 | FRI, DEC 17, 2021 | | | | Think a friend or colleague should be getting this newsletter? Share this link with them to sign up.
A rare, but serious, side effect that causes blood clots led the CDC to make a harsh recommendation on J&J's Covid vaccine this week. Broadway shows and NFL games were sidelined by omicron, and U.S. hospitals are overwhelmed with a surge in cases. Anyone else getting déjà vu?
A slew of new data came out this week on omicron, and much of it was worrying. Its doubling time is two days or less. It spreads 70 times faster in human airways than delta. And it can hit fully vaccinated people, which is evident in the soaring cases in the highly vaccinated U.K. population and elsewhere. And while it appears to be less severe than delta, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky attributed that to the fact that it's hitting more fully vaccinated people than other variants. More below.
We'll be taking the next two weeks off to try to unplug and relax over the holidays and hope you do the same! Feel free to send any tips, suggestions, story ideas and data in the meantime to me at dawn.kopecki@nbcuni.com.
| | CDC recommends Pfizer, Moderna vaccines over J&J shots | The CDC dealt a harsh blow to J&J Thursday when its vaccine advisory committee recommended Moderna or Pfizer & BioNTech's vaccines over J&J's. The CDC quickly adopted the panel's recommendations, saying people who are unable or unwilling to get the mRNA vaccines should get J&J's instead. The reason for the changed opinion: 54 people (mostly younger women) developed rare, but serious, blood clots with low blood platelet levels — a new condition called thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome, or TTS. Of those cases, 36 required treatment in intensive care. "Any vaccination is better than no vaccination," CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told reporters during a press briefing by the White House Covid-19 response team on Friday. The agency didn't pull J&J's shots from the market, but it's not exactly a resounding endorsement.
-Spencer Kimball and Sevanny Campos | | | | 'We're heartbroken. We're overwhelmed' — U.S. hospitals grapple with outbreak | A fresh wave of Covid cases is starting to strain U.S. hospitals across America as exhausted health workers struggle heading into the third year of the pandemic. "We expected this to be a three- to six-month crisis and then we expected it to be over — instead it's 20 months," Dr. John Goldman, an infectious disease expert at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Harrisburg. The Mayo Clinic and other hospitals in Minnesota took out full page ads in major state newspapers on Sunday pleading with the public to get vaccinated and wear a mask. "We're heartbroken. We're overwhelmed," the ad said. "Our emergency departments are overfilled and we have patients in every bed. Now an ominous question looms: Will you be able to get care from your local community hospital without delay? Today, that is uncertain."
-Spencer Kimball, Nate Rattner and Annika Kim | | | | NFL, NHL and NBA postpone games over Covid surge | The NFL announced Friday that it's postponing three games this weekend due to a surge in Covid-19 cases among players. That follows a similar move by the National Hockey League, which said it will postpone the games of several teams for the same reason. The NBA also postponed two games involving the Chicago Bulls due to a Covid outbreak that affected 10 players.
-Jessica Golden and Jabari Young | | | | U.K. reports world's first omicron death | U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson confirmed what appears to be the world's first recorded death from omicron on Monday. "Sadly yes, omicron is producing hospitalizations and sadly at least one patient has been confirmed to have died with omicron," Johnson told reporters. "So I think the idea that this is somehow a milder version of the virus, I think that's something we need to set on one side and just recognize the sheer pace at which it accelerates through the population." At least 10 people were in hospital with omicron, U.K. Health Secretary Sajid Javid told the BBC, noting that it was spreading at a "phenomenal rate." Cases there were doubling every few days. Jenny Harries, CEO of the U.K. Health Security Agency, said the new strain is "probably the most significant threat" since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
-Chloe Taylor and Matt Clinch | | | | Fauci says omicron will soon become dominant Covid variant in U.S. | The omicron variant, which accounted for 2.9% of all Covid cases sequenced in the U.S. as of Saturday, will dominate the nation in a few weeks, likely in January. "It is the most transmissible virus of Covid that we had to deal with those far. It will soon become dominant here. That's one thing we know," White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said at a U.S. Chamber of Commerce event this week. Denmark officials projected omicron, which represented roughly 10% of all cases as of Wednesday, would be the dominant strain there within a week. Troels Lillebaek, chairman of Denmark's Covid variant assessment committee, told CNBC omicron cases were doubling every other day.
-Amanda Macias, Spencer Kimball and Nate Rattner | | | | Omicron replicates 70 times faster in human airways than delta | Dr. Michael Chan Chi-wai of the University of Hong Kong's Faculty of Medicine and a team of researchers found that the variant replicates much faster in the bronchus, which connects the windpipe to the lungs, 24 hours after infection. Yet it reproduces more than 10 times slower in the actual human lung tissue, they said. Omicron's rapid replication in the airway may explain why it transmits faster than previous variants of the virus, but slower infection in the lungs may indicate that it causes less severe disease, according to the study, which is still under peer review.
-Spencer Kimball | |
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