COVID case counts may be losing importance amid omicron

The explosive increase in U.S. coronavirus case counts is raising alarm, but some experts believe the focus should instead be on COVID-19 hospital admissions. And those aren’t climbing as fast.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, for one, said Sunday on ABC that with many infections causing few or no symptoms, "it is much more relevant to focus on the hospitalizations as opposed to the total number of cases." Other experts argue that case counts still have value.

As the super-contagious omicron variant rages across the U.S., new COVID-19 cases per day have more than tripled over the past two weeks, reaching a record-shattering average of 480,000. Schools, hospitals and airlines are struggling as infected workers go into isolation.

Meanwhile, hospital admissions averaged 14,800 per day last week, up 63% from the week before, but still short of the peak of 16,500 per day a year ago, when the vast majority of the U.S. was unvaccinated. Deaths have been stable over the past two weeks at an average of about 1,200 per day, well below the all-time high of 3,400 last January.

Public health experts suspect that those numbers, taken together, reflect the vaccine’s continued effectiveness at preventing serious illness, even against omicron, as well as the possibility that the variant does not make most people as sick as earlier versions.

___

Stranded drivers endure frigid night on impassable highway

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Hundreds of motorists were stranded after a winter storm snarled traffic in Virginia and left some drivers stuck in place for nearly 24 hours in freezing temperatures along an impassable stretch of interstate south of the nation's capital.

Problems began Monday morning when a truck jackknifed on Interstate 95, the main north-south highway along the East Coast, triggering a swift chain reaction as other vehicles lost control, state police said. Lanes in both directions became blocked across a 40-mile stretch of I-95 north of Richmond. As hours passed and night fell, motorists posted messages on social media about running out of fuel, food and water.

Meera Rao and her husband, Raghavendra, were driving home from visiting their daughter in North Carolina when they got stuck Monday evening. They were only 100 feet past an exit but could not move for roughly 16 hours.

“Not one police (officer) came in the 16 hours we were stuck,” she said. “No one came. It was just shocking. Being in the most advanced country in the world, no one knew how to even clear one lane for all of us to get out of that mess?”

There were no immediate reports of serious injuries or deaths.

___

Jan. 6 attack posed loyalty test for Indiana Rep. Greg Pence

WASHINGTON (AP) — Greg Pence watched the Jan. 6 insurrection unfold from an extraordinary perch.

As chants of “Hang Mike Pence” echoed in the Capitol, the Republican congressman from Indiana and his better-known brother were whisked away from the Senate by the Secret Service shortly before a mob of Donald Trump supporters burst in, intent on stopping the vice president from certifying Democrat Joe Biden's win.

Their dramatic escape, caught on security cameras, came minutes after Trump excoriated Mike Pence on Twitter for lacking the “courage” to use his ceremonial post presiding over the certification of the 2020 election to overturn its outcome.

“My brother was being asked to do what we don’t do in this country,” Greg Pence recounted at a Republican fundraising dinner in his district last July, one of the rare instances he has spoken publicly about the attack. He later added, “I couldn’t be prouder.”

At the beating heart of the insurrection lies Trump’s attempt to pressure his vice president to take the unprecedented step of overturning the election. And few had a better vantage point on the day of the attack than Greg Pence, who watched the certification proceedings from the Senate gallery, then joined his younger brother in a private office off the Senate chamber when chaos broke out. They were evacuated, along with other members of the Pence family, to a secure area, where the vice president worked the phone, pleading for help to clear rioters from the building.

___

Why are so many vaccinated people getting COVID-19 lately?

Why are so many vaccinated people getting COVID-19 lately?

A couple of factors are at play, starting with the emergence of the highly contagious omicron variant. Omicron is more likely to infect people, even if it doesn't make them very sick, and its surge coincided with the holiday travel season in many places.

People might mistakenly think the COVID-19 vaccines will completely block infection, but the shots are mainly designed to prevent severe illness, says Louis Mansky, a virus researcher at the University of Minnesota.

And the vaccines are still doing their job on that front, particularly for people who've gotten boosters.

Two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines or one dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine still offer strong protection against serious illness from omicron. While those initial doses aren’t very good at blocking omicron infection, boosters — particularly with the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines — rev up levels of the antibodies to help fend off infection.

___

CDC posts rationale for shorter isolation, quarantine

NEW YORK (AP) — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday explained the scientific rationale for shortening its COVID-19 isolation and quarantine recommendations, and clarified that the guidance applies to kids as well as adults.

The CDC also maintained that, for people who catch COVID-19, testing is not required to emerge from five days of isolation — despite hints from other federal officials that the agency was reconsidering that.

The agency announced the changes last week, halving the isolation time for Americans who catch the coronavirus and have no symptoms or only brief illnesses. Isolation should only end if a person has been fever-free for at least 24 hours without the use of fever-reducing medications and if other symptoms are resolving, the CDC added.

It similarly shortened the time that close contacts need to quarantine, from 10 days to five.

CDC officials previously said the changes were in keeping with evidence that people with the coronavirus are most infectious in the two days before and three days after symptoms develop.

___

Stranded on Virginia's roads: 'It's not getting any better'

By 1 p.m. Tuesday, morale was plummeting for Jennifer Travis, her husband and their 12-year-old daughter.

They were down to half a bottle of water and no snacks. Their last meal had been at a Denny's at 7 p.m. Monday. They hadn't slept and were dressed for sunny Florida, not the frigid snowstorm in Virginia that had stranded them in their rented Chevy Tahoe for more than 18 hours.

