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Massive Covid Spikes in These 21 States May Explain Why Everyone You Know Seems to Have It Right Now
The CDC’s wastewater monitoring program has detected a “very high” presence of the virus in nearly half the country
Massive Covid Spikes in These 21 States May Explain Why Everyone You Know Seems to Have It Right Now
The CDC’s wastewater monitoring program has detected a “very high” presence of the virus in nearly half the countryBy
Cara Lynn Shultz
Published on July 25, 2024 11:12AM EDT
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The United States is in the midst of a summer COVID wave, according to the Center for Disease Control’s wastewater monitoring system, which has found “very high” levels of virus in 21 states.
The states categorized as having a “very high” presence of the virus in its water are Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, and Wyoming, plus the District of Columbia.
A “high” presence of the virus was found in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusets, Missouri, Montana, South Carolina, Tennesee, and Virginia.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(749x0:751x2):format(webp)/Summer-Covid-Wave-072524-84000c5029ef4fa2b5fc33358462611b.jpg "Summer Covid Wave: These States Have the Highest (and Lowest) Rates")
The CDC's map of SARS-CoV-2 wastewater activity.
CDC
The rate of positive COVID tests is also on the rise, the CDC reports — up to 12.6% from 11.4% the previous week.
Meanwhile, the state that was at the forefront of the 2020 COVID pandemic, New York, was the only state to report “low” levels of the virus in its wastewater.
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All other states reported “moderate” levels of the virus — except for North Dakota, which did not report any data for the program.
The CDC monitors wastewater to “show changes in disease trends before trends are seen in clinical cases.” The system provides an efficient overview of the presence of infectious diseases such as COVID, as “toilet flush to results only takes about five to seven days,” the agency says.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(749x0:751x2):format(webp)/welcome-sign-at-the-New-York-state-line-072524-0206b2288ff04a5da3968da28c92b70b.jpg "A welcome sign at the New York state line.")
New York is the only state with "low" levels of the virus in its wastewater.
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COVID has historically spiked in the summer. “When we’re outdoors, it’s difficult for COVID to transmit, but it’s been so oppressively hot, particularly in the Southwest United States, and people are just spending a lot more time indoors,” Andrew Pekosz, a professor of microbiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told The Washington Post.
COVID Linked to Lower IQ, Poor Memory and Other Negative Impacts on Brain Health
The wave is also fueled by new COVID KP.2 strains — subvariants of the highly infectious Omicron strain, as Yale Medicine explains — and its related variant, LB. 1. These account for more than 90% of the new cases of COVID, the CDC’s variant tracker reports.
Vaccine rates are down as well, as the most recent data from the CDC’s vaccine tracking system says only 22.5% of adults have received an updated COVID vaccine since last September.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(959x25:961x27):format(webp)/Vaccination-011323-01-5dad749e77504b53990271460674ca05.jpg "Doctor making a vaccination in the shoulder of patient teens girls person, Flu Vaccination Injection on Arm, coronavirus,covid-19 vaccine disease preparing for human clinical trials vaccination shot")
Stock image of a person getting a vaccine. GETTY
Last month, the Food and Drug Administration issued an advisory to COVID vaccine manufacturers to target the KP.2 variant, with updated vaccines expected in the fall.
Boy, 12, Struggles with Long Covid for 4 Years, Says It’s ‘Worse Than Actual Covid’
"Every day of 2024 remaining is likely to have more transmission than today," Dr. Michael Hoerger, Assistant Professor at Tulane University School of Medicine, who leads the COVID forecasting model, the Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative, told TODAY.
"People should really be taking the rest of the year very seriously."
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Harvey Weinstein Hospitalized With Covid, Double Pneumonia: Report
Imprisoned Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein was hospitalized after testing positive for Covid-19 and double pneumonia.
www.rollingstone.com
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Nursing student pleads guilty to helping Quebecers get fake COVID-19 passports
A nursing student has pleaded guilty to making fake COVID-19 vaccination records, Quebec's anti-corruption unit said Thursday.
