Written by Steven Hansen

The U.S. new cases 7-day rolling average are 34.4 % HIGHER than the 7-day rolling average one week ago and U.S. deaths due to coronavirus are now 2.6 % LOWER than the rolling average one week ago. Today’s posts include:

• U.S. Coronavirus New Cases are 35,201
• U.S. Coronavirus deaths are at 406
• New COVID-19 symptoms emerge among fully vaccinated
• If Ivermectin proven effective against COVID, it moots vaccine push
• More than one in 10 people in the U.S. have missed their second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine
• Lower health insurance costs are possible with the American Rescue Plan
• New cancer treatments may be on the horizon—thanks to mRNA vaccines
• Acting FDA commissioner calls for independent investigation into approval of Alzheimer’s drug
• EPA bans sale of COVID-19 disinfectant authorized under Trump
• US turns corner, but world way behind on COVID-19
• Covid to get worse before it gets better, doctors warn
• N.Korea rejected AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine over side effects, says think tank
• IMF, World Bank advocate for benefits of central bank-issued digital currencies at G20

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Hospitalizations Are The Only Accurate Gauge

Hospitalizations historically appear to be little affected by weekends or holidays. The hospitalization growth rate trend continues to improve.

source: https://gis.cdc.gov/grasp/covidnet/COVID19_3.html

Historically, hospitalization growth follows new case growth by one to two weeks.

As an analyst, I use the rate of growth to determine the trend. But, the size of the pandemic is growing in terms of real numbers – and if the rate of growth does not become negative – the pandemic will overwhelm all resources.

The graph below shows the rate of growth relative to the growth a week earlier updated through today [note that negative numbers mean the rolling averages are LOWER than the rolling averages one week ago]. As one can see, the rate of growth for new cases peaked in early December 2020 for Thanksgiving, and early January 2021 for end-of-year holidays – and it now shows that the coronavirus effect is improving.

In the scheme of things, new cases decline first, followed by hospitalizations, and then deaths. The potential fourth wave did not materialize likely due to immunizations.

Coronavirus and Recovery News You May Have Missed

EPA bans sale of COVID-19 disinfectant authorized under Trump – The Hill

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) this week issued an order stopping the sale of a disinfectant that the Trump administration granted emergency authorization to combat COVID-19.

The agency said in a news release Thursday that its investigators determined Allied BioScience, the maker of the disinfectant, was marketing, selling and distributing it in “ways that were inconsistent” with law, regulations and the terms and conditions of emergency authorizations.

The agency also said it was revoking an emergency exemption for the chemical, known as SurfaceWise2, in Arkansas and Texas because of “company misconduct described above and scientific concerns regarding product performance.”

“Pesticides can cause serious harm to human health and the environment, which is why EPA requires their registration before being distributed for use,” said Larry Starfield, acting head of the agency’s law enforcement office, in a statement. “EPA is committed to holding companies accountable for not adhering to federal environmental laws.”

SurfaceWise2 was originally approved for use in Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas, including on some American Airlines aircraft, at airport facilities and at orthopedic facilities.

The Trump administration had touted its approval of SurfaceWise 2, with then-EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler in November viewing a demonstration of its use in Texas.

“EPA had to adapt to the coronavirus outbreak by creating a new permitting process that could allow innovative new products to be quickly and effectively tested and deemed safe for use,” Wheeler said in a statement at the time. “This long-lasting disinfectant is a great innovation and could help the aviation industry in the coming months.”

How Many People Skipped Their Second COVID Shot? – MedPage

More than one in 10 people in the U.S. have missed their second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, new data from the CDC showed. As the country begins to see a rise in coronavirus cases caused by the highly transmissible Delta variant, public health experts are urging Americans to complete the vaccination process.

Around 88% of people who were eligible for a second dose received it as of June 16, according to CDC data shared with CNN — a decrease from the 92% completion rate seen earlier this year.

This adds up to nearly 15 million people who have not received their second shot — which, for the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines is recommended 21 and 28 days, respectively, after the first dose. On top of that, 1.5% of people eligible for their second dose — or 2 million people — had not yet completed their vaccination series but were still within an “allowable interval” of 42 days between shots.

Early studies have found that the Delta variant does somewhat reduce the efficacy of vaccines, with one British study finding an overall 10% absolute reduction in vaccine effectiveness after both doses. Still, other studies have shown that getting the second dose can more than double the vaccine’s efficacy; for example, a study by Public Health England found that the efficacy of the Pfizer vaccine jumped from 33% with the first dose to 88% with the second dose.

