Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
At Least 102 Million US Covid Cases In The 3 Years Since The First
CNN: It's Been Three Years Since The First Covid-19 Case In The United States. What Have We Learned And What More Do We Need To Understand?
It’s been three years since the first Covid-19 case was diagnosed in the United States, on January 20, 2020. In the time since, nearly 1.1 million Americans have died from the coronavirus; the US has reported 102 million Covid cases, more than any other country, according to Johns Hopkins University. Both figures, many health officials believe, are likely to have been undercounted. (Hetter, 1/26)
CIDRAP: Global COVID Deaths Rise As WHO Emergency Committee Weighs COVID Status
The World Health Organization (WHO) emergency committee will meet [Friday] to assess whether the situation still warrants a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) against a backdrop of declining cases—but rising deaths. The WHO's emergency committees meet every 3 months or more frequently as needed. The group has met 13 times since it recommended a PHEIC for COVID in January 2020, most recently in October. (Schnirring, 1/26)
CIDRAP: Study: Home COVID Tests Lead To Vast Undercount Of Cases, Positivity Rates
With over 80% of US COVID-19 tests now being conducted at home, official case counts underreport the number of positive results and greatly underestimate the number of true infections, suggests a research letter published yesterday in JAMA Network Open. (Van Beusekom, 1/26)
San Francisco Chronicle: More Than 80% Of Test Results Not Publicly Reported, UCSF Study Finds
As home coronavirus tests become the standard, fewer results are reported to public health agencies, substantially skewing epidemiological data on public dashboards. A study by UCSF researchers that measured the prevalence of home testing as it became increasingly common last spring and summer found that as of August, more than 80% of all SARS-CoV-2 test results were not reported to official tallies. (Vaziri, 1/26)
More on the spread of covid —
CIDRAP: New York To Expand Its Wastewater Surveillance Network
The New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) announced earlier this week that it has received more than $21 million in funding to expand its wastewater surveillance and infectious disease monitoring capabilities. The $21.6 million in funding, which includes a $6.6 million grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, will help NYSDOH launch new pilot programs through its Wastewater Surveillance Network to test for influenza, respiratory syncytial virus, hepatitis A, norovirus, and antimicrobial-resistance genes. The number of participating watersheds in the network, which was established in August 2021 to help support the state's COVID-19 response, will grow from 125 to 215 and cover 81% of the population served by public sewer systems in the state. (Dall, 1/26)
The Boston Globe: New Coronavirus Waste Water Surveillance Program Reveals Neighborhood Disparities
Earlier this month, the City of Boston began sampling waste water from 11 manholes in as many neighborhoods across the city. The goal is to get a more localized look at how the coronavirus is spreading. What emerged was a picture of glaring, though unsurprising, disparities. (Mohammed, 1/26)
San Francisco Chronicle: COVID In California: Study Says Long COVID Is Hitting College Campuses
Long COVID is becoming a reality of college life, according to a study published Thursday by researchers at George Washington University. In an analysis of nearly 1,400 cases of COVID-19 among fully vaccinated students, faculty and staff between July 2021 and March 2022, about 36% experienced symptoms that developed four weeks or more after their initial infection. (Vaziri, 1/26)
On the vaccine rollout —
San Francisco Chronicle: Judge Who Struck Down California’s COVID Misinformation Law Questions ‘Scientific Consensus’ On Vaccines
The coronavirus is “a disease that scientists have only been studying for a few years, and about which scientific conclusions have been hotly contested,” U.S. District Judge William Shubb of Sacramento said Wednesday in a ruling halting enforcement of the law, which had taken effect this month. “COVID-19 is a quickly evolving area of science that in many aspects eludes consensus.” (Egelko, 1/26)
Reuters: U.S. CDC Still Looking At Potential Stroke Risk From Pfizer Bivalent COVID Shot
New data from one U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) database shows a possible stroke risk link for older adults who received an updated Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 booster shot, but the signal is weaker than what the agency had flagged earlier in January, health officials said on Thursday. (Erman, 1/26)
