Most patients are unlikely to develop severe disease or die if they get the current variants of COVID-19 as immunity levels have climbed given higher levels of vaccination.
That’s according to the World Health Organization, which updated its COVID-19 guidelines on Friday for the 13th time.
The guidelines highlight that fewer patients will require hospitalization as they are more likely to have non-severe COVID.
“The new ‘moderate risk’ category now includes people previously considered to be high risk including older people and/or those with chronic conditions, disabilities, and comorbidities of chronic disease,” the agency said in a statement.
People who are immunosuppressed remain at higher risk, however, with an estimated hospitalization rate of 6%. But people who are older than 65 years old, those with conditions like obesity, diabetes and/or chronic conditions including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, kidney or liver disease, cancer, people with disabilities and those with comorbidities of chronic disease are at moderate risk, with an estimated hospitalization rate of 3%.
And patients who belong to neither of those groups are at low risk of hospitalization, at an estimated rate of just 0.5%. Most people are now considered low-risk, said the WHO.
The agency continues to recommend the use of Paxlovid for anyone at high or moderate risk of hospitalization. The antiviral developed by Pfizer Inc. PFE, -1.20%
is still the best choice for most eligible patients, given its therapeutic benefits, ease of use and fewer concerns about potential harms.
In cases where Paxlovid is not available, the WHO recommends molnupiravir, an antiviral developed by Merck MRK, -1.11%,
or remdesivir, an antiviral developed by Gilead Sciences Inc. GILD, +0.92%
“For people at low risk of hospitalization, WHO does not recommend any antiviral therapy. Symptoms like fever and pain can continue to be managed with analgesics like paracetamol,” said the agency.
The WHO said it recommends against the use of a new antiviral called VV116 for patients, apart from those who are enrolled in clinical trials.
That oral antiviral is being developed by Junshi Biosciences and Vigonvita in China.
It issued a warning against the use of ivermectin for people with non-severe COVID. The drug used to treat parasites in animals proved highly controversial during the pandemic when many people were persuaded by fraudulent research and online misinformation that it was an effective treatment.
STOCKHOLM (AP) — Two scientists won the Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for discoveries that enabled the development of effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19.
The award was given to Katalin Karikó, a professor at Sagan’s University in Hungary and an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and Drew Weissman, who performed his prizewinning research together with Karikó at the University of Pennsylvania.
“Through their groundbreaking findings, which have fundamentally changed our understanding of how mRNA interacts with our immune system, the laureates contributed to the unprecedented rate of vaccine development during one of the greatest threats to human health in modern times,” the panel that awarded the prize said.
Thomas Perlmann, secretary of the Nobel Assembly, announced the award and said both scientists were “overwhelmed” by news of the prize when he contacted them shortly before the announcement.
The Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine was won last year by Swedish scientist Svante Paabo for discoveries in human evolution that unlocked secrets of Neanderthal DNA which provided key insights into our immune system, including our vulnerability to severe COVID-19.
The award was the second in the family. Paabo’s father, Sune Bergstrom, won the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1982.
Nobel announcements continue with the physics prize on Tuesday, chemistry on Wednesday and literature on Thursday. The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced Friday and the economics award on Oct. 9.
The prizes carry a cash award of 11 million Swedish kronor ($1 million). The money comes from a bequest left by the prize’s creator, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel, who died in 1896.
The prize money was raised by 1 million kronor this year because of the plunging value of the Swedish currency.
The laureates are invited to receive their awards at ceremonies on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel’s death. The prestigious peace prize is handed out in Oslo, according to his wishes, while the other award ceremony is held in Stockholm.
It may be time to get your COVID-19 vaccine again.
There’s a new booster that’s coming out to guard against the virus. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday that it was recommending the vaccine, which is being produced in versions by Moderna MRNA, +3.18%
and Pfizer PFE, -0.20%
-BioNTech BNTX, -2.06%,
for people 6 months of age and older.
Here are answers to some common questions about the shot — and what you may need to know before you receive it.
Why are we seeing another booster?
Boosters are all about maintaining protection against the virus as new COVID-19 variants emerge. The CDC said: “The updated vaccines should work well against currently circulating variants of COVID-19, including BA.2.86, and continue to be the best way to protect yourself against severe disease.” The CDC also noted that “protection from COVID-19 vaccines and infection decline over time. An updated COVID-19 vaccine provides enhanced protection against the variants currently responsible for most hospitalizations in the United States.”
So, everyone who is 6 months or older should receive it?
That’s the CDC’s recommendation, but not everyone sees this booster as a firm requirement, depending on various medical and other factors.
Dr. Paul A. Offit, a pediatrician with the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia who specializes in infectious diseases, told MarketWatch that the new vaccine is a must for some who are at higher risk for developing serious illness, such as people who are over 75, people who have certain health problems (including diabetes, obesity or chronic lung or heart disease) and people who are immune compromised.
And what about the others? Offit said it can be a case of “low risk, low reward.” Meaning there’s little harm in getting the booster and it may buy “a few months protection against mild disease,” Offit said. But he stops short of saying the booster is an absolute necessity for such people.
Still, CDC director Dr. Mandy K. Cohen counters such an argument. In a column for the New York Times, Cohen noted that all the members of her family, including her 9- and 11-year-old daughters, would be getting the booster. “Some viruses…change over time. This coronavirus is one of them. It finds ways to evade our immune systems by constantly evolving. That’s why our vaccines need to be updated to match the changed virus,” Cohen explained.
What if you recently had COVID? Or have just gotten the previous COVID booster?
