Omicron

President Joe Biden Claims The Pandemic Is Over

During an interview on 60 Minutes, President Joe Biden claimed the pandemic is over.

President Joe Biden raised eyebrows over the weekend with a bold declaration on 60 minutes.

“The pandemic is over. We still have a problem with COVID, we’re still doing a lot of work on it. But the pandemic is over,” said President Biden.

That’s an assessment of the COVID-19 outbreak that doesn’t square with the facts.

The WHO’s top official said clearly just days ago.

“We’re not there yet, but the end is in sight,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the World Health Organization.

The president’s own chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci said this Monday, “we are not where we need to be if we’re going to be able to quote live with the virus.”

Still it’s the most hopeful the World Health Organization’s leaders have sounded since the start of the virus’ spread in late 2019.

“We have never been in a better position to end the pandemic,” said Ghebreyesus.

Leaders from the Oval Office to state houses celebrated.

But the CDC says the virus is still killing 360 people a day in the U.S. — the lowest we’ve seen since July and far from winter peaks.

Yet, it’s still higher than the lulls of mid-2021.

Infectious disease experts warn colder weather could again spike the spread, though vaccines will soften the blow.

Meanwhile the economic mayhem from the global shutdown lingers. World leaders are still grappling with how to navigate out of the storm.

It’s a key focus for the UN General Assembly this week.

“We meet at the moment of great peril for our worlds. The ongoing effects of a global pandemic. Lack of access to finance for developing countries to recover. A crisis not seen in a generation,” said António Guterres, the Secretary-General of the United Nations.

As even White House COVID Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff masked up just Friday to get COVID booster shots.

“This is a new formulation that we want all Americans to get right now over the age of 12,” said Emhoff.

They’re setting an example for millions of Americans being asked to give the fight against COVID a final push across the finish line.

“Let’s make sure we’re playing the game until the very end,” said Gov. Andy Beshear.

“A marathon runner does not stop when the end comes into view. She runs harder with all the energy she has left. So must we,” said Ghebreyesus.

: newsy.com

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Updated Omicron Booster Shots Are Now Available For Americans

Experts say the booster shots are to get ahead of a COVID surge before the end of the year, when more people are indoors.

Updated COVID Omicron boosters are here. The CDC and FDA OK’d the new formula last week.

“I think they’re coming because people want to keep them coming. I don’t believe in them, but do what you gotta do,” Arizona resident Jim Cave said.

“I already got the first one. I’ve gotten all my vaccines to date. I just want to keep everyone healthy,” Arizona resident Melanie Crouch said.

The emergency-authorized formula change targets the highly contagious Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 variants. CDC data shows about 90% of U.S. COVID cases are BA.5.

Anyone at least 2 months past their last COVID-19 shot is eligible. Moderna’s is authorized for those age 18 and older. For Pfizer and BioNTech’s it’s 12 and up.

Health experts say it’s to get ahead for the end of the year when more people are inside.

“Every year, beginning right after Thanksgiving, we have a terrible time with COVID, where we have the bulk of the hospitalizations and death. But these vaccines, we hope, are going to blunt whatever we might experience this winter,” said UC Berkley Clinical Professor Emeritus Dr. John Swartzberg.

Experts say we’re entering a new phase where a COVID vaccination process will resemble something like a flu shot.

The recommendations are each year that we get a flu shot. But what’s in that flu shot will change each year. There’s an expert committee that looks at that and determines what they think the most common strain will be. That’s in communities. And it’s not until halfway through the flu season that we know how good that vaccine is. We’re in a similar situation here with this with this COVID booster.

Much of the CDC’s role is the small details of vaccinations: Labels on the vaccines or the colors of the caps so providers don’t confuse them.

One example-you may have noticed the old formula from Pfizer had purple caps on the vials. The new ones have gray.

It comes as federal funding for buying and sending out the vaccines is running dry.

Health and Human Services says over the next six months, they’re transitioning to where Americans will pay for their COVID vaccinations. They have about 170 million doses to distribute before January 2023. That means, if you want to get a COVID booster, look to get it sooner rather than later.

