- Todd Howard says Starfield’s Shattered Space DLC arrives “in the fall”, update fixing stupid map “really soon” Rock Paper Shotgun
- Todd Howard Talks About Starfield: Shattered Space Expansion, Creation Kit, and a ‘Big Update’ Coming Soon IGN
- Todd Howard says Starfield’s Shattered Space DLC launches this fall, and a “big update that’s coming really soon” has city maps and shipbuilding improvements Gamesradar
- Starfield’s Shattered Space Expansion Gets Release Window, New Patch Coming Forbes
- Starfield’s First Expansion, Shattered Space, To Release This Fall Game Informer
Tag Archives: shattered
Britney Spears says Justin Timberlake’s ‘Cry Me a River’ video shattered her – Entertainment Weekly News
- Britney Spears says Justin Timberlake’s ‘Cry Me a River’ video shattered her Entertainment Weekly News
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- Britney Spears Reveals How She and Justin Timberlake Kept Her Abortion a Secret — Even from Her Family PEOPLE
- Britney Spears says she doesn’t think Justin Timberlake ‘understands to this day’ how he ‘shamed’ her with ‘Cry Me a River’ Yahoo Entertainment
- Journalism and Britney Spears’ ‘Agonizing’ Abortion – Marvin Olasky The Dispatch
Pixel 7 users are furious at Google for not taking responsibility over shattered glass
It’s obvious by now that all of these Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro users haven’t merely dropped their devices or sat on a brick. Since the Pixel 6 line has yet to see a similar issue, the problem could be related to the aluminum used on the Pixel 7 series camera bar. And while many of the Redditors on the social media site are somewhat angry at Google over the design miscues that have led to the problem, they are furious at the company for how it has responded to their complaints.
Google says the Pixel 7 warranty doesn’t include physical damage
A Reddit subscriber with the handle rsaxena6991 wrote about the glass covering the rear camera bar on his Pixel 7 Pro spontaneously shattering. He has been battling with Google ever since and he says, “However, have been struggling to get them to cover this spontaneous shattering under warranty despite sharing countless Reddit articles, google support case IDs, etc. proving that they have covered it under warranty for some customers who have faced the exact same issue. They keep saying they don’t cover “physical damage.”
The glass on this Pixel 7 Pro’s rear camera bar has shattered
He continues by noting that he is “Absolutely gutted with this and am being asked to pay $400 to repair this via their repair centre. For reference, there was no physical impact, not did I drop my phone, exert stress, or was it subject to extreme temperature fluctuations (these are the conditions where they void warranty and not “physical damage”). So would recommend anyone planning on buying this phone to keep that in mind. This is a real problem and google is taking no ownership of this or treating consumers equitably.”
This is far from the only comment that blasts Google’s behavior and while the shattering of the glass itself made some Redditors hold off on purchasing a Pixel 7 model, Google’s subsequent failure to act sealed the deal. Read this post by a Redditor using the name Popeye-sailor-man. “I was within hours of finally pulling the trigger on the purchase of a Pixel 7 Pro because of the current $150 discount sale; and the phone & power adapter have been languishing in my Google Store shopping cart for a week… waiting for me simply to execute the purchase.”
After consuming a can of spinach, Popeye goes on to say, “But after reading all these horror stories about a) the glass breaking, and b) Google not “owning” either the issue, or responsibility for the phone’s necessary, subsequent repair in forthright, fair and honest fashion, there is just no way I am going to purchase this phone. Perhaps if Google, one day (if ever) speaks to the issue, acknowledges it and, most importantly, indicates that the problem has been FULLY resolved, I might reconsider, but until then, I will stick with my relatively ancient Galaxy.”
Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro users want Google to take responsibility
And as we said, this isn’t the only post from a consumer scared off from buying a Pixel 7 series device because of Google’s failure to take responsibility. Frankly, we get it. Google was pounded mercilessly for the bugfest that was the Pixel 6 line (although I must admit that I still love my Pixel 6 Pro) and rebounded to deliver one of the top phones of 2022. Google doesn’t want anything to make the Pixel 7 line look bad. But unlike software bugs, no update is going to fix shattered glass.
