HHS Renews Covid Public Health Emergency For Another 3 Months

Reuters: U.S. Renews COVID-19 Public Health Emergency
The United States on Wednesday renewed the COVID-19 public health emergency, allowing millions of Americans to keep getting free tests, vaccines and treatments for at least three more months. The public health emergency was initially declared in January 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic began. It has been renewed each quarter since and was due to expire on April 16. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in a statement said it was extending the public health emergency and that it will give states 60 days notice prior to termination or expiration. This could be the last time HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra extends it, policy experts have said. (Aboulenein, 4/13)

NPR: COVID Remains A Public Health Emergency For Now, Says WHO And Biden Administration
The World Health Organization and the Biden administration are both saying that COVID-19 remains a public health emergency, even as global deaths from the virus have reached the lowest levels since March 2020. Both the WHO and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services first declared COVID-19 a public health emergency in January 2020. More than two years later, the pandemic situation has improved, but global health experts believe the virus is still a major health threat. More needs to be done before the WHO can lift this designation, the organization's Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Wednesday during a press conference. (Diaz, 4/13)

In related news about the spread of covid —

Axios: U.S. COVID Cases On The Rise Again
After two months of plummeting COVID cases across the U.S., the virus is on the rise again, with the Northeast accounting for many of the new cases. We knew this was coming. Now it's just a matter of seeing how large an impact this surge of the BA.2 subvariant of Omicron has in the U.S. "We've got to be careful, but I don't think this is a moment where we need to be excessively concerned," White House's COVID-19 response coordinator Ashish Jha told the Today show this week, pointing to low infection numbers and hospitalizations. (Reed and Beheraj, 4/14)

The New York Times: New Omicron Subvariants Spreading Fast In New York 
Two new versions of Omicron, the coronavirus variant that has swept through the world in the past few months, are circulating in New York State and may be responsible for rising infections in the region over the past few weeks, state health officials announced on Wednesday. The appearance of these variants, both of which evolved from the subvariant BA.2, may explain why New York has been the national hot spot the last few weeks, the officials said. So far, the new viruses do not appear to cause more severe disease than previous variants, the officials said. (Mandavilli, 4/14)

NBC News: Covid Cases Are On The Rise, Yet Few Precautions Have Come Back. Why?
When Philadelphia’s health commissioner announced this week that the city’s indoor mask mandate would be reinstated as Covid-19 cases there rise, something unusual happened: Not a single other major U.S. city followed suit. Throughout the pandemic, local, state and federal precautions have followed a predictable pattern. As key Covid indicators, such as infections, hospitalizations and deaths, have gone up, so has the number of officials who have required masks, proof of vaccination or other measures to slow the rate of transmission of the coronavirus.  (Chuck, 4/13)

The Boston Globe: Boston Public Health Commission Urges Testing, Vaccination Ahead Of Holiday Weekend As COVID Positivity Rate In City Tops 6 Percent
The Boston Public Health Commission urged residents on Wednesday to take steps to protect themselves against COVID-19 ahead of the upcoming Passover, Easter and Patriot’s Day weekend. In a post to its blog, the commission said the city’s COVID-19 positivity rate is at 6.2 percent, passing their “threshold of concern” of 5 percent. Residents between the ages of 20 to 30 are driving the increased rate, the commission wrote. As people prepare to gather over the long weekend, which includes Monday’s running of the 126th Boston Marathon, the commission urged people to ensure they were fully vaccinated, had received a booster shot, and take a COVID-19 test before gathering. (McKenna, 4/13)

The New York Times: Grandparents Step In After Children Lose Parents To Covid-19 
This is not what Ida Adams thought life would be like at 62.She had planned to continue working as a housekeeper at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore until she turned 65. After retiring, she and her husband, Andre, also 62, thought they might travel a little — “get up and go whenever we felt like it.” She didn’t expect to be hustling a seventh-grader off to school each weekday. But in January 2021, Ms. Adams’s daughter, Kimya Lomax, died of Covid-19 at 43 after three weeks alone in a hospital with no visitors permitted. She left behind a young daughter. (Span, 4/12)

AP: Arkansas Jail, Doc: Ivermectin Lawsuit Should Be Dismissed
Attorneys for an Arkansas jail and doctor being sued by inmates who say they were unknowingly given ivermectin to treat their COVID-19 say the lawsuit should be dismissed because the men are no longer being held in the county facility. In a motion filed Tuesday, attorneys for the Washington County jail and Dr. Robert Karas noted that the four inmates who filed the lawsuit are now being held in state prisons. (4/13)

Meanwhile, some encouraging news about "superspreader" events —

CNN: Covid-19 'Superspreading' Can Still Happen, But Now We Have The Tools To Slow It
Covid-19 superspreading, which involves the virus spreading at a single event on a larger scale than what is typically expected, is still possible and poses a risk. But in this stage of the pandemic, a large event may not necessarily be an invitation to widespread, unchecked illness – if people use tools now available to limit risk, according to public health experts. Now, there are more tools to curb the spread of Covid-19: authorized vaccinations that limit illnesses and infections, robust supplies of at-home tests that can indicate whether someone needs to isolate, face masks to wear in high-risk situations and therapeutics that can reduce severe disease. (Howard, 4/12)