Category Archives: Corona Virus

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Indias health ministry warned on Sunday that a huge gathering of devotees for a Hindu festival could send coronavirus cases surging, as the country recorded the most new infections in nearly four months.

The ministry said up to 40 people were testing positive for COVID-19 daily around the site of the weeks-long Mahakumbh that began this month and peaks in April in the Himalayan holy town of Haridwar, next to the Ganges.

The festival is held only once every 12 years. Organisers have said here more than 150 million visitors are expected, as many Hindus believe bathing in the river during this period absolves people of sins and bring salvation from the cycle of life and death.

In a letter to the state government of Uttarakhand, where Haridwar is located, the ministry told local authorities their daily coronavirus testing of 55,000 people in Haridwar was not enough given the large numbers of pilgrims expected, and that cases were already rising.

This positivity rate has the potential to rapidly turn into an upsurge in cases, given the expected large footfall during Kumbh, the ministry said in a statement, citing the letter.

Currently more than 12 states in India have shown a surge in COVID-19 cases during the past few weeks, and pilgrims expected to visit Haridwar during the Kumbh Mela could also be from these states.

Uttarakhands government says it has made mask-wearing mandatory for devotees, would distribute millions of masks for free and also keep sanitising public areas, apart from following rules laid down by the federal government.

India reported 43,846 new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, with its richest state Maharashtra again accounting for about 60% of the infections.

Deaths rose by 197, the highest in more than two months, to 159,755, data from the health ministry showed.

Indias new COVID-19 cases peaked at nearly 100,000 a day in September, and had been falling steadily until late last month.

But now five states - Maharashtra, Punjab, Karnataka, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh - account for nearly 78% of the new cases. Maharashtra, home to Indias financial capital Mumbai, alone reported 27,126 cases and 92 deaths.

As cases increase, Prime Minister Narendra Modis government has been criticised for exporting more vaccines than the number of people inoculated at home so far.

Under pressure to boost local supplies, the Serum Institute of India has told Brazil, Saudi Arabia and Morocco that shipments of further doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to them would be delayed.

India has so far donated 8 million doses and sold nearly 52 million doses to a total of 75 countries. It has administered more than 44 million doses since starting its immunisation campaign in the middle of January.

Reporting by Aftab Ahmed and Krishna N. Das; Editing by Kim Coghill

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Massive religious gathering worries India as COVID-19 cases surge - Reuters

Vaccines have brought the United States tantalizingly close to crushing the coronavirus within its borders. After months of hiccups, some 1.4 million people are now being vaccinated every day, and many more shots are coming through the pipeline. The Food and Drug Administration is soon expected to authorize a third vaccine a single-dose shot made by Johnson & Johnson while Pfizer and Moderna are promising to greatly expand the supply of their shots, to roughly 100 million total doses per month, by early spring.

If those vaccines make their way into arms quickly, the nation could be on its way to a relatively pleasant summer and something approaching normal by autumn. Imagine schools running at full capacity in September and families gathering for Thanksgiving.

But turning that if into a when will require clearing additional hurdles so that everyone who needs to be vaccinated gets vaccinated. This is especially true for racial minorities, who are being disproportionately missed by the vaccination effort.

Theres plenty of disagreement among experts as to why America is still having problems with vaccine uptake. Some officials have suggested that the main cause is that too many people are hesitant to get the vaccine. Others point the finger at overcautious public health officials who they say have undersold the promise of the vaccines. Still others point to long lines at clinics as proof that far more people want the vaccine than can actually get it.

There is probably some truth to all of these hypotheses, and the underlying problems are not new. Vaccine hesitancy had been growing steadily in America long before the current pandemic, so much so that in 2019 the World Health Organization ranked it as one of the leading global health threats. At the same time, poor health care access and other logistical constraints, such as a lack of public transportation and limited internet access, have long impeded public health efforts in low-income communities.

To maximize the number of Americans getting vaccinations, policymakers need to tackle each of these crises with greater urgency than they have so far.

As supply increases, health officials should mount ambitious vaccination campaigns modeled on ones that have worked to curb diseases in other countries. That will mean not relying solely on web portals for scheduling vaccine appointments. It will mean going block by block and door to door, through high-risk communities especially. It will mean setting up employee vaccination sites at schools, grocery stores, transit hubs and meatpacking plants, and community clinics at houses of worship, with local leaders promoting and running them.

The easier you can make it for people to get vaccinated, the more likely your program will be to succeed, said Dr. Walter Orenstein, a former director of the national immunization program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Its really that simple.

Outreach efforts cost money. But theyre far less expensive than allowing the pandemic to fester. Congress has appropriated some money to help states with vaccine rollout. It should offer more, and states should put as much of those resources as possible toward vaccination efforts that meet people where they are.

Health officials should also recognize that vaccine hesitancy has many root causes deliberate disinformation campaigns, mistrust of medical authorities in marginalized communities, ill-considered messaging by health officials. The best way to counter that is with campaigns that are locally led, that clearly outline the benefits of vaccination and that frame getting the shot as not just a personal choice but a collective responsibility.

