New @CDCMMWR reviews the data above, age 12+https://t.co/03bkAOmvh4 pic.twitter.com/D7QbJi15IX
— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) February 9, 2023
… For those who lost a loved one, the pandemic placed obstacle after obstacle along our paths towards healing. Researchers worried that, in more severe cases, the pandemic’s challenges could lead to prolonged grief disorder – the newest disorder to be defined by the American Psychiatric Association, in March 2022.
When a person experiences prolonged grief, the original intensity following a loss persists and can interfere with day-to-day life for years afterward. So, for those of us still here, what does it mean to have confronted death in a time of unprecedented societal change?…
While everyone grieves in their own way, “acute grief”, as termed by experts, typically lasts for six to 12 months following a death. In that time, the pain can be overwhelming as the bereaved adapts to life without the person they’ve lost. Grief stays with us but eventually becomes a more manageable part of daily life.
Research on how many people suffer from prolonged grief ranges widely from 4% to 20% because, until recently, there was no consistent way of measuring it. However, Dr. Katherine Shear, Director of the Center for Prolonged Grief at Columbia School of Social Work, said research is beginning to validate the predictions that COVID-19 deaths would be linked with a higher chance of prolonged grief disorder…
Because the GOP has blocked further funding:
… The Biden administration will end the federal Covid-19 public health emergency declaration on May 11, bringing an end to some of the free services that lawmakers had guaranteed patients in various Covid-19 relief laws.
Seniors will no longer get free over-the-counter Covid-19 tests, and they will eventually have to pay for Covid-19 treatments like Pfizer’s Paxlovid antiviral. At least at first, however, the antivirals will continue to be free because current doses in circulation were provided by the U.S. government. When the products transition to the commercial market in the summer or early fall, there may be some cost-sharing, the agency said.
Some products and services will still be free, however. Medicare covers recommended vaccines for free, and lab tests and antigen tests ordered by a physician or other health care provider will still be free, a CMS spokesperson said.
Right now there are no authorized monoclonal antibody treatments that are effective against currently circulating Covid-19 variants, but if new ones are authorized, they will still be covered for free for patients through the end of December, the spokesperson said…
Patients with private insurance could have to pay for either over-the-counter Covid-19 tests, or those conducted in doctors’ offices. Payment for Covid-19 treatments could move on a similar trajectory to Medicare, as the medicines are offered in the normal commercial channel instead of being purchased by the government. Insurers usually cover vaccines without cost-sharing as preventative services.
The Medicaid program will also see several changes — while vaccines will still be covered for free, cost protections on Covid-19 testing and treatment services will end in 2024. A Medicaid pathway that allowed states to cover testing, vaccinations, and treatments for uninsured patients using federal funds will end in May.
.@TheWHN 5 Pillars of COVID Protection, pass it on pic.twitter.com/e7jYOeB3Z7
— Dalia Hasan (@DaliaHasanMD) February 9, 2023
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Apparently there’s been a global decision that THE PANDEMIC IS OVER, DAMMIT!… whether or not the facts support our wishes.
After three years, the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center is ceasing operations. Its data dashboards and maps became go-to sources for information from the early days of the pandemic. https://t.co/XTC1iUoP1a
— NPR (@NPR) February 10, 2023
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Japan 🇯🇵 Covid cases & deaths 10th February (Daily)
Number of newly confirmed cases
28,615 casesCompared to the previous day
– 4,354 cases+ 196 New Deaths #coronavirus #COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #Japan pic.twitter.com/wcqDwMdRHC
— Tigress (@tigresseleanor) February 10, 2023
Singapore:
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South Africa:
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United Kingdom:
When we said we didn't want a "vaccine-only strategy", we didn't mean get rid of the vaccine! https://t.co/vhMbPx5g73
— Kit Yates (@Kit_Yates_Maths) February 8, 2023
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Worldwide analysis of #COVID19 #vaccines and deaths in the #SARSCoV2 #pandemic shows far lower death rates in highly vaccinated populations. And 80% of deaths are in people over 60 years old.https://t.co/N1ezKpMzu9 pic.twitter.com/y15SS2gzwN
— Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) February 8, 2023
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Doctors and researchers are beginning to see connection between COVID surges and heart attacks. @ErinNBCNews and Senior Medical Correspondent for @NBCNews @DrJohnTorres share more. pic.twitter.com/LoFzsUx6R8
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) February 9, 2023
Dutch researchers have identified a cycle of spread of #SARCoV2 between captive mink, bats, humans and birds.
