What could be more sad? The extent of parental deaths due to the pandemic is a staggering number and growing. I quote from this piece herein: 

"Theirs is no isolated struggle. More than 140,000 children in the U.S. — including 14,000 in Texas — lost at least one parent or caregiver to COVID-19 during the first 14 months of the pandemic, according to a recent study in Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics." 

This will be a societal problem far into the future, no doubt, disproportionately impacting children of color. I'm sure there are various places to make a donation to help an orphaned child. 

What I readily tracked down was the Child Mind Institute that provides research-based, crisis support to young children.

-Angela Valenzuela

‘He isn’t going to come back’ — Across Texas, COVID orphans struggle with loss of one or both parents 

Rebecca Carballo, Megan Rodriguez, Staff writers

Dec. 2, 2021Updated: Dec. 3, 2021 9:15 a.m.

Six-year-old Ayden Villegas looks at pictures of his father, Robert Villegas, who died in January after a three-week battle with COVID-19. Villegas’ widow, Valerie, a hospice nurse, is raising their children — five boys and a daughter — on her own.

Mark Mulligan /Staff photographer

Rozie Salinas’ Christmas tree is covered in dinosaur ornaments, at the request of her 6-year-old grandson.

Decking the halls of her northeast San Antonio home with the colorful figurines is a way for Salinas to make happy memories for Raiden Gonzalez. She adopted the boy after his parents died last year from complications of COVID-19.

Since then, Salinas and Raiden have been through a lot: memorial services for his parents, a move to a new home and two birthdays for Raiden, who was just 4 when his parents died. Along the way, the boy and his grandmother both contracted the coronavirus themselves.

The holidays are especially difficult.

“He was crying, asking how come he can’t have his parents back and that he just wished that they were adults again and not angels,” said Salinas, 48. “It’s just kind of hard to explain to him why he can’t have them back.”

Theirs is no isolated struggle. More than 140,000 children in the U.S. — including 14,000 in Texas — lost at least one parent or caregiver to COVID-19 during the first 14 months of the pandemic, according to a recent study in Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The long-term repercussions are expected to be profound. Single-parent households are more likely to slip into poverty and to suffer from unstable housing, low educational attainment and mental health problems. Orphaned children suffer elevated rates of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

The Pediatrics study described the loss of parents or other family caregivers as one of the “severe unrecognized consequences” of the pandemic.

Valerie Villegas of Portland with the youngest of her six children, Nicholas, 2. Her husband, Robert, 45, died of complications from COVID-19.

Mark Mulligan /Staff photographer

It has affected minority children disproportionately, the study found. Researchers determined that from April 1, 2020, through June 30, 2021, the risk of losing a parent or a grandparent caregiver was 1.1 to 4.5 times higher for children in racial and ethnic minority groups.

In Texas, 58 percent of the children who lost parents were Hispanic and 16 percent were Black, the study found. Hispanics make up 39 percent of the state’s population and Black people 12 percent, according to the 2020 Census.

Some minority groups have larger families, which means the loss of a parent affects more children. But other factors were at work, too.

More than 70 percent of Black and Hispanic men work in front-line jobs in retail, warehousing, meat packing and health care, occupations where the risk of exposure to COVID-19 is greater, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Hispanics are nearly twice as likely to contract COVID-19 as non-Hispanic whites, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports.

Rozie Salinas and her six-year-old grandson Raiden Gonzalez, 6, are pictured in the backyard of 

their home in San Antonio, Texas, on Dec. 1, 2021. Last year, Raiden lost his parents Mariah and 

Adan Gonzalez to COVID-19. Salinas has been caring for Raiden since his parents died and just 

formally adopted him at the beginning of this year and they recently moved into a new home 

with the help of funds from a GoFundMe that was created when their family’s story received 

national attention following the passing of Raiden’s parents.

Josie Norris / San Antonio Express-News

Other epidemics, such as the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and ’90s, claimed the lives of many parents. What sets COVID-19 apart is how quickly the disease can progress, leaving families with little time to steel themselves for a devastating loss.

“With COVID, often someone is dead within several days or two weeks,” said Susan D. Hillis, lead author of the Pediatrics study and a senior adviser for the CDC. “And so, suddenly, there’s this shock without adequate time to prepare families.”

