Is Covid Entering A Fourth Wave? Depends On Whom You Ask

The Washington Post: Are We Entering The Pandemic's ‘Fourth Wave’? Experts Disagree. 
The data doesn’t look good. After weeks of decline, the average number of new coronavirus infections reported each day is higher than it’s been in a month. The number of people in hospitals with covid-19 has been stubbornly stagnant since mid-March. And even as highly contagious virus variants spread, state leaders are relaxing safety precautions. By now, this is a familiar script. But this time around, the country’s leading epidemiologists disagree about what to call this latest phase of the pandemic. Is the United States on the cusp of a “fourth wave”? Or are we instead seeing the last gasps of a crisis in its 14th month? (Thebault, 4/4)

Fox News: US Seeing 'Fourth Wave' Of Coronavirus Infections Due To Variants: Osterholm
Epidemiologist Dr. Michael Osterholm believes the U.S. is seeing a "fourth wave" of infections due to coronavirus variants that have arisen over the past few months. Osterholm, who served as a member of President Biden's COVID-19 transition advisory board, said the variants pose a significant problem despite underscoring that existing vaccines appear to be effective against them. "I believe that, in some ways, we're almost in a new pandemic," Osterholm told "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace. "The only good news is that the current vaccines are effective against this particular variant B.1.1.7." (Aitken, 4/4)

NPR: Fauci Expects Surge In Vaccinations To Keep A 4th Coronavirus Wave At Bay
More than 56 million people in the U.S. have now been fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Yet cases are rising again in some parts of the country, notably in Michigan and states in the Northeast. But Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Biden administration's chief medical adviser, predicts that the U.S. won't see a fourth wave of the coronavirus as severe as the previous three, thanks to the uptick in vaccinations. "It's kind of like a race between the potential for a surge and our ability to vaccinate as many people as we possibly can," he said in an interview Friday with NPR's Morning Edition. "And hopefully, if you want to make this a metaphorical race, the vaccine is going to win this one." (King, 4/2)

CNN: There Could Be One Big Difference In Another Covid-19 Surge In The US: Who Will Be Most Affected 
Experts say Covid-19 vaccinations in the US are going extremely well -- but not enough people are yet protected and the country may be at the start of another surge. The US reported a record over the weekend with more than 4 million Covid-19 vaccine doses administered in 24 hours, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And the country now averages more than 3 million doses daily, according to CDC data. But only about 18.5% of Americans are fully vaccinated, CDC data shows, and Covid-19 cases in the country have recently seen concerning increases. (Maxouris, 4/5)

The virus is surging in California and Maryland —

Bay Area News Group: COVID: California Reports Most New Cases In Almost Four Weeks
California reported nearly 4,000 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, the highest single-day total in almost a month, amid otherwise declining death and hospitalization numbers and an increasing share of the adult population fully vaccinated against the virus. The 3,984 new cases reported by counties, according to data tracked by this news organization, are the most reported in a single day since March 9. The state now has a seven-day average of 2,643 daily cases, the highest the average has been since March 15. The slight increase comes after weeks of low and declining case numbers, which in turn followed a massive winter surge that began in early November, peaked over the holidays and declined through February. (Castañeda, 4/5)

San Francisco Chronicle: 'Double Mutant' Coronavirus Variant Surfaces In Bay Area. Here's What We Know
The Bay Area has yet another coronavirus variant to contend with. Through genomic sequencing, the Stanford Clinical Virology Lab has identified and confirmed one case of an emerging variant that originated in India, said Lisa Kim, a spokesperson for Stanford Health Care, on Sunday. Stanford is screening seven other presumptive cases; the location of the confirmed case was not disclosed. The variant is being dubbed the “double mutant” because it carries two mutations in the virus that helps it latch itself onto cells. It could possibly be responsible for the troubling new surge in cases in India. Kim said it is not yet known if the variant is more infectious or resistant to vaccine antibodies. (Hwang, 4/4)

The Baltimore Sun: Maryland Reports 1,669 Coronavirus Cases, 8 Deaths As State Sees Highest Daily Case Count Since January 
Maryland health officials reported 1,669 new cases of the coronavirus and eight more deaths Sunday as the state posted its highest number of daily COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations due to the virus since January. Despite that more than 1.1 million residents have been fully vaccinated, according to the state, an increase in Maryland’s infection rate that began in late March has continued into April as the state’s average testing positivity rate stays above the 5% level the World Health Organization recommends jurisdictions reach before relaxing social distancing and business restrictions. (Davis, 4/4)

Also —

Fox News: UK Coronavirus Variant Likely Circulated Undetected In US For Months, Researchers Say
The more transmissible coronavirus variant first detected in the U.K. likely made its way to the U.S. months before it was discovered, according to a new analysis by researchers. In fact, the B.1.1.7 variant was likely "silently spreading" in 15 other countries before being identified in the U.K. in December 2020. "By the time we learned about the U.K. variant in December, it was already silently spreading across the globe," Lauren Ancel Meyers, director of the COVID-19 Modeling Consortium at The University of Texas at Austin, and professor of integrative biology, said in a news release posted to Eurekalert.org. "We estimate that the B.1.1.7 variant probably arrived in the U.S. by October of 2020, two months before we knew it existed." (Hein, 4/2)

Bloomberg: Covid-19 Coronavirus Mutants Multiply As Scientists Race To Decode Variations
When Bette Korber, a biologist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, spotted the first significant mutation in the Covid-19 virus last spring, some scientists were skeptical. They didn’t believe it would make the virus more contagious and said its rapid rise might just be coincidence. Now, 11 months later, the D614G mutation she helped discover is ubiquitous worldwide, featured in the genomes of fast-spreading variants from the U.K., South Africa and Brazil. Meanwhile, new mutations are popping up in increasingly complicated patterns, spurring a drive by top biologists to devise new ways to track a fire hose of incoming genomic data. (Langreth, 4/5)

Modern Healthcare: Increase In Virus Variation Aligns With Rise In COVID-19 Cases
Surges in COVID-19 cases last year coincided with the emergence of new SARS-CoV-2 variants, a new study has found. Since its initial declaration as a pandemic in March 2020, SARS-CoV-2 has spread around the world, causing an estimated 129 million cases of COVID-19 and 2.8 million deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 dashboard. By studying SARS-CoV-2 samples from early in the pandemic, researchers from the University of California, Davis, developed a metric they dubbed the pathogen genome identity (GENI) score that measures viral genetic diversity. SARS-CoV-2 contains just 15 genes and has a high mutation rate, and variants of concern like B.1.351, B.1.1.7, and P.1 have emerged in recent months. (4/4)