Our COVID cases going up or trending
down trying to figure it out
can make your head spin tonight.
We've got new evidence the triads
headed in the right direction and
the pandemic's getting better.
Let's dig into it.
To figure out when we're going to get out of
coronavirus and have some sort of normal,
there are three key pieces to
the puzzle we need to answer.
I'm Ben Briscoe from now until six,
we're going to dig into these questions to
help you come up with an answer piece number.
One is which way is COVID
trending now, down or up?
It appears that we had a big win today as
the number of cases is getting smaller,
the state reported its lowest
one day number today.
Since December,
that's a long time and doctors hope that
that means that we are starting to get
over that postholiday omicron surge.
But there is a huge question about how
much we can really trust these numbers.
We know they are not totally
accurate anymore, and here's why.
I'm not feeling well.
It used to be that if you were sick
like hope, pretty much your only
option was to drive to a testing
site and find out if you had COVID.
Those sites reported the results
to the health department,
but now the government is mailing out
millions of at home test kits and if
you've been in a pharmacy this month,
you know folks are also buying
up as many of the test kits as
they can get their hands on.
It is great to have that easy testing option,
but those results from those
tests done over at home.
Don't always make it back here
to the health department to be
reported in the daily case counts.
So in fact, when O McComb was really surging,
the Forsyth County Health Department
actually asked people not to
report their positive test results,
saying staff was just too busy.
An individual you know
just reporting.
Hey, I have COVID it's it's.
It's probably not the best time
to do that just because of our
the demands across the border
for the health department.
It is hard for experts to get an
accurate read on the pandemic from
testing numbers, so now they're
using a new tool to track the spread.
Oh yeah, we're going there looking
at what gets flushed down the drain.
Researchers are testing your
wastewater to see how much COVID
spread is in the community.
I think the beauty of this particular
program is that it detects SARS Co.
V2 in the wastewater regardless of your
symptomatic status or where you're
at in the progression of the disease,
and you don't have to be tested.
It represents the entire community.
Not all states participate in the
CDC wastewater testing program,
but North Carolina is one of 13 that does.
So what you want to see
on this map are blue dots.
That means COVID is going down.
Check it out. Over the past 15 days.
Guilford and Forsyth have
both scored a blue dot,
meaning we've had a dramatic
decrease in the amount of COVID
found in our water samples.
What we've seen is that it has been a
predictor of what what could be to come?
The general trend? You know whether
we can say that we've peaked?
Or not, I think is still in question,
but what we can tell you is that
the wastewater data is showing some
slight leveling off and some declines.
So if we're on a downward trend,
when can we start to loosen up
restrictions and get life back to normal?
Here's what doctor Christopher Wolfram
Atrium Wake Forest Baptist says.
I bet you know we're a
weekend of February already.
If you can believe that.
By the end of the month, and.
We'll be talking about
doing things like that.
But don't get ahead of yourself, he says.
We still gotta be careful now and
the cone health doctor also told
us yesterday people letting their
guard down too soon is what cost
some of our other coronavirus waves
simply means that we're making headway with
the things that we've already initiated.
Wearing our masks, keeping our distance.
Trying not to expose ourselves to
people who who might be high risk or
people outside of our immediate family.
So now that we're headed
in the right direction,
the second question is, do we have
the right tools to control the virus?
To answer that, we need to dig into
something really weird happening over
in China this week at the Olympics,
you know, even with their strict
protocols and protections,
dozens of athletes have tested
positive inside the Olympic bubble.
I've already lost count the
number of times I've cried today.
That was Olympic figure skater
from the US Vincent Jalou.
His games are over now
that he tested positive,
he took the same precautions as
everyone else to all US Olympic
athletes need to be fully vaccinated.
They had to submit to daily
temperature reports for the two
weeks before leaving for China.
They also needed a negative
COVID test 5 days before and
then three days before again.
Then when they got to China they needed to
take two more rapid tests at the airport.
That's where the bulk of athletes
who tested positive were found.
Still inside the bubble,
some cases have been found.
I'm supposed to stay here. For.
Another seven days with two PC hours a
day and no contact with anybody else.
Tested positive has one theory.
Kim may Lemon told NPR she tested
positive back in Belgium before
the games and had recovered.
She even had a negative rapid test
before coming to China but once inside
the bubble she says a more sensitive PCR
test picked up that she was positive.
Doctors say that people can test positive
on a PCR test for up to three months
even though they aren't contagious.
We are not even sure I will never
be allowed to return. Some village
and sort the Olympics.
Say they have the tools to control
the virus and it's working.
So Next up, here's what doctors say could
be one of the last pieces of the puzzle.
When can everyone have the
ability to get vaccinated?
Still a lot of children can't.
The good news?
It looks like the vaccine may
get approved for children between
six months and five years soon,
Pfizer ran trials for months,
trying to figure out the right dosage
and study all the side effects.
Doctorul broke down the safety report for us.
He says kids in the trial had a
strong immune response to the vaccine.
They got a dose that was 110th
the size of the adults.
He even said kids tolerated the
shot much better than adults did.
There was absolutely no
safety concern at all.
There weren't any more adverse reactions.
In fact, the kids tolerated
tolerated it very well. If I had a.
A 2 year old or a one year old.
I'd go get him the two shots
and that could happen soon.
He expects the vaccine to
be available by mid March.
Kids under 3 will have to get their
shots at the pediatrician because
North Carolina law says they can't
get vaccinated at pharmacies.
After digging into all of that today,
our team took away that doctors believe
they know more than ever about the puzzle.
That is, coronavirus.
We're on the right track,
but we can't let our guard down
because we've already suffered too
much to go backwards this weekend.
the United States crossed more
than 900 deaths from the virus.
It is important to honor those lost,
so as we head to break,
here's funeral bells from
the National Cathedral in DC.
They rang 900 times yesterday,
each one marking.
1000 lives lost.