POLITICO NIGHTLY: Omicron’s known unknowns

 

BY TYLER WEYANT With help from Joanne Kenen A reminder reads “Please Remember To Mask Up Indoors” at CES 2022 on a monitor at Las Vegas Convention Center in Nevada. | Alex Wong/Getty Images EXPONENTIAL DREAD — The situation is the same for millions of Americans. Maybe you are sick, or maybe someone in your house is. Or perhaps everyone in your domicile is well, but every few hours, you hear about a friend who tested positive, or a neighbor, or Aunt Carol’s coworker who coughed a few times, but seemed alright and then tested positive. Masks that were $20 are now $40; tests are more expensive still. Oh, by the way, your kids’ school is closed. The question that courses under the surface of all this: How bad is this Omicron thing really ? To help us understand how to monitor the virus’ spread, and how officials are responding (or not), and just how much to worry, Nightly chatted with health care reporter Erin Banco (who has the latest on the CDC’s recommitment to isolation and quarantine guidelines without tests). This conversation has been edited. How bad are things right now across the U.S.? We know cases are at record highs, and some areas are experiencing pressure on their hospitals, but what does the overall picture look like? We are now several weeks into Omicron’s spread in the U.S., and unfortunately there’s no clear data that shows these case and hospitalization increases beginning to come down. States across the country are still reporting record high case numbers, and hospitalizations are increasing across the Northeast. I’d say that’s where things are the worst right now — in states like New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Not every hospital is overwhelmed, but a lot of them are. Doctors and nurses are struggling to keep up with the work of caring for the influx of patients, not only because there are just more of them, but also because staff are calling out sick with Covid. Despite the numbers we’re seeing, life seems to be continuing somewhat normally for many Americans across the country. States have largely resisted re-implementing strict public health measures such as mask mandates. Restaurants in some of the hardest-hit cities, including Manhattan, are still open and thriving (they do require vaccination). While some schools, especially daycare and younger ed classes, have begun to shut down, many schools remain open. I don’t see us going back in time at this point. One thing we really need to get us through this winter is more tests! I can't find any at my local pharmacy, and the lines where I live in New Jersey are crazy long. We just do not have enough supply. In talking to federal officials and reporting on the CDC, what is the sense you get on how Washington will respond and react in the next few weeks? It depends who you talk to. Officials are really struggling to figure out the best course forward. We don’t have great data on the variant yet. We’ve got some good intelligence from South Africa and Europe, where cases appear to cause massive spikes then decline pretty soon after. And those case studies look like the variant causes a milder form of disease. But we don’t yet understand exactly how the American population has been impacted/might be impacted by Omicron. And until we have that, it is going to be very difficult for officials to make clear public health policy decisions. Beyond that, the administration clearly doesn’t want to disrupt the economy or society in general. Keeping normal life intact while also keeping people safe is a balancing act. And the administration is still trying to walk that line. I think we will begin to see more announcements from the podium about increased investment in public health to help states fight Omicron and perhaps more announcements on increasing testing supply. I think officials are hoping this surge drops dramatically in the next few weeks — just like it appears to have done in South Africa. Is that swift decrease in cases an eventuality U.S. officials are planning for or expecting based on international data? Or is it just a best-case wish? There is a hope that cases will drop here as they did there. But there are a lot of external factors that could have helped that wave in South Africa decline so quickly, such as a younger population, public health measures like masking and people avoiding public spaces, and the fact that it is summer there. The shortest answer: Officials don’t really know. They hope. But they don’t know for sure. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s author at tweyant@politico.com, or on Twitter at @tweyant.   POLITICO TECH AT CES 2022 - We are bringing a special edition of the POLITICO Tech newsletter to CES 2022. Written by Alexandra Levine and John Hendel, the newsletter will take you inside the most influential technology event on the planet, featuring every major and emerging industry in the technology ecosystem gathered together in one place. The newsletter runs from Jan. 5-7 and will focus on the public policy related aspects of the gathering. Sign up today to receive exclusive coverage of the Summit.     WHAT'D I MISS? Sen. Joe Manchin speaks to reporters outside of his office on Capitol Hill. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images — Manchin on Biden’s spending bill: ‘No negotiation going on’: Biden’s social and climate spending bill is making zero progress in the Senate, where Democratic holdout Joe Manchin said today there are “no discussions” going on about reviving it . The West Virginia Democrat bluntly dismissed talk of progress from other members of his party over the last couple weeks and made clear he’s tired of discussing the $1.7 trillion proposal that focuses on education, climate action, health care, taxes and child care. — Sean Hannity tried to dissuade Trump from Jan. 6 strategy, texts show: Sean Hannity repeatedly tried to scale back Donald Trump’s effort to use the Jan. 6 session of Congress to overturn the 2020 election results, according to text messages between the Fox News host and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows revealed publicly today. “I do NOT see January 6 happening the way he is being told,” Hannity said of Trump’s efforts in a Dec. 31, 2020 text to Meadows, obtained by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack. Instead, Hannity told Meadows that Trump should go to Florida and become a vocal supporter of election reforms. — Navy blocked from acting against 35 Covid vaccine refusers: A federal judge in Texas has granted a preliminary injunction stopping the Navy from acting against 35 sailors for refusing on religious grounds to comply with an order to get vaccinated against Covid-19 . The injunction is a new challenge to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s decision to make vaccinations mandatory for all members of the military. The vaccination requirement allows for exemptions on religious and other grounds, but none of the thousands of requests for religious waivers so far have been granted. — Larry Elder will not run against Newsom in 2022: The Republican talk show host announced today he will not challenge Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2022 after winning the most votes of any candidate seeking to succeed Newsom in a failed recall