Well, we nearly made it back to normal. Sarah's social life was ramping up, with an engagement every weekend. We all went to the school musical, though she didn't sit with us.
Meanwhile, the BA.2 variant of the virus was slowly gaining a foothold, especially in the Northeast.
Sun., Mar. 13
- Barack Obama announced he'd tested positive for covid, with mild symptoms. Michelle tested negative.
- Massachusetts dropped 4,000 deaths from the covid toll, due to a new definition of "covid death." Before, deaths within months of being diagnosed with covid were automatically classified as covid.
- Since July 1 (when the lifesaving vaccine was widely available), the 14 states with the highest death rates were all run by Republican governors. This included Florida (at about 153 deaths per 100,000 residents), Ohio (142 deaths per 100,000), Arizona (138) and Georgia (134). Contrast that with the deep-blue District of Columbia (only 27 deaths per 100,000) and California (58 per 100,000).
- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention moved several popular beach destinations — as well as cruise ship travel — into categories at lower risk of spreading the coronavirus.
- The Williamsburg Board of Health chose not to extend the mask mandate, which was set to expire Mar. 15.
- A beautiful red fox trotted through the side yard and curled up for a nap.
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- Several of China’s industrial hubs were hit with business and travel restrictions as the country grappled with its worst coronavirus outbreak since 2020, with daily cases doubling on Tuesday. The resurgence, in a country that had taken a “zero tolerance” approach to the virus, sparked fears of major slowdown in one of the world’s biggest economic engines, as well as worries about an even more snarled global supply chain.
- Pfizer and BioNTech asked drug regulators to green light a second booster — a fourth vaccine dose — for people 65 and older.
- A Senate panel voted overwhelmingly to create an independent task force to probe the government's response to the pandemic. The unit would be modeled on the 9/11 Commission that investigated the government's failures leading up to the terrorist attacks of September 2001.
- Second gentleman Doug Emhoff tested positive for the coronavirus, becoming the first member of the first or second family in the Biden administration to publicly announce a diagnosis.
- Massachusetts announced the state covid testing sites in Amherst and Holyoke would close Mar. 31.
- The federal government paid $2 billion in funeral assistance during the course of the pandemic.
- Cases were trending up in about a dozen European countries, driven by the BA.2 subvariant of omicron, which appeared more transmissible than the original version. If previous pandemic patterns held, many public health experts said it was possible if not likely that the United States would see a resurgence of infections in the near future.
- Pandemic-driven inflation was weighing hard on ordinary Americans and undercutting U.S. economic recovery. After the lockdowns and closures of 2020, the economy bounced back too fast, with demand for consumer goods — cars, houses, furniture, groceries — swiftly outpacing supply.
- Transportation officials had investigated 3,800 mask-related incidents on public transportation and issued $644,000 in fines.
- St. Patrick's Day parades returned, after being canceled in 2020 and 2021.
- President Biden named Ashish Jha, a practicing physician widely regarded as a gifted health communicator, to be the next leader of the coronavirus response. He would replace Jeff Zients, the management expert who steered the Biden administration’s pandemic response for more than a year.
- Covid-19 was a largely preventable disease when omicron arrived. And yet in the past three months, more than 150,000 people in the United States died of it, the vast majority of them from underserved pockets of society.
- Moderna asked the Food and Drug Administration to authorize a fourth dose of its vaccine for adults 18 and older. Meanwhile, just half of the booster-eligible population had gotten third doses.
- Canada was relaxing its travel restrictions. Fully vaccinated travelers would be able to enter without a negative test starting April 1.
- South Korea’s pandemic response was long a success story. But omicron had driven its infection rate to one of the world's highest.
- Between mid-December and the end of January, Black adults were four times as likely as White adults to be hospitalized with covid, according to a report by the CDC.
- Cases of the omicron BA.2 variant were rising rapidly in the U.K. and Europe. BA.2 made up 25% of new cases in the U.S., more in some areas, like the Northeast.
