El clima
As of April 20, about 40% of reporting US counties are experiencing substantial or higher COVID transmission based on available data. As of April 1, Iowa (shown in gray) no longer reports COVID data to the CDC.
WINS
People are continuing to fight to protect each other from the harms of COVID! This week, we’re highlighting those fighting to #KeepMasksInHealthcare!
A recent commentary published in Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology supports expanding the concept of “universal precautions” to include universal masking in healthcare settings. We are grateful to add another reference to the already strong scientific support for masking in healthcare settings.
In Massachusetts, @MAHealthEquity organized a phonebank last week to call legislators to demand preserved protections in healthcare.
Covid Safe Campus y Covid Safe Maryland organized an in-person action and then a phone and email banking event to push Johns Hopkins to keep masks in healthcare. Check out this thread of their masked in-person action.
Volunteers with People’s CDC wrote and organized a letter campaign to help everyone across the country get in contact with healthcare system leadership to demand they preserve or reinstate mask mandates in healthcare settings.
As always, follow @mandatemasksus to keep up on all sorts of mask-related advocacy no matter where in the country you are!
Monitoreo de aguas residuales
Datos nacionales de aguas residuales continues to show a plateau to slight decline in the Northeast, Midwest, and Southern regions. The West region shows a slight increase.
Some regions of the country can get an even closer view of wastewater levels Sars-Cov2 and other dangerous pathogens in their area using https://data.wastewaterscan.org/
Forecasts
Though hospitalizations and deaths continue to trend downward, we expect that as masks are removed in healthcare, we will start to see increases again. In Santa Rosa, California, one hospital is reinstating its mask mandate after a COVID outbreak occurred only a few weeks after it was lifted.
Get involved in the fight to protect masks in healthcare: https://peoplescdc.substack.com/p/act-now-for-masks-in-healthcare
COVID largo
More than 16 million Americans suffer from Long COVID, yet its burden has been made to be largely invisible, even sometimes to those that suffer its impacts. Despite its burden, we continue to have almost no information about its treatments thanks, in part, to blunders at the NIH.
The only way to avoid Long COVID is to avoid COVID infection altogether.
Protect yourself, whatever the weather
So many layers of protection are threatened by the Biden Administration’s looming end to the Public Health Emergency. One of these layers is rapid tests, which millions rely upon to gather safely or to limit household spread. Please check out and sign this letter to demand continued access to Free Rapid Tests for All.
Notes: 1) The numbers in this report were current as of 4/21/23. Today’s numbers may be slightly different from the data here. 2) Check out the links throughout & see our website for more – https://peoplescdc.org