The omicron BA.2 variant has been spreading rapidly, and it finally brought COVID-19 to our house (although we can't know for sure it was that variant). Amazingly, Don and I didn't seem to catch it from Sarah (and neither did the girls she had a sleep-over with). We are in a strange new phase where the virus seems to be everywhere, yet life goes on, almost as it did pre-2020.
Mon. Apr. 11
- Philadelphia announced it would re-institute an indoor mask mandate starting April 18.
- Future vaccines and boosters could be given through a spritz into the nostrils to block the virus’s ability to invade the tissue in the sinuses, where the coronavirus often gets its first foothold in the body.
- Even as the coronavirus had infected many people near President Biden in recent weeks, the White House was taking an inconsistent approach to masking and other precautions recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. So far, 79-year-old Biden, who was fully vaccinated and twice-boosted, had managed to avoid contracting the virus.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine probably sabotaged hopes for the Sputnik coronavirus vaccine, after manufacturing slowed, research stalled and international approvals of the vaccine were put on hold.
- English prime minister Boris Johnson was fined for breaking rules his own government mandated by attending a gathering of “two people or more indoors” in the Cabinet Room at Downing Street on June 19, 2020.
- The rate of infections in the Northeast had doubled in the last month. The region recorded at least 126 new infections per 100,000 people last week – still a far cry from the 2,200 cases per 100,000 during the mid-January peak of omicron.
- Cases had risen 20% nationally over the last two weeks.
- The Biden Administration extended the mask mandate on public transportation until May 3. It had been set to expire April. 18.
- As colleges grappled with climbing cases – especially along the East Coast – some campuses decided to bring back masking and testing requirements. Just one week after adopting a mask-optional policy, George Washington University brought back a mask requirement through the end of the semester after 190 people tested positive since April 4.
- Prices were up 8.5 percent in March compared to a year ago, in the largest annual increase since December 1981, driven by spikes in energy costs due to Russia’s war in Ukraine.
- The Food and Drug Administration authorized a first-of-its-kind test that detects coronavirus using breath samples. The agency says the test delivers results within three minutes, but cautioned that it would fail to detect nearly one in 10 positive cases. The InspectIR COVID-19 Breathalyzer, which is about as big as a piece of carry-on luggage and was designed by Frisco, Texas-based InspectIR Systems, requires test subjects to blow into a straw attached to the device for up to 10 seconds.
- We received a notification of close contact for Sarah at gymnastics.
- We arrived at the Rodriguezes after driving cross-country.
- In Massachusetts, cases were up 77% over the last two weeks.
- New case reports had also begun to increase in other regions, particularly the Midwest. In Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan, cases were up by more than 40 percent in the past two weeks.
- Paco arrived at Rodriguezes from Chicago.
- Sophia had a sore throat and stuffy nose. Emily tested her for covid, and she was negative.
- U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle of Florida (a Trump appointee) voided the mask mandate for commercial airlines and public transportation, saying the mandate exceeded the statutory authority of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
- The pandemic you experienced in the United States depended heavily on your wealth, job and health, according to reporting by the Washington Post. Affluent people who could take time off or work from home would largely find the pandemic manageable as it entered its third year. But those with less money and more health problems would continue to bear the brunt of the pandemic’s stresses.
- As Shanghai entered its fourth week of lockdown measures, residents trapped within their homes were coping with food shortages and a scarcity of medical care. Meanwhile, Chinese official media had taken pains to quash stories about officials and volunteers who were at a breaking point after struggling to manage the logistics of keeping an entire city inside as the virus spread.
- Vulnerable Democrats were pushing back on President Biden’s decision to lift a pandemic-era health order that drastically limited migrants’ ability to seek asylum.
- Dozens of rural airports lost commercial flight services during the pandemic and had not yet been able to return to business as usual.
- The Biden Administration said it would let the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention decide whether to appeal a judge’s ruling to end the federal mask mandate for travelers.
- A new team of scientists at the CDC this week embarked on what had often been absent from the nation’s response to the coronavirus pandemic: supplying better, faster information about what was likely to happen next in this public health emergency and in future outbreaks. About 100 scientists would analyze data and explain the options in user-friendly terms to policymakers and the public about how the virus was behaving and who was most at risk.
