As of the end of October, BQ.1 and its closely related BQ.1.1. subvariant, made up 27% of all cases in the U.S., according to the country’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Together, these versions of the COVID-19 virus are quickly becoming the ones to watch in the winter ahead.
The CDC first became aware of these latest strains thanks to an airport COVID-19 tracking program. As my colleague Alice Park reported this week, a handful of airports across the country have been serving as an early warning system for detecting new, and potentially troublesome, COVID-19 variants entering the country.
The voluntary program, which includes John F. Kennedy in New York, Newark in New Jersey, San Francisco International, and Atlanta Hartsfield, tests passengers from about 150 flights each week. And it’s helping fill an important hole in the data as people continue to predominantly use at-home testing.
“To understand what variants are emerging, we need testing,” Cindy Friedman, the CDC’s chief of traveler’s health, told Alice. “We need to fill in some of the gaps in surveillance, and travelers are coming from all over the world, so they are able to fill in the gaps and blind spots created by declining testing, reporting, and sequencing.”
BQ.1 wasn’t the first time this program helped give the CDC a heads up about an emerging risk. The BA.3 variant was first reported in North America thanks to an airport sample taken on Dec. 3, 2021, and BA.2 was detected later that month among travelers on Dec. 14, seven days ahead of other reports.
The program is now expanding its data collection methods—such as collecting wastewater from long-haul flights landing at JFK—and hopes its efforts can apply beyond just monitoring COVID-19. Not only could this include tracking the spread of influenza but also identifying new threats to public health or determining potential biosecurity threats. As Friedman envisions: “This is a path forward for being better prepared for the next outbreak or pandemic.”
More than 631.3 million people around the world had been diagnosed with COVID-19 as of 12:24 P.M. today, and nearly 6.6 million people have died. On Nov. 2, there were 395,309 new cases and 1,687 new deaths confirmed globally.
Here's how the world as a whole is currently trending, in terms of cases:
And in terms of deaths:
Here's where daily cases have risen or fallen over the last 14 days, shown in confirmed cases per 100,000 residents:
And here's every country that has reported over 10 million cases:
The U.S. had recorded more than 97.6 million coronavirus cases as of 12:24 P.M. today. More than 1.07 million people have died. On Nov. 2, there were 72,836 new cases reported in the U.S., and 742 deaths were confirmed.
Here's how the country as a whole is currently trending in terms of cases:
And in terms of deaths:
Here's where daily cases have risen or fallen over the last 14 days, shown in confirmed cases per 100,000 residents:
All numbers unless otherwise specified are from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, and are accurate as of Nov. 3. To see larger, interactive versions of these maps and charts, click here.
WHAT ELSE YOU SHOULD KNOW
Pfizer and its partner BioNTech announced today that they have begun testing a combined COVID-19 and flu vaccine. The shot includes Pfizer’s new bivalent COVID-19 booster. It comes as other companies, such as Novavax and Moderna, also explore a hybrid COVID-flu vaccine.
A panel of some 400 scientists, doctors, and other experts released guidelines on how best to end the COVID-19 pandemic. Their recommendations, published today in Nature, effectively reinforce what many experts have long been recommending: better engage all of society, end government silos to foster more cooperation, have better public communication campaigns championed by community leaders, and more vigorously enforce public health measures like masks, testing, and vaccines.
China earlier this week locked down the city of Zhengzhou—where the world’s largest iPhone factory is located—under the country’s zero COVID policy. Workers at the factory were reportedly seen jumping fences to escape back to their hometowns.
Years of progress on heart disease have been undermined by the pandemic, a new study has found. As CNN reported on Tuesday, “people in the U.S. with high blood pressure saw their levels rise during the first eight months of the COVID-19 pandemic.” The researchers don’t identify what the cause may be, but some theories include changes to people’s routines and a decline in the number of clinical care visits during the early months of the pandemic.
Thanks for reading. We hope you find the Coronavirus Brief newsletter to be a helpful tool to navigate this very complex situation, and welcome feedback at coronavirus.brief@time.com. If you have specific questions you'd like us to answer, please send them to covidquestions@time.com.
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Today's newsletter was written by Kyla Mandel and edited by Elijah Wolfson.
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