Short Wave - U.S. COVID Case Increases Unlikely To Become A Surge

Episode Date: April 27, 2022

COVID cases are up due to the Omicron sub-variants and masking is likely to remain optional as the courts wrangle with the transportation mask mandate that a Federal judge struck down last week. NPR correspondent Allison Aubrey talks about both of these issues with host Emily Kwong, and updates listeners on what to expect with children and the vaccine. See 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 Allison Aubrey. And we're here to talk about how cases of COVID-19 have been creeping up again as sub-variants of Omicrons circulate around the nation. Good morning, Emily. Yep. And this comes amid a legal battle over whether the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have the authority to make people mask on planes, trains, and buses. Last week, a federal judge in Florida struck down a CDC order. that require people to mask up on public transportation. Yeah. And this is all happening while the country is seeing COVID cases rising. What can you tell us about what's happening?

Well, we're talking on Monday morning. And right now, the U.S. is averaging about 40,000 to 50,000 confirmed cases a day. That's about a 50% increase this month, which may sound like a lot. But to put it into perspective, we are nowhere near the winter highs. And COVID hospitalizations actually remain quite low. They're 92% lower than the winter highs of January. So today on the show, some COVID perspective. Though cases are slightly up, we're unlikely to see a big surge. We'll talk to Alison Aubrey about why and why masking is likely to remain optional as the transport mandate goes through court. Also, a look at getting kids 5 to 11 vaccinated. You're listening to Shortwave, the Daily Science podcast from NPR. So Allison,

tell us why researchers think we're seeing this rising cases right now. Well, the upticks are attributable to several factors, really. Lots of spring travel, the great unmasking, we could call it. We can talk more about masks in a moment. The most notable increases have been on the East Coast from D.C., up through Pennsylvania, New England. But this rising cases seems to be petering out, to be trailing off. Here's Dr. David Rubin of Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. He's been tracking the situation in the Northeast. I think it's been more of a ripple than a true wave. When you look at what's the impact been on hospitalizations, it's been fairly mild. It's been a lot. It's been a some uptake for sure around hospitalizations. But the Northeast, I think we would anticipate

would start showing significant improvement over the next week or two. And what kinds of variants are driving this ripple? Well, they're known as B-A-212. There's also B-A-21-2. Easy to lose track of these numbers. But bottom line, the variants are closely related to Omicron. They are sub-lineages of B-A-2. And it's a reminder the virus is always changing. It is. That it is. Rubin, he sounds kind of optimistic about the outlook. What's going on in other places in the country beyond the Northeast? You know, lots of regions have seen this spring ripple. If you look at the Midwest, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota have seen more cases out west in Oregon in the southeast and Florida. And one way of surveilling this is scientists at the CDC have been looking for early

warnings of significant upticks by tracking wastewater. Oh, you've talked about this on the show before. This is the idea that you can look for evidence of the virus in the local sewage. to kind of gauge how much virus is in the community. That's right. And the CDC folks tell me what they see right now looks pretty reassuring. Here's the CDC's Amy Kirby. In previous surges, we've seen it starting in an area like the Northeast and then spreading across the country. We have not seen that kind of spread happening over the last few weeks.

So we don't see anything that looks like the evidence of a new surge coming. These are very modest increases. And if you look around the country, deaths from COVID have continued. to fall pretty significantly, according to the CDC's tracker. Yeah, that has been really great news. Why would you say, Alison, are COVID researchers overall so optimistic this time? Since the virus has brought us so many surprises in the past, couldn't it do it again? Absolutely. It could happen again. Nobody has, you know, the crystal ball to tell you what exactly is going to happen in the future. But basically, you know, as more people have acquired immunity, we're just more resilient as a population.

The immunity comes from a combination of vaccination. 82% of eligible people in the U.S. have had a COVID vaccine and immunity through infection. And bottom line, Dr. Rubin pointed out to me, like, look, even though we've had this uptick in cases in the Northeast over the last month or so, hospitalizations have risen. But just by a bit, he says that's more evidence that, you know, there's more immunity in the population overall. Yeah. And this question of immunity, how much immunity do people have? after getting sick with COVID? You know, that's really been an open question. And a new study by some

researchers at the University of Chicago shed some light on this. They found that among unvaccinated people, and they looked at a lot of them over 110,000, getting COVID led to some pretty durable protection. They looked nine months out. And the protection that unvaccinated people got after an infection was on par with the immunity people get from vaccination. I talked to one of the study authors, Dr. Jessica Ridgeway, about this. I still definitely would recommend, you know, that everyone be vaccinated, but I think it can provide some comfort for folks who, you know, have had COVID, that there is some additional protection that they have against reinfection. Now, this study was done before the Omicron surge, meaning that these researchers couldn't take into account what happened during this winter

