The Daily - Could the U.S. See Another Covid Wave?

Episode Date: March 21, 2022

More than two years into the pandemic, coronavirus infections are surging in China and nations in Europe. The reason: BA.2, a highly contagious version of the Omicron variant.At the same time, the United States is doing away with a number of pandemic restrictions, with mask mandates ending and businesses no longer requiring proof of vaccination from customers.We explore what these BA.2 surges look like and ask whether the U.S. is ready for a new wave of Covid cases.Guest: Apoorva Mandavilli, a science and global health reporter for The New York Times.Have you lost a loved one during the pandemic? The Daily is working on a special episode memorializing those we have lost to the coronavirus. If you would like to share their name on the episode, please RECORD A VOICE MEMO and send it to us at [e-mail]. You can find more information and specific instructions here.Background reading: Another Covid surge may be coming, and some scientists are warning that the U.S. isn’t doing enough to prevent it from endangering vulnerable Americans and upending lives.Many epidemiologists suspect that BA.2 may reverse the decline of cases in the United States. Here’s what we know so far about the variant. Want more from The Daily? For one big idea on the news each week from our team, subscribe to our newsletter. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

From The New York Times, I'm Sabrina Tavernisi. This is The Daily. More than two years into the pandemic, coronavirus infections are surging in China and Europe, at precisely the time that restrictions in the U.S. have fallen away. the time that restrictions in the U.S. have fallen away. Today, my colleague, Apoorva Mandevili, on whether the U.S. is ready for a new wave of cases and who it would most likely affect. It's Monday, March 21st. 21st. Apoorva, the first thing I want to ask you, it's really been on my mind and I think probably it's been a lot of people's minds. Where are we in the lifespan of this pandemic? Are we officially done with a pandemic? I know what you want me to say. I think the pandemic is done for some of us. That's the best I can do.

I think the pandemic is still very much alive and happening in many parts of the world. I mean, look at places like China. China is facing its worst outbreak of COVID since the start of the pandemic. The country reported more than 3,500 new cases on Monday alone. That's actually a very high number for China. China, from the very beginning, has had the zero COVID approach. You know, they just put in draconian measures every time.

There was even the whiff of a surge. Millions of people are under lockdown again in China after the country saw new cases across several big cities. And they've locked down entire communities, entire cities. Some of those include the capital Beijing, Shenzhen and Shanghai. They thought they were completely done. They had it all under control. The industrial city of Shenzhen has fully closed down public transport, driven by a flare of cases among factory workers.

And yet they're seeing massive surges right now. China has recorded its first two COVID-related deaths since January of last year. And Hong Kong is the worst hit. It's feared that Hong Kong could run out of coffins within days. Hong Kong has actually the highest deaths per capita of any place in the world right now. Cases in China are the highest that we've seen since early 2020. It's really spread out this stealth Omicron variant across the country.

Wow. So what's driving the spike in cases there? So there are a couple of factors that are contributing to their surge. One is that they're dealing with a very contagious variant called BA.2. In the next few weeks, as we see this sub-variant, BA.2, starting to emerge. BA.2 is actually a version of Omicron, which is the variant that we saw here over the winter. So what is the BA.2 variant? The version we saw is called BA.1. We know it's a sub-variant of the BA.1 variant, and we know that variant well because it was the cause

of the most recent surge here in the United States. And this new one, BA2, is even more contagious. Urged vaccinations for more people before the highly contagious BA2 variant hits hard. And we know that the one we saw was already quite contagious. Now, we're still in the early stages with BA.2, but the evidence so far shows that it doesn't appear to be more severe than Omicron. And research shows that the current vaccines do offer good protection against it. Got it. So one of the reasons these surges are

happening is that it's just a much more contagious version of the virus. What are the other reasons? The other thing that's going on in China is that because they've had this zero COVID policy, there are large swaths of their population that don't have any immunity to the virus at all. And even though China did buy some time and vaccinate quite a lot of its people, there are quite a number of the most vulnerable that are not vaccinated. So for example, of the most vulnerable that are not vaccinated. So for example, in some parts of China, especially in rural China, more than 50% of people over 70 are unvaccinated. And so that's tens of millions of people in China who are still vulnerable to this virus. That's a big part of the surge. So the virus could just rip through the population, it sounds like. I mean, zero COVID was pretty effective at keeping hospitalizations and deaths low at the beginning.

