DETROIT – COVID cases are continuing to climb in Michigan as we begin the new year.
It is essential to understand that our lab capacity limits daily case counts. Some of those numbers do not include people who only took a rapid antigen test at home, so the real numbers are likely higher.
Many people who wanted to get tested were not able to get appointments over the past few weeks. As cases surge, Federal health officials have decided to make more changes moving forward.
For one, children ages 12 to 15 years of age may be able to receive an extra dose of protection as the FDA have now authorized Pfizer’s booster for that age group.
The panel of advisors for the CDC are scheduled to meet on Wednesday to discuss the issue. The FDA is also reducing the amount of time everyone should wait between receiving a second vaccine dose and a booster from the regular six months to now five.
The changes come as most of the nation’s children return from holiday break and back into in-person learning. Experts of the situation are trying to balance the benefits of In-person learning and the surge of COVID cases that are infecting children.
“There is absolutely no way to keep omicron out of the schools,” said Dr. James Phillips, Chief of Disaster Medicine. “No way. It’s more transmissible, it passes through and looks just like a cold and what we’re going to be relying on is testing in addition to the standard practices of masking, social distancing and hand hygiene,” Phillips said. “But the testing that we’re using, these antigen tests at home, simply are not sensitive enough to keep omicron out of our schools.”
The encouraging news about the benefits of being vaccinated is that it reduces the risk of being hospitalized or dying, and limited data suggest a lower risk of long COVID.
“People who had been vaccinated and had a breakthrough infection were less likely to develop long COVID than people who were unvaccinated and infected with mild illness,” said Dr. Jason Maley of Harvard Medical School and the COVID-19 Survivorship Program. “Hopefully, by preventing infection altogether, we would prevent long COVID.”
We are also waiting for an update from the CDC regarding that controversial reduction in quarantine time from ten days to five for people who test positive. But they will have to be asymptomatic.
Dr. Fauci hinted the CDC might add a testing recommendation to that shorter timeline.