‘He isn’t going to come back’

Robert Villegas was cutting his son’s hair in their home near Corpus Christi when he started breathing heavily. His wife, Valerie, a hospice nurse, knew something was wrong. A check of his oxygen level confirmed it: It had fallen dangerously low.

The Villegases headed for Northshore Emergency Center. Unable to go inside because of COVID-19 restrictions, 3-year-old Robert Jr., his haircut still unfinished, said goodbye to his father. It was the last time he saw him.

Valerie and Robert Villegas were just starting to make plans in case one of them died. They never had time to prepare a will. They didn’t have life insurance.

Robert, a truck driver, was 45 when he died. He’d brought in half the family’s income. His death created a huge financial burden on the family, one that widened when Valerie took a three-month, unpaid leave from her job to care for her children.

Unemployment assistance and Social Security survivor benefits kept the family afloat, but money was tight as Valerie tried to keep six children, ages 1 to 18, fed and clothed. Day care for her two youngest cost more than $700 a month.

“My kids never knew what it was to have the lights turned off or the water turned off,” Villegas said. “And they experienced it a good few times this last year.”

In the spring, she returned to work at hospice after being named director of nurses, an administrative role with a higher salary. Now, she’s able to stay on top of the bills, but there isn’t much left over. There won’t be as many Christmas presents under the tree this year, she said.

While the family’s finances have stabilized, the children are still struggling with the loss of their father. Robert Jr., now 4, has angry outbursts, usually when after he hears someone talk about his father.

“He is just starting to realize he isn’t going to come back,” Villegas said.

‘Struggling to be OK’

Tiffany Sanders, 46, of Pearland, lost her husband, Stephen, to COVID a year ago. He was a consultant for oil and gas companies and contracted the virus on a business trip. The family was blindsided. Stephen, 41, had no underlying health conditions and regularly wore a mask.

He was close to their daughters, now 13 and 15. Sanders said her younger teenager is having a particularly hard time.

“It’s been a struggle to get her to a place where she can still keep her dad alive in her heart and honor him by living the best life that she can,” Sanders said. “She’s still struggling to be OK with having any kind of joy in her life.”

Sanders sought counseling for her two teenage daughters, but it took three months to get even a virtual appointment. Her 13-year-old waited nearly 10 months to see a therapist in person.

Stephen Sanders was the sole breadwinner for the family. Tiffany is supporting the family with the payout from her husband’s life insurance policy and Social Security survivor benefits.

She plans to return to work eventually but wonders whether she’s still employable after 15 years as a stay-at-home parent. Before she had children, she worked in international relocations, helping oil and gas companies move employees to operations in other countries.

“I’m going to have to go back to work. My husband left me money, but I’m only 46 years old and it’s not going to last,” Sanders said. “But I’m not trying to think that far ahead. I can barely get through one day.”

‘Too many memories’

Raiden’s father, Adan Gonzalez, 33, died in June 2020 after being hospitalized with COVID-19 for almost a month. He was a truck driver and was in training for a new job.

His wife, Mariah, died four months later at age 29. As Salinas remembers it, her daughter complained she wasn’t feeling well and was taken to the hospital — and by the next day, she was dead.

For a time, Raiden didn’t want to sleep alone. In September, Salinas moved them from a home she’d been leasing to their “forever home” two miles away. Since then, Raiden has been able to sleep by himself.

“That house that we were at, there were just too many memories in there,” said Salinas, who is a customer service representative for a health insurance company.

A GoFundMe helped pay for their new home and for a more reliable car.

Salinas said Raiden sometimes has “little breakdowns” at home and struggles to focus on school the next day. She’s searching for a therapist for him and is seeing one herself.

“It’s OK. Like I tell Raiden, we’re going to get through this one way or the other,” Salinas said. “If we have to struggle a bit, it’s OK. We’re going to get through it. I just want to make sure that he has a good life and has a good childhood. That way, he’s got his memories to be able to go back and talk about.”

Their Christmas tree includes a little memorial to Raiden’s parents. A glittery gold ornament shaped like an M for Mariah and a silver A for Adan hang front and center on the tree. Between them is an ornament with a picture of a smiling Raiden.

rebecca.carballo@chron.com

megan.rodriguez@express-news.net

Written By

Rebecca Carballo

Written By

Megan Rodriguez

Megan Rodriguez covers Alamo Heights, Olmos Park and general assignment stories for the Express-News.