Doctors and scientists can help those pro-vaccine messages stick by minding their own public communications. Its crucial to be transparent about what vaccines will and wont do for society overselling now will only sow more mistrust later.

That said, underselling is its own problem. Its true that these vaccines will not immediately restore the world to total normalcy. But they will eventually allow people to hug their loved ones, to return to their offices and to be protected from dying from or becoming seriously ill with Covid-19. Health officials should be clear about that.

Policymakers at the highest levels of government should press social media companies and e-commerce sites to curb the most aggressive purveyors of vaccine disinformation.

To not only quell this pandemic but to try to prevent the next one, America will need to improve its health system and its public health apparatus, both of which have significant holes. The problem with a lot of the response is that it was predicated on the idea that we have a good system in place for doing adult immunizations across the country, said Dr. Peter Hotez, a vaccine expert at Baylor College of Medicine. The fact is, we really dont.

In the end, lawmakers and the people who vote them into office will have to address the much broader problems that this pandemic has exposed.

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Opinion | The Final Push to End the Coronavirus Pandemic in the U.S. - The New York Times

Across the United States, and the world, the coronavirus seems to be loosening its stranglehold. The deadly curve of cases, hospitalizations and deaths has yo-yoed before, but never has it plunged so steeply and so fast.

Is this it, then? Is this the beginning of the end? After a year of being pummeled by grim statistics and scolded for wanting human contact, many Americans feel a long-promised deliverance is at hand.

Americans will win against the virus and regain many aspects of their pre-pandemic lives, most scientists now believe. Of the 21 interviewed for this article, all were optimistic that the worst of the pandemic is past. This summer, they said, life may begin to seem normal again.

But of course, theres always a but researchers are also worried that Americans, so close to the finish line, may once again underestimate the virus.

So far, the two vaccines authorized in the United States are spectacularly effective, and after a slow start, the vaccination rollout is picking up momentum. A third vaccine is likely to be authorized shortly, adding to the nations supply.

But it will be many weeks before vaccinations make a dent in the pandemic. And now the virus is shape-shifting faster than expected, evolving into variants that may partly sidestep the immune system.

The latest variant was discovered in New York City only this week, and another worrisome version is spreading at a rapid pace through California. Scientists say a contagious variant first discovered in Britain will become the dominant form of the virus in the United States by the end of March.

The road back to normalcy is potholed with unknowns: how well vaccines prevent further spread of the virus; whether emerging variants remain susceptible enough to the vaccines; and how quickly the world is immunized, so as to halt further evolution of the virus.

But the greatest ambiguity is human behavior. Can Americans desperate for normalcy keep wearing masks and distancing themselves from family and friends? How much longer can communities keep businesses, offices and schools closed?

Covid-19 deaths will most likely never rise quite as precipitously as in the past, and the worst may be behind us. But if Americans let down their guard too soon many states are already lifting restrictions and if the variants spread in the United States as they have elsewhere, another spike in cases may well arrive in the coming weeks.

Scientists call it the fourth wave. The new variants mean were essentially facing a pandemic within a pandemic, said Adam Kucharski, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

The United States has now recorded 500,000 deaths amid the pandemic, a terrible milestone. As of Wednesday morning, at least 28.3 million people have been infected.

But the rate of new infections has tumbled by 35 percent over the past two weeks, according to a database maintained by The New York Times. Hospitalizations are down 31 percent, and deaths have fallen by 16 percent.

Yet the numbers are still at the horrific highs of November, scientists noted. At least 3,210 people died of Covid-19 on Wednesday alone. And there is no guarantee that these rates will continue to decrease.

Very, very high case numbers are not a good thing, even if the trend is downward, said Marc Lipsitch, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston. Taking the first hint of a downward trend as a reason to reopen is how you get to even higher numbers.

In late November, for example, Gov. Gina Raimondo of Rhode Island limited social gatherings and some commercial activities in the state. Eight days later, cases began to decline. The trend reversed eight days after the states pause lifted on Dec. 20.

The viruss latest retreat in Rhode Island and most other states, experts said, results from a combination of factors: growing numbers of people with immunity to the virus, either from having been infected or from vaccination; changes in behavior in response to the surges of a few weeks ago; and a dash of seasonality the effect of temperature and humidity on the survival of the virus.

Parts of the country that experienced huge surges in infection, like Montana and Iowa, may be closer to herd immunity than other regions. But patchwork immunity alone cannot explain the declines throughout much of the world.

The vaccines were first rolled out to residents of nursing homes and to the elderly, who are at highest risk of severe illness and death. That may explain some of the current decline in hospitalizations and deaths.

But young people drive the spread of the virus, and most of them have not yet been inoculated. And the bulk of the worlds vaccine supply has been bought up by wealthy nations, which have amassed one billion more doses than needed to immunize their populations.

Vaccination cannot explain why cases are dropping even in countries where few have been immunized. The biggest contributor to the sharp decline in infections is something more mundane, scientists say: behavioral change.