While it is true that some of the posts on Reddit are from Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro users whose phones remain intact, there is this from Reddit subscriber Sikkersky who writes, “A single thread on this subreddit alone had over 20 confirmed reports of the issue, and around 50 replies in total, indicating a significant number of affected individuals. It is unacceptable for a company as reputable as Google to produce a faulty product and for customers to have to fight for warranty coverage. It is important that the issue is addressed and that Google is held accountable for their manufacturing errors.”
It seems that the ball is squarely in Google’s court now. There are a decent number of Pixel 7 series owners who are waiting to see whether they will have their phone repaired or replaced by Google for a problem, that from all appearances, the company itself has caused.
Thousands of records shattered in historic winter warm spell in Europe
The extreme warm spell followed a record-warm year in many parts of Europe and provided yet another example of how human-caused climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of such extraordinary weather events.
On New Year’s Day, at least seven countries saw their warmest January weather on record as temperatures surged to springtime levels: Latvia hit 52 degrees (11.1 Celsius); Denmark 54.7 degrees (12.6 Celsius); Lithuania 58.3 degrees (14.6 Celsius); Belarus 61.5 degrees (16.4 Celsius); the Netherlands 62.4 degrees (16.9 Celsius); Poland 66.2 degrees (19.0 Celsius); and the Czech Republic 67.3 degrees (19.6 Celsius).
Those who track worldwide weather records described the warm spell as historic and could hardly believe its scope and magnitude.
Maximiliano Herrera, a climatologist who tracks global weather extremes, called the event “totally insane” and “absolute madness” in text messages to the Capital Weather Gang. He wrote that some of the high nighttime temperatures observed were uncommon in midsummer.
It’s “the most extreme event ever seen in European climatology,” Herrera wrote. “Nothing stands close to this.”
Guillaume Séchet, a broadcast meteorologist in France, agreed, tweeting that Sunday was one of the most incredible days in Europe’s climate history.
“The intensity and extent of warmth in Europe right now is hard to comprehend,” tweeted Scott Duncan, a meteorologist based in London.
One of the most severe winter heatwave in Europe’s modern history visualized over the last 2 days. Hundreds of monthly warm temperature records were broken all over the continent. This is exactly the kind of very abnormal event that is progressively rewriting global climatology. pic.twitter.com/Nb8ImytqYC
— Nahel Belgherze (@WxNB_) January 1, 2023
Here are some of the most impressive records that were set in Europe on New Year’s Day:
- In Poland, it was so warm that the January national high-temperature record was broken before sunrise. The town of Glucholazy was 65.7 degrees at 4 a.m., which is warmer than its average low temperature in midsummer. Temperatures rose further as the day progressed.
- Bilbao, Spain, reached 77.2 degrees (25.1 Celsius), its hottest January day.
- Trois-Ville, France, reached 76.8 degrees (24.9 Celsius), a record for the month. It was among more than 100 records set across the country Sunday, including 75.2 degrees (24.0 Celsius) in Dax, and 65.5 degrees (18.6 Celsius) at stations with data dating to the 1800s in Besançon and Châteauroux.
- Ohlsbach, Germany, reached 66.9 degrees (19.4 Celsius) for a monthly record and the highest temperature of the day in Germany. Other locations, including Berlin at 60.8 degrees (16 Celsius), also set January records. Berlin was among the places that set records both New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.
- Warsaw’s high of 66.2 degrees (19 Celsius) demolished the its previous January record by 9.2 degrees (5.1 Celsius).
While the most extreme temperatures occurred on New Year’s Day, exceptionally mild weather began on New Year’s Eve.
Scores of calendar day and monthly records fell on Saturday, surpassing marks set just a year before in many instances.
The Czech Republic’s weather service tweeted that the country posted its warmest New Year’s Eve on record. Prague, with 247 years of measurements, set a new monthly maximum of 63.9 degrees (17.7 Celsius).
Here are some of the more significant temperature records set Saturday:
- France saw impressive record values such as a high of 76.6 degrees (24.8 Celsius) in Verdun. The country as a whole saw its warmest New Year’s Eve.
- Six of nine federal states in mountainous Austria saw their warmest Dec. 31 on record. Temperatures were as warm as 64.9 degrees (18.3 Celsius) in Aspach.
- Luxembourg set a December record for the country with 64.0 degrees (17.8 Celsius) in Wormeldange. Belgium reached a December record high of 63.5 degrees (17.5 Celsius) at Diepenbeek.
- Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler bested Germany’s highest December minimum as it only dipped to 59.5 degrees (15.3 Celsius).
