COVID Again

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July 15, 2022

An informed guide to the pandemic, with the latest developments and expert advice about prevention and treatment.

The New York Times

By Jonathan Wolfe

As U.S. Covid hospitalizations climb once again, a chronic nursing shortage is getting worse. Demand for the monkeypox vaccine exceeds the nation’s supply, the C.D.C. said. The largest study yet showed how Covid vaccines affected periods. But experts say there’s no cause for alarm. Find the latest updates here, and check out our maps and vaccine tracker.

Rush hour in Beijing.Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

China’s economic Covid slump

China’s economic engine is shuddering. The country’s National Bureau of Statistics said today that the economy expanded by only 0.4 percent in the second quarter. It was smaller than expected and the lowest growth since the early months of the pandemic.

These days, the country’s continued lockdowns and mass quarantines are having far-reaching consequences on its ability to do business, which in turn is having a significant effect on the global economy. For more, I spoke to my colleague Chris Buckley, who covers China.

What’s going on in the Chinese economy?

The lockdown of Shanghai — China’s biggest and most commercially important city — was a direct blow to the economy, and it gummed up industrial production, logistics and retail in a very important part of China. That had ripple effects across the Chinese economy and internationally.

But the bigger problem going forward is the draining effects of uncertainty about the country’s Covid policies — especially possible Covid outbreaks and lockdowns — on economic activity. You get the sense from businesspeople in China, from multinationals right through to small shops, that this uncertainty hovering over the economy is making it difficult for them to make investment decisions, to travel or to buy property. It’s hanging over the economy like a dark cloud.

What’s the current Covid situation?

The latest numbers put out by the Chinese National Health Commission suggest this pattern where there’s not major outbreaks but smaller bursts across the country that are troublesome for local governments because they’re under pressure to get even these clusters quickly under control.

Recently, we’ve seen a resurgence of cases in Shanghai. Lanzhou, a big city in Northwest China, has gone into a shutdown to try to eradicate an outbreak there. And we’ve seen other large counties and cities in the east close for mass testing to try to eradicate clusters. But with Omicron and its changing variants, it’s very difficult to keep extinguishing these outbreaks — it’s draining for residents and also for the local officials in charge.

The official numbers involved aren’t enormous. Wednesday, there were 292 newly confirmed cases, including so-called asymptomatic cases. That’s tiny by the standard of most countries, but with the Chinese government committed to “zero Covid,” that still creates enormous pressures on local officials and populations.

Wait, all this for 292 reported cases?

Yes. Exactly. The real number may be somewhat higher. But the Chinese government is trying to achieve something very difficult: balancing their dynamic Covid-zero policies with trying to restore economic growth. And I don’t think we’ve seen the real answer to how they’re going to escape from the quandaries that this is creating for China.

How are Chinese people responding?

My general impression from Lanzhou and other places where lockdowns and other heavy restrictions have been put into place is that it remains true that the population as a whole is still going along with these demands. But I do think there’s a growing edge of impatience.

Just in the past couple of days we’ve also seen protests by depositors who had money in small banks in Hunan, a province in Central China. We’ve also seen this small but ominous mortgage strike by people who’ve been buying property in several Chinese provinces as well. Those protests aren’t directly connected to Covid, but I think they reflect the general economic pain and uncertainty.

What does the future look like for the Covid-zero policy?

The People’s Daily, the main newspaper of the Communist Party, just started putting out a series of editorials that will be rolled out in the next week or so, making the case for sticking with dynamic zero-Covid policies. That’s a strong signal that, whatever bad news might be in the economic numbers, the government wants to tell the population that this policy may be painful, but it’s necessary, and ultimately it’s working. The editorial on Thursday made the case that ultimately these tough policies are best for the economy and mean that you avoid masses of sick people and potential deaths, particularly among the elderly.

In recent weeks there have been some signs that the Chinese government was beginning to try to relieve some of the disruptive effects of some of the rules — so, for example, shortening the quarantine time for people coming back into the country.

So, we still seem to be whiplashed between efforts to return to normality and then these relatively small outbreaks of cases with officials in the affected cities moving in the other direction — taking very stringent measures to lock down. I don’t think we’re near the end of these policy tensions and the drag they create on Chinese growth.

A researcher from the Pasteur Institute of Cambodia took an oral swab from a bat in a Cambodian cave last year.Cindy Liu/Reuters

Should we tinker with viruses?

In mid-2020, a team of scientists catching bats in Laotian caves discovered coronaviruses that were strikingly similar to the one that had recently started to wreak havoc around the world.

Some of those researchers continued experimenting with one of these mysterious bat viruses in a high-security laboratory in Paris, giving a close relative of the Covid virus the chance to evolve new traits. The research has been fruitful, leading to discoveries about how the bat viruses could jump to humans and the kind of harm they could do.

Nevertheless, my colleague Carl Zimmer writes, lab experiments like these are rekindling a longstanding debate among scientists about the wisdom of tinkering with viruses that are so closely related to a known pathogen.

Proponents argue that experiments are crucial for understanding and preventing future pandemics. But critics say that scientists should not run experiments that might make viruses better able to spread among people, given the small but real chance that these altered pathogens might escape into the outside world.

Read Carl’s article here.

What else we’re following

Wastewater samples taken in the San Francisco Bay Area suggest that the latest wave could be the area’s largest so far, The San Francisco Chronicle reports. Los Angeles County is considering reinstating a mask mandate as cases soar, The Los Angeles Times reports. Random coronavirus testing will resume for international passengers at some airports in Canada. Bank of America was fined $225 million for mishandling pandemic unemployment benefits. Covid infection rates in Britain jumped by nearly 30 percent in one week, The Guardian reports. The W.H.O. warned against “apathy” in global efforts to contain Covid in Africa. A sharp global drop in childhood vaccinations during the pandemic is threatening the lives of millions of children. The Atlantic argues that the BA.5 wave may be what normal life with Covid looks like. Emma Goldberg explores the magic of your first work friends and what those connections look like today.

What you’re doing

My husband, who is 85, is slowly wasting from loneliness, boredom and isolation. He gets weaker and weaker by the week. I am a full-time care giver, 69, with some help. I wear a mask even in the coffee drive-through. This is not a life. Every time we get hope that things will go back to “normal,” along comes another Covid variant. This was not how we pictured our last few years together. — Susan B Guinasso, Redlands, Calif.

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

Thanks for reading. I’m off Monday, but you’ll be in my colleagues’ safe hands. I’ll be back Wednesday. — Jonathan

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You Could Have Long COVID and Not Even Know It

It took a long time for Rachel Bean to fully accept that she has Long COVID. Bean, 35, caught the virus in May 2020, when most experts were still saying that COVID-19 either causes life-threatening illness or milder symptoms that resolve within a few weeks. Bean’s acute case was asymptomatic—so as time passed and she felt unwell, with a rapid heart rate and unrelenting fatigue, she figured there had to be another explanation.

https://time.com/6191655/long-covid-under-diagnosed/

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July 18, 2022

An informed guide to the pandemic, with the latest developments and expert advice about prevention and treatment.

The New York Times

By Nancy Wartik

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the president’s chief medical adviser, said he’ll “almost certainly” step down by January 2025. This week, C.D.C. advisers will decide how to administer Novavax’s new Covid vaccine, which is meant for the unvaccinated. A slowdown of human activity during the pandemic — the “anthropause” — has had surprisingly complex effects on the natural world. Find the latest updates here, and check out our maps and vaccine tracker.

Health leaders muted as cases rise

The BA.5 subvariant, now the cause of at least two-thirds of U.S. cases, is driving a Covid spike in some 40 states. But Americans, exhausted from repeated surge warnings, are less likely than ever to wear masks or avoid crowds. Many U.S. health officials aren’t speaking out against such practices.

“I think they’re trying to keep their powder dry,” said my colleague Thomas Fuller, our San Francisco bureau chief and one of three reporters on today’s story about the state of the virus. “They seem to believe it’s not realistic to bring back severe measures right now.”

In Chicago, where the Covid warning levels jumped to “high” last week, Dr. Allison Arwady, the health department commissioner, said, “I feel strongly that you can’t just kind of cry wolf all the time.”

Dr. Joseph Kanter, Louisiana’s state health officer and medical director, said that, despite higher Covid levels, he felt “much more empowered that we have the ability to protect ourselves.” Dr. Anthony Fauci said in a recent White House briefing that Americans should not let Covid “disrupt our lives.” (Los Angeles County, however, is planning to reinstate indoor mask mandates on July 29 as the state’s Covid cases increase.)

Home testing makes the current data murkier. Not since the earliest months has so little been known about how many coronavirus infections there are. Slightly higher death rates, a 20 percent increase in hospitalizations and other signs point to a new surge, but hospitalizations and deaths are far fewer than in previous spikes, with many more people vaccinated or able to treat symptoms.

I spoke to Thomas as he drove to Yosemite to check on the Washburn fire. He reiterated health officials are in a tough situation, given extreme pandemic fatigue. In the Bay Area, where he lives, Thomas said most people continue to mask, but some are so frustrated, they’re “throwing caution to the winds. They have a sense of futility that wasn’t as evident in the past.”

The chief concern he drew from his reporting, Thomas said, is that this stage of the virus might be “kind of creating a giant petri dish” for subvariants.

“Chances go up when more virus is circulating,” he told me. “With so many more bodies hosting it, experts told me there’s so much more potential for future variants which may or may not be more serious.”

Dr. Charles Chiu, a virologist at the University of California, San Francisco, stressed to Thomas that it’s crucial new variants be detected quickly, especially in wastewater. (Chiu detected the first U.S. case of Omicron in a traveler, then learned it was in wastewater two weeks beforehand.) That’s the point where public restrictions aimed at prevention could become urgent again, Chiu said.

As officials hold back and the public drops its guard, Thomas told me, “I think we’re at a point of trying to understand the consequences of complacency. We don’t understand them yet. But the more widespread the virus, the higher the risks of a new variant. That’s the concern that the people I spoke to expressed.”

Monkeypox: “Worst pain I’ve experienced”

Over the weekend, Fauci went on CNN to discuss monkeypox’s potential to cause a second epidemic. Cases are increasing in the U.S., especially among gay men, and Fauci warned we might be seeing the mere beginning of the problem. The nation, he said, must start behaving as if the disease “will have the capability of spreading much more widely than it’s spreading right now.”

Monkeypox has typically been considered a fairly mild disease. But my colleague Sharon Otterman spoke to half a dozen patients in New York City, which has about 25 percent of the cases reported in the U.S. She documented excruciating symptoms and systemic health and hospital failures. Gabriel Morales, 27, kept himself isolated for eight days, trying to get treatment and waiting for test results that turned out to be lost. “It was just the worst pain I’ve experienced in my life,” he told Sharon.

Sharon emphasized that there’s a range of symptoms. Some patients have little more than a mild rash. But health officials estimate about 20 to 25 percent in New York have full body rashes or internal lesions that make it agonizing to eat or go to the bathroom.

At that end of the spectrum, Sharon said, “It results in a level of pain we should not wish on anyone. Providers on the front lines have been surprised at how severe some patients are reporting it to be.”

In Africa, where the virus is more common, Sharon said the death rate from a variant closely related to the one spreading now was around 3 to 6 percent (a higher rate than Covid), though no deaths have been linked to the U.S. outbreak. Still, she said her work on the topic had convinced her “the alarm wasn’t sounded to the extent it needed to be” by public health agencies here. Though the federal government owns more than a million vaccine doses that could work against monkeypox, many are snarled in bureaucracy and there is far more demand than availability.

TPOXX medication, which was developed for smallpox, seems to relieve symptoms effectively, but it’s only available for monkeypox treatment through a time-consuming compassionate-use protocol. Only 70 prescriptions have been written citywide.

Overall, monkeypox numbers remain small, with about 1,800 reported U.S. cases. People shouldn’t panic, Sharon told me, especially if they’re not part of the affected community.

Still, she admitted, “It’s very disheartening to see our public health system repeat the same failures as with Covid. There are a lot of the same missteps. It’s no one person or agency’s fault but a result of issues that will repeat until we fix our systemic public health challenges.”

What else we’re following

Optimism that a new booster rollout this fall will protect against variants is waning among experts, The Atlantic reports.

The world’s complex economic challenges right now mostly spring from one source: the coronavirus pandemic. Floridians hoping to vaccinate their youngest children can’t always find the vaccines, and some blame Gov. Ron DeSantis, The Washington Post reports. Experts say waves of Covid surges are coming closer together than might be expected, The Guardian reports.

