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U.S. Will End COVID-19 Public Health Emergency Declarations on May 11
The White House has announced that the Administration plans to let the COVID-19
public health emergency (PHE) declaration expire May 11. Despite the end of the emergency declaration, COVID-19 is still an important public health issue. It continues to infect people and can lead to hospitalization and even death. People should continue to take measures to prevent infection and to treat infections early. This is especially important for those at higher risk of developing severe COVID-19.
VDH continues to work hard to prevent COVID-19, including continuing to monitor and
track cases, encouraging testing and treatment, ensuring access to vaccines, and
performing outreach to providers and other partners. VDH’s efforts to prevent COVID-19 have not stopped or slowed down with this announcement.
The Future of COVID: "Wave-lets" Not Surges
Three years after the start of the pandemic, SARS-CoV-2 shows no signs of settling into a seasonal pattern of spread, like influenza has.
Whether you call it a surge, a spike, a wave or perhaps just a wavelet, there are signs of a rise in SARS-CoV-2 infections — again. A growing proportion of tests in some countries are coming back positive, and new variants, most notably a lineage called XBB.1.16, are pushing aside older strains, fueling some of the uptick in cases.
Welcome to the new normal: the ‘wavelet’ era. Scientists say that explosive, hospital-filling COVID-19 waves are unlikely to return. Instead, countries are starting to see frequent, less deadly waves, characterized by relatively high levels of mostly mild infections and sparked by the relentless churn of new variants.
Wavelets don’t always create a dramatic spike in hospitalizations and deaths; their effects on health vary between countries. But the relentless series of wavelets looks very different from the slower, annual circulation patterns of influenza and cold-causing coronaviruses, and it seems increasingly unlikely that SARS-CoV-2 will settle into a flu-like rhythm anytime soon, say scientists. -- Nature
U.S. deaths fell last year, and COVID-19 dropped to the nation's No. 4 cause, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday.
COVID-19 deaths trailed those caused by heart disease, cancer and injuries such as drug overdoses, motor vehicle fatalities and shootings. In 2020 and 2021, only heart disease and cancer were ahead of the coronavirus.
U.S. deaths usually rise year-to-year, in part because the nation’s population has been growing. The pandemic accelerated that trend, making 2021 the deadliest in U.S. history, with more than 3.4 million deaths. But 2022 saw the first drop in deaths since 2009.
The FDA is warning consumers and healthcare providers to stop using and to throw out certain lots of recalled at-home COVID-19 tests.
The FDA states that the recall affects SD Biosensor Inc. Pilot COVID-19 at-home tests, which are distributed by Roche Diagnostics.
The FDA says this has to do about bacterial contamination within the liquid solution of the test kit. The FDA also states that direct contact with the contaminated liquid could cause a safety concern and may affect the outcome of the test.
The FDA mentions that none of the impacted tests were distributed through the US government’s Free at Home COVID-19 tests program.
The company has started a recall for impacted tests to certain retailers in the United States. The FDA says around 500,000 tests were distributed to CVS Health and 16,000 were distributed to Amazon.
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