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As the United States enters its third full covid winter, a top administration official is warning that the permanence of the coronavirus in the disease landscape could mean brutal and long-lasting seasonal surges of cold-weather illnesses for years to come, resulting in hospitals struggling to care for non-covid emergencies and unable to give patients timely, lifesaving treatments. (Sun and Achenbach, 1/12)

You may remember the XBB variant that took Singapore by storm last fall—one of the most immune-evasive yet. Dubbed “Gryphon” by the Canadian biology professor Ryan Gregory—who has a lot more names like it for other variants—after the mythical amalgamation of eagle and lion, it’s less of a global player than it was then. Now its descendants are battling for dominance throughout the world. Experts are keeping a close eye in particular on (the also Gregory-monikered) “Kraken” XBB.1.5, due to its ability to grow at a breakneck pace. (Prater, 1/12)

As the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic nears an end, the coronavirus continues to evolve and prove that it has more tricks up its sleeve. The highly contagious XBB.1.5 strain, the latest in a succession of omicron subvariants that was first detected in the U.S. in October, is quickly spreading. (Hwang, 1/11)

The number of COVID-19 deaths reported weekly in Los Angeles County has hit the highest point of the season, underscoring the continued deadly risks of a disease that has ripped through the community for nearly three years. (Money and Lin II, 1/12)

This time last year, Maryland hospitals were in dire straits. The number of people infected with COVID-19 in state hospitals hit 3,462 on Jan. 11, 2022, a pandemic peak that has not been approached since. One-third of the state’s acute care hospitals were operating on “crisis standards of care,” a set of emergency protocols that allowed clinicians to prioritize the sickest of patients. (Roberts, 1/12)

An appeals court has affirmed a ban in three states on enforcing a federal vaccine mandate for workers who contract with the federal government. A panel of the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati on Thursday affirmed a lower court’s ruling that said the mandate was unconstitutional. President Joe Biden’s administration is not enforcing the rule while legal battles play out around the country. (1/12)

Older adults, particularly those living in nursing homes, are bearing the brunt of the current winter COVID wave in the United States, but booster rates among nursing home residents and staff remain low, according to new data from AARP. (Luterman, 1/12)

The peak of China's COVID-19 wave is expected to last two to three months, and will soon swell over the vast countryside where medical resources are relatively scarce, a top Chinese epidemiologist has said. (Orr and Zhang, 1/13)