Members phkrause Posted August 25, 2022 Members Share Posted August 25, 2022 August 24, 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. A nurse administering an intradermal monkeypox vaccine in Miami this month.Joe Raedle/Getty Images The state of monkeypox By Jonathan Wolfe Something perplexing is going on with the U.S. monkeypox outbreak. If you look at the national case numbers, it looks as if the outbreak in the country may have plateaued. The U.S. is averaging about 16,000 cases a day, but over the last two weeks, average case numbers have only increased by 3 percent — a positive development. However, when we drill down into the numbers, the story becomes murkier. Many of the cases have been in New York City and California, two places where cases seem to be on the decline, which could be blurring the overall picture. Daily new monkeypox cases in New York City.New York City Health Department Daily confirmed and probable cases in California.California Department of Public Health “It’s not time to let up,” Robert Fenton, the White House coordinator for the national monkeypox response, told me in one of his first interviews in the role. “We’re still seeing growth in other states.” Even so, the emerging picture from New York and California is a welcome development and can hopefully be replicated elsewhere. The only problem is, we don’t yet know why this is happening. It might be a change in behavior. The C.D.C. published a survey on Monday of American men who have sex with men — the group most affected by the outbreak — that showed substantial changes in their sexual behavior. Roughly half of those surveyed had reduced their numbers of sexual partners and one-time sexual encounters. Public outreach may also be playing a role, and the vaccine, known as Jynneos, may be working well at preventing infection. Perhaps it’s all of the above. Hopefully we’ll have answers soon, as changes in behavior can be fleeting, especially if case levels drop to low levels again. However, if cases are stabilizing because the vaccine is having a real effect, it bodes well for our ability to contain the outbreak. But while we wait for data on how well the Jynneos vaccine is working, the rollout continues to experience hiccups. The vaccine rollout After a number of setbacks, the government settled on an intradermal delivery method, which allows the country to stretch its vaccine supplies. The approach delivers one fifth of the regular dose into the skin, instead of a full dose into the underlying fat. The data on how well the intradermal approach works against monkeypox is sparse, and some experts have called it “unscientific.” The F.D.A. relied on a single study for its authorization of the method, and health care providers are already having trouble extracting the doses and administering the shots. Fenton told me that the approach is meant to pull “up to five doses” from the vials, and the C.D.C. is providing assistance with the injections. “It’s a strategy that is increasing our ability to reach those that are at risk and is being utilized very successfully to increase the number of doses we have on hand,” he said. “We’ll continue to monitor this approach from the standpoint of success,” he added. “What we’re doing is ensuring that the training, the tools are there to make this approach successful.” Fenton also noted that the country would ramp up its vaccine supply in the coming months, having ordered roughly 5.5 million doses that should begin to arrive as early as September. As with the initial days of the Covid vaccine rollout, there are stark racial disparities in monkeypox vaccine access. In New York City, Black residents, who make up 31 percent of the at-risk population, received only 12 percent of the doses administered. In North Carolina, 70 percent of monkeypox cases are in Black men, but they have received only a quarter of all vaccine doses. “We know that there are issues with equity,” Fenton said. To address disparities among Black and Latino Americans, he said his team was working through community-based organizations and clinics, as well as “leveraging Pride events” to “bring vaccines to where they’re at.” The road ahead As for the next couple of weeks, Fenton wouldn’t theorize about how the outbreak might play out but said that “we have to plan for any potential.” “We’re in the middle of this, and it’s dynamic,” he added. “And so what we need to do is be able to move with it.” For now, Fenton said he was focused on reaching the population most at risk — men who have sex with men — but said the government would “continue to monitor who’s being affected and whether we should expand that recommended pool of individuals that maybe should get vaccinated.” “There’s a lot left to be done,” he added, “and we’re not going to let up until we fully contain and control this.” A new Covid booster rollout The Biden administration plans to offer the next generation of coronavirus booster shots to Americans 12 and older soon after Labor Day, and ahead of an expected surge this winter. Dr. Peter Marks, the top vaccine regulator for the F.D.A., told my colleagues Sharon LaFraniere and Noah Weiland that his team was close to authorizing updated doses that would target the Omicron versions of the virus. The shots we currently have were formulated to disrupt the virus that was circulating in 2020. Even though these formulations have not been tested in humans, Marks said, the agency has “extremely good” data showing that the shots are safe and will be effective. “How confident am I?” he said. “I’m extremely confident.” Some experts have argued that the review process is moving too quickly, especially since the vaccines we have now work well against severe outcomes and many Americans have immunity gained from previous infections. Other scientists said that the plan makes sense given how the virus has changed and the evidence that immunity wanes over time. Federal health officials are eager to offer the updated boosters as quickly as possible, pointing to a death toll that now averages about 450 Americans per day and could rise in the coming months as people spend more time indoors. What else we’re following Researchers are trying to develop a test that would indicate how much Covid protection a person has, and whether that person needs a booster, Stat News reports. My colleagues Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Blake Hounshell sized up Anthony Fauci’s four decades in Washington. In Opinion, Gregg Gonsalves, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health, explores how history will remember the Fauci era. An outbreak of tomato flu, a viral infection that was first detected in India, is spreading there, The Guardian reports. Your monkeypox experiences We recently asked our readers how the monkeypox outbreak had affected them. Thank you to everyone who shared their stories. “The monkeypox outbreak has been like Covid Part XVII for me. It’s been just another thing to worry about right now, and it has curtailed my social and sexual activities. Events that I once used to go to I’ve put on hold. Casual sex has pretty much stopped altogether, and I feel like I’m in this holding pattern until we at least partially get through this via vaccinations. I feel like things are getting smaller around me, and once again I’m avoiding essential contact with friends.” — Tim Averbeck, San Francisco “After taking Covid precautions while traveling this summer, I had one rendezvous that resulted in my contracting monkeypox in D.C. Benign symptoms began, which quickly escalated to extreme pain with 35-plus lesions. Prescription pain meds did nothing, and my only relief was hot showers and copious lidocaine applications. I was lucky enough to qualify for TPOXX, but it took four days for my monkeypox test results and delivery of TPOXX from the national strategic stockpile.” — Patrick, Chicago “The monkeypox outbreak is affecting me in many ways. First, I am concerned to get intimate with any other person (I am not living in a relationship and I used to enjoy summer flings). Second, even though I got my first shot, I still have no idea about the level of protection of the vaccine. There is so little data.” — Ben, Berlin “Other than being a gay man, I didn’t meet the requirements for getting a vaccine — I didn’t try to get one because others needed it more. That is, until my massage therapist texted saying he had tested positive for monkeypox. I’m two weeks past possible exposure, and most of my social events have canceled when I explained the situation. I’m regularly confronted with what I should tell people (if anything). I’m extra careful around people (there has been no skin-to-skin contact with anyone since I heard). My body seems to make pimples that I’ve never worried about. I worry about them now. So far, I’m one of the lucky ones. And yet, the emotional toll has been significant.” — Terry, Seattle “I am heterosexual but have multiple close friends in the LGBTQ+ community, including my best friend. I know all my friends are responsible and take their own precautions. I do not feel the need to ask if they are vaccinated, nor do I feel the need to get one to be safe. Heterosexual men with LGBTQ+ friends are not at high risk. This is not the same as Covid-19.” — Jeremy, Bay Area, Calif. Thanks for reading. I’ll be back Wednesday — Jonathan Email your thoughts to virusbriefing@nytimes.com. Quote phkrause By the decree enforcing the institution of the papacy in violation of the law of God, our nation will disconnect herself fully from righteousness. When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near. {5T 451.1} Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted August 27, 2022 Members Share Posted August 27, 2022 August 26, 2022 Here’s your update on the coronavirus pandemic and other virus news. TOP NEWS Bagus Indahono/EPA, via Shutterstock Moderna Sues Pfizer and BioNTech Over Covid Vaccine The lawsuit, filed Friday, claims that the companies’ Covid vaccine violated Moderna’s mRNA patents. By Jenny Gross and Rebecca Robbins Mary Altaffer/Associated Press Monkeypox Cases Are Declining in New York City and Globally Rising vaccinations rates combined with changes in sexual behavior have shifted the disease’s trajectory, health officials said. By Lola Fadulu Pete Marovich for The New York Times Jill Biden Tests Positive for Coronavirus Again in ‘Rebound’ Case Her experience mirrors that of President Biden, who was forced to return to isolation last month after his initial bout with Covid-19. By Zach Montague Pete Kiehart for The New York Times California today How Californians Are Feeling About the Start of the School Year On their minds are Covid-19, school safety and learning delays. By Soumya Karlamangla Steven Saphore/EPA, via Shutterstock The Long Tail of Covid-19 Disinformation Almost all of Australia and New Zealand’s pandemic restrictions have been lifted. Yet the protests continue. By Natasha Frost John Minchillo/Associated Press Djokovic, Who Remains Unvaccinated, Says He Will Miss U.S. Open Djokovic said he wouldn’t be able to travel to New York for the tournament that begins next week. The U.S. has travel restrictions that require foreign visitors to be vaccinated against Covid-19. By Matthew Futterman TIMES OPINION Zeynep Tufekci If You’re Suffering After Being Sick With Covid, It’s Not Just in Your Head A major new approach is needed to solve many postviral conditions. By Zeynep Tufekci What else we’re following Covid around the world North Korean officials warned of “a fever outbreak of unknown origin” near the Chinese border, Reuters reports. Residents of the Chinese city Chongqing stood in line for hours in record-breaking heat to receive mandatory Covid tests, CNN reports. Researchers in Italy say a person has had Covid, monkeypox and H.I.V. diagnosed simultaneously, Gizmodo reports. Monkeypox and other viruses The smallpox vaccine, now being used against monkeypox, contains a mysterious deactivated pox virus “whose origins have been lost, or perhaps never known at all,” Sarah Zhang reports for The Atlantic. Pfizer said its vaccine against respiratory syncytial virus (R.S.V.) is effective at preventing long-term illness in older adults, NBC reports. New monkeypox cases