But it also meant that a lot of people were never exposed to the virus. That's right. And in Hong Kong, it was very difficult to convince people to get vaccinated because they didn't see any cases. And there was a lot of vaccine hesitancy among older people. And so in Hong Kong, just a very large percentage of people over 80 are unvaccinated. And that's what's driving the very high deaths that Hong Kong is seeing. So you said these surges are happening in many parts of the world. Where else are we seeing a rise in cases? Europe is also seeing a surge and also because of the same variant, BA.2. So there are several countries,

actually, that are seeing a rise. Most strikingly, Germany is seeing a pretty steep rise in cases, but also France, Switzerland, Italy, and the UK, they're all seeing an increase in cases. So those populations in Europe that you're talking about, they were fairly vaccinated. So I guess what I'm wondering is, are we also seeing hospitalizations go up? Are we seeing deaths rise? That's a really good point. So these countries are not yet really seeing any significant increases in hospitalizations or deaths, except for the UK. The UK is something that we should really always be keeping an eye on because a lot of what they've seen, we've ended up seeing a few weeks later. So right now, what's happening in the UK is that hospital admissions are going up by 20 to 30% across the country.

And the UK is interesting because, you know, they did a really good job of vaccinating their older adults. They got a very high percentage fully vaccinated and about two thirds have had a booster. But a lot of those people have not had a booster in about five months and they are back to pre-pandemic activities. So those are all quite similar to the conditions in the U.S. where we've also done a pretty good job of fully vaccinating older adults. But here we have an even smaller percentage who've had a booster and it's been a while since a lot of people have had a booster here. So if the UK is seeing 20 to 30 percent rise in hospitalizations, that is something for us to keep a very close eye on.

So has BA2 come to the United States? It has. Here in the United States, it's already about one in four cases. Here in the United States, it's already about one in four cases. And in some parts of the country, like New York and New Jersey and parts of New England, it's an even higher percentage, about 30 to 40 percent. What's not quite clear is whether these numbers will keep going up. They probably will, but we don't know how fast they'll go up and when they do,

whether we're really prepared to deal with that. We'll be right back. So, Apoorva, China and Europe are now really seeing surges of this new variant, BA.2. And you told us that it's also here in the United States. But a lot of people in the United States don't feel like the pandemic is here anymore. It's true. I mean, we are acting like the pandemic is over, right? All over the country, all of the restrictions have just stopped. There was some good news this week.

Progress at home battling COVID. There are some hints that life might be returning to something resembling normal. As our country faces a new stage of the pandemic, the CDC's revived guidance means a breath of fresh air for Americans nationwide. The agency is no longer recommending face masks indoors or inside many schools. All 50 states have dropped their mask mandates. We want to give people a break from things like mask wearing when these metrics are better and then have the ability to reach for them again should things worsen. Even in schools across the country, kids are not wearing masks, teachers are not wearing masks. Restaurants and other businesses can stop asking patrons for proof

of vaccination. And even businesses have really stopped requiring vaccinations for their customers. When the only mask in sight is a Mardi Gras costume, you know something's changed. So we are in many ways acting like the pandemic is done with. Finally, we've got the virus under

control, rather than the other way around. But you know, it's really not because we still have about 100 million people who are not vaccinated. We don't know how many of those people have never been exposed to the virus and so have no immunity. And even among those of us who are vaccinated and even boosted, we know now that two doses of the vaccine and even three do wane, that the protection against infection does drop with time and leaves us vulnerable to another round of infection. Most of us will be okay even if we do get infected, but people who are older or who have weak immune systems for whatever reason will still be vulnerable to getting seriously sick

and maybe getting hospitalized or dying if they get infected. So Apoorva, it sounds like what you're saying is that even though a lot of us got boosted last fall and winter, that that immunity is starting to wane already. That's right. It seems like the protection that we get from the boosters wears off after about three months in terms of preventing infection. And that is an important distinction because for most of us, if we do get infected, it will not cause us to become really seriously sick. I mean, I'm vaccinated and boosted and I'm just getting over a bout of COVID. And I spent a few days this week in, you know,

getting chills and moaning and whining in my bed. But I knew that I wasn't going to end up in the hospital. And that's the difference is that if you are vaccinated and boosted, you are most likely not going to be hospitalized. You're most likely not going to die, at least if you are relatively young and relatively healthy. Right. But for somebody who is older or who has a weak immune system because of whatever health

condition or because of some drugs they're taking, it can be really serious. And so that's why it's important to keep shoring up our immunity. And that's really why Pfizer is now asking the FDA to authorize a fourth shot for older adults. On the other hand, Moderna is asking the FDA to authorize a fourth shot for all adults. So it's not clear what's going to happen. So does that mean that everybody should expect to have to get boosted every couple months? You know, that's a really good question. And I think it's one that the federal health officials really have to make a decision on. That depends on what our goal is as a nation. Is it to prevent all infections in everybody? Or is it only to protect people from getting into the hospital or dying? In which case, really, it's the older adults and immunocompromised people that need the extra layers of protection. You know, and there's one other thing that the government really needs to decide, and that's how much money are we willing to spend to make sure that the population is protected? Right now,