My Hometown of San Angelo is in Trouble as Doctors Say Texas Leaders Failed To Stop COVID-19 From Spreading

More on necropolitics, politics that are about deaths and dying. Tragically, Texas is a leader in child deaths. Such horribly misplaced priorities by our state's governor. I my hometown of San Angelo, Texas, infections have surged to approximately 2,000 with an astounding 22,000 total infections county-wide. This means that the rural areas are significantly impacted. Forget going to San Angelo any time soon.

Sadly, a 63-year-old minister and family friend, Pastor Edward A. Lopez, who
officiated many years ago at my grandmother's funeral, is one of these fatalities. His family's words expressed in his obituary are particularly unnerving:

"Reverend Lopez believed in the Lord and in medicine. He was fully vaccinated but COVID-19 ravaged his lungs and kidneys due to others not exhibiting the same wisdom. The family wants to thank Shannon Hospital COVID-19 ICU staff for the excellent care given with a special appreciation to Dr. Wood and Emily (Emy) Emmons, RN. Due to COVID-19, the funeral services will be for immediate family members only. Please get fully vaccinated, wear a mask, social distance and wash your hands."

When have you seen an obituary like this? He didn't "lose" his life. It was taken away by Gov. Abbott's necropolitics.

Despite being a very small percentage of the population of all COVID deaths, it is nevertheless the case that even a fully-vaccinated person can die from this terrible virus. 

If the governor or his party aren't going to help prevent preventable deaths, then we must all assume our own individual responsibility. 

This is so saddening. Peace, blessings, and solace for Pastor Lopez' family, church members, and community to which he dedicated his life. 

May he rest in peace.

-Angela Valenzuela

Doctors Say Texas Leaders Failed To Stop COVID-19 From Spreading

Hospitals across the state are running low on pediatric intensive care unit beds. Texas’ Department of State Health Services says only 81 of them remain — and just a couple hundred more regular ICU beds are available in the state of 29 million people.

PAUL FLAHIVE, TPR

 | POSTED ONSEPTEMBER 3, 2021, 11:36 AM

File Photo: Gov. Greg Abbott leads a roundtable discussion on public safety priorities at the Texas Department of Public Safety headquarters in January 2021.

Texas schools have amassed more than 50,000 confirmed coronavirus cases in students in just a couple of weeks. More than a dozen school districts have closed temporarily as a result of the disease, and Texas is a leader in child deaths from COVID-19 with 59 as of Sept. 3.

But state leaders have spent weeks of the surge pushing through controversial bills around abortion, voting restrictions and bail reform while Gov. Abbott has been fighting local governments over their efforts to stem the spread of the disease.

Hospitals across the state are running low on pediatric intensive care unit beds. Texas' Department of State Health Services says only 81 of them remain — and just a couple hundred more regular ICU beds are available in the state of 29 million people.

"Governor Abbott has failed us. A republican state legislature has failed us,” said Dr. David Portugal a cardiologist in Sugarland, Texas. "These leaders should be held accountable and be asked to explain how they can justify taking actions that are killing their fellow Texans."

Portugal and other Texas members of the advocacy group the Committee to Protect Health Care called on the governor to rescind his executive order barring local governments from mandating masks in schools. They are just a few of the many healthcare workers and local governments frustrated by the state’s lack of action on preventing the spread of COVID.

State officials recently admitted the bans were unenforceable by them, leaving it to local district attorneys. But the continued litigation and threats to school districts has left confusion and patchwork of policies that many doctors see as exacerbating the COVID surge.

"Hospital staff and resources are stretched to the breaking point," said Dr. Elena Jimenez-Gutierrez, an internal medicine physician in San Antonio.

The surge has led to canceled surgeries, overwhelmed staff and preventable hospitalizations and deaths.

"Doctors and other health care workers see every day how too many Texans are needlessly getting sick, including many children when we know this disease can be prevented," she said

The governor's office has recruited more doctors and nurses from out of state to help. He authorized more monoclonal antibody therapy centers — though doctors say the wait to get the treatment is as long as 10 days.

