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Your Coronavirus Update – Dec. 30, 2021
Photo: Vans used in city-wide testing system in Miami, Florida
RHODE ISLAND & VICINITY
RIDE has said schools will plan on opening as planned next week in Rhode Island.
Providence students will return on a staggered schedule. Sunday, there will be a testing site for children on Fricker Street. Here is the schedule – when not in school, students will participate by remote learning.
Pre-K, K, Grades 1, 6, 9 will return to school on Monday
Grades 2, 3, 7, 10, 11 will return on Tuesday
Grades 4, 5, 8, 12 will return on Wednesday
200,000 tests will be given to schools in MA.
Mayor Rivera says she’s asked the Health Dept. for rapid tests but so far has received none. CF Housing Authority did provide some tests so people aren’t waiting in lines around the block for hours. At 10am this morning, one line was shut down.
20,000 fully vaccinated people in Massachusetts tested positive for COVID last week.
Gov. McKee: “The plan is for schools to open as normal. No decision has been made otherwise,”
Mayor Picozzi of Warwick tests positive and described his experience so far: ‘So far I feel like I have a bad head cold or serious asthma attack but I also have a hacking cough and a very sore throat. I am vaccinated and received my booster a month ago.
Four new state-sponsored vaccination locations in MA: at Fenway Park, Melnea Cass Recreation Complex, Lynn’s North Shore Community College, and a site Taunton.
First night Boston will continue – while some local celebrations such as one at the Boston Public Library will move to outside.
The Beach Boys Concert at Mohegan Sun is canceled.
Worcester, MA will require city employees to receive their booster shot in order to continue working.
Yale New Haven Health includes Yale New Haven Hospital, Bridgeport Hospital, Greenwich Hospital, Lawrence + Memorial Hospital in New London and Westerly Hospital in Rhode Island have limited visitation The new policy includes visitation to inpatients, Emergency Departments, outpatient surgeries and procedural areas. Those having procedures or operations will have to meet their loved outside to be picked up unless bedside instructions are absolutely necessary In addition, only one support person will be permitted in obstetrics and pediatric patients will be permitted one guardian at a time. To prevent the spread of the disease and to protect the health and safety of patients and staff, effective immediately: There is no visitation to hospitalized patients due to the highly contagious nature of the omicron variant.
Vaccinations in Rhode Island for Children, Age 5 to 11: (scroll or download)
NATIONAL & INTERNATIONAL
Atlanta, GA has canceled its New Year’s Eve Peach drop.]
The Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show in NYC has been canceled.
Record levels in Europe as cases still rise.
South Africa is on the other side with a fall in cases.
The head of the WHO said he’s worried about the omicron and delta variants of COVID-19 producing a “tsunami” of cases between them, but he’s still hopeful that the world will put the worst of the pandemic behind it in 2022.
FDA has approved another new treatment that has been shown to reduce hospitalization by 50% – it is convalescent plasma – it was studied in Rhode Island.
A small study from the CDC suggested people who had Covid and are later reinfected with omicron may experience fewer symptoms than they did during their initial bout with the virus.
“We are looking toward a month of January when we’re just going to see an extraordinary number of infections across all of the country,” Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health
65% of millennial women say they have better work life balance when working remotely.
Nearly two-thirds of millennial women view remote work as a priority.
4-fold increase in children hospitalized in New Jersey as daily case rate rockets.
Some at-home tests questionable at detecting when you can no longer spread the virus.
FDA/CDC going to recommend booster shots for 12-15 year olds.
83% of workers prefer the mix-and-match method of hybrid working
There are now 86 cruise ships with COVID outbreaks
The UK is doing 5 times the testing rate of the US
San Francisco cancels New Year’s Eve fireworks celebration
Village House in Newport and Waterview Villa in East Providence both have 10 to 14 new cases this past week.
Moderna’s shares are on their longest losing streak as Pfizer and BionTech have been approved for treatment protocols.
A study in the United Kingdom reported that their top symptoms for omicron were a runny nose, headache, fatigue, sneezing, and a sore throat. These were also the top symptoms for people infected with the delta variant. In Norway, the most common symptoms were cough, runny or stuffy nose, fatigue, sore throat, and headache.
Cincinnati declared a state of emergency on Wednesday to help the city deal with labor shortages within its Fire Department amid a spike in coronavirus cases and scheduled holiday vacations.
Japan braced for a feared rebound in coronavirus cases as the highways and airports filled with travelers at the start of New Year’s holidays
France sets record with 208,000 new cases in the past 24 hours.
Poland reported 794 COVID-related deaths on Wednesday, the highest number in the fourth wave of the pandemic
Globally, gyms, studios and in-person fitness classes saw a 37% revenue decline
Testing: In a manuscript posted to the medRxiv preprint server on Friday, researchers from the University of Cape Town reported that saliva samples yielded more accurate results in PCR analyses when Omicron was involved compared with those collected via nasal swabs. For the Delta variant, nasal swabs were more effective.
Dr. Fauci cited a working paper from the University of Edinburgh that suggests Omicron is associated with a two-thirds reduction in the risk of COVID-19 hospitalization compared to Delta, among other research.
Dr. Jha says Vaccines are going to be the primary tool as COVID settles into a long term challenge to the world. Therapies will also be key to lowering the severity of diseaae – medications and antibody therapy. He predicts we will learn how to live with this as it may become seasonal, with outbreaks in the summer in the south and in the winter in the northeast.
What we can expect going forward in the next month or so – as science balances with societal needs: