Short Wave - Omicron Ebbing Gives Time to Boost Vaccinations

Episode Date: February 1, 2022

As COVID-19 cases in the U.S. drop, the hospitalization rate remains high — as does the death rate. Experts say getting a COVID vaccine booster is key to maintaining immunity, but only about half of all vaccinated people in the U.S. have gotten the booster, which increases protection against both serious illness and death from the Omicron variant. Still, many infectious disease experts are cautiously optimistic for the coming months, pointing to it as a time to bolster our defenses against the virus. Reach the show by emailing [e-mail] pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Shortwave from NPR. Hey, shortwavers, Emily Kwong here with NPR health correspondent Alison Aubrey. Hi, Emily. It's good to be here. So let's do a COVID checkup. Omicron, that variant, is losing steam, even though it's got a sub-variant we'll talk about in a bit. New cases of the coronavirus are falling. But hospitalizations are near all-time highs. It's part of the awful, kind of predictable pattern of every surge of this pandemic. Death's lag of piquin infections. Yeah.

It's a hard reality to swallow, even if it is a pattern that we've come to predict. But despite this, a lot of infectious disease experts are telling me they're cautiously optimistic about the months ahead. So today on the show, we're going to talk about what cases look like around the country and how some doctors are thinking about what's to come. Possibly a better spring? I hope so. You're listening to Shortwave, the Daily Science Podcast from NPR. So, Alison, let's do a COVID checkup on the U.S. The number of COVID cases is declining rapidly in some states. But if you look at the U.S. as a whole, what do you see? I see that new infections have fallen more than 30 percent since mid-January. That's according to CDC data.

That's good. But in areas that are just now peaking or passing their peak, it's still a pretty intense seen out there. Cases are still rising in the northwest and some parts of the south. Across the country, nearly 18,000 people with COVID are still being admitted to hospitals every day. I spoke to the head of Houston Methodist Hospital, Dr. Mark Boom, about the situation there. We've seen a pretty sharp decline in infections in Houston. The best metric is our wastewater. Unfortunately, we still see many people coming to our hospitals and getting very ill and dying. And they're really in two groups. They're either unvaccinated individuals or they're particularly elderly or very, very immunocompromised.

Yeah. It is so important for as many people as possible to get vaccinated to protect actually those who can't or are too old or immunocompromised to get the full protection. That's the whole idea of herd immunity. That's right. So while cases are down throughout, the U.S., deaths and hospitalizations, we got to bear in mind, they usually lag behind the peak in infections. That's right. I mean, 2,300 people are dying right now every day in the country. That's the most recent seven-day average. And that number has been rising. It is high. It's surprising, actually, that deaths have risen this much. That's right. I mean, the death toll is lower compared to last January when most people weren't vaccinated yet. I mean, this time. last year, deaths peaked at 3,400 a day or so. What is surprising is how deaths have risen

during this Omicron surge. And Dr. Boom says he thinks a lot of these deaths could have been avoided. Are fully appalling and embarrassing. I mean, when we look at ourselves versus the UK and ask ourselves, why are so many more Americans percentage-wise dying of COVID than people in the UK, yet we all kind of are acting similarly. It comes down to a couple things, but by far the biggest thing is that they have vaccinated much more effectively the vulnerable population. We know that immunity can wane, so booster seem to make a big difference. In fact, a new study has found that three shots of a COVID vaccine boosted protection against death from an Omicron infection to about 95%.

So it's pretty dramatic. This is in people 50 and older in the UK. In the U.S., less than half of the people who've gotten two doses have gone on to get that booster. So even as this surge begins to recede, there still needs to be a push to get more people vaccinated and boosted. Absolutely. I mean, I hear that time and time again. The consensus is that we will be coexisting with COVID for a very long time. Variants will come and go. Some may be consequential. Others not. We'll be talking about this forever, Allison. Right. I mean, look, why do we get vaccinated against the flu because of the flu pandemic 100 years ago, right? So it's really important that people get boosted when they're eligible because as long as the virus is circulating, people will be at risk of serious infection and of death, particularly those who are vulnerable.