Leaders in the United States and elsewhere stepped up community restrictions after the holiday peaks. But individual choices have also been important, said Lindsay Wiley, an expert in public health law and ethics at American University in Washington.

People voluntarily change their behavior as they see their local hospital get hit hard, as they hear about outbreaks in their area, she said. If thats the reason that things are improving, then thats something that can reverse pretty quickly, too.

The downward curve of infections with the original coronavirus disguises an exponential rise in infections with B.1.1.7, the variant first identified in Britain, according to many researchers.

We really are seeing two epidemic curves, said Ashleigh Tuite, an infectious disease modeler at the University of Toronto.

The B.1.1.7 variant is thought to be more contagious and more deadly, and it is expected to become the predominant form of the virus in the United States by late March. The number of cases with the variant in the United States has risen from 76 in 12 states as of Jan. 13 to more than 1,800 in 45 states now. Actual infections may be much higher because of inadequate surveillance efforts in the United States.

Buoyed by the shrinking rates over all, however, governors are lifting restrictions across the United States and are under enormous pressure to reopen completely. Should that occur, B.1.1.7 and the other variants are likely to explode.

Feb. 26, 2021, 11:02 p.m. ET

Everybody is tired, and everybody wants things to open up again, Dr. Tuite said. Bending to political pressure right now, when things are really headed in the right direction, is going to end up costing us in the long term.

Another wave may be coming, but it can be minimized.

Looking ahead to late March or April, the majority of scientists interviewed by The Times predicted a fourth wave of infections. But they stressed that it is not an inevitable surge, if government officials and individuals maintain precautions for a few more weeks.

A minority of experts were more sanguine, saying they expected powerful vaccines and an expanding rollout to stop the virus. And a few took the middle road.

Were at that crossroads, where it could go well or it could go badly, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

The vaccines have proved to be more effective than anyone could have hoped, so far preventing serious illness and death in nearly all recipients. At present, about 1.4 million Americans are vaccinated each day. More than 45 million Americans have received at least one dose.

A team of researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle tried to calculate the number of vaccinations required per day to avoid a fourth wave. In a model completed before the variants surfaced, the scientists estimated that vaccinating just one million Americans a day would limit the magnitude of the fourth wave.

But the new variants completely changed that, said Dr. Joshua T. Schiffer, an infectious disease specialist who led the study. Its just very challenging scientifically the ground is shifting very, very quickly.

Natalie Dean, a biostatistician at the University of Florida, described herself as a little more optimistic than many other researchers. We would be silly to undersell the vaccines, she said, noting that they are effective against the fast-spreading B.1.1.7 variant.

But Dr. Dean worried about the forms of the virus detected in South Africa and Brazil that seem less vulnerable to the vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna. (On Wednesday, Johnson & Johnson reported that its vaccine was relatively effective against the variant found in South Africa.)

About 50 infections with those two variants have been identified in the United States, but that could change. Because of the variants, scientists do not know how many people who were infected and had recovered are now vulnerable to reinfection.

South Africa and Brazil have reported reinfections with the new variants among people who had recovered from infections with the original version of the virus.

That makes it a lot harder to say, If we were to get to this level of vaccinations, wed probably be OK, said Sarah Cobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago.

Yet the biggest unknown is human behavior, experts said. The sharp drop in cases now may lead to complacency about masks and distancing, and to a wholesale lifting of restrictions on indoor dining, sporting events and more. Or not.

The single biggest lesson Ive learned during the pandemic is that epidemiological modeling struggles with prediction, because so much of it depends on human behavioral factors, said Carl Bergstrom, a biologist at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Taking into account the counterbalancing rises in both vaccinations and variants, along with the high likelihood that people will stop taking precautions, a fourth wave is highly likely this spring, the majority of experts told The Times.

Kristian Andersen, a virologist at the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego, said he was confident that the number of cases will continue to decline, then plateau in about a month. After mid-March, the curve in new cases will swing upward again.

In early to mid-April, were going to start seeing hospitalizations go up, he said. Its just a question of how much.

Now the good news.

Despite the uncertainties, the experts predict that the last surge will subside in the United States sometime in the early summer. If the Biden administration can keep its promise to immunize every American adult by the end of the summer, the variants should be no match for the vaccines.

Combine vaccination with natural immunity and the human tendency to head outdoors as weather warms, and it may not be exactly herd immunity, but maybe its sufficient to prevent any large outbreaks, said Youyang Gu, an independent data scientist, who created some of the most prescient models of the pandemic.

Infections will continue to drop. More important, hospitalizations and deaths will fall to negligible levels enough, hopefully, to reopen the country.

Sometimes people lose vision of the fact that vaccines prevent hospitalization and death, which is really actually what most people care about, said Stefan Baral, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Even as the virus begins its swoon, people may still need to wear masks in public places and maintain social distance, because a significant percent of the population including children will not be immunized.

Assuming that we keep a close eye on things in the summer and dont go crazy, I think that we could look forward to a summer that is looking more normal, but hopefully in a way that is more carefully monitored than last summer, said Emma Hodcroft, a molecular epidemiologist at the University of Bern in Switzerland.