“It’s getting hard because it’s not getting any better,” said Travis, 42, her voice cracking as she sat on traffic-clogged U.S. Route 17 near Fredericksburg. “They keep saying help is coming. But it’s not coming. Nobody’s directing traffic. Nobody’s at the stoplight saying ‘OK, you go, go, go, go, go.’ It’s every man for themselves right now. And that sucks.”

Travis and her family were among hundreds of motorists who waited desperately for help Tuesday after the winter storm snarled traffic and left some drivers stranded for nearly 24 hours along an impassable stretch of Interstate 95 south of the nation’s capital. Even after motorists escaped I-95, many like Travis got stuck on side roads for several more hours.

Problems began Monday morning when a truck jackknifed on I-95, triggering a swift chain reaction as other vehicles lost control, state police said. Lanes in both directions became blocked on a 40-mile (64-kilometer) stretch of the interstate, the main north-south highway along the East Coast. As hours passed and night fell, motorists posted messages on social media about running out of fuel, food and water.

___

Manchin wary of changing Senate rules to advance voting bill

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. Joe Manchin sounded a skeptical note Tuesday about the prospects of easing the Senate's filibuster rules, raising doubts about whether he will provide crucial support to the Democrats' renewed push for voting legislation they say is needed to protect democracy.

Manchin told reporters it was his “absolute preference” that Republicans support any changes and he described acting on a purely partisan basis as a “heavy lift." Still, he did not slam the door completely shut, saying he was exploring “the options we have open."

“I think that for us to go it alone, no matter what side does, it ends up coming back at you pretty hard,” Manchin said.

Manchin's skepticism comes just one day after Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced the Senate will vote soon on easing the filibuster rules. In a letter Monday to colleagues, Schumer, D-N.Y., said the Senate “must evolve” and will “debate and consider” the rule changes by Jan. 17, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, as the Democrats seek to overcome Republican opposition to their elections law package.

“Let me be clear: January 6th was a symptom of a broader illness — an effort to delegitimize our election process," Schumer wrote, “and the Senate must advance systemic democracy reforms to repair our republic or else the events of that day will not be an aberration — they will be the new norm.”

___

Prosecutor drops groping charge against former NY Gov. Cuomo

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo won't face criminal prosecution over an allegation that he fondled an aide after a prosecutor said Tuesday he couldn't prove the case.

Three days before the Democratic ex-governor was due to answer the misdemeanor charge in court, Albany County District Attorney David Soares asked a judge to dismiss a criminal complaint that the county sheriff filed in October.

“While we found the complainant in this case cooperative and credible, after review of all the available evidence, we have concluded that we cannot meet our burden at trial,” Soares said in a statement, adding that he was “deeply troubled” by the allegation.

Soares, a Democrat, didn't detail why he felt it would be tough to win a conviction.

In a letter to the judge, he said “statutory elements of New York law make this case impossible to prove." He added that multiple government inquiries into Cuomo's conduct had created “technical and procedural hurdles” regarding prosecutors' obligations to disclose evidence to the defense.

___

US arrests, charges suspect in Haitian president slaying

MIAMI (AP) — The U.S. government announced Tuesday that it charged one of the main suspects in the killing of Haitian president Jovenel Moïse as it unsealed a complaint that revealed federal authorities had interviewed him several months ago while he was hiding in Jamaica.

Mario Antonio Palacios Palacios, a 43-year-old former Colombian soldier, is charged with conspiracy to commit murder or kidnapping outside the United States and with providing material support resulting in death, knowing or intending that such material support would be used to prepare for or carry out the conspiracy to kill or kidnap.

He appeared at a federal court in Miami on Tuesday afternoon but did not enter a plea. Palacios, who was wearing jeans and a gray T-shirt and had his hands and feet shackled, told the judge he wanted to be appointed an attorney. After responding to questions related to his income and property, including that he owned a house in Cali, Colombia, and received a nearly $370 army pension, he was granted counsel based on limited income.

Court-appointed attorney Alfredo Izaguirre told U.S. Magistrate Judge Alicia Otazo-Reyes that he recommended Palacios stay in detention because he has no immigration status, relatives or ties to the United States. The judge ordered detention, saying he would be at risk of fleeing.

Palacios is scheduled to appear in court again on Jan. 31. Izaguirre said his client would probably plead not guilty at the preliminary hearing.

___

Will Elizabeth Holmes' conviction sober up Silicon Valley?

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — The fraud conviction of former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes could do more than just send a once-celebrated ex-billionaire to prison. In theory, it could also deliver a sobering message to a Silicon Valley culture that often gets lost in its own hubris and swagger.

Will it? Don't hold your breath.

For that change to happen, entrepreneurs would have to dial down their own hype, which could mean losing potential investors to louder startups with fewer qualms. Meanwhile, venture capitalists and other startup investors — always on the lookout for the next big windfall — would need to get a lot more skeptical about the ambitious pitches they're hearing, despite the Valley's decades-long habit of throwing money at a variety of sketchy startup ideas. Most fail, but the rare successes can more than make up for a passel of losers.

“I think it will generate some more caution among entrepreneurs, but for the most part, human nature being what it is, there is still going to be a tendency to exaggerate, especially when you know you might not get funded if you don't," said Richard Greenfield, a lawyer who represents investors in startups.

“And I don't think it will change many investors' attitudes," he added. "People are still going to want to reach for the moon."

© 2022 The Canadian Press. All rights reserved., source Canadian Press DataFile