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Health Officials Are Recommending Americans Get Omicron Booster Shots

Experts say the booster shots are to get ahead of a COVID surge before the end of the year, when more people are indoors.

The CDC is recommending people get updated COVID Omicron boosters. The FDA authorized the new formula this week.

Experts say we’re entering a new phase where a COVID vaccination process will resemble something like a flu shot.

“The recommendations are, each year that we get a flu shot. But what’s in that flu shot will change each year,” Former CDC Director and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation CEO Dr. Richard Besser said. “There’s an expert committee that looks at that and determines what they think the most common strain will be. That’s in communities — And it’s not until halfway through the flu season that we know how good that vaccine is. We’re in a similar situation here with this with this COVID booster.”

Much of the CDC’s role is the small details of vaccinations, labels on the vaccines, or the colors of the caps so providers don’t confuse them.

One example you may have noticed is the old formula from Pfizer had purple caps on the vials, whereas the new ones have gray caps.

The emergency-authorized formula change targets the highly contagious Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 variants. CDC data shows about 90% of U.S. COVID cases are BA.5.

Anyone at least 2 months past their last COVID-19 shot is eligible.

Moderna is authorized for those age 18 and older. For pfizer and biontech’s… It’s 12 and up.

Health experts say it’s to get ahead for the end of the year when more people are inside.

“Every year, beginning right after Thanksgiving, we have a terrible time with COVID where we have the bulk of the hospitalizations and death. But these vaccines, we hope, are going to blunt whatever we might experience this winter,” said UC Berkley Clinical Professor Emeritus Dr. John Swartzberg.

It comes as federal funding for buying and sending out the vaccines is running dry.

Health and Human Services says over the next six months, they’re transitioning to where Americans will pay for their COVID vaccinations. They have about 170 million doses to distribute before January 2023, which means if you want to get a COVID booster, look to get it sooner rather than later.

: newsy.com

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The FDA Has Authorized New Omicron Booster Shots

Pfizer and Moderna have released a new COVID booster shot that will target the highly contagious BA.4 and BA.5 omicron variant.

COVID boosters are getting an omicron makeover and could go into arms by the weekend.

“I will be at the front of the line at the pharmacy getting my vaccination. I’m very confident about this,” said Dr. Robert Califf, the FDA commissioner.

The Food and Drug Administration has authorized a formula change to target the highly contagious omicron BA.4 and BA.5 variants.

Anyone at least two months past their last COVID-19 shot is eligible. Moderna is authorized for those age 18 and older. For Pfizer and Biontech’s it’s 12 and up.

Health officials say it’s to get ahead for fall and winter when the virus has mutated and spread because more people are inside.

“The idea here is the more up to date you are, the better chance we have of looking at what may come afterwards,” said Dr. Peter Marks, the FDA vaccine chief.

Pfizer and Moderna can now ship out the omicron formulated boosters.

State and local health departments began placing pre-orders last month.

The decision has faced some criticism though.

Regulators say the new vaccine formula is similar enough that safety is sound.

But how well it works in humans is unclear.

Both Moderna and Pfizer submitted efficacy results from animal studies.

That research did show a better antibody response to all the omicron subvariants compared to the original formula.

Clinical trials on humans are set to begin next month.

“f we wait for those data in human data, not just mice data, in human data we will be using what I would be using what I would consider to be a very outdated vaccine,” said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the CDCd director.

The CDC still needs to sign off and officially recommend the new booster formula. Their advisors are meeting this week.

: newsy.com

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WHO: World Coronavirus Cases Fall 24%, Deaths Rise In Asia

By Associated Press
August 19, 2022

The U.N. health agency said there were 5.4 million new COVID-19 cases reported last week, a decline of 24% from the previous week.

New coronavirus cases reported globally dropped nearly a quarter in the last week while deaths fell 6% but were still higher in parts of Asia, according to a report Thursday on the pandemic by the World Health Organization.

The U.N. health agency said there were 5.4 million new COVID-19 cases reported last week, a decline of 24% from the previous week. Infections fell everywhere in the world, including by nearly 40% in Africa and Europe and by a third in the Middle East. COVID deaths rose in the Western Pacific and Southeast Asia by 31% and 12% respectively, but fell or remained stable everywhere else.