there's a fight going on in Congress to figure out how much the COVID budget will be. And the Biden administration has asked for a certain amount of money for tests and treatments and prevention plans, and it's not clear that that will be approved. So it sounds like just as the U.S. could see another rise in cases, our immunity is waning. We're debating whether to do a fourth shot, and we're debating whether to fund COVID preparedness further. That's right. And what I'm worried about is that while we keep debating these things, we are actually headed to a situation where there are two Americas coping with this pandemic. What do you mean? Well, you know, there's one whole group of people in this country for whom COVID

is not a huge deal. And that's because they have resources. That includes me. You know, when I got sick, I was able to take a couple of days to do nothing at all. And I could work from home and I felt somewhat okay. My son was sick first and, you know, he stayed home and that was not a big deal. So there are this entire group of people who have enough resources that COVID is not much more than an annoyance. Right. I think a lot of people want to be done with this pandemic and, you know, want to move on from it, want to go out into the world as if there's no COVID. We all do, you know, but for many people, that's just not an option. I mean, there are people who just simply don't have the resources, who are too poor, who can't take time off of work, who, you know, if their kids get sick, don't have child care options,

or people who have certain immune conditions who just cannot move on and act as if the pandemic is over because they are still very much at risk from the virus. I get a lot of heartbreaking emails from people who are transplant recipients or who are on treatment for cancer or who have other conditions that don't allow them to move on, you know, or very, very much afraid of this virus still. And these are people who go to work with you or, you know, who you don't even know have these conditions. There are 5 million of these immunocompromised people,

and they feel very much like they're being left behind while the whole world is moving on. So it sounds like there are these two groups who really can't afford to get sick. One is people without the money to deal with it, and two, immunocompromised people. Right, and the sad thing about this whole situation is that we've seen this play out over and over.

We've seen this with diseases like HIV and TB, where everyone was once afraid of the disease, and then because treatments became available, only some number of people had access to them, some number of people could afford them, and then the rest of the world still had to deal with it. And that's where I'm afraid COVID is headed, to a disease that for one group of people is not at all a big deal, and for many others is still catastrophic. Apoorva, thank you. Thank you.

In Europe, Austria announced it would reintroduce an indoor mask mandate as coronavirus cases continue to rise, bucking a trend among European countries of lifting precautions. The bottom line is we likely will see an uptick in cases as we've seen in the European countries, particularly the UK. Meanwhile, in an interview on ABC's This Week on Sunday, Dr. Anthony Fauci said he expected to see a similar increase in the number of infections here in the United States. Hopefully we won't see a surge. I don't think we will. The easiest way to prevent that is to continue to get people vaccinated and for those who have been vaccinated to continue to get them boosted.

Fauci's note of caution comes as several states continue to relax restrictions. New Hampshire, Massachusetts, South Carolina, and Utah all plan to close mass COVID testing sites in the coming weeks, shifting testing efforts back to hospitals and pharmacies. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. Russian forces got closer to capturing the exhausted port city of Mariupol over the weekend. Mariupol has been under siege since March 2nd, without water, gas, or power. But the situation deteriorated even more in recent days, with reports of raging street battles

and of Russian forces successfully conquering three neighborhoods. A drama school was also bombed. About 400 people were sheltering in its basement. It is not yet clear if they were casualties. The Russian Defense Ministry has called on civilian leaders of Mariupol to surrender by 5 a.m. on Monday or face charges in military tribunals. Early on Monday, the Ukrainian government rejected the Russian demand. 64 workers at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in northern Ukraine have finally been allowed to leave their shifts after three straight weeks of being ordered by Russian soldiers to keep working. The workers had been on duty since February 23rd, the day before the Russian military seized the plant, and had been forced to work around the clock to keep the plant going. around the clock to keep the plant going. Earlier this month, the International Atomic Energy Agency had said that the workers were no longer doing repairs or maintenance,

partly because of, quote, physical and psychological fatigue. In a Facebook post, the plant said a group of volunteers had been sent to the site, allowing the tired workers to rotate out. the tired workers to rotate out. Today's episode was produced by Rochelle Banja, Caitlin Roberts, and Michael Simon-Johnson. It was edited by Mark George and Lisa Chow. Contains original music by Dan Powell,

Marion Lozano, and Corey Schruppel. It was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brumberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Sabrina Tavernisi. See you tomorrow.