Coronavirus Morning News Brief – March 29: One Bivalent Booster is Enough, Says CDC, George Santos Syndrome Spreads to Other Politicians

Times Square in Manhattan
Good morning. This is Jonathan Spira reporting. Here now the news of the pandemic from across the globe on the 1,113th day of the pandemic.
If you’ve been wondering whether you need a second bivalent booster, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have now weighed in: On Monday, the CDC said that one updated dose is sufficient, even for those people who received their last jab over six months ago.
“At this time, one updated booster dose is recommended for everyone in order to maintain protection from severe illness,” the agency said. “Receiving more than one updated booster is not currently authorized by the U.S. Federal Food and Drug Administration.”
Health officials in the United States have been working towards moving the country toward an annual booster shot that would be aimed at the latest variants and strains in circulation.  Their focus is shifting from preventing new infections to reducing the severity of disease and death.
In general, people who aren’t at a very high risk for infection, such as the immunocompromised, should continue to see a fairly high level of protection until a new booster comes out in the fall.
Notably, several countries, including the United Kingdom and Canada, have begun offering additional boosters to those at high risk for SARS-CoV-2, such as nursing home residents and people with compromised immune systems.  Only time will tell, however, wheher the CDC’s new stance is the right one.
In news we cover today, another New York politician is suffering from George Santos syndrome and tranq, a flesh-eating veterinary drug known for a euphoric high, is spreading across New York.
UNITED STATES
In New York City, the George Santos syndrome appears to be spreading.  A candidate for the New York City Council, Susan Zhuang, is under fire after claiming, when speaking at a Brooklyn Young Democrats event earlier in March, that she got local businesses in the Big Apple to donate to food pantries and spearheaded a major drive to obtain face masks. The only problem is that Zhuang was living in Columbus, Indiana, when the pandemic struck in early 2020 and didn’t return to New York until the end of 2022.
TRAVEL
Officials in the Turks and Caicos Islands, a British Overseas Territory, said that they will drop their coronavirus vaccine requirement.  Starting April 1, the islands will no longer require proof of full vaccination to enter the territory.
OTHER HEALTHCARE NEWS
Tranq – the nickname for the flesh-eating and deadly so-called “zombie” drug xylazine – is now circulating across New York and has been the cause of dozens of deaths in the state, Senator Chuck Schumer warned over the weekend.
The use of tranq is “spreading” in Syracuse, Albany, Rochester and the Greater New York City area, Schumer said. Xylazine is a veterinary drug that is resistant to Narcan, a medication used to reverse or reduce the effects of opioids.  Some users of tranq are mixing it with the highly lethal drug fentanyl to heighten the high.
Meanwhile, CVS Health announced the closing of its acquisition of home health care services company Signify Health.  The $8 billion deal was originally announced last September and will allow CVS to enter the at-home health care space.
TODAY’S STATISTICS
Now here are the daily statistics for Wednesday, March 29.
As of Wednesday morning, the world has recorded over 683.6 million Covid-19 cases, an increase of 0.2 million from the previous day, and 6.83 million deaths, according to Worldometer, a service that tracks such information. In addition, 656.5 million people worldwide have recovered from the virus, an increase of 0.1 million from the previous day.
The reader should note that infrequent reporting from some sources may appear as spikes in new case figures or death tolls.
Worldwide, the number of active coronavirus cases as of Wednesday at press time is 20,214,814, an increase of 28,000. Out of that figure, 99.8%, or 20,174,781, are considered mild, and 0.2%, or 40,033, are listed as critical. The percentage of cases considered critical has not changed over the past five months.
The United States reported 135,520 new cases in the period March 16 through March 23, a figure that is down 29% over the same period one week earlier, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  The death toll for the same period is 2,060, a figure that is down 2%.  The average number of hospital admissions from Covid was 5,738 on March 28, a figure that is down 8% over the preceding 14 days.  Finally, the test positivity rate is 7.1%, up 1% over the 14 days preceding March 25.
Starting on March 25, 2023, the Morning News Brief began to update case data as well as death tolls on a weekly basis and publish the updated information in the Thursday edition.
In addition, since the start of the pandemic the United States has, as of Wednesday, recorded 106.1 million cases, a higher figure than any other country, and a death toll of 1.15 million. India has the world’s second highest number of officially recorded cases, 44.7 million, and a reported death toll of 530,848.
The newest data from Russia’s Rosstat state statistics service showed that, at the end of July, the number of Covid or Covid-related deaths since the start of the pandemic there in April 2020 is now 823,623, giving the country the world’s second highest pandemic-related death toll, behind the United States.  Rosstat last reported that 3,284 people died from the coronavirus or related causes in July 2022, down from 5,023 in June, 7,008 in May and 11,583 in April.
Meanwhile, France is the country with the third highest number of cases, with 39.8 million, and Germany is in the number four slot, with 38.3 million total cases.
Brazil, which has recorded the third highest number of deaths as a result of the virus, 700,239, has recorded 37.3 million cases, placing it in the number five slot.
The other five countries with total case figures over the 20 million mark are Japan, with 33.4 million cases, South Korea, with 30.8 million cases, placing it in the number seven slot, and Italy, with just under 25.7 million, as number eight, as well as the United Kingdom, with 24.4 million, and Russia, with just under 22.6 million.
VACCINATION SPOTLIGHT
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that, as of the past Thursday, 269.8 million people in the United States – or 81.3% – have received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine. Of that population, 69.4%, or 230.3 million people, have received two doses of vaccine, and the total number of doses that have been dispensed in the United States is now 673.5 million. Breaking this down further, 92.2% of the population over the age of 18 – or 238 million people – has received at least a first inoculation and 79% of the same group – or 204.1 million people – is fully vaccinated.  In addition, 19.9% of the same population, or 51.1 million people, has already received an updated or bivalent booster dose of vaccine, while 22.9 million people over the age of 65, or 41.8% of that population have also received the bivalent booster.
Starting on June 13, 2022, the CDC began to update vaccine data on a weekly basis and publish the updated information on Thursdays by 8 p.m. EDT, a statement on the agency’s website said.
Some 69.8% of the world population has received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine by Wednesday, according to Our World in Data, an online scientific publication that tracks such information.  So far, 13.34 billion doses of the vaccine have been administered on a global basis and 420,647 doses are now administered each day.
Meanwhile, only 28.4% of people in low-income countries have received one dose, while in countries such as Canada, China, Denmark, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States, at least 75% of the population has received at least one dose of vaccine.
Only a handful of the world’s poorest countries – Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia and Nepal – have reached the 70% mark in vaccinations. Many countries, however, are under 20% and, in countries such as Haiti, Senegal, and Tanzania, for example, vaccination rates remain at or below 10%.
In addition, with the start of vaccinations in North Korea in late September, Eritrea remains the only country in the world that has not administered vaccines.
Anna Breuer contributed reporting to this story.
(Photo: Accura Media Group)