- Sarah went to Keegan's for a sleepover. An hour later, we got an email from Hampshire Gymnastics saying one of the girls on Sarah's team, who had attended practice Thursday, tested positive for the virus on Friday. Fortunately, they were still wearing masks at the gym.
- Working people in the Washington region were increasingly returning to their offices, but with a change from pre-pandemic days: They were driving there more often, experts said. Less traffic congestion and abundant downtown parking had incentivized many commuters to travel by car.
- Inflation was rising at a time when pandemic-era assistance programs had ended, causing families to line up for aid.
- Energized by anti-mask activism, far-right groups were seeking to harness the networks they'd built to organize around November's midterm elections. Extremism trackers warned that the coming months would bring a heightened risk of political violence as armed groups forged further into the mainstream.
- Scientists identified a new coronavirus variant with characteristics of both delta and omicron and dubbed it Deltacron.
- The BA.2 variant now accounted for as much as 70 percent of new infections in many parts of the United States, according to an estimate from the genomics company Helix.
- White House Communications Director Jen Psaki and Hillary Clinton tested positive., Psaki for second time.
- Federal officials said they had enough vaccine doses to cover a fourth shot for those 65 and older but had run out of money to place additional orders, should the shots be needed, because of stalled negotiations over a $15 billion covid aid package.
- People who had covid-19 had a 46 percent higher risk of developing Type 2 diabetes or being prescribed medication to control their blood sugar within a year than those who had not had the coronavirus, according to a study done by the Department of Veterans Affairs.
- Moderna announced its two-dose pediatric regimen was safe in young children, toddlers and babies, but the vaccine's protection was modest against the omicron variant, reflecting the changing landscape of the pandemic.
- A program to ensure global vaccine equity was doomed from the beginning to fall short, a Washington Post analysis found. The initiative, called Covax, was meant to convince wealthy and poor countries to combine their money to order vaccine doses in advance and then share them in a way that would protect the most vulnerable people first. But the program's supporters underestimated the desperation of the wealthier countries, which snatched up doses from manufacturers for their own residents. Covax was also slow to adapt as nations declined to participate. Now, more than one-third of the world had not received a vaccine dose — a result that not only was inequitable, but also made it easier for new variants to emerge.
- O’Hare Clinical Lab Services, a small lab that got $187 million in federal funds for covid testing, put patients in ‘jeopardy’ before the government shut it down for safety reasons.
- The World Health Organization reported that the highly contagious Omicron subvariant, BA.2, which was helping to drive another surge of coronavirus cases in Europe, was now the dominant version of Omicron around the world. It made up one-third of infections in the U.S. and half in Northeast.
- Rates of vaccination for the coronavirus had plummeted to their lowest levels since the shots were rolled out in December 2020, even as some infectious-disease experts feared another case surge. Overall U.S. vaccination rates remained lower than those in many Western European countries. In all, about 65 percent of people in the nation were fully vaccinated and about 45 percent of those had gotten a booster — showing many had been reluctant to get a third shot.
- After falling rapidly beginning in January, infections in the United States had recently plateaued at about 30,000 per day.
- The pandemic was a significant factor in the dramatic slowing of U.S. population growth last year, according to new Census Bureau data. Nearly 75 percent of U.S. counties reported more deaths than births in 2021, fueling the smallest population increase in a century.
- A study found that alcohol-related deaths surged almost 26 percent in 2020, the largest yearly increase in decades. More than 99,000 people died that year of alcohol-related causes.
- Some international airlines, including Virgin Atlantic and British Airways, had lifted their mask requirements, as countries removed entry rules for travelers and people increasingly booked trips. In the United States, the chief executives of Delta Air Lines, American Airlines and United Airlines wrote to President Biden to urge him not to renew the federal mask mandate on airplanes expiring April 18.
- The use of at-home coronavirus tests increased quickly between the infection waves driven by the delta and omicron variants, according to a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report. But use was lower among people who were Black, age 75 or older, had lower incomes or had a high school education or less. The results mirrored other aspects of the pandemic, with greater access to everything from testing to vaccination and therapies among White, wealthier populations.
Sat. Mar. 26
- Sarah rode to Westborough in a school van with four other kids for a pole vaulting clinic.
