Ali Mokdad, a professor of global health at the University of Washington, said it’s still too early to predict what XBB.1.16 will do. But what he’s seen so far has been reassuring.
“We haven’t seen an increase in hospitalizations, we haven’t seen an increase in any of the indicators that make us worry,” Mokdad said.
"We can invest in programs that protect the communities that we see disproportionately affected by the pandemic," said co-lead author Emma Castro, a researcher at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, in the video commentary.
Researchers from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington have mapped out some scenarios that weigh vaccine uptake, fading protection and antiviral use, among other factors, to project what we can expect across the globe through the end of June.
Despite these limitations, three independent analyses of excess mortality—by the World Health Organization, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation and the Economist—reach similar conclusions. In the first three years of the pandemic, more than 20 million excess deaths occurred globally.
According to the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, in the first two years of the pandemic women were twice as likely as men to develop long COVID, and 15% of all of those affected at three months continued to experience symptoms beyond 12 months.
“Omicron has been able to evade past immunity and infect you, but fortunately not necessarily cause severe disease and death,” said Christopher Murray, the director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington School of Medicine.
It’s been awhile since we’ve invoked the term “grim milestone,” but the occasion calls for it: The number of reported coronavirus cases in California now exceeds 12 million.
That figure would have seemed unthinkable early in the pandemic, when we struggled to believe that the COVID-19 forecasting tool from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation was accurate in projecting that the number of cases could reach 1 million.
The Lunar New Year Holiday, which starts Jan. 21 and involves millions of people traveling to their hometowns, could increase its spread, said Ali Mokdad, a professor at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation and chief strategy officer for population health at the University of Washington.
Além do ISGlobal, conta com a participação de cientistas da Escola de Medicina Tropical e Higiene de Londres, da Universidade da Cidade de NY (Cuny), em Nova York, e do Instituto de Métricas e Avaliação em Saúde (IHME), da Universidade de Washington, entre outros.
“We do not expect a major increase in hospitalizations from this variant since it is similar to the previous ones,” said Ali Mokdad, a professor of health metrics sciences at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, in an email.
“Either they know something we don’t,” said Dr. Christopher Murray, the director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, “or they’re trying to say the worst is already over.”
In the last two years, death investigators have relied more heavily on nonspecific or unknown causes of death for people of color. These causes, called “garbage codes” by researchers, are designed to be used as a last resort when an investigator is unable to determine how someone died.
Garbage codes were a “pretty big problem” before the pandemic, said Laura Dwyer-Lindgren, leader of the U.S. Health Disparities team at the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. Past analyses going back to the 1990s have found these codes have historically been used more among non-white people.
China's abrupt lifting of stringent COVID-19 restrictions could result in an explosion of cases and over a million deaths through 2023, according to new projections from the U.S.-based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME).
Dr. Christopher Murray, chair of Health Metrics Sciences at the University of Washington and Director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, said waning immunity among vaccinated people is also driving this shift — a factor that the Kaiser report noted as well.
“The reason we’re seeing what we’re seeing is not that vaccines don’t work, it’s that immunity wanes over time,” Murray said, adding that those vaccinated a year ago likely have little protection.
“Most of the population — unfortunately — has forgotten about COVID-19 and moved on. As a result, we’re seeing a rise in cases and a rise in hospitalizations, and that worries me,” said Ali Mokdad, professor of global health at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. “Right now with the rise of flu, RSV and Covid, our health professionals are exhausted.”
Sarah Wulf Hanson, a health modeller at the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle used the data of an earlier study to find how many cases of heart attack and strokes are associated with COVID.
The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation estimates that as of 2021, about 29,940 Danes had developed long COVID lasting at least three months – and as 2022 comes to a close, the toll is likely even higher.
The strict policies saved lives, but cannot be sustained, said Ali Mokdad, a professor of health metrics sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle.
“They do not have a plan B,” said Mokdad, adding that China’s approach ultimately will lead to surges in deaths and strain on hospitals. “They cannot lock the country forever.”
Sus políticas estrictas salvaron vidas, pero no son sostenibles, indicó Ali Mokdad, profesor de sanimetría en la Universidad de Washington en Seattle.
“No cuentan con un plan B”, indicó Mokdad, añadiendo que la postura de China terminará por provocar un repunte de fallecimientos y una sobrecarga en el sistema de hospitales. “No pueden confinar al país para siempre”.
With that in mind, data from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, a research center within the University of Washington, suggest that Covid hospitalizations and deaths could tick up again in "mid-January at the earliest," said Gupta, a medical analyst for NBC News and MSNBC.