Monday marked the third day of widespread high temperatures previously unheard of in midwinter. Many more monthly and daily records were set in the eastern half of Europe, particularly in Germany, Hungary, Romania and Russia.
By Tuesday, the places where temperatures will be the most above-average are likely to shift toward Ukraine. After that, the warmth should ease some.
It’s 8.5 C / 47 F right now at the Chamrousse ski resort outside Grenoble, France. Almost no snow at the 1800 m village and open ground along the 2250 m ski runs. Grenoble valley itself 19-20 C / 66-68 C under a foehn. Webcam images from https://t.co/pKN4KRBnJB pic.twitter.com/YCGrIxoCtw
— Pete D. Akers (@PeteScientist) January 1, 2023
This exceptional wintertime warmth comes on the heels of the warmest 2022 in many parts of Europe, including in the U.K., Germany and Switzerland.
Extreme heat visited Europe in waves throughout the year and was intensified by a historically severe summer drought. The combination helped push the United Kingdom to 104 degrees (40 Celsius) for the first time on record in July.
Although the warmth is slowly easing in Europe as Arctic air creeps in from the northeast, above-normal temperatures are forecast for much of the mainland region through at least Jan. 10. After that, the forecast is a little less clear, but a cooler pattern could emerge by mid-month.
NASA’s Titan Dragonfly will touch down on a field of dunes and shattered ice
NASA’s Dragonfly mission to Saturn’s largest moon will touch down on a terrain of dunes and shattered, icy bedrock, according to a new analysis of radar imagery from the Cassini spacecraft.
Launching in 2027, Dragonfly is a rotorcraft that will arrive in 2034 and explore Titan from the air. Its range will be far greater than that of a wheeled rover, with Dragonfly capable of covering around 10 miles (16 kilometers) in each half-hour flight, according to NASA. Over the span of its two-year mission it will explore an area hundreds of miles or kilometers across. However, before taking to the sky on its own, Dragonfly must first arrive on Titan under a parachute, soft-landing on frozen terrain that is hidden from easy viewing by the dense hydrocarbon smog that fills the moon’s atmosphere.
Dragonfly’s landing site will be the Shangri-La dune field, close to the 50-mile-wide (80 kilometers) crater, Selk. This region was imaged by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft during its mission to Saturn between 2004 and 2017, and a team of scientists led by planetary scientist Léa Bonnefoy of Cornell University has taken a new look at that data to produce the most accurate assessment of Dragonfly’s proposed landing site so far.
“Dragonfly … is going to a scientifically remarkable area,” Bonnefoy said in a statement (opens in new tab). “Dragonfly will land in an equatorial, dry region of Titan. It rains liquid methane sometimes, but it is more like a desert on Earth where you have dunes, some little mountains and an impact crater.”
Related: Soar over the desert in footage from drone practicing for mission to Saturn’s strangest moon
Selk is an interesting location. Estimated to be geologically young, perhaps a couple hundred million years old, the impact that carved it out would have melted the local ice, prompting interactions between the fresh liquid water and organic molecules present in the hydrocarbon soup on Titan’s surface. Astrobiologists are particularly interested in the prebiotic chemistry — chemistry involving carbon-rich molecules but not mediated by living things — that would have resulted.
Yet Cassini’s radar images of the area are limited, with the resolution at best being 1,000 feet (300 meters) per pixel. “There are probably a lot of small rivers and landscapes that we couldn’t see,” Bonnefoy said.
Scientists know that such rivers do exist on Titan, thanks to the European Space Agency’s Huygens lander, which piggybacked on board Cassini before parachuting down to the surface of Titan in January 2005. These rivers, however, are not full of liquid water — the temperature of minus 290 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 179 degrees Celsius) is far too cold for that. Instead, liquid methane and ethane rain from the frigid sky and wash off the water-ice bedrock and into river tributaries that feed large lakes.
What Cassini’s imagery did provide, however, is multiple viewing angles. Each time it flew past Titan — it enjoyed 127 close approaches of the moon during its mission — it viewed landmarks in the region of Dragonfly’s landing site from different angles, ranging from inclinations of 5 degrees to 72 degrees.
By analyzing how the terrain produced different-shaped shadows based on the viewing angle, Bonnefoy’s team were able to determine the topography of the region within the limits of the image resolution, finding no major show-stopping obstacles that Dragonfly would need to avoid.