At a press briefing Wednesday, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said reported coronavirus deaths over the past month have surged 35%, and noted there had been 15,000 deaths in the past week.

“15,000 deaths a week is completely unacceptable, when we have all the tools to prevent infections and save lives,” Tedros said. He said the number of virus sequences shared every week has plummeted 90%, making it extremely difficult for scientists to monitor how COVID-19 might be mutating.

“But none of us is helpless,” Tedros said. “Please get vaccinated if you are not, and if you need a booster, get one.”

On Thursday, WHO’s vaccine advisory group recommended for the first time that people most vulnerable to COVID-19, including older people, those with underlying health conditions and health workers, get a second booster shot. Numerous other health agencies and countries made the same recommendation months ago.

The expert group also said it had evaluated data from the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines for younger people and said children and teenagers were in the lowest priority group for vaccination, since they are far less likely to get severe disease.

Joachim Hombach, who sits on WHO’s vaccine expert group, said it was also uncertain whether the experts would endorse widespread boosters for the general population or new combination vaccines that target the Omicron variant.

“We need to see what the data will tell us and we need to see actually (what) will be the advantage of these vaccines that comprise an (Omicron) strain,” he said.

Dr. Alejandro Cravioto, the expert group’s chair, said that unless vaccines were proven to stop transmission, their widespread use would be “a waste of the vaccine and a waste of time.”

Earlier this week, British authorities authorized an updated version of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine that targets Omicron and the U.K. government announced it would be offered to people over 50 beginning next month.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

: newsy.com

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The CDC Is Restructuring Its Agency Amid Public Criticism

The CDC is now changing how it releases information to the public due to recent criticism from Americans.

Change is coming to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The goal is to regain the public’s trust.

CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky says the agency needs to respond much faster to outbreaks and share information in a way that isn’t confusing.

She told The Associated Press, “I feel like it’s my responsibility to lead this agency to a better place after a really challenging three years.”

“This will take a time, but we need to restore trust in the CDC,” said CDC consultant Dr. William Schaffner.

The shake-up comes after an internal review Walensky OKd in April. That report isn’t out yet.

Reorganized CDC plans include: using more outside preprint research instead of waiting for the CDC’s own review and publication, requiring CDC leaders in an outbreak response role to devote a minimum of six months on the job, restructuring the agency’s communications office and changing the CDC website to make it easier to understand.

The CDC’s long been criticized for confusing communication, and the COVID-19 pandemic put that center stage.

The CDC, the American Medical Association, and the National Institutes of Health say public health information should be in between sixth through eighth grades.

Newsy first reported in spring and summer 2020 that researchers found CDC guidance was written on average for someone with an 11th grade reading level.

“Approximately three grade levels above the CDC’s own recommendations,” said Joseph Dexter, a Dartmouth Neukom Institute Fellow.

The criticism of the nation’s health agency has grown throughout the COVID-19 pandemic as public confidence has dropped.

A January 2022 poll found only 44% of Americans trusted what the CDC has communicated about the virus.

That distrust grew with the Monkeypox outbreak. There’s continuing criticism over the lack of vaccines and treatments, information and help. Currently, about one in three cases globally are in the U.S.

It’s uncertain how any reorganization would impact the current public health response to Monkeypox, or to COVID omicron boosters coming in the fall.

“It is achievable, but it will take a change in mindset,” Dexter said.

Experts say constant updates with the public during it all will be key.

: newsy.com

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CDC Drops Quarantine, Distancing Recommendations For COVID

The changes are driven by a recognition that an estimated 95% of Americans 16 and older have acquired some level of immunity.

The nation’s top public health agency relaxed its COVID-19 guidelines Thursday, dropping the recommendation that Americans quarantine themselves if they come into close contact with an infected person.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also said people no longer need to stay at least 6 feet away from others.

The changes, which come more than 2 1/2 years after the start of the pandemic, are driven by a recognition that an estimated 95% of Americans 16 and older have acquired some level of immunity, either from being vaccinated or infected, agency officials said.

“The current conditions of this pandemic are very different from those of the last two years,” said the CDC’s Greta Massetti, an author of the guidelines.

