Weekly News From Los Alamos County
October 7, 2022
|
|
Inside this newsletter, you will find...
The Epidemiology Corner - COVID-19 Update, More about Omicron, CDC to Stop Daily Reporting, Q&A, Survey & Results, COVID-19 data, and more.
|
|
|
|
COVID-19 Update: County Transmision Rates Remain at Lower but Constant Levels Ahead of Cold/Flu Season...
|
|
New Variants Continue Slow Emergence as Nationwide Hospitalizations Stay in Gradual Decline
For the week ending October 1, CDC estimates that Omicron variant BA.5 accounts for 83% of US cases nationwide, but is slowly declining and being out-competed by other Omicron variants. The BA.4.6 variant, which has been emerging since late June, continues its gradual ascent and now accounts for 13% of cases nationwide. See HERE Other new Omicron variants being tracked by the CDC have also continued their slow emergence, of which BF.7 is the most notable. An offspring of BA.5 which has an additional immune-evading mutation, BF.7 increased from 2.3% to 3.4% of US cases over the past week. Public health authorities are uncertain over the potential impact of these low-level emergent variants going into the upcoming flu/cold season, but declining hospitalization rates nationwide suggest they are not causing more severe disease than BA.5. Public health authorities are concerned that the upcoming cold/flu season may be more severe than usual, as was observed recently in Australia, which tends to mirror the US experience. See HERE CDC recommends flu vaccination for all eligible persons 6 months and older, which this year includes a newly formulated higher-dose vaccine for those 65+ years. See HERE
|
|
COVID-19 in the County: Low but Stable Case Incidence and ED Visits Suggest Endemic Disease Pattern
An average of 3.4 cases per day were reported for the week ending October 5 compared to 3.1 cases per day for the preceding week ending September 27. According to the NMDOH, 5.3% of all ED visits for the two weeks ending October 4 were for COVID-like illness, which is more than double the 2.0% value seen for the preceding two-week period ending September 27. The rise in reported COVID-19-related ED visits is consistent with the rise in case incidence seen over the past several weeks. An endemic disease, like COVID-19 now appears to be, is continually present at anticipated levels in a community, and minor fluctuations in weekly disease statistics are expected. Establishing the endemic level of an infectious disease like COVID-19 requires ongoing disease surveillance data that provide a baseline or reference level. Accurate ascertainment of COVID-19-related ED visits will likely become more challenging moving into the upcoming cold/flu season as clinical symptoms tend to be similar. For reporting purposes, COVID-like illness includes ED encounters with chief complaint consisting of fever and cough, shortness of breath, or difficulty breathing, while also including COVID-19 associated discharge diagnoses codes. See HERE
|
|
Wastewater Surveillance Continues to Detect Low Level SARS-CoV-2 Virus in the County
Virus continues to be detected in county municipal wastewater at relatively low levels that correspond to a low but constant level of case transmission. Wastewater surveillance provides an additional measure that should help to establish the endemic level of COVID-19 within the county. The CDC contractor Biobot reports that the BA.5 variant represented virtually all virus detected and genetically sequenced during the week of September 14, the most recent time period for which data are available. See https://biobot.io/data/
|
|
CDC Community Level Remains at LOW for Los Alamos County
For the week ending October 4, the CDC Community Level for the county remains at LOW. New COVID-19 hospital admissions per 100,000 declined to 4.1 from the prior week value of 7.9, indicating a favorable change but still marking that severe disease is occurring at modest levels in the four-county Health Services Area (HSA) population. Declining case incidence trends have ceased or reversed in all four counties in the HSA, suggesting that rates may not decline further going into the upcoming winter season as more time is spent indoors.
|
|
NOTE: The COVID-19 incidence data reviewed here are based on PCR-confirmed testing results compiled by CDC and NMDOH and do not include data on positive at-home antigen tests. As such, case counts are likely underestimated, but how much cannot be determined at any given time point.
To assist with more complete case monitoring in New Mexico, NMDOH provides for online reporting of positive at-home antigen results HERE.
|
|
Why Omicron Might Stick Around
Omicron, the 13th named variant of the coronavirus, seems to have a remarkable capacity to evolve new tricks.
Where is Pi?
Last year, the World Health Organization began assigning Greek letters to worrying new variants of the coronavirus. The organization started with Alpha and swiftly worked its way through the Greek alphabet in the months that followed. When Omicron arrived in November, it was the 13th named variant in less than a year.
But 10 months have passed since Omicron’s debut, and the next letter in line, Pi, has yet to arrive.
That does not mean SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, has stopped evolving. But it may have entered a new stage. Last year, more than a dozen ordinary viruses independently transformed into major new public health threats. But now, all of the virus’s most significant variations are descending from a single lineage: Omicron.
It’s also looking like Omicron has a remarkable capacity for more evolution. One of the newest subvariants, called BA.2.75.2, can evade immune responses better than all earlier forms of Omicron.
For now, BA.2.75.2 is extremely rare, making up just .05 percent of the coronaviruses that have been sequenced worldwide in the past three months. But that was once true of other Omicron subvariants that later came to dominate the world. If BA.2.75.2 becomes widespread this winter, it may blunt the effectiveness of the newly authorized boosters from Moderna and Pfizer.