“It’s clear how important the second dose is to secure the strongest possible protection against COVID-19 and its variants — and I urge everyone to book in their jab when offered,” said Matt Hancock, former U.K. health and social care secretary.

N.Korea rejected AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine over side effects, says think tank – Reuters

North Korea has rejected planned shipments of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine that were being organised under the global COVAX distribution scheme due to concerns over side effects, a South Korean think thank said on Friday.

COVAX has said it would provide nearly 2 million doses of AstraZeneca’s shots to North Korea. The first batch had been expected in late May but was delayed amid protracted consultations, South Korea said last month.

North Korea has not reported any COVID-19 cases, a position questioned by South Korean and U.S. officials. The reclusive country has, however, imposed strict anti-virus measures, including border closures and domestic travel curbs.

According to the report by the Institute for National Security Strategy (INSS), which is affiliated with South Korea’s spy agency, Pyongyang is now looking at other vaccine options.

The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization alliance, one of the organisations that co-leads COVAX, did not immediately reply to a Reuters request for comment.

The INSS report also said North Korea is not keen on Chinese vaccines due to concerns they may not be that effective, but it has shown interest in shots made in Russia, hoping they would be donated free of charge.

“It’s leaning towards the Russian vaccine, yet no arrangements have been made,” Lee Sang-keun, director of strategic research on the Korean peninsula at INSS, told Reuters, citing unnamed sources.

New cancer treatments may be on the horizon—thanks to mRNA vaccines – National Geographic

Back when people first heard about Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines, the mRNA technology behind them sounded like the stuff of science fiction. But while the mRNA approach seems revolutionary, long before anyone had heard of COVID-19, researchers had been developing mRNA vaccines to fight cancer, autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis, and to protect against other infectious diseases, such as the respiratory syncytial virus. “It’s not a new idea: What COVID has shown us is that mRNA vaccines can be an efficacious and safe technology for millions of people,” says Daniel Anderson, a leader in the field of nanotherapeutics and biomaterials at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a member of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research.

Currently, phase one and phase two clinical trials are recruiting participants or are underway to assess the efficacy, tolerability, and safety of therapeutic mRNA vaccines to treat various forms of cancer. These include melanoma, non-small cell lung cancers, gastrointestinal cancer, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, and pancreatic cancer, among others.

“One of the beauties of this technology is it can be used in people agnostic to their cancer type—it doesn’t matter if it’s a breast cancer or lung cancer as long as you can identify its mutations,” says Van Morris, a physician and an assistant professor of gastrointestinal medical oncology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston who is leading a phase two clinical trial exploring the use of personalized mRNA vaccines for patients who have stage II or stage III colorectal cancer. “One of the exciting things is the adaptability of the technology based on a given cancer and the underlying biology of that cancer.”

How Science Moved Beyond Peer Review During The Pandemic – FiveThirtyEight

When papers from China began flooding the websites bioRxiv and medRxiv in the first months of 2020, it was a strange and notable change. Founded as places where scientists could post drafts of research papers before those papers went through a traditional peer review, these sites had never really advertised much in China or gotten many submissions from scientists in that country before, said Richard Sever, the co-founder of bioRxiv and medRxiv. The sudden shift turned out to be a preview of the pandemic to come. “We got a wave of submissions from China and then a wave of submissions from Italy. And I remember being with a colleague, looking at submission numbers, and the chart was so eerily familiar,” Sever said. “It looks just like the progression of pandemic caseloads.”

“Preprint,” or “prepress,” servers have been around for decades, but during the COVID-19 pandemic, they took on a new notoriety and level of importance. Two of these sites alone, bioRxiv and medRxiv, hosted 25 percent of all COVID-19-related scientific research published during the pandemic’s first 10 months — more than 10,000 papers. In contrast, only 78 preprints were uploaded to bioRxiv during the entire 2015-16 Zika epidemic. (The medRxiv site didn’t exist yet.) COVID-19 proved to scientists that preprint servers are crucial resources in a crisis. At the same time, though, experts said the pandemic also made the shortcomings of scientific publishing clear. Preprints share a lot of the same limitations as peer-reviewed research, especially when it comes to how the media and the public use research once it’s out in the world for all to see.

Websites that post scientific research before it has been peer-reviewed and published in a scientific journal have been active since at least 1991, when the classic arXiv site, originally used mainly by physicists, went live. Even before that, scientists have shared drafts and notes among themselves through personal correspondence ever since “science” as a field became a thing. Those lines of communication exist parallel to the traditional process of peer review, which puts gatekeepers between research and publication. First, a paper has to be accepted by the editors of a scientific journal. Then, it goes to a (usually anonymous) panel of other scientists for critique. Their notes will lead to edits, which usually lead to more experiments, and then (hopefully) eventual publication.