Offit said you should wait at least two months — and possibly as long as four months — before receiving the new vaccine.
The CDC said, “You should get a COVID-19 vaccine even if you already had COVID-19,” adding “you may consider delaying your next vaccine by 3 months from when your [COVID] symptoms started or, if you had no symptoms, when you received a positive test.”
When and where can you get the new booster?
The CDC said the vaccine “will be available by the end of this week at most places you would normally go to get your vaccines.”
How much will it cost?
The new shots are expected to have list prices of $110 to $130, but the CDC said, “Most Americans can still get a COVID-19 vaccine for free.” That is, most health-insurance plans will cover the cost.
As for those without insurance, the CDC said there are still plenty of free options, including programs run by local health centers and health departments as well as pharmacies participating in the CDC’s Bridge Access Program. For more information about where to get the booster, go to Vaccines.gov.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday recommended updated COVID-19 vaccines for people 6 months of age and older.
Director Mandy Cohen late Tuesday backed the findings of CDC advisers, who voted 13-to-1 for approval earlier in the day. The updated vaccines from Moderna Inc. MRNA, -0.53%
and Pfizer Inc. PFE, +0.62%
-BioNTech BNTX, -1.97%
should become available later this week.
“We have more tools than ever to prevent the worst outcomes from COVID-19,” Cohen said in a statement. “CDC is now recommending updated COVID-19 vaccination for everyone 6 months and older to better protect you and your loved ones.”
The move comes just one day after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the updated shots from Moderna and Pfizer. The FDA approved single-dose vaccines for people 12 and older and authorized emergency use of new shots for children as young as 6 months.
The CDC recommendations Tuesday include some key changes from the recommendations that previously applied to the bivalent COVID vaccines. People age 65 and older were recommended to get a second bivalent dose, for example, but the CDC is not currently recommending two doses of the new shot for older adults. The CDC said it will monitor epidemiology and vaccine effectiveness to determine if additional doses are needed.
The recommendations come as the vaccines are transitioning from federal procurement and distribution to the commercial market. The new shots are expected to have list prices of $110 to $130 per dose. But the Affordable Care Act requires insurers to cover most vaccines recommended by the CDC advisory committee at no cost to plan enrollees, and people with Medicare and Medicaid also have no-cost access to the vaccines.
The CDC meeting Tuesday addressed some concerns about the accessibility and cost of the vaccines for people without health-insurance coverage. The CDC’s new Bridge Access program will provide free shots to uninsured people within days at retail pharmacies as well as local health centers, the CDC said. The agency had previously said that the free shots might not arrive in retail pharmacies until mid-October. The federal government’s vaccines.gov website will be updated later this week to list Bridge Access program sites, the CDC said.
Roughly 25 million to 30 million U.S. adults do not have health insurance. About 85% of people without coverage live within 5 miles of a Bridge Access program site, according to CDC data.
Under the Bridge Access program, CVS Health Corp. CVS, +2.57%
will administer doses in stores and Minute Clinics, the CDC said, and Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. WBA, +1.35%
will offer doses in stores and at off-site events that target areas of low access and uptake. Healthcare-services company eTrueNorth is also working with the program to reach lower-access areas without other coverage under the program, the CDC said.
A new variant of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus has put epidemiologists around the world on alert, and the World Health Organization is asking countries to sustain early warning, surveillance and reporting systems as it works to evaluate the current COVID-19 risk level.
The BA.2.86 variant, which was first detected in Israel, was designated a new variant under monitoring by the WHO on Aug. 17, after the agency received nine sequences from five countries — three in the WHO’s European Region, one in the African Region and one in the Region of the Americas.
The variant has more than 30 mutations in the spike protein compared with the XBB variants that are currently dominant in the U.S. and around the world, namely XBB.1.16 and EG.5, which has been dubbed Eris, following the Greek-alphabet designation used for other variants.
The WHO made EG.5 a variant of interest, or VOI, earlier this month, which is an upgrade from the designation of variant under monitoring, or VUM.
But BA.2.86 is worrying experts because there is too little data to assess its potential impact.
“It is crucial to sustain early warning, surveillance and reporting, variant tracking, early clinical care provision, administration of vaccine boosters to high-risk groups, improvements in ventilation, and regular communication,” the agency said in its latest weekly update.
That update, which reviews the state of the virus for the 28-day period through Aug. 20, contains no data from the WHO’s Region of the Americas, as reports for the period were incomplete. That’s a worry that the WHO has consistently warned about as countries pull back on their monitoring of the illness as they seek to put the pandemic behind them.
The WHO officially declared the emergency phase of the pandemic to be over on May 5 but emphasized that COVID remains a major threat. Many countries have dismantled much of their systems of oversight and greatly reduced testing and data measurement.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offered an update this week on BA.2.86 — which it said has been detected in Denmark, South Africa, Israel, the U.S. and the U.K. — and said the multiple locations are a sign of international transmission. The CDC acknowledged the surveillance challenge.
“Notably, the amount of genomic sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 globally has declined substantially from previous years, meaning more variants may emerge and spread undetected for longer periods of time,” the U.S. agency said in its update.
The CDC also noted a current increase in hospitalizations in the U.S., although it said that’s not likely driven by the BA.2.86 variant.
“It is too soon to know whether this variant might cause more severe illness compared with previous variants,” said the CDC.
Perhaps the bigger issue is whether the new variant has greater escape from existing immunity from vaccines and previous infections, compared with other recent variants.
“One analysis of mutations suggests the difference may be as large as or greater than that between BA.2 and XBB.1.5, which circulated nearly a year apart,” the CDC said. “However, virus samples are not yet broadly available for more reliable laboratory testing of antibodies, and it is too soon to know the real-world impacts on immunity.”
