Emergence of a Deadly Coronavirus

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So far, from preliminary reports from places like South Africa, the Omicron Variant seems to be very contagious-----but at least a little milder than the Delta Variant.

We performed complete autopsies on 44 patients with COVID-19 to map and quantify SARS-CoV-2 distribution, replication, and cell-type specificity across the human body, including brain, from acute infection through over seven months following symptom onset.

We show that SARS-CoV-2 is widely distributed, even among patients who died with asymptomatic to mild COVID-19, and that virus replication is present in multiple extrapulmonary tissues early in infection

Further, we detected SARS-CoV-2 RNA in multiple anatomic sites, including regions throughout the brain, for up to 230 days following symptom onset.

Despite extensive distribution of SARS-CoV-2 in the body, we observed a paucity of inflammation or direct viral cytopathology outside of the lungs. Our data prove that SARS-CoV-2 causes systemic infection and can persist in the body for months.

The US Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday authorized Pfizer's antiviral pill, Paxlovid, to treat Covid-19.

This is the first antiviral Covid-19 pill authorized for ill people to take at home, before they get sick enough to be hospitalized.

High-risk individuals age 12 and older who weigh at least 88 pounds and have a positive SARS-CoV-2 test are eligible for this treatment and will need to have it prescribed by a doctor.

The pill "should be initiated as soon as possible after diagnosis of Covid-19 and within five days of symptom onset," according to an FDA statement.

Paxlovid combines a new antiviral drug named nirmatrelvir and an older one called ritonavir and is administered as three pills given twice a day for five days.

Last week, Pfizer released updated results that showed the treatment cut the risk of hospitalization or death by 89% if given to high-risk adults within a few days of their first symptoms. If given within the first five days of symptoms, the efficacy was similar: 88%.

Italy further tightened its restrictions on Thursday (23 December), barring unvaccinated from public spaces and enforcing mask wearing outdoors.

Outdoor New Year’s Eve celebrations have been banned, and discos will be closed until January 31.

A daily record of nearly 44,600 new cases were recorded in the last 24 hours on Thursday, as well as 168 deaths.

France recorded a daily record of 91,608 COVID cases on Thursday (23 December), as Omicron spreads across the country.

The previous absolute record of 86,852 cases dates back to early November 2020, at the peak of the second epidemic wave.

The government estimates the figure will quickly exceed 100,000 new daily cases.

Pressure also continues to mount on critical care units, which have 3,208 patients compared to 3,147 on Tuesday, with 323 new admissions. 179 more deaths due to coronavirus were registered.

On Wednesday (December 22) the government approved COVID-19 jabs for children five to 11 years old.

In Paris, the mayor's office announced on Saturday (December 18) that the fireworks and concerts planned on the famous avenue des Champs-Elysées for New Year's Eve have been cancelled.

France already closed nightclubs from Friday (December 10) for four weeks in an effort to curb rapidly rising COVID-19 infections.

Spain will make mask-wearing outdoors mandatory once again, with the prime minister set to pass a law by decree.

The country reported record-high COVID-19 infections as the Omicron variant takes hold.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez also offered to deploy the armed forces to help regions step up vaccinations. Sánchez said he is targeting 80% of the 60-69 age group to have received booster shots by the end of next week, among other goals.

COVID-19 tests for professional use will temporarily be placed on sale at pharmacies, amid a reported shortage of tests as well.

Authorities in Catalonia, one of the country's most populous regions, announced on Monday they were bringing back restrictions which include a 1 am curfew, the closure of nightlife, and capacity limits. The measures will come into force on Thursday evening following approval from the High Court of Justice of Catalonia. They will last for an initial period of 15 days.

The British government has so far resisted imposing new restrictions ahead of the holidays even as it continues to battle a major rise in COVID-19 cases, driven by the more transmissible Omicron variant.

Prime minister Boris Johnson said the government could take "further action" to protect public health, adding that they were following the situation "hour by hour".

On Thursday (December 23) the country registered a record 106,122 cases, with more than 100,000 cases also reported the day before.

