A Covid Mystery: Why Are Some People Good At Avoiding Infection?

ABC News: Why Some Americans Haven't Gotten COVID Yet And Why It's Not Inevitable They Ever Will: Experts
Because omicron has shown the ability to cause breakthrough infections despite vaccination status, this has led to fears that everyone will catch the virus at some point. However, it is important to clarify that the COVID vaccines continue to be highly effective in its primary purpose in preventing hospitalization and death. However, public health experts said it's not inevitable Americans who have not gotten COVID yet eventually will, and that there are several reasons people have been able to avoid infection so far, including certain behaviors such as being serious about masking and social distancing, vaccination rates and maybe even genetics. (Kekatos, 3/18)

NPR: How To Tell If You Have Long COVID
Waves of fatigue. The inability to smell milk that has gone bad. A racing heartbeat. These are just a few COVID-19 symptoms that can linger after an initial coronavirus infection. Though they may not always amount to the debilitating cases of long COVID-19 that can leave people bedridden or unable to perform daily functions, it's very common to take weeks to fully recover — a condition I've been thinking of as "medium COVID." I've been reporting on COVID-19 since the coronavirus pandemic started, and I thought I knew what an infection would be like for a young, otherwise healthy person like me. I knew there was a risk for long COVID-19, even with mild cases, but in my mind, there were two types of COVID-19: run-of-the-mill cases that didn't last much longer than their isolation periods required, and long COVID-19, which was relatively rare. Instead, like so many Americans, I found myself caught somewhere in between. (Feldman, 3/17)

More on the new wave of covid —

Politico: Europe’s Covid Spike Has Biden Officials Concerned, Could Lead To Return Of Masks
The surge in Covid-19 cases in Europe, particularly in the United Kingdom, is prompting urgent conversations among senior Biden health aides about the potential of the U.S. experiencing another wave this spring, according to three senior officials familiar with the matter. While cases in the U.S. are at an eight-month low, the exponential growth in infections seen in several European countries is the latest evidence that Covid-19 remains a persistent threat that has the potential to upend the White House’s hopes of moving past the pandemic. (Banco, Cancryn and Mahr, 3/17)

The Baltimore Sun: Had Enough Yet? The Next Coronavirus Variant Is Here, But It May Not Be That Bad
The world couldn’t be more ready to move on from the deadly pandemic. But as predicted, the hardy coronavirus continues to mutate and infect people anew. Cases are again rising in Asia and Europe, which has been a harbinger of things to come here. The upswing is tied to a new, even more contagious version of the omicron variant that spread like wildfire across the United States in December and January. That was BA.1 and the new subvariant is known as BA.2, and its numbers are rising in Maryland and the nation, according to surveillance that includes genetic sequencing. (Cohn, 3/17)

North Carolina Health News: CDC Wastewater Surveillance System Detects COVID 
While coronavirus cases have declined, the pandemic is not over and requires constant monitoring to provide advanced notice of new variants if they emerge. In 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention launched the National Wastewater Surveillance System (NWSS), an early detection tool, which alerts communities of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID. The wastewater monitoring process is noninvasive for households, as researchers collect samples from local wastewater plants and provide analysis without having to interact with individual residents. (Atwater, 3/18)

Dallas Morning News: Looking For COVID-19, Dallas Is Helping The CDC Test Your Sewage
Twice a week at Dallas’ Central Wastewater Treatment Plant in east Oak Cliff, workers use an empty milk jug tied to a string to pull a 250-mililiter sample out of a pool of thick gray water. Two-thirds of Dallas’ waste comes through the plant, so the samples provide a small look at everyone’s, well, poop. The sample is then sent by FedEx to a lab in Mississippi, where it is tested for levels of COVID-19 on the dime of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Scudder, 3/17)

KHN: KHN’s ‘What The Health?’: We May Be Done With Covid, But Covid’s Not Done With Us 
Logistics expert Jeff Zients, who has headed the White House covid-19 response team since the start of the Biden administration, is stepping down and will be replaced by popular public health expert Dr. Ashish Jha, who will take a leave from his post as dean of the School of Public Health at Brown University. Meanwhile, White House officials are scrambling to figure out how to get the funding they need to continue their covid control efforts now that the president has signed the big spending bill for the remainder of the federal fiscal year. (3/17)

In covid research —

CIDRAP: Moms Spread COVID-19 To Newborns Less Than 2% Of Time, Data Show
SARS-CoV-2 is transmitted from mother to baby before, during, and after childbirth about 1.8% of the time, and vaginal births and breastfeeding do not raise the risk, finds a meta-analysis today in BMJ. ... Of the 800 COVID-positive fetuses or babies with outcome data, 20 were stillbirths, 23 died during the first 28 days of life, and 8 were early pregnancy losses; 749 babies (93.6%) were alive at the end of follow-up. (3/17)

CIDRAP: 70% Of COVID Survivors In UK Study Had Impaired Memory, Focus
An online UK study finds that about 70% of 181 adult [long] COVID survivors had memory and concentration problems several months after infection, 75% reported persistent symptoms so severe that they couldn't work, and 50% said that medical professionals didn't take their symptoms seriously. (Van Beusekom, 3/17)

Fox News: More COVID Deaths Reported In US Counties With Lower Internet Access: Study
U.S. communities with limited internet access had higher COVID-19 mortality rates during the first full year of the pandemic, according to researchers. In a study published earlier this month in the journal JAMA Network Open, University of Chicago authors wrote that for places with more limited access between 2.4 and six deaths per 100,000 people could be prevented, depending on whether they were rural, suburban or urban. "Adopting an asset-based approach, we believe this finding suggests that more awareness is needed about the essential asset of technological access to reliable information, remote work, schooling opportunities, resource purchasing and/or social community. Populations with limited internet access remain understudied and are often excluded in pandemic research," they noted. (Musto, 3/17)