Nursing student pleads guilty to helping Quebecers get fake COVID-19 passports
Joe Lofaro
CTVNewsMontreal.ca Digital Reporter
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Updated July 25, 2024 12:53 p.m. EDT
Published July 25, 2024 12:48 p.m. EDT
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Fatima-Zhoura Aini admitted she made fake QR codes for 17 people for a fee between March 29, 2021 and Dec. 23, 2021 while she was a nursing student and vaccine administrator at the CISSS de Montérégie-Centre, on Montreal's South Shore. She had the help of at least one accomplice to produce the falsified health records.
The Unité permanente anticorruption (UPAC) said she pleaded guilty to breach of trust, unauthorized computer use and conspiracy charges. Following her plea, she received a suspended sentence, which includes two years of probation and 120 hours of community service.
UPAC said in a news release that she was arrested on June 28, 2023, after officials received a tip about her actions.
Last May, another former COVID-19 vaccination centre worker pleaded guilty after making $150,000 by helping hundreds of Quebecers obtain fake vaccination passports(opens in a new tab) during the height of the pandemic.
Adams Diwa, 24, who worked for the CIUSSS de l’Est-de-l’île-de-Montréal, pleaded guilty to fraud, falsifying documents and breach of trust for infractions committed between September and November 2021.
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@Sharma Ji
This seems interesting.
By Kasha Patel
January 28, 2022 at 10:46 a.m. EST
Covid-19 transmission may have seasonal spikes tied to temperature and humidity, increasing at different times of the year for different locations, a new study in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene suggests.
Colder regions, such as the U.S. Northeast, may experience more cases during winter, while warmer regions, such as the southern United States, may see higher transmissions in the summer. More-temperate zones could experience two seasonal peaks.
“We think covid may be becoming endemic, meaning that it will stay within the human population, but we will see spikes based on where we are in a particular geographic point,” said author Antar Jutla, a hydrologist at the University of Florida. “The severity of peaks will be defined by how colder the temperature is and how warmer the temperature is.”
Jutla and his colleagues found that coronavirus cases in 19 hot spots worldwide increased above and below certain temperature and humidity thresholds because of human behavior and the virus’s movement as an aerosol. Case numbers spiked when air temperatures dipped below 62 degrees (17 Celsius) or above 75 degrees (24 Celsius). The virus also tends to linger more in drier environments compared to humid ones.
The graph shows the total coronavirus cases per day in cold and warm regions of the United States in 2020. (Usmani, et al.)
“We need to basically design the intervention or mitigation strategies based on the environment in which we live,” Jutla said. “Regions like Florida, India, Africa — they are warm regions. … They basically get hit by these waves, but at different times than what happens in the northern parts, the colder regions.”
Although case numbers could surge during extreme chills or heat waves, such temperatures typically need to persist for about a 14-day average, Jutla said. The team validated the data to December 2021, but characteristics could change with new mutations or new variants of the novel coronavirus.
What to know about the omicron variant of the coronavirus
Aerosol researcher and co-author Chang-Yu Wu explained that local humidity and temperature play vital roles in the size of the virus’s particles, which can influence its life span in the air. Drier atmospheres in colder regions will induce water evaporation from the particles, shrinking their size and allowing them to float in the air for longer periods. People also tend to seek shelter inside in colder environments and expose themselves to recirculated air that potentially contains the virus.
The air in humid, hotter environments contains more water, which can condense onto the virus particles, make them bigger and theoretically fall to the ground faster. At the same time, people often move inside to avoid the outdoor warmth and again expose themselves to recirculated air. Air conditioners also dry the inside air, creating an environment similar to that of winter for aerosols.
“Human behavior is a very important factor in the transmission,” said Wu, who also is a professor at the University of Florida. “It’s not just purely the physics or biology [of the virus] that dictates. … It’s a combination of these.”
Fewer cases were detected between 62 and 75 degrees, a temperature range considered more tolerable for people to be outside.
The schematic summarizes the authors’ hypothesis that coronavirus cases spike below 62 degrees (17 Celsius) or above 75 degrees (24 Celsius) because of aerosol dynamics and human behavior. The fewest cases were detected between 62 and 75 degrees, which is considered a more tolerable temperature range for people to be outside. (Usmani, et al.)
