An informed guide to the pandemic, with the latest developments and expert advice about prevention and treatment. |
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 | | Daily reported coronavirus cases in the United States, seven-day average.The New York Times |
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The move comes just days after the C.D.C. updated its mask guidance to acknowledge that cloth masks do not offer as much protection against the virus as surgical masks or respirators. N95 respirators, so named because they can filter out 95 percent of all airborne particles when used correctly, offer the highest level of protection, according to the C.D.C. |
The White House said that the government would begin shipping N95 masks to pharmacies and health centers at the end of this week, and that the masks were expected to be available to the public at the end of next week. The program should be fully up and running by early February. |
The masks will come from the Strategic National Stockpile, the nation's emergency reserve. The stockpile was badly depleted at the outset of the pandemic, leaving health care workers without personal protective gear essential to fighting the first wave of the coronavirus. As late as December 2020, the U.S. was still facing alarming shortages of personal protective gear. |
The Biden administration promised to correct those deficiencies. The stockpile now has 737 million N95 masks, according to officials, and the government is soliciting proposals from companies that have the ability to surge production to 141 million N95 masks per month in a crisis. They would also maintain manufacturing at a lower rate when demand is lower, so that the nation would never again be caught short in a public health emergency, officials said. |
A maddening search for treatment |
My colleague Rebecca Robbins has been writing about Covid-19 vaccines and treatments for the past year. So when her vaccinated, 73-year-old mother tested positive for the virus last week, she set out to find one of two treatments: GlaxoSmithKline's antibody infusion or Pfizer's antiviral pills, known as Paxlovid. |
What followed, Rebecca wrote, was a frustrating "seven-hour odyssey that would show me there was a lot I didn't grasp." |
Demand for the drugs is surging as Omicron cases increase, but supplies have been scarce. Rebecca was also racing against time — the treatments work best when taken soon after contracting the virus. |
Many of the pharmacies near Rebecca's mother in Santa Barbara, Calif., didn't have the pills or had run out of them. When Rebecca finally found one that did carry Paxlovid, she ran into more hurdles when trying to get her mother a prescription. Her mother's doctor's office didn't prescribe the pill, and besides, they said, they would need to see her in person. |
Maddeningly, several telemedicine providers, urgent care clinics and doctors from other health systems told her the same thing: Her mother would need to be evaluated in person. That was an issue because her mother doesn't drive and she would not consider taking a taxi or a bus and risk exposing others to the virus. "Other medical facilities I called that afternoon provided me with information that was just plain wrong," Rebecca wrote. |
Eventually, her mother got an unexpected call from a doctor with her primary care provider who wrote her a prescription. Her mother began taking the treatment and started feeling better a few days later. |
"But the fact that the process was so hard for a journalist whose job it is to understand how Paxlovid gets delivered is not encouraging," Rebecca wrote. "I worry that many patients or their family would give up when told 'no' as many times as I was." |
"I was also reminded that even a 'free" treatment can come with significant costs," she added. Between telemedicine visits and an Uber driver to deliver the meds, she spent $256.54 to get the pills, a price that many patients and their families may struggle to afford. |
"President Biden recently called the Pfizer pills a 'game changer,'" Rebecca wrote. "My experience suggests it won't be quite so simple." |
Tracking Omicron in wastewater |
Viral levels in local wastewater provide a strong, independent signal of how much virus is circulating in a given community, and sewage data is giving us fresh insights into Omicron's spread, my colleagues Emily Anthes and Sabrina Imbler report. |
Data from BioBot Analytics, a company tracking the coronavirus in wastewater in 25 states, suggest that the Omicron wave is cresting at different times in different places. Viral levels have already begun to decline in many big cities but are still rising in smaller communities. |
In New York City and the Boston area, for instance, viral loads have plummeted, which is consistent with other data suggesting that the virus may have peaked in these cities. Viral levels in wastewater are also beginning to fall in Denver, San Diego and St. Paul. |
The most recent data also suggest that the virus may not have peaked yet in parts of Ohio, Utah, Florida and wide areas of rural Missouri. In Houston, the virus may be peaking now. |
Tracking the virus in sewage is helping some cities and hospitals respond to the Omicron wave, but it's not perfect. There are lags between when wastewater samples are collected and the results are publicly available, and experts say a more coordinated national effort is needed. |
What else we're following |
I am 70, vaxxed and boosted. I am driving from the Adirondack area to southern Arizona. I took a diagonal route across the states, and I am amazed at the lack of masks. I was in a hotel in Indiana and I got on the elevator with a young woman with a luggage trolley filled with boxes of take-out meals. I asked her if there was a convention. She replied that these were meals for people in this hotel who are sick with Covid and can't travel any farther. This was one of eight hotels she has been delivering meals to. I keep wearing my mask and washing my hands. — Patricia Purtell, Northville, N.Y. |
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