Norway’s 85-year-old King Harald V tested positive for the coronavirus on Tuesday and has mild symptoms, royal officials said.
Harald will take a break from his duties for a few days and that his son and heir to the throne, Crown Prince Haakon, would take them over for now, the royal household said in a brief statement.
Harald has received three COVID-19 vaccine shots, although he’s been ill several times in recent years, including in 2020 when he had an operation for a new heart valve.
Harald’s duties as Norway’s head of state are ceremonial, and he holds no political power. He ascended to the throne following the death of his father, King Olav, on Jan. 17, 1991.
Harald, the country’s first native-born king since the 14th century, married a commoner as a prince and won hearts in his egalitarian country by leading the mourning in 2011 for the victims of mass killer Anders Behring Breivik.
And if Republicans continue to insist that additional federal efforts to combat the pandemic must be paid for by culling spending elsewhere, the GOP should specify what it wants to cut, the officials said.
The remarks came nearly two weeks after a new round of COVID-19 funding was pulled out of a $1.5 trillion government-wide measure after rank-and-file Democrats rejected cuts that party leaders had negotiated to pay for it. Though Biden signed the overall bill into law, the deletion of the COVID-19 funds was a major setback for Biden and Democrats.
“Our concern right now is that we are going to run out of money to provide the types of vaccines, boosters, treatments to the immunocompromised, and others free of charge that will help to continue to battle” the pandemic, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday.
The White House has said the government is running out of money for vaccines, testing and treatments, even as Omicron variant BA.2, which is fueling a virus resurgence in Europe and Asia, is appearing increasingly in the U.S.
The senior administration officials said the government has bought to doses it would need to vaccinate children up to age 5. But they said they only have enough vaccines to administer a fourth shot — which drug makers are recommending — to people with compromised immune systems.
The officials spoke only on condition of anonymity as a requirement for reporters to participate in the telephone briefing.
Republicans say savings to pay for the new expenditures should be found from the trillions that Congress has already provided since the pandemic began two years ago.
GOP leaders say the administration has not provided figures they’ve sought on how much money remains unspent. The administration officials in Monday’s call said they’ve repeatedly provided plentiful data on the subject.
Only around $300 billion of the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief measure that Democrats pushed through Congress a year ago — over unanimous GOP opposition — remains unspent and not legally committed to a specific program or recipient, the administration officials said.
But around $240 billion of that has been promised to specific recipients like states and cities, who have built the amounts into their budgets, the administration officials said. The administration has held back some of the rest for emergencies, they said.
Biden’s pandemic spending request had been pared down to $15.6 billion as part of the compromise House bill. It would have been partly paid for by cutting billions in COVID-19 aid that last year’s bill had provided to 30 state governments but had not yet been sent to them.
Many Democrats refused to vote for the overall package until the cuts in state aid were removed, which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., ultimately agreed to do. Top Republicans had demanded the savings in exchange for supporting the legislation, and Pelosi dropped all the COVID-19 spending after substitute cuts were not found.
Total Doses Distributed = 698,418,375. Total Doses Administered = 558,678,770. Number of People Receiving 1 or More Doses = 255,021,542. Number of People Fully Vaccinated = 217,093,232.
High-risk COVID-19 patients now have new treatments they can take at home to stay out of the hospital — if doctors get the pills to them fast enough.
Health systems around the country are rushing out same-day prescription deliveries. Some clinics have started testing and treating patients in one visit, an initiative that President Joe Biden’s administration recently touted.
The goal is to get patients started on either Pfizer’s Paxlovid tablets or Merck’s molnupiravir capsules within five days of symptoms appearing. That can prevent people with big health risks from growing sicker and filling up hospitals if another surge develops.
But the tight deadline has highlighted several challenges. Some patients are delaying testing, thinking they just had a cold. Others have been unwilling or unable to try the new drugs.
With vaccines and treatments available, “we can make this much more manageable in the future, if people are willing to take care of themselves,” said Dr. Bryan Jarabek, who helps lead COVID-19 treatment and vaccination efforts for the Minnesota health system M Health Fairview.
The Food and Drug Administration authorized the drugs last year. Doctors hailed the pills as a huge advance in the fight against COVID-19 partly because of their convenience compared to other treatments that require infusions or injections.
But patients can miss the pills’ short window if they dismiss symptoms like a headache or sniffles and wait to see if they go away before seeking help.
Stanford’s Dr. Thomas Lew said he’s seen high-risk and unvaccinated people who have waited more than a week. Some hospitalized patients on oxygen have told him they thought nothing of their first symptoms.
“They say everyone in the family decided it was a cold or allergy season is coming up, but it was COVID all along,” he said.
People delay seeking help for many health problems, not just COVID-19, Lew noted. But when it comes to the virus, the doctor believes patients may not be aware of the tight deadline.
Even those who get tested quickly, however, sometimes refuse the pills, doctors say.
Jarabek estimates that 30% to half of the patients who qualified for the antiviral pills turned down the treatments in his health system earlier this year.
He said some people didn’t consider themselves high risk or didn’t think they were sick enough to need the pills, which are free to patients. They also worried about side effects or how the drugs would interact with other medications.
Jeff Carlson couldn’t try Paxlovid when COVID-19 hit him in January because it might interfere with his heart medications. The 61-year-old suburban St. Paul, Minnesota, resident has Type 1 diabetes and heart disease.