- Cancer patients with “chemo brain” and long-covid patients with lasting brain fog exhibited similar changes in microglia, the specialized cells that serve as the brain’s surveillance and defense system, according to research at Stanford University. Those same cells are altered in several well-studied brain conditions, including Alzheimer’s and some other post-viral syndromes that can be caused by influenza, Epstein-Barr, HIV or Ebola.
- Despite weeks of assurances that the Chinese financial hub would not shut down amid a surge in cases, officials in Shanghai reversed course and announced the city would go into lockdown late Sunday evening. Half of the city of 25 million residents would be locked down at a time, for four days each.
- Fifty-two percent of people who responded to a new Monmouth University poll reported falling ill with the virus, including 57 percent of Republicans and 38 percent of Democrats.
- The FDA authorized a fourth shot for ages 50+. They chose over age 50 to cover people 50-64 who had comorbidities, as one-third did.
- The highly contagious Omicron subvariant known as BA.2 was now the dominant version of the virus in new U.S. cases, according to estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
- Hong Kong had the highest covid death rate in the world due to vaccine hesitancy among the elderly.
- The trucker group calling itself the “People’s Convoy,” which protested vaccine mandates and aired other right-wing grievances by driving around the Washington, D.C., region for more than three weeks, left its temporary base in Western Maryland to head across the country to challenge proposed coronavirus vaccine and health-related bills in California. The protest failed to accomplish any of its stated demands and recently saw a dwindling number of participants, fractures among supporters, pushback from local residents and activists, and road blockages by D.C. police.
- Pregnancy puts people at higher risk of a breakthrough infection than any other medical circumstance, including recent organ transplants and cancer, according to an analysis of nearly 14 million patient records.
- Lawmakers were closing in on a $10 billion funding deal that would cut in half the White House’s request for new money to bolster the nation’s covid preparedness.
- Teens were struggling with mental health amid the isolation and trauma caused by the pandemic, according to survey data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The survey, conducted in the first six months of 2021, found that 4 in 10 adolescents said they felt “persistently sad or hopeless,” and 1 in 5 said they had contemplated suicide.
- At-home rapid tests, once hard to come by, were piling up on pharmacy shelves and in medicine cabinets across the U.S. as cases dipped and demand waned. Slack demand for the 15-minute tests had led companies to slow production in the past, leaving manufacturers unable to meet the increased needs that come with a sudden surge in cases.
Sat., Apr. 2
- Sarah's friend from gymnastics, Nina, came over for a few hours.
- More than two years into the pandemic, patients were helping revolutionize research to find treatments for the fatigue, brain fog and other debilitating symptoms associated with long COVID. They were documenting their symptoms in real time and helping to come up with questions and strategies for surveys that shaped how scientists investigate the new medical condition.
- Lawmakers settled on a $10 billion covid funding deal that cut global aid to boost vaccinations in developing nations. Still, the deal would allow the federal government to begin purchasing additional vaccines, tests and treatments to prepare the United States for the next possible surge in cases.
- Medicare started to pay for at-home coronavirus tests, marking the first time the federal insurance system for older and disabled Americans had picked up the bill for any type of over-the-counter medical test. Under the new rules, the program was covering as many as eight rapid tests a month for the 59 million people who had Medicare insurance for care outside hospitals – known as Part B.
- In a sign of how attitudes toward working from home had changed, I got a standing desk as part of an effort to make at-home work stations as efficient as office ones.
- President Biden announced a plan for the government to invest in research and treatments for long covid, a condition that estimates said likely affected between 7.7 million to 23 million Americans who had continued to experience symptoms long after contracting the virus.
- Don got a second Pfizer booster.
- After two years of coming under blistering criticism for its handling of the pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced plans to revamp the agency to better prepare for future public health emergencies. CDC director Rochelle Walensky hired a senior federal health official from outside the agency to do a month-long review of its structure, systems and processes.
