Local (and not-so-local) COVID-19 updates

[edschweppe]

As of 5PM today, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is reporting 66 newly reported confirmed deaths (13 more than Friday - up 24.5%) for a total of 22,188 deaths, 3,863 newly reported confirmed cases (1,364 more than Friday - up 54.6%) for a total of 1,522,532 cases, and 160,138 newly reported molecular tests (78,351 more than Friday - up 95.8%).
Note that today's case/test data covers 3 days. Averaged over that period, there were 1,287.7 newly reported cases per day (1,211 less than Friday - down 48.5%), and 53,379.3 newly reported molecular tests per day (28,408 less than Friday - down 34.7%).
The seven day average positivity rate is 3.00%, compared to 3.74% Friday. The state also reported zero newly reported probable deaths (1 less than Friday) for a total of 668 and 310 newly reported probable cases (38 less than Friday - down 10.9%) for a total of 130,297. Combining the confirmed and probable numbers gives 66 new deaths for a total of 22,856 and 4,173 new cases for a total of 1,652,829. There were 1,024 COVID-19 patients in hospital (38 less than Friday - down 3.6%), 188 COVID-19 patients in ICUs (5 less than Friday - down 2.6%) and 94 COVID-19 patients on ventilators (intubated) (13 less than Friday - down 12.1%).

Of the four overview trends (formerly the Page 2 "key metrics"), the 7-day average of newly confirmed cases is 1,589.0 (88 less than Friday - down 5.2%), 2,382% above the lowest observed value of 64.0 on 6/25/2021 and 94.0% below the highest observed value of 23,177.0 on 1/8/2022. The 7-day weighted average of positive molecular test rate is 3.00% (0 less than Friday - down 19.8%), 874% above the lowest observed value of 0.3% on 6/25/2021 and 89% below the highest observed value of 27.7% on 4/15/2020. The 7-day average number of COVID-19 patients in hospital is 1,254.0 (70 less than Friday - down 5.3%), 1,375% above the lowest observed value of 85.0 on 7/9/2021 and 68% below the highest observed value of 3,874.0 on 4/27/2020. The 7-day average number of COVID-19 deaths is 46.0 (1 less than Friday - down 2.1%), 4,500% above the lowest observed value of 1.0 on 7/11/2021 and 74% below the highest observed value of 175.0 on 4/24/2020.

Statewide, hospitals reported 8,975 non-ICU beds, of which 7,330 (81.7%) were occupied by non-COVID patients, 836 (9.3%) were occupied by COVID patients, and 809 (9.0%) remained available. Hospitals also reported 1,270 ICU beds, of which 855 (67.3%) were occupied by non-COVID patients, 188 (14.8%) were occupied by COVID patients, and 227 (17.9%) remained available. By comparison, hospitals reported Friday a total of 8,982 non-ICU beds, of which 7,345 (81.8%) were occupied by non-COVID patients, 869 (10%) were occupied by COVID patients, and 768 (8.6%) remained available. Hospitals also reported Friday a total of 1,279 ICU beds, of which 877 (68.6%) were occupied by non-COVID patients, 193 (15.1%) were occupied by COVID patients, and 209 (16.3%) remained available.

Two weeks ago, the 7 day confirmed case average was 4,803.0, the 7 day confirmed deaths average was 50.0, the 7 day hospitalization average was 2,615.0, and the 7 day weighted average positivity rate was 7.43%.

One year ago, the 7 day confirmed case average was 1,483.0, the 7 day confirmed deaths average was 46.0, the 7 day hospitalization average was 1,293.0, and the 7 day weighted average positivity rate was 2.17% (or 3.53% excluding higher education).

The daily raw data file used to create this report is available here.

Deaths up compared to the previous report, which is not at all good. Cases are up in raw numbers, but today's report covers three days of data (including the weekend). Today's 3,863 cases are the lowest three-day count reported since 3,243 new cases over three days were reported on November 1, 2021. Averaging that case count over three days gets us down to 1,287.7 cases per day; the last time a single-day new case count was that low was the 1,066 reported on November 2, 2021. The various hospitalization counts are all down from Friday, as are all seven-day averages; in fact, the percent-positive average is down to 3.00%. These are overall encouraging trends; however, I'm taking the case data with a very large grain of salt, since weekend reporting has been notoriously wonky throughout the pandemic. And the absolute values, while far better than the worst days of the Omicron surge, remain absolutely horrible compared to last summer.

Looking ahead to the future, various experts are warning that this pandemic has plenty more in store for us:

As a virus-weary world limps through the third year of the outbreak, experts are sending out a warning signal: Don't expect Omicron to be the last variant we have to contend with — and don't let your guard down yet.

In the midst of a vast wave of milder infections, countries around the world are dialing back restrictions and softening their messaging. Many people are starting to assume they've had their run-in with Covid-19 and that the pandemic is tailing off.

That's not necessarily the case.