“This study confirms the previous findings of seasonality with SARS-CoV-2 infection (low temperature and humidity),” Mohammad Sajadi, a professor at the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, wrote in an email. “It also adds to our knowledge about transmission in warmer temperatures.” Sajadi was not involved in the study.
He said more work is needed to further explore the use of air conditioning, stating that “the United States and India likely have different levels of usage, which was not accounted for in this study.”
“If anything, [the study] again shows us how complicated the issue of seasonality is,” Sajadi wrote.
People cool themselves with portable fans in Tokyo on Aug. 5, 2020. (Koji Sasahara/AP)
Sajadi compared the findings to the seasonality, or climatic conditions, of influenza as well. For influenza infections, he said the stability of aerosols also occurs at two vastly different levels of humidity. The different patterns of seasonality depend on the geographic locale, too.
Others found the climate-covid relationships in different locations plausible as well.
“I like that the study points out that climate-covid relationships will differ by region,” said Ben Zaitchik, a co-chair of a covid-19 research task team at World Meteorological Organization. Zaitchik, who commented by email, was not involved in the study. “We found something similar in a study … and I think it’s important to emphasize,” he wrote.
He also stressed that linking climate to covid risk is an evolving field of research. Several studies with other climate-covid mechanisms have been published in the past few months, including one discussing the challenges of studying such an area.
It is important to remember that these are only one driver of risk, Zaitchik wrote. “All evidence is that it has been a secondary driver up to this point in the pandemic. It might become more important as covid becomes endemic and settles into a seasonally locked pattern — which many expect that it will.”
Considering the virus’s environmental and socioeconomic influences, Jutla and colleagues also created a model to predict the risk of covid weekly in the United States.
The model, which is in the beta phase, includes air temperature, humidity, population density, economic stability (income), age, diversity, housing, vaccination data sets and other factors. The predictive model builds on work by Jutla and other co-authors, who previously demonstrated how cholera outbreaks are tied to environmental factors such as air temperature and salinity.
The covid prediction model, which is in the beta phase, shows the potential risk of cases across the United States over one to two weeks from Jan. 17. (GeoHealth & Hydrology Lab/University of Florida)
“Social behavioral sciences need to be strongly intertwined with the natural sciences,” said co-author Rita Colwell, a biologist at the University of Maryland who helped uncover the role the environment plays in cholera transmission. “The intersection of the physical environment and human behavior in warm and cold regions is exemplified in the covid case reports.”
The model shows about 80 to 90 percent accuracy nationwide (validated on a county-level scale), although Zaitchik said it is important to see the model in a peer-reviewed form, especially because of its novelty. “There hasn’t been any robust demonstration of a model like that for covid-19 risk prediction,” he said.
Workers move among travelers at a railway station ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday in Beijing on Jan. 28. (Tingshu Wang/Reuters)
Overall, the researchers stressed that proper ventilation and filtration, such as masks, are among the most important measures for preventing transmission of the disease. Air sampling studies have repeatedly shown that excellent ventilation and filtration can reduce covid case loads, even in larger, relatively crowded places such as gyms.
Why most of us should be wearing N95 masks
“For me, the biggest takeaway is the need to focus on the built environment,” Zaitchik wrote. “It’s not simply a matter of ‘is it cold out’; it’s a matter of whether those cold temperatures are leading you to crowd indoors, reduce ventilation, use climate controls that result in low indoor humidity, etc.”
CORRECTION
A previous version of this story stated “Wu compares the particles to a rock in this case — the more mass, the faster it falls." This sentence has been removed to avoid confusion for the reader as this comparison does not comprehensively describe the physics of the aerosol behavior.
This seems interesting.
Loading…
www.washingtonpost.com
Covid-19 may have seasons for different temperature zones, study suggests
Colder regions may experience more cases during the winter, while warmer regions may see spikes in the summer
By Kasha Patel
January 28, 2022 at 10:46 a.m. EST
Covid-19 transmission may have seasonal spikes tied to temperature and humidity, increasing at different times of the year for different locations, a new study in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene suggests.
Colder regions, such as the U.S. Northeast, may experience more cases during winter, while warmer regions, such as the southern United States, may see higher transmissions in the summer. More-temperate zones could experience two seasonal peaks.