- Moderna released data supporting its strategy to develop a booster shot combining different versions of the coronavirus, showing it could modestly increase recipients’ immune defenses against multiple variants. A bivalent booster shot that the company began working on in February 2021, tailored to fight the original version of the virus and the beta variant, increased the level of virus-blocking antibodies against a variety of variants, including omicron, better than a regular booster.
- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that the Justice Department appeal a federal judge's decision that struck down the mask mandate on public transportation. Public health officials worried that the ruling posed a risk to the CDC's authority. The Justice Department filed notice of its plans to appeal.
- Boston, Milwaukee and New York were among the cities that still had local masking requirements for travelers.
- Data from Israel, which offered fourth shots to people 60 and older during the omicron surge, showed that the additional shot increased protection against severe illness and death compared with a third shot. But against infections — most of which were officially deemed “mild” — a fourth shot provided only a modest and brief increase in protection, peaking at four weeks after the booster dose and dropping back to the baseline after eight weeks.
- A widely quoted CDC study showed that protection against severe illness from three shots waned over four months, from 91 percent to 78 percent. What was lost in the messaging was that those who had been vaccinated for more than four months in that study were primarily people with poorly functioning immune systems, who typically respond less well to vaccination. When the data was instead limited to people with functioning immune systems, there was little evidence that protection against hospitalization was waning among people 65 and older.
- Since June 2021, the point at which every American adult had access to coronavirus vaccines, just over 234,000 unvaccinated Americans died who could have lived had they been immunized against the virus, according to the Peterson Center on Healthcare and Kaiser Family Foundation.
- Prime Minister Boris Johnson faced an investigation into whether he lied to Parliament about government parties at Downing Street that broke pandemic lockdown rules.
- Stephen Colbert tested positive and canceled show tapings.
- Shanghai had been locked down for three weeks. Those who tested positive or were exposed had to stay in quarantine shelters, but they were getting over-run. People were being evicted from their apartments so they could be quarantine sites. Young children were being separated from parents. The Communist Party was blaming Shanghai officials.
- Cases rose 35% nationally in the last week.
- A prominent Maryland doctor overseeing coronavirus testing at Baltimore-Washington International Marshall Airport and other sites was indicted, accused by federal prosecutors of overcharging Medicare and other insurers by more than $1.5 million.
- Shanghai started fencing off residential areas.
- Despite having a sophisticated censorship apparatus, the Chinese government had been unable to contain the furor on social media over its lockdown of Shanghai. A video called Voices of April, showing the lockdown's heartbreaking effects, was being shared widely in China.
- U.S. health officials approved the use of remdesivir to treat coronavirus patients who are 12 and younger, extending the use of the treatment to cover children who are too young to get a vaccine.
- Mask mandates had been rescinded on public transit systems across the country, including in places such as Boston and the District of Columbia, where coronavirus cases were rising. Some people were rethinking their commutes — especially those at heightened risk of severe symptoms because they were 65 and over or had an underlying health condition.
- Beijing residents stockpiled food and supplies, cleaning out grocery store shelves, after authorities announced mass testing to contain a small cluster of new coronavirus cases in the Chinese capital. The 3.4 million residents of Beijing's biggest district were ordered to undergo three rounds of testing this week and advised to go home directly after work.
- North Korea remained one of two countries that have not administered any coronavirus vaccines (Eritrea was the other). Millions of doses offered through a United Nations-backed initiative were no longer available after Pyongyang repeatedly declined them. North Korean officials were offered the AstraZeneca vaccine and China's Sinovac shot, but they privately had expressed a preference for mRNA vaccines such as Pfizer or Moderna.
- Hampshire County, Mass., and Grand Isle County, Vermont, had medium transmission rates on the CDC community transmission map. Cases in Massachusetts rose 36% in the last week.
- The NBA, which kept playing as the omicron wave decimated rosters in December and January, was bracing for the possibility that key players could be sidelined by the coronavirus at the most important time of the year: the playoffs.
- In Beijing, mass testing expanded to 11 districts, comprising 20 million people. There were 40 cases.