attempt. Elder’s exit immediately reorders the nascent field of Republicans seeking to deprive Newsom of a second term. While Elder energized conservative voters and quickly vaulted to the top of the field of recall candidates, his conservative positions were anathema to much of California’s electorate and helped Newsom frame the campaign as a battle against a Trump-aligned extremist. Millions more Californians voted against the recall than for Elder. — DNC staff votes by ‘overwhelming margin’ to unionize: Staff at the Democratic National Committee have voted to unionize by an “overwhelming margin,” according to an announcement today . Former Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.) determined, as an independent neutral observer picked by staff and management, that the majority of DNC staff had voted to join Local 500 of the Service Employees International Union. — U.S. arrests, charges suspect in Haitian president slaying: The U.S. government announced today that it arrested one of the main suspects in the killing of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse and charged him with conspiracy to commit murder or kidnapping outside the United States. Mario Antonio Palacios, a 43-year-old former Colombian soldier, also was charged 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 this afternoon but did not enter a plea. FROM THE HEALTH DESK THE BOOSTERS GAP — One of the huge, and hard-won, victories of the Covid-19 vaccination drive was narrowing the racial and ethnic gaps in immunization. Adult Latino vaccination rates slightly surpassed white vaccine uptake for a time. Then came boosters. And the demographic gap emerged and widened all over again. Nightly’s Joanne Kenen talked to Jane Delgado, president and CEO of the National Alliance for Hispanic Health, about the ongoing challenges. This conversation has been edited. What’s the big obstacle? Why are people who overcame hesitancy and got vaccinated now not getting boosters? They think if you solve it, it’s good forever. It’s like if you say to a patient, “Don’t smoke,” they would just stop and never do it again. It has to be said over and over again. And we had a relapse. Not of the person, but of Covid. What obstacles do you have to address? And where do you start? We do it one-on-one, hand-holding, doing the navigation work that people need to get their vaccines, their boosters. Identify obstacles — and a lot of them are things like not having time off work (to get vaccinated), not having sick days. But people are used to: You get a vaccine and you don’t have to get another one for a long time. And here we are. We’re telling them not only do you have to get two vaccines but now six months later you have to get another one. The message has been changing. And there’s a lot of pseudoscience out there in Spanish language media. And with social media, the messages are tailored and curated to resonate with you, the individual. Do you have to tailor your messages to different Hispanic communities, say Miami versus New York? You always have to tailor messages to a community you are serving. But that’s no different with Hispanics or whites. You don’t message the same way to a white person in south Texas or San Francisco or Maine. Can you give me an example of how you and your partner organizations reach people? We’re having Family Vaccination clinics, where children and parents can get a shot together. And the parents are asked if they’ve been vaccinated, if they need the booster. And then they can talk about that. So much of what’s happened during the pandemic has to do with trust, with loss of trust, with trust-building. And building trust is never one and done, is it? As a clinician — I’m a clinical psychologist — I know redundancy is key. You never know when someone is going to hear and be able to use that knowledge to change behavior. I see patients who want to change. But imagine all the people who don’t want to change. How do you get them to change? It takes time. It’s work. It’s not perfect.   STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president’s ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today.     AROUND THE WORLD Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau receives his Covid-19 vaccine booster shot at a pharmacy in Ottawa. | Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press via AP FROM OTTAWA, WITH EXHAUSTION — The premier of Canada’s biggest province opened 2022 with a shutdown notice for Ontarians entering their third year of Covid . “We face a tsunami of new cases,” Doug Ford said this week as he shut schools, canceled surgeries, closed theaters and forbid indoor dining. Restaurant patios will be allowed to open, though at minus 19 degrees Celsius in the nation’s capital, it could prove a tough sell, Canada reporter Nick Taylor-Vaisey writes. Indoor social gatherings will be restricted to five starting Wednesday. Outdoor gatherings will be capped at 10 as the province aims to slow the spread of the Omicron variant in a population in which 81 percent of eligible Ontarians are double vaccinated — and one in four has already received a booster. (Prime Minister Justin Trudeau received his third dose this morning.) The verdict from health experts: Too little, too late, told you so. Public health experts across the country had warned for weeks that Omicron's off-the-charts transmissibility would fuel a startling new wave of infections at a time when Covid-weary families — boosted or not — were making plans to gather. NIGHTLY NUMBER 4.5 million The number of American workers who quit their jobs in November, a sign of confidence and more evidence that the U.S. job market is bouncing back strongly from the coronavirus recession. The Labor Department also reported today that employers posted 10.6 million job openings in November, down from 11.1 million in October but still high by historical standards. PARTING WORDS ‘I DON’T THINK THAT’S A GOOD IDEA’ — Senate Republicans can now breathe easier on Jan. 6. Trump’s announcement this evening that he would cancel a previously planned press conference is good news for Senate Republicans, who earlier in the day openly fretted that he would pull their party back into debating his false election claims, Marianne LeVine and Burgess Everett write. It also ensures that Republicans won’t have to keep one eye on the TV on the anniversary of the Capitol attack, nor will they face a deluge of questions about Trump in the immediate days. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), when asked about the press conference earlier today. “I guess it depends on what he’s going to say. But early assumptions are that it’s going to be an aggressive statement. I just don’t think it’s a good idea.” Similarly, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) said she wanted to “stay focused on congressional activities.” And Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), who voted to convict Trump over his role in the Jan. 6 attack, said the event wasn’t a “terribly good idea,” but added, “What am I going to do about it?” Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here.   Follow us on Twitter Chris Suellentrop @suellentrop Tyler Weyant @tweyant Renuka Rayasam @renurayasam Myah Ward @myahward   FOLLOW US

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