What you’re doing

Although the financial, physical, social and emotional effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have been shaking my world and my family’s, I have determined to improve my circumstances by going back to college. Single again, 53 and a mom of two kids in college, this may seem difficult, but I’m following my dream of becoming a teacher by earning an elementary education Master’s degree and teaching certificate. I see our lives as fragile and risks are higher but I want to LIVE life and follow my passion for teaching children, even when the going gets tough.

— Debbie Scott, Arlington, Wash.

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

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July 20, 2022

An informed guide to the pandemic, with the latest developments and expert advice about prevention and treatment.

The New York Times

By Jonathan Wolfe

Outbreaks in more than a dozen Chinese cities have prompted widespread lockdowns and mass quarantines of millions of people. Chinese officials apologized for breaking into homes to search for people with Covid. The C.D.C. shut down its public Covid dashboard for cruise ships. Find the latest updates here, and check out our maps and vaccine tracker.

A new vaccine is on the market.Karen Ducey/Getty Images

A fourth vaccine

The United States approved its fourth vaccine for use against the coronavirus. The new vaccine from Novavax, a Maryland pharmaceutical company, works differently from the three other Covid vaccines in use.

While Novavax doses are expected to play a limited role in the country’s immunization campaign, at least initially, having another approved tool to fight the virus as it continues to mutate is a positive development. Here’s what else you need to know about the new shot.

The technology. Contrary to the three Covid vaccines authorized in the U.S., the Novavax version provokes an immune response with nanoparticles made up of proteins from the surface of the coronavirus that causes Covid-19. Similar protein-based vaccines have been used globally for decades.

Effectiveness. With two doses spaced three weeks apart, the vaccine demonstrated an overall efficacy of 90.4 percent, on par with the vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna, and higher than the one-shot vaccine from Johnson & Johnson. The Novavax vaccine showed an efficacy of 100 percent at preventing moderate or severe disease.

Versus Omicron. The vaccine was tested before the emergence of the variant, which has sharply reduced the effectiveness of other authorized vaccines in preventing infections. However, Novavax is developing new versions of its vaccine that target Omicron and its highly contagious subvariants. Preliminary data from laboratory and animal studies indicate that a booster shot aimed at the BA.1 subvariant, which preceded the current highly infectious BA.5 version, generates strong immune responses to the virus. The company says it expects to have results from a clinical trial of that shot in September, with doses ready in the last three months of the year.

Side effects. Novavax’s vaccine is linked to an elevated but small risk of forms of heart inflammation known as myocarditis and pericarditis. The company said it had identified 17 definite or probable cases of myocarditis and pericarditis in over one million doses. The mRNA vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer are also linked to an elevated risk of these conditions, but that link did not emerge until after they were put into large-scale use.

As a booster. Trials have also shown that Novavax’s shot works well as a booster, and the company is expected soon to seek authorization for it to be used that way. But the C.D.C. recommended that it be used as an option for adults as their first vaccination against the coronavirus.

Novavax is hoping its shot will appeal to the millions of people who have so far declined to be vaccinated, perhaps because they are wary of the technology behind the mRNA vaccines.

About 22 percent of people in the U.S. have not received a single Covid vaccine dose.

Photo Illustration by Tonje Thilesen for The New York Times

Summer, come back!

We all know what happened with summer 2020. Then 2021 was dampened by Delta. This year, any anticipated return to revelry for some has been hampered by, well, everything.

Anxiety over the approaching midterms. Monkeypox. Mass shootings. Travel chaos.

Is there hope for enjoying the once fun season? Yes, our Styles desk discovered, but it might take a little work.

“There is something called hedonic adaptation, and research shows that humans have a remarkable ability to get used to or get accustomed to changes in our lives,” said Sonja Lyubomirsky, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside, who studies happiness. For example, if you marry someone you may have a boost of happiness at first, but it doesn’t last, and you will go back to your previous baseline.

The same is true for negative changes. If you experience disappointment that your expectations are not being met, eventually you will become used to it and feel happy again. “With most negative changes, we are able to get used to them and revert back to our previous happiness baseline,” she said.

As for this summer, Dr. Lyubomirsky suggested keeping the company of others (something that is also easier in the summer), saying that some studies show that any form of connection brings joy. She also said that something that is scientifically proven to bring more joy into our lives is to have gratitude for what we do have.

“Gratitude seems kind of hokey, but research shows it’s really powerful,” she said.

Have you been reinfected?

Early in the pandemic, many people assumed that infection with the coronavirus meant they were no longer at risk of a repeat bout of the illness. There was even talk about “the immunes” — people who recovered and went back to their lives while the rest of us were locked down at home.

But as the latest wave has shown, re-infections have become more common. Already, many people are reporting their second or even third infections of the pandemic, even after receiving their booster shots.

Does that sound like you? If so, we want to talk.

We’re asking readers who’ve battled Covid more than once: What’s your advice for getting through a Covid infection? As someone who has been through the experience more than once, what are your best tips for getting through it — physically, mentally or otherwise?

If you’d like to participate, you can fill out this form here. We may use your response in an upcoming newsletter.

What else we’re following

The C.D.C. said that the BA.5 Omicron subvariant accounted for nearly 80 percent of infections in the U.S. last week. A study in the Britain found that a sore throat and a hoarse voice were more common symptoms with Omicron than the Delta variant, CBS News reports. Representative Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the Jan. 6 panel, tested positive for the coronavirus. Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York said that schoolchildren probably won’t need to mask when they return to school in September, but she was keeping the statewide mask mandate on public transportation for now. Indoor mask mandates are returning to some summer school programs in California. “None of us has a crystal ball”: Scientists are trying to keep up with faster coronavirus evolution. Students are learning well again, but a full recovery is a long way off. A new report reveals that fatal overdoses during the pandemic reflect widening racial disparities.

What you’re doing

We’ve managed to escape infection until last week. The day before I gave birth to our second child, I got the dreaded double line on an at-home rapid test. The hospital I delivered at was incredibly supportive, but my husband was still unable to be there the moment his daughter was born. I still haven’t been able to touch my cheek to hers as we’ve been masking. Now that we’re home, every family member that came to help us has tested positive. However, I’m grateful beyond words to the pharmacist who administered a second booster to me at 34 weeks pregnant to allow my little one some amount of antibodies before she was born and for giving me the extra help my body needed to fight this infection off quickly. Still, I can’t help but be angry at all the things Covid has stolen from me in my second birth. We’ll all be OK because we’re all vaccinated and boosted, but we’ll never get back the experiences that have been taken from us. — Danielle Wunderlich, Jacksonville, Fla.

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

Thanks for reading. I’ll be back Friday. — Jonathan

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Nasal vaccines may stop Covid infections. Will we get them soon?

Research on nasal vaccines is mostly in its early phases in the U.S., though many scientists believe this twist on vaccination could prove to be an effective way to block infections.

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/nasal-vaccines-latest-research-nasal-vaccines-covid-rcna38820

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July 22, 2022

An informed guide to the pandemic, with the latest developments and expert advice about prevention and treatment.

The New York Times

By Jonathan Wolfe

President Biden tested positive for Covid yesterday, but his symptoms have improved, the White House physician said. Europe is deep in another Covid wave, but governments are not cracking down. Africa saw a modest but promising increase in coronavirus vaccinations last month, the W.H.O. said. Find the latest updates here, and check out our maps and vaccine tracker.

Leonardo Santamaria

How to deal with reinfection

These days, it seems like no one is safe from Covid.

The U.S. is recording around 130,000 new cases per day on average, but public health experts have suggested that the real number could be many times higher because so many people are testing at home. President Biden’s positive test is just the latest sign that infections during the Omicron BA.5 wave have become increasingly difficult to avoid.

The latest wave is also causing a surge in reinfections, even among people who have had the virus as recently as a few weeks or months ago. For more on this phenomenon, I spoke to my colleague Apoorva Mandavilli, a Times health and science reporter.

What should we know about reinfection with BA.5?

For most people, with this variant, getting infected should not be serious, because they will have some level of immunity either from prior infection or from having had two or maybe even three or four doses of a vaccine. But even more than in prior waves, the difference will really be stark compared to people who are unvaccinated.

What does reinfection do to the body — particularly in terms of long Covid?

We don’t know very much about whether every infection increases the risk of having long Covid or whether you build up immunity and the risk goes down. But one recent study suggested that your risk goes up with every event, so the more times you are infected, the higher the risk that you’re going to develop long Covid. There is a pretty strong correlation between those who developed long Covid and those who were severely sick to begin with. But it’s not a clean connection. There are cases of people who had very mild symptoms and were barely sick at all, but who still have lingering effects for months.

How much protection does a previous infection offer someone?

A lot of people got infected in the winter wave, but we know that immunity from BA.1 doesn’t seem to be superprotective. It didn’t seem to produce really high levels of the kind of antibodies you need to prevent another infection. So that partly explains why we’re seeing reinfections even among people who had it in January. But the current variant — BA.5 — looks like it produces a stronger immune response than BA.1 did. So hopefully people who are getting infected now will have immunity for longer than they did after a BA.1 infection.

How long can someone who recently got sick expect their protection to last?

With BA.1, we saw that people were getting reinfected within two to three months sometimes. But the risk seems to vary depending on how strong your infection was. The more severe your symptoms, the stronger your immune response, and the longer it might last. There are a lot of variables at play, but I would say that if it’s been three months or longer since your previous infection, you probably want to be more careful.

Is there a difference between the protection afforded from an infection, as opposed to vaccination?

Infection is more likely to give you antibodies in the nose, which is really where you need them to prevent future infection, whereas vaccination generates antibodies in the blood. On the other hand, many studies have shown that the immunity you get from infection is variable and may not hold up well against Omicron, so vaccines are still your best bet against the virus.

How are you protecting yourself these days?

I don’t mask outdoors, and I never really did. But I wear a mask any time I’m in a crowded indoor environment. So I just went to Italy and to Madison, Wis., for example. I didn’t necessarily mask every single minute, but I masked any time I was around a lot of people. I masked on the airplane. I masked in the airports. I masked when I was at a virology conference. So, it’s context-specific.

I was infected in March. I wasn’t sure when that immunity would wear off, but my husband recently had Covid and my kids and I didn’t get it, so that made me think, “Oh, maybe our immunity is actually lasting a little bit.” I don’t know exactly when it’ll wear off, so I’ll continue to be somewhat careful. But I’m certainly traveling a lot and doing many more things than I was earlier in the pandemic.

More on reinfections: Jeremy Kamil, a virologist and associate professor of microbiology and immunology, wrote a guest essay for Times Opinion to set the record straight on variants and reinfection.

Tips from the reinfected

We asked readers who have had Covid more than once for their advice on dealing with a reinfection. Thanks to everyone who wrote in.

First, cut yourself some slack. This new variant is catching everybody. Shame isn’t going to help you heal. Second, hydrate. Everything in your body works better if you’re hydrated. The only way through is through, so make the path as easy as possible. Finally, mask up. You don’t want other people to go through what you are! — Brian Cook, Boston

I’ve had it twice, three months apart. First time was definitely worse. Give yourself time — the fatigue is real. Go back to work slowly — half-days or two days on, one day off. Nap a lot. And when someone offers to bring you food or do an errand for you, just say yes. Put yourself first for a change. — Lisa Sienkiewicz, Johnson City, N.Y.

Keep crunchy foods near by! If you can’t taste or smell, crunch is the next best thing. And stay hydrated. — Ben, Long Island

Don’t freak out, and know that your reinfection may be very different than your first. If you live alone, have someone be your phone contact to monitor how you’re doing a few times a day. Be honest with your contact about how you are feeling. — Chari Anhouse, New York City

Don’t panic. In hindsight, the symptoms I experienced were no different than a common cold, made worse only by stress. Find ways to reduce your stress: Deep breathing, meditation, etc. were all very helpful in mitigating the symptoms. — Alex Gatto, San Francisco

My second infection was definitely milder than my first, and what I learned from the first time was to keep a “break in case of Covid” isolation kit — a list of things I would enjoy or keep me mentally stimulated in case I had to isolate. For me, I kept a list of video games I wanted to get through but never had the time to because of work and my daily routine. I would spend quite a bit of my day catching up with friends. Finally, even though this has been said a million times before, get vaccinated. — Anthony, Toronto

As soon as you’re well enough to feel restless, get up. Shower. Put on clean clothes and a bright top. Go outside and move your body. Weeding the garden and taking in fresh morning air with silent, deep gratitude for breath and body is getting me through this week of illness. — Willow Baum, Callicoon, N.Y.

What else we’re following

Biden had received a second booster shot. Here’s why it wasn’t enough to prevent infection. Covid precautions for Biden have varied over his time in office, and the virus poses a higher risk for Americans of his age. Australia is refraining from reimposing restrictions as hospitalizations surge. The Washington Post explored the Covid “superdodgers” who’ve never tested positive. The drug Evusheld was supposed to help protect people who are immunocompromised, but many patients have never heard of it, Stat News reported. The California Today newsletter recently asked readers whether they wanted mask mandates to be reimposed. Ed Yong wrote in The Atlantic about an early-death crisis in the U.S. that predated Covid.