Americans gearing up for what’s expected to be an annual COVID vaccine booster this fall can be confident those vaccines will be designed to protect against all subvariants of XBB, including Eris, the agency said.
The CDC said it’s likely that antibodies built up in the population through infection, vaccination or both will provide protection against BA.2.86. However, it said, “this is an area of ongoing scientific investigation.”
Eric Topol, the chair of innovative medicine at Scripps Research in La Jolla, Calif., said the ability to neutralize the virus depends on the levels of neutralizing antibodies, and those are bound to be lower against BA.2.86 than earlier variants that people have been exposed to or immunized against.
“Also to note, the burden of new mutations for BA.2.86 is not confined to the spike and is seen broadly across other components of the virus,” he wrote in commentary this week. “If BA.2.86 takes off, it will be a real test of how good our T-cell response can rev up to meet the challenge.”
Meanwhile, the CDC’s weekly projections for where Eris and other variants are circulating continue to be hampered by a shortage of data. In early August, the CDC said it would unable to publish its “Nowcast” projections because it did not have enough sequences to update the estimates.
“Because Nowcast is modeled data, we need a certain number of sequences to accurately predict proportions in the present,” CDC representative Kathleen Conley told MarketWatch at the time.
The agency had received data from just three U.S. regions. In its most recent weekly update for the week through Aug. 19, it also got data from just three regions.
The World Health Organization has upgraded COVID-19 variant EG.5 to a variant of interest, or VOI, from a variant under monitoring, or VUM, as it continues to become more prevalent around the world.
The variant — which has been nicknamed Eris by some media, following the Greek-alphabet designation used for other variants — has been found in 51 countries, with most sequences, 30.6%, stemming from China, said the WHO.
Other countries that have submitted at least 100 sequences to a central database include the U.S., the Republic of Korea, Japan, Canada, Australia, Singapore, the United Kingdom, France, Portugal and Spain, the WHO said in a statement.
Eris is a descendent lineage of XBB.1.9.2, which is an omicron subvariant. It was first detected on Feb. 17 and designated as a VUM on July 19.
Its latest designation means it’s more prevalent than it was, has a growth advantage over earlier variants and merits closer monitoring and tracking.
Here’s what you need to know about Eris.
Eris is spreading around the world
The strain is increasing in global prevalence, accounting for 17.4% of cases sequenced in the week through July 23, up from 7.6% four weeks earlier. The WHO has been tracking COVID data on a 28-day basis, largely because countries have cut back on testing and surveillance as they emerge from the pandemic, meaning the agency has far less data than it did during the pandemic.
It’s already dominant in the U.S.
Eris has become dominant in the U.S., according to projections made by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, although a shortage of data is hampering the agency’s efforts to surveil the illness.
The CDC said last week it was unable to publish its “nowcast” projections, which it releases every two weeks, for where EG.5 and other variants are circulating for every region, because it did not have enough sequences to update the estimates.
“Because nowcast is modeled data, we need a certain number of sequences to accurately predict proportions in the present,” CDC representative Kathleen Conley told MarketWatch.
“For some regions, we have limited numbers of sequences available and therefore are not displaying nowcast estimates in those regions, though those regions are still being used in the aggregated national nowcast,” she said.
It is estimated that EG.5, an omicron subvariant, accounted for 17.3% of COVID cases in the U.S. in the two-week period through Aug. 5. That was up from an estimated 11.9% in the previous period and was more than any other variant.
The public-health risk is deemed to be low at the global level, lining up with the risk posed by XBB.1.16 and other currently circulating VOIs, according to the WHO statement. But it’s likely more infectious.
“While EG.5 has shown increased prevalence, growth advantage, and immune escape properties, there have been no reported changes in disease severity to date,” said the WHO.
That growth advantage and immune-escape properties mean Eris may cause a rise in case incidence over time and become dominant in some countries or even the world, according to the WHO.
It has the same symptoms as other strains
The Eris variant causes the same symptoms as seen with other strains of COVID, such as sore throat, runny nose, cough, congestion, fever, fatigue, body aches and a possible loss of taste or smell.
The best defense against Eris is vaccination
Like earlier strains of COVID, the best protection is to be vaccinated with any of the vaccines developed by Pfizer Inc. PFE, -0.03%
and German partner BioNTech SE BNTX, -0.32%,
Moderna Inc. MRNA, -1.01%
or Novavax Inc. NVAX, +9.83%
The vaccines that will be made available in the fall will be designed to protect against all subvariants of XBB, including Eris.
A new variant of COVID-19 dubbed EG.5 has become dominant in the U.S., according to projections made by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, although a shortage of data is hampering the agency’s efforts to surveil the illness.
The CDC said on Friday it was unable to publish its “Nowcast” projections for where EG.5 and other variants are circulating for every region, which it releases every two weeks, because it did not have enough sequences to update the estimates.
“Because Nowcast is modeled data, we need a certain number of sequences to accurately predict proportions in the present,” CDC representative Kathleen Conley said in a statement to CBS News.
“For some regions, we have limited numbers of sequences available, and therefore are not displaying nowcast estimates in those regions, though those regions are still being used in the aggregated national nowcast.”
It is estimated that EG.5, an omicron subvariant, accounted for 17.3% of COVID cases in the U.S. in the two-week period through Aug. 5. That was up from an estimated 11.9% in the previous period and more than any other variant.