in Los Angeles are beginning to flatten as vaccines become available and risky sexual behavior decreases, The L.A. Times reports. Some women and children have contracted monkeypox in Washington State as the virus spreads, The Seattle Times reports. Other Covid news Up to four million Americans are out of work because of long Covid, according to a Brookings Institution report. The F.D.A. has extended the estimated shelf life of many commonly used Covid tests, Bloomberg reports. Correction: Wednesday’s newsletter misstated the number of monkeypox cases in the U.S. It is a total of about 16,000, not 16,000 a day. Email your thoughts to virusbriefing@nytimes.com. Quote phkrause By the decree enforcing the institution of the papacy in violation of the law of God, our nation will disconnect herself fully from righteousness. When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near. {5T 451.1} Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted August 30, 2022 Members Share Posted August 30, 2022 August 29, 2022 Here’s your update on the Covid-19 pandemic and other virus news. By Jonathan Wolfe Ready for your booster? A new booster campaign is just around the corner. The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, which have been updated to target the Omicron variants, will go through the final steps for approval later this week with the F.D.A. and the C.D.C. If greenlighted, these new shots could be offered as early as next week. But will Americans sign up? We’re asking readers: How are you feeling about the new shots, and are you planning on getting one? Let us know by filling out this form. We may use your response in an upcoming newsletter. TOP NEWS Aaron Nesheim for The New York Times Fall Vaccination Campaign Will Bring New Shots, Worse Access Updated Covid vaccines, expected soon after Labor Day, were designed to thwart Omicron variants. But money to distribute them has dried up. By Benjamin Mueller COVID AND MONKEYPOX KC Nwakalor for The New York Times This Is Not the Monkeypox That Doctors Thought They Knew The patients turning up at clinics often have a range of symptoms that are not typical of the infection. Some of the infected seem to have no symptoms at all. By Apoorva Mandavilli Mary Altaffer/Associated Press A Child Has Monkeypox in New York City, but the Epidemic May Be Waning Federal officials are “cautiously optimistic” as monkeypox cases decline, even as health officials announced the first pediatric case in New York City. By Joseph Goldstein and Noah Weiland National Institutes of Health, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Times Insider As Covid Guidance Evolves, So Does a Virus Briefing Jonathan Wolfe, the reporter behind the Coronavirus Briefing, now the Virus Briefing, discusses the newsletter’s shift in focus. By Emmett Lindner Square Feet Trying to Keep Americans Camping With Treehouses and Yurts Interest in camping soared in the pandemic, and now, as social-distancing restrictions are winding down, the sector is showing signs that it may maintain its popularity. By Seth Berkman and Mike Belleme What else we’re following Coronavirus The White House is suspending a program that sends free Covid tests to American households because of lack of funding, NPR reports. Tibet fired or punished more than 100 officers over an outbreak earlier this month, The South China Morning Post reports. NBC News explored the network of support groups for Black Americans with long Covid. The Atlantic looked at how to make the most of a fall booster shot. The Athletic reported on Covid’s impact on the performance of athletes. Monkeypox The U.S. government signed an $11 million deal with a Michigan company to help it finish manufacturing 2.5 million vaccine vials, Bloomberg reports. Polio More polio cases have been detected in upstate New York, ABC News reports. West Nile New cases have cropped up in California, Louisiana, Maryland and New Jersey. About 80 percent of cases may be asymptomatic, WWLP reports. Other virus news Scientists confirmed that a virus killing dogs in Michigan is a canine parvovirus, CBS News reports. Email your thoughts to virusbriefing@nytimes.com. Quote phkrause By the decree enforcing the institution of the papacy in violation of the law of God, our nation will disconnect herself fully from righteousness. When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near. {5T 451.1} Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted September 1, 2022 Members Share Posted September 1, 2022 August 31, 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. Matt Rourke/Associated Press New boosters are on the way By Jonathan Wolfe For the first time, we have an updated coronavirus vaccine. The Food and Drug Administration today authorized the first redesign of Covid vaccines since they were rolled out in late 2020. If all goes as expected, millions of Americans will be able to receive new booster doses targeting Omicron subvariants as early as next week. The agency cleared two options: one made by Pfizer for use in people as young as 12, and the other by Moderna, for those 18 and older. The doses can be given to those who have completed their initial shots, whether or not they have also received boosters, as long as their last shot was at least two months ago. The booster campaign comes as the U.S. is preparing for its third pandemic winter, and as it averages about 90,000 infections and 475 deaths every day. For more on the shots and the rollout, I turned to my colleague Sharon LaFraniere, an investigative reporter in the Washington bureau who has been covering the government’s response to the pandemic. How do the boosters work? The new shots are called bivalent, because one half is the original shot and one half is a reformulation designed specifically for BA.4 and BA.5, which are the subvariants of Omicron that together account for most cases in the U.S. The theory is that this combination will be more effective than the original formulation. How well do they work? Human trials are just getting going, but evidence from trials in mice indicates that this shot may be more protective against the Omicron subvariants than the original shot. Why are we relying on trials in mice? We’re in a time crunch. The virus is evolving too fast for scientists to do human trials because by the time they get results, we could have a new variant. There will be some data from human trials later this year, maybe in November or sooner, but the government wants to get going right now because most Americans have not had a Covid vaccine shot this year, and we know that the protection that the vaccines induce wanes over time. The F.D.A. is emphasizing that they are not relying simply on the data from the trials in mice. They’re looking at the totality of the evidence, which includes the results of earlier clinical trials. Before Moderna and Pfizer started testing a bivalent that targeted these subvariants, they made bivalents against Beta and Delta and the original Omicron variant and tested them in humans. The F.D.A.’s critics say that’s just not good enough, that we need more evidence that this particular bivalent will work before rolling it out nationwide. The F.D.A.’s commissioner said today that the proof will be in the pudding. In other words, they’ll have to carefully follow what happens. Are the new shots safe? There really isn’t any question that the shots are safe. They’ve been given to hundreds of millions of people. And according to federal officials, this kind of redesign is what we do for the flu vaccine every year. You’re not getting the same flu shot every fall. It’s been rejiggered, without conducting human clinical trials, to meet whatever variant is expected to circulate. When can I get a shot? Today the F.D.A. issued emergency use authorization for the new boosters. So now, the federal government can start shipping doses to the states. But the states can’t start administering them until the C.D.C. director signs off. The C.D.C.’s advisory panel is meeting tomorrow and Friday and will make recommendations. If Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director, signs off on Friday, then doses will be available, if not this weekend, then soon thereafter. What does the future of the government’s response look like? This is likely to be the last free vaccine shot that Americans get. Future shots will probably have to be covered by insurance plans. The big question is what the uptake will be for the new boosters. Some state officials are saying that they’ve stopped aggressively pushing coronavirus shots. With each additional shot that has been offered, there have been fewer and fewer takers. More on the boosters: The Times’s Well desk answered questions about the new shots, including how long you should wait after your last shot or an infection to sign up. Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here. A patient who died of Covid was removed from an I.C.U. in Cleveland.Shannon Stapleton/Reuters Life expectancy drops again The average life expectancy of Americans fell precipitously in 2020 and 2021, a stark reminder of the toll exacted on the nation by the coronavirus pandemic. It was the sharpest two-year decline in nearly 100 years. In 2021, the average American could expect to live until the age of 76, federal health researchers reported today. The figure represents a loss of almost three years since 2019, when Americans could expect to live, on average, nearly 79 years. The decline has hit Native American and Alaska Native communities particularly hard. Read more here. Justin J Wee for The New York Times What monkeypox patients want you to know The Times spoke to seven people who have recovered from the disease. They shared their stories of devastating symptoms, their frustration over finding care and their efforts to help one another when doctors and officials failed to assist. What else we’re following Coronavirus The California Legislature approved a bill that would allow regulators to punish doctors for spreading false information about Covid vaccinations and treatments. C.D.C. data shows that the new Omicron subvariant BA.4.6 is rising and that it may be able to outcompete BA.5 in the U.S., Deadline reports. Covid restrictions in China and North Korea have battered the city of Shenyang, in China’s northeast. Monkeypox The Biden administration announced a new plan to get more doses of monkeypox vaccine to people of color and others who have lacked access. The World Health Organization said that a slowdown in cases was raising hopes that the outbreak could be eliminated in Europe, The Washington Post reports. Texas reported the death of a person with monkeypox in what appears to be the first fatal case in the U.S., Stat News reports. West Nile Illinois reported its first death from West Nile this year, The Chicago Tribune reports. Are you ready for a booster? We asked our readers how they felt about the new Covid boosters. Nearly 9,000 of you wrote in, and most of you were enthusiastic about getting an updated shot. A big thank you to all the people who took the time to share their views. “I’m excited for them. I haven’t had Covid yet and don’t intend to get it. Vaccines are part of the way we keep ourselves and our communities safe. I know 12 people who died from Covid before the vaccine, and none who’ve died since. I will not be part of the problem. I will not be part of prolonging the pandemic.” — Lee Ryan, Albany, N.Y. “Right now, there is no convincing data that the Omicron specific vaccines are any better than the original formula. I’ve already had three shots, and the data shows I’m extremely well protected against severe Covid. I don’t see the point.” — Alec Anders, Gaithersburg, Md. “I quite literally cannot wait for my fresh booster. I’m almost as jazzed for an Omicron-targeted booster as I am for the new Taylor Swift album. That sounds dramatic but it’s true. Everyone I know has gotten sick with Omicron and it’s this constant worry in the back of our heads. We’ve waited a LONG time for new vaccines and I’m excited that the option is finally here. It feels like a really important milestone for (actually, finally) moving on from the pandemic.” — Allie, New York City “Glad they’re targeting the new strains. But, for