London mayor Sadiq Khan announced on Monday that traditional New Year's Eve festivities in Britain's capital were cancelled.

Over the weekend Khan declared a "major incident" after a "huge surge" of Omicron cases in the city. Major incident acts as a warning that hospitals and emergency services are unable to respond as they normally would due to extenuating circumstances.

In England, the chief medical officer urged people to limit who they see in the festive period.

People now need certificates to get into nightclubs and sports stadiums, to prove they have been fully vaccinated or have had a recent negative test. Similar schemes are also in place in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

New York City has modified its plans for its fully vaccinated New Year's Eve celebration in Times Square, limiting the crowd to roughly 15,000 people, nearly four times less than the non-pandemic crowd, and requiring masks for all amid an omicron surge that's spawning unprecedented increases in COVID infections.

As eye-popping as the numbers have been in recent days, Thursday afternoon's report from the state was still stunning -- 38,835 positive tests in just one day, an increase of 10,000 from the day before. Of those, 22,208 were in New York City alone, orders of magnitude greater than anything either the city or state faced before omicron.

The state of New York issued an urgent advisory to pediatricians on Christmas Eve, pressing them to ensure their patients are vaccinated after COVID hospitalizations in children rose four-fold in less than three weeks.

At this point, the daily number of new COVID hospitalizations is growing more than 30% a day in New York City alone. But the state called out a particular problem in the city with kids, with a four-fold increase in admissions for kids ages 18 and under between Dec. 5 and this week, a span of less than three weeks.

Over the same period, total New York City COVID hospitalizations grew 170%, suggesting that younger kids are getting much sicker at a higher rate now.

About half of those hospitalizations were for kids under age 5, who are not eligible to be vaccinated.

But among the rest, in the most recent week, none of the admitted kids ages 5-11, and just a third of the kids ages 12-17, were fully vaccinated.

The state did not break down exactly how sick those kids are, though, or whether ICU admissions or fatalities have increased as well. Since the start of the pandemic, New York has recorded 37 COVID deaths among kids, about a third of whom also had another serious illness like cancer or diabetes when they died.

It's also not clear yet whether the spike in hospitalizations is causing any increase in reports of MIS-C, a pediatric complication of COVID. Since the condition was first identified last year, the state has confirmed just over 600 cases and three deaths.

Statewide, take-up rates for the vaccine in kids have been relatively low. As of Friday, only 16% of eligible kids ages 5-11 and 64% of eligible kids ages 12-17 were fully vaccinated.

COVID transmission rates in New York City are surging so aggressively, roughly 1.7% of all Manhattan residents have been infected in just the last week, according to the latest data posted by the city Thursday.

in some Manhattan neighborhoods, the numbers are astronomically higher. In Greenwich Village and SoHo, it's 2,927 cases per 100,000; in Chelsea, 2,513 per 100,000.

At those rates, Greenwich Village would dwarf just about any current outbreak spot, anywhere. According to the New York Times' data, Washington D.C., where omicron is raging like wildfire, is "only" up to 158 cases per 100,000.

Of course, this is just a recent trend driven by the omicron variant; over the long-term, North Dakota remains the most infected place in America, with more than 22% of residents having tested positive over the course of the pandemic

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday shortened the recommended times that people should isolate when they've tested positive for Covid-19 from 10 days to five days if they don't have symptoms -- and if they wear a mask around others for at least five more days.

The CDC also shortened the recommended time for people to quarantine if they are exposed to the virus to a similar five days if they are vaccinated. People who are fully vaccinated and boosted may not need to quarantine at all, the CDC said.

“The change is motivated by science demonstrating that the majority of SARS-CoV-2 transmission occurs early in the course of illness, generally in the 1-2 days prior to onset of symptoms and the 2-3 days after.

Quarantine refers to the time people stay away from others if they are exposed to a disease but not yet testing positive or showing symptoms.

CDC changed those recommendations, too. "For people who are unvaccinated or are more than six months out from their second mRNA dose (or more than two months after the J&J vaccine) and not yet boosted, CDC now recommends quarantine for five days followed by strict mask use for an additional five days," it said.