Many places around the country long ago abandoned social distancing and other once-common precautions, but some of the changes could be particularly important for schools, which resume classes this month in many parts of the country.

Perhaps the biggest education-related change is the end of the recommendation that schools do routine daily testing, although that practice can be reinstated in certain situations during a surge in infections, officials said.

The CDC also dropped a “test-to-stay” recommendation, which said students exposed to COVID-19 could regularly test — instead of quarantining at home — to keep attending school. With no quarantine recommendation anymore, the testing option disappeared too.

Masks continue to be recommended only in areas where community transmission is deemed high, or if a person is considered at high risk of severe illness.

School districts across the U.S. have scaled back their COVID-19 precautions in recent weeks even before the latest guidance was issued. Some have promised a return to pre-pandemic schooling.

Masks will be optional in most districts when classes resume this fall, and some of the nation’s largest districts have dialed back or eliminated COVID-19 testing requirements.

Public schools in Los Angeles are ending weekly COVID-19 tests, instead making at-home tests available to families, the district announced last week. Schools in North Carolina’s Wake County also dropped weekly testing.

Some others have moved away from test-to-stay programs that became unmanageable during surges of the Omicron variant last school year.

The American Federation of Teachers, one of the nation’s largest teachers unions, said it welcomes the guidance.

“Every educator and every parent starts every school year with great hope, and this year even more so,” President Randi Weingarten said. “After two years of uncertainty and disruption, we need as normal a year as possible so we can focus like a laser on what kids need.”

The new recommendations prioritize keeping children in school as much as possible, said Joseph Allen, director of Harvard University’s healthy building program. Previous isolation policies forced millions of students to stay home from school, he said, even though the virus poses a relatively low risk to young people.

“Entire classrooms of kids had to miss school if they were deemed a close contact,” he said. “The closed schools and learning disruption have been devastating.”

Others say the CDC is going too far in relaxing its guidelines.

Allowing students to return to school five days after infection, without proof of a negative COVID-19 test, could lead to outbreaks in schools, said Anne Sosin, a public health researcher at Dartmouth College. That could force entire schools to close temporarily if teachers get sick in large numbers, a dilemma that some schools faced last year.

“All of us want a stable school year, but wishful thinking is not the strategy for getting there,” she said. “If we want a return to normal in our schools, we have to invest in the conditions for that, not just drop everything haphazardly like we’re seeing across the country.”

The average numbers of reported COVID-19 cases and deaths have been relatively flat this summer, at around 100,000 cases a day and 300 to 400 deaths.

The CDC previously said that if people who are not up to date on their COVID-19 vaccinations come into close contact with a person who tests positive, they should stay home for at least five days. Now the agency says quarantining at home is not necessary, but it urges those people to wear a high-quality mask for 10 days and get tested after five.

The agency continues to say that people who test positive should isolate from others for at least five days, regardless of whether they were vaccinated. CDC officials advise that people can end isolation if they are fever-free for 24 hours without the use of medication and they are without symptoms or the symptoms are improving.

Also on Thursday, the Food and Drug Administration updated its recommendations for how many times people exposed to COVID-19 should test.

Previously, the FDA had advised taking two rapid antigen tests over two or three days to rule out infection. Now the agency recommends three tests.

FDA officials said the change was based on new studies that suggest the old protocol can miss too many infections and result in people spreading the coronavirus, especially if they don’t develop symptoms.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

: newsy.com

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Doctor: Biden Likely Has Highly Contagious COVID-19 Strain

Biden’s doctor says the results of the preliminary sequencing that indicated the BA.5 variant do not affect Biden’s treatment plan “in any way.”

President Joe Biden likely contracted a highly contagious variant of the coronavirus spreading rapidly through the United States, and now has body aches and a sore throat since his positive test, according to an update from his doctor on Saturday.

The variant, known as BA.5, is an offshoot of the Omicron strain that emerged late last year, and it’s believed to be responsible for the vast majority of coronavirus cases in the country.