those of us who already had a few shots and reacted strongly to each one, I’m not sure if the side effects will be worse than the virus given how it’s weakening. If a fourth shot makes me ill for several days again, it will definitely be worse than when I had Covid last spring.” — Trina, Tennessee “My grandmother (born 1898) was one out of 10 children. Only she and her brother survived diseases for which we now have vaccines. Is this what we should return to? I’m a registered nurse in long-term care who watched many die during the spring of 2020. Booster? Absolutely!” — Vicky Fleming, Great Barrington, Mass. Thanks for reading. I’ll be back Wednesday — Jonathan Email your thoughts to virusbriefing@nytimes.com. Quote phkrause By the decree enforcing the institution of the papacy in violation of the law of God, our nation will disconnect herself fully from righteousness. When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near. {5T 451.1} Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted September 1, 2022 Members Share Posted September 1, 2022 China locks down 21 million in Chengdu in COVID-19 outbreak BEIJING (AP) — Chinese authorities have locked down Chengdu, a southwestern city of 21 million people, following a spike in COVID-19 cases. https://apnews.com/article/covid-health-chengdu-government-and-politics-baad350677565dcc51e2ae31f2b60724? Quote phkrause By the decree enforcing the institution of the papacy in violation of the law of God, our nation will disconnect herself fully from righteousness. When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near. {5T 451.1} Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted September 1, 2022 Members Share Posted September 1, 2022 New Covid-19 vaccine boosters are coming The FDA just approved Covid-19 vaccines that have BA.5 in their crosshairs. Will people roll up their sleeves? https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/23330675/covid-19-booster-vaccine-pfizer-moderna-fda-ba5-variant-omicron Quote phkrause By the decree enforcing the institution of the papacy in violation of the law of God, our nation will disconnect herself fully from righteousness. When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near. {5T 451.1} Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted September 3, 2022 Members Share Posted September 3, 2022 September 2, 2022 Here’s your update on the coronavirus pandemic and other virus news. By Jonathan Wolfe What’s left from work from home? As we head into fall, some companies are finally recalling their employees to the office (including The New York Times). With more Americans now back at their workplaces, we wanted to check in on how it’s going — and ask for some advice. The long stretches of remote work changed us all. We’d like you to tell us about some of the positive changes and how you’re applying them back at the office. We’re interested in new habits, tricks and life hacks. What did you learn that can help everyone returning to the office? You can share your tips here. We may use your response in an upcoming newsletter. Now on to the news … TOP NEWS Erika P. Rodriguez for The New York Times Updated Booster Shots Expected Within Days as C.D.C. Signs Off The debut of Omicron-specific vaccines raises a thorny question: How long should you wait between shots? By Benjamin Mueller Jim Wilson/The New York Times What to Know: Updated Covid Boosters The F.D.A. on Wednesday authorized updated coronavirus boosters, the first time it has done so since the original vaccines were rolled out nearly two years ago. By Sharon LaFraniere Joe Raedle/Getty Images Paxlovid Cuts Covid Deaths Among Older People, Israeli Study Finds Among patients under 65, however, the drug made little difference in hospitalization or death rates. By Roni Rabin Shannon Stapleton/Reuters How the Pandemic Shortened Life Expectancy in Indigenous Communities New federal data outline the scale of suffering among Native Americans and Alaska Natives. By Simon Romero, Roni Caryn Rabin and Mark Walker Agence France-Presse — Getty Images China Locks Down Major Southern City of Chengdu The drastic response to a rise in Covid cases adds to the pressures facing Sichuan Province, which already had been dealing with drought, heat and wildfires. By Alexandra Stevenson and Zixu Wang Vincent Thian/Associated Press Mahathir, Malaysia’s Former Premier, Is Hospitalized With Covid A towering figure in his country’s politics, Mahathir Mohamad was admitted to the hospital for monitoring, and says he’s contemplating another election run at age 97. By Richard C. Paddock What else we’re following Coronavirus About 430,000 Britons are still suffering from long Covid, according to government data, The Guardian reports. The Washington Post reports that travel and a warming climate have accelerated the spread of pathogens. Monkeypox A new study of the Jynneos vaccine showed that it offered low levels of antibodies against monkeypox, Bloomberg reports. At least 31 cases have been reported among children in the U.S., ABC News reports. Colleges are increasingly concerned about monkeypox outbreaks, CBS reports. New York City is expanding its vaccination campaign and offering second doses, NBC New York reports. Email your thoughts to virusbriefing@nytimes.com. Quote phkrause By the decree enforcing the institution of the papacy in violation of the law of God, our nation will disconnect herself fully from righteousness. When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near. {5T 451.1} Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted September 5, 2022 Members Share Posted September 5, 2022 China locks down 65 million, discourages holiday travel BEIJING (AP) — China has locked down 65 million of its citizens under tough COVID-19 restrictions and is discouraging domestic travel during upcoming national holidays. https://apnews.com/article/covid-health-travel-holidays-holiday-3edbe65118d87f91252e0f6be8afaf61? Quote phkrause By the decree enforcing the institution of the papacy in violation of the law of God, our nation will disconnect herself fully from righteousness. When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near. {5T 451.1} Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted September 6, 2022 Members Share Posted September 6, 2022 Meet the covid super-dodgers The no-covid club gets more exclusive every day. And some members have no idea how they’re still there. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/07/21/no-covid-yet/ Quote phkrause By the decree enforcing the institution of the papacy in violation of the law of God, our nation will disconnect herself fully from righteousness. When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near. {5T 451.1} Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted September 7, 2022 Members Share Posted September 7, 2022 China’s Chengdu enforces strict lockdown despite earthquake BEIJING (AP) — Authorities in southwestern China’s Chengdu have maintained strict COVID-19 lockdown measures on the city of 21 million despite a major earthquake that killed at least 65 people in outlying areas. https://apnews.com/article/science-china-earthquakes-chengdu-b0565cf716be7ec74c37b3383a710f28? Quote phkrause By the decree enforcing the institution of the papacy in violation of the law of God, our nation will disconnect herself fully from righteousness. When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near. {5T 451.1} Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted September 7, 2022 Members Share Posted September 7, 2022 EXPLAINER: Is COVID-19 winding down? Scientists say no. Is the coronavirus on its way out? You might think so. New, updated booster shots are being rolled out to better protect against the variants circulating now. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has dropped COVID-19 quarantine and distancing recommendations. And more people have thrown off their masks and returned to pre-pandemic activities. https://apnews.com/article/covid-science-health-pandemics-flu-c92b8653683afbac3d81eebff8f5d29d Quote phkrause By the decree enforcing the institution of the papacy in violation of the law of God, our nation will disconnect herself fully from righteousness. When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near. {5T 451.1} Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted September 7, 2022 Members Share Posted September 7, 2022 September 7, 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. Aaron Wojack for The New York Times The office, Covid and the future of work By Jonathan Wolfe Fall is unofficially here, and some corporations are hoping it’s the season for a broad-scale return to the office. A number of companies, including Apple, Capital One, Comcast and The New York Times, are setting fresh guidelines around returning to the office in September. More Americans will be commuting in the coming weeks, and returning to offices and workplaces that have been substantially reshaped by the pandemic. For insight on what’s next, I turned to my colleague Emma Goldberg. What’s the current work moment? There’s a lot of worker power that’s built up and is being flexed in different ways. We’re in a tight labor market that has ensured that workers can either assert what they want from their current employers, or leave their current employers and move to a job that meets their financial needs — or their needs in terms of flexibility or working conditions. We’re also seeing a lot of people experiencing really frayed mental health. People have so much on them, whether it’s child care obligations, other care-taking obligations, or maybe they’re juggling multiple kinds of work or multiple jobs. People are feeling real fatigue and a sense of being overwhelmed. And you’re seeing that take on all different kinds of labels, including “quiet quitting,” or what older millennials call anti-hustle culture. At this late stage in the pandemic, how are offices viewing Covid? Offices have, in a lot of cases, dropped their safety protocols in an effort to get as many people back as possible. Some even dropped their vaccination requirements. And that’s one of the challenges of the moment. A lot of people, especially those who are immunocompromised or who have family members who are immunocompromised, still have real health concerns about going back to the office. What happened to plans to change offices physically to make them less of a petri dish? The companies that have undergone physical changes, in a lot of instances, are remaking their office spaces to try and make them more social environments. A lot of offices have added more “soft seating” and collaborative areas to try and communicate that they understand that when people go into the office now, it’s going to be more for collaboration, conversation and mentorship. That’s sort of the opposite approach if you’re trying to prevent the spread of disease. Yeah. The physical changes that have been made to office spaces are in many cases a reflection of a changed understanding of what purpose the office serves. A lot of people look at it as “earning the commute.” If you’re asking for an hour of people’s day that they were previously able to use for exercise or child care, then you have to really make the case for that extra hour. And I think the most instructive case that people have made for the value of the office is that it has to promote relationships and mentorship and, you know, creative brainstorming and teamwork. But in order for that to happen, there has to be a kind of reconceptualization of how office spaces are used. Because it doesn’t work for people if they’re going to go into the office, spend all that time commuting, take on all the associated risks and costs, and then sit there on Zoom calls with people who are home. How is the return to office actually going? A lot of companies brought people back this spring. But what’s happening now is they’re trying to figure out what the value of having some in-person work is and make sure that hybrid work setups are done in a way that actually helps achieve those goals. One thing that’s been interesting is the growing geographic and sector divide, in terms of how people experience work. What do you mean? I recently looked at where in the country people are fully back in the office. Researchers have found that the biggest predictors of whether people will be back in the office (aside from industry) are: Do you live in a city that had a prolonged Covid lockdown? And do you commute by a car or by mass transit? If you live in a city that did not have a strict Covid lockdown and you commute by car, then you’re way more likely to be back in the office. So while San Francisco and New York are still seeing offices looking fairly empty, there are a lot of cities, especially in the South and in the Midwest, where people are back in the office, sometimes five days a week. In a moment when so much is polarized, it’s interesting that now the way someone works or what expectations they face in the workplace can look wildly different, just depending on where their desk is sitting in the country. What are other trends that will shape the future of work? More than ever, the politics of your employer are going to affect your life. It might affect whether your employer mandates vaccines for Covid. It might affect whether your employer will cover abortion-related travel expenses. We’re seeing the divide between blue and red companies play out in a really profound way. For example, Walmart recently said that it would cover abortion related travel expenses for its employees. But it did so after a lot of other companies. For weeks its employees were wondering whether they were going to have the same reproductive health care coverage as employees at Amazon, for example. We’re seeing an increasing divide play out between different types of employers, between the politics of different employers and how that affects their workers’ lives. Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here. Your R.T.O. advice We recently asked readers for their lessons, life hacks and advice for making the return to the office better. Thanks to everyone who shared their thoughts. “I am a public health nurse who spent the better part of the pandemic doing Covid-19 case and contact management virtually. On Zoom, it was so obvious and irritating when a person was interrupted. It required a whole reset of the conversation, with people apologizing over each other and time wasted. So I learned to sit back and listen and let people express their full thought without interruption. Now that I am back to visiting patients in their homes, I am putting a lot of effort into letting my teammates and patients complete their thoughts fully.” — Glenna Fraumeni, Toronto, Canada “I Google funny one-liners and crack jokes at the top of meetings. People like to laugh and it eases conversation for all of us who feel awkward around people after so much time away.” — Sean Sakamoto, New York City “One of the best things about remote work was being able to walk while it was still light. Now that I’m back in the office I make sure I transfer that feeling and walk around the block at work. ” — Andrea Agre, White Plains, N.Y. “Bring a little bit of home with you to work — slippers, a plant, my favorite snacks, a framed photo of my dog and my favorite cardigan. Making my office homey really eased my anxiety.” — Meg, Chicago “One thing I love about remote meetings is that they tend to start and end on time. On Teams or Zoom, two minutes is considered late enough to apologize for! I hope this is something that will stay!” — Ida, Sweden “The habits I practiced while working from home — going to bed early, getting up at the same time every morning, dressing professionally every day, eating a good breakfast and lunch and keeping a strict work schedule — I am continuing now that I am back in my office. The fact that I was so disciplined while working from home made my transition back to the office very smooth.” — Katrina Alison Jaggears, California “My first few weeks in the office on a hybrid schedule were intense. Returning to the noisy, open office environment was overstimulating and I thought I wasn’t going to make it or ever get any work done. I invested in good, sound-canceling headphones and made an ‘In A Meeting’ sign for my desk. I may have also put that sign up even when I wasn’t in a meeting, just to focus. That’s my best advice. Also Rainymood.com. Life saver.” — Melissa Meyer, Utah “When my employer began a hybrid working schedule at the beginning of the summer, I realized I wasn’t going to do it. I told them thanks, but no; I’m worth more. And I started looking for a new job. After a week they said if I wanted to go full-time work from home, they’d approve it. Remote work taught me what I value more, and that I’m more valuable than the hustle.” — Roberta O., St. Paul, Minn. What else we’re following Coronavirus White House officials said Americans may need only one booster shot per year, Stat News reports. Katelyn Jetelina, who writes the “Your Local Epidemiologist” newsletter, discussed the White House’s plan. Nearly every province in China has recorded infections in recent days, and some 60 million residents are in lockdown. From vaccines to propaganda, Beijing has prioritized politics over science, creating conditions that make it difficult for China to adapt to living with the coronavirus. The Biden administration last week formally requested $27 billion in emergency spending from Congress to fight the coronavirus pandemic and the monkeypox outbreak. An international study estimated that nearly eight million children lost a parent or a caregiver to the pandemic, NPR reports. New York City ended mask mandates on mass transit. Monkeypox The U.S. now has more than 20,000 confirmed cases of monkeypox, more than any other country. The U.S. government said a new contract with AmerisourceBergen would expand the number of vaccination locations, Reuters reports. Federal officials are set to testify next week at a congressional hearing about the government’s monkeypox response, Bloomberg reports. Other viruses Wastewater surveillance for polio and monkeypox is improving, CNN reports. Thanks for reading. I’ll be back Friday — Jonathan Email your thoughts to virusbriefing@nytimes.com. Quote phkrause By the decree enforcing the institution of the papacy in violation of the law of God, our nation will disconnect herself fully from righteousness. When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near. {5T 451.1} Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted September 10, 2022 Members Share Posted September 10, 2022 September 9, 2022 Here’s your update on the coronavirus pandemic and other virus news. TOP NEWS Victor J. Blue for The New York Times Hochul Declares Polio State of Emergency for New York The virus has now been detected in a Nassau County wastewater sample, officials said. By Lola Fadulu Xinmei Liu The New New world China’s Public Puts on a Show of Zero Covid for an Audience of One Because of Xi Jinping’s unrelenting policy, the Chinese people put up with a precarious existence filled with lockdowns, quarantines and mass testing. By Li Yuan Kevin Frayer/Getty Images China’s Zero-Covid Approach Explained The country where the coronavirus first emerged is committed to going to great lengths to stop its spread. By Austin Ramzy National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Los Angeles County Investigates Death of Person With Monkeypox Officials said they were conducting an autopsy to see if a monkeypox infection contributed to the death of a Los Angeles County resident. By Amanda Holpuch Justin Lane/EPA, via Shutterstock Food Insecurity for Families With Children Reached Two-Decade Low in 2021 The decline can be attributed to an expansion of government assistance for families and children. By Linda Qiu What else we’re following Monkeypox and long quarantine times are leaving some people who have contracted the disease in financial ruin, Buzzfeed News reports. People with H.I.V. are hospitalized at higher rates when they contract monkeypox, CNBC reports. Nature explored what scientists have learned from lockdowns. Email your thoughts to virusbriefing@nytimes.com. Quote phkrause By the decree enforcing the institution of the papacy in violation of the law of God, our nation will disconnect herself fully from righteousness. When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near. {5T 451.1} Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted September 11, 2022 Members Share Posted September 11, 2022 Florida reports largest, single-day increase in COVID cases ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — Florida shattered the national record Sunday for the largest single-day increase in positive coronavirus cases in any state since the beginning of the pandemic, adding more than 15,000 cases as its daily average death toll continued to also rise. https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-health-statistics-health-us-news-ap-top-news-798f9aab3bb2e5fbf733413a99476d7c Quote phkrause By the decree enforcing the institution of the papacy in violation of the law of God, our nation will disconnect herself fully from righteousness. When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near. {5T 451.1} Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted September 13, 2022 Members Share Posted September 13, 2022 September 12, 2022 Here’s your update on the coronavirus pandemic and other virus news. TOP NEWS Martin Mejia/Associated Press Global Health Monkeypox Shots, Treatments and Tests Are Unavailable in Much of the World High-income countries snapped up vaccines when the disease hit them, leaving none for countries that have battled the virus for years, in an echo of the Covid response. By Stephanie Nolen China News Service, via Reuters Just Bread and Noodles: China’s Covid Lockdown Distress Hits Xinjiang With lack of food, medicine and other crucial supplies, residents of Yining are chafing under a monthlong pandemic shutdown. By Chris Buckley via Albert Lewitinn those we’ve lost Marc Lewitinn, Covid Patient, Dies at 76 After 850 Days on a Ventilator While no definitive statistics exist, doctors say Mr. Lewitinn, a retired Manhattan store owner, likely remained on the device longer than any other Covid patient. By Clay Risen Al J. Thompson for The New York Times Who Are America’s Missing Workers? The labor market appears hot, but the share of people who are either working or actively looking for a job still hasn’t quite recovered. By Lydia DePillis What else we’re following Coronavirus New Zealand lifted most of its remaining Covid restrictions, Bloomberg reports. The Philippines is extending its state of calamity over the coronavirus pandemic, ABC reports. The Atlantic’s Ed Yong explored the long Covid symptom of brain fog. The Wall Street Journal looked at the current toll of Covid in the U.S. Wired explored why some people don’t get Covid. Monkeypox NPR spoke with Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, the deputy coordinator for the monkeypox response in the U.S. Other viruses Pediatricians are warning of an increase in a common virus, EV-D68, that in rare cases can cause symptoms similar to polio in young children, Stat News reports. Scientists have developed a self-sterilizing plastic that kills viruses, the BBC reports. Whom would you like to thank? During the pandemic many of us have faced challenges that have often felt insurmountable. To overcome those hurdles, many of us have turned to family and friends, mentors and teachers, medical professionals and aid workers. We all have people to thank — those who have radically changed our lives, or who have made it just a little bit better. We’re asking readers for their stories about people who went out of their way to help. And what do you want to say to them? You can share your story here. We may use it in an upcoming newsletter. Email your thoughts to virusbriefing@nytimes.com. Quote phkrause By the decree enforcing the institution of the papacy in violation of the law of God, our nation will disconnect herself fully from righteousness. When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near. {5T 451.1} Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted September 14, 2022 Members Share Posted September 14, 2022 Under COVID lockdown, Xinjiang residents complain of hunger BEIJING (AP) — Residents of a city in China’s far western