An increasing proportion of Covid-19 tests in children under 18 years of age: Implications for the spread of HIV/AIDS and for preventable deaths
It is important to stay healthy before the holidays. Even if people aren’t so concerned about getting ill, no one wants to become infected just before a long-awaited holiday get-together and have to miss events for fear of transmitting viruses to elderly loved ones and other high-risk family and friends.
Covid positivity is going up, said the associate director of bioinformatics and infectious disease at the genetic testing company. “It’s increasing fastest among 18- to 24-year-olds” in the Helix sampling.
When test positivity increases, it means a greater proportion of Covid-19 tests are returning positive results, and it can be an indication that transmission is on the rise.
“We should expect more cases,” Luo said. I don’t know, but I think people who are sick should be seen more. I definitely do.
If people don’t test at all and don’t report their results, an increase in cases might not be picked up as quickly by official counts.
The Effects of Dominant Omicron Variants on the American Epidemic and Covid-19 Populations: Prospects for the Coming Season
The BQ subvariants of Omicron have risen to dominate transmission in the US. BQ.1 and its offshoot BQ.1.1 are descendants of BA.5; they have five and six key mutations, respectively, in their spike proteins that help them evade immunity created by vaccines and infections. Because of these changes, they’re growing more quickly than BA.5 did.
About half of all new Covid-19 cases in the US are caused by B Q.1 and B Q. 1.1, according to the CDC. They have risen to predominance without much impact so far.
For the past four weeks, there has been no change in Covid-19 cases, hospitalizations or deaths. Morethan 300 Americans die and 3,400 people are hospitalized each day because of Covid-19, according to CDC data.
Nobody knows what will happen with the variant. Many experts say they feel hopeful that we won’t see the big waves of winters past – certainly nothing like the original Omicron variant, with its jaw-dropping peak of nearly a million new daily infections.
Bill Hanage, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, thinks our behavior and our social contacts might be bigger determinants of whether cases will rise this go-round than whatever variant is in the lead.
He thinks it’s likely that we’ll see a rise in cases that may peak around the second week in January – as it has in years past – but that it won’t have a big effect on hospitalizations and deaths.
Andrew Pekosz is a professor of public health at the University of Baltimore and an expert in HIV and AIDS.
It probably has more of a fitness advantage and so we are seeing gradual replacement with no big change in the total number of Covid-19 cases.
There are more than 12 Omicron subvariants causing cases in the U.S., and they are tracked by the CDC, which may be helpful in predicting whether or not there will be a wave over the winter.
New research indicates that a country’s vaccination rate matters more than any other single factor when it comes to the effects of variants on a population.
Scientists at Los Alamos National Labs have finished a study on the effects of 13 dominant variants of coronavirus as they transition from one to another around the world. Data up to September was included in the study and was published as a preprint ahead of peer review.
How many variations are in the mix when a new one rises, and how much do we live in as a country? A study by Bette Korber
The percentage of people who wore masks, average income, and the percentage of older residents in a country ran second, third, fourth, and fifth.
How many other variants are in the mix when a new one rises is also an important factor, says senior study author Bette Korber, a laboratory fellow in the Theoretical Biology and Biophysics Group at Los Alamos.
By the time Alpha reached the United States, we were evolving our own variants out of California and New York “that were very distinctive and had a competitive edge compared to what it had to come up against in England,” Korber said, which probably slowed its roll here.
Korber is not making any predictions. She pointed to Asia as the source of her uncertainty, saying it was too difficult to know what was going to happen.
The US doesn’t have a lot of presence in the XBB subvariant that has caused waves in Asian countries. She says that the BQ variant looks impressive against XBB, which is also highly immune-evasive.
There’s a chance that wearing a mask reduces risk. When food and drinks are involved, it’s difficult for some people with underlying conditions to mask their illness during the gathering.
Korber said that it was a good time to keep an eye on the waves and make them smaller.
Predictions for the American Deaths from Covid 19: What Do You Want to See in the Holidays? And What Are You Going to See?
That is a very good deal, of course. It means that an twice-boosted 87-year-old with a skew of age is just as likely to die from Covid as a 70 year-old notvaccinated. Which is to say, some real risk. If it was ever comfortable to say that the unconscionable levels of American deaths were a “pandemic of the unvaccinated,” it is surely now accurate to describe the ongoing toll as a “pandemic of the old.”