Presumably, this could be a route for cross-species spread of #flu viruses, as well (ahem, #H5N1 ).https://t.co/ZbckCcGB0u pic.twitter.com/5X0sJdMiLi— Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) February 8, 2023
The odds are stacked against a promising new #Covid drug. It literally quashes all #Covid variants. But regulatory hurdles & a lack of funding make it unlikely to reach the US market anytime soon. The experimental drug is called pegylated interferon lambda https://t.co/qXtcSiFEhE
— delthia ricks 🔬 (@DelthiaRicks) February 9, 2023
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Why is NYS deciding to remove basic infection control precautions *now*?
In the last week alone (2023-02-02 – 2023-02-08), NYSDOH reported 2,215 COVID-19 hospital admissions and 143 COVID-19 deaths.
Data Source: Health Data NY
Attn: @GovKathyHochul https://t.co/R5C5tFJRCy
— Isaac Michaels (@Isaac_Michaels) February 10, 2023
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How to be better prepared for the next airborne viral pandemic: stop ignoring the current airborne viral pandemic.
— T. Ryan Gregory (@TRyanGregory) February 10, 2023
On The Road – cope – Grand Junction and Beyond, Part VIReader Interactions
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NeenerNeener
Monroe County, NY:
90 new cases on 02/07/23.
113 new cases on 02/08/23.
131 new cases on 02/09/23.
satby
OzarkHillbilly
How to be better prepared for the next airborne viral pandemic? Stay away from Republicans.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: The larger worry I have, that I’m sure many share, is the anti-science wing has gotten a death grip on the MAGATs and that ‘s driving down vaccination rates on all vaccinations, not just Covid vaccines. Endangering all of us, but especially children.
New Deal democrat
I’ll keep this brief, because I am currently traveling (in a Red State, in a hotel lobby, the only one wearing a mask, and getting side-eye)….
Biobot shows a continued decline to average 2022 levels, equivalent to about 200,000 “real” cases. Only the Midwest shows an increase.
Confirmed cases down to 38,900, close to the lowest levels since last April. Hospitalizations down to 26,500, vs. 22,900 which was the lowest level since May. Deaths down to 447, a little above average for the past 11 months.
In terms of seriously bad outcomes, even the new COVID variants are running into a wall of resistance.
Amir Khalid
Malaysia’s Ministry of Health reported 269 new Covid-19 cases yesterday, for a cumulative reported total of 5,038,812 cases. 268 of these new cases were local infections; one new case was imported. It also reported no deaths, for an adjusted cumulative total that remains at 36,946 deaths – 0.73% of the cumulative reported total, 0.73% of resolved cases.
21,084 Covid-19 tests were conducted on yesterday, with a positivity rate of 1.6%.
There were 9,786 active cases yesterday, 106 fewer than the day before. 387 were in hospital. Eight confirmed cases were in ICU; of these patients, four confirmed cases were on ventilators. Meanwhile, 375 patients recovered, for a cumulative total of 4,992,080 patients recovered – 99.1% of the cumulative reported total.
The National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK) administered 1,888 doses of vaccine on 9th February: 83 first doses, 90 second doses, 516 first booster doses, and 1,199 second booster doses. The cumulative total is 72,768,793 doses administered: 28,127,484 first doses, 27,539,327 second doses, 16,306,127 first booster doses, and 795,855 second booster doses. 86.1% of the population have received their first dose, 84.3% their second dose, 49.9% their first booster dose, and 2.4% their second booster dose.
satby
I hope the exploration of the potential covid drug pegylated interferon lambda gets funded and bears fruit. That would be a gamechanger, not just for the SARs viruses, but for the approximately 15% of common colds caused by a milder coronavirus strain. Because catching a simple cold, not covid19, made this asthmatic seriously ill for 6 weeks.
YY_Sima Qian
On 2/8 the China CDC provided a summary of state of the COVID-19 pandemic in China as of 2/6:
All of the indicators have fallen to relatively low steady levels, as the exit tsunami receded.
As of 2/6, 3,491M vaccine shots have been injected in Mainland China, 92.9% of the total population have taken at least 1 shot, 90.6% have completed their primary courses. Among the > 60 y.o. cohort, 96.1% have taken at least 1 shot, 96.6% of those eligible have completed their primary courses, & 92.2% of those eligible have taken at least 1 booster shot.
Taiwan, Hong Kong & Macau do not appear to be publishing daily data dumps, so I am using data from Worldometer.
On 2/9, Hong Kong reported 6 new positive cases & 6 new deaths. There have been 13,407 total COVID-19 deaths to date.
On 2/9, Macau reported 1 new positive case & 0 new deaths. There have been 121 total COVID-19 deaths to date.
On 2/9, Taiwan added 20,920 new positive cases & 45 new deaths. There have been 16,894 total COVID-19 deaths to date.