Xinjiang region say they are experiencing hunger, forced quarantines and dwindling supplies of medicine and daily necessities after more than 40 days in a virus lockdown. https://apnews.com/article/covid-health-shanghai-government-and-politics-e40fb7fdd74f395571b7604fa6ee5d3e? Quote phkrause By the decree enforcing the institution of the papacy in violation of the law of God, our nation will disconnect herself fully from righteousness. When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near. {5T 451.1} Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted September 15, 2022 Members Share Posted September 15, 2022 September 14, 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. Tess Ayano for The New York Times Thanking those who got us through it By Jonathan Wolfe As the pandemic raged, many of us found ourselves relying on others — family, friends, even complete strangers — for support and connection. Some of us created uncharacteristically strong bonds during that uncertain time. Looking back, if you had the opportunity to thank someone, whom would you thank? And what would you say to that person? That was the idea behind our I Want to Thank You series. We asked readers whom they would like to thank, and then asked Joshua Needelman, a reporter, to help them tell their stories. We also sent photographers to capture what those bonds look like today. “To read some of these stories is really a reminder of how important support from other people was during that time,” said Dan Saltzstein, who edited the project. “There was so much confusion, and there was an underlying fear of losing our sense of human connection. For many people who wrote in, they are thanking people for reaching out at a time when so many people felt an immense sense of vulnerability.” We’ve included a couple excerpts in our newsletter today, and you can read more here. From left, Martha Fagg, Susanne Skyrm, Elizabeth Smith and Jo Pasqualucci on Ms. Smith’s porch in Vermillion, S.D.Arin Yoon for The New York Times Thank you for helping me deal with death On the morning of June 25, 2020, something compelled Elizabeth Smith awake at 5:30. She walked to the hospice bed of her husband, Larry, and held his hand. His breathing had become uneven. Then it slowed. “And then it became erratic,” Ms. Smith, 72, said, her voice softening. “And then he squeezed my hand really, really hard. He took one last breath, and he died.” Mr. Smith’s death, at 71, left her heartbroken and even more lonely during the early days of the pandemic. The couple had moved from Connecticut, where Mr. Smith had been a police captain, to Vermillion, S.D., in 1999. He was forced to retire after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, and so Ms. Smith accepted a tenured professorship in the University of South Dakota’s political science department. Mr. Smith opened a bakery that, according to Oprah.com, baked “the best bread in the world.” The day after his death, Ms. Smith brought her husband’s ashes to a friend’s front lawn for a socially distanced gathering of friends — Lana Svien, Jo Pasqualucci, Susanne Skyrm and Martha Fagg. As the summer wore on, the quintet — all single, retired and around the same age — often hung out on Ms. Smith’s lawn to share laughs and meals. When temperatures chilled, they moved the lawn chairs to Ms. Smith’s open garage, which they outfitted with space heaters and dubbed “Cafe Covid.” Ms. Smith and her friends also share a love of the outdoors. She spent much of her first weeks without her husband kayaking the Missouri River, often with at least one of the self-described “Usual Suspects.” On Ms. Smith’s first Thanksgiving after her husband’s death, they gathered on her front porch for a potluck meal. “Having each other has been really a gift,” she said. Drew Johnson and Victoria Bernuth began taking socially distanced walks together in Eugene, Ore., during the pandemic.Joseph Haeberle for The New York Times Thank you for your friendship Victoria Bernuth didn’t have to worry about groceries during the worst months of the pandemic. Bernuth, 74, never left her Pleasant Hill, Ore., farm, but she found a lifeline in Drew Johnson, 43, whom she had met at a local meeting for humanists before Covid hit. Johnson, a former youth pastor, would drop off her groceries, and then the two would take long walks along the country roads near Bernuth’s farm. As they walked and talked 15 feet apart, bonding in part over their shared atheism, Bernuth’s loneliness lifted. “We’re not romantic,” Bernuth said. “But we just have a deep affection for each other and caring for each other.” Bernuth and Johnson had taken several road trips before the pandemic, and after Bernuth got her first Covid vaccine in March 2021, he floated an idea: “C’mon, let’s go to the beach.” Bernuth teared up on the car ride to Beverly Beach, about two hours away; it was her first time being physically close to a person in almost a year. The trip was calming; they worked on crossword puzzles, looked out on the ocean and went on long walks. “He is the joy and light of my life,” Bernuth said. The I Want to Thank You series will continue with future articles that focus on health care workers and inspirational figures. Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here. Our readers give thanks We asked our readers whom they would like to thank during the pandemic. Your notes were incredibly touching. Thank you to everyone who wrote in. “In 2020, we were stuck inside and our kids were climbing the walls. I ended up buying used books each week, just to offer some alternative to screens. But I quickly came up short. I didn’t even know what books to choose for them. Our local library finally allowed you to request books, and they would leave them for you at the library door with an ‘Additional Request’ form. I sent a note of desperation. ‘Help. I don’t know what my kids want to read. Can you help us?’ M-J the Librarian left a handwritten note that week: ‘How old are your kids? What do they like? What was the last book they loved?’ And just like that, for weeks and weeks, M-J surprised and delighted my kids with specially selected piles for each one of them, with a note of encouragement or recommendation tucked in. She opened their minds. She revived curiosity and surprise. She upended monotony. M-J, on days where boredom and anxiety reigned, when I watched my children’s mental health flounder, you showed up. We are indebted to you more than you let us tell you in hushed whispers at the library. We will never forget your kindness. Or the books you sent to save us.” — Ariele Mortkowitz, Washington, D.C. “In the midst of working Covid nursing, my family and friends rallied around me as I dealt with periods of intense depression and disassociation. I had to move back in with my parents for over a year to cope and stay alive. To my parents: You have worked hard to try and understand mental illness. I applaud you for your effort and all your support. Even when you weren’t sure what to do, you always showed up.” — R. Moore, Houston, Texas “RDJ and I had known each other all our lives, but we weren’t close friends. However, he knew a member of my family was immune-compromised and that I went out very little because I didn’t want to risk bringing anything back home with me. So he did grocery shopping for us. He was there, on the other side of my email, sometimes several times a day. He cashed checks and brought the money to me. In short, he did everything my family and I needed done without question and with no reward. And he did his best to find things that interested me to deflect depression. He was truly one of the heroes of the pandemic, but died himself last January. Hey, I miss you, not because of the immense help you’ve been to me and my family, but because I don’t have you in my life now. I wish you were here.” — Lorna Jennings, Lubbock, Texas “I am a nurse, and my husband is immuno-compromised. I am extremely grateful for all the people who took this pandemic seriously by wearing their masks when indoors and getting the Covid-19 vaccinations and boosters. Thank you for easing my anxiety each time I go to the grocery store. A huge thank-you to all the parents who masked their children while in the store. That showed how much you cared and respected others and the virus.” — Lynn Miser, Ohio “I was convinced that I could protect my family by not having them so much as even look outside, let alone be outside. I would hysterically spray sanitizer all over the house, meticulously clean the groceries, forbid my husband to even talk to anyone after coming from the Covid facility. I could feel that I was going crazy, but I kept rationalizing it. My then 7-year-old daughter, already struggling through online classes, cautiously treaded around me so as not to tick me off. I could feel them quietly distancing away from me. One person who saw through that hysteria was my mother. As I plunged down a dark well of inner turmoil, she took me by her soft hands and pulled me out. Who said Covid only affected the lungs? For me, it infected my mind without even entering my body. Amidst all the insanity, Mamma told me not to lose the most important people in my life to fear. Did I thank her enough for rescuing me? Love you, Mamma. If it wasn’t for you, I would’ve washed all the fruit in soap and sprayed all the clothes with sanitizer! Worse, I would’ve given in to my fears and anxiety.” — Hiba Tohid, Louisville, Ky. What else we’re following Coronavirus The head of the World Health Organization said the end of the pandemic “is in sight,” Reuters reports. The population-adjusted Covid death toll in 2022 has been about 40 percent higher in counties that heavily voted for Trump than in Biden strongholds, The Washington Post reports. After spending all of the pandemic hunkered down in China, Xi Jinping, the country’s leader, finally left for his first foreign trip in more than two years. After struggling to respond to a crushing Covid caseload, many hospitals are remodeling for the next crisis. Researchers have discovered an antibody that neutralized all variants of Covid in mice, The Boston Globe reports. What is brain fog, and how can I treat it? Monkeypox The C.D.C. director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, told Senate lawmakers that monkeypox cases were continuing to slow, CNBC reports. With cases dropping in the U.S. and Europe, scientists say it’s time to send vaccines to Africa, The Associated Press reports. The journal Nature has an updated look at the death rate of the virus. FiveThirtyEight explores why monkeypox hasn’t become a pandemic. Polio The W.H.O. added the U.S. to a list of about 30 countries where polio is circulating, Axios reports. While it has resurfaced in wealthy countries, polio still poses a far bigger threat to poor countries, Science argues. Thanks for reading. I’ll be back Friday. — Jonathan Email your thoughts to virusbriefing@nytimes.com. Quote phkrause By the decree enforcing the institution of the papacy in violation of the law of God, our nation will disconnect herself fully from righteousness. When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near. {5T 451.1} Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted September 17, 2022 Members Share Posted September 17, 2022 September 16, 2022 Here’s your update on the coronavirus pandemic and other virus news. TOP NEWS Kayana Szymczak for The New York Times What Parents Should Know About the Latest Enterovirus Spike The C.D.C. has issued an alert about enterovirus D68, which has been linked to rare, polio-like paralysis. By Catherine Pearson Visual China Group, via Getty Images ‘At the Breaking Point’: Tibetans, Under Lockdown, Make Rare Cries for Help China’s ever-tightening Covid rules have prompted public complaints from residents of areas usually intimidated into keeping quiet. By Vivian Wang John Taggart for The New York Times In New York City, Pandemic Job Losses Linger Even as the country as a whole has recovered all of the jobs it lost during the pandemic, the city is still missing 176,000 — the slowest recovery of any major metropolitan area. By Nicole Hong and Matthew Haag Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times Is New York City Finally