Omicron could infect billions, SCOTUS to weigh vaccine mandates: 5 Things podcast
On today's episode of the 5 Things podcast: Omicron may bring billions of new infections over next 2 months
The variant could infect more than half of Americans. But is it milder? Plus, Supreme Court correspondent John Fritze looks ahead to the court's decisions on vaccine mandates, health reporter Ken Alltucker gives us an update on COVID testing, the jury begins a fourth day of deliberations in the trial of Kim Potter and there's another extension on freezing federal student loan payments.
Podcasts: True crime, in-depth interviews and more Paste BN podcasts right here.
Hit play on the player above to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript below. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
Taylor Wilson:
Good morning, I'm Taylor Wilson. And this is 5 Things you need to know Thursday, the 23rd of December 2021. Today, billions of omicron cases could be on the way, but is the variant actually milder than delta? Plus another freeze on federal student loan payments, and more.
Here are some of the top headlines:
- China has locked down some 13 million people in the northern city of Xi'an after a spike in coronavirus cases there. The measure comes weeks before the country hosts the Winter Olympics.
- An Israeli tourist in Thailand has been detained after a nationwide police manhunt for breaking out of quarantine. He did so while apparently infected with the omicron variant of COVID-19.
- And deliberations have paused until Monday in the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell. She's charged with grooming underaged girls for Jeffrey Epstein to sexually abuse.
New models are predicting the surge of coronavirus cases around the world to continue at least for the next couple months with possibly some three billion new infections in that time frame. Within that, also, some 140 million new infections in the US. Researchers at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington are predicting that up to 60% of the country may get infected with the omicron variant of COVID-19, but that more than 90% of those infected may never show symptoms. Among millions of projected daily infections over the next few months, the projection expects about 400,000 new cases a day to be reported.
At the peak of last year's winter surge, the country was reporting a little over 250,000 new cases a day. But while the IMHE model expects infections to skyrocket, it also predicts hospitalizations and deaths will be about the same. And researchers say those rates are more than 90% lower than the delta variant. It also may be less severe than other seasonal viruses. IHME Director, Dr. Chris Murray, said yesterday, "In the past, we roughly thought COVID was 10 times worse than the flu. And now we have a variant that is probably at least 10 times less severe. So omicron will probably be less severe than flu, but much more transmissible."
That's in line with data published yesterday by the Imperial College of London that suggests omicron cases have up to a 20% reduced risk of any hospitalization compared with the delta variant and up to a 45% reduced risk of admitted overnight. Infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said yesterday that omicron may be less dangerous than other variants, but "you don't want to count on it."
Health experts remain adamant that full vaccination and a booster shot is the best protection you can give yourself and others against COVID-19. President Joe Biden has created a number of vaccine requirements to go along with that advice. But the Supreme Court has announced that it will hear oral arguments in a number of challenges to those mandates. Supreme Court correspondent John Fritze reports.
John Fritze:
There's two mandates here that the court is dealing with. One deals with healthcare workers at any facility that accepts federal funding, which is a lot of them, think about Medicare, Medicaid. The other one is for large employers. And by large, we mean companies with more than a hundred employees. I've been focusing more on that one, because I think, it's the one that's going to affect a lot of people across the nation. Both of these have been in legal battles and courtrooms ever since pretty much Biden announced it during the fall. What the court is doing here is, in some ways it's kind of a procedural move, right? Like who really cares if it's on the Supreme Court's so-called shadow doc or on its merits doc? It's the kind of thing that people like me care about, lawyers care about. But I think what's important for people to understand is that the court has announced it's going to hear arguments and challenges to these two mandates. And what that means, I think is that the court wants to say something about these, right? They want to hear the arguments. And I think it's a signal that they may want to say something more than just a quick one liner, which is the kind of thing we might normally get in these emergency cases.
So I think it's kind of a big deal that the court has done this. This is very rare that the court takes one of these emergency applications and schedules an oral argument. They've scheduled it for January 7th, that is earlier than the court was supposed to come back from its winter holiday break. So they're making an exception here on their calendar. And this is going to be the first time that the Supreme Court has really weighed in on one of these vaccine mandates since the pandemic began. They have kind of dodged and weaved around all of these other challenges. There's been challenges to mandate at Indiana University. There was challenges to mandates in New York and Maine and a bunch of other places. And the court has basically said, hey, we're not going to take a look at those. And so this is the first time that they're going to weigh in. And it's a big one, because this is a national policy.
