Monthly Archives: February 2022

There are many theories, none entirely satisfying. An infectious hunter might encounter a deer, Dr. Mubareka noted, but if theyre good at hunting, she added, its a terminal event for the deer.

If an infected hiker sneezes and the wind is blowing in the right direction, it could cause an unlucky event, said Dr. Tony Goldberg, a veterinary epidemiologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Or if people feed deer from their porch, they could be sharing more than just food.

And white-tailed deer are expert leapers, reaching heights of eight feet. If you want to fence deer out of a place, you have to be trying very hard, said Scott Creel, an ecologist at Montana State University. Deer would have no trouble jumping into alfalfa fields to graze alongside cattle, perhaps inviting a close encounter with a farmer, Dr. Creel said.

Transmission could also happen indirectly, through wastewater or discarded food or other human-generated trash. Deer, like most other animals, will sniff before they eat, Dr. Kapur said. And deer release their feces as they feed, creating conditions where other deer might forage in areas contaminated with waste, or snuffle around waste that has feed mixed in, experts say.

But its not clear how long the virus would remain viable in a polluted water source or on the surface of a half-eaten apple, or whether enough of it would be present to pose a transmission risk.

An intermediate host, such as an itinerant cat, might ferry the virus from humans to deer. Farmed deer, which have frequent contact with humans, might also pass the virus to their wild counterparts through an escapee or their feces, Dr. Seifert said. (More than 94 percent of the deer in one captive site in Texas carried antibodies for the virus, researchers found more than double the rate found in free-ranging deer in the state.)

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Is the Coronavirus in Your Backyard? - The New York Times

Living with the virus

More governments across the world are saying theyre ready to live with the virus.

Australia, a nation that once imposed lockdowns in response to handfuls of cases, now says that its done with all that even as cases soar. New Zealand plans to reopen to travelers, if gradually. Britain, France, Spain, Sweden, Norway and other European countries are also beginning to treat Covid more like the flu.

On Tuesday, Denmark essentially declared an end to the pandemic in the country, lifting most of its remaining Covid restrictions and making it among the first E.U. members to abandon rules in favor of treating the virus as endemic.

For a look at the new approach, I spoke to Camilla Holten Moller, the head of the expert group for mathematical modeling at the Statens Serum Institute, the public health agency in Denmark that tracks the virus and advises the government on how to approach Covid.

Your institute recommended that the government remove virus restrictions. Why did you do that, given that cases in Denmark are rising?

We based it upon a really precise picture of the development of the epidemic, and what we saw with the Omicron variant taking over in the country.

Overall, the Omicron variant is less severe. So even though we see really high case counts, we dont need to flatten the curve like we used to, simply because we dont see as severe a picture as we used to with Delta for instance.

When we look deeper into the numbers of hospitalizations, what we see is that we have a low and stable number of admissions to intensive care units. Yesterday I think we had 26 admissions to I.C.U.s, which is really low given that we also had 55,000 new cases.

So for us, here in Denmark, it is extremely important that we can accept to not flatten the curve, to let loose the epidemic, to accept that it can grow, as long as it doesnt cause severe illness.

How are people in Denmark feeling about the lifting of restrictions?

I think overall the majority are simply happy that the restrictions are lifted and that we can start to get back to normal. The main task now is to protect those who are still at risk, like the elderly population or the immunocompromised. And there are still some measures in place that protect those who are at risk. We still recommend mask-wearing and taking a test before visiting hospitals and nursing homes.

In general, people are still wearing masks in some places in the supermarkets or in the metro but I think overall people may accept that its their responsibility to take care of those who need to be protected. But its more up to you to do that sort of risk assessment of your own.

What does your modeling say about the countrys future?

We released the latest modeling results just before Christmas, and we projected that we would see the peak of the epidemic here in late January, with hospitalizations peaking a little bit later, in mid-February. But what weve seen is that BA.2 [the Omicron subvariant] is more transmissible, theres no doubt about it. And that means that we would expect the peak be to be a little bit higher and maybe extend a little bit into February.

Feb. 6, 2022, 3:28 p.m. ET

But so many people have had an infection or have been vaccinated in certain geographical areas and in certain age groups that it simply slows down the growth of the epidemic. Of course, opening up and lifting all restrictions could lead to additional growth, especially when you open the nightlife. But we still see that the population immunity is so high that we still expect the peak to come within the coming weeks.

So is this the end in Denmark?

No. We are quite alert that something new could happen. And both the Epidemic Commission and the government have clearly stated that they are ready to act accordingly.

What we know is that immunity from SARS-CoV-2 isnt lifelong immunity, like the immunity from measles, for instance. That means we will have waning immunity. We know what waning immunity looks like from the seasonal flu. Each winter people get back together inside, immunity starts to wane, you have new strains, and you start to see a rise in the flu and a small epidemic occur.

