Positive For Covid, Fauci Has ‘Mild’ Symptoms

NPR: Dr. Anthony Fauci Tests Positive For COVID-19, But Is Experiencing Mild Symptoms
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the chief medical adviser to President Biden and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has tested positive for COVID-19. The 81-year-old is fully vaccinated against the coronavirus and has been boosted twice, according to the National Institutes of Health. He is experiencing mild symptoms and will continue to isolate and work from home. He was also prescribed Paxlovid, the anti-COVID drug, according to a representative for the agency. Fauci has helped lead the U.S. government's response to the coronavirus pandemic since the initial outbreak. (Diaz, 6/15)

In other news about the spread of covid —

Axios: CDC: New Omicron Variants Gaining Ground
New Omicron strains capable of evading immune protections and causing breakthrough infections now account for more than 21% of total COVID cases in the U.S., according to updated CDC figures. The virus continues to evolve, with the BA.4 and BA.5 lineages accounting for a bigger proportion of the approximately 105,000 new daily cases. (Bettelheim, 6/15)

NBC News: 'Part Of A New Normal:' Covid Reinfections Are Here To Stay
In 2020, Covid reinfections were considered rare. In 2021, breakthrough infections in vaccinated individuals could occur, but again, the risk was low. In 2022, that's no longer the case for either. As more immune-dodging coronavirus variants emerge, reinfections and breakthrough infections appear increasingly normal. The United States isn't currently tracking Covid reinfections. However, U.K. researchers have found that the risk of reinfection was eight times higher during the omicron wave than it was in last year's delta wave. (Syal and Miller, 6/16)

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: This COVID Wave Is Worse Than We Know. But The Peak May Be Here
The St. Louis region is in the midst of another COVID-19 surge. And doctors and health officials say the numbers are likely far worse than records show. But, due in large part to a build up of immunity, this wave is not making as many residents as sick as did previous waves. The surge, in terms of infection rates, is as bad as any, said Dr. Charles Crecelius, medical director for two area nursing homes and an elder care specialist for BJC Medical Group. “But thank goodness, milder,” he said. “If it were as severe as other ones, we’d be in another disaster, with hospitals very full.” (Merrilees, 6/15)

Los Angeles Times: Being ‘Fully Vaccinated’ But Not Boosted Won't Stop Omicron
Two shots of COVID-19 vaccine without an additional booster offer essentially no lasting protection against infection with Omicron, and a coronavirus infection is as effective as a recent booster shot in preventing a new Omicron-fueled illness, researchers reported Wednesday. At the same time, any immunity to the highly contagious variant, either from infection or vaccination, appears to offer significant and lasting protection against serious illness, hospitalization and death, the researchers found. And if you haven’t had either the virus or the vaccine, doctors urged, it’s better to get the jab. (Purtill, 6/15)

On testing —

ABC News: Low Levels Of Testing May Be Hiding A COVID Wave In Texas: Experts 
Looking at data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would give the impression that COVID-19 is generally under control in Texas. The federal agency's map of levels of COVID-19 spread in the community shows most counties in the state are classified as "low" or "medium." But public health experts said this doesn't tell the true story and that case counts are artificially low in Texas due to low levels of testing reported to public health officials. (Kekatos, 6/15)

NBC News: Rapid Covid Tests Give Many False Negatives, But That Might Mean You're Not Contagious
Dr. Calvin Hwang, a clinical assistant professor at Stanford, and two other disease experts said rapid tests (also known as antigen tests) are good indicators of when a person might be contagious. "Only the people shedding the most virus are going to be positive with a rapid test, but those are the people you especially want to identify because they’re the most infectious," said Dr. Sheldon Campbell, an associate professor of laboratory medicine at the Yale School of Medicine who wasn't involved in the research. (Bendix, 6/15)

CIDRAP: Study Shows Antigen Tests Similar For Omicron As For Previous Variants
A new study based on COVID-19 tests performed on 723 Stanford University student-athletes showed rapid antigen tests (RAT) were highly specific when detecting infections caused by the Omicron variant, but displayed poor sensitivity compared to polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests—similar to the results of previous SAR-CoV-2 variants. The study was also published today in JAMA Network Open. (6/15)

KHN: At A Bay Area ‘Test-To-Treat’ Site, Few Takers For Free Antivirals
After avoiding movie theaters, restaurants, and gyms for more than two years, Helen Ho decided to take her first big risk since the start of the pandemic to attend her graduation. In late May, Ho, 32, flew to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to collect her Ph.D. in public policy from Harvard University. A few days after returning home to the Bay Area, she tested positive for covid-19. At first, the Ivy League-educated researcher found herself at a loss for what to do. (Scheier, 6/16)

On long covid —

San Francisco Chronicle: Virus Update: COVID Can Cloud The Brain For Half A Year, Study Finds
The neurological impact of a COVID-19 infection often persists after other symptoms have cleared up, according to an initial round of research published Wednesday by scientists at UCSD. A majority of patients in the study, published in Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology, reported symptoms such as fatigue, headaches, memory impairment, and decreased concentration for up to six months after a mild or moderate case of COVID-19. Some also had coordination and cognitive issues. While the symptoms generally improved after half a year, only one-third of the participants said they were completely resolved at that point. None of the individuals in the study had any history of pre-existing neurological conditions prior to their infections. (Vaziri and Ho, 6/15)

The Atlantic: Long COVID Could Be A ‘Mass Deterioration Event’
In late summer 2021, during the Delta wave of the coronavirus pandemic, the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation issued a disturbing wake-up call: According to its calculations, more than 11 million Americans were already experiencing long COVID. The academy’s dashboard has been updated daily ever since, and now pegs that number at 25 million. Even this may be a major undercount. The dashboard calculation assumes that 30 percent of COVID patients will develop lasting symptoms, then applies that rate to the 85 million confirmed cases on the books. Many infections are not reported, though, and blood antibody tests suggest that 187 million Americans had gotten the virus by February 2022. (Many more have been infected since.) If the same proportion of chronic illness holds, the country should now have at least 56 million long-COVID patients. That’s one for every six Americans. (Mazer, 6/15)