Imagine: Groups of vaccinated people will be able to get together for barbecues and play dates, without fear of infecting one another. Beaches, parks and playgrounds will be full of mask-free people. Indoor dining will return, along with movie theaters, bowling alleys and shopping malls although they may still require masks.

The virus will still be circulating, but the extent will depend in part on how well vaccines prevent not just illness and death, but also transmission. The data on whether vaccines stop the spread of the disease are encouraging, but immunization is unlikely to block transmission entirely.

Its not zero and its not 100 exactly where that number is will be important, said Shweta Bansal, an infectious disease modeler at Georgetown University. It needs to be pretty darn high for us to be able to get away with vaccinating anything below 100 percent of the population, so thats definitely something were watching.

Over the long term say, a year from now, when all the adults and children in the United States who want a vaccine have received them will this virus finally be behind us?

Every expert interviewed by The Times said no. Even after the vast majority of the American population has been immunized, the virus will continue to pop up in clusters, taking advantage of pockets of vulnerability. Years from now, the coronavirus may be an annoyance, circulating at low levels, causing modest colds.

Many scientists said their greatest worry post-pandemic was that new variants may turn out to be significantly less susceptible to the vaccines. Billions of people worldwide will remain unprotected, and each infection gives the virus new opportunities to mutate.

We wont have useless vaccines. We might have slightly less good vaccines than we have at the moment, said Andrew Read, an evolutionary microbiologist at Penn State University. Thats not the end of the world, because we have really good vaccines right now.

For now, every one of us can help by continuing to be careful for just a few more months, until the curve permanently flattens.

Just hang in there a little bit longer, Dr. Tuite said. Theres a lot of optimism and hope, but I think we need to be prepared for the fact that the next several months are likely to continue to be difficult.

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The Coronavirus Is Threatening a Comeback. Heres How to Stop It. - The New York Times

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky said on Friday that the says that the 7-day average of confirmed cases in the U.S. has ticked up for the past three days, warning that "now is not the time to relax restrictions." Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky said on Friday that the says that the 7-day average of confirmed cases in the U.S. has ticked up for the past three days, warning that "now is not the time to relax restrictions."

The head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned Friday of an uptick in the country's confirmed COVID-19 cases, saying recent progress may be "stalling" as highly infectious new variants become more predominant.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky said at a White House briefing that after weeks of declining cases and hospitalizations, the 7-day average in confirmed cases has ticked up in the past three days in what the CDC considers a "very concerning shift in trajectory." The most recent 7-day average of deaths is at about 2,000 per day, she said, which is slightly higher than that of the week before.

"Things are tenuous. Now is not the time to relax restrictions," Walensky said. "Although we have been experiencing large declines in cases and hospital admissions over the past six weeks, these declines follow the highest peak we have experienced in the pandemic."

In other words, she said, the decline in cases could taper off at a level that is still dangerously high.

Walensky warned of the threat posed by the continued spread of coronavirus variants. These variants now account for roughly 10% of U.S. cases, she said, up from between 1% and 4% in recent weeks. The prevalence of the B.1.1.7 variant first seen in the U.K. is even higher in certain parts of the country.

Scientists predict that the B.1.1.7 variant which is 50% more transmissible than the strain that has been circulating in the U.S. will become the country's dominant strain by mid-March. Walensky said that the spike in case numbers may be the first sign that it is starting to take over.

Other variants emerging in New York City and California also appear to spread more easily and account for a large portion of cases in those areas, she added.

"We may be done with the virus, but clearly the virus is not done with us," Walensky said. "We cannot get comfortable or give into a false sense of security that the worst of the pandemic is behind us."

Nearly a year into the pandemic, Walensky acknowledged that Americans are tired and longing for a return to normalcy. She implored them to be vigilant and continue taking protective measures to prevent another surge.

This is especially important, she said, with mass vaccination "so very close." Some 46 million people, or 14% of the population, have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, according to Walensky. And with Food and Drug Administration experts meeting to evaluate the Johnson & Johnson vaccine today, she said the country may soon have a third vaccine in its toolbox.

Also on Friday, White House COVID-19 Senior Advisor Andy Slavitt said the Biden administration has been in discussions with ride-sharing companies Uber and Lyft to arrange transportation to vaccine sites for vulnerable populations. Lyft and CVS are partnering to provide 60 million free rides, he said.

The administration is also working with a coalition of business groups to promote pandemic control measures aimed at making workplaces safer for customers, employees and communities, Slavitt said. Those measures include educating individuals about masking and social distancing on site, and providing employees with incentives to get vaccinated.

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'A Very Concerning Shift': CDC Head Warns Of Recent Uptick In COVID-19 Cases - NPR

Jeremy Lin, currently with the Santa Cruz Warriors in the NBA's G-League, wrote a long Instagram post sounding off on the wave of anti-Asian American violence across the country.

