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The Biden administration is working on recalculating the number of Covid-19 hospitalizations in the U.S., according to two senior officials familiar with the matter. A task force comprised of scientists and data specialists at the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are working with hospitals nationwide to improve Covid-19 reporting. The group is asking hospitals to report numbers of patients who go to the facility because they have Covid-19 and separate those from individuals who go in for other reasons and test positive after being admitted, the two officials said. (Banco, 2/7)

Alaska’s waning COVID-19 surge associated with the omicron variant appeared to be loosening its grip on the state’s hospitals this week. Hospital capacity has been limited by staff sick calls linked to the virus as well as supply chain disruptions and a high number of ill patients, including those with COVID-19, health and hospital officials say. At times, hospitals in Anchorage reported hundreds of workers out sick or quarantined. Now, the number of COVID-positive patients is dropping, but more importantly, the state’s larger hospitals say worker call-outs are declining too, according to Jared Kosin, president and CEO of the Alaska State Hospital and Nursing Home Association. (Hollander, 2/7)

The pressure is easing on Nebraska hospitals as the surge in COVID-19 cases driven by the highly contagious omicron variant continues to subside, but hospitals remain quite busy. Nebraska hospital officials said Monday that they are cautiously optimistic that virus hospitalizations will continue to decline, but they worry about the possibility of another surge. Hospitalizations have been increasing almost continuously since the delta variant arrived in the state last summer. (2/7)

New data from Houston hospitals Monday showed COVID-19 cases continue to plummet from January’s omicron-fueled peak, evidence the omicron wave is receding almost as quickly as it arrived. But the encouraging figures come after a brutal few weeks, in which Texas approached 80,000 fatalities from COVID and Houston area hospitals scrambled to treat an influx of patients, many unvaccinated. And federal health forecasts predict the state could log up to 4,000 more deaths by the end of February as omicron infections continue to churn through vulnerable populations. (Mishanec, 2/7)

Over the last week, 37 more Montanans died from COVID-19 related illness. Active COVID cases came to 10,256. Though cases are still high, the active case count is down from 18,607 last Monday. Over the last two weeks, hospitalizations have increased 16% with 310 active hospitalizations on Monday. Missoula County currently leads the state in active cases with 1,966, according to the state dashboard. Over the weekend, the county had 3,647 active cases. Though Missoula County is following the statewide decrease in cases, the county’s public health officer D’Shane Barnett says it’s not safe yet to relax mitigation efforts. (Schabacker, 2/7)

Daily U.S. deaths from the most recent coronavirus surge may finally be ready to decline. Most states are now reporting fewer deaths than they had been a week ago, a USA TODAY analysis of Johns Hopkins University data shows. Twenty states still had more deaths than the previous week, but that's a decrease of 14 states. The U.S. continues to average about 2,400 to 2,500 deaths per day, a daily human cost about equal to the losses at Pearl Harbor. The number of fatalities from COVID surpassed 900,000 on Friday. If the pace of American deaths falls at the same rate it increased during the current omicron surge, the nation will reach 1 million in about 55 days, or the beginning of April. (Ortiz, Bacon and Tebor, 2/7)

Late last week America's pandemic death toll reached 900,000—with 60,000 deaths recorded in January alone—and 100,000 deaths logged since Dec 13.January's death toll doubled November's, the month before Omicron became the dominant variant in the country. According to NBC News, Tennessee, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania have the most deaths when adjusted for population. (Soucheray, 2/7)

The number of daily COVID deaths reported in the Bay Area has doubled from two weeks ago but appears to be leveling off in recent days. At the same time, cases and hospitalizations of patients with COVID continue to plunge from the height of the omicron surge. Coronavirus fatalities in the region have ticked up since Jan. 24, from 11 per day to 22 per day as of Monday, according to state data on seven-day averages of new daily deaths. Statewide, the number of people dying from COVID-19 has climbed from 120 per day to 184 per day over the same period. With the rapid transmission rate of the now-dominant omicron variant of the coronavirus, and continued high case numbers, people are now dying at a much higher rate than they were during the delta summer surge. (Vaziri, 2/7)

Kingston Healthcare Center in Bakersfield — a long-troubled nursing home that saw 19 residents die during an early COVID outbreak — announced it would close after the Department of Health and Health Services said the facility could no longer receive Medicare or Medicaid payments. The department cited a long history of health code and other violations. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services office in San Francisco notified Kingston that its contract would be terminated Feb. 6 because it “failed to attain substantial compliance with multiple Medicare and Medicaid requirements,” including infection control, resident rights, quality of life, quality of care, food and nutrition, and dental and physician services. (Mozingo, 2/7)

Beneath the bone-deep exhaustion, burned-out health care workers say they are grappling with another feeling: betrayal. Many clinicians have felt that with the waves of Covid have come waves of abandonment — by employers unable or unwilling to protect workers, by lawmakers undercutting public health measures, and by a public resigned to the ongoing crisis. And ultimately, health workers can feel betrayed by themselves, as circumstances outside their control make it painfully difficult to care for their patients or colleagues. (Cueto, 2/8)