Abbott promotes vaccination as the real prevention. He got vaccinated on TV. But he draws the line on mandates — vaccines or masks — which are very unpopular with conservative primary voters as he faces two far-right challengers early next year.

"We will continue to vaccinate more Texans and protect public health and we will do so without treading on Texans personal freedoms," said Abbott in an April tweet where he also announced he would ban private companies from asking for proof of vaccination.

He reissued the order last month.

"Among Texas children who are eligible, the seven-day moving average of doses administered has gone from just over 10,500 in July to now over 15,700. We continue to strongly encourage all eligible Texans to get vaccinated," said Renae Eze, the governor's press secretary.

She also pointed to recent legislation that made remote learning possible for immunocompromised kids. She said schools have learned and implemented safety precautions, too.

And yet the number of cases continues to rise. And those kids are also an unfortunate disease vector for their teachers. Two teachers in Connelly Independent School District died recently, causing the district to shut campuses.

San Antonio is still fighting to regain its emergency powers. Andy Segovia is the city attorney and he says the Texas disaster act — which the governor is using to suspend local power — is about the state helping to coordinate in the wake of a disaster.

It’s novel because usually the governor’s acting on an emergency not saying government has no role, said Segovia.

Five mortuary trailers were dispatched to San Antonio to assist hospitals across the state that had run out of room. San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg said the forethought on deaths should have been used to stem the spread.

“The fact is, the state is planning that more people are going to die of COVID. So much so that they anticipate local hospitals across the state are not going to be able to handle the amount of death they are going to see,” said Nirenberg.

Eight counties across the state are using refrigerated trucks to store the bodies of the dead. Bell County which includes Temple, Texas, has requested a second FEMA trailer with an extra storage capacity of 50 bodies. Several smaller trailers have been donated by the state funeral directors association.

As more schools see spikes in COVID transmissions, more teachers and students will become infected and could die.

Doctors and many local leaders wish the state would do more to prevent that.

The new Texas COVID-19 surge could be worse than anything the state has seen yet

As someone who needed urgent care over the Christmas holidays in the middle of the pandemic, this was the most bone-chilling paragraph in this story to read:

“When you’re told by the powers that be that you have 12 ICU beds in Dallas County, that means you have 12 ICU beds for the traffic on I-35, 12 ICU beds for the stroke [victim], 12 ICU beds for the five borderline COVID patients we have in the hospital right now,” Casanova said. “When we say that we may come to be in a situation where we are looking at some impossible decisions about focusing our care and our efforts on those that have the highest likelihood of survival so that we can save as many lives as possible, that equation is not just for COVID patients. That occurs for all patients.”

None of us wants to be in a desperate situation where we need urgent care and we get triaged out of getting it. God forbid that this should happen to anyone—and how traumatic for hospital officials to be the arbiters of such matters.

Do get vaccinated, everybody. Wear a mask in public places and do abide by all the safety protocols. None of this is fun for any of us. It's simply what we have to do to protect each other, especially our children, grandchildren, and school children, generally, who have not been vaccinated. 

Remember, that neither COVID-19 nor the Delta variant are bacteria that can be killed with antibiotics. The only thing we can do is eliminate ourselves as hosts so that these viruses have nowhere to go. 

If you're in Texas, do read this deeply-concerning post that warns us of a foreboding crisis that is still within our power to stem. We must all do our part.

-Angela Valenzuela

The new Texas COVID-19 surge could be worse than anything the state has seen yet

“It’s going to be close,” one health official said as a record number of Texas hospitals run out of intensive care beds and warn that they may soon have more COVID-19 patients than they can handle.

BY KAREN BROOKS HARPER AND CARLA ASTUDILLO AUG. 17, 2021UPDATED: 15 HOURS AGO

More Texas hospitals are reporting a shortage of ICU beds than at any other time since the COVID-19 pandemic hit the state 18 months ago — just one sign among many that the health crisis is on track to reach its most dangerous phase yet, health officials say.

The latest surge of the virus has also caused new cases and COVID-19 hospitalizations to rise with record speed to just below their January peaks, as the highly contagious delta variant rips through the unvaccinated community at a rate up to eight times faster than earlier strains, officials said.