Well, to your point, there is a new variant. That's right. The latest variant B-A-2 is the relative of Omocran. It's been circulating in Denmark and other countries. And it has been identified in the U.S., now circulating at low levels. And on Sunday on CBS, former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said that it's possible the variant could extend the tail a bit of this wave of infections, meaning infections will continue to go down. But that decline could happen more slowly. But he said vaccinated and boosted people should be protected. There's data out of the UK that suggests that a fully boosted person may be more protected against this new variant than they were against the original strain of Omicron. And then the final question is, is it more virulent? Is it more dangerous?

And so far, based on what we've seen out of Denmark and the UK, which are collecting very good data on this, it doesn't appear to be a more virulent strain. Well, that's some good news. I would say so. And an analysis by the UK Health Security Agency found that the vaccines appear to be about as effective against the new strain as they are against the original Omicron strain. Let's talk about vaccinations a little bit more. So in the U.S., roughly 68% of people, five and us,

are fully vaccinated and half of those are boosted. It obviously could be so much better. But this is the reality right now. I'm wondering, for folks who got infected during the Omicron wave, will they have some added protection against this new variant? Will they have built up some helpful antibodies? If you've had an Omicron infection, you should have protection at least for a while. I mean, it has become clear from prior waves that natural infection is no guarantee of long-term immunity, but there should be some protection for a while, and that added with all the people protected by vaccination. This leads Dr. Gottlieb to say that he does not think that BA2 will create a huge wave of infections in the U.S. But you know, one point that all of the infectious

disease experts I talk to you regularly keep making to me is that even as this wave recedes, and we head hopefully towards a lull where life may start to feel more normal again, we must be prepared for what could come next. I talked to Dr. Lance Becker, he's chair of emergency medicine at Northwell Health. It's a very large health care provider in New York about this. He likens it to kind of fighting forest fires. A huge part of that is trying to prevent them. It makes me think of fighting forest fires. One of the things you need to do is remove the dead wood. Because if there's all this dead wood around another forest fire will come along. And particularly if we get a little time to breathe, we've just got to get much more of our

population vaccinated and immune so we can just put this forest fire down to smoldering. So clearing brush for the pandemic looks like, what, getting a lot of people vaccinated? That's exactly his point. I mean, his point is, look, you stay vigilant during these laws when cases recede. Some people might be inclined to say, ah, it's over. I don't need it. but remind them that it could all come back again. We could see another wave. So continuing to encourage and offer vaccines, he says, is important. Also, expanding production of medicines such as the new antivirals is important so that the country is prepared for future outbreaks. Testing is important, too. We've seen the Biden administration launch a program to ship tests to people's homes. These are rapid antigen tests. I want to ask you about actually interpreting these test results. Some people are finding. finding that they're still getting a positive result six or seven days into an infection, which is past the new shortened five-day CDC isolation window.

Allison, what should people do if they're starting to feel better, but they're still testing positive on day six and beyond? I had this very question myself. My daughter's best friend had been recovering from COVID earlier this month. And on day six or day seven, we had arranged for them to have a play date that morning. her mom called and said, oh, I did a rapid antigen test. It's positive. Now, she hadn't been symptomatic for the last several days at all. So we were all kind of shaking our heads. So I did have the same question. So here's the bottom line. I mean, when the CDC shortened the isolation

period of five days, the rationale was that people are most infectious during the early part of their infection. And that remains true. But it can take a while for the virus to run its course. I talked to Patricia Stinchfield about this. She's the president-elect of the National Foundation for infectious diseases. She said you can get a positive test result even after symptoms resolve, say on day six or day seven. If you're feeling better and it's day six and the test is positive, believe those positive tests. And that means you have a high enough viral load that you could be infectious to others. So then, of course, stay home. So as long as you test positive, postpone your play date and stay home. That's right. And especially stay away from vulnerable people.

I mean, children under five who can't yet be vaccinated, those over 65, and people who are immune compromised. I mean, these rapid tests are not a perfect tool. They cannot determine the moment that you're no longer infectious. But they are pretty reliable at picking up the virus. I will point out many schools still have a required isolation period of 10 days. Alison Aubrey, I appreciate you so much for continuing to come on our show and continuing to keep us all updated on this pandemic. No problem at all. It's been nice to be here. Thanks, Emily. This episode was edited by Jane Greenhalsh and Giselle Grayson and produced by Rebecca Ramirez.

Catherine Seifer checked the facts. I'm Emily Kwong and you're listening to Shortwave, the Daily Science Podcast from NPR.