But the data are based on sequencing from just three regions; Region 2, comprising New Jersey, New York, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands; Region 4, comprising Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee; and Region 9, comprising Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada, American Samoa, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Guam, Marshall Islands and Republic of Palau.
The next most common variants are XBB.1.16, accounting for 15.6% of cases, and XBB.2.3, accounting for 11.2% of cases.
All are subvariants of XBB, which COVID vaccines in the fall will be designed to protect against.
The symptoms of EG.5, which Twitter users have nicknamed “Eris,” are similar to early variants, and it’s not deemed to be more virulent than early variants. It may be more infectious, however, as has been the pattern with new strains. Symptoms include a cough, fever, chills, shortness of breath, fatigue and a loss of taste or smell.
The World Health Organization said last week that EG.5 increased in prevalence globally to 11.6% in the week through July 30 from 62% four weeks earlier.
The variant is for now a variant under monitoring, or VUM, for the agency, which is a less serious designation than a variant of interest, or VOI, according to its weekly epidemiological update.
The WHO is monitoring two VOIs, XBB.1.5 and XBB.1.6.
It is tracking seven VUMs and their descendent lineages, namely BA.2.75, CH.1.1, XBB, XBB.1.9.1, XBB.1.9.2, XBB.2.3 and EG.5.
CDC data show that hospital admissions with COVID started to rise again in July after being flat or falling for several months. But the number of deaths continues to decline with 81.4% of the overall population in the U.S. having had at least one vaccine dose.
The COVID-19 pandemic is definitively over, according to two recent reports focused on the same metric.
That metric is excess deaths, a measure of the difference between the number of deaths that occurred through the pandemic years, beginning in March 2020, and the number that would be expected in a nonpandemic year, based on data from earlier years.
Rising demand for crude oil is set to slow to a trickle within five years and peak before the end of the decade, as electric-vehicle uptake surges and developed nations rapidly transition to cleaner sources of energy, according to a prominent energy forecaster.
The International Energy Agency, a group funded by some of the world’s largest oil consumers, expects demand for transport fuels derived from oil such as gasoline will be the first to peak before heading into a steady decline–hastened by a sharp uptick in EVs and a…
The World Health Organization on Friday declared an end to the COVID-19 global health emergency.
Speaking at a press conference at the agency’s headquarters in Geneva, WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he had accepted the advice of an expert committee, which met on Thursday, regarding the pandemic’s status. “It is therefore with great hope that I declare COVID-19 over as a global health emergency,” he said.
Moderna Inc. said Tuesday it’s working to develop its first bacterial vaccine to protect against Lyme disease, the tick-borne illness that causes a range of painful symptoms, including fever, headaches, fatigue, joint pain and rash.
The biotech MRNA, -2.75%,
whose first product to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration was its mRNA-based COVID vaccine, said it has two candidates in development to address Lyme disease, named mRNA-1982 and mRNA-1975.
It announced the news at its fourth Vaccine Day, where it offered a full update on its clinical pipeline, which includes vaccines to protect against flu and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, as well as HIV, Epstein-Barr virus and herpes simplex virus, among others.
There are about 120,000 cases of Lyme disease in the U.S. and Europe every year, creating a “significant quality of life burden,” the company said in a statement. Rising temperatures are helping the disease spread more easily, and it is difficult to diagnose, because the symptoms are similar to those of many other diseases. It most seriously affects children below the age of 15 and older adults.
“Older adults appear to have higher odds of unfavorable treatment response as compared with younger patients, and neurologic manifestations are more common at presentation for this older adult population,” said the statement.
Tick and Lyme disease season is here, and scientists warn this year could be worse than ever. Dr. Goudarz Molaei joins Lunch Break’s Tanya Rivero to explain what triggered the rapid spread of the disease and how people can avoid being affected. Photo: Kent Wood/Science Source
The mRNA-1982 candidate is designed to create antibodies for Borrelia burgdorferi, the pathogen that causes almost all Lyme disease in the U.S., while mRNA-1975 is designed to elicit antibodies specific to the four major Borrelia species that cause the disease in the U.S. and Europe.
Other new candidates in Moderna’s pipeline include mRNA-1405 and mRNA-1403, which aim to address the enteric virus norovirus. Norovirus is highly contagious and is the leading cause of diarrheal disease globally, Moderna said. It’s associated with about 18% of all such illnesses worldwide and causes about 200,000 deaths every year.
Overall, Moderna is expecting to launch six major vaccine products in the next few years, all of them with large addressable markets.
The company expects the annual global endemic market for COVID boosters alone to be worth about $15 billion.
It has dosed the first participant in a late-stage trial of its next-generation, refrigerator-stable COVID-19 vaccine candidate, mRNA-1283. The vaccine “has demonstrated encouraging results in multiple clinical studies,” the company said.
A separate trial of a flu vaccine called mRNA-1010 fared less well, however.
That trial “did not accrue sufficient cases at the interim efficacy analysis to declare early success in the Phase 3 Northern Hemisphere efficacy trial and the independent DSMB recommended continuation of efficacy follow-up,” the company said.
The company expects the market for respiratory-product sales to range from $8 billion to $15 billion by 2027 and for operating profit that year to range from $4 billion to $9 billion.
The stock was down 4% Tuesday and has fallen 15% in the year to date, while the S&P 500 SPX, +0.17%
has gained 7%.
“This landmark agreement has the potential to transform the Middle East by realigning its major powers,” the journal Foreign Affairs declared, adding that the gambit is “weaving the region into China’s global ambitions. For Beijing, the announcement was a great leap forward in its rivalry with Washington.”