- Vice President Kamala Harris tested positive for coronavirus, becoming the most senior Biden Administration official to be infected. Harris, 57, was fully vaccinated and boosted, showed no symptoms, had not been in close contact with Biden recently, and was isolating in her residence, the White House said. Harris was prescribed and had taken Paxlovid, the Pfizer antiviral pill.
- Pfizer asked the FDA to approve a booster for ages 5-11.
- Many of America’s more than 3 million Muslims were spending the month of Ramadan in community again after two years of pandemic isolation.
- My coworkers and I met at the regional office to clean up our work space.
- Before omicron, one-third of Americans had been infected with the coronavirus, but by the end of February, that rate had climbed to nearly 60 percent, including 3 out of 4 children, according to federal health data. The data from blood tests offered the first evidence that over half the U.S. population, roughly 190 million people, had been infected at least once since the pandemic began. That was more than double the official case count. Many of those infections were likely to have been asymptomatic or with few symptoms. The virus had killed nearly 1 million Americans and caused disruptions that had driven up death rates from other causes, including cancer and heart disease. Officials cautioned that the data, drawn from tens of thousands of blood samples from across the country, did not mean that people had long-lasting protection against the virus, especially against increasingly transmissible variants that may be able to evade antibodies.
- Anthony S. Fauci, President Biden’s chief medical adviser, said the United States had emerged “out of the full-blown explosive pandemic phase” after more than two years and 1 million deaths. “We’re really in a transitional phase, from a deceleration of the numbers into hopefully a more controlled phase and endemicity,” he said.
- The Biden administration announced plans to double the number of locations that carry Paxlovid as many consumers reported difficulty finding a doctor to prescribe the medication, or a pharmacy that carried it. Studies had shown Paxlovid could reduce the risk of hospitalization or death by about 90 percent when taken within three to five days of the start of symptoms.
- Vaccine maker Moderna requested emergency use authorization of its coronavirus vaccine for babies, toddlers and young children — a highly anticipated step toward making shots available to the last group in U.S. society lacking access.
- Twenty-seven Chinese cities, comprising 180 million people, were in lockdown.
- The vaccinated made up 42 percent of fatalities in January and February during the highly contagious omicron variant’s surge, compared with 23 percent of the dead in September, the peak of the delta wave, according to nationwide data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
- Emails showed that Trump White House officials removed public health advice to avoid indoor religious services in May 2020 after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identified at least two superspreader events in houses of worship.
- Sarah went to Bridget's birthday sleepover.
- President Biden and Trevor Noah poked fun at journalists, politics and the return to near-normal amid the pandemic at the White House correspondents’ dinner.
- Sarah and I went to Holyoke Mall. She started coughing in the car, so I opened the car windows and wore a mask. We tested when we got home, and she was positive. I was negative. She had a stuffy nose and a slight fever at bedtime. I texted the news to the moms of the girls at the sleepover and told them I was sorry. They seemed unconcerned. This is the new normal.
Mon., May 2
- Sarah started five days of quarantine. She had a stuffy nose and slight fever at bedtime. I had her wear a mask whenever she was within 10 feet of Don or me, and she ate dinner on a TV tray in the living room. I wore a mask when I was near her.
- New York City raised its coronavirus alert level to indicate a medium level of community spread.
- The Food and Drug Administration issued a warning to be on the lookout for counterfeit rapid at-home coronavirus tests, including impostors mimicking Flowflex and iHealth test kits.
- New Zealand reopened to tourists for the first time in more than two years.
- Stephen Colbert returned to his show and said covid was bad.
Wed., May 4
- Sarah's symptoms were nearly gone.
- Stephen Colbert's bandleader, Jon Batiste, was out with covid.
- Don and I both tested negative after dinner.
- We all tested in the morning. Don and I were negative; Sarah was positive. We went to George's with Mom for Mother's Day and wore masks in the truck. Sarah and I wore masks indoors.
- Sarah returned to school, wearing a mask through Wednesday. We got a letter from the pediatrician clearing her for sports as of Wednesday. She was upset because she couldn't compete in the final track meet Wednesday because she couldn't practice on Tuesday.
- I got my second COVID booster at the Elks Club in Florence.
- The United States would surpass 1 million coronavirus deaths within the week. On average, each of those deaths affected nine close relatives, not including close friends, neighbors or extended family members, leaving more than 9 million Americans mourning the loss of a loved one during the pandemic.
