New York City entered a COVID-19 medium risk level this week, marking a development that could set in motion a return to public health restrictions if the risk of infection continues to rise.
The city is reporting an average of 2,500 new daily cases, a significant increase from the average of 600 daily cases reported in early March.
Meanwhile, Beijing officials are preparing new hospital facilities ahead of a potential spike in COVID-19 cases though numbers remain low. China has held on to its strict “zero-COVID” approach while many countries have opted to relax pandemic restrictions.
We’re updating this page with the latest news about the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on the Seattle area, the U.S. and the world. Click here to see the rest of our coronavirus coverage and here to see how we track the daily spread across Washington.
Christiane Northrup, once a New Age health guru, now spreads COVID disinformation
For much of the pandemic, there has been a tidy pattern to Christiane Northrup’s days.
A retired celebrity doctor with a New Age fandom, she would take her position at a sunny desk in coastal Maine, snap on a camera, and hold forth on spiritual topics such as chakra alignment and energy fields. With a flowery dress and glittering jewelry, she sometimes serenaded her online audience of half a million or so by plucking an enormous harp.
Then Northrup would land on a gloomier theme: COVID-19. Northrup would claim that the virus was part of a plot involving Deep State brainwashing and treacherous depopulation schemes. She encouraged fans to check out QAnon, called the Centers for Disease Control a “COVID death cult,” and described the vaccines as crimes against humanity.
“We are, indeed, at war,” she said in one recent dispatch. “It is good versus evil. Dark versus light.”
New COVID variants arrive ‘out of the blue,’ likely reinfecting omicron survivors
A pair of new omicron subvariants has emerged, raising the possibility that survivors of earlier omicron strains can get reinfected.
BA.4 and BA.5 have gained increasing attention in South Africa as weekly coronavirus cases tripled in the last two weeks, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
“It really came out of the blue over the weekend. We were already settling down with BA.2.12.1, and then BA.4 and BA.5?” said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious diseases expert at UC San Francisco. “It just seems like the latest chapter of a never-ending saga.”
The rapid growth of BA.4 and BA.5 in South Africa has implications for a potential future surge in California and the U.S. Until now, scientists had been reassured that people who survived the first omicron variant over the winter, BA.1, were unlikely to be reinfected by the even more infectious subvariant BA.2, which is now dominant nationwide.
But the surge in cases in South Africa of BA.4 and BA.5 follow an earlier omicron wave. An estimated 90% of South Africa’s population has immunity to the earlier omicron variants either due to surviving a natural infection or through vaccination.
“If 90% of people are immune already, and they’re seeing a surge in cases, it means that this particular dynamic duo [BA.4 and BA.5] are causing more reinfections — even in people who already had omicron,” Chin-Hong said.
As COVID restrictions vanish, Seattle, King County councils continue remote meetings
Restaurants have long since reopened. Theaters and stadiums are crowded. Mask mandates are gone. But there is still one notable holdout that is continuing COVID restrictions: Local governments.
The Seattle City Council and the Metropolitan King County Council have continued to meet remotely, even as other legislative bodies have returned to in-person lawmaking.
That might change soon. The King County Council is scheduled to return to in-person meetings June 7, after a $100,000 upgrade to its legislative chamber to make it easier for the public to comment remotely.
Shanghai COVID outbreak shows signs of waning as cases fall
The COVID-19 outbreak that has shut down most of Shanghai appears to be waning, with the number of new cases falling below 10,000 a day over the weekend.
Authorities have begun a limited easing of a citywide lockdown that has disrupted the lives of millions of residents and dealt at least a temporary blow to China’s economy. Many have been confined to their apartments for three weeks or more. They reported difficulty ordering food deliveries in the early days of the lockdown and higher prices for what they could get.
China’s largest city recorded about 7,000 cases a day on Saturday and Sunday, down from a peak of 27,605 nearly three weeks ago on April 13. Shanghai reported 32 deaths, raising the death toll to 454. Most of the victims have been elderly and many were unvaccinated.
New York City enters higher coronavirus risk level as case numbers rise
As coronavirus cases continue to rise in New York City, the city entered a higher risk level for the virus Monday, a troubling reminder that the pandemic is not over and that the virus still has the power to harm New Yorkers.
The city moved into the medium, or yellow, risk category for virus transmission, a development that could trigger the return of public health restrictions, although they are not required.
Mayor Eric Adams, who last month contracted his first known case of the virus, will face difficult decisions over whether to bring back mask and vaccine mandates at a time when he is focused on the city’s economic recovery and workers are returning to offices.
The city is now seeing nearly 2,500 new cases per day, a significant jump from about 600 daily cases in early March. The latest rise, fueled by the highly contagious omicron subvariant known as BA.2, does not rival the first omicron surge in December and January, but recorded case levels are as high as they were when the delta variant swept through the city last year.
When masks went away, anxiety spiked for high-risk travelers
Kayla Phaneuf has flown all over the country from her home in Virginia – from Los Angeles to Phoenix to Boston. But one week after the federal mask mandate ended on planes and other transportation, the 24-year-old found herself on one of the most stressful flights of her life.
“I almost had an anxiety attack because I was so hyper aware of people coughing who were not wearing masks or people sneezing and not covering their faces with their elbows,” she said. Phaneuf estimates fewer than 10 people, including herself, wore masks on her flight.
She’s immunocompromised after contracting the coronavirus in January 2021, which has persisted as long COVID. It took her over a month to recover from the initial virus, and the effects have since made migraines, brain fog, fatigue, chest and joint pain, and muscle aches a regular part of her life.
For eight months, she had to stop working due to the severity of her symptoms. She dreads the impact a second infection could have.
About 7 million Americans are considered immunocompromised, making them especially vulnerable to severe infection, even if they are vaccinated. When the transportation mask mandate dropped, it added another layer of anxiety and frustration for high-risk travelers.
Expedia results are in line as omicron weighs on pent-up demand
Expedia reported revenue in the first quarter that jumped 80%, in line with analysts’ estimates, and signaled a strong summer travel season after two years of pent-up demand.
Revenue was $2.25 billion in the first three months of the year, according to a statement from the Seattle-based company. Expedia, which hosts reservations for traditional lodging like hotels and short-term rentals on its Vrbo platform, and provides access to pricing for airlines, hotels and car rental companies, reported gross bookings of $24.4 billion, compared with analysts’ projections for $24.5 billion.
“As we have seen many times during COVID, this quarter was a tale of two stories,” said CEO Peter Kern. “There was early impact from omicron left over from late last year, which faded as the turnaround in demand reached new highs since the start of COVID. While the war in Ukraine did slow some of the recovery in Europe, there too we see travel at new highs since the start of the pandemic.”
Travel executives are betting that this summer will be one of the busiest yet as consumers excited to leave home will splurge on vacations — potentially going further afield and venturing back into tourist hot spots. Some signs of strong demand are already emerging in the industry, with airlines such as United boosting capacity for transatlantic flights and Southwest saying it expects to be profitable for the remaining three quarters of the year, even with oil prices well over $100 a barrel.