“ ‘China has seen a space where it is hard for the West to really block off — heading into issues [that the Western powers] feel are too intractable or too toxic to touch and trying to demonstrate that there might be a different way to mediate or involve yourself in these problems.’ ”
— Kerry Brown, King’s College London
“There are changes coming that haven’t happened in 100 years,” Xi told Putin as the self-described “dear friends” concluded their talks. “When we are together, we are driving these changes.”
China’s assertiveness comes after three years of COVID restrictions that saw the country close off from the world in an attempt to tame the virus, a policy that was suddenly scrapped in December.
“It has sunk in that China needs friends. It has ended up too isolated, and that has cut across the narrative of the Xi third term, which was due to be somewhat more sunny,” Kerry Brown, director of the Lau China Institute at King’s College London, told MarketWatch.
Others agreed. “China certainly is exiting a period of diplomatic isolation during the height of COVID,” said Victor Shih, the Ho Miu Lam chair in China and Pacific relations at the University of California, San Diego, and an expert on Chinese elite politics.
That exit has been swift, with Beijing taking concrete steps toward a belief that previously had been mostly rhetoric — that the U.S.-led global system is not the only path.
“China has seen a space where it is hard for the West to really block off — heading into issues [that the Western powers] feel are too intractable or too toxic to touch and trying to demonstrate that there might be a different way to mediate or involve yourself in these problems,” Brown said.
Those sentiments are increasingly pervasive across China, particularly in government, academia and media.
“The U.S., which is accustomed to enjoying the spotlight, is now puzzled for it never thought that one day China would be more popular than it,” state tabloid Global Times said in a front-page story last Thursday.
Wang Yong, director of the Center for International Political Economy and the Center for American Studies at Peking University, told MarketWatch, “The rise of China as a great power is facing an increasingly complicated situation, mainly because U.S. elites judge China as the foremost strategic and systemic threat, and attack China’s development.”
In fact, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen is stopping over in the U.S. this week after visits to the island’s few remaining allies in Central America. Beijing has threatened for weeks against her being welcomed by any high-level American officials.
Those threats turned to ire on Monday, when Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said he would meet with Tsai on Wednesday in California. China said this could lead to “serious confrontation” and that Beijing would “resolutely fight back” — without giving specifics.
“ ‘Why is it assumed we live in a U.S. world?’ ”
— Alan Ma, graduate student, Tsinghua University.
“Gradually deviating from the past promise of ‘one China,’ promoting Taiwan independence and using Taiwan to contain China’s development — these could trigger a China-U.S. war,” Peking University’s Wang said from Beijing.
Average citizens including younger people expressed frustration with U.S. policy.
Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, arrives on Thursday at her hotel in New York.
AP/John Minchillo
“Why isn’t it China’s time to lead? Why is it assumed we live in a U.S. world?” asked 27-year-old Alan Ma, a graduate student in politics at Beijing’s Tsinghua University.
Other areas are reaching heightened levels of tension. China’s military said last month it drove out an American destroyer ship that had “illegally” entered the South China Sea. And the CEO of Chinese-owned video sensation TikTok appeared before U.S. lawmakers in hopes of preventing an American ban on the app over national-security concerns.
But China’s rise, however rapid, must be put in a realistic context, experts said.
“I don’t think that we can say China has entered a new period as a global power until it has deployed large troop contingents overseas on its own,” said UC San Diego’s Shih.
Tanner Brown covers China for MarketWatch and Barron’s.
A leading infectious-disease expert said this week that data is showing the coronavirus has moved to the endemic phase, meaning that COVID-19 is still with us but no longer causing huge waves of illness or clogging up healthcare systems.
Eric Topol, the chair of innovative medicine at Scripps Research in La Jolla, Calif., said all indications from genomic surveillance of the virus, wastewater and clinical outcomes that are still being tracked point to an endemic phase. The caveat is that monitoring is more limited now and tracking is happening at lower frequency.
Nonetheless, “there are no new SARS-CoV-2 variants that have yet cropped up with a growth advantage over XBB.1.5 (the recombinant with two significant mutations added on), which is dominant throughout much of the world, or its cousin, XBB.1.91.1,” Topol wrote in his Ground Truths Substack column.
“For all the talk about the convergent ‘variant soup’ that preceded the most recent wave, the XBBs took hold and are not giving way to a long list of omicron family sub-variants,” he added.
The New York Times daily tracker shows that cases are now averaging around 29,558 a day, down 15% from two weeks ago and at a level last seen around April 2022.
Hospitalizations are down 11% at 24,965 a day. But the daily average death toll stands at 401, up 21% from two weeks ago and an undesirably high number.
The Johns Hopkins University global tracker will stop collecting data on Saturday, which marks the third anniversary of the World Health Organization’s declaration of a global state of emergency.
The tracker shows there have been 676.6 million cases of COVID and 6.8 million deaths globally since the start of the crisis. The U.S. leads the world with 103.8 million cases and 1.12 million deaths.
The WHO counted nearly 4.5 million new COVID cases globally in the 28-day period through March 5, down 58% from the previous period, according to its weekly epidemiological update. The agency said some 32,000 deaths were reported, down 65% from the previous 28-day period.
As has become its practice, it cautioned that an overall pullback in testing means those numbers are likely an undercount as prevalence surveys show higher ones.
The WHO is now monitoring one variant of concern, namely omicron, and seven of its subvariants. The following table shows the weekly prevalence of those subvariants over time:
World Health Organization
A new Gallup poll, meanwhile, shows Americans are evenly divided over whether or not the pandemic is over: Some 49% say it is, while 51% say it’s not.
Gallup first started asking the American public its views on the topic in June 2021, a time when many states were lifting restrictions on movement as the vaccine rollout was underway. At the time, just 29% of those polled said they thought the pandemic was over, giving way to a less upbeat 18% by fall of that year.
“Since then, optimism has mostly only inched higher, rising to 34% last spring and to 44% in October before reaching 49% today,” said Gallup.
A quarter of those polled said they are very or somewhat worried about contracting COVID. That was split between 3% who are very worried and 22% who are somewhat worried. Concerns spiked at 50% in January 2022, when omicron first started to circulate.
The Gallup survey also found that many Americans are still at least partially isolating to protect themselves from the virus. Some 23% of those polled said they are still avoiding crowds, 18% are avoiding travel by air or public transportation and 14% are avoiding public places such as stores and restaurants. Just 10% are even avoiding small gatherings.
But most people are no longer wearing face masks, with just 31% saying they still use one.
Gallup
A small majority of those surveyed, or 52%, said they have tested positive for COVID. Another 13% said they had not, but believed they have had the virus.
As many as 83% of Americans may have some immunity against the virus due to the higher number that have had it and the 63% who are vaccinated, the survey found.
reported better-than-expected earnings in the final three months of 2022, giving Wall Street exactly what it wanted as analysts remain positive on the Chinese tech giant.
The omicron subvariant that became dominant in the U.S. several weeks ago continued to extend its lead over other variants in the latest week, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data that was updated on Friday.
XBB.1.5, the omicron sublineage that first emerged in small numbers in October, accounted for 66.4% of cases in the week through Feb. 4, the data shows. That’s up from 61.3% the previous week. The prior dominant variants, BQ.1.1 and BQ.1, together accounted for 27.2% of new cases, down from 31.1% the previous week.
In the CDC’s Region 2, which includes New York, New Jersey, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, XBB.1.5 accounted for 92.4% of new cases, up from 91.1% the previous week.
The World Health Organization is monitoring XBB and its sublineages and has said that so far, it shows a growth advantage over other circulating variants — in other words, it’s more infectious — but there is still no data to suggest it’s any more lethal, or likely to cause severe illness or death.
The WHO said this week the pandemic is not yet over, although the world may be reaching an inflection point as higher immunity rates lower death rates. But it also urged countries to stay the course, while President Joe Biden has pledged to end twin COVID emergencies on May 11, a move that has dismayed healthcare experts.
Travel between Hong Kong and China will no longer require COVID-19 PCR tests nor be held to a daily limit, authorities announced Friday, as both places seek to drive economic growth, the Associated Press reported.
Hong Kong’s tourism industry has suffered since 2019 after months of political strife that at times turned into violent clashes between protesters and police, as well as harsh entry restrictions implemented during the pandemic.
The announcement came a day after Lee unveiled a tourism campaign aimed at attracting travelers to Hong Kong that includes 500,000 free air tickets for tourists to visit the semi-autonomous Chinese city.
In the U.S., the seven-day average of new U.S. COVID cases stood at 41,412 on Thursday, according to a New York Times tracker. That’s down 19% from two weeks ago. The daily average for hospitalizations was down 21% at 31,394. The average for deaths was 462, down 7% from two weeks ago.
Cases are now rising in 17 states, the tracker shows, led by Minnesota, where they are up 63% from two weeks ago. On a per capita basis, cases are highest in Kentucky at 22 per 100,000 residents.
• China’s COVID lockdowns, and the ending of them in December that sparked a wave of cases, are featuring prominently in U.S. fourth-quarter earnings, with Starbucks SBUX, -2.68% the latest company to highlight their impact on its performance. The coffee-shop chain’s stock was down 3.8% Friday, after it said same-store sales in China, a key market, fell 29% because of the case surge. That was enough to drag down international same-store sales, which had an overall drop of 13%. Still, Chief Financial Officer Rachel Ruggeri said on the call that, “excluding China, we had tremendous growth across markets.” She also said the company’s fiscal 2023 outlook remains unchanged.
• Some Georgia senators want to permanently block schools and most state and local government agencies from requiring people to get vaccinated against COVID, the AP reported. In 2022, lawmakers put a one-year ban into law, part of a nationwide conservative backlash against mandates meant to prevent the spread of the respiratory illness. But that ban expires on June 30 in Georgia if lawmakers don’t act. The Senate Health and Human Services Committee voted 7-2 this week to advance Senate Bill 1, which makes the ban permanent, to the full Senate.
• After a two-year hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic that brutally brought one of Europe’s oldest Mardi Gras celebrations in Binche, Belgium to a halt, celebrations are back with a vengeance this winter, the AP reported. The earliest records of the Binche Mardi Gras, which draws thousands of revelers, date to the 14th century. Many Belgian towns hold ebullient carnival processions before Lent. But what makes Binche unique are the “Gilles”—local men deemed fit to wear the Mardi Gras costumes. Under rules established by the local folklore defense association, only men from Binche families or having resided there for at least five years are eligible to wear the Gille costume. Other characters—the Peasant, the Sailor, the Harlequin, the Pierrot or the Gille’s Wife—also play a role in the carnival.
The U.S. leads the world with 102.5 million cases and 1,110,856 fatalities.
The CDC’s tracker shows that 229.6 million people living in the U.S., equal to 69.2% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots.
So far, just 51.4 million Americans, equal to 15.5% of the overall population, have had the updated COVID booster that targets both the original virus and the omicron variants.
The World Health Organization said nearly 20 million new COVID cases were recorded in the 28 days through Jan. 29, down 78% from the previous 28 days.