“We are entering the worst surge in sheer numbers,” said Dr. Mark Casanova, a palliative care specialist in Dallas and a member of the Texas Medical Association’s COVID-19 Task Force. “This is the fourth round of what should have been a three-round fight. We do have very sincere concerns that the numbers game is going to overwhelm us.”

Between 93% and 98% of hospitalized COVID patients, depending on the area, are unvaccinated, officials said. With just under half of Texans fully vaccinated, the state still has some 16 million people who have yet to be protected from the virus.

And they are filling the state’s intensive care units rapidly.

“This is the fourth round of what should have been a three-round fight.”

— Dr. Mark Casanova, a member of the Texas Medical Association’s COVID-19 Task Force

In Dallas County on Monday, only 16 intensive care beds were available to serve the county of 2.6 million and its surrounding areas. The day before that, it was 12, Casanova said.

The state has asked the federal government for five mortuary trailers in anticipation of a potential spike in deaths, which are climbing again after a low in July — although the daily deaths are still much lower than they were during previous surges.

The strain is showing across the state.

Last week in San Antonio, 26 minutes went by with no ambulances available to respond to 911 calls from the city’s 1.5 million residents. In Austin, paramedics are so understaffed and overworked that some ambulances have to sit unused because there is no one to run them, said Capt. Selena Xie, an Austin paramedic and head of the Austin EMS Association.

“We’re seeing call volumes that are breaking our records, outside of the [February] snowstorm,” Xie said.

In rural West Texas, a school district announced Monday it would be closed for the next two weeks in an attempt to slow the virus’ spread before it overwhelms the scant health care resources in the area.

And on Tuesday, overwhelmed Harris County officials offered $100 to anyone getting their first vaccine dose, a desperate attempt to stave off what one hospital CEO called “the worst surge that we have faced in the community.”

“The numbers at Harris Methodist and other hospital systems in this area have never gone up this far, this fast,” said Dr. Esmaeil Porsa, president and CEO of Harris Health System. “I’m begging you. Do the right thing. Get yourself vaccinated.”

Available ICU beds at pandemic low 

Out of nearly 12,000 people hospitalized with COVID in Texas on Monday, more than a quarter of them are in the state’s ICU beds. At the end of last week, at least 75 Texas hospitals reported that they had no ICU beds available for patients — and more than 50 additional facilities said they had just one bed available at some point during the previous week.

Most of the shortages are occurring in major metro areas, near the Gulf Coast and in the eastern portions of the state, where vaccination rates are among the lowest in the state.

The pressure on the intensive care units affects not just COVID patients, but also others who need treatment for ailments not related to COVID, Casanova said.

“When you’re told by the powers that be that you have 12 ICU beds in Dallas County, that means you have 12 ICU beds for the traffic on I-35, 12 ICU beds for the stroke [victim], 12 ICU beds for the five borderline COVID patients we have in the hospital right now,” Casanova said. “When we say that we may come to be in a situation where we are looking at some impossible decisions about focusing our care and our efforts on those that have the highest likelihood of survival so that we can save as many lives as possible, that equation is not just for COVID patients. That occurs for all patients.”

And while hospitals are not at that point yet, Casanova said, it remains a real threat.

During the last surge in January, he said, “we skirted that by about two weeks.”

Hospitalizations approach a pandemic high 

New COVID-19 cases have reached a seven-day average of more than 14,000, still below the January peak of more than 19,000. Gov. Greg Abbott became one of the newest cases on Tuesday. But the number that worries health officials most is hospitalizations from COVID-19, which hit 12,227 on Monday — an increase of 2,186 since last week.

If the trend continues, the state could surpass the single-day record of 14,218, set on Jan. 11, before the end of the month.

Dr. David Lakey, former Texas state health commissioner, said Tuesday that he’s not convinced Texas will hit that number statewide because some areas, like Austin, are starting to see a slight slowdown in admissions.

But he also noted that hospitalizations are not spiking at the same rate throughout Texas and that some areas will continue to struggle even if the numbers start to slow down.

In El Paso, for example, one of the most heavily vaccinated areas of the state, the numbers are staying manageable, he said — but Dallas and Houston have already hit or surpassed their January hospitalizations.

Statewide, Lakey said, “it’s going to be close.”