"Something is changing in this generation of Asian Americans," he wrote. "We are tired of being told that we don't experience racism, we are tired of being told to keep our heads down and not make trouble. We are tired of Asian American kids growing up and being asked where they're REALLY from, of having our eyes mocked, of being objectified as exotic or being told we're inherently unattractive."

Lin's "tired of being told that we don't experience racism" line is likely a reference to some involved in social justice movements painting Asian Americans as people of privilege not deserving of the same protections granted to other minority groups. In November 2020, a school district in Washington received national attention after deciding that Asians Americans would no longer be classified as "people of color" because of levels of educational achievement.

"We are tired of the stereotypes in Hollywood affecting our psyche and limiting who we think we can be," Lin continued. "We are tired of being invisible, of being mistaken for our colleague or told our struggles aren't as real. I want better for my elders who worked so hard and sacrificed so much to make a life for themselves here. I want better for my niece and nephew and future kids. I want better for the next generation of Asian American athletes than to have to work so hard to just be 'deceptively athletic.'"

Lin and other Asian American athletes have often been referred to as "deceptively" or "sneakily" athletic in scouting reports contrasting them to their Black counterparts. He concludes his post by stating he's been called "coronavirus" on the court.

"Being an Asian American doesn't mean we don't experience poverty and racism," he writes. "Being a 9 year NBA veteran doesn't protect me from being called 'coronavirus' on the court. Being a man of faith doesn't mean I don't fight for justice, for myself and for others."

Lin has appeared in five games for the Santa Cruz Warriors this season.

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Warriors' Jeremy Lin says he's been called 'coronavirus' on the court - SF Gate

FEB. 26 -- As a week packed with pandemic-related news came to a close, Massachusetts public health officials confirmed 1,734 new cases of COVID-19 and announced 46 recent deaths caused by the virus.

The Department of Public Health said the state's cumulative case count rose to 547,358 infections and the state's death toll climbed with Friday's announcement to 15,703 people -- or 16,024 people when counting those who died with likely (but not test-confirmed) cases.

Between Thursday's daily report and Friday's update, DPH said, hospitals saw a net reduction of 47 COVID-19 patients. There were 807 people with COVID-19 being treated in Massachusetts hospitals, including 211 being treated in an intensive care unit.

The state's seven-day average positive test rate stands at 1.90 percent and DPH estimated Friday that there are 30,983 people in Massachusetts with active and contagious cases of COVID-19, roughly the same as the population of Gloucester.

As of Friday, there were 1,142,357 people in Massachusetts who had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 480,196 people had received two doses and are considered fully vaccinated, an increase of 25,724 people since Thursday's report. Massachusetts has administered 1,622,553 of the 2,026,900 vaccine doses delivered here, roughly 80 percent.

On Friday morning, Baker traveled to Newburyport to highlight the schools and districts participating in the administration's weekly pooled COVID-19 testing program as he ups the pressure on municipalities to get children back into classrooms full-time. -- Colin A. Young

Lawrence Delegation Requests Meeting with Teachers: With the Baker administration ramping up its efforts to bring elementary school students back to the classroom by April, the legislative delegation from Lawrence and the city's Mayor Kendrys Vasquez requested a meeting with the Lawrence Teachers' Union to discuss a return to in-person learning. The lawmakers, led by Sen. Barry Finegold, and the mayor wrote a letter to the Lawrence Teachers' Union on Wednesday, the day after Gov. Charlie Baker and Education Commissioner Jeff Riley laid out their back-to-school plan. The elected officials started by acknowledging the hardships faced by teachers over the past year. "However, months of remote learning have had a severe impact on the socioemotional well-being of our students, and the districts ongoing failure to return to in-person education will exacerbate the achievement gap between students in Lawrence and those in wealthier communities," they wrote. The lawmakers agreed that younger elementary school students are the most in need of in-person learning and the least likely to spread COVID-19, but also said students in transition years like 6th, 9th and 12th grades should be prioritized for returns to the classroom. "Overall, Lawrence's students desperately need to return to in-person learning, and we want to work with you to do so in a safe and methodical manner. We look forward to scheduling a meeting with you and hearing your input on this pivotal issue," the officials wrote. - Matt Murphy 4:50 PM Fri

CDC Chief: "Now Is Not The Time to Relax Restrictions": A day after Gov. Charlie Baker announced he's loosening economic reopening rules due to improving COVID-19 data here, Centers for Disease Control Director Rochelle Walensky said Friday that "now is not the time to relax restrictions." During a press briefing by the White House COVID-19 Response Team and public health officials, Walensky said COVID-19 cases, hospital admissions, and deaths all remain "very high," noting that the recent progress comes on the heels of "the highest peak we have experienced in the pandemic." In addition, she said the latest data "suggests that these declines may be stalling, potentially leveling off at, still, a very high number." The nation may also be starting to see the beginning effects of the spread of more transmissible COVID variants like B117, which accounts for about 10 percent of cases nationwide, up from 1 to 4 percent a few weeks ago, she said. And she cited new research this week about additional emerging variants in New York (B1526) and California (B1427) that she said also appear to spread more easily and are contributing to a large fraction of infections in those areas. "We are watching these concerning data very closely to see where they will go over the next few days," she said. "But it's important to remember where we are in the pandemic. Things are tenuous. Now is not the time to relax restrictions." - Michael P. Norton 2:53 PM Fri