A doctor asked him to try molnupiravir about three days after he started feeling symptoms. By then, Carlson couldn’t get off his couch. His fever had soared and he was struggling to breathe.
His wife picked up the prescription and a few days later, Carlson felt well enough to shovel snow.
“It turned me around basically in a matter of … pretty much 18 hours after I took the first dose,” he said.
Some health care providers have started free delivery services for Paxlovid or molnupiravir.
New York City has established a hotline patients can call if they test positive for the coronavirus. They can talk to a care provider if they don’t have a doctor and have pills sent to them if they are a good candidate.
The Mass General Brigham health system in Boston started a similar program that ships pills to some patients via FedEx.
Raymond Kelly received a package of Paxlovid about three hours after a doctor cleared him for the prescription last month. The 75-year-old Needham, Massachusetts, resident said he caught the virus despite being vaccinated and receiving a booster shot.
His doctor was on the phone with him minutes after the health system notified him that he had tested positive.
“It was all sort of blur because it was going on so quickly,” Kelly said.
Mass General Brigham aims to treat patients quickly and solve transportation problems with its program. Dr. Scott Dryden-Peterson noted that some COVID-19 patients may not be able to pick up pills, especially since they should be staying off buses and ride-sharing services.
“Transportation is not equally distributed in our society,” he said.
For patients with transportation, the drugstore chain CVS Health has started “test to treat” programs at its nearly 1,200 stores with MinuteClinic locations. Pharmacists cannot test and treat, so that program won’t happen at all stores.
Other retailers like the grocer Kroger also plan to test and treat at some locations. The Biden administration has called for federally qualified community health centers to do the same, but Health Secretary Xavier Becerra recently told The Associated Press that the “test to treat” initiative could be hampered by a funding impasse with Congress.
Chicago’s Cook County Health has run drive-through COVID-19 testing since the beginning of the pandemic. It is planning to pilot a program that adds treatments. Patients will be able to drive to one of the tents, get tested, wait about 15 minutes for the result and then talk to a doctor through telemedicine, said Dr. Greg Huhn.
With options for quick care growing, doctors and public health officials say now is the time for people to stock up on at-home tests.
Testing supplies that ran short during the omicron surge have since rebounded, said Neil J. Sehgal, a University of Maryland health policy expert. But he noted that future supplies also will depend on federal funding.
Doctors say people at high risk of developing health problems from COVID-19 need to remain vigilant for symptoms and seek help quickly, especially if another surge develops.
“It may not be the time to let your guard down,” Huhn said.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Disney Co. closed its Shanghai theme park Monday as Chinese authorities tried to control the city’s biggest coronavirus flareup in two years, while the southern business center of Shenzhen allowed shops and offices to reopen after a weeklong closure.
Meanwhile, Changchun and Jilin in the northeast began another round of citywide virus testing following a surge in infections. Jilin tightened anti-disease curbs, ordering its 2 million residents to stay home.
China’s case numbers in its latest infection wave are low compared with other major countries, but authorities are enforcing a “zero tolerance” strategy that has suspended access to some major cities.
The government reported 2,027 new cases in the 24 hours through midnight Sunday, up from the previous day’s 1,737. That included 1,542 cases in Jilin province, where Changchun and Jilin are located.
The government of Shanghai, China’s most populous city with 24 million people, has avoided a citywide shutdown of businesses and public facilities but has appealed to the public to stay home if possible. Bus service into the city has been suspended and visitors are required to show a negative virus test.
Disney said Shanghai Disneyland, Disneytown and Wishing Star Park would be closed until further notice.
On Monday, Shanghai reported 24 new cases. The city earlier suspended access to two residential areas and carried out mass testing at dozens of others.
The government of Shenzhen, a finance and technology center that abuts Hong Kong, announced businesses and government offices were allowed to reopen Monday while authorities took steps to try to prevent a resurgence of virus cases.
The city of 17.5 million shut down all businesses except those that supply food and other necessities, as well as bus and subway service, last week and told the public to stay home following a spike in cases.
Samoa has reported scores of new COVID-19 cases each day since detecting its first case of community transmission last week.
The South Pacific island nation of 200,000 people has been in lockdown since Saturday as it deals with its first outbreak of the pandemic.
The outbreak was discovered when a woman who was about to travel tested positive for the virus last Thursday and indicates the virus likely had been spreading undetected for days or even weeks.
Samoa reported another 95 new cases in 24 hours to Saturday and another 85 on Sunday.
Only 15 of the 196 active cases were imported from overseas, according to the the latest government statement available Monday. More than 2,200 tests have been done since Friday, the statement said.
Samoa and several neighboring Pacific island nations were among the last places in the world to avoid virus outbreaks. But the more transmissible omicron variant has changed the equation, and one by one the island nations have been succumbing to COVID-19.
Since the start of the year, Kiribati, Tonga, the Solomon Islands, the Cook Islands and American Samoa have all experienced their first big outbreaks.
All Samoan schools are closed, public gatherings are banned, and all stores and other services are shut down, except those considered essential.
The lockdown is initially scheduled to last until Tuesday but many expect it will be extended.
About 65% of all Samoans have had at least two doses of a coronavirus vaccine, according to Our World in Data.
Samoa has had previous virus scares and lockdowns after returning plane passengers tested positive while isolating, but had managed to avoid any community outbreaks until now.
Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and Nauru are among the few remaining Pacific island nations to have avoided omicron outbreaks.