So far, hospitals have been able to take actions to avoid the sort of life-or-death decisions that come when there are too many patients and not enough staffed beds. They’ve shuffled staff, converted unused spaces into COVID units and postponed non-emergency surgeries.

At LBJ Hospital in Houston, tents were erected to take care of the COVID patient overflow, according to media reports.

At Parkland Hospital in Dallas, officials sometimes hold patients in the emergency department waiting for ICU beds to open up, said Joseph Chang, chief medical officer at Parkland Health and Hospital System.

“That is becoming more and more common as COVID spreads like wildfire in the community,” Chang said in an emailed statement to the Tribune.

The hospital, which typically has a high patient count in the ICU even in non-COVID times, has been turning away ambulances for weeks, he said.

“We have enacted many protocols to make more staff and space available,” he said.

But with beds unavailable because they can’t be staffed and the numbers continuing to rise, Casanova said he worries about hospitals reaching their breaking point.

“We’ve surged what we can surge,” he said. “A power strip only has so much, and eventually you’re going to blow it. And I think we’re about to blow it — in a euphemistic way, and in a literal way.”

Disclosure: The Texas Medical Association and Parkland Health and Hospital System have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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A Milestone of Misery: More Than 100K US Latinos Have Died From COVID-19 by Dr. Rogelio Sáenz

Dr. Rogelio Sáenz captures well the devastating impact of COVID on the Latino community in the U.S. Just reading this makes me sad. It seems that we all know of, or have, someone close that lost someone dear to them. And not just in this country, but in Mexico and Latin America, as well.

So much trauma. So much loss. Our families will be impacted by, and recovering from, this for many years, indeed decades, to come.

-Angela Valenzuela

A Milestone of Misery: More Than 100K US Latinos Have Died From COVID-19

By Rogelio Sáenz

April 15, 2021, 6:04 PM

In this June 13, 2020, photo, a man walks past Our Lady of Guadalupe church in Guadalupe, Ariz. (AP Photo/Matt York)

More than 100,000 U.S. Latinos have now lost their lives to COVID-19. This past week we went over this lamentable threshold. It took about ten months for 50,000 Latinos to die from the pandemic, but it only took four months to add another 50,000.

While Latinos have died from COVID-19 in every state except in Vermont (where very few Latinos live), a little more than half of the 100,000 Latino deaths have occurred in California and Texas. More than 29,000 Latinos have died in California and more than 23,000 in Texas. In fact, more Latinos than whites have died from the pandemic in these two states. The numbers are also quite large in five other states, including New York with nearly 11,000 deaths, Florida with nearly 7,900, Arizona with more than 4,700, New Jersey with a little more than 4,600, and Illinois with close to 3,400 deaths. These five states along with California and Texas account for more than four of five Latinos who have lost their lives to COVID-19 (Figure 1).

I have been tracking the impact of the pandemic on Latinos since back in late March. With more than 100,000 Latinos succumbing to COVID-19, it is time to reflect on what has taken place during the pandemic.

One thing that is pretty clear is that while the Latino numbers are quite devastating, they hide the horror that has befallen the Latino community. At first glance, it appears that the pandemic has taken Latino and white lives evenly. There are 3.3 times as many whites as Latinos in the country and among people who have died from COVID-19. However, Latinos with a median age of 30 are a much more youthful population compared to whites whose median age is 44. More than one in five whites are 65 or older compared to one of 13 Latinos. As such, whites are much more concentrated in ages where the risk of dying from COVID-19 is particularly high.

Once we adjust for these age differences, Latinos thus far have died at a rate that is 2.4 times higher than whites. The situation is much worse in California where Latinos are dying from the pandemic at a rate that is 3.5 times higher than whites.

The demography of COVID-19 fatalities is quite revealing. Nationally, nearly nine of ten whites who have died from the pandemic were 65 or older compared to fewer than two of three Latinos. Among the Latino dead, 26 percent were 50 to 64 years of age compared to 10 percent of whites. And more than 9 percent of Latino deceased were less than 50 years of age compared to fewer than 2 percent of whites. These major variations reflect the disproportionate presence of Latinos on the frontlines where they do not have the luxury of being able to work from home.