The WHO counted more than 114,000 deaths in the period, up 65% from the previous one.
The agency is switching to a 28-day interval to smooth out weekly fluctuations in cases and deaths, but it continues to caution that a reduction in testing and delays in reporting in many countries are distorting the numbers.
“Current trends in reported COVID-19 cases are underestimates of the true number of global infections and reinfections as shown by prevalence surveys,” the WHO said in its weekly epidemiological update.
The other three are BF.7, BQ.1 and BA.2.75, along with their sublineages. These are currently the ones showing a growth-rate advantage in some countries compared with other circulating variants.
U.S. cases are still declining. The seven-day average of new cases stood at 41,771 on Wednesday, according to a New York Times tracker. That’s down 23% from two weeks ago.
The daily average for hospitalizations was down 22% at 31,593. The average for deaths was 453, down 6% from two weeks ago, but still an undesirably high number heading into the third year of the pandemic and ahead of President Joe Biden’s plan to end the twin COVID emergencies on May 11.
• Quest Diagnostics Inc. DGX, -1.55%
is the latest healthcare company to report a steep drop in revenue from COVID-related products, in this instance a 74.6% slide in tests in its fourth quarter. Revenue from COVID tests fell to $184 million in the quarter from $722 million a year ago, when the omicron wave was about to crest. But the company still posted better-than-expected earnings, raised its quarterly dividend and added $1 billion to its share-buyback authorization, which has $311 million already available.
• Hong Kong will give away air tickets and vouchers to woo tourists back to the international financial hub as it races to catch up with other popular travel destinations in a fierce regional competition, the Associated Press reported. During the pandemic, the city largely aligned itself with mainland China’s zero-COVID strategy and has relaxed its entry rules months later than rival destinations such as Singapore, Japan and Taiwan. Even after it reopened its border with mainland China in January, tourism recovery was sluggish. On Thursday, Chief Executive John Lee launched a tourism campaign, “Hello Hong Kong,” saying the city will offer 500,000 free air tickets to welcome tourists from around the world in what he called “probably the world’s biggest welcome ever.”
• Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee has tested positive for COVID-19 for the second time, the AP reported separately. Inslee’s office said in a statement Wednesday that he had tested positive and was experiencing very mild symptoms, including a cough. He is consulting with his doctor about whether to receive Paxlovid antiviral treatments, according to the statement. He plans to continue working. Trudi Inslee, his spouse, has tested negative.
The U.S. leads the world with 102.5 million cases and 1,109,687 fatalities.
The CDC’s tracker shows that 229.6 million people living in the U.S., equal to 69.2% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots.
So far, just 51.4 million Americans, equal to 15.5% of the overall population, have had the updated COVID booster that targets both the original virus and the omicron variants.
President Joe Biden will end the twin national emergencies for addressing COVID-19 on May 11, as most of the world gets closer to normalcy nearly three years after the emergencies were first declared, the Associated Press reported.
The move would formally overturn the federal response to the virus and change it to one where COVID is treated as an endemic threat to public health, much like the flu, which returns seasonally but can be managed without major disruption to the healthcare system.
The coronavirus pandemic is still a global health emergency, according to the World Health Organization, but an advisory panel has determined that it may be nearing an inflection point where higher levels of immunity will lead to fewer deaths.
But Tedros cautioned that weekly reported deaths have been climbing since the beginning of December, at a cost of more than 170,000 lives.
“And that’s just the reported deaths; we know the actual number is much higher,” Tedros said at the meeting. “We can’t control the virus, but we can do more to address the vulnerabilities in populations and health systems.”
Vaccination remains the key tool, he said, and countries must vaccinate 100% of their most at-risk groups and increase access to testing and early antiviral use. When there is a surge in cases, countries need context-specific measures, including maintaining and expanding laboratory networks.
“And it means fighting misinformation,” he said. “We remain hopeful that in the coming year, the world will transition to a new phase in which we reduce hospitalizations and deaths to the lowest possible level, and health systems are able to manage COVID-19 in an integrated and sustainable way. “
His comments comes as U.S. cases, hospitalizations and deaths continue to fall, with the seven-day average of new cases standing at 46,021 on Sunday, according to a New York Times tracker. That’s down 25% from two weeks ago.
The daily average for hospitalizations was down 22% to 33,451. The average for deaths was 521, down 8% from two weeks ago.
Cases are currently rising in just nine states, as well as in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Tennessee is leading with total case counts, which are up 104% in two weeks, and also on a per capita basis, with 51 cases per 100,000 residents.
• Chinese health officials are saying that the wave of cases that emerged after the government dropped strict COVID restrictions in December is “coming to an end,” BBC News reported. China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention said there had been “no obvious rebound” in cases during Lunar New Year holiday gatherings last week. “In this time, no new variant has been discovered, and the country’s current wave is coming to an end,” said China’s CDC. China has understated its COVID numbers throughout the pandemic, but experts say the decline reported now corresponds with the expected timing of an end to this major wave.
What’s seen as the world’s largest annual human migration is under way again in China for the Lunar New Year, after the country lifted pandemic restrictions. The Wall Street Journal’s Yoko Kubota reports on how it’s expected to boost the economy — and the risk of new COVID-19 outbreaks. Photo: Cfoto/Zuma Press
• China announced it would resume issuing visas for Japanese travelers beginning Sunday, ending its nearly three-week suspension that was an apparent protest of Tokyo’s tougher entry requirements for tourists from China, the Associated Press reported. The statement was posted on the Chinese Embassy’s website. Japan reopened its borders for individual tourists in October, allowing travelers to show proof of vaccination instead of testing at airports unless they show symptoms, but on Dec. 30, Japan began requiring all travelers from China to show a predeparture negative test and take an additional test upon arrival.