“We think covid may be becoming endemic, meaning that it will stay within the human population, but we will see spikes based on where we are in a particular geographic point,” said author Antar Jutla, a hydrologist at the University of Florida. “The severity of peaks will be defined by how colder the temperature is and how warmer the temperature is.”
Jutla and his colleagues found that coronavirus cases in 19 hot spots worldwide increased above and below certain temperature and humidity thresholds because of human behavior and the virus’s movement as an aerosol. Case numbers spiked when air temperatures dipped below 62 degrees (17 Celsius) or above 75 degrees (24 Celsius). The virus also tends to linger more in drier environments compared to humid ones.
The graph shows the total coronavirus cases per day in cold and warm regions of the United States in 2020. (Usmani, et al.)
“We need to basically design the intervention or mitigation strategies based on the environment in which we live,” Jutla said. “Regions like Florida, India, Africa — they are warm regions. … They basically get hit by these waves, but at different times than what happens in the northern parts, the colder regions.”
Although case numbers could surge during extreme chills or heat waves, such temperatures typically need to persist for about a 14-day average, Jutla said. The team validated the data to December 2021, but characteristics could change with new mutations or new variants of the novel coronavirus.
What to know about the omicron variant of the coronavirus
Aerosol researcher and co-author Chang-Yu Wu explained that local humidity and temperature play vital roles in the size of the virus’s particles, which can influence its life span in the air. Drier atmospheres in colder regions will induce water evaporation from the particles, shrinking their size and allowing them to float in the air for longer periods. People also tend to seek shelter inside in colder environments and expose themselves to recirculated air that potentially contains the virus.
The air in humid, hotter environments contains more water, which can condense onto the virus particles, make them bigger and theoretically fall to the ground faster. At the same time, people often move inside to avoid the outdoor warmth and again expose themselves to recirculated air. Air conditioners also dry the inside air, creating an environment similar to that of winter for aerosols.
“Human behavior is a very important factor in the transmission,” said Wu, who also is a professor at the University of Florida. “It’s not just purely the physics or biology [of the virus] that dictates. … It’s a combination of these.”
Fewer cases were detected between 62 and 75 degrees, a temperature range considered more tolerable for people to be outside.
The schematic summarizes the authors’ hypothesis that coronavirus cases spike below 62 degrees (17 Celsius) or above 75 degrees (24 Celsius) because of aerosol dynamics and human behavior. The fewest cases were detected between 62 and 75 degrees, which is considered a more tolerable temperature range for people to be outside. (Usmani, et al.)
“This study confirms the previous findings of seasonality with SARS-CoV-2 infection (low temperature and humidity),” Mohammad Sajadi, a professor at the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, wrote in an email. “It also adds to our knowledge about transmission in warmer temperatures.” Sajadi was not involved in the study.
He said more work is needed to further explore the use of air conditioning, stating that “the United States and India likely have different levels of usage, which was not accounted for in this study.”
“If anything, [the study] again shows us how complicated the issue of seasonality is,” Sajadi wrote.
People cool themselves with portable fans in Tokyo on Aug. 5, 2020. (Koji Sasahara/AP)
Sajadi compared the findings to the seasonality, or climatic conditions, of influenza as well. For influenza infections, he said the stability of aerosols also occurs at two vastly different levels of humidity. The different patterns of seasonality depend on the geographic locale, too.
Others found the climate-covid relationships in different locations plausible as well.
“I like that the study points out that climate-covid relationships will differ by region,” said Ben Zaitchik, a co-chair of a covid-19 research task team at World Meteorological Organization. Zaitchik, who commented by email, was not involved in the study. “We found something similar in a study … and I think it’s important to emphasize,” he wrote.
He also stressed that linking climate to covid risk is an evolving field of research. Several studies with other climate-covid mechanisms have been published in the past few months, including one discussing the challenges of studying such an area.
It is important to remember that these are only one driver of risk, Zaitchik wrote. “All evidence is that it has been a secondary driver up to this point in the pandemic. It might become more important as covid becomes endemic and settles into a seasonally locked pattern — which many expect that it will.”
Considering the virus’s environmental and socioeconomic influences, Jutla and colleagues also created a model to predict the risk of covid weekly in the United States.