MomSense
I’m flying to Florida next month and I’m a little nervous. I haven’t flown since the before times. I plan to mask and hopefully I won’t pick it up during my travels because I’m traveling to spend time with my dad.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
I got a Pfizer BA45 (that’s the bivalent, right?) shot in early October. After feeding my AMKA (Greek Social Security number) into the government’s immunization website, I was informed that the Immunization Committee recommends that I schedule a booster. The Greek government is still providing them free of charge. Self-tests are available at pharmacies in the €5 range (though they’re no longer exempt from 6% value-added-tax), and a lab-administered rapid test is about €10, with PCR tests being somewhat more expensive (though I haven’t had one recently).
Still masking daily. KN95 / FFP2 masks can be purchased in bulk for under €20 for a batch of a hundred, and that reminds me that it’s time for me to replenish my mask supply (I go through about one a day).
NotMax
@satby
Would have much preferred that be stated within the article as “build up natural resistance.”
dmsilev
@MomSense: I’ve flown several times, starting from when the vaccines first became available. Always N95-masked, with a few small breaks to eat or drink something. So far, so good.
gratuitous
I can see our old friends, those future historians, analyzing this moment now: “They had safe, effective vaccines, on the brink of total containment of the virus, and then they just . . . stopped?! The only reason for that that I’ve been able to discern is that the people who had survived the worst of it all for months, years even, just got tired of taking the simple, effective and CHEAP countermeasures!”
gvg
@MomSense: My sister the Florida Doctor didn’t get it until she flew on a plane to go on vacation. Mask up and stay masked on planes.
p.a.
What else should we expect from a political party when >50% of its voters think the earth is 6,000 years old…😖
Matt McIrvin
I lost an aunt to COVID in 2021. We were not close. But that fact is highly contingent.
I don’t know exactly how I got COVID in late January; it was either from my daughter who got it at school, or from eating out unmasked and betting wrong about how the fall-off from the Christmas spike was going. Increasingly it’s going to be hard to tell these things.
I can tell people to be careful but honestly, the amount of caution you need to be protected from what happened to me is more than I am personally willing to exert; you’ll need to avoid doing a lot of things we consider normal behavior for the rest of your life, e.g. avoid restaurants and bars forever. And maybe don’t have a child in school.
Matt McIrvin
@gratuitous: I think that would be not an entirely fair assessment.
What happened was that we had vaccines that provided an amazing degree of sterilizing immunity against wild-type COVID and the early variants… and then Omicron came along, which was vastly more infectious and could only really be stopped from spreading through draconian isolation measures that most people were not willing to put up with forever.
N95 masks work well enough, but, for instance, we would have to tear down all the sit-down restaurants and bars in the world and ban public eating and drinking for all eternity (and make children go outside for school lunch, even in January, forever, and never feed people on airline flights even if they are 12 hours long across an ocean), and that was just not going to happen. Without that, the Omicron sub-variants are never going to be adequately contained.
Now, to me, the main element of irrationality is that most people also stopped getting booster shots. I think the driving force there is all-or-nothing thinking. Omicron meant that even if you got all your shots, you still had a pretty good chance of getting COVID–it wouldn’t kill you but you’d get it. But it probably wouldn’t kill you even if you got it without the shots.
Unless people are used to thinking quantitatively about outcomes and probabilities, it’s hard to even tell them why they should get the shots. And this is something that most human beings are very bad at doing. That’s even before you bring in bad people who were trying to score political points with lies about COVID.
unrelatedwaffle
Wastewater is as high as it was during the Delta wave and reaching plateau. 3-4000 people are dying every week. The majority of people have just become acclimated to the horror, or are unaware of it because of poor communication and magical thinking. Multiple infections increase one’s risk of long covid, and we don’t know nearly enough about the connection with post-viral strokes/blood clots/heart conditions. I just…I despair, honestly. No one wants to eat indoors in a restaurant more than me, but I’m not going to pretend it’s worth it.
wenchacha
Just saw that Roseanne Barr claims she has had Covid 4 times, now. That can’t be a good thing.
Tim Ellis
@Matt McIrvin: That’s part of why I’m so angry all the time these days lol. I am an extrovert and until 2020 was a regularly touring DJ. The lockdowns drove me bonkers even though I saw the need, and eventually I broke them… And got Delta variant. Now I have nerve damage and long COVID symptoms. My old life is over and I blame the politicians and billionaires who decided the economy was more important than getting COVID under control. But I also can’t just not live my life. So I’ve just quietly recalibrated my expectations and picked up the pace on my core life goals at I now simply expect to die a lot sooner.
The long COVID is useful for one thing – it is a nearly perfect COVID test. I know when I’ve been exposed and infected again. It’s happened often. COVID is WAY more present than people think. It is the single most contagious disease known to science. Most people are getting it with some regularity because it has become unavoidable if you have any kind of public life or kids in school or anything like that. Watch the heart attack and stroke rates keep climbing.