As States Reopened After First 2020 Wave, 5,300 More People Were Hospitalized Daily

CIDRAP: COVID Hospital Cases Rose After States Reopened In 2020, Data Show
An estimated 5,319 more US COVID-19 patients were hospitalized each day after states began allowing nonessential businesses to reopen in spring 2020, but a rise in the death rate lagged by more than a month, a study late last week in JAMA Health Forum finds. (Van Beusekom, 6/28)

In other news about the spread of covid —

Fox News: CDC Reports 4,115 Breakthrough COVID-19 Cases Involving Hospitalizations Or Deaths
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has received reports of 4,115 patients with COVID-19 vaccine breakthrough cases who were hospitalized or died. Of those cases, 26% of hospitalizations were reported as asymptomatic or not related to COVID-19, and 19% of the 750 fatalities were reported as asymptomatic or not related to COVID-19. The data, which includes information through June 21, is amid a backdrop of 150 million people who are fully vaccinated in the U.S. Nearly half of the breakthrough cases, or 49%, involve females, and 3,124, or 76%, occurred in patients ages 65 years and older. (Hein, 6/28)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: 95% Of Those Who've Died From COVID-19 In Wisconsin Since March Weren't Vaccinated Or Fully Vaccinated, Officials Say
Nearly all Wisconsinites who recently have died of COVID-19 were unvaccinated — or not fully vaccinated — state health officials said Monday. And just 1% of all confirmed and probable COVID-19 cases since Jan. 1 have been among those who were fully vaccinated, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Health Services said. The stark news came as Wisconsin finally reached a significant milestone Monday, with 50.1% of the state's population having received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine. (Spicuzza, 6/28)

Bay Area News Group: Contra Costa County Publishing COVID Rates By Vaccination Status
Contra Costa’s public health department is now reporting COVID-19 case rates separately for the vaccinated and unvaccinated people who live in the county. The data shows that case rates for unvaccinated residents are about 10 times higher than the rate for vaccinated residents. The 7-day average daily case rate per 100,000 fully vaccinated residents has remained below 1 since early May, while the rate for everyone else has fluctuated from a low of 5.8 to a high of 8.1 in the same period of time. (Blair Rowan, 6/28)

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette: State Covid Hospitalizations Top 300 For First Time Since March
Arkansas' count of coronavirus cases rose by 966 from Saturday through Monday, with the number of people hospitalized in the state with the virus rising above 300 for the first time since March, according to information released by the state Department of Health on Monday. Each increase was significantly larger than the one a week earlier. Altogether, the increase over three days was larger by almost 500. After rising by 21, to 312, as of Saturday, then to 325 as of Sunday, the number of covid-19 patients in Arkansas hospitals fell to 314 as of Monday, according to the Health Department. (Davis, 6/28)

Houston Chronicle: New Chart Reveals Sobering Look At COVID-19's Impact On Texas Deaths
More than 51,000 Texans have died of COVID-19, according to the state’s latest tally. That is larger than the capacity of Minute Maid Park, though it represents less than two-thousandths of Texas’ 29 million residents. So, was the virus, which killed less than 2 percent of the Texans with documented cases, responsible for anything more than a blip in historical death trends? An examination of Texas the past 50 years reveals the answer: Unequivocally yes. Deaths in Texas historically are cyclical, explained Mark Hayward, a sociology professor at the University of Texas at Austin who studies mortality trends. They peak in winter with the annual flu season and ebb in summer, and steadily increase overall as the state’s population grows. (Despart, 6/28)

Also —

The Boston Globe: Hospitals Are Still Restricting Visitors For Patients, Especially Those Sick With COVID
More than a year into the coronavirus pandemic, hospitals are still limiting visitors for patients, especially those sick with COVID-19, even as more than 4.1 million people in Massachusetts are fully vaccinated and society shifts toward normalcy. Very often, visitors are capped at one or two at a time per patient, a reminder that infection prevention is still a great concern for hospitals that were swarmed with COVID patients for much of the past 15 months and contended with outbreaks among their staff. Patients who are hospitalized for COVID often cannot have any visitors — unless the patient is dying, so that family members can say goodbye. Nearly 100 people in Massachusetts remain hospitalized for COVID, about one quarter of them in intensive care. (Dayal McCluskey, 6/28)

NPR: Key To Ending Pandemic Could Be Protecting The Immuno-Compromised
There's mounting research to suggest that protecting people who are immuno-compromised from getting COVID is important not just for their sake – it could be critical in the effort to end the pandemic for everyone. The evidence comes from two separate strands of studies. Dr. Laura McCoy has been doing the first type. She's an infectious disease researcher at University College London. "The group of people that I'm particularly interested in are those living with HIV," she says. She's been studying how well their immune systems respond to vaccines against COVID-19 — specifically the Pfizer vaccine. So far, it's worked quite well for HIV-positive people. (Aizenman, 6/28)

CIDRAP: Point-Of-Care COVID Antibody Test Is Accurate, Adaptable, Low Maintenance
Duke University researchers developed a point-of-care test (POCT) that can detect SARS-CoV-2 antibodies and four other coronaviruses with 100% accuracy, according to initial test results from a small cohort published in Science Advances late last week. The test is called DA-D4 POCT, with DA standing for double-antigen and D4 being the assay platform recently developed to detect Ebola infections 1 day faster than typical polymerase chain reaction tests. (6/28)

KHN: Analysis: Why We’ll Likely Never Know Whether A Covid Lab Leak Happened In China 
Early in this century, post-SARS, and in a period when China started allowing more students and scientists to study abroad, collaboration and exchange between American and Chinese scientists blossomed. Many of China’s top scientists today were educated in the West. These include George Gao, the head of China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, who trained and taught at Oxford and Harvard, and Shi Zhengli, who directs the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and received her Ph.D. in France. (Rosenthal, 6/29)