Alternatively, if a five-day quarantine is not feasible, it is imperative that an exposed person wear a well-fitting mask at all times when around others for 10 days after exposure," the CDC added.

People who are vaccinated and boosted are usually off the hook for quarantine, CDC said.
"Individuals who have received their booster shot do not need to quarantine following an exposure, but should wear a mask for 10 days after the exposure," it said.

"For all those exposed, best practice would also include a test for SARS-CoV-2 at day five after exposure. If symptoms occur, individuals should immediately quarantine until a negative test confirms symptoms are not attributable to COVID-19."

Boosters greatly lower the risk that someone will get infected and pass the virus to someone else, the CDC said.

"Data from South Africa and the United Kingdom demonstrate that vaccine effectiveness against infection for two doses of an mRNA vaccine is approximately 35%. A COVID-19 vaccine booster dose restores vaccine effectiveness against infection to 75%," it said.

The omicron variant is spreading rapidly all over the country, but hospitalization and death rates remain relatively low.

The seven-day average of COVID-19 cases topped 280,000 this week, according to data from Johns Hopkins University's tracker. It's a record number of new cases in the country; the last time the number of cases hit a peak close to that was January.

Data from the White House provided at a briefing Wednesday shows the seven-day average of hospitalizations is about 9,000 per day — which is a 14% increase in hospitalizations from last week. However, there was a 60% rise in cases over the same time frame. The seven-day average of COVID-19 deaths is down from last week, at about 1,100 deaths per day.

Officials say the difference is in part because omicron causes less severe symptoms for those who are vaccinated and especially for those who are boosted.

Another reason for the wide gap between the increase in hospitalizations and cases, Fauci said, is that hospitalizations tend to lag behind recorded cases. Still, "all indications point to less severe illness with omicron than delta," he said.

Fauci also cited a new study out of South Africa which shows that hospital admissions from the omicron wave there were 4.5% of cases versus 21.3% with other variants. The number of patients who needed oxygen while in the hospital with the omicron variant was half as much as the number of patients with previous variants. And the length of stay in the hospital was about four days with the omicron variant, compared with an average of 8.8 days with earlier waves.

Thousands of NYPD officers have called out sick due to COVID. Acting Chief of Department David Barrere told PIX11 News on Wednesday the NYPD was making adjustments as the sick calls rolled in.

Roughly 6,600 NYPD employees called out sick on Tuesday — about 20% of the department’s workforce. Of those, 3,000 were officers with flu-like symptoms and about 1,500 were positive for COVID.

As a result, the NYPD sent out a memo telling all uniformed officers who are regularly off on Friday and Saturday that they must report to their respective commands for assignment.

The decision was made to provide adequate police coverage for the New Year’s Eve celebration in Times Square as well as badly needed coverage in precincts throughout the city, according to the NYPD memo.

The FDNY has been hit with a similar situation. As of Wednesday, 30% of EMS workers and 17% of firefighters were on medical leave.

During the height of the pandemic in 2020, the FDNY had about 25% of EMS out on medical leave.

FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro conceded the sick calls were affecting the department.

One New York City subway line was suspended on Wednesday and five others were running with delays because so many workers were out sick.

Twenty CityMD locations, where thousands of New Yorkers go to get tested for the coronavirus, were closed because of staffing shortages caused by the virus.

New York City is exhausted, beleaguered and riddled with coronavirus thanks to the Omicron variant. More than 110,000 people have tested positive just since Christmas Day, and the positivity rate in some neighborhoods is approaching 30 percent.

Some hospitals in the city are under stress: Mount Sinai Health System said Wednesday it was deferring elective surgeries where possible.

But as Year Two of the pandemic limps offstage to make way for Year Three, New York remains open, with piecemeal slowdowns and closings.

Gov. Kathy C. Hochul announced a new statewide record of 67,000 daily cases on Wednesday — nearly 20,000 more than the previous record set Dec. 24 — and said that Covid-related hospital admissions jumped 10 percent in a single day and that deaths neared 100 for the first time in months.