The scientists also calculated the height of the rim of Selk crater, finding it to vary from less than 650 feet (200 m) tall in some parts up to 2,000 feet (600 m), which is higher than expected, indicating a less eroded crater rim.
The research was published Aug. 30 in The Planetary Science Journal (opens in new tab).
Follow Keith Cooper on Twitter @21stCenturySETI. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
Zac Efron Reveals Shattered Jaw Led to His Face Transformation
Zac Efron has revealed what led to those plastic surgery rumors.
Last year, the Baywatch actor sparked speculation online after he appeared in an Earth Day special with Bill Nye with his jaw appearing more swollen than normal. The apparent facial change caused many to believe that he had received plastic surgery, but in a new interview, Zac shut down the chatter once and for all.
Speaking to Men’s Health for its October 2022 issue, the actor pointed to an incident when he shattered his jaw after slipping in his house and hitting his chin on a granite fountain. He recalled waking up to find his chin bone hanging off his face at the time of his accident.
The High School Musical alum has since been working with a specialist and does physical therapy to correct this.
But after taking some time off from doing the exercises he explained, “The masseters [muscles] just grew. They just got really, really big.”
The actor admitted that he was unaware of the internet’s rampant speculation as to whether he’d gone under the knife until his mother called to ask him about the rumors
But Zac attributed his lack of social media knowledge to the fact that he generally avoids it altogether in order to protect his mental health.
“If I valued what other people thought of me to the extent that they may think I do,” Zac said, “I definitely wouldn’t be able to do this work.”
A potential new meteor shower from shattered comet has scientists excited
This Memorial Day weekend, Earthlings — especially those in North America — might be treated to the sight of a new meteor shower.
Those meteors could flare up when our planet passes through the pieces of a disintegrating comet called Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 (SW3). It isn’t just an exciting opportunity for skywatchers; comet scientists eagerly anticipate the encounter as well. According to NASA, the meteor shower could amaze (or disappoint) overnight on Memorial Day (Monday, May 30) and run into early Tuesday.
SW3 is fairly close to the sun by comet standards; it completes an orbit of our star once every five years. In 1995, it started to break apart, shattering into dozens of smaller pieces and leaving behind a cloud of debris that continues to circle the sun.
Related: Potential new meteor shower is ‘all or nothing event,’ NASA says
More: Possible meteor storm offers chance to hear ‘shooting stars’
We’ve seen comets split before. One out of every 100 periodic comets — and perhaps even more — might break apart eventually, according to William Reach, an astronomer at the SOFIA Science Center at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California.
Famously, in the 1990s, Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 fell apart, and big chunks of it slammed into Jupiter. But even if SW3’s ongoing disintegration looks somewhat similar, the process is “almost certainly not the same,” Reach told Space.com.
Scientists aren’t entirely sure what causes comets to break up. It could be one or a combination of several factors. Shoemaker-Levy 9 crumbled under the strain of Jupiter’s powerful gravitational pull, for example. But some other comets might break apart when volatile compounds within them such as water heat up and transition from the solid phase to gas.
Related: Meteor shower guide 2022: Dates and viewing advice
Additionally, the constant seesawing of a comet from the inner solar system to the far colder outer reaches and back puts thermal strain on the body. Given enough repeating stress, something might give.
In any event, SW3 is breaking up. And, for the last several decades, Earth’s orbit has been bringing our planet ever closer to crossing the resulting cloud of debris. This year, finally, seems to be the year that we cruise through it. If that is indeed the case, much of the comet debris will fall into Earth’s atmosphere and burn up as meteors, some of which could be spectacular.
Astronomers certainly hope this happens; they’re keen to get a rare up-close look at shards of a celestial object. In fact, one astronomer, Jérémie Vaubaillon, plans to get even closer by flying in a jet over New Mexico and Arizona during the meteor shower.
“By flying through it, even just by knowing that it exists, that shows that the particles survived,” Reach told Space.com. “We don’t actually know that. Some of them are icy, and they don’t survive.”
Related: The greatest meteor storms of all time
As comet shards enter Earth’s atmosphere, scientists can watch how they fragment, which can reveal information about their composition. And some of those shards may come from deep inside a comet, a realm that astronomers cannot access just by looking at an object with a telescope.