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

Thanks for reading. I’ll be back Monday — Jonathan

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Scars of COVID persist for sickest survivors, their families

Freddy Fernandez almost wasn’t here, on his couch in his Missouri home, his baby on his lap, gnawing on the pulse oximeter that he uses to check his oxygen levels after a months-long bout with COVID-19.

https://apnews.com/article/ScarsofCOVIDlongrecovery-2909285039504ab5c61de4fd193ac11a?

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July 25, 2022

An informed guide to the pandemic, with the latest developments and expert advice about prevention and treatment.

The New York Times

By Jonathan Wolfe

President Biden’s symptoms have “almost completely resolved,” the White House doctor said. A surge of BA.4 and BA.5 in Australia is straining the country’s health care system, The Guardian reported. China approved a homegrown H.I.V. pill for use in treating Covid, Reuters reported. Find the latest updates here, and check out our maps and vaccine tracker.

Protesters in Manhattan on July 21 demanded a stronger government response to the spread of monkeypox.Andrew Seng for The New York Times

The monkeypox emergency

The World Health Organization took the extraordinary step over the weekend of declaring monkeypox a “public health emergency of international concern,” a designation currently used to describe only two other diseases, Covid-19 and polio.

The W.H.O.’s declaration signals a public health risk requiring a coordinated international response. It can lead member countries to invest significant resources in controlling an outbreak, draw more funding to the response and encourage nations to share key resources.

So far, some 75 countries have reported nearly 17,000 cases, almost 3,000 of them in the U.S. Nearly all the infections outside Africa, where monkeypox has been a concern for years, have occurred among men who have sex with men.

Dr. Boghuma Titanji, an infectious diseases physician at Emory University in Atlanta, said the declaration was “better late than never,” but the delay meant that there was an important lack of coordination.

“There is almost capitulation that we cannot stop the monkeypox virus from establishing itself in a more permanent way,” she said.

Experts have argued that the U.S. response to the monkeypox outbreak has also been mismanaged, repeating some of the initial missteps the country made in the early days of the Covid outbreak.

Case in point: As monkeypox was spreading in New York in June, American officials waited weeks to ship some 300,000 doses of U.S.-owned vaccine in Denmark, my colleagues Joseph Goldstein and Sharon Otterman report.

Even then, the vaccines were flown piecemeal, arriving over the span of a couple weeks. Many didn’t arrive until July, more than six weeks after the first case was identified in New York City.

The government was slow to deploy the vaccines, activists say, partly because of concerns about depleting the nation’s bioterrorism defenses. (The vaccine against monkeypox was developed and stockpiled for use against smallpox.)

The outbreak has galvanized many in the L.G.B.T. community, who have argued that monkeypox has not received the attention it deserves, mirroring the early days of the H.I.V. epidemic.

“The U.S. government intentionally de-prioritized gay men’s health in the midst of an out-of-control outbreak because of a potential bioterrorist threat that does not currently exist,” said James Krellenstein, a gay health activist based in Brooklyn.

By holding back the doses early on, the U.S. may have missed the opportunity to contain or slow the largest monkeypox outbreak in the country. Now, monkeypox has become widespread enough in New York City that epidemiologists doubt it can be contained anytime soon.

Public school students in Georgia waited for coronavirus tests in January.Dustin Chambers for The New York Times

States lift Covid emergency declarations

While the W.H.O. ramps up the global response to monkeypox, states are moving in the opposite direction on Covid, despite a surge in cases and hospitalizations driven by the highly contagious BA.5 variant.

In March 2020, all 50 states and the District of Columbia declared public health emergencies in response to the pandemic, which allowed them to lift limits on hospital capacity, expand access to telehealth services and make preparations in case the National Guard was needed.

But today, fewer than a dozen states have emergency declarations in place. As Americans adjust to living with the virus, these declarations are becoming harder for politicians to justify. Public health emergencies are by definition a temporary solution to states’ health care problems, and the pandemic created an opportunity to reassess their function, according to one expert.

“The emergency declarations really need to be short term,” said Georges Benjamin, the executive director of the American Public Health Association. “The fact that they’re going away is good.”

Earlier this month, the Biden administration extended the federal coronavirus public health emergency, which was first set in January 2020, through mid-October. The designation allows millions of low-income Americans expanded access to Medicaid coverage and grants states access to pandemic-related funds, among other benefits.

Your experience with pandemic economics

The pandemic has drastically changed the global economy, affecting things such as the price and availability of goods and how people view their relationship to employers.

As experts begin to sound the alarm on a coming recession, it seems as though our economic fates may soon change drastically — again.

This week, we’re checking in with readers about their financial circumstances, and how they feel about the future. We’re asking: How has the pandemic changed your economic situation? What, if anything, are you doing to adjust for the future?

If you’d like to participate, you can fill out this form here. We may use your response in an upcoming newsletter.

What else we’re following

The Atlantic explored whether genetics play a role in those who never contract the coronavirus.

Bloomberg looked at Hong Kong’s planned health code system, which is similar to the one in place in China. The pandemic upended careers in Hong Kong, forcing or inspiring people to make major changes in their lives. The New York Today newsletter looked at where things stand with Covid and monkeypox in the city.

What you’re doing

As my spouse and I are both high risk for serious disease, we continue to practice strict social distancing. It took a while, but I am now accustomed to the hollow feeling of isolation. We have wonderful friends who meet with us from a distance and do not make us feel odd for masking outside. But we miss travel, restaurants, movies, art shows, theater and live music. Recently, we attended an outdoor Shakespeare performance. The following day, I woke up feeling an unfamiliar sensation. I attacked my morning work zestfully and creatively. It wasn’t until midafternoon that realized I could attribute the happiness I was feeling to the energy of live theater, the pleasures of people-watching and the joy of being somewhere other than my house. — Leah Shafer, Interlaken, N.Y.

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

Thanks for reading. I’ll be back Wednesday — Jonathan

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July 27, 2022

An informed guide to the pandemic, with the latest developments and expert advice about prevention and treatment.

The New York Times

By Jonathan Wolfe

President Biden tested negative for Covid and will end his isolation. A majority of U.S. parents of young children said they considered the vaccine a greater risk than the coronavirus itself. Nearly one million people in a suburb of Wuhan, China, were put under lockdown after four cases were discovered, the BBC reports. Find the latest updates here, and check out our maps and vaccine tracker.

Workers in protective suits disinfect the Huanan market on March 4, 2020.Reuters

Where the Covid outbreak began

Two studies published yesterday in Science magazine are giving us insight into the roots of the pandemic.

The research, which was previewed in February, has now been peer-reviewed and revised, and concludes that the wet market in Wuhan, China, is the likely epicenter of the emergence of Covid. For more, I spoke to my colleague Carl Zimmer, who covers science.

What did these new studies conclude?

These scientists are arguing that it’s most likely that the pandemic got its start from infected animals in the Huanan market in Wuhan, China. The authors suggest that SARS-CoV-2 arose from bats passing on the virus to some kind of intermediate animal. It could be, say, a raccoon dog. Or it could be other kinds of animals that are sold at wildlife markets. From there, it was passed on to people. When they looked at the earliest cases of Covid, they concluded that the cases centered in the neighborhood around the market.

How did they come to that conclusion?

One study looked at what evidence there was of the presence of the virus in the market. The scientists discovered that there seemed to be a correlation between where the virus was in the market and where wildlife was being sold.

The other study is an analysis of the genomes of viruses from early cases. It concludes that there were at least two different spillovers from some animal host into people. The earliest one happened in mid-November 2019, and the second one happened within days or weeks of that.

They also did some statistical analysis, which led them to conclude that there were not a lot of hidden, undetected Covid cases before December 2019. So they argue that there was most likely an outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 in animals that were being sold at the Huanan market, and people were getting infected more than once — at least twice, maybe more times — with this virus. Then, later in December, it took off.

What does this mean for the lab-leak theory?

The authors of this study do not conclude that their evidence points to a leak from a lab. And people who are advocating a lab leak took place will have to explain all of this research. If the authors of these new studies are correct, then there were at least two spillovers of this virus, both of which were at the Huanan market. So if the virus was in a lab miles away, how did that lead to these patterns that these scientists are seeing?

What are some of the outstanding questions about the origins of the virus?

The ultimate origin of this virus still has a lot of questions around it. But scientists are zeroing in on the kinds of bats that carry these kinds of coronaviruses, and they’re looking at certain areas in China, and in Southeast Asia, that seem to be hot spots for these kinds of coronaviruses.

I recently wrote an article about efforts by researchers who have been looking at bats in caves in northern Laos, and doing surveys of their viruses. In 2021, they found some new species of coronaviruses that turned out to be very closely related to SARS-CoV-2. They’re not direct ancestors, but they are giving us clues about this group of viruses from which SARS-CoV-2 evolved.

What’s next for the search for the virus’s origin?

The W.H.O. has put together a second group to look into Covid’s origins. It’s moving very slowly. The group has a list of things that it wants to know. It wants to get more information about possible viral outbreaks in Wuhan in late 2019 and more information on wildlife, among other things. But that all depends on the cooperation of the Chinese government, and so far there’s not much indication that it will.

In China: George Gao stepped down as head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention yesterday after a five-year tenure.

Coronavirus cases remain at high levels across the country.Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times

Protecting yourself from BA.5

The BA.5 surge is a reminder that the pandemic is not over. But how best to live with the continued presence of Covid when you’re so very tired? The Times’s Well desk has some guidance.

Find your new community Covid indicators. Home testing has complicated the recording of case numbers, blurring real-time tracking of the virus. Instead, experts recommend checking the local news and tapping into your social networks. When more of your close contacts are getting Covid or being reinfected more frequently, it’s a good signal to take precautions.

Max out your vaccines and boosters. Vaccines provide excellent protection against serious illness, and booster shots can amplify those benefits. But fewer than half of Americans have received boosters, and less than a third of adults who are eligible for their second booster — those who are immuno-compromised or above 50 — have received it.

Wear masks, and not just indoors. Wear good quality masks in public places. Experts agree that the outdoors can be considerably safer than indoor spaces. But even outdoors, the closer people are, the higher their risk of catching the virus. At bigger gatherings, such as outdoor concerts or weddings, you should wear a mask and monitor yourself for new symptoms for a few days afterward.

Keep rapid tests on hand — and use them. Bookend social events by testing before and three to five days after large gatherings. Each household can order three rounds of free tests — or 16 tests in total — from the government.

If you’re traveling, find out how to get treatment. Set aside some money, if possible, and read your health or travel insurance policies carefully to see which expenses are covered if you have to extend your trip because of Covid. And do a little research into clinics and pharmacies at your destination. If you are at high risk for Covid complications, or may be immuno-compromised and at risk for lower vaccine efficacy, you can talk to your doctor about getting the monoclonal antibody treatment Evusheld before you travel.

What else we’re following

Supplies of Russia’s booster shot, known as Sputnik, are running low, despite a surge in cases, The Moscow Times reports. Efforts to make the next generation of Covid vaccines are floundering, Science reports. Meta is considering relaxing some restrictions around Covid misinformation on Facebook and Instagram, The Verge reports. More than 1.5 million people worldwide, many of them young girls, were infected with H.I.V. amid pandemic disruptions in 2021. New York renters are now paying the price for the “Covid discount” they received during the pandemic.

What you’re doing

My wife and I are professional jazz musicians. From March 2020 until January 2022 we were homebound, performing no live shows and subsisting on generous donations from friends and fans. My wife and I wear masks everyplace we go indoors except our own home. It’s a twofold requirement: We can’t afford to expose our parents with various health issues to the virus. And now that our performing has started to come back, we can’t afford to contract the virus and quarantine, missing one or more gigs. We thought when everything opened up again, it would be easier. On the contrary, these past seven months have almost made us wish we could isolate again. Trying to juggle our family and career and keeping ourselves and everyone we encounter safe has exhausted us. — Jeff Barnhart, Mystic, Conn.

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

Thanks for reading. I’ll be back Friday — Jonathan

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News4JAX fact checks DeSantis on booster claim. Governor’s office responds

News4JAX ran a statement Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis made through the Trust Index.

https://www.news4jax.com/news/2022/07/28/fact-checking-claim-by-gov-ron-desantis-are-you-more-likely-to-get-covid-19-if-youve-had-multiple-booster-shots/

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July 29, 2022

An informed guide to the pandemic, with the latest developments and expert advice about prevention and treatment.

