, with a booster to be given several months after that.

Preliminary studies out of the UK, US, and France have indicated that about half of the immunocompromised people who did not see any immune response after two doses did experience a response after the third dose, and more robust research is underway to assess the effectiveness of a fourth shot, particularly for immunocompromised people.

There have been reports of people who meet those criteria being turned away at pharmacies, another example of poor communication in the US pandemic response. But the Biden White House held a call with pharmacists last week to more clearly lay out who is eligible for an additional shot and ensure those people are not denied the opportunity to bolster their immune systems response to Covid-19.

So immunocompromised people are the priority for fourth shots right now. For everybody else, experts say well need to wait and see.

One Israeli study found a strong antibody response after four doses of the original vaccine, though it wasnt sufficient to fully prevent infection from the omicron variant. Israel, one of the most aggressive countries on booster shots, has made all adults over 60 years old, health care workers, and nursing home residents eligible for a fourth shot. It is considering fourth shots for all adults over 18 after at least five months has passed since their third dose or a Covid-19 infection.

For the time being, the half-dozen experts I asked about fourth shots were unanimous that an additional dose makes sense for the immunocompromised, but say the evidence is not yet persuasive for the wider population, at least until some of the studies being conducted on fourth shots and on omicron-specific vaccines are completed.

Pfizer and Moderna are focusing on omicron-specific doses; Pfizer has said that vaccine could be available as soon as March, and Moderna also expects results from its clinical trials next month.

Im not persuaded that fourth shots are necessary. Well have to see when the actual data comes out, Angela Rasmussen, a virologist with the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization, told me. With, as you point out, the exception being immunocompromised people.

The next shot that many people receive may be more targeted to the latest variant. Some scientists even argue we need vaccines that combine the old and the new formulations, in case the next variant after omicron has genetically more in common with earlier strains.

The underlying point is, the original version of the vaccines may be in need of an update. But the data is still coming in on how urgent those additional shots are for most people.

And be aware: The thinking could change in the coming months. Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease researcher at the University of California San Francisco, told me that she thought people over 75 with multiple chronic conditions might benefit from another dose. William Hanage, a Harvard epidemiologist, said that if a fourth shot were shown to prevent any infection, even for a short time, it might make sense to again inoculate medical workers during future surges to prevent hospitals from becoming understaffed.

The science is always changing. And we could be moving into a future where periodic Covid-19 boosters are a part of the usual vaccine schedule, like annual flu shots. Modernas chief medical officer told CNBC this week that he thought omicron-specific vaccines could fill that role going forward.

As Peter Hotez, who leads the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Childrens Hospital, told me: We need clarity on the durability of mRNA vaccines.

But what should not be lost in this debate is that the vaccines we do have, and the doses already administered, are doing a lot of good. People with three doses had a 96 percent reduced risk of hospitalization from omicron, according to a recent CDC study; even the people with only two doses saw an 81 percent reduced risk. Though immune responses vary by age and health, the vast majority of elderly people still showed an immune response five months after their third shot.

A projection from the Commonwealth Fund estimated the Covid-19 vaccines had saved as many as 1.1 million lives through November 2021. So while the situation is always changing, as omicron reminded us, the basic value of vaccination has not. Some of us might need an additional shot right now. The rest of us might need one later.

But the takeaway remains the same: Get your shots as recommended. They save lives.

Continued here:

Who needs a Covid vaccine booster now and who should wait for an omicron-specific shot? - Vox.com

Governor Reynoldssignedthefinalextension of the states Public Health DisasterEmergencyProclamationtoday,announcingitwill expire at 11:59 p.m. onTuesday,February15,2022.The signed proclamation can be foundhere.

The proclamation was firstissuedin accordance with the Governors executive authorityonMarch17, 2020,toenable certain public health mitigation measures duringthestates response to the COVID-19 pandemic.Overtime, it includedhundreds ofprovisionsassembledin the midst of an emergency to quickly addressapandemicthenationknew little about. Today, the remaining16provisionsfocusprimarilyon lingering workforce issues exacerbated by the pandemic that are best addressed outside of emergency executive powers.

The State of Iowa is working with stakeholders in an effort to address pervasiveworkforceissues through more permanent solutions like legislation, rule changes, and grant programs.