In addition, the potential meteor shower offers a rare chance for astronomers to get their hands on some comet material. In the past, after all, NASA has flown particle-catchers through meteor streams to grab falling dust left over from the solar system’s early days.
“It’s basically like having a space mission, going to the comet and bringing it back, except the comet just shot ’em over here,” Reach said.
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Ancient crystals hold clues about why Earth’s crust shattered like a crème brûlée 3.8 billion years ago
Tiny crystals unearthed in South Africa contain evidence of a sudden transition on the planet’s surface 3.8 billion years ago.
These crystals, each no bigger than a grain of sand, show that around that time, Earth‘s crust broke up and began moving — a precursor to the process known as plate tectonics.
The findings offer clues about Earth’s evolution as a planet, and could help answer questions about potential links between plate tectonics and the evolution of life, said study lead author Nadja Drabon, a professor of Earth and planetary sciences at Harvard University.
“Earth is the only planet that has life; Earth is the only planet that has plate tectonics,” Drabon told Live Science.
Engine of life
Nowadays, jigsaw pieces of rigid crust float on a viscous, hot ocean of magma in the mantle, Earth’s middle layer. These pieces of crust grind against each other, dive beneath each other at so-called subduction zones and push each other up, creating mountains and ocean ridges, forging volcanoes and triggering the earthquakes that regularly rock the planet. The sinking of tectonic plates also produces new rocks at subduction zones, which interact with the atmosphere to suck up carbon dioxide. This process makes the atmosphere more hospitable for life and keeps the climate more stable, Drabon said.
But things weren’t always this way. When Earth was young and hot, during the Hadean eon (4.6 billion to 4 billion years ago), the planet was first covered with a magma ocean and then, as the planet cooled, a solid rock surface.
Exactly when that surface cracked and pieces of it began moving has been hotly debated. Some studies estimate plate tectonics began just 800 million years ago, while others suggest this system is at least 2 billion years old, Live Science previously reported.
But because the planet is constantly recycling its crust into the mantle, there are almost no ancient rocks at the surface to help settle the debate. Prior to this study, “rocks that are between 2.5 [billion] and 4 billion years old only make up 5% of the rocks at the surface,” Drabon said. “And earlier than 4 billion years, there are no rocks preserved.”
Sudden transition
That changed in 2018, when Drabon and her colleagues discovered zircon crystals in South Africa’s Green Sandstone Bed, in the Barberton Greenstone mountain range. The team found 33 zircons, ranging in age between 4.1 billion and 3.3 billion years old.
In the new study, published April 21 in the journal AGU Advances, the team analyzed different isotopes, or variants of elements with different numbers of neutrons, in those ancient zircons, as well as in many zircons from other times and places on Earth.
In the isotopes, the scientists found evidence of a sudden transition to primitive plate tectonics dating to around 3.8 billion years ago. That finding suggests that by that time, in at least one place on the planet, a simple form of subduction had begun. Whether or not this happened globally is still undetermined, and it’s likely that the “really efficient engine of plates moving against each other” that exists today hadn’t yet emerged, Drabon said.
Isotope analysis of elements such as oxygen, niobium and uranium also showed that rocks from the surface held water as early as 3.8 billion years ago, suggesting that the zircons were once locked in oceanic crust buried in a primeval seafloor. And extrapolating from the earliest samples, from 4.1 billion years ago, suggest that the planet had a solid crust no later than 4.2 billion years ago, Drabon said.
This would mean that Earth’s magma sea persisted only until the late Hadean. Previously, “people thought that Earth was just covered by a magma ocean until 3.6 billion years” ago, Drabon said.
The new study hints that Earth’s molten lava ocean existed for at most a few hundred million years before the solid crust formed, she added.
So what triggered this transition? One theory is that plate tectonics simply emerged once Earth had cooled enough, she said. It’s also possible that, like a dessert spoon cracking the crisp top of a crème brûlée, massive space rocks may have slammed into Earth and shattered its crust.
Another intriguing question addresses if Earth’s transition to early plate tectonics somehow helped life evolve, Drabon added.
While early fossil evidence of life on Earth dates to around 3.5 billion years ago, chemical signatures of biological processes, found in the ratio of carbon isotopes, are even older. Some can be found as far back as 3.8 billion years ago — around the same time early plate tectonics emerged, Drabon said.
Originally published on Live Science.