The New York Times

By Jonathan Wolfe

Covid killed Black and Hispanic people in rural America at considerably higher rates than it did their white neighbors, according to new research. The Biden administration said it may need $7 billion to fight the monkeypox outbreak, The Washington Post reports. A new study found that 5 percent of people infected with Covid could have long-term smell or taste issues, The Guardian reports. Find the latest updates here, and check out our maps and vaccine tracker.

Updated boosters are on the way.Erika P. Rodriguez for The New York Times

Biden’s plan for fall

The Biden administration is planning to distribute vaccines that have been retooled to fight Omicron in September.

The new versions of the vaccine are expected to perform better against the BA.5 subvariant that is dominant now, although the data available so far is still preliminary. Pfizer and Moderna assured the F.D.A. recently that they could deliver millions of doses by mid-September.

Federal officials were considering expanding second-dose booster eligibility to Americans under 50 this summer, but with updated formulations seemingly close at hand, they decided it was better to wait, ahead of a feared winter surge.

All adults are expected to be eligible for the updated booster shots, and children could be eligible as well, according to people familiar with the deliberations.

Right now, the federal government also plans to stress that anyone who is eligible for additional shots — Americans over 50 and those over 12 with certain immune deficiencies — should get them as soon as possible.

Welcome to the postpandemic economy

The U.S. economy is in a strange place, one that is still clearly showing the ripple effects of pandemic disruptions.

On one hand, the job market looks strong: Unemployment is low, and job growth is robust. At the same time, inflation is soaring, supply chain disruptions are still common and there are signs that the country could be heading into a recession — if it’s not in one already.

For more on Covid’s effects on our wallets, I spoke to my colleague Ben Casselman, who covers economics.

How would you describe the moment the economy is in, as it relates to the pandemic?

From an economic perspective, not from a public health perspective, we’re starting to see a postpandemic economy take shape. I don’t think we are done with that process, and I don’t think we know exactly what the postpandemic economy will look like. But we’re no longer in the acute phase.

You used to see that every time there was a spike in cases, there was a decline in restaurant bookings or a decline in in-person activities. Then, as cases fell again, those activities would return. But for good or ill, we don’t see that behavioral response to nearly the same degree anymore.

How is the pandemic still affecting the economy?

It’s not always easy to draw a one-to-one connection.

For example, significantly fewer people are working or even looking for work than before the pandemic. Early on, it was pretty easy to attribute that to people being afraid of the virus or to child care disruptions or — early on — to business shutdowns. But those explanations have become steadily less convincing as time has gone on.

In many ways, the economy has returned to normal. But given that many workers still haven’t returned, it seems logical to think that that’s at least indirectly due to the pandemic, even if it’s no longer absolutely direct. You hear lots of stories about people reconsidering their priorities and changing the way that they approach work and life in the wake of the pandemic.

However, there are a couple of things that we know are happening because of the pandemic. We know that there are global supply chain disruptions that are clearly the effects of the pandemic, including disruptions that are continuing because China continues to have a very aggressive approach to controlling the spread of the coronavirus. And we know that a significant amount of the inflation that we’re experiencing now — although the details are in dispute — is, to one degree or another, the result of the pandemic, as well as the government response to the pandemic.

How will the interaction between the pandemic and the economy play out in the next few months?

There are a couple of plausible scenarios.

If you think back to when the economy began to reopen, many of us thought that we would have a period of disruption, and then things would return to normal. That obviously hasn’t happened. But, in one scenario, we were basically right that these effects were temporary, and we were just wrong in thinking that they would go away quickly. So if that’s the case, over the next several months, we will see supply chains normalize. We will see people’s spending patterns normalize. We will see people return to work. And we look back on this and say, “Well, that took longer than expected, but we still ended up where we always thought we would be.”

It is also possible that the pandemic has changed our lives and the economy in lasting ways that are going to take much longer to adjust to. We’ve obviously seen this in terms of the way we work. People have not returned to the office in anywhere close to the numbers that there were before the pandemic. And if that continues, eventually, the economy will adjust to that. Coffee shops will open up in residential neighborhoods and close down in urban business districts. And the economy will reorient itself around this new reality. But those kinds of adjustments will take time, and they won’t be clean and smooth.

Some consumers are struggling to keep pace with rapidly rising prices.Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

Your experiences with pandemic economics

We asked readers about their financial circumstances during the pandemic and how they feel about the future. Thanks to everyone who wrote in.

“The pandemic began OK, to be honest. The unemployment boost and the stimulus checks helped me bolster my savings a ton. For most of 2020 and 2021, my living expenses were not too bad. I started graduate school and felt pretty confident that things would be all right. Now I’m paying 30 percent more for rent than I was in 2021, groceries are more expensive and things just feel very precarious. Without a big pay raise, I’m just going to be treading water rather than building up savings outside of my retirement account.” — Martin Bate, Fort Worth, Texas

“The pandemic has actually been good to me and my household. My job in FiDi went remote in March 2020. With this freedom from commuting costs and occasional office lunches, we were able to save much more, and were able to move to a bigger place to accommodate my new W.F.H. setup. I’ve also been able to pick up a part-time remote role, allowing for even more savings cushioning. I’ve found that we stress less about finances than we did prepandemic, so my husband and I have been arguing less and spending more time together now that we have all this time to see each other’s faces.” — Asia, Bloomfield, N.J.

“The pandemic has indirectly made my economic situation much worse. Using the pandemic as an excuse, my landlord raised my rent $617. I am feeling afraid, frustrated and angry about my current economic situation. I am retired and living on a government pension and Social Security. The only thing I can do to adjust for the future is cut expenses to the bone: no eating out, no new clothes, no going to the theater, no travel. I also will be looking for a cheaper apartment.” — Karen Raschke, New York City

“I am a small-time landlord with 24 units, mostly in low-income areas. When tenants fell behind on rent in 2021, I drained my savings but was able to recoup about 80 percent by filling out forms for government aid. In 2022, no such aid exists. Courts are backed up. I’m losing $10,000 per month, and I am now trying to sell properties to stop the bleeding. — Alan Shechter, Fairport, N.Y.

“My situation is drastically, and dramatically, worse. Less income, with higher prices of everything, driven by the hike in oil prices, which led to the rise of shipping prices. I’m worried that as winter approaches in the Northern Hemisphere, we will be at a point around early October where, even if you did have enough money to purchase most basic food items, there will be nothing available to buy. I feel I’m just in this for the ride, and I am powerless against it. No matter what I do, it would be like standing on a beach trying to fend off a hurricane with a stick.” — Mohammed Al-Haj Khalil, Kuwait

What else we’re following

Scientists are racing to answer three questions in particular that will determine how quickly monkeypox can be stopped — if it can be stopped at all. President Biden’s health secretary suggested that states bear some of the responsibility for what critics have called a flawed response to the monkeypox outbreak. Some schools are reimposing mask mandates amid a surge of Covid cases, The Washington Post reports. The Wall Street Journal reports that even if you are vaccinated and healthy, it may take a month to fully recover from a Covid infection. The pandemic — and the increased use of disposable items — was a gift for the plastic industry, worsening the trash crisis, Fast Company reports. The Atlantic asks: How long will the coronavirus be able to reinfect us?

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

Thanks for reading. I’ll be back Monday. — Jonathan

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August 1, 2022

An informed guide to the pandemic, with the latest developments and expert advice about prevention and treatment.

The New York Times

By Jonathan Wolfe

New Zealand fully opened its borders, the last step in its phased reopening, The Guardian reports. Hong Kong fell into its second recession in three years, fueled by the country’s tough Covid restrictions, The Financial Times reports. The mayor of New York City declared a state of emergency for monkeypox, Politico reports. Find the latest updates here, and check out our maps and vaccine tracker.

Republican and Democratic strategists worry they are losing voters to candidates willing to take absolute positions on vaccines and masks.Caroline Brehman/EPA, via Shutterstock

The rise of the anti-vax voter

A new, potentially destabilizing political movement has been born out of the pandemic: parents who joined the anti-vaccine and anti-mask cause.

They were once Democrats or Republicans. But fears for their children in the pandemic transformed their thinking, and they now identify as independents who plan to vote based solely on a single-minded obsession.

My colleague Sheera Frenkel interviewed nearly 30 parents who call themselves new anti-vaccine and anti-mask voters, and she found that they had strikingly similar paths. They said they were alarmed about their children during quarantines. They pushed to reopen schools and craved normalcy. They became angry, blaming lawmakers for the disruption to their children’s lives.

Many of these parents congregated in Facebook groups that initially focused on in-person schooling. But these groups soon latched on to other issues, such as anti-mask and anti-vaccine messaging.

While some parents left the online groups when schools reopened, some started questioning vaccines for measles and other diseases, for which inoculations have long proved effective. Activists who oppose all vaccines further enticed them by joining online parent groups and posting inaccurate medical studies and falsehoods.

To back up their beliefs, some parents have organized rallies and disrupted local school board meetings. Others are raising money for anti-mask and anti-vaccine candidates such as J.D. Vance, the Republican nominee for Senate in Ohio; Reinette Senum, an independent running for governor in California; and Rob Astorino, a Republican candidate for governor in New York.

Sarah Levy, 37, was an independent who believed in social justice causes. She said her autistic 7-year-old son watched TV for hours and stopped speaking in full sentences in 2020, when the coronavirus led to lockdowns.

“We were seeing real trauma happening because programs for children were shut down,” Levy, who lives in Miami, said. So she joined Facebook groups and discussed how to push the federal government to force schools to reopen.

“I found my people,” Levy said. She said she found common ground with Republicans “who understood that for us, worse than the virus, was having our kid trapped at home and out of school.”

The transformation of these parents brings an unpredictable element into November’s midterm elections. It has confounded Republican and Democratic strategists, who worry they are losing voters to candidates willing to take absolute positions on vaccines and masks.

“So many people, but especially young parents, have come to this cause in the last year,” said Janine Pera, a longtime activist against all vaccines. “It’s been a huge gift to the movement.”

President Biden at the White House this past Wednesday after ending his isolation.Cheriss May for The New York Times

Biden’s rebound

President Biden tested positive for the coronavirus again on Saturday morning, just a few days after appearing to shake the virus — a case of what’s known as “Paxlovid rebound.”

A few months ago, doctors began reporting some Covid-19 patients improved after taking the antiviral treatment Paxlovid and even tested negative, only to have symptoms flare up again a few days later.

The rebound can occur four or five days after treatment. Patients develop a sore throat, a runny nose or chills, for instance, and can be contagious to others again. (Biden began isolating again, following medical advice.)

Initial clinical studies suggested that about only 1 percent to 2 percent of those treated with Paxlovid experienced symptoms again. A study published in June found that about 5 percent tested positive again within 30 days and 6 percent experienced symptoms again.

But the anecdotal accounts of Paxlovid rebound — including a case involving Dr. Anthony Fauci — have echoed widely, causing many to wonder whether the reported data was accurate, especially as the contagious BA.5 subvariant spreads.

Either way, experts stressed that Paxlovid had been notably successful in preventing more severe Covid-19 illnesses and hospitalizations. A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published in June reported that symptoms from a rebound tended to be milder than during the primary infection and unlikely to lead to hospitalization.

What else we’re following

Epidemiologists say high instances of mask wearing in countries like Japan, Singapore and South Korea are most likely keeping case numbers and deaths relatively low, The Australia Broadcasting Corporation reports. Long Covid is keeping millions of American from working, NPR reports. Anne Helen Petersen, the author of Culture Study newsletter, spoke to a communications scholar about despair and misinformation in online long Covid communities. The Washington Post spoke to experts about when you’re no longer contagious after a Covid infection. The author Andy Miller mused about the pleasures and pains of joining up with other people after a long, quiet time in the Covid doldrums. The Covid vaccination status of baseball players is complicating MLB trades, The Associated Press reports. A look at how the U.S. let 20 million doses of monkeypox vaccine expire. Today’s episode of “The Daily” is about the monkeypox outbreak. In Opinion, Scott Gottlieb, a former commissioner of the F.DA., writes that monkeypox is about to become the next public health failure.

What you’re doing

I am a Covid-19 epidemiologist at a local health department. It became impossible to see any impact of the work we do to contain this disease because we have no power to impose any regulations on business or other establishments. It feels all we do now is counting cases. My husband, daughter and I took all the precautions including wearing masks indoors among the few people who still do. Yet, today I lost my war against Covid-19. My daughter attended summer camp last week where they had zero Covid-19 guidelines except “wear a mask if you want,” so she did. She got sick, my husband got sick and I am sick. This camp praises itself on community involvement. But no one notified us when she was exposed, and they were reluctant to contact the kids who were exposed to my daughter. As I lay in my misery with high fever and tears streaming down my face in almost 100 degree weather, I can’t help to think how much sooner we can be enjoying safer outings and help our kids safely enjoy organized activities if we truly practice community involvement. — Dorota Carpenedo, Montana

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

Thanks for reading. I’ll be back Wednesday — Jonathan

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COVID continues to saturate Florida

COVID-19 continues to hang on throughout Florida as the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has now designated all but three counties as “high risk” for transmission.   

https://www.mainstreetdailynews.com/covid-19/covid-continues-to-saturate-florida

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How Long Can the Coronavirus Keep Reinfecting Us?