Returning to the Office? With rising subway ridership and office occupancy, the city’s post-Labor Day return has offered early signs that New York may finally be turning over a new chapter in its recovery. By Nicole Hong and Emma Goldberg Guillem Casasús The Well Newsletter Flu Season Is Coming. Here’s How to Prepare. We may be more susceptible to the virus than we have been in recent years, but doctors have tips to stay healthy. By Melinda Wenner Moyer Till Lauer your money adviser Deadlines for Using Up Flexible Spending Accounts Return Relaxed rules during the pandemic let workers carry over more of the pretax money, which must be spent on health costs or forfeited, but they’re expiring. By Ann Carrns What else we’re following Coronavirus As we head into autumn, hundreds of Americans are still dying from Covid every day, ABC reports. Check The Times’s latest U.S. case count. Anti-vaccination groups are using carrot emojis instead of the word “vaccine” to hide posts from Facebook’s moderation tools, the BBC reports. The World Health Organization has warned against the use of two therapies to treat Covid — sotrovimab as well as casirivimab-imdevimab — saying Omicron has most likely rendered them obsolete, Reuters reports. A new study found that about 500,000 workers are still out of the U.S. labor force because of Covid and its aftereffects, The Wall Street Journal reports. Monkeypox The C.D.C. said the antiviral Tpoxx should be given only to high-risk groups, warning that the virus could mutate if the treatment is overused, The Washington Post reports. China reported its first case, Bloomberg reports. NPR looked at your chances of catching monkeypox. Polio The C.D.C. is planning on testing wastewater for the virus. The Atlantic writes that the world was coming close to eradicating polio, which is exactly why it’s staging a comeback. Email your thoughts to virusbriefing@nytimes.com. Quote phkrause By the decree enforcing the institution of the papacy in violation of the law of God, our nation will disconnect herself fully from righteousness. When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near. {5T 451.1} Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted September 18, 2022 Members Share Posted September 18, 2022 September 16, 2022 Here’s your update on the coronavirus pandemic and other virus news. TOP NEWS Kayana Szymczak for The New York Times What Parents Should Know About the Latest Enterovirus Spike The C.D.C. has issued an alert about enterovirus D68, which has been linked to rare, polio-like paralysis. By Catherine Pearson Visual China Group, via Getty Images ‘At the Breaking Point’: Tibetans, Under Lockdown, Make Rare Cries for Help China’s ever-tightening Covid rules have prompted public complaints from residents of areas usually intimidated into keeping quiet. By Vivian Wang John Taggart for The New York Times In New York City, Pandemic Job Losses Linger Even as the country as a whole has recovered all of the jobs it lost during the pandemic, the city is still missing 176,000 — the slowest recovery of any major metropolitan area. By Nicole Hong and Matthew Haag Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times Is New York City Finally Returning to the Office? With rising subway ridership and office occupancy, the city’s post-Labor Day return has offered early signs that New York may finally be turning over a new chapter in its recovery. By Nicole Hong and Emma Goldberg Guillem Casasús The Well Newsletter Flu Season Is Coming. Here’s How to Prepare. We may be more susceptible to the virus than we have been in recent years, but doctors have tips to stay healthy. By Melinda Wenner Moyer Till Lauer your money adviser Deadlines for Using Up Flexible Spending Accounts Return Relaxed rules during the pandemic let workers carry over more of the pretax money, which must be spent on health costs or forfeited, but they’re expiring. By Ann Carrns What else we’re following Coronavirus As we head into autumn, hundreds of Americans are still dying from Covid every day, ABC reports. Check The Times’s latest U.S. case count. Anti-vaccination groups are using carrot emojis instead of the word “vaccine” to hide posts from Facebook’s moderation tools, the BBC reports. The World Health Organization has warned against the use of two therapies to treat Covid — sotrovimab as well as casirivimab-imdevimab — saying Omicron has most likely rendered them obsolete, Reuters reports. A new study found that about 500,000 workers are still out of the U.S. labor force because of Covid and its aftereffects, The Wall Street Journal reports. Monkeypox The C.D.C. said the antiviral Tpoxx should be given only to high-risk groups, warning that the virus could mutate if the treatment is overused, The Washington Post reports. China reported its first case, Bloomberg reports. NPR looked at your chances of catching monkeypox. Polio The C.D.C. is planning on testing wastewater for the virus. The Atlantic writes that the world was coming close to eradicating polio, which is exactly why it’s staging a comeback. Email your thoughts to virusbriefing@nytimes.com. Quote phkrause By the decree enforcing the institution of the papacy in violation of the law of God, our nation will disconnect herself fully from righteousness. When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near. {5T 451.1} Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted September 18, 2022 Members Share Posted September 18, 2022 Their mom died of COVID. They say conspiracy theories are what really killed her One thing everyone agrees on is that Stephanie didn't have to die. Even months after it happened, her family is struggling to figure out why. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/04/24/1089786147/covid-conspiracy-theories Quote phkrause By the decree enforcing the institution of the papacy in violation of the law of God, our nation will disconnect herself fully from righteousness. When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near. {5T 451.1} Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted September 20, 2022 Members Share Posted September 20, 2022 September 19, 2022 Here’s your update on the coronavirus pandemic and other virus news. TOP NEWS Andrew Seng for The New York Times Potent New Covid Boosters Are Here. Will Weary Americans Bother? The new vaccine campaign is one of the country’s last remaining strategies, as masks have fallen away and quarantines have diminished. So far, the rollout is methodical but muted. By Jack Healy, Sharon Otterman and Amy Qin A Rural Doctor Gave Her All. Then Her Heart Broke. Physicians suffer one of the highest burnout rates among professionals. Dr. Kimberly Becher, one of two family practitioners in Clay County, West Virginia, learned the hard way. By Oliver Whang and Maddie McGarvey Yang Ying/Xinhua, via Associated Press Bus Taking People to Quarantine Crashes in China, Killing 27 The deaths renewed an anguished debate over the price of China’s “zero Covid” policy. By Vivian Wang and Joy Dong Frances F. Denny for The New York Times I Want to Thank You How Health Care Workers Got Me Through the Pandemic From home aides to doctors, people in health care fields offered more than just medical advice for people getting through the pandemic. They offered comfort. By Joshua Needelman Dave Sanders for The New York Times The U.N.’s annual gathering of world leaders returns to full swing for the first time in three years. By Farnaz Fassihi What else we’re following Coronavirus In an interview with “60 Minutes,” President Biden said that the Covid-19 pandemic was “over” and that the country seemed to be in good shape. New research suggests that Covid may weaken your immune system for several weeks, leaving you more susceptible to other infections, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports. China lifted the lockdown in Chengdu, a city of 21 million people, Al Jazeera reports. Stat news explores the hunt for new drugs for severe Covid. Monkeypox A top health official in China advised people not to touch foreigners after China recorded its first case, CNN reports. Eligibility for the vaccine can vary depending on where you live, Axios reports. Polio CNN looked at who should get a vaccine now. The Nation explored what our history with polio means for Covid. Other viruses Ghana declared an end to a recent outbreak of the Marburg virus, which is similar to Ebola, Reuters reports. Email your thoughts to virusbriefing@nytimes.com. Quote phkrause By the decree enforcing the institution of the papacy in violation of the law of God, our nation will disconnect herself fully from righteousness. When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near. {5T 451.1} Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted September 22, 2022 Members Share Posted September 22, 2022 September 21, 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. Covid-19 test results stored by Alaska’s health department.Ash Adams for The New York Times America’s data crisis By Jonathan Wolfe My colleague Sharon LaFraniere, an investigative reporter, recently told me that throughout the pandemic, she has routinely had government officials struggle to answer very basic questions. The reason? A severe lack of data, they said. To understand the issue, Sharon traveled to Alaska to watch how public health workers collected and stored information, and how they communicated it to the federal government. “What struck me right away was how much rote effort there was,” Sharon said. “At the peak of the pandemic, they had up to 20 people in a conference room manually entering data from forms into computers. National Guard volunteers and even the department’s own highly trained epidemiologists had to help out. It was an amazing waste of time. Case reports were coming in over the fax machine, which would run out of paper every night.” I spoke to Sharon for more on the country’s data crisis. What are the main issues with the way the country manages health data? I think it’s striking how each health department buys its own systems, and they make their individual decisions without any coordination. Many end up with databases that do not connect easily to their other systems, or to the C.D.C. So they can’t make the data flow; instead, it’s a series of manual hops, skips and jumps through disjointed systems. How has this affected our ability to respond to Covid? If you remember right after Thanksgiving, when Omicron appeared, there was kind of a panic. Omicron was clearly much more contagious than Delta, but we didn’t know if it was more deadly. Every senior federal health official was anxious to know whether more people were going to die, because they needed to prepare. What would they do if Covid patients flooded hospitals? But they couldn’t figure it out from their data because it wasn’t specific by variant. What’s another example? The fact that we could not figure out how many breakthrough infections were occurring really confused the whole booster campaign. We had no national data on breakthrough infections, so regulators were piecing together subsets of data from individual hospital systems. Then they were marrying that with what Israel was saying, because Israel had good national data. And then they threw in Britain, and sometimes other countries. So why was that a problem? It was a bewildering patchwork of information. Even the vaccine experts were confused because it was all a big jumble of different studies and different subsets that were stitched together. People were wondering, do we really know what we’re doing with these extra shots? It made it very hard for the government to explain to people that enough breakthrough infections were happening that the booster shots were essential. Data was supposed to inform our decisions about how to fight the pandemic, but to a certain extent, the government was flying blind. I think officials felt they were continually behind the curve. We would get data, but it would be data we needed six months ago. It’s pretty disturbing how much data turned out to be useless because it was either incomplete or too late. How do we fix the problem? We need to spend money. Public health departments have been starved of funds for years. And the federal government may also need more legal power to compel state and local health departments to deliver data. Now it’s mostly a voluntary system. In the last decade, the federal government has spent $38 billion in incentives so hospitals and clinicians would shift to electronic health records. And ordinary Americans are seeing the benefits of that right now. For many people, if they go in to see their doctor, it’s easier for them to look up their health record right then and there. But the nation did not spend to modernize the public health sector’s data operations. When Covid hit, the federal government dedicated more than $1.1 billion to improve those systems. But a billion is about what it cost one major hospital system to shift to electronic health records. So we spent about 38 times as much on the private sector side as the public sector side. That neglect has really hurt us. But that is the pattern for public health funding. What do you mean? It rises during a crisis and then it just disappears. I think it’s hard for people to grasp how far public health data is behind because we’re very used to the seamless flow of information in our daily lives. We are used to digital services like Instacart, DoorDash, Amazon and entertainment programs that can be streamed to your living room in minutes. But we left public health out in the wilderness with the equivalent of a little rotary telephone and fax machine. Then a crisis arose, and suddenly we wondered, “Hey, where is your data?” We’ve had a whole series of infectious disease outbreaks over the last decade, and this isn’t going to be the last one. The big fear is that the impetus to try to build public health data systems that work will vanish as soon as Covid cases seem to be truly declining. Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here. A protest in front of the White House demanding action on chronic fatigue syndrome and long Covid.Zeynep Tufekci/New York Times The end of the pandemic? In an interview that aired on CBS’s “60 Minutes” on Sunday night, President Biden declared that the pandemic was “over.” By Monday morning, the backlash was in full swing. With 400 to 500 Americans still dying every day of Covid-19, patients said the president was being insensitive at best, and some public health experts said his words were at odds with the science. “We’ve had two million cases reported over the last 28 days, and we know underreporting is substantial,” said Dr. Michael Osterholm, an infectious-disease specialist at the University of Minnesota. Covid-19, he said, “continues to be the No. 4 cause of death in the country.” Presidential pronouncements carry policy implications, but the Biden administration said that the president’s words would not really change anything. The Covid-19 public health emergency remains intact, and much of Biden’s domestic agenda is entangled with the coronavirus pandemic as well — including an outstanding White House request that Congress appropriate an additional $22 billion to fight the pandemic. Biden also doesn’t have the power to declare the pandemic over. Experts say that responsibility would land with the World Health Organization, and last week, its director general, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that “we are not there yet.” “But,” he added “the end is in sight.” A Covid test being given in Guiyang, China, this month. On Monday, the city lifted Covid lockdowns in many districts.Yang Wenbin/Xinhua, via Associated Press ‘We’re on that bus, too’ After a bus accident killed at least 27 people being transferred to a Covid quarantine facility in China on Sunday, many Chinese residents thought: That could be me. The bus itself became a symbol of their collective “zero Covid” destiny, writes my college Li Yuan in the New New World column: 1.4 billion people heading to an unknown destination. They felt they have lost control of their lives as the government pursues its policy relentlessly, even as the virus has become much milder and much of the world is eager to declare the end of the pandemic. After the crash, the Chinese public staged a widespread online protest against the government’s harsh pandemic policy. “We’re on that bus, too” has been one of the most shared comments. The outpouring of emotion is probably the strongest since the night when a coronavirus whistle-blower, Dr. Li Wenliang, died in February 2020. After nearly three years of constant lockdowns, mass testing and quarantines, people asked how they could give the government the power to deprive them of their dignity, livelihood, mental health and even life; how they could fail to protect their loved ones from the “zero Covid” autocracy; and how long the craziness would last. What else we’re following Coronavirus In Minnesota, 48 people were charged with stealing $240 million intended to feed children, in what appears to be the largest theft so far from a pandemic-era program. The W.H.O. found that up to 20 percent of infected people in Europe have developed long Covid symptoms, DW reports. New York City ended its vaccine mandate for private employers and continued to roll back pandemic restrictions. How long should I wait to get a bivalent booster if I recently had a shot or contracted Covid? At restaurants in New York City, 6 p.m. is the new 8 p.m. Monkeypox Black Pride in Dallas was canceled “out of an abundance of caution” over the spread of the virus, The Dallas Morning News reports. A new C.D.C. study found that monkeypox has disproportionately affected people with H.I.V., WTTW reports. The Hill explored the neurological symptoms of monkeypox. What you’re doing How are we coping? We barely are. None of us are the same as we were two and a half years ago. There’s more anxiety, more silences, and more isolation in our house. I work with toddlers, and anyone who has been around a child knows they’re germ magnets. I thought about leaving my field when the pandemic took hold, but it was the choice between stopping doing what I love, or doing what I can to avoid getting sick. It was fine for a while. Everyone had to mask and we were limiting exposure. All of that is gone now and I have had Covid twice this year. I’m tired. The pandemic and the social response to it have taken something from me I don’t think I will ever get back. — Sam Kellum, New Jersey Let us know how you’re coping with the pandemic or other outbreaks. Send us a response here, and we may feature it in an upcoming newsletter. Thanks for reading. I’ll be back Friday — Jonathan Email your thoughts to virusbriefing@nytimes.com. Quote phkrause By the decree enforcing the institution of the papacy in violation of the law of God, our nation will disconnect herself fully from righteousness. When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near. {5T 451.1} Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted September 25, 2022 Members Share Posted September 25, 2022 September 23, 2022 Here’s your update on the coronavirus pandemic and other virus news. TOP NEWS Kim Raff for The New York Times Matter Why Omicron Might Stick Around Omicron, the 13th named variant of the coronavirus, seems to have a remarkable capacity to evolve new tricks. By Carl Zimmer Kimimasa Mayama/EPA, via Shutterstock Major Covid Holdouts in Asia Drop Border Restrictions Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan have relaxed their pandemic rules, as they look to bolster their economies and play catch-up with much of the world. By Alexandra Stevenson and Ben Dooley Seth Wenig/Associated Press Officials Hopeful That Monkeypox Can Be Eliminated in the U.S. Cases are declining nationally, and the deputy coordinator of the White House monkeypox response team said he expected that, over time, they would drop to a trickle. By Sheryl Gay Stolberg Alessandro Grassani for The New York Times Can you get the flu shot and the new booster at the same time? Combining vaccines may be more convenient, experts said. By Dani Blum Getty Images How do I know if my symptoms are from Covid or the flu? There are slight differences in symptoms, but the best way to tell which infection you have is through a test. By Dani Blum Eli Hartman/Odessa American via AP Companies Fined $325,000 for Selling Pesticide to Fight Coronavirus, E.P.A. Says Zoono USA and Zoono Holdings, New Jersey companies, sold Zoono Microbe Shield through numerous websites and were fined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. By McKenna Oxenden Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press Pandemic Unemployment Fraud Estimate Rises to $45.6 Billion A federal watchdog tripled its earlier estimate of benefits that the U.S. government paid to people who weren’t entitled to them. By Niraj Chokshi Ibrahim Rayintakath David Wallace-Wells How Big Were Pandemic Learning Losses, Really? Despite the Covid disruption, school test score declines look pretty modest. By David Wallace-Wells What else we’re following Coronavirus So far 4.4 million Americans have received the updated boosters since they were rolled out earlier this month, Reuters reports. A new study found that Covid raises the risk of long-term brain injuries, Reuters reports. The U.K. is bracing for what could be a large Covid wave this fall, The Guardian reports. Covid restrictions were lifted at Los Angeles Unified School District headquarters. Then there was an outbreak, LAist reports. At the U.N. General Assembly, there was little talk of the pandemic, The Washington Post reports. The end of Covid? It’s worse than we imagined, The Atlantic reports. Monkeypox Monkeypox is making the stigma of skin conditions worse, The Washington Post reports. Other viruses Uganda has confirmed seven Ebola cases and one death in a recent outbreak, Reuters reports. Researchers discovered a new coronavirus in bats that is resistant to current vaccines, Time reports. Email your thoughts to virusbriefing@nytimes.com. Quote phkrause By the decree enforcing the institution of the papacy in violation of the law of God, our nation will disconnect herself fully from righteousness. When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near. {5T 451.1} Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted September 28, 2022 Members Share Posted September 28, 2022 September 28, 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. Yoshi Sodeoka A wave of outbreaks By Jonathan Wolfe These days, it seems as if outbreaks are everywhere. A rare strain of Ebola has emerged in Uganda, killing 23 people. In Zimbabwe, a measles outbreak has killed more than 700 children and infected thousands of others. In Syria, a cholera outbreak has left nearly 30 people dead and is spreading quickly. Fast-moving syphilis outbreaks are cropping up in Texas and the United Kingdom. And that was just in the past few weeks. Are outbreaks gaining steam, or are we just paying closer attention? To find out, I turned to my colleague Carl Zimmer, a veteran science writer and the author of “A Planet of Viruses.” What’s the story? More outbreaks, or more public attention? It’s a combination. It does seem as if in recent decades there have been more emerging diseases. One idea why is that humanity is growing and making more demands on the environment. We’re pushing into lots of ecosystems and coming into contact with lots of viruses that we didn’t have any contact with before, and there are more opportunities for spillovers. We also have international airplane travel and lots of trade, so we have lots of different ways to spread these pathogens around really quickly. Another reason we’re finding more emerging diseases is that scientists are actively looking for them and have better tools to find them. We still could be doing a lot more, but it’s a big difference from 20 or 30 years ago. Take this recent Ebola outbreak in Uganda. Africa has built up a very strong system for monitoring Ebola and quickly jumping into action when there is an outbreak. So we have a lot of information now about how many people have gotten it, and how many people have died, and what kind of Ebola it is. Unfortunately, it’s not the strain of Ebola that we have a good vaccine for. But now we can see these things in hours or days as opposed to not seeing them at all. Is science keeping up? The response to Covid offered a glimpse