The US is heading out of the “full blown” pandemic phase of Covid-19, Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser said, as he predicted a combination of vaccinations, treatments and prior infection would soon make the virus more manageable.
Dr Anthony Fauci told the Financial Times he hoped there would be an end to all pandemic-related restrictions in the coming months including mandatory wearing of masks.
In his most optimistic comments about the trajectory of the pandemic since the emergence of the Omicron coronavirus variant, Fauci outlined a scenario in which local health departments would lead the response to the virus rather than the Biden administration.
Fauci said: “As we get out of the full-blown pandemic phase of Covid-19, which we are certainly heading out of, these decisions will increasingly be made on a local level rather than centrally decided or mandated. There will also be more people making their own decisions on how they want to deal with the virus.”
Asked when restrictions might end, he said he hoped it would be “soon”, and agreed with the suggestion it was likely to happen this year. But he warned local health departments could reintroduce measures temporarily if outbreaks were detected in the community.
https://www.ft.com/content/3800e619-3404-4e57-a9eb-dab311405c2a
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Cases of COVID-19 continue to drop significantly across the country, as the most recent surge caused by the Omicron variant is declining at a rapid pace.
The United States reported 330,128 new COVID-19 cases yesterday, and 3,546 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 tracker. The 7-day average of new daily cases is 385,425, with 2,658 daily deaths, according to the New York Times tracker.
New daily cases have decreased by almost 50% in the last 2 weeks, but the average daily death rate — which lags by 4 to 6 weeks behind case rates — has increased by 35%. An analysis of new federal data shows 100,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 since Thanksgiving.
It will take several weeks for hospitalizations and deaths to follow case count trends; The HHS Protect Public Data Hub shows 122,627 inpatient beds in use for COVID-19. Hospitalization rates are down 16% in the last 14 days.
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2022/02/us-covid-19-cases-continue-steep-decline
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It’s time to let the young, healthy and “anyone who wants to move on” from the pandemic do so, said Dr. Stefanos Kales, a professor at Harvard Medical School.
In a paper posted on LinkedIn last month, Kales said that for the majority of children and adults, “Covid-19 is not a serious threat, only a nuisance that impedes schooling, work and travel.”
“Once Omicron peaks, subsequent variants are likely to be even more mild,” he said. “We badly need to allow the general public, particularly the young, to get back to normal life.”
He said he favors focusing Covid-19 efforts on “the vulnerable” rather than the population as a whole.
“Many reasoned, outspoken and honest scientists have been making the point that Covid-19 is moving rapidly from a ‘pandemic’ … to an ‘endemic’ respiratory infection comparable to the common cold and flu,” he said.
In light of this, it’s “past due” to rethink some Covid protocols, he said.
The C.D.C. has begun to publish data on Covid outcomes among people who have received booster shots, and the numbers are striking:
As you can see, vaccination without a booster provides a lot of protection. But a booster takes somebody to a different level.
Once you get a booster, your risk of getting severely ill from Covid is tiny. It is quite small even if you are older or have health problems.
The average weekly chance that a boosted person died of Covid was about one in a million during October and November (the most recent available C.D.C. data). Since then, the chances have no doubt been higher, because of the Omicron surge. But they will probably be even lower in coming weeks, because the surge is receding and Omicron is milder than earlier versions of the virus. For now, one in a million per week seems like a reasonable estimate.
That risk is not zero, but it is not far from it. The chance that an average American will die in a car crash this week is significantly higher — about 2.4 per million. So is the average weekly death rate from influenza and pneumonia — about three per million.
With a booster shot, Covid resembles other respiratory illnesses that have been around for years, for the unvaccinated, of course, Covid remains many times worse than the flu.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/31/briefing/boosters-cdc-covid-effectiveness.html
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The seven-day average for daily new cases was 543,016 as of Saturday, down 32% compared with the previous seven-day average, while the seven-day average of daily new deaths has increased 11.7% to 2,265, according to tracking by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC listed the death toll at 879,071.
The CDC has also reported that the seven-day daily average for hospitalization admissions from Jan. 19-Jan. 25 was 19,315, down 8.8% from the previous seven-day average.
States on the East Coast, which were among the first to see spikes in cases brought on by the highly infectious Omicron variant have begun to see broad declines in case rates, with New Jersey reporting a seven-day average of 7,016 new cases, a 14-day decline of 70%.
Other states such as Colorado, Florida, Illinois and Louisiana have begun to see improvement with case averages dropping more than 40% over 14 days, while Montana is seeing record numbers as its seven-day new daily case average has risen 79% in the past 14 days. Kentucky, Idaho and Washington have also seen their daily averages rise 40%-55% in the past two weeks.
New York reported 8,781 cases Sunday, way down from a record 90,132 Jan. 8. But 202 fatalities were reported Saturday with 305 Tuesday.
The official in charge of President Biden’s coronavirus response team expressed optimism on Friday about the future of the pandemic, saying the nation is “moving toward a time when Covid won’t disrupt our daily lives, where Covid won’t be a constant crisis but something we protect against and treat.”
The official, Jeffrey D. Zients, made the remark at a White House news conference as the national coronavirus caseload was on a slight downward trajectory, largely because of declines in major cities in the hard-hit Northeast. That trend also prompted Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to sound an upbeat note.
“We are starting to see steep declines in areas that were first peaking, so areas of the northeast — New York, Rhode Island, Connecticut — are really starting to come down,” Dr. Walensky said at the same briefing, calling it “an optimistic trend.”
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/01/21/world/omicron-covid-vaccine-tests
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Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease specialist, said Sunday he is “as confident as you can be” about the prospect of most states reaching a peak of omicron cases by mid-February.
“Things are looking good. We don’t want to get overconfident, but they look like they’re going in the right direction right now,” he said.
Fauci said there are states in the northeast and in the upper midwest where cases have already peaked and declined “rather sharply” but that cases are still rising in southern and western states.
When Raddatz asked “what should life look like” going forward and about the “long-term strategy” for dealing with future peaks and variants, Fauci said the hope is the level of infection will be below what he calls an “area of control.”
“Control means you’re not eliminating it, you’re not eradicating it, but it gets down to such a low level, that it’s essentially integrated into the general respiratory infections that we have learned to live with.”
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/fauci-optimistic-omicron-peak-february/story?id=82415835
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