Shattered ‘alphabet soup’ iceberg flushed a lot of fresh water into the ocean
A rogue iceberg that drifted dangerously close to an Antarctic penguin population in 2020 and 2021 released billions of tons of fresh water into the ocean during its breakup.
A new study, based on satellite data, tracks the aftermath of the once-mighty iceberg A-68a, which held the title of world’s largest iceberg for more than three years before shattering into a dozen pieces. (NASA’s Earth Observatory once dubbed the various mini-bergs “alphabet soup.”)
For a while, there were worries the iceberg might threaten a penguin-filled island called South Georgia, located about 940 miles (1,500 kilometers) northeast of the Antarctic Peninsula. Happily, that never came to pass, but the new research shows that the iceberg flooded the region with fresh water, potentially affecting the local ecosystem and providing yet another example of the effects of global warming on the oceans.
Related: Watch this giant iceberg break off from Antarctica
The research consulted data gathered by missions including Sentinel-1 (operated by European Space Agency, or ESA), Sentinel-3 (ESA), CryoSat-2 (ESA) and ICESat-2 (NASA), as well as the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, or MODIS, instrument that flies aboard two NASA satellites, Aqua and Terra.
The satellite data shows that during the iceberg’s three-month melting period in late 2020 and early 2021, the former A-68a flushed into the ocean about 162 billion tons (152 billion metric tonnes) of fresh water — equivalent to 61 million Olympic-sized swimming pools, according to a press release from United Kingdom study participant University of Leeds.
“The berg had melted enough as it drifted to avoid damaging the sea floor around South Georgia by running aground,” the university stated. “However, a side effect of the melting was the release of a colossal 152 billion tonnes of fresh water in close proximity to the island — a disturbance that could have a profound impact on the island’s marine habitat.”
Fresh meltwater and nutrients tend to flow from melting icebergs. The freshwater flooding alters ocean circulation and the ocean ecosystem nearby the glacier fragment, the university noted.
“The next thing we want to learn is whether it had a positive or negative impact on the ecosystem around South Georgia,” Leeds lead author and Ph.D. candidate Anne Braakmann-Folgmann said in the same statement.
She noted the iceberg moved across a common ocean “highway” known as the Drake Passage, so the fate of A68-A may help understand how icebergs in that zone influence the ocean in general.
A study based on the research was published in the forthcoming March 1 issue of Remote Sensing of Environment.
Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
US Coronavirus: The US shattered its average daily Covid-19 case record again and experts say numbers will keep climbing
“Given the size of our country — and the diversity of vaccination versus not vaccination — that it likely will be more than a couple of weeks (until Covid-19 cases peak) … probably by the end of January,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, told CNBC.
In the US, states are seeing their highest case and hospitalization numbers ever. Some governors are calling in the National Guard.
New York reported more than 76,500 new cases Thursday, the governor’s office said, breaking its single-day record. Hospitalizations hit about 8,000, an 8% spike from the day before. Hospitalizations have risen almost 20% since Monday.
“Get vaccinated, get boosted, mask up and avoid large indoor public gatherings when possible,” said Gov. Kathy Hochul, later announcing she was extending the mandate for businesses to have a masking or vaccine requirement to February 1.
Arkansas also set a case record, as more than 4,970 residents tested positive in a day, Gov. Asa Hutchinson said Thursday. Maryland, reporting more than 10,870 new cases Wednesday, beat a state record that was set days earlier and reported its highest hospitalization rate this week.
New Jersey, meanwhile, identified more than 28,000 new Covid-19 cases via PCR testing, Governor Phil Murphy said Thursday, “roughly quadruple from just two weeks ago, and four times as many cases than during the height of last winter’s surge.”
The number of positive cases is likely higher due to at-home testing, he added.
He said that as of Thursday evening, 3,864 Covid-19 patients were being treated across the state, “more than double in just two weeks,” the governor said, adding 70% of hospitalized Covid-19 patients are unvaccinated.
“Our hospitals right now are at roughly the same numbers they were on the worst day of last winter’s surge,” Murphy said. “The problem is that right now we don’t see any sign of let up.”
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine is deploying 1,250 National Guard troops, he said on the day the state reported its highest hospitalization number. Georgia also deployed 200 troops in the same week that six major health systems saw 100% to 200% increases in hospitalizations, Gov. Brian Kemp said. New York is doubling its National Guard deployment to 100 and is preparing for 80 Guardsmen to undergo emergency medical training next month, Hochul said.