The model, which is in the beta phase, includes air temperature, humidity, population density, economic stability (income), age, diversity, housing, vaccination data sets and other factors. The predictive model builds on work by Jutla and other co-authors, who previously demonstrated how cholera outbreaks are tied to environmental factors such as air temperature and salinity.
The covid prediction model, which is in the beta phase, shows the potential risk of cases across the United States over one to two weeks from Jan. 17. (GeoHealth & Hydrology Lab/University of Florida)
“Social behavioral sciences need to be strongly intertwined with the natural sciences,” said co-author Rita Colwell, a biologist at the University of Maryland who helped uncover the role the environment plays in cholera transmission. “The intersection of the physical environment and human behavior in warm and cold regions is exemplified in the covid case reports.”
The model shows about 80 to 90 percent accuracy nationwide (validated on a county-level scale), although Zaitchik said it is important to see the model in a peer-reviewed form, especially because of its novelty. “There hasn’t been any robust demonstration of a model like that for covid-19 risk prediction,” he said.
Workers move among travelers at a railway station ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday in Beijing on Jan. 28. (Tingshu Wang/Reuters)
Overall, the researchers stressed that proper ventilation and filtration, such as masks, are among the most important measures for preventing transmission of the disease. Air sampling studies have repeatedly shown that excellent ventilation and filtration can reduce covid case loads, even in larger, relatively crowded places such as gyms.
Why most of us should be wearing N95 masks
“For me, the biggest takeaway is the need to focus on the built environment,” Zaitchik wrote. “It’s not simply a matter of ‘is it cold out’; it’s a matter of whether those cold temperatures are leading you to crowd indoors, reduce ventilation, use climate controls that result in low indoor humidity, etc.”
CORRECTION
A previous version of this story stated “Wu compares the particles to a rock in this case — the more mass, the faster it falls." This sentence has been removed to avoid confusion for the reader as this comparison does not comprehensively describe the physics of the aerosol behavior.
Yommie
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The new Covid tribes - from summer spreaders to militant mums
No free tests, a lack of government restrictions, and a sense of trying to return to normal means Covid etiquette has radically changed
inews.co.uk
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Vermont’s Covid-19 cases on the upswing this summer - VTDigger
Data from wastewater plants and emergency departments show that the virus is multiplying again, according to the state health department.
vtdigger.org
Vermont’s Covid-19 cases on the upswing this summer
Data from wastewater plants and emergency departments show that the virus is multiplying again, according to the state health department.By Juan Vega de Soto July 25, 2024, 5:38 pm
After a very quiet spring, Vermont’s sewage is gathering greater traces of Covid-19, a warning sign that the virus is increasing among state residents.
According to John Davy, a health surveillance epidemiologist for the Vermont Department of Health, wastewater measurements are “a really helpful indicator” of how much Covid-19 is spreading in the community because “an infected person sheds into the water no matter if they’re sick or not.”
From March to early June, those measurements remained consistently low. But the amount of Covid-19 in the water now “appears to be significantly higher than earlier in the summer,” according to Davy, though “not yet anywhere near” the rise in cases Vermont saw last winter.
Since early 2023, three water treatment plants in the state — South Burlington, Essex Junction and Montpelier — have been sending samples to WastewaterSCAN, a research program run by scientists at Stanford University and Emory University. Virus concentrations are currently “moderately elevated” in Essex Junction and Montpelier, according to the latest weekly report from the state health department
Davy said he wished the data “had a wider geographic range.” Still, he said the graph “correlated pretty similarly” with the other key metric the health department uses: emergency department visits.
Through a surveillance program called ESSENCE, enrolled hospitals and urgent care clinics in Vermont report the number of emergency department visits they receive in which the patient has Covid-19. This does not mean the visit was necessarily because of the virus, but simply that the patient was diagnosed with it while there.
This measurement gives the state health department “a good snapshot” of how cases are evolving in Vermont, according to Davy. The number of emergency department visits with Covid-19 has ticked up since June, just the same as the wastewater virus detections.
“We had a lot of new outbreaks reported this week in nursing homes,” Davy added.
For the moment, however, the recent number of deaths from the virus remains low, according to the report. There were two deaths reported in June, and another two reported so far in July. Last January, there were 29.