Its also possible that we still have Omicron in the fall, and we see another peak then, simply because immunity will start to wane in the population. And that would probably mean we would do something, maybe start vaccinating again, or testing to a higher degree, or whatever other tools we have to contain that wave.

Last January, researchers searching for the coronavirus in New York Citys wastewater spotted something strange in their samples: viral fragments with mutations that had never been reported before in human patients potentially a sign of a new undetected variant.

The state of the virus in the U.S. The coronavirus has now claimed more than 900,000 livesacross the country, and the Covid death ratesremain alarmingly high. The number of new infections, however, has fallen by more than half since mid-January, and hospitalizations are also declining.

Boosters. New data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed that booster doses are most beneficial to older adults. For younger Americans, vaccination decreased the risk of hospitalization and death so sharply that the additional shot did not seem to add much benefit.

Around the world. Several countries are easing their pandemic protocols, though publichealth leaders at the World Health Organization continued to urge caution about relaxing restrictions. In Austria, a sweeping Covid vaccine mandate is set to become law.

These oddball sequences, or what the scientists call cryptic lineages, have continued to pop up in the citys wastewater over the past year, my colleague Emily Anthes reports. There is no evidence that the lineages pose an elevated health risk to humans, but the researchers are torn about their origins.

Some suspect that the virus is coming from people whose infections arent being sequenced. But others think that the lineages may be coming from virus-infected animals, possibly wait for it the citys enormous population of rats.

Read more about the mysterious fragments.

I am still isolating most of the time, although I think the risk is much reduced in my area, and Im fully vaxxed. The reason? My professor is immunocompromised, and is still as much at risk as he was during the worst of times, even with three jabs. Im timing my shopping and socializing so as to reduce the likelihood of infecting him, and using one of the government rapid tests if I think I may have been exposed, in case I do become infected. As a nation we seem to be willing to ignore the needs of those who cant protect themselves. In some cultures they used to put their old people out in the snow to die of exposure. We dont seem to have moved beyond those times.

Meg, Chicago

Let us know how youre dealing with the pandemic. Send us a response here, and we may feature it in an upcoming newsletter.

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Email your thoughts to briefing@nytimes.com.

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Coronavirus Briefing: Living With the Virus - The New York Times

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. After a surge of coronavirus (COVID-19) cases due to the omicron variant, many parents of K-12 students across the United States say that schools should offer a mix of in-person and online instruction in the winter season, a new survey by the Pew Research Center found.

The survey found that 53% of parents say schools should provide the mix of both types of instruction while 37% say schools should be fully in-person only, and 9% say schools should be fully remote.

When asked what factors schools should consider about offering in-person instruction this winter, many parents said schools should consider that students would fall behind academically (67%) or that their emotional well-being will be negatively impacted (61%) if they stay remote. Some parents (52%) also said they wouldnt be able to work if their kids are home for remote learning.

Other factors if kids went to school in-person include the risk to students or teachers of getting COVID-19 (43%) and spreading it (39%), and the financial cost to school systems to follow health guidelines to keep schools open safely (26%).

While a majority of parents think schools should offer a mix of in-person and remote instruction this winter, just 16% say this is the type of instruction their children are currently getting, according to the survey.

About 71% of parents said their kids are getting in-person instruction only, and 5% say their child is only learning remotely.

According to Pew, The analysis is based on a survey of 2,241 U.S. parents of children in K-12 schools who live in their household. The data was collected as part of a larger survey of 10,237 adults conducted Jan. 24-30, 2022.

In New York City, public schools have stayed open for in-person instruction for the 2021-2022 school year, even as cases rose because of the omicron variant.

As part of that effort to keep schools open safely, the city launched its Stay Safe and Stay Open plan that would double the number of students randomly tested at school, provide rapid at-home tests which reduced both the number of students who need to quarantine if exposed to COVID-19, as well as limit classroom and school closures.

Under this plan, students who are exposed to COVID-19 at school are required to take two rapid at-home tests over the course of five days. If the tests come back negative and students dont have COVID-like symptoms, they can continue to attend school as normal.

Since it was enacted, the number of classroom closures has been seemingly nonexistent. The DOE hasnt reported full or partial classroom closures in the city and therefore, no school investigations or closures have been reported.

Ahead of the midwinter break, New York City education officials announced last week it would update the coronavirus policy to increase the number of students tested in the citys weekly in-school random surveillance testing program.

It anticipates students and staff are now more likely to engage in activities and settings with less stringent health and safety measures. in response, the DOE is increasing the number of students who will be PCR tested for COVID-19 in schools starting Monday.

Starting Feb. 7, schools will test the larger of either 10% of the schools student enrollment in grades 1-12, up to a cap of 250 students; or 20% of the schools unvaccinated student population.