At first, SARS-CoV-2 followed the slow and steady course that scientists had expected based on other coronaviruses. Its evolutionary tree gradually split into branches, each gaining a few mutations. Evolutionary biologists kept track of them with codes that were useful but obscure. No one else paid much attention to the codes, because they made little difference to how sick the viruses made people.
But then one lineage, initially known as B.1.1.7, defied expectations. When British scientists discovered it, in December 2020, they were surprised to find it bore a unique sequence of 23 mutations. Those mutations allowed it to spread much faster than other versions of the virus.
Within a few months, several other worrying variants came to light around the world — each with its own combination of mutations, each with the potential to spread quickly and cause a surge of deaths. To make it easier to communicate about them, the W.H.O. came up with its Greek system. B.1.1.7 became Alpha.
Different variants experienced varying levels of success. Alpha came to dominate the world, whereas Beta took over only in South Africa and a few other countries before petering out.
What made the variants even more puzzling was that they arose independently. Beta did not descend from Alpha. Instead, it arose with its own set of new mutations from a different branch of the SARS-CoV-2 tree. The same held true for all the Greek-named variants, up to Omicron.
Omicron did particularly well in this genetic lottery, gaining more than 50 new mutations that helped it find new routes into cells and to infect people who had been vaccinated or previously infected. As it spread around the world and caused an unprecedented spike in cases, it drove most other variants to extinction.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration responded by inviting vaccine makers to produce booster shots that included a BA.5 protein along with one from the original version of the virus. Those boosters are now rolling out to the public, at a time when BA.5 is causing 85 percent of all Covid cases in the United States.
There’s no reason to expect that BA.2.75.2 will be the end of the evolutionary line. As immunity builds to previous versions of Omicron, new versions will be able to evolve that can evade it.
Lorenzo Subissi, an infectious disease expert with the W.H.O., said that the organization was not giving Greek letters to lineages like BA.2.75.2 because they are much like the original Omicron viruses. For example, it appears that all Omicron lineages use a distinctive route to get into cells. As a result, it is less likely to lead to severe infections but possibly better able to spread than previous variants.
“W.H.O. only names a variant when it is concerned that additional risks are being created that require new public health action,” Dr. Subissi said. But he did not rule out a Pi in our future.
“This virus still remains largely unpredictable,” he said.
Read the full article HERE.
|
|
Flu is expected to flare up in U.S. this winter, raising fears of a 'twindemic'
The flu virtually disappeared for two years as the pandemic raged. But influenza appears poised to stage a comeback this year in the U.S., threatening to cause a long-feared "twindemic."
While the flu and the coronavirus are both notoriously unpredictable, there's a good chance COVID cases will surge again this winter, and troubling signs that the flu could return too.
"This could very well be the year in which we see a twindemic," says Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease professor at Vanderbilt University. "That is, we have a surge in COVID and simultaneously an increase in influenza. We could have them both affecting our population at the same time."
The strongest indication that the flu could hit the U.S. this winter is what happened during the Southern Hemisphere's winter. Flu returned to some countries, such as Australia, where the respiratory infection started ramping up months earlier than normal, and caused one of the worst flu seasons in recent years.
What happens in the Southern Hemisphere's winter often foreshadows what's going to happen north of the equator.
And the combination of the two viruses could seriously strain the health system, he says. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that flu causes between 140,00 and 710,000 hospitalizations annually.
The main reason the flu basically disappeared the last two years was the behavior changes people made to avoid COVID, such as staying home, avoiding public gatherings, wearing masks, and not traveling. That prevented flu viruses from spreading too. But those measures have mostly been abandoned.
Young kids at especially high risk
The CDC is reporting that the flu is already starting to spread in parts of the south, such as Texas. And experts caution very young kids may be especially at risk this year.
Though COVID-19 generally has been mild for young people, the flu typically poses the biggest threat to both the elderly and children. The main strain of flu that's currently circulating, H3N2, tends to hit the elderly hard. But health experts are also worried about young children who have not been exposed to flu for two years.
'Viral interference' could offset the risks
Some experts doubt COVID and flu will hit the country simultaneously because of a phenomenon known as "viral interference," which occurs when infection with one virus reduces the risk of catching another. That's an additional possible reason why flu disappeared the last two years.
So far it looks like this year's flu vaccines are a good match with the circulating strains and so should provide effective protection.
But health officials fear fewer people will get flu shots this year than usual because of anti-vaccine sentiment that increased in reaction to COVID vaccinations. Flu vaccine rates are already lagging.
Read the full article HERE.
|
|
Anyone who still wants to keep track of U.S. COVID cases and deaths will soon have to wait for the weekly reports.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Thursday that it will stop publishing COVID case and death data on a daily basis and instead issue weekly updates, starting Oct. 20.
"To allow for additional reporting flexibility, reduce the reporting burden on states and jurisdictions, and maximize surveillance resources, CDC is moving to a weekly reporting cadence," the agency explained in a post.