But the peer-review process does not happen quickly. The editors are sorting through thousands of dense submissions, and the reviewers are volunteers reading in their free time. On average, it takes about six months for a life-sciences research paper to go from acceptance to publication. “During the outbreak we maintained the same peer-review and editing process, just on an accelerated schedule … but I don’t think that this is a sustainable model,” said Dr. Eric Rubin, editor in chief of the New England Journal of Medicine.

… But that should be understood as a critique of the peer-review process rather than a glowing endorsement of preprint paper accuracy, said Alice Fleerackers, a graduate student and researcher at the Scholarly Communications Lab, a joint project of the Simon Fraser University and University of Ottawa. “There’s really a perception that peer review is a trustworthy quality-control mechanism,” Fleerackers said. But research hasn’t been able to support that idea. All the jokes and paranoia about COVID-19 being spread by 5G cellphone technology, for instance, trace their origin to a paper published in — and later retracted by — a scientific journal that claims to peer-review its content.

“We’ve seen with lots of the misinformation and many of the retractions that came out during COVID … ‘high-quality’ — and I’m using air quotes here — research in peer-reviewed publications can be just as flawed as research in preprint,” Fleerackers said.

The real trouble with preprints — which is, funnily enough, also the real trouble with peer-reviewed research — is how those studies are promoted and written about on social media and by the press, experts told me.

“Prior to the pandemic, I had fewer concerns about poor-quality science being preprinted and then widely disseminated,” said Maia Majumder, a computational epidemiologist at Harvard Medical School. “But now, everyday people are reading them too — and the media is covering them at a rate that far outpaces pre-2020. This means that when bad science is preprinted and happens to be sensational enough to get traction, it can quickly shape the discourse around a given topic.”

[editor’s note: this post is worth a full read]

IMF, World Bank advocate for benefits of central bank-issued digital currencies at G20 – Yahoo

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank on Friday advocated for the cross-border benefits of central bank-issued digital currencies, suggesting that projects like a digital dollar in the U.S. would support global development.

The two global bodies released a report alongside the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) arguing that coordination on digital currencies would shake up the status quo of having to rely on expensive and slow transfer services to send money around the world.

“Faster, cheaper, more transparent and more inclusive cross-border payment services would deliver benefits for citizens, businesses, and economies worldwide,” said Indermit Gill, World Bank Group vice president of equitable growth, finance and institutions.

Sir Jon Cunliffe, deputy governor for financial stability of the Bank of England, said the technology offers “the opportunity to start with a ‘clean slate'” on improving the payments system.

The IMF, World Bank, and BIS prepared the report for a G20 meeting in Italy hosting the finance ministers and central bankers of the world’s largest economies.

The report envisions a central bank digital currency ecosystem where currencies could be exchanged with one another instantly and at all times. In the same way that central banks offer swap lines to one another (to ensure, for example, that U.S. dollars are readily available for exchange), digital currencies could offer the same services to retail users.

Lower health insurance costs are possible with the American Rescue Plan – AS

In 2019, fifty percent of Americans got their health insurance through their employer, a policy type known as Group Instance. An additional thirteen percent purchased private insurance on the open market, known as Non-Group Insurance.

Those who are provided health insurance through the government through the Department of Veterans Administration, Medicare, and Medicaid/CHIP, represent around forty-two percent of the population.

The United States is the only major country that does not provide health care as a right for its citizens. With the largest percentage of those in the US receiving insurance through their employer, the pandemic and the massive wave of layoffs that followed left millions without coverage.

To help those who lost their jobs, lawmakers included provisions in the American Rescue Plan to make health care more affordable. According to healthcare.gov, the trillion-dollar spending bill widened the eligibility to receive government support for covering the cost of insurance.

Additionally, those who purchased insurance through the Marketplace “may qualify for more tax credits,” which could help bring down the cost for families who may be experiencing financial hardship.

Acting FDA commissioner calls for independent investigation into approval of Alzheimer’s drug – CNN

US Food and Drug Administration Acting Commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock on Friday requested an investigation by the US Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General into the controversial approval of the Alzheimer’s disease drug Aduhelm.

In a letter posted on Twitter, Woodcock said an independent review and assessment should consider interactions between Biogen, the company that makes Aduhelm, and the FDA during the process that led to the June approval of the drug.

Woodcock wrote she has “tremendous confidence in the integrity of the staff and leadership” in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research involved in the review of the drug, aducanumab, and sold as Aduhelm.