Dr. Kevin O’Connor, the president’s physician, wrote in his latest update on President Biden’s condition that Biden’s earlier symptoms, including a runny nose and a cough, have become “less troublesome.” O’Connor’s earlier notes did not mention the sore throat or body aches.

President Biden’s vital signs, such as blood pressure and respiratory rate, “remain entirely normal,” and his oxygen saturation levels are “excellent” with “no shortness of breath at all,” the doctor wrote.

O’Connor said the results of the preliminary sequencing that indicated the BA.5 variant do not affect President Biden’s treatment plan “in any way.”

President Biden tested positive for the virus on Thursday morning. He has been isolating in the White House residence since then. Administration officials have emphasized that his symptoms are mild because he has received four vaccine doses, and he started taking the antiviral drug Paxlovid after becoming infected.

During a virtual meeting with economic advisers on Friday, President Biden was hoarse but insisted, “I feel much better than I sound.”

In his previous update on President Biden’s health, O’Connor said the president had an elevated temperature of 99.4 F on Thursday evening, but it returned to normal after taking Tylenol.

Additional reporting by the Associated Press.

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Biden’s COVID Symptoms Improve; WH Shows Him Working Phones

President Joe Biden responded well to treatment, his doctor said.

For more than a year, President Joe Biden’s ability to avoid the coronavirus seemed to defy the odds. When he finally did test positive, the White House was ready. It set out to turn the diagnosis into a “teachable moment” and dispel any notion of a crisis.

“The president does what every other person in America does every day, which is he takes reasonable precautions against COVID but does his job,” White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain told MSNBC late in the afternoon on Thursday.

Those efforts continued Friday, when the White House released a photo of President Biden, masked and tieless, in the Treaty Room of the president’s residence, on the phone with his national security advisers. He was also scheduled to meet remotely with his economic team in a meeting focused on gas prices and then, separately, senior White House advisers to discuss legislative priorities.

The White House also released a new letter from President Biden’s physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, saying President Biden’s temperature had registered 99.4 F on Thursday but his fever responded to acetaminophen and has been normal since then. The letter also said President Biden had a normal pulse, blood pressure, respiratory rate and oxygen saturation, but it did not provide specific metrics.

O’Connor said President Biden was “tolerating treatment well.” The president is taking Paxlovid, an anti-viral drug aimed at reducing severity of the disease. President Biden still has symptoms including a runny nose, fatigue and a cough, he said.

On Thursday, the White House gave repeated assurances that President Biden was hard at work while isolating in the residential areas of the White House with “very mild symptoms” including a runny nose, dry cough and fatigue.

President Biden, in a blazer and Oxford shirt, recorded a video from the White House balcony telling people: “I’m doing well, getting a lot of work done. And, in the meantime, thanks for your concern. And keep the faith. It’s going to be OK.”

“Keeping busy!” he also tweeted.

On Friday, President Biden was scheduled to meet virtually with his economic team and senior advisors to discuss congressional priorities.

It was all part of an administration effort to shift the narrative from a health scare to a display of President Biden as the personification of the idea that most Americans can get COVID and recover without too much suffering and disruption if they’ve gotten their shots and taken other important steps to protect themselves.

The message was crafted to alleviate voters’ concerns about President Biden’s health — at 79, he’s the oldest person ever to be president. And it was aimed at demonstrating to the country that the pandemic is far less of a threat than it was before Biden took office, thanks to widespread vaccines and new therapeutic drugs.

Conveying that sentiment on Day 1 of President Biden’s coronavirus experience virus wasn’t always easy, though.

In a lengthy briefing with reporters, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said repeatedly that the White House had been as transparent as possible about the president’s health. But she parried with reporters over specifics. And when pressed about where President Biden might have contracted the virus, she responded, “I don’t think that that matters, right? I think what matters is we prepared for this moment.”

Jean-Pierre and White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha didn’t fully answer questions about whether President Biden began isolating as soon as he started experiencing symptoms on Wednesday night, as federal guidelines suggest, or did so following his positive test the next day. Jha declined to speculate on some aspects of the president’s prognosis, characterizing the questions as hypotheticals.

Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said it’s important for Americans to know they must remain careful about the virus, which continues to kill hundreds of people daily.