at what could be done if the world was focused on a new disease. Vaccines typically take 10 years or more to go from their design to getting into people’s arms — it took under a year to show that Covid vaccines were effective. But you can’t do it for free. These efforts require a lot of scientists, doing a lot of research. They require big clinical trials. I should also add that it turns out that, with the coronavirus, it wasn’t all that hard to make a vaccine that could provide protection. Compared with viruses like H.I.V., coronaviruses are a pretty simple target. Of course, the coronavirus is evolving, and so now we have to be thinking harder about long term protection. But if the next pathogen that emerges is more like H.I.V. than Covid, when it comes to vaccines, it could be a real problem. That would require a much more sophisticated approach. For example, we could have the first trials come through and show no efficacy at all. That would be terrible in the middle of a pandemic. We were lucky this time around that didn’t happen. Is there any conventional wisdom about where the next pandemic might come from? It’s not possible to say. There will be another pandemic, but we just don’t know enough about pathogens to say which one it will be and how bad it will be. We’re still in the early days of getting to know these bugs. Is it possible that another once-in-a-lifetime pandemic will occur soon? I guess I would take issue with Covid being a once-in-a-lifetime event. I was alive when H.I.V. started to emerge as a problem. Since then, it’s killed tens of millions of people. We actually deal with a lot of viruses and other pathogens all the time. Richer countries may have less trouble with them, but they’re still a big problem for the world. So nobody should just sit back and say, “Well, we got Covid, so the next generation can worry about the next big one.” There’s no justification for that. Turning to Covid, why haven’t we seen a new variant since Omicron? As far as scientists can tell, it seems like Omicron has hit on a really winning formula for being a coronavirus. And other versions of the virus just can’t compete. They haven’t found an evolutionary path to go up against Omicron. What does that mean for the future of the pandemic? It’s really hard to make predictions about the future of evolution. But what we’re seeing is that Omicron has a huge amount of space left to explore in terms of gaining new mutations and becoming even better at spreading among people. And it’s still possible that there’s another SARS-CoV-2 out there that’s not descended from Omicron that could suddenly jump out and take over. A new variant could be hiding right now inside of someone with a chronic infection. Or it might be in some animal. White tailed deer can hold on to these viruses for months and it’s possible that it could come out of a deer in a new infectious form that our immunity can’t fight against. What does the future of the pandemic look like? Cases are going down in some parts of the United States, but we still have over 400 people dying per day right now. And if you look back over the history of this pandemic, every time that the curve went down, there would be some people saying, “That’s it, it’s over.” And every time in the past two and a half years, it would bottom out and then start to climb again. I think we need to be prepared for a winter surge caused by a new version of Omicron. The updated boosters will definitely be able to help. But they are targeted at BA.5, and by December, I wouldn’t be surprised if BA.5 is gone. Hopefully what takes its place will be similar enough that the updated vaccines will still provide good protection. But ultimately, we’re going to have to figure out a way to get out of this evolutionary merry-go-round where we’re constantly trying to catch up with the latest variant. There needs to be a better strategy. When you look over the world of viruses, what are you keeping your eye on? I’m not watching this individual virus or that individual virus, so much as I’m keeping an eye on the systems that we’re building, or that we should be building. We need strong systems in place to recognize when new viruses are emerging. We need strong systems to be constantly developing vaccines and treatments for them. And we need public health systems that actually get vaccines to everyone, not just the rich people who can buy them. At this point in the pandemic, how are these systems looking? It’s a mixed bag. There’s a whole system of virus sampling and gene sequencing that’s happening across Africa, which is fantastic. But some of the systems, particularly on the public health side, are not in great shape. Some experts have said that we’re actually in worse shape now than we were before Covid. And keep in mind, about two and a half billion people aren’t vaccinated for Covid at all. So if you can’t even get billions of people vaccinated for the current pandemic, how do we expect to be able to be really ready for a new one in years to come? Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here. “We have more people leaving than coming,” said Tommy Cheung, a member of the Legislative Council in Hong Kong.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times Will Hong Kong bounce back? After more than two years under some of the world’s toughest pandemic rules, Hong Kong now wants to reclaim its status as a cosmopolitan global metropolis. Step one toward living with Covid-19: scrapping a strict quarantine mandate and easing restrictions on gatherings. But uncertainty lingers over the new approach. Hong Kong still prohibits visitors from going to places considered high risk like restaurants, bars and gyms during their first three days in the city, and many industry leaders say the changes won’t be enough to pull it out of an economic recession and restore its once-clamorous social life. There are deeper worries, too. The fact that Hong Kong began to diverge from China’s “zero Covid” policy only after Beijing gave its blessing has touched off worries over the city’s broader loss of autonomy. And as the city scrambled to get a grip on a Covid outbreak earlier this year, its leaders lurched back and forth between more and less restrictive policies, causing an exodus, especially of foreigners. What else we’re following Coronavirus A growing body of research suggests that Covid-19 vaccines cause temporary changes in menstrual cycles. Newer versions of Omicron suggest a big fall wave, the journal Science reports. There are signs that a fall wave is already starting in the Britain, CNN reports. New research found the Gamma variant of the virus in hairy armadillos in Argentina, months after it was last detected in humans. China is allowing dating apps to flourish in the hopes they will help combat Covid loneliness. The Times took a look at how notable pop culture figures helped get us through the pandemic. Monkeypox New federal government data suggests that vaccinated people are 14 times less likely to contract the virus, CNN reports. Sexual health clinics are straining under the weight of the monkeypox response, Stat News reports. Polio New York health authorities said vaccination efforts were stalling in the face of opposition from anti-vaccine groups, CBS reports. The Times is asking doctors and nurses what they’re hearing from patients about polio and the vaccine. Other viruses The C.D.C. saw a rise in three respiratory viruses in children this summer; a rhinovirus and two strains of enterovirus, Politico reports. A modified herpes virus has shown promise as a cancer therapy, the BBC reports. What you’re doing Coping with the pandemic is how I discovered I have undiagnosed autism. Although the pandemic was in itself anxiety-inducing, the forced isolation turned out to be the beginning of my healing. Who knew a pandemic-induced shutdown was just what I needed? Reintegrating socially has been difficult. It’s as if the shutdown allowed me to put down a weight I have been holding above my head my whole life — and I’m not very willing to pick it up again. I have become comfortable inside my small bubble of working from home and socializing mostly with just my husband and children. I am coping by setting boundaries and allowing myself to say no without feeling guilty. I am coping by still wearing my KF94 masks without caring about being judged in a room full of completely maskless people. I am growing more confident. And I am healing. — Jennifer Larsen, West Jordan, Utah 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 Email your thoughts to virusbriefing@nytimes.com. Quote phkrause By the decree enforcing the institution of the papacy in violation of the law of God, our nation will disconnect herself fully from righteousness. When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near. {5T 451.1} Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members phkrause Posted October 1, 2022 Members Share Posted October 1, 2022 September 30, 2022 Here’s your update on the coronavirus pandemic and other virus news. TOP NEWS Brynn Anderson/Associated Press News Analysis New Infectious Threats Are Coming. The U.S. Probably Won’t Contain Them. The coronavirus revealed flaws in the nation’s pandemic plans. The spread of monkeypox shows that the problems remain deeply entrenched. By Apoorva Mandavilli OTHER NEWS Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times Half of Adults Have Heard Little or Nothing About New Covid Boosters, Survey Finds The latest shots, which target Omicron and its subvariants, could offer protection against a winter surge in cases. But many people are unsure if they’re eligible. By Jan Hoffman Charles Rex Arbogast/Associated Press Physician Burnout Has Reached Distressing Levels, New Research Finds Nearly two-thirds of doctors are experiencing at least one symptom of burnout, a huge increase from before the pandemic. But the situation is not irreparable, researchers say. By Oliver Whang Phil Fisk/Sky Atlantic Britain Wonders, Is It Too Soon to Dramatize the Pandemic? A new Sky Atlantic mini-series, “This England,” depicts the early days of Covid-19 in the country, with Kenneth Branagh playing Boris Johnson. By Mark Landler Gilles Sabrié for The New York Times China’s ‘Absurd’ Covid Propaganda Stirs Rebellion The use of propaganda in the country has been on overdrive in the pandemic, with some Chinese citizens arguing the language has bordered on “nonsense.” By Zixu Wang Getty Images China Gets Its First mRNA Vaccine Approval. In Indonesia. Indonesia has cleared an mRNA Covid-19 vaccine developed by a Chinese company. But those types of shots, considered among the most effective, aren’t yet available in China. By Alexandra Stevenson What else we’re following The legacy of Covid-19 The lessons of the pandemic are already clear, writes Ed Wong of The Atlantic: “All of this will happen again.” The pandemic may have made young adults more neurotic, according to a new study, NBC News reports. California has ordered auto insurers to disclose profits they made because of the pandemic, The Associated Press reports. International Covid news Australia is changing its isolation rules and pandemic leave policies, the national broadcaster ABC reports. South Korea’s active Covid cases have fallen to below 30,000, Yonhap reports. Monkeypox Ohio officials said an individual with monkeypox died, the third known death of a person with the virus in the U.S., CNN reported. Bird flu The U.K. confirmed the presence of H.P.A.I. at a commercial poultry facility in North Yorkshire, the news site Agriland reported. Colonie, N.Y., has identified an outbreak of H.P.A.I. in wild and domestic birds, The Albany Times-Union reports. Officials in Minnesota, Wyoming Utah, Indiana, Montana and other states are asking wild bird hunters to be mindful of highly pathogenic avian influenza, or H.P.A.I. Email your thoughts to virusbriefing@nytimes.com. Quote phkrause By the decree enforcing the institution of the papacy in violation of the law of God, our nation will disconnect herself fully from righteousness. When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near. {5T 451.1} Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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