The director of the World Health Organization’s Europe office said Thursday that coronavirus deaths are starting to plateau and the continent faces a “plausible endgame” to the pandemic.
Dr. Hans Kluge said there is a “singular opportunity” for countries across Europe to take control of COVID-19 transmission as a result of three factors: high levels of immunization due to vaccination and natural infection, the virus’s tendency to spread less in warmer weather and the lower severity of the omicron variant. Data in the U.S. is similar to the data from Europe, providing similar hope.
“This period of higher protection should be seen as a cease-fire that could bring us enduring peace,” Kluge said.
At WHO’s Geneva headquarters, director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that the world as a whole is far from exiting the pandemic.
“We are concerned that a narrative has taken hold in some countries that because of vaccines, and because of omicron’s high transmissibility and lower severity, preventing transmission is no longer possible and no longer necessary,” Tedros said. “Nothing could be further from the truth.”
Also in the news:
►Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti urged fans headed for the Super Bowl to strictly adhere to pandemic safety protocols that include staying masked except while eating or drinking.
►New Zealand’s government on Thursday said it will end its quarantine requirements for incoming travelers and reopen its borders.
►U.S. Brad Schneider of Illinois has tested positive for COVID-19 for the second time, the Democrat tweeted.
►With more than 30 new COVID-19 cases being detected daily ahead of the Beijing Olympics, organizers said Wednesday they aren’t worried and expect numbers to drop within days.
📈 Today’s numbers: The U.S. has recorded more than 75 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and 894,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data. Global totals: More than 384 million cases and over 5.6 million deaths. More than 212 million Americans – 63.9% – are fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
📘 What we’re reading: Testing, robots, Closed Loop: This is how China plans to keep these Olympics safe in the COVID era.
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Travel groups push for end of COVID entry requirement for vaccinated flyers
Travel industry trade groups are pushing federal officials to drop the pre-departure coronavirus testing requirement for vaccinated travelers flying into the United States.
Roger Dow, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association, said the organization is “very much in favor” of shaking up the entry requirements to make travel to the U.S. more seamless.
“Our expectation is that taking that away will definitely increase travel,” Dow told reporters Wednesday, adding the expectation was an “intuitive guess” rather than one backed by data. “Travel is like water. You put a barrier in place, it will impede it.”
Other destinations, including the United Kingdom and Puerto Rico, have dropped testing requirements for fully vaccinated travelers in recent weeks. Dozens of trade associations hope the U.S. will follow suit.
A Wednesday letter to White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Jeffrey Zients signed by trade groups in a number of travel sectors “urgently” requests the Biden administration to remove the pre-departure testing requirement for vaccinated flyers.
— Bailey Shulz, USA TODAY
At nursing homes, long waits for results render COVID tests ‘useless’
More nursing homes are waiting longer for COVID-19 test results for residents and staffers, according to federal data, making the fight against record numbers of omicron cases even harder.
The double whammy of slower turnaround times for lab-based PCR tests and a shortage of rapid antigen tests has strained facilities where quickly identifying infections is crucial for keeping a highly vulnerable population safe.
A KHN analysis of data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services finds that 25% of nursing homes that sent tests to a lab waited an average of three or more days for results as of Jan. 16. In early December, that number was 12%.
At Lutheran Life Villages in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the long wait for results renders PCR tests “useless,” President Alex Kiefer said. “If we send somebody off to get a PCR test, sometimes it takes two days for them to get an appointment. And then it takes two, three, four days to get a read.”
— Rachana Pradhan, Kaiser Health News
Contributing: The Associated Press