“That’s the balance that we have to strike,” Osterholm said. “The president of the United States will do very well. But that may not be true for everyone.”

President Biden’s first-day symptoms were mild in large part because he’s fully vaccinated and boosted, according to a statement issued by O’Connor.

Jha said President Biden’s case was being prioritized, meaning it will likely take less than a week for sequencing to determine which variant of the virus Biden contracted. Omicron’s highly contagious BA.5 substrain is responsible for 78% of new COVID-19 infections reported in the U.S. last week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s latest data released Tuesday.

Jean-Pierre said first lady Jill Biden was in close contact with the president, but she declined to discuss others who also might have been exposed, citing privacy reasons. President Biden had traveled to Massachusetts a day earlier to promote efforts to combat climate change and flew on Air Force One with several Democratic leaders, including Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

A White House official confirmed that Vice President Kamala Harris was also in close contact with President Biden, and Klain said he was too.

Klain, who said he hoped the president’s testing positive a “teachable moment” for the country, said the White House wasn’t aware of any positive COVID results that were linked to the president’s case.

During her briefing, Jean-Pierre bristled at suggestions the Biden administration wasn’t being much more forthcoming with information about the president’s illness than that of his predecessor, Donald Trump. The former president contracted COVID-19 in the fall of 2020, before vaccines were available, and was hospitalized at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for three nights.

“I wholeheartedly disagree,” Jean-Pierre said of comparison. “We are doing this very differently — very differently — than the last administration.”

Asked about the possibility President Biden might need to be hospitalized, Jha stressed that the president was “doing well” and added that there were “obviously a lot of resources available here at the White House to take care of him.”

“Walter Reed is always on standby for presidents. That’s always an option,” he added. “That’s true whether the president had COVID or not.”

Dr. Leana Wen, a public health professor at George Washington University, said it was good for the White House to send the message that President Biden can keep working even after testing positive.

“That shows that it’s business as usual,” Wen said.

Jean-Pierre’s predecessor, Jen Psaki, noted that White House officials have “been preparing for this probably for several months now, given the percentage of people in the country who have tested positive.”

“What they need to do over the next couple of days is show him working and show him still active and serving as president and I’m certain they’ll likely do that,” Psaki, who left her post as White House press secretary in May, said on MSNBC, where she’s becoming a commentator.

President Biden plans to continue to isolate until he tests negative, the White House said.

Dr. Eric Topol, head of Scripps Research Translational Institute, said that could mean he’s “out of commission from interacting with people for at least eight to 10 days.”

“This could go on easily for a couple of weeks, but the good thing is they are going to monitor him very carefully,” Topol said. “That is what we should be doing for everyone so that we don’t keep playing into the virus’ hands, causing more spread when it’s already hyper-spreadable.”

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

: newsy.com

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Biden Tests Positive For COVID-19, Has ‘Mild Symptoms’

The 79-year-old Biden is fully vaccinated after getting two initial doses of the coronavirus vaccine and two boosters since.

President Joe Biden tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday, underscoring the persistence of the highly contagious virus as new variants challenge the nation’s efforts to resume normalcy after two and a half years of pandemic disruptions.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that Biden was experiencing “mild symptoms” and has begun taking Paxlovid, an antiviral drug designed to reduce the severity of the disease.

She said Biden “will isolate at the White House and will continue to carry out all of his duties fully during that time. He has been in contact with members of the White House staff by phone this morning, and will participate in his planned meetings at the White House this morning via phone and Zoom from the residence.”

Biden, 79, is fully vaccinated, after getting two doses of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine shortly before taking office, a first booster shot in September and an additional dose March 30.

Up to this point, Biden’s ability to avoid the virus seemed to defy the odds, even with the testing procedures in place for those expected to be in close contact with him. Prior waves of the virus swept through Washington’s political class, infecting Vice President Kamala Harris, Cabinet members, White House staffers and lawmakers. Biden has increasingly stepped up his travel schedule and resumed holding large indoor events where not everyone is tested.

Top White House officials in recent months have been matter-of-fact about the likelihood of the president getting COVID, a measure of how engrained the virus has become in society — and of its diminished threat for those who are up to date on their vaccinations and with access to treatments.