We cannot continue tosuspend duly enacted laws andtreatCOVID-19asa public health emergencyindefinitely.After two years,its no longer feasible or necessary. The flu and other infectious illnesses are part of our everyday lives,and coronavirus can be managed similarly, stated Gov. Reynolds. Stateagencieswill nowmanage COVID-19 as part of normal daily business, andreallocateresources that have beensolelydedicated to the response effort toserve other important needsforIowans.

Theexpiration of Iowas Public Health DisasterEmergencyProclamation willresult inoperational changes related to the COVID-19 response.The most noticeable change will be how data is reported publicly.The statestwoCOVID-19 websites, coronavirus.iowa.govand vaccinateiowa.gov,will be decommissionedon February 16, 2022, but information will remain accessible onlinethroughotherstate and federal resources.

While our COVID-19 reporting will look different, Iowans should rest assured that the state health department will continue to review and analyze COVID-19 and other public health data daily, just as we always have, stated Kelly Garcia, director of the Iowa Department of Public Health(IDPH).The new format willincludedata points that Iowans areused to seeing, but moves us closer to existing reporting standards for other respiratory viruses. This new phase also assures that our teams, who have been deeply committed to the COVID-19 response, can return to their pre-pandemic responsibilities, andrefocuson areaswhere the pandemic has taken a hard toll.

IDPHwillreportrelevantCOVID-19 informationweekly on its website,similar to howflu activityis reported.Data willincludepositive testssince March 2020and in the last seven days, cases by county,anepidemiologic curve, variants by weekand deaths since March 2020. Vaccine information, including total series and boosters completed, demographics for fully vaccinated Iowans,and vaccination by county, will also be reported.Aligningthe agencysreporting processes will create greater efficiency for its staffwhilecontinuing toprovideimportantinformationto Iowans.Thenew reportwill be availablestarting February 16 atidph.iowa.gov.

The State of Iowa anditshealth care providers willalsocontinue to reportCOVID-19dataas requiredbythe Centers for DiseaseControl and Prevention (CDC).The CDCs COVID Data Trackerreports state-level data for cases, deaths, testing, vaccination and more. The site is available at coronavirus.gov orcovid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker.

The State Hygienic Labwill continue to operate the Test Iowa at Home program. Astesting supply increases andmore options for self-testing become available, the state willreassessthe needfor the program.For more information or to request an at-home test, visit testiowa.com.

States are not required to have adisaster proclamation in place tobe eligible forfederal coronavirus-relatedfundingor resources. Iowa will continue to receive vaccineand therapeuticallocations as normal after theproclamation expires.

Nearlyhalfof U.S.states have already discontinued their public health proclamations, and several more are set to expire in February if they arent renewed.

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Gov. Reynolds announces expiration of Public Health Proclamation, changes to COVID-19 data reporting | Office of the Governor of Iowa - Governor Kim...

In the bustling corridor outside Northeast High Schools gymnasium, a 15-year-old told one of Philadelphias best-known COVID-19 vaccination advocates he had doubts about what she was promoting.

I dont know, the boy said. I dont know about the vaccine.

His grandfather didnt want him to get it, he told Ala Stanford, pediatric surgeon and founder of the Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium, dedicated to ensuring equity in the vaccination effort. If he did, he said, he might have his video games taken away.

Its up to you whether you get it or not, Stanford replied, but I will listen to you.

There were several interactions like that Wednesday morning, at the beginning of a two-day vaccination clinic hosted at the school by Stanford and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, who have been visiting city schools and will continue to do so through much of February. About 54% of the citys 12- to 17-year-olds and 47% of 5- to 11-year-olds are vaccinated, and thats not nearly enough, Stanford said.

In Philadelphia, anyone 11 or older may be vaccinated with or without parental consent, according to a health department spokesperson. The city school district has its own consent policy, Stanford said, requiring parental permission for shots administered to children in 8th grade or below, regardless of age. Allowing teens old enough to understand to understand the need for vaccination to make their own decisions eliminates an onerous process of obtaining permission, she said.

Students could check out of their lunch period and get the shots immediately. Staff hoped to vaccinate between 200 to 300 by the end of Thursday.

It was also a chance to ask questions of Stanford, who was treated as a visiting celebrity by staff and students.

We were so glad you were coming here, really, said Amy Leaness, a school nurse who described months of struggle managing COVID-19 at the school.

READ MORE: These doctors and nurses share COVID-19 falsehoods. They can become misinformation superspreaders.

Keeping track of student vaccinations, which determine whether a child needs to quarantine after a COVID-19 exposure, has been a logistical nightmare. Efforts to keep the virus out of the school hit a wall shortly after the holidays, when as many as 10 to 20 students a day were testing positive for COVID-19. Things have gotten better since.