One answer is that as a country, we prefer just to not see those deaths at all, regarding a baseline of several hundred deaths a day as a sort of background noise or morbid but faded wallpaper. We don’t need to understand why hundreds of Americans are dying from Covid 19- every day, because we do not want to reckon with the fact that 100,000 Americans die each year from Covid 19–making it the country’s third leading cause. It is normal at work, but we don’t really track the ups and downs of cancer or heart disease.
The country has been trying to separate individual and social risk for a long time. In the first year of the pandemic, we seemed to build our sense of individual risk backward from the social need to limit spread — underemphasizing some of the differential threat and focusing instead on universal measures like social distancing and mask wearing. With the arrival of vaccines, we began to build a collective picture of social risk in the opposite way, up from an individual basis instead.
According to the Department of Health and Human Services, the number of hospital beds occupied is the highest since last year’s omicron surge.
“Everyone is obviously ready to do as much as they can that they have done in normal holiday periods, especially as many of us have given it up for a couple years,” said Dr. Henry Wu, an epidemiologist and travel doctor at Emory University. We’re entering a new normal, where we have to choose how to do it.
Now’s the time to look ahead and think about what plans you have for the holidays, Wu said. Which events are the highest priorities for you? Who would you like to see?
Then, do a risk assessment. Think about how much you’re willing to risk getting sick — and same for the people you plan to see. Do you do a small get-acquainted with other healthy young adults? Or will you be attending a large, multigenerational family reunion with children and older people together in the same house?
Thinking through those questions will help you make a decision on safety measures. “Every family and every individual is going to be a little different,” Wu said.
Do you need to stay home, if you’re asymptomatic or unwell, during the COVID-19 booster season?
The bivalent COVID-19 booster shots made by Pfizer and Moderna are available to almost all Americans, including most children. The vaccine can be used as a booster for adults who completed an initial vaccine course at least six months ago.
Flu shots, too, are important. According to the CDC, at least 13 million Americans have contracted the flu so far this season, and over 100,000 of them have been hospitalized.
The other easy source of agreement was this. If you have any symptoms or are feeling unwell, we will ask you to stay home. Rochelle Walensky, head of the CDC, said in an interview withNPR last week that people should not gather if they are unwell.
One scientific review of 130 COVID studies conducted by mid-2021, published earlier this year in the journal PLOS Medicine, suggests that the risk of getting infected from someone who’s asymptomatic is much lower than from someone with symptoms.
Colovid tests are available at most grocery stores and pharmacy this year. Health care providers are able to arrange a flu test.
Aerosols are tiny droplets that can be spread by the coronaviruses. Good ventilation helps to reduce the spread of Covid-19 and other respiratory viruses. If you live in a warm weather environment, you should consider hosting your gathering outdoors.
Some items cannot be moved outdoors. Many social gatherings and religious services will be indoors. Spending a lot of time indoors with family members is inescapable for people who travel a long distance.
Outdoor Activities During the December Pandemic: A Tips for Pedestrians to Avoid Sickness in the Crowded Indoor Spaces
For more flexible plans, like catching up with an old friend from high school, you could consider outdoor activities if the weather allows — like a walk in the park, ice skating or strolling an outdoor holiday market, rather than getting together at a bar or restaurant.
For the indoor gatherings, Gandhi suggests doing what you can to improve ventilation. Open windows if the weather allows. If not, HEPA filters, cracked windows and ceiling fans can help as well.
She thinks that it’s the strongest non-pharmaceutical intervention that has been shown thus far during the Pandemic.
It is advisable to plan ahead and reduce your risk in crowded airports, train stations and bus depots during holidays. If you want to keep safe during the holidays, I recommend masking in these settings. I think it is a good idea to get back out in the crowd, even if you stopped masking, because you don’t want to get sick and have to miss holiday gatherings.
“Especially in crowded indoor spaces, whether it’s on the subway or in an airplane, a lot of people are sick around us right now. So put that mask on,” Malani said.
I encourage you to wear a mask the whole time. If you find masks uncomfortable, wear them in the highest risk settings, for example when you are packed with people waiting to board the plane.
“I don’t think a mask is a difficult thing to do,” said Wu. When you find yourself in an indoor space that has poor air quality, I encourage you to use your mask and keep it handy.
