US Covid Infections Fall To Levels Not Seen Since Mid-September
While U.S. infections are down 50% from last month and Texas recorded zero daily deaths on Sunday, the news is not all good: Texas reported a spike in deaths a day later, and worries continue about the more infectious Indian variant which has now reached the U.S.
USA Today:
Infections Down 50% From Last Month
The United States' pace of new coronavirus infections fell last weekend below the low of Sept. 12, the day before the fall surge got underway and turned into a disastrous winter. The country reported 241,099 cases in the week ending Sept. 12, a few thousand above the reported 232,489 in the week ending Sunday. Daily infections now total less than half what they were a month ago and a small fraction of January's raging numbers. The U.S. continues to report about 600 deaths a day, roughly one-fifth the pace seen in January. (Aspegren, 5/18)
Houston Chronicle:
Texas Records Zero COVID-19 Deaths For First Day In Over A Year
What was statistically Texas’ best day of the pandemic was followed by a sobering number one day later. On Sunday, the state’s Department of State Health Services reported its first day without recording a COVID-19 death since March 21, 2020. The good news was dampened less than 20 hours later, when DSHS reported 23 new COVID deaths Monday — the highest Monday count in nearly two months. (Downen, 5/17)
USA Today:
Coronavirus Variant That First Appeared In India Arrives In The US. Here's What To Know.
The B.1.617 coronavirus variant devastating India right now has arrived in the United States. Experts say it's not likely to cause much harm here because of high vaccination rates and because the health care system is not under stress. But with a virus that has defied expectations and the variant infecting hundreds of thousands of Indians every day, researchers are keeping an eye on it. Here's what you need to know about the coronavirus variant that originated in India. (Weise and Weintraub, 5/17)
The New York Times:
How The United States Beat The Coronavirus Variants, For Now
On Dec. 29, a National Guardsman in Colorado became the first known case in the United States of a contagious new variant of the coronavirus. The news was unsettling. The variant, called B.1.1.7, had roiled Britain, was beginning to surge in Europe and threatened to do the same in the United States. And although scientists didn’t know it yet, other mutants were also cropping up around the country. They included variants that had devastated South Africa and Brazil and that seemed to be able to sidestep the immune system, as well as others homegrown in California, Oregon and New York. (Zimmer and Mandavilli, 5/14)
In other news about the spread of the coronavirus —
Axios:
Johns Hopkins Launches Effort To Tackle COVID Data Discrepancies
Johns Hopkins University is launching a "pandemic data initiative" to highlight COVID-19 data-collecting and reporting inconsistencies that led to confusion for policymakers and the public, the institution announced Monday. Lack of granular data on cases, deaths — and now vaccination rates — has been a nationwide hindrance in targeting communities who needed more outreach or resources this past year. (Fernandez, 5/17)
The New York Times:
The Future Of Virus Tracking Can Be Found On This College Campus
“Colorado Mesa has the most sophisticated system in the country to track outbreaks,” said Dr. Pardis Sabeti, a geneticist at the Broad Institute of M.I.T. and Harvard who has helped health officials around the world respond to Ebola, Lassa fever and other infectious diseases. “It’s definitely the kind of analytics that people talk about having but nobody actually has access to in this way.” (Anthes, 5/17)
CIDRAP:
COVID-19 Reinfection Found In 2% Of University Students
In the spring 2021 semester, 2.2% of Clemson University, South Carolina, students previously infected with COVID-19 were diagnosed as having been reinfected, according to a study published yesterday in Clinical Infectious Diseases. The researchers looked at 16,101 students 17 to 24 years old from Aug 19 to Oct 5, 2020, as those after may have lingering viral RNA during weekly spring semester testing. Going into the spring semester, 12.6% of the cohort were considered to have a previous COVID-19 infection. (5/17)
CIDRAP:
Plasma From Recovered Patients Found Not Helpful For COVID Hospital Patients
Convalescent plasma given to hospitalized COVID-19 patients did not improve survival or rates of release from the hospital within 28 days, need for invasive mechanical ventilation, or death, according to the most recent findings of the Randomised Evaluation of COVID-19 Therapy (RECOVERY) trial in the United Kingdom. (Van Beusekom, 5/17)