690 Boxes of Moderna, 60 of Pfizer: A lot of attention has been paid in recent weeks to the limited supply of COVID-19 vaccine doses Massachusetts receives each week from the federal government, so the head of the state's COVID-19 Command Center broke it down for lawmakers Thursday. "I just want to describe what 139,000 doses looks like, to be very specific," Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders said. "It is 60 boxes of Pfizer and 690 boxes of Moderna per week. One requires ultra-cold storage and the other requires freezer capacity, along with the requirements that once the vial is punctured it must be used within six hours. Unlike flu vaccines, these are highly fragile. You can't break the boxes apart, you can't really move them apart." Sudders said the supply is "insufficient" and argued that the circumstances warrant a "streamlined and tightly-managed distribution process" like the one the Baker administration recently put into effect. Some lawmakers on the COVID-19 Committee were upset during Thursday's hearing about the number of doses being distributed to mass vaccination sites versus to local boards of health. In the weekly vaccine report published as Thursday's hearing was concluding, the Department of Public Health said that 40 percent of the roughly 1.9 million doses delivered here have gone to hospitals, 23 percent have gone to pharmacies and the federal program that vaccinates at nursing homes, 10 percent have gone to local boards of health, and nine percent to mass vaccination sites. "We understand and completely concur that there cannot be one channel for administration to achieve effectiveness, efficiency and equity," Sudders said. "But there also can't be unlimited channels when there is constrained supply. Until we have an unconstrained vast supply of vaccine, we must maintain a streamlined and tightly-managed distribution process." -- Colin A. Young 9:49 AM Fri

Before Hearing, 10,000+ Qs&As: Thursday was the first time lawmakers called Baker administration officials in front of them for an oversight hearing on COVID-19 issues, but it was far from the first time the administration fielded questions from legislators on the topic. When Secretary of Health and Human Services Marylou Sudders logged into the Joint Committee on COVID-19 and Emergency Preparedness and Management hearing, she thanked co-chair Sen. Jo Comerford for having worked with Rep. Denise Garlick to convene 27 bi-weekly "legislative sessions" over the last year. Those sessions, Sudders said, "yielded more than 10,050 questions from the Legislature and responses from us." Comerford thanked Sudders for being so available to lawmakers over the course of the pandemic. "What you said, I could have said verbatim just in terms of the way in which you've made yourself available to brief the Legislature," Comerford said. "And I'm deeply grateful to you and to your team for the way in which you really, you've hit it out of the park in terms of having conversations with us. And certainly your staff, helping us put out fires, as it were, as we move through the entire COVID pandemic." -- Colin A. Young 9:20 AM Fri

Summer Camp Decision Hailed as Critical: A state senator from Pittsfield whose district features dozens of overnight and day camps is celebrating Gov. Charlie Baker's decision to permit overnight camps to open in the first step of Phase 4. While that step is scheduled to start March 22, the Baker administration said Thursday that its decision will mean overnight camps can open this summer. Sen. Adam Hinds said the decision followed "months of countless phone calls, letters and meetings with the administration," and that it represents a "victory for working parents," and will facilitate planning and employee recruitment. According to the senator's office, there are 1,000 summer camps in Massachusetts and those camps are responsible for an annual economic contribution of $1.3 billion and over $220 million in directly paid wages. "The decision by the Baker administration to allow overnight and day camps to operate this summer is a huge win for the 250,000 children served by summer camps across the Commonwealth," said Matt Scholl, board president of the Massachusetts Camping Association. "The data is clear that camps can effectively uphold the health and well-being of our children and staff when following evidence-based protocols. Children have never needed summer camp more - prioritizing camp is a choice to prioritize healthy and thriving children." - Michael P. Norton 7:02 AM Fri

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Coronavirus updates: Mixed reactions to Mass. reopening - The Daily News of Newburyport

A large nationwide study has found important differences in the two major ways in which children have become seriously ill from the coronavirus, findings that may help doctors and parents better recognize the conditions and understand more about the children at risk for each one.

The study, published on Wednesday in the journal JAMA, analyzed 1,116 cases of young people who were treated at 66 hospitals in 31 states. Slightly more than half the patients had acute Covid-19, the predominantly lung-related illness that afflicts most adults who get sick from the virus, while 539 patients had the inflammatory syndrome that has erupted in some children weeks after they have had a typically mild initial infection.

The researchers found some similarities, but also significant differences in the symptoms and characteristics of the patients, who ranged from infants to 20-year-olds and were hospitalized last year between March 15 and October 31.

Young people with the syndrome, called Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children or MIS-C, were more likely to be between 6 and 12 years of age, while more than 80 percent of the patients with acute Covid-19 were either younger than 6 or older than 12.