Things will get worse before they get better, one expert said.
“We know that over the next five to six weeks we’re going to continue to see transmission of this virus throughout this country, much like a viral blizzard,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy. “With that, we are going to see a perfect storm in our health care settings.”
Child Covid-19 hospital admissions reach record-high
With more virus spreading in the country, more children are getting sick and being hospitalized than at any other point in the pandemic.
An average of 378 children were admitted to hospitals on any given day over the week ending December 28, according to the CDC and US Department of Health and Human Services.
That’s a 66% jump from the previous week and an all-time record, beating the one set at the end of August and early September, when an average of 342 children were admitted.
The vast majority of children admitted to hospitals are unvaccinated, said Dr. Lee Savio Beers, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
“Where I work and practice here in DC at Children’s National, about half of our hospitalizations … are children under 5,” Savio Beers said.
The number of children facing severe conditions is relatively low, but combine those with the “gigantic numbers of cases” and the percentage of unvaccinated Americans, “and I’m really worried that we’re going to be in for a tidal wave of admissions, particularly for kids in the coming weeks,” said Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, a professor of infectious diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
The vaccination rate among children — about 8% in Alabama — adds to worries, Marrazzo said.
Savio Beers warned, “I think it’s just so important for us to remember that we’re protecting ourselves, but we’re also protecting those little ones who aren’t yet eligible for vaccination.”
A vaccine for children younger than 5 likely won’t be available until mid-2022.
“For those parents of the under-5 group, an important thing to know is that most of the kids who have been hospitalized with Covid were also co-infected with other things like (respiratory syncytial virus) or flu, said Dr. Megan Ranney, a professor of emergency medicine at Brown University’s School of Public Health.
“So, please,” she said, “go get your kid a flu vaccine, make sure that you and the rest of the family are adequately protected and have your kid wear a mask when they’re out in public,” she said.
The US Food and Drug Administration is expected to broaden eligibility for Pfizer’s Covid-19 boosters to children ages 12 to 15 in coming days, according to a person familiar with the agency’s plan.
Asked about boosters for adolescents and younger teens, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said the FDA “is looking at that right now.”
“Of course, the CDC will swiftly follow as soon as we hear from them and I’m hoping to have that in … the days to weeks ahead,” Walensky said.
Schools navigate reopening
The high case and hospitalization numbers and rapidly spreading Omicron variant have sparked another round of debate about what a safe return to school looks like.
“My concern is now schools are going to be opening right at a time when this thing is peaking,” said Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of Baylor University’s National School of Tropical Medicine. “The,n even more kids are likely going to get sick, so we’re going to be in for a very rough three or four weeks.”
Despite the climbing cases, the US has the tools and resources and it’s “critical that we do what we can” to keep schools open five days a week, US Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said Thursday.
“The goal is to make sure our students are safe and our staff are safe, but I believe with surveillance testing, with mitigation strategies, our default should be to have our students come back in,” Cardona said. There “are going to be challenges with that and in some places a short-term closure may be necessary in order to safely return students back and have adequate staffing, but we really need to learn how to thrive during this pandemic.”
In Massachusetts, a state teachers union representing 115,000 members is urging the education commissioner to close schools Monday to test staff. The state Department of Primary and Secondary Education received 200,000 tests this week, and closing Monday for a day of testing “will allow our school districts to make prudent decisions around staffing needs so they can continue in-person learning for students if it is safe or develop contingency plans,” Massachusetts Teachers Association President Merrie Najimy said.
In Florida, Miami-Dade County Public Schools became one of the first districts in the state this week to change its Covid-19 policy due to the explosion of cases. It requires adults entering its buildings and buses to wear masks, and students are also “strongly encouraged” to mask up.
In Chicago, where cases and child hospitalizations have surged, the city’s top health expert said schools can remain open if the right strategies and precautions are in place.
Parents should get their families vaccinated and ensure children are comfortable wearing masks, city Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady said. If children aren’t feeling well, they should stay home.
“I have no concerns about school being open, but it’s really important that where children or adults are having symptoms, we consider that it is Covid until proven otherwise,” she said.
CNN’s Virginia Langmaid, Eliott C. McLaughlin, Kaitlan Collins, John Couwels, Leyla Santiago, Naomi Thomas, Kay Jones, Taylor Romine, Amara Walker and Kiely Westhoff contributed to this report.