No one knows exactly what this will look like—only that it’s guaranteed to keep happening.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/07/coronavirus-will-never-run-out-ways-reinfect-us/670976/?

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August 3, 2022

An informed guide to the pandemic, with the latest developments and expert advice about prevention and treatment.

The New York Times

By Jonathan Wolfe

Germany said that some coronavirus measures would remain in place through the winter, ABC News reports. California declared a state of emergency to address monkeypox, and the White House named a monkeypox coordinator. Gilead’s quarterly profit fell as sales of remdesivir, the antiviral Covid treatment, slowed, Reuters reports. Find the latest updates here, and check out our maps and vaccine tracker.

Is the virus endemic?

Even though people across the world are trying to move on from Covid, it’s still here, all around us.

Case in point: Half of all infections during the pandemic have taken place this year, as noted by my Times Opinion colleague David Wallace-Wells. Given the current pace, it’s possible that more than 80 percent of all Covid cases will ultimately take place in 2022, he said.

David writes a newsletter for Times subscribers that explores science, climate change, technology and the pandemic. He recently wrote about what endemic Covid would be like. (It’s not good.) I caught up with him to learn more.

Have we reached endemicity?

That’s a complicated and controversial question, in part because it means different things to different people. But one way of thinking of it is that endemicity is what happens when the average infected person infects fewer than one other person. And that is not the case. With these new variants, the average person has been infecting many more than one person. So, by that standard, we’re not in an endemic state.

But we are in a place where the basic footprint of the disease has been pretty consistent. We’ve been at roughly the same number of hospitalizations and deaths in the country since the end of the initial Omicron wave in the winter. And because so much of that has to do with how much better our immune systems are working against Covid than in the past, there’s probably no reason to think that those dynamics are going to dramatically change unless there’s an out-of-left-field new variant like the original Omicron.

And I think that fits the layperson’s understanding of what an endemic disease is: It’s circulating, but it’s sort of in the background, and while there are some little peaks and some little valleys, they aren’t so dramatic that they threaten to really upend life at a community level, let alone at a national level. That’s a pretty fair description of where we are right now.

So by some definitions we have made it to endemicity. Now what?

Now we can begin to see the tragic outline of what it means to live through a once-in-a-generation or once-in-a-century pandemic. Epidemiologists I’ve spoken to have cited an annualized death rate of 100,000 a year. That would make Covid our most deadly infectious disease. It puts it in the neighborhood of things like diabetes. It’s as though we’ve never heard of diabetes in the fall of 2019, and all of a sudden, we have diabetes. That’s despite the incredible pharmaceutical interventions and innovations from the vaccines and therapeutics. And it’s quite grim to think about that.

The New York Times

What do the coming months look like?

There are a lot of variables. But if I had to sort of synthesize all of them, I would say that I think it’s likely that, for the foreseeable future, we’re living primarily with Omicron variants. That means the virus will find new ways to evade our immune response without totally eliminating the immune protections that we carried before.

In the fall, we will begin to see some limited rollout of new next-generation vaccines, but they won’t fundamentally change the trajectory of immune protection going forward. And we have very limited implementation of other social and political measures, such as mandating better air quality in schools and transportation systems and things along those lines.

Where does that leave us?

If I were telling the narrative, ironically, it would probably be the same story I would have told in the spring of 2020, which is to say that this is really an old person’s disease now. That was true at the beginning of the outbreak, but it’s becoming even more true now. It’s quite possible that we’ll see increasing relative vulnerability among the old, which is to say people who are in middle age are going to feel pretty safe living a totally normal life. But people of their parents’ generation may not ever. That’s because they have a much harder time building up immunity, which means they lose the benefits of the vaccines and previous exposure much more quickly.

We’re also seeing a significant death toll this year. We’ve more or less normalized it. We could have roughly equivalent numbers of especially elderly people dying as we did in the first years of the pandemic — and that’s tragic.

Sign up for the David Wallace-Wells newsletter, for Times subscribers only. The best-selling science writer and essayist explores climate change, technology, and the future of the planet and how we live on it. Get it in your inbox

Remote work’s two Americas

More than two years into the pandemic, American corporate workplaces have splintered. Some are nearly as full as they were before Covid-19, while others still sit abandoned — and there’s a growing divide depending on where they’re located.

Workers in midsize and small U.S. cities have returned to the office in far greater numbers than those in the biggest cities. For example, in small cities — those with populations under 300,000 — the share of paid, full days worked from home dropped to 27 percent this spring from around 42 percent in October 2020, according to researchers at Stanford University and other institutions.

In the 10 largest U.S. cities, days worked from home shifted to roughly 38 percent from 50 percent in that same period.

Americans have always experienced the workplace in starkly different ways: Doctors stand on their feet for long shifts, truckers spend hours on the road and white-collar workers sit hunched over computers. But now, even people within the same profession can have vastly different work arrangements depending on where their desks sit.

Read the full story on the return-to-office split.

Your travel horror stories

Traveling this summer has been nightmarish at times, with widespread delays and cancellations, packed airports and planes, and very few virus restrictions like masks or preflight tests to protect travelers from the virus.

But how bad has it really been? Actually, we’d like to know.

We’re asking readers to tell us their travel horror stories from this summer as we navigate virus rules — or lack thereof — during this stage of the pandemic. To participate, you can share your story here. We may use it in an upcoming newsletter.

What else we’re following

It’s not just Paxlovid. A study found that 12 percent of infected people experienced Covid “rebound,” NBC reports. The Los Angeles Unified School District relaxed virus regulations ahead of the start of the school year, The Los Angeles Times reports. What puts someone at risk of catching monkeypox? The Morning explored the monkeypox outbreak and how officials are responding.

What you’re doing

I live in an assisted living facility where masking has been optional. I, therefore, have stayed almost entirely in my apartment, avoiding the dining room and all activities. I do go out to get supplemental food and to take long walks early before it gets hot. I do not leave my apartment without a mask. I Zoom a lot to stay sane and write poetry, as well as read and play computer games. At 89, most of my friends are gone, so I don’t have many phone contacts. Don’t really mind being alone because most of the people here are demented and not much fun to talk to. — Sally Currie, Glendale, Calif.

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

Thanks for reading. I’ll be back Friday. — Jonathan

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and still with us.....

‘Keep your guard up’: New COVID-19 subvariant arrives in Central Florida

, Fla. — A new subvariant of the COVID-19 virus is making its way through the United States.

https://local.newsbreak.com/florida-state/2695355832336-keep-your-guard-up-new-covid-19-subvariant-arrives-in-central-florida?

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August 5, 2022

An informed guide to the pandemic, with the latest developments and expert advice about prevention and treatment.

The New York Times

By Jonathan Wolfe

A man who threatened to kill Dr. Anthony Fauci was sentenced to three years in prison. The number of unemployed Britons with long Covid has doubled in the last year, The Guardian reports. New York officials said that a case of polio found in the state might be “the tip of the iceberg” of a much wider threat. (Here’s what to know about the virus.) Find the latest updates here, and check out our maps and vaccine tracker.

The U.S. government is ramping up its response to monkeypox.Mario Tama/Getty Images

A national health emergency

We’re taking a detour from our regular Covid coverage to keep you up to speed on the monkeypox outbreak.

The Biden administration yesterday declared the growing monkeypox outbreak a national health emergency, signaling that the virus now represents a significant risk to Americans.

The declaration sets in motion measures aimed at containing the threat. It gives federal agencies power to direct money toward developing and evaluating vaccines and drugs, obtain emergency funding and hire additional workers to help manage the outbreak.

The monkeypox vaccine, called Jynneos, is in short supply in the U.S. Because of a series of government missteps, its scarcity is expected to last for months. Jynneos is approved as a two-dose regimen, but my colleague Apoorva Mandavilli reports that federal officials are considering a so-called dose-sparing strategy, which splits a single vial into five smaller doses that are delivered between layers of the skin instead of under it.

“We are making all the same errors with monkeypox policy that we made with Covid, but we are correcting the errors more rapidly,” Alex Tabarrok of the Marginal Revolution blog wrote in a post about dose stretching.

The same approach has been used when supplies of other vaccines are scarce, but giving intradermal shots requires more skill than is needed for more traditional immunizations, and the F.D.A. would need to grant Jynneos an emergency use authorization.

One shot is probably enough to forestall severe symptoms in most people, and the dose-sparing strategy may work just as well. But it’s unclear whether a scaled-back regimen is enough to prevent infection and, if it is, how long that immunity may last, federal health officials said.

“We’re in a data-free zone,” said Dr. Emily Erbelding, an infectious diseases expert at the National Institutes of Health, who oversaw testing of Covid vaccines in special populations.

The U.S. now has one of highest rates of monkeypox infection in the world, and the number is expected to rise as the disease spreads and surveillance and testing improve. As of Thursday, the country had recorded more than 7,100 monkeypox cases, with the highest rates per capita in Washington, D.C., New York State and Georgia.

More than 99 percent of the cases are among men who have sex with men, but federal health officials are concerned that the outbreak will spill over into other populations. At least five children have been diagnosed with the disease. Although it is rarely fatal, and symptoms are resolved within a month in most cases, some experts have warned the disease can be more serious in children and people with certain medical conditions.

The administration has been criticized for moving too slowly to expand the number of available doses. Demands for stronger action against monkeypox have intensified in recent weeks, but many experts fear containment may no longer be possible.

More on monkeypox:

Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida said alarm over the monkeypox outbreak was overblown, Fox News reports. “We are not doing fear,” he said.

A woman was filmed without her consent in a TikTok video and accused of having monkeypox, highlighting a new form of social-media vigilantism that has emerged in the absence of government guidance.

How serious is monkeypox? We asked experts for answers about the virus. In Opinion, Kai Kupferschmidt, a science journalist, argues that we can fight monkeypox without hysteria or homophobia.

Like many other airports this summer, Heathrow in London has been troubled by long lines.Henry Nicholls/Reuters

The new rules of travel: It’s all on you

This summer — as in the past few summers — travel looks different. Many of the virus restrictions that protected travelers in the past have been removed. Even the most closed-off destinations like New Zealand are throwing their borders open, and many countries, including the U.S., have dropped testing requirements to enter.

“What this means is that travel feels more like it used to,” said my colleague Heather Murphy, who covers travel. “It also means that more of the risk and ethic calculations involved in deciding whether or not to test or wear a mask are back on the individual traveler.”

I caught up with Heather for more.

What does travel look like now?

Travel has looked glorious, with many people splurging on trips that they hadn’t been able to pull off earlier in the pandemic. Travel has also looked miserable, with tons of flight delays, record cancellations in some airports, infuriatingly poor communication from many airlines, ridiculous gas prices and rampant misinterpretation of working-from-pretty-place as vacation.

Staffing shortages are definitely contributing to air travel issues. But also, some airlines have been unrealistic about schedules and slow to pay attention to burned-out employees’ demands for more pay and better working conditions.

What should we keep in mind?

There’s a decent chance that someone you’ll encounter during your travels will be contagious. So, ask yourself two questions before you depart: Who is the most vulnerable person you’re likely to interact with within two weeks of returning from your trip? And what are all the scenarios where testing positive soon after you return could wreak havoc on your life? Then adjust accordingly. Maybe that means you change nothing. Maybe that means that you ask everyone staying in a beach house together to test.

What is your advice for travelers this summer?

Fly direct if you can, carry on essentials in case your bag is delayed and consider using a travel agent if you can afford it.

Beyond that, even if you’re too broke or overwhelmed to plan the ideal trip, try to go somewhere you’ve never been before for at least two nights. Spend some time in nature even if you’re not outdoorsy. Talk to a stranger even if you’re not an extrovert. My observation is that a lot of people are mentally struggling right now. Years of working from home, obliterated routines and exhausting daily risk assessments have taken their toll. I love how even a short trip can help reset us and extract us from the pandemic blur.

Your summer travel horror stories

We recently asked readers for their stories of traveling during this time of fewer virus restrictions. Thanks to everyone who wrote in.

