Your Coronavirus Update – Feb. 4, 2022

RHODE ISLAND & VICINITY

Stages of Freedom will offer free test kits on Saturday from noon to 3pm. People should come to the front door and call 421-0606 – someone will come out and hand the kits out. You may request up to 6 kits, while supplies last. Please wear a mask on arrival.

RI Rebounds grant applications are open NOW for small business – https://commerceri.com/rirebounds/

Dr. Nicole Alexander-Scott says she will not be a candidate for Congress.

Rhode Island’s economic outlook improved but the state continued to lag the nation in its economic recovery. Rhode Island’s non-farm employment increased by 4,000 jobs over Q3, a growth rate of 0.8%. Rhode Island has regained 75% of jobs lost after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic but remains 22,100 jobs below pre-pandemic levels. RI has regained jobs slightly faster than the region but slower than the nation. The unemployment rate in Q4 was 5.1%, compared to the New England rate of 4.8% and the U.S. rate of 4.2%. Net sales tax receipts, an indicator of demand in the economy, decreased by 4.4% from Q3 but were up sharply year-over-year. GDP increased in Q3 2021, though at a slower pace than in Q2. While most industry sectors experienced growth in Q4, the education and health services sector lost jobs. The full Briefing is available here.

The Rhode Island unemployment rate in the fourth quarter of 2021 was 5.1%, compared to the New England rate of 4.8% and the U.S. rate of 4.2%.

$12 million for affordable housing development is available in Rhode Island. More info, here: apply.

Gov. McKee extended the Declaration of Emergency in Rhode Island to March 4th. Mask wearing in schools until Feb 14th. This also allows remote participation in puublic meetings to continue, and certain provisions to quarantine and isolate. Read the order in full: https://governor.ri.gov/executive-orders/executive-order-22-12

NATIONAL & INTERNATIONAL

As Covid cases and related hospitalizations fall nationwide, Americans — exhausted by two years of pandemic — are increasingly asking when masks can come off indoors. “Not yet,” says both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and many infectious disease experts, with 99.9% of the U.S. still meeting the criteria for masking.

A potentially more transmissible subvariant of omicron, called BA.2, has now been detected in 1.5 percent of cases in the U.S.

Novavax seeks FDA emergency use authorization of its coronavirus vaccine

Denmark took the European Union lead Tuesday by scrapping most pandemic restrictions as the Scandinavian country no longer considers COVID-19 “a socially critical disease.”

Among non-hospitalized patients with Covid-19–related symptoms that began less than a week previously, a 3-day course of remdesivir resulted in an 87% lower risk of hospitalization or death than placebo. (https://www.nejm.org/do/10.1056/NEJMdo006394/full/)

CMS has changed Medicare protocols, allowing those who have this insurance to obtain approx. 8 test kits per month, without having to pay and then request reimbursement. This begins in spring. Currently, Medicare patients need to get a prescription for tests from their physicians, pay for the tests, get the paperwork and then apply to their insurer for reimbursement.

One hospital ICU nurse in the mid-west said shortages are severe in staffing, with over 2 dozen out with COVID, and only one ventilator unused. She described the beginning of the pandemic when caring was at a maximum as opposed to now, “in the setting of nobody caring anymore. I don’t mean for me. I feel this, too. People are fatigued. They’re over it.”

Southwest Airlines will once again carry alcohol on flights after Feb. 16th.

Cuba, early on, decided to go it alone in developing vaccines. They also had a whole-country priority to addressing COVID, and accomplished an 85% vaccination rate. They now have 3 locally developed vaccines in practice. Cuba has been vaccine-active for 30 years, and chose to adapt from existing vaccines, and not develop brand new lines… https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/02/01/1056952488/a-small-island-nation-has-cooked-up-not-1-not-2-but-5-covid-vaccines-its-cuba