More than two-thirds of patients with either condition were Black or Hispanic, which experts say most likely reflects socioeconomic and other factors that have disproportionately exposed some communities to the virus.

Its still shocking that the overwhelming majority of the patients are nonwhite and that is true for MIS-C and for acute Covid, said Dr. Jean A. Ballweg, medical director of pediatric heart transplant and advanced heart failure at Childrens Hospital & Medical Center in Omaha, who was not involved in the study. Theres clearly racial disparity there.

For reasons that are unclear, while Hispanic young people seemed equally likely to be at risk for both conditions, Black children appeared to be at greater risk for developing the inflammatory syndrome than the acute illness, said Dr. Adrienne Randolph, the senior author of the study and a pediatric critical care specialist at Boston Childrens Hospital.

One potential clue mentioned by the authors is that with Kawasaki disease, a rare childhood inflammatory syndrome that has similarities with some aspects of MIS-C, Black children appear to have greater frequency of heart abnormalities and are less responsive to one of the standard treatments: intravenous immunoglobulin.

The researchers found that young people with the inflammatory syndrome were significantly more likely to have had no underlying medical conditions than those with acute Covid. Still, more than a third of patients with acute Covid had no previous medical condition. Its not like previously healthy kids are completely scot-free here, Dr. Randolph said.

The study evaluated obesity separately from other underlying health conditions and only in patients who were age 2 or older, finding that a somewhat higher percentage of the young people with acute Covid had obesity.

Feb. 26, 2021, 11:02 p.m. ET

Dr. Srinivas Murthy, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of British Columbia, who was not involved in the study, said he was not convinced that the findings established that healthy children were at higher risk for MIS-C. It could be mostly a numbers game, with the proportion of kids infected and the proportion of healthy kids out there, rather than saying that theres something immune in healthy kids that puts them at a disproportionately higher risk, he said.

Overall, he said, the studys documentation of the differences between the two conditions was useful, especially because it reflected a reasonably representative set of hospitals across the U.S.

Young people with the inflammatory syndrome were more likely to need to be treated in intensive care units. Their symptoms were much more likely to include gastrointestinal problems and inflammation and to involve the skin and mucous membranes. They were also much more likely to have heart-related issues, although many of the acute Covid patients did not receive detailed cardiac assessments, the study noted.

Roughly the same large proportion of patients with each condition more than half needed respiratory support, with slightly less than a third of those needing mechanical ventilation. Roughly the same small number of patients in each group died: 10 with MIS-C and eight with acute Covid-19.

The data does not reflect a recent surge in cases of the inflammatory syndrome that followed a rise in overall Covid-19 infections across the country during the winter holiday season. Some hospitals have reported that there have been a greater number of seriously ill MIS-C patients in the current wave compared with previous waves.

I am going to be fascinated to see comparison from Nov. 1 forward versus this group because I think we all felt that the kids with MIS-C have been even more sick recently, Dr. Ballweg said.

An optimistic sign from the study was that most of the severe cardiac problems in young people with the inflammatory syndrome improved to normal condition within 30 days. Still, Dr. Randolph said any residual effects were still unknown, which is why one of her co-authors, Dr. Jane Newburger, associate chief for academic affairs in Boston Childrens Hospitals cardiology department, is leading a nationwide study to follow children with the inflammatory syndrome for up to five years.

We cant say 100 percent for sure that everythings going to be normal long-term, Dr. Randolph said.

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New Findings on 2 Ways Children Become Seriously Ill From the Coronavirus - The New York Times

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Gov. Greg Abbott said Thursday that Texas is looking at when it will be able to lift all statewide orders related to the coronavirus pandemic and that an announcement is forthcoming.

Abbott made the comments at a Corpus Christi news conference where he was asked when the statewide mask mandate would end as Texans continue to get vaccinated. That requirement has been in effect since July.

Abbott called it a great question.

Were working right now on evaluating when were gonna be able to remove all statewide orders, and we will be making announcements about that pretty soon, Abbott said, without giving a specific time frame.

In addition to the mask mandate, statewide orders in effect include a policy that rolls back business reopenings in a hospital region if its COVID-19 patients exceed 15% of hospital capacity for seven days. Abbott put that policy in place in last fall.

Only 5.1% of Texans had been fully vaccinated as of Tuesday, though Abbott has been optimistic that the pace will pick up as more vaccines are made available to Texas.

Experts say Texas is a long way from reaching herd immunity through the vaccines. Hitting the 70% to 80% level that many estimate is needed would mean vaccinating some 22 million people, or nearly 100% of adults in the state, according to census numbers. The vaccines are currently not approved for children under 16, who make up about 23% of the population.

Scientists do not yet know for sure whether or how well the vaccines prevent the spread of the virus, though some preliminary research has suggested that some vaccines might be able to do so to some extent.

The Centers for Disease Control recommends that people who have received two doses of the vaccine continue to avoid crowds, stay at least 6 feet away from people who live outside their households, and wear masks to cover their nose and mouth.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nations top infectious-disease doctor, has repeatedly said that he does not know when Americans will be able to return to normal, but that they may still need to continue wearing face masks into 2022.