The crisis isn't over until it's over everywhere. The effects will continue to reverberate through wealthier nations — disrupting supply chains, travel plans, and health care — as the coronavirus largely dogs under-vaccinated developing countries over the coming months.

Before any of that, the world has to get past the current wave. Omicron may appear to cause less severe disease than previous strains, but it is wildly infectious, pushing new case counts to once unimaginable records. Meanwhile, evidence is emerging that the variant may not be as innocuous as early data suggest.

There's also no guarantee that the next mutation — and there will be more — won't be an offshoot of a more dangerous variant such as delta. And your risk of catching Covid more than once is real.

"The virus keeps raising that bar for us every few months," said Akiko Iwasaki, a professor of epidemiology at Yale School of Medicine. "When we were celebrating the amazing effectiveness of booster shots against the delta variant, the bar was already being raised by omicron."

"It seems like we are constantly trying to catch up with the virus," she said.

It's sobering for a world that's been trying to move on from the virus with a new intensity in recent months. But the outlook isn't all gloom. Anti-viral medicines are hitting the market, vaccines are more readily available and tests that can be self-administered in minutes are now easy and cheap to obtain in many places.

Nevertheless, scientists agree it's too soon to assume the situation is under control.

In six months' time, many richer countries will have made the transition from pandemic to endemic. But that doesn't mean masks will be a thing of the past. We'll need to grapple with our approach to booster shots, as well as the pandemic's economic and political scars. There's also the shadow of long Covid.

"There is a lot of happy talk that goes along the lines that omicron is a mild virus and it's effectively functioning as an attenuated live vaccine that's going to create massive herd immunity across the globe," said Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

"That's flawed for a number of reasons."

Experts now believe that the virus will never go away entirely, and instead will continue to evolve to create new waves of infection. Mutations are possible every time the pathogen replicates, so surging caseloads put everyone in danger.

The sheer size of the current outbreak means more hospitalizations, deaths and virus mutations are all but inevitable. Many people who are infected aren't making it into the official statistics, either because a home test result isn't formally recorded or because the infected person never gets tested at all.

[ ... ]

And just because you've already had the virus doesn't mean you won't get re-infected, as Covid doesn't confer lasting immunity.

New evidence suggests that delta infections didn't help avert omicron, even in vaccinated people. That would explain why places like the U.K. and South Africa experienced such significant outbreaks even after being decimated by delta. Reinfection is also substantially more common with omicron than previous variants.

While the virus won't be overwhelming hospitals and triggering restrictions forever, it's still unclear when — or how — it will become safe to leave on the back burner.

Experts Bloomberg News spoke to agree that in developed countries including the U.S. and much of Europe, the virus could be well in hand by mid-2022. There will be better access to pills such as Pfizer Inc.'s Paxlovid, rapid antigen tests will be more readily available and people will have become accustomed to the idea that Covid is here to stay.

Robert Wachter, chair of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, puts the odds at 10-to-one that by the end of February, most parts of the U.S. and the developed world will no longer be struggling with severe outbreaks. Vaccinations and new treatments, widespread testing and immunity as a result of previous infections are helping. Countries like Denmark are getting rid of all pandemic restrictions despite ongoing outbreaks.

"That is a world that feels fundamentally different from the world of the last two years," he said. "We get to come back to something resembling normal."

"I don't think it's irrational for politicians to embrace that, for policies to reflect that."

Elsewhere in the world, the pandemic will be far from over.

The threat of new variants is highest in less wealthy countries, particularly those where immune conditions are more common. The delta mutation was first identified in India while omicron emerged in southern Africa, apparently during a chronic Covid infection in an immunocompromised HIV patient.

"As long as we refuse to vaccinate the world, we will continue to see new waves," Hotez said. "We are going to continue to have pretty dangerous variants coming out of low- and middle-income countries. That's where the battleground is."

Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security in Baltimore, sees the pandemic continuing into 2023 for parts of the developing world.

"For me, the transition from pandemic to endemic is when you're not worried about hospitals getting crushed," he said. "That will happen in most Western countries in 2022, and it will take a little bit longer for the rest of the world."

Me, I'm hoping somebody is working on a rapid, breath-based test for whether someone is infectious and thus a threat to others who needs to be at least temporarily quarantined, rather than infected (and thus possibly, but not certainly, infectious). One of the nastiest things about COVID is the fact that people who feel perfectly well can actually be spreading massive amounts of virus, and we have no quick way to tell such people from folks who are actually healthy.

Meanwhile, about the only thing I can do to protect either me or you is to vax up and mask up. Which I'm still doing, as annoying as hell as it is.

The town of Acton's current Google Data Studio dashboard is showing 30 active and 2,738 cumulative cases as of February 9, and apparently has not been updated since. The most recent "newsflash style update" at 7PM on December 21, 2021, the town reported 1538 cumulative cases with 89 individuals in isolation, 1417 recovered and 32 fatalities.