“In May, my stepdaughter and I took a fantastic 11-day cruise ending in Venice, Italy. I tested positive for Covid at disembarkation. I had very minor cold symptoms. I was transported (along with 25 others) four hours away to Florence, where we were installed in an a disgusting, moldy hotel and fed garbage for a minimum of seven days. We were told if we left our rooms, the police would be called. I was fortunate to test negative on Day 7, but some others were not. I had to spend $1,600 on my flight home and was invoiced $1,400 for the hotel.” — Victoria Haviland, Appleton, Wis.

“I flew from Orlando to Anchorage in July. In the premium lounge, I watched a father administer Covid tests to his two young sons. I heard the father discussing with someone on the phone that if the boys tested positive, they would stay in the basement — but they were definitely getting on the plane. Wow.” — Gail Scott, Miami

“My nightmare is that, once again, I did not travel. This is the third year in a row that I have missed my beloved Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. But what’s the point of going through the travel nightmares only to sit with strangers in a dark theater days on end, sometimes twice in one day, and risk getting the Covid infection? I love theater, and the Shaw Festival is among the best. At 75, I’m not sure how many more years I can make that 1,000-mile trip.” — Barbara Sloan, Conway, S.C.

What else we’re following

A new study found that subtle virus mutations in New York City’s wastewater appeared alongside surges in severe cases, suggesting that these cryptic variants could be driving up hospitalizations and deaths undetected, Gothamist reports. The Atlantic reports that as the coronavirus mutates, it’s getting better at dodging one of the immune system’s best defenses. Outdoor dining sheds in New York — a pandemic innovation — are under attack again from opponents who want to kill the program in court. The pandemic has led to a rise in car ownership in New York City, which has brought an increase of rats nesting under car hoods.

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

Thanks for reading. I’ll be back Monday — Jonathan

Email your thoughts to coronavirusbriefing@nytimes.com.

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August 8, 2022

An informed guide to the pandemic, with the latest developments and expert advice about prevention and treatment.

The New York Times

By Jonathan Wolfe

Pfizer began trials of an updated vaccine targeting Omicron subvariants, The Financial Times reports. Hainan, an island province in China, has locked down many areas as it experiences its worst Covid outbreak, NBC News reports. Covid became the third-most common cause of death in Australia this year, The Guardian reports. Find the latest updates here, and check out our maps and vaccine tracker.

Democrats scaled back the legislation, which appeared dead just weeks ago, and rebranded it as the Inflation Reduction Act.Tom Brenner for The New York Times

A health care bill, minus Covid

On Sunday, after months of painful negotiations, Senate Democrats muscled through a $370 billion climate, tax and health care package.

The measure passed on a party-line vote of 51 to 50, with all Republicans opposed and Vice President Kamala Harris breaking the tie. The House plans to approve the measure on Friday and then send it to President Biden for his signature.

While much of the focus has been on its climate provisions, the bill also contains significant health care items, which come as the country is trying to move on — as best it can — from the virus. Should the package become law, as expected, it would be the largest expansion of federal health policy since the passage of the Affordable Care Act.

“The health care provisions are a very big deal,” said my colleague Sheryl Gay Stolberg, who covers health policy. “It’s making investments in the nation’s health.”

The pandemic added a significant element of risk to the “vote-a-rama” session that the Senate needed to pass the bill, as all 100 senators, many of them octogenarians, gathered for hours to cast votes in a confined indoor space.

“With the way Covid numbers are now, it’s likely one of those individuals could have Covid,” said Kristen Coleman, an assistant research professor at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Health. She noted that the event created the perfect conditions for a superspreader event.

But a Covid bill this is not. The legislation does not significantly address the pandemic, its aftereffects or any future outbreaks.

“What would help the pandemic would be if Congress would approve more funding for vaccines and treatments for both Covid and monkeypox,” Sheryl said. “This is not a solution to that.”

The legislation would expand health care access, which could help the country’s ability to respond to health crises in the future. But its narrow passage — and the lack of any substantial Covid measures — also underscores the nation’s political divide.

“That divide has a lot to do with how Democrats and Republicans view the responsibilities of government and its relationship to industry,” Sheryl said.

In a way, the bill is a reflection of where we are as a society, she added. “We are still deeply divided over politics and especially over what the role of government should play in our lives,” she said. “Those divisions stretch back long before the Covid pandemic — they’re fundamental.”

More on the bill:

Here’s a breakdown of what’s in the bill. Here’s how the plan shrank from the transformational, cradle-to-grave social safety net that Biden had pitched in the past.

President Biden, having left isolation on Sunday, surveyed the devastation from recent flooding in Kentucky today.Kenny Holston for The New York Times

Biden emerges from isolation — again

After a rebound case of Covid-19 last month, President Biden tested negative for the coronavirus — twice — and left isolation.

He traveled to Rehoboth Beach in Delaware over the weekend, the first time the president had left the White House in 18 days.

“I’m feeling good,” he told reporters on Sunday morning.

Biden originally tested positive for the coronavirus on July 21 and experienced a sore throat, runny nose, cough, body aches and fatigue. After five days of isolation and a regimen of the antiviral treatment Paxlovid, he tested negative and returned to the Oval Office, only to test positive again several days later and go back into isolation.

Rebounds with Paxlovid are thought to be rare, but high-profile cases have led some to question whether it might be more common. The F.D.A. is currently investigating reports of viral rebound after Paxlovid treatment. If you experience such a rebound, you can report it to Pfizer’s portal.

President Biden’s weekend beach trip did not last long. Today he arrived in Kentucky to examine flood damage. He is scheduled to hold Rose Garden ceremonies on Tuesday and Wednesday to sign legislation investing in the domestic semiconductor industry and expanding medical care‌ ‌for veterans ‌exposed to toxic substances.

How are you feeling about back-to-school?

As summer begins to wind down, many families across the U.S. are preparing for a new school year. Some students have already returned to class.

This year, after months of debate over virus restrictions, many school districts across the country have lifted Covid measures, and classrooms in 2022 will look like something approaching normal this year.

So we’re asking parents: How are you feeling about schools this year? How has your outlook changed since the last few pandemic school years? We’d love to hear your thoughts. You can send them to us here. We may use your response in an upcoming newsletter.

What else we’re following

Tibet, an autonomous region of China, is imposing new restrictions as virus cases appear, Reuters reports.

Hong Kong is shortening its hotel quarantine period for all arrivals from seven days to three, The Hong Kong Free Press reports. The Washington Post explores how the pandemic economy has led to soaring costs in home building. In Opinion, a contributing writer argues that your pandemic puppy was not a mistake.

What you’re doing

I am not coping, only enduring. My husband of 55 years died in a nursing home from dementia complicated by a pneumonia in April 2020. I’m quite sure it was Covid, because the nursing home reported 20 Covid deaths that month. But test kits were in short supply, and, so far as I know, he was never tested. He was buried with only attending clergy to say the Christian prayers. Even as his spouse, I could not attend his burial. The cemetery offered to send me a copy of the recorded service. I said no. I couldn’t bear to watch it, but couldn’t bear to delete it. I comforted myself that at least he had a respectful burial unlike many others. — Maureen Matkovich, Montgomery County, Md.

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

Thanks for reading. I’ll be back Wednesday — Jonathan

Brent Lewis compiled photos for this briefing.

Email your thoughts to coronavirusbriefing@nytimes.com.

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‘I didn’t really learn anything’: COVID grads face college

Angel Hope looked at the math test and felt lost. He had just graduated near the top of his high school class, winning scholarships from prestigious colleges. But on this test — a University of Wisconsin exam that measures what new students learned in high school — all he could do was guess.

https://apnews.com/article/covid-science-health-race-and-ethnicity-milwaukee-5ab5394b2513e7136b9b854355770a1a?

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August 10, 2022

An informed guide to the pandemic, with the latest developments and expert advice about prevention and treatment.

The New York Times

By Jonathan Wolfe

China is racing to control an outbreak in the important tourism hubs of Tibet and Hainan, The Guardian reports. The E.U. drug regulator began reviewing Pfizer’s updated vaccines for the more contagious Omicron variants, Reuters reports. Stacey Abrams temporarily stepped away from the campaign trail after testing positive for the coronavirus. Find the latest updates here, and check out our maps and vaccine tracker.

How will school look this year?Ilana Panich-Linsman for The New York Times

Back-to-school outlook

It’s back-to-school time across the country, and this year, things look, well, normal.

Many school districts across the U.S. have lifted mask mandates, vaccine requirements and other Covid measures. Classrooms in 2022 will probably look more prepandemic than at any point during the last two years, even as more contagious variants continue to circulate throughout the country.

For a look at the school year, I spoke to three of my colleagues: Sarah Mervosh covers education, Jessica Grose writes the On Parenting newsletter and Apoorva Mandavilli covers infectious disease and global health.

What does back-to-school look like this year?

Sarah: There is a real urgency around getting school back to normal. Very few school districts are requiring masks — fewer than 3 percent among the top 500 school districts in the country, according to data from Burbio.

This is a reflection of the state of the pandemic and the political moment. The risk of serious illness in children is low, the vast majority of American children have had Covid at least once and vaccines for children are available for parents who choose them. At the same time, research is showing that the pandemic and remote learning had profound effects on children’s learning and emotional well-being, so there seems to be a real recognition, even more so than last year, that getting school back to normal is a priority.

What about vaccine mandates?

Sarah: There is little push to make Covid vaccines mandatory for students, in part because there is not wide support among parents. Washington, D.C., is one of the few places we’ve seen that has gone through with a requirement for older students to get vaccinated. But in most places, students will not be required to be vaccinated against Covid-19.

How are kids doing academically?

Sarah: Most students are back to learning at a normal pace. But they have not caught up. This is the case for students of all backgrounds. But we also know that the pandemic’s disruptions were not shared equally and that remote learning widened existing disparities in education. Low-income students and Black and Hispanic students were more likely to spend more time learning remotely and will need support to help make up that extra ground. Millions of dollars of federal money are being invested to try to catch kids up.

What are the other ripple effects from the pandemic?

Sarah: Students experienced huge disruptions and traumas during the pandemic, and mental health continues to be a big issue. A lot of school districts have hired extra counselors with their federal money.

Some educators are also feeling the fallout from the intense political focus on schools. During the pandemic, school board meetings became battlegrounds for fights over whether schools should be open or closed, masks vs. no masks, often falling along party lines. Now, we are seeing this more with debates over curriculum and the teaching of race and gender in schools.

How are parents feeling?

Jessica: There are large swaths of the country where, for a long time, the pandemic has been over. Obviously, it’s not over, but schools have been very much back to “normal.” In major cities where there are have been a lot of Covid restrictions, I would say, it’s idiosyncratic. But even there, I think the overarching feeling is it’s a desire to get back to some version of normal.

I think a lot of folks are feeling like their kids have just missed out on so much, and it’s been draining for their mental health and for their happiness. From my reporting, the top Covid issue among a lot of parents is no longer sickness from the virus, it’s the social and emotional issues their kids are having.

What’s the latest on transmission in schools?

Apoorva: What we know about transmission in schools is still what we knew before, which is that children can and do spread the virus, even if it is less often than adults. So it’s still important for parents to keep their children at home if they show any symptoms of being ill or have tested positive for the virus.

Ventilation in schools is going to be even more important this fall, simply because the variants that are circulating are more contagious. But, in general, the precautions remain the same: Mask when cases go up and whenever possible, test if you see symptoms and keep your child at home if they’re infected. If your child is at particular risk, you may still want to consider having them continue to wear a mask.

What should parents know about monkeypox?

Apoorva: Most children are not at risk of monkeypox. So far, 99 percent of the people who have had monkeypox are men who have sex with men. So I would urge parents to be aware, but to not panic. We don’t know a ton about transmission of the virus beyond the fact that it spreads by very close contact. In theory, kids sometimes have very close contact, especially younger children. But, again, I don’t think that we’re seeing the kind of cases in children that should cause parents to worry. At least not yet.

As a parent, how are you feeling about this year?

Jessica: The best thing I can do for my kids is make sure they’re vaccinated, so my kids are. When the mask mandate dropped here in New York City, I left it up to them. My little one, who basically had no memory of school without the pandemic, was really excited to not wear a mask. And I shared that excitement with her. When you’re learning to read, and you’re just learning how to socialize, a mask can be a real hindrance.

Apoorva: In general, I’m less worried than I used to be, because my kids are vaccinated, boosted and have had Covid once. But if we start to hear of cases in school again, I will ask them to start wearing masks again.

How you’re feeling

We asked readers how they’re feeling at the start of this school year. Thanks to everyone who shared their feelings with us.

“I can’t wait for my son to be in school, with its firm schedules and supportive staff. When you’re the parent of a special-needs kid, you are aware of your inadequacy when you’re up against the big stuff. People are trained to do it better. My kid is better when he is in school every day. Last year was his first year in this school, and he was hesitant to even enter the building the first week. This year, he’s excited to see his buddies again; he’s told us he’ll run right in.” — Molly Bloom, New York. N.Y.