Whether the virus continues to multiply from here is difficult to predict, according to Davy. Though last summer also saw a surge in Covid-19 cases, that doesn’t guarantee that this summer will see the exact same pattern, he said.
“Covid hasn’t found a truly seasonal pattern the way the flu has,” Davy said.
Recent rule changes from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention changed the way Vermont tracks its Covid-19 cases. And the apparent decreased severity of the virus, while a welcome development, has also made the state health department’s job more difficult, according to Davy.
He continued, “The good news is that the virus seems to be making people less sick. The bad news is that we don’t hear about it.”
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Santa Barbara Is in the Middle of a Summer COVID Comeback
Urgent care centers are reporting an uptick in cases as wastewater rates show a surge in coronavirus.
www.independent.com
Santa Barbara Is in the Middle of a Summer COVID Comeback
Urgent Care Centers Report Uptick in Cases as Wastewater Rates Show Surge in CoronavirusBy Jean Yamamura
Thu Jul 25, 2024 | 3:50pm
The virus causing COVID-19 is making a comeback this summer with elevated levels of illness across California. This scanning electron micrograph shows a cell infected with SARS-CoV-2 particles. | Credit: NIAID
COVID-19 is back in Santa Barbara by all accounts. The poop data is up, and urgent care centers are seeing a lot of cases.
“We’ve had a pretty busy summer so far,” said Dr. Alex Leasure, the medical director at Sansum Clinic Urgent Care. “People traveling, coming back, and feeling sick is a really common story I get,” he said. That’s to be expected when people travel away from the circle of their life at home and encounter hundreds of new people, and new viruses, often in confined spaces, Leasure explained.
“People traveling, coming back, and feeling sick is a really common story I get,” said Dr. Alex Leasure, the medical director at Sansum Clinic Urgent Care. | Credit: Courtesy
Across California, positive tests were up 12.8 percent during the week of July 15. That’s 1.9 percent more than the previous week, and it’s also higher than the mid-winter peak of 11.6 percent on January 4. The disease count began to rise in April after a COVID positivity low of 1.9 percent. Data for Santa Barbara County is not available, as individual counties stopped collecting info a couple of years ago, but everyone’s poop provides clues. The Cal-SuWers network surveils wastewater statewide for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
As far back as the 1940s, sewer water has been examined for disease. It was polio then, as it is in Gaza today, but for local health departments, wastewater displays COVID-19 virus even before people show symptoms. At Santa Barbara’s El Estero Wastewater Treatment Plant, the concentration of virus was 0.000597 on July 18, the latest date available, compared to 0.000108 in mid-April. The poop count peaked this year on January 2 at 0.001814.
COVID tends to present as any of a set of symptoms or a weird combination of them, Dr. Leasure said. “COVID symptoms are highly variable, but typically they start as a sore throat or a cough, or the person feels tired.” If a person is healthy and relatively young, COVID can be like a mild cold. Symptoms can be treated like a cold, with rest, lots of liquids, and over-the-counter medicines if needed.
“The severity of the disease really depends on people’s age and comorbidities, or if they have chronic conditions like kidney disease, need dialysis, have had an organ transplant. They could become quite sick, from any virus, COVID among them,” said Leasure, who is a family doctor by training. Paxlovid, the drug President Biden took to recover from COVID, is only available by prescription, as it can interact negatively with other medications.
Leasure will often test patients for COVID because the symptoms are so varied. Sansum uses a nucleic acid amplification test, which duplicates the genetic material and then looks for a certain signal for SARS-CoV-2. Home tests work well as long as the sample contains a good amount of mucus, he said, and the test has not expired.
As far as returning to work or a normal routine, Leasure said it depended on your job. “If you work at an elder-care facility, you want to stay home for five days and then wear a mask for five days,” he recommended as the simplest way to remember quarantine guidance. “You want to avoid exposing people at high risk, including newborn babies. If you’ve tested positive and you’re going to see your 98-year-old mom, you should wait 10 days after the positive test even if your symptoms are better.”