When administered within five days of symptoms appearing, Paxlovid, produced by drugmaker Pfizer, has been proven to bring about a 90% reduction in hospitalizations and deaths among patients most likely to get severe disease.

In an April 30 speech to more than 2,600 attendees at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, Biden acknowledged the risks of attending large events, but said it was worthwhile to attend.

“I know there are questions about whether we should gather here tonight because of COVID,” he said. “Well, we’re here to show the country that we’re getting through this pandemic.”

Biden is far from the first world leader — and not the first U.S. president — to get the coronavirus, which has infected British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, French President Emmanuel Macron and more than a dozen other leaders and high-ranking officials globally.

When Biden’s predecessor, President Donald Trump, contracted the disease in October 2020, it was a far different time. Vaccines were not available and treatment options were limited and less advanced. After being diagnosed with COVID-19 at the White House, Trump was given an experimental antibody treatment and steroids after his blood oxygen levels fell dangerously low. He was hospitalized at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for three days

While much of the world has resumed normal rhythms after the early lockdowns to control spikes in cases and deaths, the virus still serves as a disrupter in daily life as people are forced to change plans, isolate and calculate the risks of taking part in various activities.

And after more than two years and over a million deaths in the U.S., the virus is still killing an average of 353 people a day in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The unvaccinated are at far greater risk, more than two times more likely to test positive and nine times more likely to die from the virus than those who have received at least a primary dose of the vaccines, according to the public health agency.

The White House has faced a flurry of questions about COVID-19 protocols surrounding the president. The spring Washington outbreak came weeks after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention eased face-covering guidance in most of the U.S.

As the virus crept closer to Biden, then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden believed it to be “vitally important to him, to his presidency, to the American people,” to travel and continue to host large events.

She added of Biden, “Just like many Americans, he makes risk assessments.”

The highly transmissible omicron variant is the dominant strain in the U.S., but scientists say it poses a lower risk for severe illness to those who are up to date on their vaccinations. The BA.5 sub-strain, believed to be even more contagious, now makes up more than 65% of U.S. cases.

“There’s a lot of infections across America,” White House COVID-19 coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha said May 18, blaming the highly-transmissible variants, as well as relaxing mitigation measures like mask requirements.

The coronavirus pandemic helped put Biden in the White House, as he pledged to handle COVID-19 better than his predecessor. After initial months of success surging the nation’s supply and availability of vaccines, the virus became a morass for the Democrat in the first year of his presidency, as he struggled to boost the country’s vaccination rate and to stay ahead of the unpredictable disease.

As cases sharply declined earlier this year, Biden again highlighted his administration’s efforts to end the pandemic and help the nation regain a sense of normalcy.

In his State of the Union address on March 1, Biden said it was safe for most Americans to resume their normal pre-pandemic activities, citing declining case rates, vaccinations and newly developed therapeutics.

“Tonight, I can say we are moving forward safely, back to more normal routines,” he said. “It’s time for Americans to get back to work and fill our great downtowns again.”

Yet in recent weeks, U.S. officials have called for the public to exercise caution once again over the BA.5 variant, and appealed to the public to seek out booster shots if eligible and for most Americans to consider whether they should wear a face mask in public indoor settings.

“We should not let it disrupt our lives,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert said July 12, “but we cannot deny that it is a reality that we need to deal with.”

The White House has sought to go above and beyond public health guidelines to protect the president, with all visitors and staff, required to attest to their vaccination status or submit to daily tests. Additionally, people expected to be in close proximity to Biden are tested daily.

Still, Biden has increasingly demonstrated a willingness to participate in larger, indoor events in recent months — riskier activities for contracting the virus — and many have had people not wearing masks. White House officials say Biden was intent on showing he can fulfill his presidential responsibilities without fear of the virus, believing he was well protected against severe outcomes

“His doctors are comfortable that he could continue to carry out his duties because of all these steps and precautions and protections he’s taken,” Psaki said on April 8.

In studies, the vaccines most widely used in the U.S. have been found to protect against severe illness and hospitalization, but new cases have emerged even among those who are fully vaccinated.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

: newsy.com

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