Yet the vaccine refusals continue.

Weve had kids come in and say their parents arent allowing them to get it, said Margaret Beyer, another nurse.

Stanford said repeatedly Wednesday that students in ninth grade and up dont need parental permission to get vaccinated. Whether its to protect older family members who are more vulnerable to the worst effects of the virus, or to stay involved in youth sports, she kept the focus on the benefits of getting vaccinated.

After a morning assembly that introduced Stanford and the rules of the clinic to students, student Janiah Burris told Stanford she had gotten her second shot two months ago but was reluctant to get a booster when she became eligible. The 16-year-old later said she was worried it would make her sick. But instead of quizzing her on her motives, the doctor initially validated Burris concerns, telling her it was possible by the time she could get a booster in a few months COVID-19 might be less prevalent. If it wasnt, though, the booster would provide a big benefit.

Stanford described her own experience with a COVID-19 infection, told the girl how sick she got, and said being able to keep attending school and her job at Honeygrow would be easier if she was boosted.

You can even reach out to me in three months, Stanford said. Once Easter happens, think about reaching out to me.

Burris said later that the conversation clarified why boosters are helpful, but she still wasnt sure how much the shots mattered.

Im not sure its actually protecting me, she said.

Kaher Abuali, 16, said vaccination is not a big topic in his group.

READ MORE: Omicrons toughest foe is a booster shot, yet many in the Philly region are skipping theirs

They think corona wont affect us because were young, he said.

Abuali got his first dose Wednesday after being convinced by a friend and distant relative, Ayham Muhanna, 15. All morning, Muhanna worked his phone, calling friends and family within the schools Palestinian community to persuade them to get their shots.

He motivated me, bro, said Abuali, slapping hands with Muhanna. It was all him.

Muhanna didnt have plans to get his booster shot Wednesday, and didnt start the day intending to rally classmates around vaccination, but a presentation from Stanford at the beginning of the day inspired him.

Maybe Ill get my vaccine today, he described his thinking, and maybe Ill bring my friends along with me.

Many have young children in their families, he said, something he used to encourage them to go to the clinic.

Later, Muhanna strode across Northeast High Schools gymnasium toward a table where federal medical workers signed students up for vaccination.

I brought another family member! he shouted.

In a school where less than half of the roughly 3,200 students are vaccinated, a new proselytizer for vaccination was more than welcome.

He was the first to call me up right here, said the new kid Muhanna brought to the clinic, Ahmad Abuali, Kahers cousin.

As the morning passed, the boy whose grandfather didnt want him vaccinated didnt reappear. Stanford said she wished she had more time to talk to him. During their brief interaction, she emphasized that getting vaccinated was a confidential medical decision the boy was old enough to make.

I dont have to tell him, she told the boy, referring to his grandfather. You dont have to tell him.

The boy looked away from her as she spoke, considering. Then a distraction from security staff broke their conversation, and without a word the boy walked away, vanishing into the crush of students bustling through the hallway.

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Philly teens greet COVID-19 vaccination efforts with interest and skepticism - The Philadelphia Inquirer

COVID-19 case counts are beginning to fall again in the San Francisco Bay Area. But for many of the hundreds of thousands of residents infected in the past month, a huge question lingers: Am I going to develop long COVID?

To get answers, we reached out to several experts who are working with long COVID patients in the Bay Area and beyond. They helped us understand what, exactly, researchers know so far and what there still is to find out.

There isnt a good definition of long COVID yet. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention starts the clock on long COVID four weeks after people are infected, while the World Health Organization defines it as symptoms that stick around longer than four months. Many researchers also believe extended symptoms can be separated into several distinct syndromes.

One issue is post-intensive care syndrome, a serious condition related to post-traumatic stress disorder that can affect people in the ICU for any reason.

Whether or not you end up in the ICU, COVID can cause injuries that take a long time to heal. Some of those are common to other respiratory illnesses. If you develop severe pneumonia from any virus or bacteria, including COVID, it can take as long as six months to get back to normal; in the meantime, you might have shortness of breath, coughing and fatigue.

Severe COVID also increases your risk of heart disease. In one study before vaccines were widely available, about 1 in 1,000 people diagnosed with COVID-19 also developed a type of heart inflammation called myocarditis within a month. In another pre-vaccine study, which has yet to complete peer review, 15% of people with confirmed COVID infections were diagnosed with heart disease within the next year. When researchers looked at data from 2017, only 10% of similar people had developed cardiac problems.