- The monoclonal antibody Sotrovimab – once one of the few effective treatments against the omicron variant – was no longer authorized to treat covid because it does not work well against the BA.2 variant that was dominant in the United States, the Food and Drug Administration announced. Fortunately, some other treatments continued to be effective against BA.2, including a newer monoclonal antibody, Bebtelovimab, and two antiviral pills, Paxlovid and molnupiravir, that were now easier to come by than during the peak of the omicron surge.
- The CDC was no longer telling Americans to avoid travel to Canada and two dozen other destinations so long as they were up-to-date on coronavirus vaccinations.
- Expert advisers to the Food and Drug Administration began planning a long-term strategy for coronavirus booster shots, but little time remained for officials to prepare for a potential fall vaccination campaign. Advisers were still considering data from ongoing studies on the performance of booster shots, and it remained unclear whether covid would follow a seasonal pattern like influenza or which variants may be most prevalent in the fall. Decisions about the makeup of a fall booster shot – including which variants it would protect against – needed to be made by May or June in order to meet demand in the fall if an additional shot was recommended.
- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tested positive for the coronavirus after spending two consecutive days unmasked at the White House with President Biden, Vice President Harris and other top Democratic officials.
- Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, Cong. Joaquin Castro, Cong. Adam Schiff, Attorney General Merrick Garland, Rep. Derek Kilmer, Rep. Katherine Clark, and Rep. Scott Peters had all announced positive cases over the past few days, following attendance at the Gridron Club dinner Saturday evening. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser didn't attend but also tested positive.
- Life expectancy in the U.S. dropped for second year in row. In 2019, the average life expectancy was 78.86 years; that dropped to 76.99 in 2020 as the coronavirus slammed into the country and 76.60 in 2021. The United States fared worse during the pandemic than 19 other wealthy countries.
- Shanghai officials were still making people stay home and forcing parents and children who tested positive to be treated separately.
- Cases had doubled in Washington, D.C., and had risen about 60 percent in New York City since the last week of March.
- The White House told federal agencies to hold off on reinstating a coronavirus vaccination mandate for millions of employees, hours after an appeals court rejected an earlier injunction that had blocked the executive order.
- My question was answered in the Washington Post's covid newsletter:
I’m 58 and healthy (no comorbidities). Should I be concerned about the ethical aspects of getting a fourth shot – i.e. will I be taking a shot from someone who needs it more than I do? – Lauri from Massachusetts
Federal officials last month authorized a second booster shot of the Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna vaccines for all people over age 50. That means anyone in that age group is allowed to get one four months after their first booster. People who are over age 12 and immunocompromised are also allowed to get an additional booster.
Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease physician and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security, said that getting a fourth shot will not take it from someone else who needs it.
The world “has the capacity to manufacture more vaccine doses than it could use or need. But a delivery and infrastructure issue is behind low vaccine uptake globally. Thus, a person in the United States getting a fourth dose doesn’t impact global supply,” Adalja said.
There is much debate over whether everyone needs a fourth shot - last month's decision was not a permanent solution to the pandemic but could provide an added layer of protection for those at risk of severe illness as the more-transmissible BA.2 variant becomes dominant in the U.S. Expert advisers to the Food and Drug Administration met Wednesday and started sketching out a long-term strategy for booster shots, amid uncertainty about future variants. Some experts think additional boosters may be needed for all; others, like Adalja, do not.
“Boosting to provide transient protection against mild infection in healthy individuals is not, in my analysis, an appropriate vaccine strategy,” Adalja said.
Sat., Apr. 9
- Sen. Susan Collins tested positive.
- George tested positive and had mild symptoms.
- Neighbor Luann texted to say she found out a coworker tested positive. She drove Sarah home from the middle school dance Friday night without a mask.
- Sarah had a sore throat, so we tested her, and she was negative.
- Sarah had a sore throat, stuffy nose, and plugged ears. Tested her again, and she was negative. I made an appointment for a PCR test, and that was negative, too.
COVID seems to be all around us again. And, perversely, it seems harder to protect ourselves, with no mask mandates. Somehow, each phase is more nerve-racking than the last. With Russia intent on wiping out Ukraine, however, the virus is the lesser of two evils.
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