Daily Covid Cases Drop Below 500K Nationally, But Deaths Are Still Rising

Fox News: US Daily COVID-19 Cases Fall Below 500K, Data Shows
For the first time in weeks, new daily COVID-19 cases in the U.S. were reported below the 500,000 mark. Data from the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center showed Wednesday that new cases tallied 398,914. New deaths, however, have been on an upward trend amidst this winter's surge of the omicron variant of the coronavirus, and the university's data showed 3,622 new deaths in the past day. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), case numbers have been trending downward over the last 30 days. (Musto, 2/2)

San Francisco Chronicle: Bay Area COVID-19 Health Data Shows More Promising Signs That The Omicron Wave Has Crested
In another promising sign that the omicron-fueled COVID-19 surge in the Bay Area is slowing, cases and hospitalizations continued trending downward in every Bay Area county this week. Data from state and Bay Area health agencies offered another encouraging sign that the wave that ripped through the region last month had crested, as officials openly contemplate what the region might look like post-omicron. (Echeverria, 2/2)

But, as predicted, deaths are still climbing —

Axios: COVID Deaths Are Rising Even As Omicron Dies Down
Omicron is finally on its way out, but it's leaving behind a death toll that is still rising. New cases are plunging. The U.S. is now averaging just under 425,000 new cases per day, down from over 750,000 per day just two weeks ago. And for the first time since the Omicron wave set in, almost the whole country is sharing in that improvement. Average daily cases have fallen over the past two weeks in all but five states... But deaths are still on the rise. The virus is killing roughly 2,600 Americans per day, on average. (Baker and Beheraj, 2/3)

Detroit Free Press: Michigan Surpasses 30,000 COVID-19 Deaths
The Michigan health department reported 18,803 new COVID-19 cases over a two-day period Wednesday, an average of 9,402 per day, bringing Michigan to 1,999,416 confirmed cases since the beginning of the pandemic. Another 327 coronavirus-related deaths were also reported Wednesday, 239 of which were identified in a regular vital records review. This increases the state's COVID-19 death toll to 30,170. Of 44,669 confirmatory tests reported by the health department Tuesday, 7,838 yielded positive results for a positivity rate of 17.55%. (Marini, 2/2)

New Orleans Times-Picayune: 32 New Nursing Home Deaths Reported As Omicron Drives Surge In Louisiana Nursing Homes
Even as the omicron-driven coronavirus surge shows signs of having peaked, it has ravaged Louisiana's nursing homes, where more than 50 deaths have been at least partly attributed to COVID over the last two weeks, state data shows. There were 32 deaths in the seven days leading up to Wednesday, making that week the deadliest in nursing homes since at least last spring. It was worse than than the deadliest week during the delta surge, when there were two weeks during September with 19 deaths each. Two weeks ago was also particularly deadly, with 26 deaths reported among Louisiana's roughly 270 nursing homes on Jan. 26. The surge comes on the heels of an explosive rise in cases that pushed COVID levels even higher than during the delta surge. (Roberts III, 2/2)

USA Today: CDC Forecast Predicts Up To 75,000 More Deaths By Feb. 26
Even though infections from the omicron variant are decreasing across the country, the CDC's national ensemble forecast predicts the U.S. will reach 933,000 to 965,000 COVID deaths by Feb. 26, the higher figure being nearly 75,000 more than the current total. That's in part because deaths from the coronavirus typically lag infections by about three weeks, and the nation experienced an unprecedented spike in cases in January. The weekly ensemble, a compilation of predictions from diverse sources that the CDC says has been "among the most reliable forecasts in performance over time,'' envisions a stable or uncertain trend in the number of fatalities reported over the rest of the month. (Ortiz, Bacon and Tebor, 2/2)

CIDRAP: High BMI More Strongly Connected With COVID Death In Racial Minorities
Body mass index (BMI) was more strongly associated with COVID-19–related death in racial minorities than among White patients, according to a study today in Nature Communications. A team led by the University of Leicester in England examined the electronic health records and census and death data of 12.6 million adults older than 40 years who had a recorded BMI from January to December 2020. (2/2)

In other news about the spread of the coronavirus —

Los Angeles Times: Omicron Hit Poor L.A. Communities Of Color Hardest
The Omicron wave swept through Los Angeles over the last two months with unprecedented speed, but ultimately traced a grim path that is becoming increasingly familiar two years into the pandemic. Cases first exploded in affluent communities, where air travel likely introduced the latest coronavirus variant, which got a head start in places like South Africa, London and New York. At first, it appeared the variant might be a “great unifier,” spreading equally throughout the county, but then it took a hard turn toward lower-income communities of color that had already suffered the most throughout the pandemic. (Smith, 2/2)

Fox News: California Woman, 29, Hospitalized With Coronavirus Complications Needs Double Lung Transplant: Report
A 29-year-old California woman was clinging to life this week in need of a double lung transplant to survive after coronavirus complications left her on a ventilator last month, according to reports. Brittany Romena, 29, was hospitalized in Madera, California, with the virus on Jan. 11 and remained in a medically induced coma, according to FOX 26 in Fresno. Her mother Kristina Chapa told the station her daughter has Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome and was now on a long waiting list for a lung transplant. (Stimson, 2/3)

Houston Chronicle: Texas Tech Joins Study Testing Unproven Ivermectin, Other Controversial 'Repurposed Drugs' For COVID Effects
Texas universities, including Texas Tech's Health Science Center in El Paso, are now recruiting subjects for a nationwide study to test the effects of unproven repurposed drugs against non-severe COVID cases. Ivermectin, an anti-parasitic medication that local and federal health agencies have warned against using for COVID symptoms, is a candidate in the clinical trial known as ACTIV-6, along with fluticasone, an asthma medication, and fluvoxamine, an anti-depressant. (Zong, 2/2)

CIDRAP: First COVID-19 Human Challenge Study Yields Infection Clues
COVID-19 infection has a shorter incubation period than originally thought, and rapid tests performed well at tracking virus levels, a research team based at Imperial College London reported today in a preprint study that describes the results of the first human challenge trial. ... With the goals of exploring infection dynamics and whether the human challenge model is safe studying vaccines, treatments, and tests, Imperial College researchers conducted the study in young adults ages 18 to 30 who had not been vaccinated. Participants were inoculated with nose drops containing a low dose of the original SARS-CoV-2 virus, then monitored in a controlled setting for 2 weeks. (Schnirring, 2/2)