“I feel weary. Gone is the typical enthusiasm for the start of the year for myself and my son. The last few years have been hard on him, and me. He doesn’t like school anymore, and he’s only in second grade.” — Jenn, Raleigh, N.C.

“I’m a teacher. It’s great to be back to normal, and I’m hopeful this year will be as normal as any prepandemic year. That being said, if a virus outbreak occurs, I hope that my school’s parents and administration will recognize the need to return to safety protocols. Otherwise, I’m afraid more teachers will leave the profession and make the job intolerable for those who remain.” — Lauren Upadhyay, New York, N.Y.

“I’m hoping my children will be in school consistently this year. The uncertainty of last-minute class and school closures kept my life on hold. Every night, they hoped to have Covid so they wouldn’t have to go to school, and I hoped they wouldn’t. Without the structure and routine of daily school, my kids missed out on a lot, both academically and emotionally. I’m dreading the end of summer; I will miss all the fun late nights and morning lie-ins — those were the best parts of Covid.” — Leora Lambert, Ra’anana, Israel

“I’m a middle school principal and a mother to two high school sons. For this upcoming school year, I wish for schools to return to being a place of unity and community instead of divisiveness and suspicion. Our whole nation could benefit from assuming schools and educators have good intentions. And, if there’s anything we can consistently expect from youth, it’s optimism for the future and a drive to make things better for future generations.” — Gennifre Hartman, Bozeman, Mont.

What else we’re following

With more than six million dead, Covid memorials have evolved along the way. National Geographic looks at what we know about Covid toes. How do you manage Omicron BA.5 symptoms, including a sore throat? In Opinion, David Quammen, a contributing science writer, asks whether humans and human ingenuity can adapt faster than the virus.

Thanks for reading. I’ll be back Friday — Jonathan

Email your thoughts to coronavirusbriefing@nytimes.com.

[phkrause]

August 12, 2022

An informed guide to the pandemic, with the latest developments and expert advice about prevention and treatment.

The New York Times

By Jonathan Wolfe

People exposed to Covid may need to take as many as three at-home tests, the F.D.A. said. North Korea said its Covid outbreak was over. Polio has been detected in sewage around New York City, suggesting it is circulating in the area, health officials said. Find the latest updates here, and check out our maps and vaccine tracker.

Here to stay

Before we dive in today, I want to take a moment to mention some upcoming changes to the Coronavirus Briefing newsletter.

The story of the pandemic is shifting, again. Even as more contagious variants circulate, the United States, and much of the world, is trying more than ever to accept that the virus is “here to stay,” as the C.D.C. described it this week.

The aftereffects of the coronavirus on the economy, education and work are also coming into sharper relief, and scientists are making progress in better understanding Covid and its effects on our bodies.

At the same time, new threats to our health are emerging: The global monkeypox outbreak is rapidly expanding, and polio has been found in wastewater in New York City and London.

To reflect these story lines, next week we will broaden the focus of this newsletter under a new name: the Virus Briefing. We will continue our expansive coverage of the coronavirus, but will also keep close tabs on other viral threats and health news.

On Mondays and Fridays, we’ll send you a short breakdown of news you need to know. On Wednesdays, I’ll bring you in-depth coverage of the latest developments, including interviews with experts and Times reporters to help make sense of the week’s news.

We’ll also be continuing the conversation with you, regularly asking for you to weigh in on the news and tell us your stories. Your thoughts over these last two and a half years have been an invaluable window into the wide-ranging effects of the virus, and I look forward to hearing more from you as we expand our focus and move through the next phase of the pandemic.

— Jonathan

People who are exposed to the virus no longer need to quarantine at home, regardless of their vaccination status.Jim Wilson/The New York Times

New C.D.C. guidelines

The C.D.C. loosened Covid guidelines yesterday, shifting much of the responsibility for risk reduction from institutions to individuals.

“We know that Covid-19 is here to stay,” Greta Massetti, a C.D.C. epidemiologist, said at a news briefing. “High levels of population immunity due to vaccination and previous infection, and the many tools that we have available to protect people from severe illness and death, have put us in a different place.”

Here’s what to know about the changes.

People who are exposed to the virus no longer need to quarantine at home, regardless of their vaccination status, although they should wear a mask for 10 days and get tested for the virus on Day 5.

People who test positive for the virus should still isolate at home for at least five days. Those who had moderate or severe illness, or are immunocompromised, should isolate through Day 10.

Unvaccinated students who are exposed to the virus will no longer need to test frequently in order to remain in the classroom, an approach known as “test to stay.”

The C.D.C. no longer recommends that people stay six feet from others. Instead, it notes that avoiding crowded areas and maintaining a distance from others are strategies that people may want to consider in order to reduce their risk.

Contact tracing and routine surveillance testing of people without symptoms are no longer recommended in most settings.

The guidelines around masks — which recommend that people wear them indoors in places where community Covid levels are high — have not changed.

Many health experts praised the new guidelines as representing a pragmatic approach to living with the virus in the longer term. But the pandemic has not ended, experts noted, and newly stringent measures may be needed in the event of new variants or future surges.

Derek Abella

Long Covid and mental health

A few days ago, we came across a recent piece of journalism that gave us pause.

Anne Helen Petersen, in her Culture Study newsletter, spoke to a communications professor who noticed a startling trend of solace and despair in conversations among long Covid sufferers in internet communities. While many of the symptoms of long Covid are well known at this point — exhaustion, shortness of breath, mental fog — Anne’s conversation got us thinking about the hidden effects that long Covid can have on our mental well-being.

To learn more, I turned to my colleague Pam Belluck, who covers long Covid.

What do we know about mental health and long Covid?

There are two correlations that people are seeing. Long Covid is a very complex constellation of as many as 200 symptoms, and among those, depression and anxiety tend to be reported fairly often.

One large study analyzed electronic records of more than 150,000 Covid patients and compared them with people who had not gotten Covid. None of the Covid patients in the study had been treated for mental health conditions in the two years before getting the coronavirus, which allowed the researchers to focus on issues the patients developed after getting Covid.

They found that people who had Covid were 39 percent more likely to be diagnosed with depression and 35 percent more likely to be diagnosed with anxiety in the year after they had recovered from their initial Covid infection than people who didn’t have Covid in that same period.

What’s the other correlation?

The other thing being reported is that people who have previously been diagnosed with depression or anxiety seem to be at somewhat greater risk for developing long Covid. Post-Covid clinics are finding that when they ask patients about their previous medical history, a number of those patients report having experienced depression or anxiety in the past.

For example, a study of the first 100 patients that showed up at a Covid neurological clinic run by Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago found that 42 percent of those people reported that they previously had depression or anxiety. Depression and anxiety are very common in American society, so that’s not necessarily surprising, but it does seem to be a bit more common in people who develop long Covid, and doctors don’t really know why.

Also, for people who already had depression or anxiety, developing long Covid can make their mental health symptoms worse, according to therapists and others who are treating those patients.

Why are people with long Covid experiencing mental health issues?

Nobody knows for sure. The best insights suggest that there are probably a number of factors contributing to this.

There have been several studies looking at the possible effects of Covid on the brain. Researchers still have a lot more questions there than answers, but there’s some work that has suggested that the same inflammatory reaction and immune response that Covid causes in the rest of the body can also affect the brain.

The evidence doesn’t really show that the virus itself often penetrates the brain, but studies have found that the inflammatory reaction that Covid causes throughout the body also causes inflammation in the brain. That could be contributing to brain fog and cognitive issues, which we’ve heard a lot about, and it could also be contributing to mood issues and mental health issues. For example, one expert I’ve talked with said that inflammation in the brain can disrupt the ability to make serotonin, which plays a role in mood regulation and in sleep.

What are other factors that could explain this?

Separate from the brain changes that might be occurring, just being ill may be having an effect. If you have long Covid symptoms, like fatigue or brain fog or respiratory difficulties, it’s not surprising that those issues are going to affect your mental health as well. If you’re not able to function the way that you used to function — you’re not able to get back to work, to exercise, to be active and engaged with your family and friends — it makes sense that those struggles can make people anxious and depressed.

And it becomes kind of a vicious circle. You’re feeling fatigued. That’s fueling depression. You might be feeling stressed about your depression. That stress may fuel some anxiety. So it’s a very integrated picture with various symptoms overlapping and connecting. I think it’s helpful for people, and society at large, to try to understand how the physical and brain-related symptoms can occur together and to recognize that people should not be stigmatized for having Covid-related mental health issues.

How can people help themselves?

Mental health issues in long Covid are increasingly being recognized, and a lot of the medical recommendations are the same for long Covid in general. Reach out for help. You may want to seek the same types of counseling or therapy or treatment that is provided to people experiencing non-Covid-related mental health issues. You may want to seek recommendations from providers who are specifically treating long Covid patients. Some people may find support groups helpful. There are several patient-led organizations that provide great lists of resources, some of them drawing on the experience of patients who have other similar postviral illnesses like myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome.

And some people find that their mental health symptoms and other long Covid issues ease over time. For example, if you’re getting some of your energy back, you’re able to go back to work, you’re able to exercise, if you’re able to get some of your life back, then it stands to reason that your mental health might improve too.

What else we’re following

Global deaths from the coronavirus dropped 9 percent last week, but new cases remained stable, The Guardian reports. Rates of preeclampsia, a life-threatening pregnancy complication, jumped during the pandemic, The New Yorker reports. Men and women with monkeypox are sharing their stories and photos on social media, to fight stigma and demand more action. New York magazine spoke with Dr. Ashish Jha, President Biden’s Covid czar, about vaccines and the next phase of the pandemic. When will the pandemic end? Three experts weighed in on questions posed by Times readers. Did the pandemic deepen relationships in your life? If so, The Times wants to hear about it.

Thanks for reading. I’ll be back Wednesday — Jonathan

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August 15, 2022

Welcome to the first edition of the Virus Briefing.

As we told you last week, we’re making some changes: Every Monday and Friday, this newsletter will provide updates on the coronavirus pandemic and other virus news. On Wednesdays, Jonathan Wolfe will be back with in-depth coverage, including interviews with experts and Times reporters to help you make sense of the week’s news.

If you’re not interested in receiving the Virus Briefing, you can manage your email preferences here.

TOP NEWS

Lea Suzuki/San Francisco Chronicle, via Associated Press ‘Frustration and Stress’: State Officials Fault Rollout of Monkeypox Vaccine Federal officials are not relying on an established system to distribute the vaccine, slowing immunizations and burdening local health departments, critics say. By Apoorva Mandavilli

Daniel Leal/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images U.K. Approves Covid Booster Vaccine That Targets Two Variants Britain is the first country to approve the Moderna-made vaccine, which generated a strong immune response against both the original virus and the Omicron variant. By Jenny Gross

Carly Zavala for The New York Times The Pandemic Wasn’t Supposed to Hurt New York Transit This Much New Yorkers fear a repeat of past service cuts as the Metropolitan Transportation Authority faces a $2.5 billion budget deficit in 2025. By Ana Ley

Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters Japan Bounces Back to Economic Growth as Coronavirus Fears Recede A public weary of virus precautions pushed up consumption of goods and services, but the longer-term picture is uncertain as the global economy weakens. By Ben Dooley and Hisako Ueno

What else we’re following

Ikea shoppers in Shanghai panicked as health authorities tried to lock down the store because of a possible Covid exposure, Bloomberg reported. Albert Bourla, the chief executive of Pfizer, tested positive for Covid-19 after receiving four doses of his company’s vaccine, and is experiencing mild symptoms, CNN reports. An Indian pharmaceutical company is seeking approval for an intranasal Covid vaccine after encouraging clinical trials, the Business Standard reports. Body image disorders among men got worse during the pandemic, The Wall Street Journal reports. A new study found that BCG, a tuberculosis vaccine, protected people from contracting Covid, the Journal reported.

Email your thoughts to virusbriefing@nytimes.com.

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August 17, 2022

Welcome to the Virus Briefing, your comprehensive guide to the latest news and expert analysis on the coronavirus pandemic and other outbreaks.

Find the latest updates here, and check out our maps and vaccine tracker.

Lessons learned

By Jonathan Wolfe

Welcome to the inaugural Wednesday edition of the Virus Briefing, previously the Coronavirus Briefing. I’m your host, and I’ll be here every week. (On Mondays and Fridays, we’ll catch you up with the latest headlines.)

Our new focus reflects the fact that the world is facing more than one outbreak: most certainly the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, but also monkeypox, as well as the resurgence of polio, of West Nile, and of other pathogens.

A few weeks ago, fresh off a Covid infection and waiting in a long line for my monkeypox vaccine, I was struck by how the U.S. seemed to be repeating its mistakes.

