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It used to be that someone might test positive for the coronavirus one or two days after the onset of symptoms using a rapid test, said Dr. Elizabeth Hudson, regional chief of infectious diseases at Kaiser Permanente Southern California. Now, positive results might not show up until the fourth day after symptoms start. (Lin II, 1/9)

Mutations to the virus mean that test kits may not spot it for up to a week after exposure. That’s because the kits were designed for earlier variants, and while they can still sense the newer ones, a greater buildup of virus samples in the nostrils is required to trigger a positive test result. ... For newer variants, experts recommend starting to test around three days after exposure. If the result is negative, keep testing every day or two until the sixth day. (Vaziri, 1/9)

The surge might reach its peak this week or soon after, modelers predict, with high levels of transmission expected for at least another month beyond that. ... Many of the metrics used early in the pandemic have become much less useful indicators of how widely the virus is spreading, especially since federal officials stopped more comprehensive data tracking efforts when they declared an end to the public health emergency last spring. Higher population-wide immunity has meant fewer hospitalizations even with high virus spread, and the sharp decline of Covid test results reported to authorities has made case counts far less relevant. (Paris, 1/10)

A recent National Institutes of Health study of about 1 million people found only 15% at risk for severe disease took a five-day course of the prescription medicine. Of the patients who took Paxlovid, the medication reduced the risk of death by 73% and hospitalizations dropped 26%, showing the medicine is highly effective for people at risk of severe complications. ... Doctors have been slow to prescribe Paxlovid, in part, due to concerns about interactions with other medicines, even though patients can pause taking the other drugs for a handful of days. (Alltucker and Weintraub, 1/9)

If you live by a plant-based diet, your risk of developing COVID-19 could be significantly lower than the general population, researchers from the University of Sao Paulo have claimed. ... The authors suggest that this difference in infection risk could be due to the abundance of plant-derived chemicals. "Plant-based dietary patterns are rich in antioxidants, phytosterols and polyphenols, which positively affect several cell types implicated in the immune function and exhibit direct antiviral properties," they write. (Dewan, 1/9)

By taking biopsies from long COVID patients before and after exercising, scientists in the Netherlands constructed a startling picture of widespread abnormalities in muscle tissue that may explain this severe reaction to physical activity. Among the most striking findings were clear signs that the cellular power plants, the mitochondria, are compromised and the tissue starved for energy. "We saw this immediately and it's very profound," says Braeden Charlton, one of the study's authors at Vrije University in Amsterdam. (Stone, 1/9)

Democrats who took part in the two-day interview with former White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci said Republicans had distorted what the former government official told lawmakers on his first day. Fauci sat through roughly seven hours of interviewing with lawmakers Monday and returned to the Capitol on Tuesday for another round. These discussions marked his first time speaking with lawmakers since stepping down from government at the end of 2022. (Choi, 1/9)