Taylor Wilson:
72.8% of people in the US are at least partially vaccinated against COVID-19 and 61.7% are fully vaccinated.
Millions of Americans are looking for COVID-19 tests this week before they gather with family for the holidays, but they're finding familiar challenges of the pandemic - long testing lines, manned stores that are often sold out of home testing kits. Health Reporter Ken Alltucker has more.
Ken Alltucker:
Right now we have a variant called omicron that is surging just about everywhere. Millions of people are seeking tests. There are two main types of tests. There are PCR tests. These are the tests you get through your doctor's office or through a community testing site mainly. And then there are antigen tests. And antigen tests are quick. You can usually get the results in about 15 minutes. So, that's very appealing to consumers. Plus, they don't need a prescription. So you could go to a store and buy these tests. But the problem is right now, a lot of people are having difficulty finding these tests, number one, because supplies, maybe aren't what they need to be and, number two, because demand is so high.
The reason why supplies, maybe aren't what they should be is earlier this year, test manufacturers began to scale back manufacturing of these tests because the CDC initially said, you didn't need to get tested if you were vaccinated. Then we started seeing breakthrough infections where people who were vaccinated were getting what was then the delta variant of coronavirus. So the CDC reversed its position and said, if you're symptomatic, you could get tested. And so that drove testing demand higher and test manufacturers were sort of caught, not quite flat footed, but they didn't have the supplies that they needed at the time. The two main manufacturers at the time were Abbot and Quidel. Abbott makes what's called the BinaxNOW Test and Quidel makes the QuickVue Test. So at that point, in the summer, they restarted production and they've been trying to catch up ever since.
Taylor Wilson:
For more tips on how to safely gather this holiday season during omicron, head to USATODAY.com.
The jury will begin a fourth day of deliberations today in the trial of former police officer, Kim Potter, who shot and killed Daunte Wright earlier this year during a traffic stop. Potter, who is white is charged with first and second degree manslaughter in the death of Wright, who was a 20-year-old Black man. Jurors deliberated for nine hours yesterday and did not submit questions to the judge. They also previously asked Hennepin County District Judge Regina Chu, what they should do if they cannot agree.
Judge Regina Chu:
You should discuss the case with one another and deliberate with a view toward reaching agreement, if you can do so without violating your individual judgment. You should decide the case for yourself, but only after you have discussed the case with your fellow jurors and have carefully considered their views. You should not hesitate to reexamine your views and change your opinion if you become convinced they are erroneous, but you should not surrender your honest opinion simply because other jurors disagree or merely to reach a verdict.
Taylor Wilson:
Some legal experts have said that the length of deliberations and the jury's actions, including that question suggests we may see a hung jury and a mistrial in the case. Potter faces first and second degree manslaughter and up to 25 years in prison.
President Joe Biden has extended the freeze on federal student loan payments until May 1st. The announcement was praised by some lawmakers and by borrower advocacy groups. They had been pressing Biden to extend the pause and to cancel student debt by executive action. The moratorium began under former President Donald Trump before Biden continued it. More than 40 million Americans have had nearly two years without required payments or interest on their collective $1.7 trillion in student loans. And the latest extension comes after Biden repeatedly said the freeze would end on February 1st, a decision met with harsh criticism by many voters around the country. Biden though, is pushing for borrowers to tap into a number of resources to plan on getting back on track with payments. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki.
Jen Psaki:
The president also renewed his call for all student loan borrowers to do their part as well by taking full advantage of the Department of Education's resources, considering income-based repayment plans or public service loan forgiveness, and getting vaccinated or boosted.
Taylor Wilson:
Widespread loan forgiveness, for now, is not part of the extension.
Thanks for listening to 5 Things. A reminder, you can find us wherever you like to find your pods, including Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Thanks as always to PJ Elliott for his great work on the show. And I'm back tomorrow with more of 5 Things from Paste BN.