At dinner parties and game nights, casual American life is fueling the coronavirus surge as daily cases exceed 150,000

This is a message to myself as I/we look toward the upcoming holiday season. COVID infections are no longer a story of nursing homes and crowded bars. The perils of transmission these days resides in the innocent, small gatherings of friends and family. Key quote:

"This behind-doors transmission trend reflects pandemic fatigue and widening social bubbles, experts say — and is particularly insidious because it is so difficult to police and likely to increase as temperatures drop and holidays approach."

The rule of thumb has been to limit gatherings to no more than ten people in order to limit "super-spreader" events. However, it is noteworthy to consider an announcement last week in Oregon on groups larger than six people in "hard-hit counties." Shockingly, around 1,000 people daily are dying from COVID. What we do today—as well as in the coming weeks and months where as stated below, the virus is "more stable in dry, colder air," will literally determine who lives to see tomorrow.

Mindless trust combined with pandemic fatigue and a desperate need to be with our friends and families makes us let our guard down despite the fact that as a country, based on the current rate of infection, we're all worse off now than we were back in March. 

We cannot let our guard down, my friends and family. 

Be safe, everybody.

-Angela Valenzuela

At dinner parties and game nights, casual American life is fueling the coronavirus surge as daily cases exceed 150,000

Members dine at a club in Maryland in August. (Craig Hudson for The Washington Post)

A record-breaking surge in U.S. coronavirus cases is being driven to a significant degree by casual occasions that may feel deceptively safe, officials and scientists warn — dinner parties, game nights, sleepovers and carpools.

Many earlier coronavirus clusters were linked to nursing homes and crowded nightclubs. But public health officials nationwide say case investigations are increasingly leading them to small, private social gatherings. This behind-doors transmission trend reflects pandemic fatigue and widening social bubbles, experts say — and is particularly insidious because it is so difficult to police and likely to increase as temperatures drop and holidays approach.

The White House coronavirus task force has been urging states that are virus hot spots to curtail maskless get-togethers of family and friends, saying in reports that asymptomatic attendees “cause ongoing transmission, frequently infecting multiple people in a single gathering.”

On Thursday, the nation passed another grim milestone in the pandemic, setting records for cases and hospitalizations, with 152,391 new cases and 66,606 people currently hospitalized. In Chicago, the mayor said that starting Monday, residents should leave home only to go to work or school, or for essential needs, such as seeking medical care or getting groceries.

This week, New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) announced a 10-person limit on gatherings in private homes, calling them a “great spreader.” Similar restrictions have been imposed in states including Ohio; Utah; Connecticut; Colorado, where one recent cluster involved seven people infected while playing the dice game bunco; and Rhode Island, whose governor has pledged to fine violators. Oregon last week announced a “pause” in hard-hit counties on most groups larger than six people.

“Earlier in the outbreak, much of the growth in new daily cases was being driven by focal outbreaks — long-term care facilities, things of that nature,” said Nirav Shah, director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Maine, where cases have soared in the past two weeks. “Now, the kitchen table is a place of risk.”

In Maine, as in other states, case investigators are seeing a new and related pattern: People who are infected list more close contacts than they did earlier, making the work of contact tracers more time-consuming and complicated. From March through September, the average number of contacts identified in Maine coronavirus investigations was 3.5. In October, that rose to 5.8.

“We’ve all gotten used to our bubbles, but I don’t think we’ve really asked whether someone who’s in our bubble is also in another person’s bubble,” Shah said. “People’s bubbles are getting big enough to burst.”

For months, the danger of large events has been a focus of state and local restrictions and of media coverage. Experts say less attention has been paid to the peril of small gatherings among family and friends, who may appear healthy and take similar precautions to avoid the virus.

But each additional contact increases a person’s risk, said David Rubin, the director of PolicyLab at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, which warned in a blog post last week that small indoor gatherings create “perfect conditions for a virus that can spread among people who are crowded into a poorly ventilated space.” Rubin said a person’s “bank” of risk should be even lower in winter because respiratory viruses like the coronavirus are more stable in dry, colder air.

“Often, they’re with people we know really well,” Rubin said of these gatherings. “We let our guard down.”

Amber Calderon now knows she did that in October. The 24-year-old was excited to see some of her relatives for the first time in months at her nephew’s birthday party — and she felt safe. The Conroe, Tex., resident knew her relatives wore masks and socially distanced in their day-to-day lives, she said, so she “trusted everyone.”

