By RICHARD SKOLNIK
Los Alamos
The Status of COVID-19 in Los Alamos
Los Alamos County again has a rate of over 4 cases per day, or 22 per 100,000 population, on a seven-day rolling average. This is an increase of 58% over the last 14 days. It is also the second highest rate in the state and almost three times the average for the state. The present rate of new cases is approaching that during the Delta wave and is a higher rate than on 81% of all days since the pandemic began. No Los Alamos County residents are in the hospital for COVID or have died in the last seven days from COVID. However, 16 county residents have died from COVID since the start of the pandemic, 6 of them in 2022. There is widespread agreement that the number of reported cases is an underestimate of the true number of cases, given the extent to which home tests are used without their results being reported to public health authorities.
COVID-19 News of Importance
COVID-19 Deaths: COVID-19 was the third leading cause of death in the US in 2021. Largely related to the impact of COVID-19, life expectancy at birth in the US fell from 78.9 years in 2019 to 76.6 years in 2021.
The Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) released a brief that concluded that in the US, at least 234,000 deaths from COVID-19 between June 2021 and March 2022 could have been prevented with a primary series of vaccinations. These vaccine-preventable deaths represent 60% of all adult COVID-19 deaths since June 2021, when vaccines first became widely available.
COVID-19 and the Law: A federal judge in Florida ruled against the federal mask mandate on public transportation, saying it exceeded CDC’s statutory authority. If left to stand, this ruling could preclude a wide range of federal government action in dealing with future public health issues. For a comment on the potential consequences of the ruling, see this article by Larry Gostin and Duncan Hosie: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/25/opinion/masks-covid-ban.html
Vaccines for Kids: Pfizer/BioNTech plan to seek Emergency Use Authorization for a booster for 5 to 11year-old children. No vaccine manufacturer has yet applied for Emergency Use Authorization for a vaccine for children under 5 years of age.
Treatment for Young Children: U.S. health officials have approved the use of remdesivir to treat coronavirus patients who are 12 and younger, provided they are at least 28 days old and weigh at least 7 pounds. This is the first treatment that has been approved for children still too young to be vaccinated.
COVID-19 is NOT a Benign Disease – The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology published earlier this month a study of almost 200,000 people that showed that people who get COVID-19 have a greater risk of developing diabetes up to a year later, even after a mild SARS-CoV-2 infection, compared with those who never had the disease. This is one of a growing number of studies showing that COVID-19 can increase a person’s risk of diabetes, months after infection.
School Events and COVID-19 – Over 90 of the 600 students who attended the recent San Mateo High School prom tested positive for COVID (in the days following the event). The school district will put in place stricter COVID protocols for proms at the district’s other high schools than those used for San Mateo High School.
Wastewater Monitoring in Los Alamos County: As we learned from a concerned citizen’s posting on Facebook, the County’s wastewater monitoring program has been put on temporary hold due to a change in the contractor for the program.
Editor’s Note: Richard Skolnik is the former regional director for health for South Asia at the World Bank. He was the director of an AIDS treatment program for Harvard and taught Global Health at the George Washington University and Yale. He is the author of Global Health 101, the instructor for Yale/Coursera’s Essentials of Global Health, and a Lecturer at the Yale School of Public Health. Skolnik has written this article in his personal capacity.
