The U.S. death toll from the pandemic will hit 1 million this week. 9 million Americans have lost spouses, parents, grandparents, siblings and children to COVID-19, according to bereavement calculations by sociologists at Penn State University and the University of Southern California.
And federal funding for COVID health care is drying up, prompting concern about whether people without insurance will continue to receive timely treatment, even as case counts and hospitalizations increase in some areas. Chicago health officials are once again “strongly recommending” that people in that city wear masks indoors.
Meanwhile, the Seattle area’s food scene is roaring back, with consumer spending almost back to normal and many of the old hot spots packed again on the weekends. But under the surface, restaurants are still grappling with COVID consequences.
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Workers grapple with new stresses as they return to office
As more companies mandate a return to the office, workers must readjust to pre-pandemic rituals like long commutes, juggling child care and physically interacting with colleagues. But such routines have become more difficult two years later. Spending more time with your colleagues could increase exposure to the coronavirus, for example, while inflation has increased costs for lunch and commuting.
Among workers who were remote and have gone back at least one day a week in-person, more say things in general have gotten better than worse and that they’ve been more productive rather than less, an April poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows. But the level of stress for these workers is elevated.
Overall, among employed adults, the April AP-NORC poll shows 16% say they work remotely, 13% work both remotely and in-person and 72% say they work only in-person.
Thirty-nine percent of employees who had worked at home but have returned to the office say the way things are going generally has gotten better since returning in-person at the workplace, while 23% say things have gotten worse; 38% say things have stayed the same. Forty-five percent say the amount of work getting done has improved, while 18% say it’s worsened.
But 41% of returned workers say the amount of stress they experience has worsened; 22% say it’s gotten better and 37% say it hasn’t changed.
Coronavirus wave this fall could infect 100 million, administration warns
The Biden administration is warning the United States could see 100 million coronavirus infections and a potentially significant wave of deaths this fall and winter, driven by new omicron subvariants that have shown a remarkable ability to escape immunity.
The projection, made Friday by a senior administration official during a background briefing as the nation approaches a COVID death toll of 1 million, is part of a broader push to boost the nation’s readiness and persuade lawmakers to appropriate billions of dollars to purchase a new tranche of vaccines, tests and therapeutics.
In forecasting 100 million potential infections during a cold-weather wave later this year and early next, the official did not present new data or make a formal projection. Instead, he described the fall and winter wave as a scenario based on a range of outside models of the pandemic. Those projections assume that omicron and its subvariants will continue to dominate community spread, and there will not be a dramatically different strain of the virus, the official said, acknowledging the pandemic’s course could be altered by many factors.
Several experts agreed that a major wave this fall and winter is possible given waning immunity from vaccines and infections, loosened restrictions and the rise of variants better able to escape immune protections all make another major wave possible.
The lucky few to never get COVID may teach us more about it
When her partner tested positive for the coronavirus two days before Christmas, Michelle Green worried she, too, would become ill. She was two months pregnant with their second child. He was a bartender at the time, and some of his co-workers were infected with the virus.
“I told him to get in the guest bedroom and don’t leave,” said Green, a 40-year-old project manager at a retail technology start-up in the District of Columbia. The couple, who were both vaccinated, and their toddler postponed their Christmas celebration. Somehow, Green never tested positive.
Scientists around the world are investigating how a dwindling number of people such as Green have managed to dodge the coronavirus for more than two years, even after the highly transmissible omicron variant drove a record-shattering surge in cases this winter.
A majority of Americans have contracted the novel coronavirus since it began to spread in the United States in early 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Experts hope that studying people who have avoided infection may offer clues – perhaps hidden in their genes – that could prevent others from being infected or more effectively treat those who contract the virus.
“What we are looking for is potentially very rare genetic variants with a very big impact on the individual,” said András Spaan, a clinical microbiologist and fellow at the Rockefeller University in New York who is spearheading a search for genetic material responsible for coronavirus resistance.
Spaan said the international study has already enrolled 700 participants and is screening more than 5,000 people who have come forward as potentially immune to coronavirus infection.