Some people develop symptoms that look very similar to chronic fatigue syndrome, also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis. That kind of post-viral syndrome can develop after all kinds of infection, including after mild or even asymptomatic cases of COVID. People may feel extremely tired, no matter how much they sleep; have extreme difficulty concentrating, also known as brain fog; and get exhausted just from walking across the room.

There are likely connections between the immune response to the virus and all these diverse symptoms, according to Mady Hornig, an associate professor of epidemiology at Columbia Universitys Mailman School of Public Health, who specializes in myalgic encephalomyelitis. She developed long COVID herself about four months after being infected. For more than a year, even mild exertion could trigger her heart to race and her blood oxygen to drop.

Infection-triggered syndromes are certainly not a surprise, she told SFGATE. Theres so much that we really need to understand about what is actually wrong.

That all depends on the symptoms, said Dr. Lekshmi Santhosh, medical director of UCSFs post-COVID clinic. Someone who was hospitalized and on a ventilator will have different needs than someone who was never hospitalized, who has significant fatigue and post-exertional symptoms. Treating respiratory symptoms is different than treating headaches and brain fog, she told SFGATE by email.

Dr. Linda Geng is the co-director of the Post-Acute COVID Syndrome Clinic at Stanford in Palo Alto, and said the most common symptoms she sees in her clinic include fatigue, brain fog, exertional intolerance and sleep issues.

"Encouragingly, we do see many patients get better over time, though there are patients who have now had symptoms lasting longer than a year, so we need to make sure we continue to provide support and resources for all long COVID patients," Geng wrote in an email.

Even though its now the dominant variant in the U.S., omicron hasnt been around long enough for researchers to get a handle on what happens long-term. Its clear, though, that omicron results in less severe disease than delta does. Thats true even for unvaccinated people, although theyre still much more likely to get very sick, or even die, than people who have been immunized.

Since vaccinated people are much less likely to get very sick, theyre also less likely to have injuries that take a long time to heal, like lung and heart damage. Even if you do get sick enough to go to the hospital, its extremely unlikely youll have to be treated in the ICU. (People infected with the omicron variant are unlikely to need the ICU, whether or not theyve been vaccinated.)

Most of our patients had acute COVID prior to vaccination, Geng said. Thus far we have not seen many new patients who have long COVID from breakthrough vaccinations, but we will need to see as time passes how the patterns emerge.

One of the only published studies looking at vaccination status was published in September 2021, when delta was the dominant strain, and before booster shots were widespread. Researchers in the United Kingdom asked people to self-report COVID symptoms through an app. A month after being infected, people who had received two vaccine doses were about 50% less likely to report symptoms than people who hadnt received any shots.

"We need more data to continue to evaluate the impact of vaccines, specifically boosters in the age of Omicron and whether the probability of infection is the same," said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious diseases expert at UCSF, via email.

Research on the prevalence of long COVID is hugely varied, with peer reviewed reports claiming anywhere from 3% to 80% of people will have extended symptoms. (Chin-Hong estimated that number is about 10% to 20%, noting that vaccination significantly reduces the risk.) Obviously, theres a huge disparity between those numbers, even accounting for differing definitions of long COVID.

The biggest issue is that it takes a long time to do this kind of research. Most of the work now being published uses data from patients infected before vaccines were widely available. While lots of vaccinated people with long-term symptoms are being followed, most were infected when the most common strain of SARS-Cov-2 was delta, which causes more severe disease than the now-dominant omicron variant.

Its also very hard to conduct public health research in America, because our medical data is scattered across tens of thousands of systems that cant talk to one another. That means a lot of this research is being conducted in countries with national health systems like the UK, where the most common vaccine uses a different technology than the Pfizer or Moderna shots.

Its hard to say. Vaccines have done such a good job at preventing serious disease that many immunized people either dont know theyve been infected or use at-home tests without reporting positive results to anyone. That means it may take a long time for people to connect long-term symptoms to a COVID infection.

The federal National Institutes of Health has pledged to spend $1.15 billion on research into long COVID.

To Hornig, the pandemic represents an enormous opportunity and obligation to learn as much as we can about this and other post-viral syndromes. So many people got this at the same time, were finally looking at all sorts of nervous system disorders, she said. But we have so far to go before we know what to do.

More here:

Coronavirus cases are dropping. It's time to talk about long COVID. - SFGate