New York City also set a record, with 39,591 new cases announced Wednesday by the governor’s office, nearly 30 percent more than the old record of 31,024, also set Dec. 24. And the city’s Covid hospitalizations are up to more than 2,700 — but the number of Covid patients in intensive care was 350 earlier this week, less than half the number during last winter’s surge.

An unprecedented spike in Covid-19 cases fueled by the fast-moving Omicron variant is crushing hospitals across the United States, with doctors describing packed emergency rooms as health experts implore New Year's Eve revelers to keep parties small and outdoors to help avert an even worse surge.

"It's unlike anything we've ever seen, even at the peak of the prior surges of Covid," Dr. James Phillips, who works in Washington, DC, said Wednesday, when the nation hit a new pandemic high of 300,886 average new daily cases over the prior week, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

"What we're experiencing right now is an absolute overwhelming of the emergency departments" in Washington, Phillips, chief of disaster medicine at George Washington University Hospital, told CNN's Jim Acosta.

It's a scene playing out across the country as record case counts are reported from New Jersey and New York to Arkansas and Chicago, where hospital bed capacity also is a concern. In Arizona and New Mexico, federal medical personnel have deployed to provide Covid-19 surge support.

And in Georgia, six major health systems with recent 100% to 200% jumps in Covid-19 hospitalizations -- with most patients unvaccinated -- joined to publicly urge people to seek coronavirus testing elsewhere so their emergency rooms can focus on those with critical needs.

In Louisiana, Covid-19 hospitalizations have tripled in the past two weeks as a new record for cases was set, according to the state.

"We're seeing an increase in admissions that is startling," she told CNN on Wednesday.
Many patients O'Neal sees are unvaccinated, she said. They often have more severe illness with pneumonia and need to be intubated or need high-flow oxygen. Others who haven't had a booster or are only partially vaccinated are suffering with a kind of flu-like illness and are "fragile," she said.

"They're older, they have heart failure, they have COPD, and they can't handle Covid, even when they're vaccinated," O'Neal said. "Luckily, most of those people are turning around after a couple days and going home, which is a good thing."

And pediatric hospital admissions for Covid-19 are the highest they've ever been over the course of the pandemic.

Unvaccinated people "are 17 times more likely" to be hospitalized with Covid-19, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Wednesday. Some 62% of the total US population is fully vaccinated, and 33% of those have gotten a booster shot, data from the CDC shows.

"What I can tell you is that compared to people who are boosted, if you are unvaccinated, you are 10 times more likely to be a case and 20 times more likely to be a fatality," she said at a White House Covid-19 briefing.

With the spike in Covid-19 cases, experts are urging Americans to practice caution as they celebrate the new year. Revelers should skip big indoor New Year's Eve parties, said Dr. Jonathan Reiner, professor of medicine and surgery at George Washington University.

"We're in the public health crisis of our lifetime," Reiner told CNN's Phil Mattingly on Thursday. And New York City's Times Square New Year's Eve celebration "should have been canceled," in part because attendees might "pack the subways" to get there, he said. The event has been scaled back, with fewer revelers and everyone required to wear a mask.

Meantime, the CDC is defending itself against criticism over its guidance this week that shortened to five days the recommended time those with Covid-19 should isolate if they're asymptomatic.

The CDC is being too harshly criticized for changing the guidelines, said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. "Everything we're going to do right now is imperfect. Just accept that right now," Osterholm told CNN on Wednesday.

"We don't know a lot of the things we wish we'd know, but what we do know and what is emerging here is that this country is going to be in the soup in just the next few weeks with so many cases and so many locations, that we're going to see critical infrastructure as well as health care challenged," Osterholm added.

With the rapid spread of Omicron, there may not be enough people who are well enough to keep hospitals, grocery stores and gas stations working, Osterholm predicted. The change in CDC guidelines is not just about helping the economy, he said: "It was to play to the very safety of our everyday lives."