Friends of mine who had become infected with monkeypox were confused by guidance from the government, and were scrambling for treatment. Testing was practically nonexistent. Case records were almost certainly an undercount. The vaccine rollout was fumbled. Surveillance was uneven.

So for today’s inaugural newsletter, I wanted to understand some of the lessons that we learned from the coronavirus pandemic, as we move forward and face new threats.

Top public health officials are also trying to learn from their mistakes. Today Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the C.D.C., delivered a sweeping rebuke of her agency’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, saying it had failed to respond quickly enough and needed to be overhauled.

“For 75 years, C.D.C. and public health have been preparing for Covid-19, and in our big moment, our performance did not reliably meet expectations,” Dr. Walensky said, in a startling acknowledgment of the agency’s failings.

To explore other lessons from the pandemic, I reached out to more than 50 epidemiologists, and asked them for their takeaways — big and small.

The limits of science

I heard a lot of soul searching about the profession of epidemiology and its limitations, especially when it comes to communicating with the public.

(The C.D.C., in an internal review released today, concluded that its public guidance has been “confusing and overwhelming.”)

“Since the pandemic, I realized we scientists often take the understanding of science for granted,” said Yanmin Zhu, an epidemiologist and instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School. “In addition to producing scientific evidence, it is equally important for us to disseminate the scientific results to the policymakers and the public, as well as understand how science is comprehended from their perspectives.”

There was also a lot of reflection about how the perceived need for certainty affects public health messaging.

“When they — we — get something wrong, we need to do our best to correct the record,” said Noelle Cocoros, a research scientist at the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute.

Many epidemiologists said they learned a hard lesson about how people would respond to steps taken by the government — even if those actions benefit their health, and the health of their communities.

“The lesson that comes to the top of mind is the combination of misinformation and politicization of public health interventions,” said Claire Leiser, a Ph.D. student in the department of epidemiology at the University of Washington. “I was surprised by the extreme resistance to masking and vaccinations. Now I appreciate the impact of the political climate on public health in a way that I didn’t before the Covid-19 pandemic.”

New and creative ways to inform and nudge the public will be critical to our ability to respond to future pandemics, many experts argued.

A better response

“The greatest lesson I learned was that we Americans must stop privileging our own humanity over Africans,” said Ramya Kumar, a Ph.D. student in the department of epidemiology at the University of Washington. “It is South Africa’s highly developed virology surveillance systems that alerted the world to new Covid-19 variants — only to be met with racist cartoons and travel bans.”

“The world has placed Africans at the back of the line to receive vaccines, or in the case of H.I.V., antiretroviral treatment,” Kumar added. “Isolated health solutions that are designed to maximally benefit the U.S. and other high-income countries do not work and never will.”

Another common refrain recognized the fragility of the systems we have in place to protect us from the next outbreak.

“Public health infrastructure has been decimated,” said Bill Miller, a professor of epidemiology at The Ohio State University College of Public Health. “We were woefully unprepared for a pandemic. We remain so. State and local governments have cut public health budgets for decades.”

“We need to infuse more thinking and creativity into the health departments,” he added. “But how to do this when many state governments are taking away health department authority, rather than expanding it, is a particularly difficult question.”

There were also plenty of personal takeaways too.

“I learned that, despite having a Ph.D. in epidemiology, I cannot convince my brothers to get vaccinated,” said Jennifer Yourkavitch, an epidemiologist and program director at Results for Development, a health and education nonprofit organization. “I learned that parents will not live forever.”

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Sewage into gold

With so many viruses to worry about, how can we possibly keep track of them all?

One route: The toilet. My colleagues Aliza Aufrichtig and Emily Anthes reported that a scrappy team of New York City scientists, public health experts and plumbers is embracing wastewater surveillance as the future of disease tracking.

(Their eye-grabbing story features photographs and video by Jonah Markowitz.)

A CUNY researcher removed a wastewater sample from the main plumbing line leaving Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, New York.Jonah Markowitz for The New York Times

People who are infected with the coronavirus and other diseases shed the pathogen in their stool. By measuring and sequencing the viral material present in sewage, scientists can determine whether or not cases are rising in a particular area and which variants are circulating.

Members of the team that operates the Pandemic Response Lab in Long Island City.Jonah Markowitz for The New York Times

People excrete viruses even if they never seek testing or treatment. So wastewater surveillance has become a critical tool for keeping tabs on outbreaks. The Sewer Coronavirus Alert Network has already begun tracking the monkeypox virus in wastewater. And last week, New York City officials announced that polio had been detected in the city’s sewage.

What else we’re following

Coronavirus:

The Marshall Islands in the Pacific, which were almost completely spared from the pandemic, are confronting an outbreak. Jill Biden tested positive for the coronavirus on Monday. U.S. prosecutors are struggle to catch up to a tidal wave of pandemic fraud. Time magazine reports that many schools have not updated their ventilation systems, which help prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

Polio:

Public health officials have a clear message for parents worried about the polio found in wastewater in New York City: If your children are vaccinated, they are safe. Did you text your mom recently asking if you had been vaccinated against polio? So did we.

Monkeypox:

In Europe, unequal vaccine access is giving some people coronavirus flashbacks. A possible case of a person passing monkeypox to their dog was reported in France, The Washington Post reports.

Other virus news:

The West Nile virus had been detected in two New York City residents, as well as in a “record number” of infected mosquitoes throughout the city. Seven years after the Zika epidemic began, families in Brazil are struggling to care for children with the aftereffects of the virus. A new Langya virus was detected in dozens of people in eastern China, but the pathogen does not spread easily among people, and is not lethal, Nature reports.

Your pandemic lessons

I recently asked readers for lessons they will apply to future pandemics, things they would have done differently, and advice they have for future generations. More than 600 of you responded. Thanks to everyone who wrote in.

“Trust in science. Please, I beg you, trust in science, and do not under any circumstances discount what people who have spent their entire lives learning how to fight these diseases have to say. This is not political, diseases never will be, so please have a grain of common sense and decency; protect yourself, and by extension those around you.” — William Roberts, Powder Springs, Ga.

“People you love are going to suffer mental illness under these awful circumstances. They will let you down in spectacular ways, but you have to forgive them or you lose twice.” — Lenna Pierce, Brooklyn, N.Y.

“I wouldn’t have tried as hard to convince friends and family to comply with public health measures. They were never going to listen to anything I had to say; all I accomplished was losing relationships.” — Jess, Pittsburgh, Pa.

“I would not have wiped down groceries … we were so ignorant of this virus back then.” — Julie Schumann, Quad Cities, Ill.

“Listen to public health officials. Elevate them and do not make a pandemic a political issue. A pandemic is an apolitical animal. Be humble and submit to public health measures. Do not be a vector. Isolate and enjoy your solitude.” — Usha Srinivasan, Bel Air, Md.

Thanks for reading. I’ll be back next Wednesday — Jonathan

Email your thoughts to virusbriefing@nytimes.com.

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August 19, 2022

Here’s your update on the coronavirus pandemic and other virus news.

TOP NEWS

Andrew Seng for The New York Times A Repeat of Covid: Data Show Racial Disparities in Monkeypox Response New York City has released new data showing that Black men have received far fewer monkeypox vaccines than their share of the at-risk population. By Sharon Otterman, Joseph Goldstein and Liam Stack

Rebecca Marshall for The New York Times Unequal Access to Monkeypox Shots Gives Europe Pandemic Flashbacks After Covid disparities sent people across borders in search of vaccines, the European Union tried to create a level playing field. But it’s still far from complete. By Monika Pronczuk and Emma Bubola

Joe Raedle/Getty Images Monkeypox Vaccine Plan Prods Cities and States to Adopt New Dosing Regimen The Biden administration will distribute monkeypox vaccine to jurisdictions that adopt a new protocol using one-fifth the regular dose. Critics called the plan “unscientific.” By Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Sharon Otterman and Apoorva Mandavilli

CORONAVIRUS NEWS

Chang W. Lee/The New York Times Covid and N.Y.C. Schools: Back to Class, and Finally Back to Normal? The city Education Department has ended most Covid restrictions for students, although teachers still have to be vaccinated. By Lola Fadulu

Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Trouble in Paradise: Chinese Tourists Left Stranded During Lockdowns Tens of thousands of domestic travelers were stuck at their summer vacation destinations after local outbreaks forced them into quarantine. By Daisuke Wakabayashi

Hannah Beier for The New York Times Guest Essay The Abysmal Covid Vaccination Rate for Toddlers Speaks Volumes Trust needs to be re-established between Americans and public health bodies. By Aaron E. Carroll

Kenny Holston for The New York Times Facebook and Instagram Remove Robert Kennedy Jr.’s Nonprofit for Misinformation The social networking company said that Children’s Health Defense, a group led by Mr. Kennedy, an anti-vaccine activist, had “repeatedly” violated its guidelines by spreading medical misinformation. By Sheera Frenkel

What else we’re following

Covid

Health workers in a Chinese city are testing freshly caught seafood for Covid, CNN reported.

Monkeypox

As the school year inches closer, teachers in New York City are concerned about the lack of official guidance on monkeypox, Curbed reported. Scientists worry that monkeypox could spread to wild animals, which would make the disease much harder to eradicate, The Los Angeles Times reported.

H5N1

A new strain of avian flu is decimating wild birds, The Financial Times reported.

Email your thoughts to virusbriefing@nytimes.com.

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August 22, 2022

Here’s your update on the coronavirus pandemic and other virus news.

By Jonathan Wolfe

How is monkeypox affecting you?

For months, this newsletter has been keeping an eye on the monkeypox outbreak and the spotty attempt to control the virus in the U.S.

For some, monkeypox may seem like a distant threat: The virus tends to be seen as something that only affects the gay and bisexual communities. In reality, it’s also infecting people in the wider population — especially in New York, Texas, California, Florida, Oregon — and has even infected children in some cases.

We’ve been following the outbreak for months now, and we want to know how you’re dealing with it.

So we’re asking readers: How is the monkeypox outbreak affecting you? Are you making any changes? We’re also asking readers for their experiences in trying to get vaccinated.

If you’d like to tell us your story, you can fill out this form here. We’d love to hear about your experience and may use it in an upcoming Virus Briefing newsletter.

Now on to the news …

TOP NEWS

Jason Andrew for The New York Times Fauci Says He Will Step Down in December to Pursue His ‘Next Chapter’ Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, who has advised seven presidents and spent more than half a century at the National Institutes of Health, will leave government service by the end of the year. By Sheryl Gay Stolberg

Kenny Holston for The New York Times Facebook and Instagram Remove Robert Kennedy Jr.’s Nonprofit for Misinformation The social networking company said that Children’s Health Defense, a group led by Mr. Kennedy, an anti-vaccine activist, had “repeatedly” violated its guidelines by spreading medical misinformation. By Sheera Frenkel

Aaron Favila/Associated Press Philippines Returns to School, Ending One of World’s Longest Shutdowns More than two years after Covid emptied their classrooms, students are resuming in-person learning. The lost time will be hard to make up. By Jason Gutierrez

Victor J. Blue for The New York Times Guest Essay Even a Single Case of Polio Is a Threat Circulating poliovirus that can cause paralysis is now in New York. The disease is an imminent threat. By Mary T. Bassett

MORE NEWS

Jill Biden Leaves Isolation After Testing Negative for the Coronavirus The first lady had been isolating in South Carolina while her family extended a summer vacation in Delaware. By Zach Montague

How Quitting a Job Changed My Personal Finances We asked people who quit their jobs during the “Great Resignation” what sort of financial challenges it brought. This is what they told us. By Anna P. Kambhampaty

Live Performance Is Back. But Audiences Have Been Slow to Return. Attendance lagged in the comeback season, as the challenges posed by the coronavirus persisted. Presenters hope it was just a blip. By Michael Paulson and Javier C. Hernández

What else we’re following

Coronavirus:

Pfizer and BioNTech asked the F.D.A. to approve its vaccine devised to fight the Omicron subvariants, NPR reports. The Washington Post reports that Iran ignored warnings from experts when approving its homegrown Covid vaccine. The journal Nature answered questions about which boosters to take and when. The Wall Street Journal explained how mutations made the coronavirus better at infecting us.

Polio:

Polio may have been spreading in New York since April, according to a new C.D.C. study.

The New Yorker explored the tragedy of polio’s resurgence in New York. The Washington Post has a visual exploration of the history of polio and polio vaccines.

Monkeypox:

Britain will begin offering vaccine shots with lower doses in order to stretch supplies, ABC News reports. BuzzFeed News spoke to sex workers and sex party attendees about how they’re thinking about the outbreak.

Email your thoughts to virusbriefing@nytimes.com.