In fact, people are often aware of this, especially if they have elderly parents. “This might be the only bright side to the horrible pandemic we had, in which so many people died,” Leasure said. “People are more cognizant of not sharing viruses.”The best way for people to lower their risk of severe illness from COVID is to stay up to date with the latest COVID-19 vaccines. Updated 2024–2025 vaccines are expected to be available in fall 2024 as early as this August. For more information, see the CDC’s page on COVID-19 vaccines.
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@Sharma Ji
Whoa! Sure took her sweet time.
www.cheknews.ca
CHEK
After four years that included mask mandates, vaccination requirements, gathering restrictions, surging hospitalizations and thousands of deaths, British Columbia’s top doctor has ended the province’s public-health emergency for COVID-19.
Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said Friday that all remaining restrictions, including the vaccination requirement for health-care workers, will be rescinded.
“While COVID-19 is not gone, we now have high levels of protection in the health-care system and in communities throughout B.C.,” she told a news conference.
After reviewing all the data, Henry said she was confident the province had reached the point where there was no longer a need for the public health emergency.
Henry said she looked at data including infection rates, immunization rates, deaths and hospitalization numbers, as well as the “evolution” of the COVID-19 virus over time.
There had been a resurgence of COVID-19, she said, referencing the positive test result for U.S. President Joe Biden last week.
But infection rates have been coming down, she said, adding Omicron is still the predominant strain and the virus hasn’t changed as quickly as it did during the early days of the pandemic.
“Wastewater indicators and testing data show COVID-19 has levelled off and the number of people in intensive care and in hospitals is lower and stable,” Henry said.
“The level of protection provided by vaccines and hybrid immunity is also helping.”
SEE ALSO: B.C. government to pay for COVID-19 drug Paxlovid after feds drop coverage
Over the last week, fewer than 200 people have been in hospital with COVID-19 in B.C., she said, including 11 who were in intensive care.
Henry said the virus would likely surge again in the fall, which could prompt restrictions over time.
“We know (the virus) is inevitably going to mutate,” she said. “It may be that we’ll need to have different varieties of the vaccine over time.”
The public health emergency was declared on March 17, 2020, and B.C. was the first province to record a COVID-19 death in the country. Mask mandates followed the emergency declaration, gatherings and public events were cancelled, businesses shut down and those who could began working from home.
The World Health Organization declared in May 2023 that COVID-19 was no longer classified as a global health emergency.
The restrictions associated with the pandemic, including vaccine mandates, had become political flashpoints in B.C., across Canada and beyond.
Joining Henry on Friday, Health Minister Adrian Dix said health workers fired due to previous orders can apply to fill available positions, although they must provide their “immune status” for certain pathogens, including COVID-19.
Dix said “99 per cent” of health-care workers had been vaccinated against COVID-19 and the number of workers fired was relatively small. He used figures from the Northern Health Authority as an example, saying two full-time nurses and one part-time nurse lost their jobs as a result of the mandate.
A B.C. Supreme Court decision upholding the province’s vaccine rules earlier this year said approximately 1,800 health-care workers lost their jobs over the vaccine mandate.
Dix defended the measure Friday, saying the vaccination requirement was “instrumental in protecting health-care workers against severe COVID-19 illness and complications, reducing the transmission to vulnerable patients and care-home residents, and supporting the resiliency of our health-care system.”
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READ MORE: Scientists, clinicians across Canada preparing for future pandemic threats
In response to a question about the timing of the announcement a few months before the provincial election in October, Henry said her determination had “nothing to do with any of the decisions of government or other factors in that sense.”
“There is an obligation under the Public Health Act for me to lift orders as soon as reasonably possible when the conditions are no longer met,” she added.
Henry said the change could potentially have been made “a few months ago,” but there was still uncertainty around the impacts of a spring wave of COVID-19.
With the vaccine requirement lifted, Dix said the B.C. government was requiring health workers to register their vaccination status for illnesses including COVID-19, influenza, measles, mumps, German measles, hepatitis B, whooping cough and chickenpox.
“The intention of this registry is to protect people, to ensure that the health-care system can best respond to challenges in the future, and to increase rates of vaccinations across categories quickly and efficiently,” the minister said.
Henry said she believed the changes struck “the right balance of protection” for health-care workers, patients, the health-care system and the broader community.
Whoa! Sure took her sweet time.