This change, the DOE said, will allow schools with a high number of vaccinated students to test a larger group every week.

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Should school be fully in-person during coronavirus? Heres what U.S. parents think. - SILive.com

Oregon health officials reported 4,872 new coronavirus cases Friday, reflecting a continuing and swift downward trajectory in new daily cases.

Almost two weeks ago, Oregon logged more than twice the number of cases in one day as the current daily average, state data show, and cases are expected to continue to decline. Test positivity rates have fallen dramatically, as well, from around 27% of COVID-19 tests reported Jan. 20 coming back positive to 16% of the ones reported Friday.

Hospitalizations are expected to peak in the coming days, if they havent already, according to the most recent Oregon Health & Science University forecast.

Where the cases are by county: Baker (23), Benton (98), Clackamas (377), Clatsop (25), Columbia (46), Coos (84), Crook (48), Curry (24), Deschutes (258), Douglas (79), Grant (15), Harney (24), Hood River (28), Jackson (240), Jefferson (40), Josephine (129), Klamath (133), Lake (5), Lane (517), Lincoln (120), Linn (262), Malheur (46), Marion (563), Morrow (8), Multnomah (524), Polk (169), Sherman (1), Tillamook (40), Umatilla (107), Union (43), Wallowa (5), Wasco (31), Washington (641) and Yamhill (119).

Deaths: A 30-year-old woman from Deschutes County who tested positive Jan. 21 and died Feb. 3 at St. Charles Bend.

A 71-year-old man from Washington County who tested positive Dec. 28 and died Jan. 6 at Providence Portland Medical Center.

A 25-year-old man from Multnomah County who died July 23 at his residence.

A 61-year-old man from Marion County who tested positive Dec. 27 and died Jan. 3 at Samaritan Memorial Hospital.

A 66-year-old woman from Multnomah County who tested positive Dec. 29 and died Jan. 3 at Legacy Mount Hood Medical Center.

An 83-year-old woman from Multnomah County who tested positive on Jan. 5 and died Jan. 8 at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center.

An 86-year-old man from Multnomah County who became symptomatic on Dec. 10 and died Dec. 12 at his residence.

A 71-year-old man from Columbia County who tested positive Dec. 5 and died Jan. 7 at Legacy Good Samaritan Medical Center.

An 88-year-old man from Multnomah County who tested positive Dec. 23 and died Dec. 26 at Providence Portland Medical Center.

A 94-year-old woman from Yamhill County who tested positive Sept. 9 and died Dec. 18 at her residence.

A 78-year-old man from Curry County who tested positive Dec. 8 and died Dec. 29 at Curry General Hospital.

A 102-year-old man from Clackamas County who tested positive Dec. 5 and died Dec. 27 at his residence.

An 87-year-old man from Multnomah County who tested positive Nov. 18 and died Dec. 23 at his residence.

A 98-year-old woman from Lane County who tested positive Dec. 18 and died Jan. 12 at her residence.

A 69-year-old man from Marion County who tested positive Dec. 21 and died Jan. 5 at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center.

An 86-year-old man from Josephine County who became symptomatic on Dec. 7 and died Dec. 18 at his residence.

A 73-year-old woman from Clackamas County who tested positive Jan. 2 and died Jan. 6 at Kaiser Permanente Sunnyside Medical Center.

An 80-year-old man from Lane County who tested positive Jan. 24 and died Feb. 1 at PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical Center at RiverBend.

A 78-year-old man from Yamhill County who tested positive Jan. 30 and died Feb. 1 at his residence.

A 72-year-old woman from Union County who tested positive Jan. 30 and died Feb. 2. Location of death and presence of underlying conditions are being confirmed.

A 90-year-old woman from Union County who tested positive Jan. 30 and died Feb. 2 at Grande Ronde Hospital.

A 63-year-old woman from Union County who tested positive Jan. 13 and died Feb. 2 at Grande Ronde Hospital.

A 76-year-old woman from Multnomah County who tested positive Jan. 4 and died Jan. 27 at Adventist Health Portland.

A 68-year-old woman from Multnomah County who tested positive Jan. 27 and died Jan. 28 at Legacy Mount Hood Medical Center.

A 72-year-old woman from Multnomah County who tested positive Jan. 20 and died Jan. 31 at Adventist Health Portland.

A 67-year-old woman from Multnomah County who tested positive Jan. 18 and died Feb. 1 at Adventist Health Portland.

A 65-year-old woman from Multnomah County who tested positive Jan. 12 and died Jan. 28 at Adventist Health Portland.

An 83-year-old man from Multnomah County who tested positive Jan. 9 and died Jan. 27 at Adventist Health Portland.