omicron surge when there were many reinfections. So that's a big caveat to the study. But bottom line, it's more evidence that this combination of infection and vaccination is bolstering immunity across the population. And it may help explain why during this latest uptick in cases, not as many people have gotten as sick. Got it. All right. I want to talk about masking too. The city of Philadelphia lifted its mask mandate last Friday, just several days after it had reinstated it. That's right. I mean, and officials in Philadelphia pointed to a decline in hospitalizations as, a way to kind of justify an end to mandatory masking. Now, ever since that ruling by a federal judge in Florida led to an abrupt end to masking on planes and other public transportation hubs last week, there's been a lot of confusion, I'd say. I talked to epidemiologist Michael Osterholm

at the University of Minnesota about whether lifting mandates at a time when so many people really are not following them has had much of an impact one way or the other. The challenge we have is what has actually happening in most instances is that people are using face cloth covering, which are largely ineffective. They wear them under their nose, which is like, you know, closing three of the five doors on your submarine. So in a sense, the mandate really has had very little impact. Because people just weren't following the mandate to begin with.

Yeah. That submarine metaphors. Very memorable. So the question then becomes, is there any value in continuing to be? mask if you are a person who is still trying to be careful. There's definitely benefit if you are a person who is vulnerable because of underlying health conditions or your age or you're just concerned about your health. wearing a well-fitted K-N95 or N95 mask can help protect you. I mean, that's what the science shows. I talked to Dr. Judy Guzman. She's an infectious disease pediatrician in Oregon.

And she says even at this point, people should be encouraged to mask up if they want to. masking is such a simple way to decrease transmission risk. So I have a teenage daughter with a history of an autoimmune disease. She still wears a mask all the time at school. She still wears a mask when we go to the grocery store. And so there are a lot of people out there who are still trying not to get COVID. And they want to feel supported, whether they're at school or out in the community. They want to feel they're supported if they choose to mask up. Absolutely. And in the meantime, the Department of Justice is appealing the decision made by a Florida judge last week to strike down mask mandates on planes and other public transportation. Where does that stand? Well, at this point, getting the decision reversed or stayed so that a mask mandate could go back into effect on planes and transportation hubs is very unlikely. The mandate on planes was set to expire next week anyway. And what's more important now, legal experts tell me, is to kind of preserve the seat. CDC's power for future decisions. I spoke to Matthew Lawrence. He teaches law at Emory University about what the Florida District Court judge's decision actually did. The district court judge reinterpreted the law to take away CDC's power, to say that CDC could not impose a mask mandate no matter how important it is, no matter if there's another wave, no matter whether

there's another pandemic. And the really important thing about the case now is just clarifying that CDC has the power given it by Congress in the Public Health Services Act. To really impose a mandate in the future when the agency deems it's necessary to protect public health. Yeah. It's really about not letting a precedent stand that could limit the CDC's ability to try to do its work in the future. Like if we, not that we want to think about this, have another viral outbreak one day. That's exactly right. Okay. Also, in the meantime, parents of young children are still waiting on a COVID. vaccine and there's talk of perhaps a booster for five to 11-year-olds. What's the latest on that? Yeah, there's a lot expected to happen regarding kids and vaccines in the coming weeks.

Moderna is expected to seek authorization for its vaccine for young children. The company has said it's got favorable results from a clinical trial to share with the FDA. Pfizer is expected to release data on a third dose for young kids. Remember, the company had found that two doses didn't lead to enough of a response in its clinical trial. And Pfizer has also, also said it may ask the FDA to authorize a booster shot. So a third dose for children five to 11. So I'd say all eyes on the FDA right now where the agency will likely be reviewing lots of data and making some decisions possibly fairly soon. Alison, this is a big roundup of information. Thank you so much for walking us through all of it.

Great to be here. This story was edited by Jane Greenhalsh and Giselle Grayson, our senior supervising editor. It was produced for Shortwave by Burrower. McCoy. Giselle Grayson and Margaret Serino checked the facts. Neil Carruth is our senior director of on-demand news programming, and Anya Grunman is our senior vice president of programming. I'm Emily Kwong. Thank you so much for listening to Shorewave, Daily Science Podcast from NPR.