B.C.'s top doctor ends four-year COVID-19 public health emergency
British Columbia's top doctor says she is ending the public health emergency declared in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020.
www.cheknews.ca
B.C.’s top doctor ends four-year COVID-19 public health emergency
Posted: Jul. 26, 2024 10:17AM | Last Updated: Jul. 26, 2024 1:58PMCHEK
After four years that included mask mandates, vaccination requirements, gathering restrictions, surging hospitalizations and thousands of deaths, British Columbia’s top doctor has ended the province’s public-health emergency for COVID-19.
Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said Friday that all remaining restrictions, including the vaccination requirement for health-care workers, will be rescinded.
“While COVID-19 is not gone, we now have high levels of protection in the health-care system and in communities throughout B.C.,” she told a news conference.
After reviewing all the data, Henry said she was confident the province had reached the point where there was no longer a need for the public health emergency.
Henry said she looked at data including infection rates, immunization rates, deaths and hospitalization numbers, as well as the “evolution” of the COVID-19 virus over time.
There had been a resurgence of COVID-19, she said, referencing the positive test result for U.S. President Joe Biden last week.
But infection rates have been coming down, she said, adding Omicron is still the predominant strain and the virus hasn’t changed as quickly as it did during the early days of the pandemic.
“Wastewater indicators and testing data show COVID-19 has levelled off and the number of people in intensive care and in hospitals is lower and stable,” Henry said.
“The level of protection provided by vaccines and hybrid immunity is also helping.”
SEE ALSO: B.C. government to pay for COVID-19 drug Paxlovid after feds drop coverage
Over the last week, fewer than 200 people have been in hospital with COVID-19 in B.C., she said, including 11 who were in intensive care.
Henry said the virus would likely surge again in the fall, which could prompt restrictions over time.
“We know (the virus) is inevitably going to mutate,” she said. “It may be that we’ll need to have different varieties of the vaccine over time.”
The public health emergency was declared on March 17, 2020, and B.C. was the first province to record a COVID-19 death in the country. Mask mandates followed the emergency declaration, gatherings and public events were cancelled, businesses shut down and those who could began working from home.
The World Health Organization declared in May 2023 that COVID-19 was no longer classified as a global health emergency.
The restrictions associated with the pandemic, including vaccine mandates, had become political flashpoints in B.C., across Canada and beyond.
Joining Henry on Friday, Health Minister Adrian Dix said health workers fired due to previous orders can apply to fill available positions, although they must provide their “immune status” for certain pathogens, including COVID-19.
Dix said “99 per cent” of health-care workers had been vaccinated against COVID-19 and the number of workers fired was relatively small. He used figures from the Northern Health Authority as an example, saying two full-time nurses and one part-time nurse lost their jobs as a result of the mandate.
A B.C. Supreme Court decision upholding the province’s vaccine rules earlier this year said approximately 1,800 health-care workers lost their jobs over the vaccine mandate.
Dix defended the measure Friday, saying the vaccination requirement was “instrumental in protecting health-care workers against severe COVID-19 illness and complications, reducing the transmission to vulnerable patients and care-home residents, and supporting the resiliency of our health-care system.”
Sign up for the CHEK Now daily email newsletter to get breaking news and the day's top stories sent to your email.
Sign Me Up
READ MORE: Scientists, clinicians across Canada preparing for future pandemic threats
In response to a question about the timing of the announcement a few months before the provincial election in October, Henry said her determination had “nothing to do with any of the decisions of government or other factors in that sense.”
“There is an obligation under the Public Health Act for me to lift orders as soon as reasonably possible when the conditions are no longer met,” she added.
Henry said the change could potentially have been made “a few months ago,” but there was still uncertainty around the impacts of a spring wave of COVID-19.
With the vaccine requirement lifted, Dix said the B.C. government was requiring health workers to register their vaccination status for illnesses including COVID-19, influenza, measles, mumps, German measles, hepatitis B, whooping cough and chickenpox.
“The intention of this registry is to protect people, to ensure that the health-care system can best respond to challenges in the future, and to increase rates of vaccinations across categories quickly and efficiently,” the minister said.
Henry said she believed the changes struck “the right balance of protection” for health-care workers, patients, the health-care system and the broader community.
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