Covid

Massachusetts COVID-19 Hospital Capacity

Unless you managed to get rapid test kits, a swab was hard to come by. The majority of the city-run testing locations were closed for the holiday.

Andrew Angus of Marin County, California is so set on having a New Year’s Eve party while making it as safe as possible that he bought the equipment to provide every guest with a PCR test for…

Imagine the worst cold you’ve ever had, where someone is occasionally stepping on your chest just below your collarbone.

Thanks to its public biotech sector and its government’s deep commitment to public health, Cuba is now the only low-income country to have made its own COVID vaccine. It’s already helped millions of Cubans, and it’s poised to help millions more around the world.

I was hoping for a relatively quiet week. But, as with a lot of people right now, SARS-CoV-2 finally caught up with my little family. I finally got a break at our “hot mess express” house to get a handle on the current state of affairs. This is where we are today…

The CDC now says all Americans who test positive for COVID-19 can cut their isolation time in half from 10 days to five days if they are asymptomatic and wear a mask for the following five days.

Why I believe many of the worst-case scenarios are now off the table

The FDA has approved a second COVID-19 antiviral pill, but Merck's offering might not get as much uptake as its Pfizer rival..

In June, Taco Bell locations in California offered "a free seasoned beef Nacho Cheese Doritos® Locos Tacos" to anyone who provided proof of vaccination. The company said it was offering the promotion because there are "still plenty of young people who need to get vaccinated." The company said that it was important to "increase vaccinations" to keep everyone safe.

Well, Omicron cases are growing really fast. Like explosive, skyrocketing, vertical growth fast. If we continue this rate of spread, I would venture to say that there is no modern day virus that has spread this fast and this far ever before. We continue to see case growth in South Africa, although I’m convinced they’ll hit their peak soon due to several indicators (like test positivity rate and acceleration slowing). While previous waves have averaged 2 months, Omicron will hopefully result in a shorter wave due to high transmissibility and change of behavior.

In both good and bad ways

The variant has spread through South Africa with remarkable speed — and been detected in at least 60 other countries. Specialists are trying to figure out the next stage for this unwelcome variant.

Today we got our first Omicron lab data! A week and half since Omicron broke the news. Just beautiful. As the scientist of the study said, “If I don’t die from the virus, I’ll die of exhaustion”. We’re getting more and more epidemiological data, too. Together they give us a dense, but clear(er) picture of Omicron.

Many families have really good questions regarding the intersection between Delta/Omicron and the holiday season. I can’t answer your individual messages for a number of reasons. But I do understand that it’s incredibly difficult to navigate this landscape especially with a mutating virus. Just when we thought we had a good grasp, this darn thing changes.

Lab tests indicate that omicron can escape the protection from two injections of Pfizer’s vaccine, but not three.

Wearing face masks and maintaining social distance are familiar to many people around the world during the ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Evidence suggests that these are effective ways to reduce the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection. However, it is not clear how exactly the risk of infection is affected by wearing a mask during close personal encounters or by social distancing without a mask. Our results show that face masks significantly reduce the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection compared to social distancing. We find a very low risk of infection when everyone wears a face mask, even if it doesn’t fit perfectly on the face. Previously published data were used for this work (https://aerosol.ds.mpg.de/). All other study data are included in the article and/or [ SI Appendix ][1]. [1]: https://www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.2110117118/-/DCSupplemental

Using the Johnson & Johnson vaccine as a booster for people initially immunized with the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine produces a strong immune response and may do more to elicit protection against severe disease, researchers reported.

Molnupiravir has been shown to reduce the risk of hospitalization and death, although by less than previously thought.

The number of breakthrough COVID cases in Massachusetts increased by 6,610 this week.

High-quality respirators such as N95s and K95s are now widely available and provide the best protection against COVID, according to experts. Why aren’t more people wearing them?

I hope everyone in the States had a fantastic Thanksgiving (even if you’re a Dallas Cowboys football fan). I hate to ruin the holiday, but… We have a new variant. I’ve not seen this much anxiety ridden chatter among scientists about a COVID19 variant before. Even among the calm, cool, and collected scientists.

STAT spoke with virus expert Trevor Bedord about the future of the coronavirus, the coming flu season, and whether we’ll need annual boosters

To understand how the pandemic is evolving, it’s crucial to know how death rates from COVID-19 are affected by vaccination status.

Researchers said results highlight the need to continue with face coverings, social distancing and handwashing alongside vaccine programmes

Massachusetts is opening up COVID booster shots to any fully vaccinated resident age 18 or older, effective immediately.

The Pfizer COVID booster shot could be available to all adults by the end of this week.

The US thinks it will be ‘immune’ to what is happening in Europe. That’s wishful thinking

Scientists have evidence that SARS-CoV-2 is circulating in white-tailed deer in the U.S. They say the findings could essentially dash any hopes of eliminating the virus in the U.S. — and the world.