This week, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) released a major report about the state of wastewater surveillance for infectious diseases in the U.S. The report, written by a committee of top experts (and peer-reviewed before its release), is an extensive description of the promise and the challenges of wastewater testing.
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As someone who’s been reporting on COVID-19 since the beginning, a new year is a good opportunity to parse out what feels like an eternity of pandemic reporting. So this week, I reflected on the major trends and topics I hope to cover in 2023—both building on my work from prior years and taking it in new directions.
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XBB.1.5 is the latest Omicron subvariant to spread rapidly through the U.S. It is, of course, more transmissible and more capable of evading immunity from past infections than other versions of Omicron that have gone before it, as this lineage continues mutating. Scientists are still learning about XBB.1.5; it emerged from the U.S. during the holiday season, which has posed surveillance challenges. But we know enough to say that this variant is bad news for an already overstretched healthcare system.
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On Wednesday, the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NHCS) released a major report on deaths from Long COVID. To identify a small (but significant) number of deaths, NCHS researchers searched through the text of death certificates for Long COVID-related terms. Their study demonstrates how bad our current health data systems are at capturing the results of chronic disease.
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This week, thousands of top political and business leaders gathered in Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum—one of the highest-profile mass events in the world. And the forum, colloquially called Davos after its location, had excellent COVID-19 safety protocols.
Read MoreSources and updates for the week of January 22 include respiratory virus hospitalizations, new excess death estimates, wastewater testing on airplanes, and more.
Read MoreThe Open Notebook has launched a new community program, called the Covering Science Slack, which could be a great opportunity for some journalist readers of the COVID-19 Data Dispatch. In this Slack server, general assignment and local journalists who are interested in improving their science reporting skills engage in discussions with experienced science journalists, who serve as mentors.
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National COVID-19 metrics continue to suggest that the U.S. is coming out of its holiday surge, though some parts of the country may face increased transmission as the Omicron variant XBB.1.5 spreads.
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Illinois is the latest state to get its own dashboard for COVID-19 wastewater surveillance, with a new website that launched earlier this week. It includes data for 75 sites across the state.
Read MoreSources and updates for the week of January 15 include a Long COVID review paper, COVID-19 on airplanes, nursing home issues, and more.
Read MoreChina is currently facing a massive COVID-19 surge, after ending many of its stringent “zero COVID” policies in December. But it’s not the only country that has problems with data accuracy right now.
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Last week, I wrote that a combination of holiday travel/gatherings and the latest Omicron subvariant, XBB.1.5, was driving a winter surge. This week, COVID-19 metrics suggest that the surge may have peaked, though we’ll need more data to say for sure—and XBB.1.5 remains a concern.
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