Abbott has faced scrutiny from some of his fellow Republicans for how he has wielded his executive authority to issue statewide pandemic rules, and multiple GOP proposals have been introduced at the Legislature to curb his power. He has expressed openness to reforming executive authority while also promising that we will not have any more shutdowns in Texas.

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Gov. Greg Abbott weighing end to mask order, other Texas coronavirus rules - The Texas Tribune

The Secretary-Generally has repeatedly called for the vaccines to be "a global public good", accessible to all people, everywhere.

All UN staffers at UN Headquarters are waiting their turn for the vaccine based on the local rollout plan, and Mr. Guterres is among the first in the Big Apple-based UN familyto receive a jab, based on his eligibility - he's over the standard UN retirement aged of 65.

The UN chief spoke to the site manager, Yaeshea Braddock, while getting his second innoculation about the importance of fair access to all.

Mr. Guterres said he was privileged to be receiving the vaccine, when "so many areas of the world" were, so far, without access.

Ms. Braddock told the UN chief that sites such as theirs were providing importantaccess to minority communities, but"it's not everything we need", she added, and she said some visitors were hesitant about taking the vaccine.

"Because of misinformation, because of historical mistrust" on the part of African-Americans, she explained, who had been used for testing "without our knowledge" in previous decades.

"For African-Americans - I am one myself - I think it's particularlyimportant for me to be vaccinated, to show my community that's it's safe and that I believe in it, and that this vaccine process was one of the most studied, with our involvement, in proportion to society...We were included in this process."

New York school workers, first responders, public transit workers and grocery workers join the over-65s in the current list of those eligible for shots within the five boroughs of the city.

In December, Mr. Guterres declared that he would happily receive the vaccine in public, and said that, for him, vaccination is a moral obligation: Each one of us provides a service to the whole community, he said, because there is no longer a risk of spreading the disease.

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UN chief returns to the Bronx for second coronavirus shot - UN News

NEW YORK (AP) February is usually the peak of flu season, with doctors offices and hospitals packed with suffering patients. But not this year.

Flu has virtually disappeared from the U.S., with reports coming in at far lower levels than anything seen in decades.

Experts say that measures put in place to fend off the coronavirus mask wearing, social distancing and virtual schooling were a big factor in preventing a twindemic of flu and COVID-19. A push to get more people vaccinated against flu probably helped, too, as did fewer people traveling, they say.

Another possible explanation: The coronavirus has essentially muscled aside flu and other bugs that are more common in the fall and winter. Scientists dont fully understand the mechanism behind that, but it would be consistent with patterns seen when certain flu strains predominate over others, said Dr. Arnold Monto, a flu expert at the University of Michigan.

Nationally, this is the lowest flu season weve had on record, according to a surveillance system that is about 25 years old, said Lynnette Brammer of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Hospitals say the usual steady stream of flu-stricken patients never materialized.

At Maine Medical Center in Portland, the states largest hospital, I have seen zero documented flu cases this winter, said Dr. Nate Mick, the head of the emergency department.

Ditto in Oregons capital city, where the outpatient respiratory clinics affiliated with Salem Hospital have not seen any confirmed flu cases.

Its beautiful, said the health systems Dr. Michelle Rasmussen.

The numbers are astonishing considering flu has long been the nations biggest infectious disease threat. In recent years, it has been blamed for 600,000 to 800,000 annual hospitalizations and 50,000 to 60,000 deaths.

Across the globe, flu activity has been at very low levels in China, Europe and elsewhere in the Northern Hemisphere. And that follows reports of little flu in South Africa, Australia and other countries during the Southern Hemispheres winter months of May through August.

The story of course has been different with coronavirus, which has killed more than 500,000 people in the United States. COVID-19 cases and deaths reached new heights in December and January, before beginning a recent decline.

Flu-related hospitalizations, however, are a small fraction of where they would stand during even a very mild season, said Brammer, who oversees the CDCs tracking of the virus.

Flu death data for the whole U.S. population is hard to compile quickly, but CDC officials keep a running count of deaths of children. One pediatric flu death has been reported so far this season, compared with 92 reported at the same point in last years flu season.

Many parents will tell you that this year their kids have been as healthy as theyve ever been, because theyre not swimming in the germ pool at school or day care the same way they were in prior years, Mick said.

Some doctors say they have even stopped sending specimens for testing, because they dont think flu is present. Nevertheless, many labs are using a CDC-developed multiplex test that checks specimens for both the coronavirus and flu, Brammer said.

More than 190 million flu vaccine doses were distributed this season, but the number of infections is so low that its difficult for CDC to do its annual calculation of how well the vaccine is working, Brammer said. Theres simply not enough data, she said.

That also is challenging the planning of next seasons flu vaccine. Such work usually starts with checking which flu strains are circulating around the world and predicting which of them will likely predominate in the year ahead.

But theres not a lot of (flu) viruses to look at, Brammer said.

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Amid COVID-19 pandemic, flu has disappeared in the US - WBRZ