- Millions of people retired early during the pandemic, but they were returning to the workforce in droves now that many offices had reopened and restrictions had been lifted. An estimated 1.5 million retirees reentered the labor market in the past year, according to the Labor Department.
- The Late Show paused taping until further notice because Stephen Colbert was experiencing symptoms again.
- The largest bell at Washington National Cathedral tolled 1,000 times, once for every 1,000 deaths from covid.
- I had achy joints, chills, and exhaustion from my covid booster.
- Republicans continued to block coronavirus funding as the White House warned of possible surges this fall that could infect up to 100 million people. The White House said it had already committed most of the existing public health funds in the government’s coffers, and additional money was needed to prepare for the projected surge in the fall.
- Scientists around the world were studying how a dwindling number of people have managed to dodge the coronavirus for more than two years, even after the highly transmissible omicron variant drove a record-shattering surge in cases this winter.
- My vaccine discomfort was gone.
- Texas officials used roughly $1 billion in coronavirus funding intended to pay front-line workers and purchase protective equipment to finance a campaign to arrest migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.
- More than 100,000 Americans died of drug overdoses in 2021, up 15 percent from the previous year, according to an estimate released by the National Center for Health Statistics.
- Of the more than 641,000 Americans who died after vaccines were available, half of those deaths could have been averted – 318,981 – had every eligible adult gotten vaccinated, according to a study by Brown University and Microsoft. West Virginia, Wyoming, Tennessee, Kentucky and Oklahoma had the most vaccine-preventable deaths per capita. Washington D.C., Massachusetts, Puerto Rico, Vermont and Hawaii had the fewest.
- Wendi Weber, director of the Fish and Wildlife Service's Northeast Region, and other attendees at last week's Directorate meeting, had covid.
- President Biden held a global summit to mark one million Americans killed by covid. (The official toll stood at 999,000.)
- There appeared to be very little public appetite for returning to the days of mandatory masks – at least while cases, hospitalizations and deaths remained far below the levels seen during the omicron wave.
- Major meat processors – including Smithfield and Tyson – promoted “baseless” claims about shortages of beef and pork to persuade the White House to intervene and keep processing plants open in 2020, according to a report published by a special House committee investigating the nation’s pandemic response. Coronavirus rapidly spread among vulnerable workers.
- Cruise lines would soon have their full fleets back at sea, and some companies were seeing record-breaking bookings, despite the failure of efforts to keep coronavirus from coming aboard with passengers. At least 73 of the 92 ships reporting data had enough coronavirus positive passengers to prompt an investigation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
- World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called on China to end its ‘zero covid’ policy – and Chinese leaders swiftly censored him.
- 323 Americans were dying from covid each week.
- North Korea announced a "public health crisis," with 350,000 infected, a day after it admitted covid-19 had reached the country.
- Sarah went to her friend Eamonn's bar mitzvah, the reception following, and the party that evening.
- The U.S. hit one million deaths from covid. That's like a 9/11 attack every day for 336 days, about the same as the Civil War and WWII combined, as if Boston and Pittsburgh were wiped off the map. Three out of four deaths were people 65 or older.
- New York City’s health commissioner urged everyone to wear masks in indoor public spaces such as grocery stores, building lobbies and offices. The city was approaching a high level of community transmission.
- With more than 560,000 people in quarantine, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un blamed officials for delays in the nation’s covid response.
I'm slowly coming to terms with COVID-19. While I still hope Don and I can avoid it, Sarah's case has lessened my fears and vigilance a bit. Perhaps it's not that big a deal. The vast majority of vaccinated people who get it do not get seriously ill. And it seems possible to contain it to one member of the household.
Life must go on. While Don and I are content with a limited social life, Sarah certainly isn't. She needs to do all the fun things she should be doing at her age, with reasonable precautions.
An opinion piece in the Washington Post summed up where we are quite well:
The latest wave of the pandemic has been shrouded in uncertainty. Cases and hospitalizations are modestly rising, but those numbers don’t account for an unknown number of positive at-home coronavirus tests. Another highly transmissible omicron offshoot is overtaking other variants. And local governments have largely abandoned measures to contain the virus, including mask mandates, leaving people to gauge their own risk amid what could be a stealth surge.
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