White House Covid-19-Response Managing Director Ashish Jha: Preparing Americans for a Rise in the Season of Flu/Covid-19
In an interview with CNN, White House Covid 19-response coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha made clear how important it was for Americans to get ready for a rise in Covid-19 cases this winter.
“This is not one disease in isolation,” Jha said, referring to the ongoing wave of Covid-19, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and influenza. “The stress on hospitals and stress on health care workers is because of all the respiratory pathogens. So we are very aware that this increase that we’re seeing in Covid is in that context of one of the worst flu seasons in a decade and RSV that was quite bad.”
Evidence suggests, however, that RSV has “peaked,” Jha said, with case numbers starting to come down “pretty quickly.” Still, it will be a while before the impact of the virus is diminished, he said.
The Biden administration renewed its push to make use of all of the necessary tools to keep Covid 19 at bay, which included getting a vaccine, boosting immunization levels, testing and masking up when necessary.
As a part of its new push, the administration is restarting the free at-home Covid-19 test program, permitting each American household to order up to four free tests this winter from COVIDTests.gov. It is also offering federal resources to local health departments, putting an extra focus on high-risk individuals including by providing a winter playbook for nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, and permitting nursing home staff to administer vaccinations.
Data from the recent past makes clear that there has been a rise in the number of Covid-19 cases, likely driven in part by indoor gatherings during the Thanksgiving holiday and the winter holiday season.
“If somebody gets vaccinated tomorrow, they will have some protection by Christmas. The Christmas Day is not the end of winter socializing. “So getting vaccinated as quickly as possible so you have protection for as much time as possible, is critical.”
There are currently specific and more conservative guidelines from the CDC for what an individual should do if they test positive for Covid-19, including isolating from others, than for if one catches the flu or RSV. Jha said that has to do with the fact that the spread of RSV and the flu largely happens when a person is symptomatic, whereas Covid-19 can be transmitted a lot more even when a person is asymptomatic.
Don’t cough your way through the family holiday dinner if you don’t know what’s going on and don’t spread Covid-19 to other people because that’s not worth it.
Vaccination Holidays: A Healthy Way to Avoid Coughing and Sneezing in the Crowded Community. A Conversation with Dr. Leana Wen
CNN medical analyst Dr. Leana Wen talked to me about these questions, she is a professor in the school of public health. She is also author of “Lifelines: A Doctor’s Journey in the Fight for Public Health.”
It includes hand washing after touching a frequently used surface. In crowded settings wear a mask like theN95 that is high-quality. And try to reduce unmasked social gatherings during this period.
Don’t delay if you haven’t received the flu vaccine or the Covid-19 booster. The vaccines reach optimal protection about two weeks after the inoculation, but even if it’s a little bit less than that until your events, there will still be some additional protection.
Wen: Many respiratory infections like influenza, RSV and the common cold are primarily spread through droplets. Droplets are expelled when someone coughs or sneezes. This is why good hand hygiene and encouraging people not to attend if they aresymptomatic is so important.
Having people take a rapid home test on the same day of the gathering can help reduce risk. It’s a good idea to provide tests at the door if you think that everyone will take one.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/19/health/covid-influenza-vaccine-holidays-health-wellness/index.html
A Plan for Emerging Infectious People Traveling With Spontaneously Symmetry-Violating Children Including Covid-19 and Paxlovid
It’s very important to use a high quality Respiratory masks to protect against droplets. Pick out a mask you can wear during transit that is comfortable for long periods of time. You should bring several with you in case one of them gets damaged.
One way masking with a high-quality mask works very well to protect the wearer. I am more concerned about the risk of a gathering when people are together.
People who are vulnerable should be sure of their precautions. Importantly, they should feel empowered to leave if the event turns out to be higher risk than they anticipated.
This is a very important point. Everyone should have a plan for what happens if they develop a viral illness while traveling. The US Centers for Disease control and Prevention has a list of what a Covid-19 plan looks like. It also includes making sure you have enough home tests, speaking with your doctor to know if you are high-risk and having a plan for treatment, as well as Paxlovid.
Since it’s not just Covid-19 that’s circulating, also have a plan for what happens if you or someone in your party develops the flu or other respiratory infections. Do you know where you can isolate if needed? Should you be able to take time off from work if your child becomes ill, so that you can vegetate with your child?