A 37-year-old woman from Marion County who tested positive Jan. 18 and died Feb. 2 at Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center.

A 73-year-old man from Marion County who tested positive Dec. 28 and died Jan. 1 at Salem Hospital.

A 75-year-old woman from Marion County who tested positive Aug. 31 and died Sept. 5 at Salem Hospital.

A 47-year-old woman from Douglas County who tested positive Feb. 1 and died Feb. 3 at Mercy Medical Center.

A 75-year-old man from Clackamas County who tested positive Jan. 6 and died Jan. 28 at Adventist Health Portland.

All had underlying medical conditions or the state was confirming whether they did.

Hospitalizations: 1,092 people with confirmed cases of COVID-19 are hospitalized, up five from Thursday. That includes 172 people in intensive care, down 11 from the previous day.

Since it began: Oregon has reported 654,343 confirmed or presumed infections and 6,214 deaths, among the lowest per capita numbers in the nation. To date, the state has reported 7,232,829 vaccine doses administered, fully vaccinating 2,833,424 people and partially vaccinating 300,445.

To see more data and trends, visit https://projects.oregonlive.com/coronavirus/

Fedor Zarkhin

503-294-7674; fzarkhin@oregonian.com

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Coronavirus in Oregon: 33 deaths and 4,872 new cases as reported infections continue to decline - OregonLive

The UK has reported 54,095 new cases of COVID-19 on Sunday, as well as a further 75 deaths within 28 days of a positive test, according to the latest government figures.

It follows 60,578 new cases and a further 259 deaths reported on Saturday, and 69,007 new cases and 91 deaths reported last Sunday.

In total more than 17.7 million people in the UK have tested positive for COVID-19, and more than 158,000 people have died within 28 days of a positive test.

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The most recent data says that as of Thursday 3 February, there have been more than 452 million virus tests conducted in the UK.

As of the same date there are 14,634 patients in hospital with COVID-19, 478 of whom are in ventilation beds.

As of Saturday there have been more than 138 million vaccinations given in total, including more than 52 million first doses, 48 million second doses, and 37 million booster or third doses.

It comes as a director of the World Health Organisation (WHO) said Europe is entering the "plausible endgame" of the coronavirus pandemic.

Dr Hans Kluge, WHO regional director for Europe, said the region had recorded 12 million new COVID-19 cases in the last week, with 30% of all cases since the pandemic began being reported this year.

But, he said, "for now, the number of deaths across the region is starting to plateau".

Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter, chairman of the Winton Centre for Risk of Evidence Communication at Cambridge University has confessed he didn't take the virus "seriously enough" at the start of the pandemic.

He added that he had a naturally optimistic personality "and that's why I'm very glad I'm not a government adviser".

"The pandemic has been a net lifesaver for younger people, if you look at people between 15 and 30 in 2020, 300 fewer died than would normally have died and that includes the 100 that died from COVID sadly," Sir David said.

"So that's 300 fewer families mourning the death of a young person because of the pandemic.

"Now that's because young people were essentially locked up, they couldn't go out driving fast, they couldn't go out and get drunk, and they couldn't get into fights and whatever, and so all these lives were saved."

However, the professor said that this doesn't necessarily mean he advocates for lockdowns, because "on the flip side of that you have a big increase in mental health problems".

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COVID-19: UK reports 54,095 new cases of coronavirus and further 75 deaths - Sky News

Washington, DC The Districts reported data for February 2, 2022 includes191new confirmed positive coronavirus (COVID-19) cases, bringing the Districts overall confirmed positive case total to 131,284.The District also reports 32new probable tests, bringing the overall positive probable tests since October 15, 2021to 9,055.

The District reported that one additional resident lost his life due toCOVID-19.

Tragically, 1,291 District residents have lost their lives due toCOVID-19.

Visit coronavirus.dc.gov/data for interactive data dashboards or to download COVID-19 data.

Below is the Districts current Key Metrics Summary Table.

Below is the Districts aggregated total of confirmed positive COVID-19 cases, sorted by age and gender.

Patient Gender

Total Confirmed Positive Cases

%

Female

%

Male

%

Unknown

%

All

131,284*

100

69,703

100

59,993

100

1,588

100

Unknown

272

<1

96

<1

139

<1

37

2

0-18

25,679

20

12,803

18

12,460

21

416

26

19-30

36,726

28

21,082

30

15,240

25

404

26

31-40

26,451

20

13,918

20

12,186

20

347

22

41-50

15,575

12

7,989

12

7,387

12

199

13

51-60

12,342

9

6,131

9

6,110

10

101

6

61-70

8,160

6

4,170

6

3,944

7

46

3

71-80

3,835

3

2,092

3

1,722

3

21

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Coronavirus Data for February 2, 2022 | mayormb - Executive Office of the Mayor