• A former Russian Orthodox monk who denied that the coronavirus existed and defied the Kremlin was handed a seven-year prison sentence Friday, the AP reported separately. Nikolai Romanov, 67, who was known as Father Sergiy until his excommunication by the Russian Orthodox Church, urged his followers to disobey the Russian government’s lockdown measures and spread conspiracy theories about a global plot to control the masses. A court in Moscow convicted him of inciting hatred. His lawyer immediately announced plans to appeal.
The U.S. leads the world with 102.3 million cases and 1,107,646 fatalities.
The CDC’s tracker shows that 229.6 million people living in the U.S., equal to 69.2% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots.
So far, just 51.4 million Americans, equal to 15.5% of the overall population, have had the updated COVID booster that targets both the original virus and the omicron variants.
A Food and Drug Administration advisory panel voted unanimously Thursday for Americans to get a once-a-year booster against COVID-19, with the strain to be decided midyear for a fall campaign, the Associated Press reported.
“This is a consequential meeting to determine if we’ve reached the point in the pandemic that allows for simplifying the use of current COVID-19 vaccines,” said the FDA’s Dr. David Kaslow.
The panel agreed that people should get the same vaccine formula whether they’re receiving their initial vaccinations or a booster. Today, Americans get one formula based on the original coronavirus strain that emerged in 2020 for their first two or three doses, and their latest booster is a combination shot made by Pfizer PFE, -0.33%
or Moderna MRNA, -0.90%
that adds protection against omicron.
The FDA would have to decide how to phase in that change.
COVID-19 vaccines have saved millions of lives, and booster doses remain the best protection against severe disease and death. But Americans are tired of getting vaccinated. While more than 80% of the U.S. population has had at least one COVID-19 shot, only 16% of those eligible for the latest boosters — so-called bivalent doses updated to better match more recent virus strains — have gotten one.
Separately, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offered an update Friday on the strains that are dominant in the U.S., showing that XBB.1.5, the omicron sublineage that first emerged in small numbers in October, has extended its lead over other variants.
XBB.1.5 accounted for 61.3% of cases in the week through Jan. 28, the data shows, up from 49.1% a week ago. The prior dominant variants, BQ.1.1 and BQ.1, together accounted for 31.1% of new cases.
In the CDC’s Region 2, which includes New York, New Jersey, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, XBB.1.5 accounted for 91.1% of new cases, up from 86.8% the previous week.
The World Health Organization said this week that it now has data on XBB.1.5 from 54 countries, showing it has a growth advantage over other circulating strains but still appears no more severe.
In its weekly epidemiological update, the agency said it has raised the confidence level of its risk assessment for XBB.1.5 to “moderate” from “low,” using these additional reports. The highest number of XBB.1.5 cases are showing up in the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Denmark, Germany, Ireland and Austria.
The news comes as the seven-day average of new cases stood at 46,300 on Thursday, according to a New York Times tracker. That’s down 24% from two weeks ago. The daily average for hospitalizations was down 24%, at 34,833. The average number of deaths was 549, down 3% from two weeks ago.
Cases are currently climbing in eight states — Illinois, Tennessee, Minnesota, Alaska, South Dakota, Vermont, Kentucky and Kansas — as well as in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Washington, D.C.
• China’s claim that COVID cases and deaths have peaked and are falling fast is failing to take on board that testing is not keeping up with infections, the Guardian reported. China ended its zero-COVID policy in December and promptly saw a wave of cases spread across the nation. Its health authorities said this week that the worst is behind it, but experts are wary that it is underreporting numbers, as it has since the start of the pandemic. Now the pullback in testing is a factor, according to the Guardian. Daily tests had dropped to 280,000 by Monday, down from 150 million on Dec. 9, and 7.54 million on Jan. 1. Some provinces had enacted systems for collecting the results of residents or allowing residents to self-report, but the figures were “affected by the willingness of residents to test.”
What’s seen as the world’s largest annual human migration is under way again in China for the Lunar New Year, after the country lifted pandemic restrictions. WSJ’s Yoko Kubota reports on how it’s expected to boost the economy–and the risk of new Covid-19 outbreaks. Photo: Cfoto/Zuma Press
• South Korea says it will continue to restrict the entry of short-term travelers from China through the end of February over concerns that the spread of COVID may worsen following the Lunar New Year holidays, the AP reported. South Korea in early January stopped issuing most short-term visas at its consulates in China, citing concerns about the virus surge in the country.
• Spain is set to end the mandatory use of face masks on public transport nearly three years after the start of the pandemic, the AP reported separately. Spanish Health Minister Carolina Darias said Thursday she would recommend that the government remove the health regulation when the cabinet meets on Feb. 7. Face masks will remain obligatory inside hospitals, health clinics, dentist offices and pharmacies.
The U.S. leads the world with 102.3 million cases and 1,107,559 fatalities.
The CDC’s tracker shows that 229.6 million people living in the U.S., equal to 69.2% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots.
So far, just 51.4 million Americans, equal to 15.5% of the overall population, have had the updated COVID booster that targets both the original virus and the omicron variants.
A few days into the first Lunar New Year holiday since the lifting of pandemic restrictions in China, Chinese consumers are eager to travel but are also wary as a major COVID wave sweeps the nation, MarketWatch’s Tanner Brown reported.
The 15-day festival is considered the world’s largest annual migration, during which students and workers return to their hometowns in droves — that is, until COVID shut down travel in 2020.