The move is in line with efforts to wind down other COVID-related tools on the CDC website. It eases reporting requirements for state and local health departments who can report the information weekly on Wednesdays, the agency said.
Many states and other countries have already stopped issuing daily reports. Community Level ratings, which provide guidance to counties, are already updated just weekly, as are vaccination numbers.
CDC updates for COVID will now be released on Thursdays.
The agency is continuing its daily hospitalization reports, which the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services collects. The CDC will take charge of that data in December, and it's not clear if it will still be published daily, CBS News reported.
It's not really clear how accurate the case number reports were anyway, because at-home testing is now common and many cases likely go unreported.
Meanwhile, it's not clear what will happen with COVID or the flu this winter, though there is potential for outbreaks of either.
There is a considerable drop around the country in COVID cases, hospitalizations, and deaths, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the outgoing chief medical adviser to the president, said earlier this week.
"I was on the phone with colleagues in health departments throughout the country just two nights ago, and everyone is having the same experience," Fauci said Tuesday during a webinar hosted by the University of Southern California.
That doesn't mean there won't be illness this winter. New variants are emerging across the country and winter often up the risk of respiratory viral infections. Fauci said.
"It would be a bit cavalier to all of a sudden say we're completely through with it," he added. "Although we can feel good that we're going in the right direction, we can't let our guard down."
|
|
|
Are you still testing regularly for COVID-19?
|
|
Yes, PCR. When I have symptoms.
|
|
|
|
|
Yes, PCR. I test regularly with or without symptoms.
|
|
|
|
|
Yes, at-home test. When exposed.
|
|
|
|
|
Yes, at-home test. When I have symptoms.
|
|
|
|
|
Yes, at-home test. I test regularly with or without symptoms.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Los Alamos Vaccine & Booster Information |
|
How do I know if I'm eligible for a vaccine or booster?
Follow these links to review the CDC eligibility guidelines:
|
|
Los Alamos County COVID Vaccine/Booster Resources
Visit the County COVID Page for information regarding vaccinations/boosters, click below:
|
|
CDC COVID Data Tracker - October 7, 2022
To get today's break down of positive case data, demographics information, vaccine status and more for Los Alamos County or other counties across the United States, click HERE
|
|
NMDOH Epidemiology Reports - Daily and Weekly Data
As part of the COVID-19 pandemic response, NMDOH collects and analyzes statewide data for COVID-19 positive cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. The reports reflect these critical data and are updated weekly - click HERE
|
|
QUESTION:
Why are data on reported COVID-19 cases provided as 7-day averages rather than daily case counts?
ANSWER:
Reported case counts fluctuate from day to day due to administrative and laboratory scheduling and this creates marked peaks and valleys in the data. Most public health agencies, including the CDC, typically provide a 7-day moving average of COVID-19 cases to smooth out these fluctuations and make the data easier to interpret.
|
|
QUESTION:
Why are county COVID-19 data provided in somewhat complicated graphs that span nearly a year and include multiple COVID-19 occurrence measures, such as reported cases, emergency department visits, and levels of virus in county wastewater?
ANSWER:
Epidemiologists graph disease data in various different ways, including graphs that show trends over long-term time periods. This helps to better understand trends over time in the occurrence of infectious diseases like COVID-19, which may vary by season and by type of dominant virus strain circulating. Other disease occurrence measures are graphed to look for consistency in the data and to help with understanding possible future trends.
|
|
QUESTION:
Why are county case statistics sometimes reported per 100,000 persons when there are only about 19,000 people living in the county?
ANSWER:
To compare the occurrence of COVID-19 between populations of differing size, for example Los Alamos and Santa Fe counties, epidemiologists compute disease statistics based on a per person basis. For convenience purposes, however, public health agencies, including the CDC, multiply the per person statistic by 100,000 to provide for easier numeric comparisons between different populations.
|
|
QUESTION:
Can you share data about the individuals who died in Los Alamos over the past few months? Vax/not vax? Age?
ANSWER:
Los Alamos County reached out to NMDOH to request this information, and received the following response:
Unfortunately, NMDOH is unable to share the data you requested pertaining to COVID-19 deaths in Los Alamos County. To protect against the incidental release of personal health information, we are unable to share counts (in this case COVID-19 deaths) where the denominator does not reach a certain threshold. Since Los Alamos County is a smaller county with lower death counts, this threshold was not met, and we will be unable to share this data.
|
|
We are listening to you!
Your feedback is helping to shape future newsletters, inform decisions regarding services, and make Los Alamos County healthier and safer. Make sure to participate each week to be heard!
|
|
Remember, we appreciate your questions! We always try to respond in a timely manner, and if appropriate, we will include those Q&As in future newsletters.
Take a look at these results from the last survey:
|
|
Have a question? Email us. |
|
Los Alamos Testing Information |
|
Los Alamos County COVID Testing Resources
Visit the County COVID Page for information regarding testing, click below:
|
|
Los Alamos Treatment Information |
|
Los Alamos County COVID Treatment Resources
Visit the County COVID Page for information regarding treatments, click below:
|
|
What else would you like to see in this newsletter?
Click below to email us your feedback and questions!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