About 25 people attended the party at a house, and Calderon said just one person wore a mask — her 81-year-old grandmother. Calderon started to feel ill a few days later, and she tested positive for the coronavirus on Oct. 20. Ten other people who were there also got sick, she said, including her grandmother.

“When I tested positive, I was mad at the situation I put myself in,” Calderon said. “I should’ve never attended that party that day. None of us should have. I knew better.”

In some places, the sheer volume of cases is so great that public health departments cannot connect the dots between them or discern whether a gathering attended by one infected person is the same as one reported by another.

In Minnesota, which reported a single-day record of nearly 6,000 cases on Sunday, the state’s infectious-disease director, Kris Ehresmann, described what she called a “circular” problem: Social gatherings are leading to more community spread, and more spread is making those events ever riskier. 

“It’s getting more and more difficult to really tease out an interpretation of these data, because our community transmission just keeps going up,” said Amy Westbrook, the public health director of St. Louis County, Minn.

In her county, she said, 30 percent of people who test positive say they don’t know where they caught the virus, and a rapidly growing number haven’t even spoken to overwhelmed contact tracers. Westbrook said she is stepping up public education efforts, but she knows residents are somewhat numb to messages about masks, handwashing and staying home. And local law enforcement agencies, she said, have other matters to focus on than dinner parties.

“Once there’s community transmission that’s so widespread, there’s not a lot of good, targeted interventions,” Westbrook said.

Timothy McDonald, public health director in the Boston suburb of Needham, said he is considering a campaign centered on the idea of a “social budget,” reminding residents that, according to guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, they should avoid spending more than 15 minutes within six feet of most other people in a 24-hour period.

                Little League players gather in October on Staten Island. (Andrew Kelly/Reuters)

McDonald said he hopes that might help with an alarming widening of social groups and casual encounters, particularly among youths. In-school transmission is not the problem, he said. Instead, spread is happening after school — at play dates, sleepovers, and, especially, socializing and carpooling connected to youth sports, he said.

“If your son or daughter is playing on a town soccer team and a travel soccer team, plus lacrosse, and is also on an ice hockey team, they’re exposed and in close proximity to dozens of other kids,” McDonald said. “Instead of counting the contacts on single digits, it’s now getting to two or three dozen in some cases. And those are only people who are defined as close contacts.”

Beyond gathering caps and public pleas, officials and experts say it is unclear what can be done to persuade pandemic-weary Americans to tighten their circles. Capacity limits in bars or mask requirements in stores can be enforced through fines and closures. Cracking down on baby showers or poker nights in private homes is another matter.

Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont (D) last week announced a 10-person limit on all indoor and outdoor gatherings, saying informal, private gatherings were “where we’re seeing ignition taking off in terms of the infection rate.” But he acknowledged that enforcement would be “on the honor system.”

In neighboring Rhode Island, Gov. Gina Raimondo (D) has for weeks admonished residents to shrink their bubbles and skip casual gatherings. Some people have reported 50 close contacts, she said at a briefing in mid-October. A high school slumber party involving at least 20 youths led to at least five infections and put hundreds of people in quarantine, she said as she announced a 10-person limit on social gatherings Oct. 30.

Raimondo said she would not hesitate to fine hosts of gatherings found to fuel transmission $500 for each person over the limit. No such fines have been issued yet, a state health department spokesman said Tuesday.

“Of course you want to have a birthday party for your kid. Of course it’s your friends who you have over, so you want to give them a hug,” Raimondo said. “It’s human. It’s understandable. It’s got to stop.”

Calderon now agrees. Her bout with covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, involved a litany of symptoms: loss of taste and smell, devastating headaches, a cough, congestion, stomach pain, muscle aches, fatigue.

Calderon came out of it feeling lucky. She and all of her relatives recovered. Her grandmother was hospitalized for a week but is on the mend.

Calderon said she also came out of it with renewed resolve to remind others to be vigilant — and tell them “that the party they are about to have is not a good idea.”

Everyone is tired of leading hemmed-in lives, Calderon said. But she views her experience as a painful reminder that “this virus spreads, and it spreads fast,” she said. “And if you continue to ignore it, it will catch up to you, just like it did me.”