“There continue to be concerns raised, however, regarding contacts between representatives from Biogen and FDA during the review process, including some that may have occurred outside of the form correspondence process,” Woodcock wrote to to OIG Acting Inspector Christi Grimm.

“To the extent these concerns could undermine the public’s confidence in FDA’s decision, I believe that it is critical that the events at issue be reviewed by an independent body such as the Office of the Inspector General in order to determine whether any interactions that occurred between Biogen and FDA review staff were inconsistent with FDA policies and procedures.”

US turns corner, but world way behind on COVID-19 – The Hill

The United States has finally turned the corner on the pandemic, thanks to the widespread availability of vaccines.

But in much of the rest of the world, vaccines are scarce and cases and deaths are spiking, highlighting harsh disparities between higher- and lower-income countries.

While the United States has announced plans to donate more than 500 million vaccine doses abroad, advocates and experts say that is far from enough, and are pushing the Biden administration, as well as the leaders of other wealthy countries, to do more.

Less than 2 percent of people in Africa are fully vaccinated, the World Health Organization said, while noting that the continent suffered “its worst pandemic week ever” this week. Africa recorded more than 250,000 new COVID-19 cases in the week ending July 4, the WHO said, up 20 percent from the previous week.

In Indonesia, the humanitarian organization Project HOPE reports that hospitals are overwhelmed and are building tents to care for patients as bed capacity is filled.

“Sick patients are just waiting for new deaths so they can even have a chance of making it inside a hospital,” the group’s executive director for Indonesia, Edhie Rahmat, said in a statement.

Worldwide, there are about 8,000 new COVID-19 deaths every day, according to Our World in Data.

The more transmissible delta variant adds even more fuel to the fire, allowing outbreaks to grow faster.

“It’s a really scary moment and if nothing changes it’s going to be a really terrible situation,” said Rachel Silverman, policy fellow at the Center for Global Development.

Covid to get worse before it gets better, doctors warn – BBC

The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges said people should remain cautious, taking measures such as wearing face coverings in crowded indoor spaces.

It has warned that the NHS is “under unprecedented pressure”.

On Monday the government is expected to confirm whether the easing of measures in England will go ahead on 19 July.

The UK is experiencing a marked increase in cases according to the Office for National Statistics, while Health Secretary Sajid Javid has previously said he would expect numbers of infections to reach about “50,000 new cases a day” by that date.

On Saturday, the UK recorded 32,367 new cases and 34 deaths within 28 days of a positive test.

It is the fourth day in a row case numbers have been above 30,000, while Friday saw the highest daily figure since 22 January.

Prof Helen Stokes-Lampard, chairwoman of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme the academy was “cautious about issuing dire warnings” but she had become “profoundly concerned” over the last couple of weeks about the idea of removing all restrictions on 19 July.

If Ivermectin proven effective against COVID, it moots vaccine push – Fox

An evolutionary biologist claimed Friday that, should the anti-malarial drug Ivermectin be proven effective against the coronavirus, it would moot the usage of and potentially the ability to administer the U.S. coronavirus vaccines currently active under the Food & Drug Administration’s Emergency Use Authorization.

Bret Weinstein – who previously made headlines after being pressured out of his biology professorship at Evergreen State College in Washington State for criticizing an anti-White “day-of-absence” – told Fox Nation’s “Tucker Carlson Today” that he has been analyzing the vaccines, and has summarily been censored for raising concerns about the shots and the medical establishment’s opposition to alternative treatments.

“[I]f Ivermectin is what those of us who have looked at the evidence think it is … then the debate about the vaccines would be over by definition, because the vaccines that we have so far were granted emergency use authorization,” Weinstein said, noting that the coronavirus vaccines are not formally “approved” treatments by the FDA and instead administered under the rarely-delineated category of EUA.

According to the FDA’s own definition, an EUA is “is a mechanism to facilitate the availability and use of medical countermeasures, including vaccines, during public health emergencies, such as the current COVID-19 pandemic.”

“Under an EUA, FDA may allow the use of unapproved medical products, or unapproved uses of approved medical products in an emergency to diagnose, treat, or prevent serious or life-threatening diseases or conditions when certain statutory criteria have been met, including that there are no adequate, approved, and available alternatives,” the agency said.

That last clause, Weinstein told host Tucker Carlson, is key to why it is important that Ivermectin and other established pharmaceuticals are thoroughly investigated as alternative treatments.

“That emergency use authorization has as a condition that there be no safe and effective treatments available,” he said, noting that Ivermectin is old enough and established enough that it is “out of [its] patent” – meaning it can be produced generically – and has been proven safe and effective for other medical conditions.

New COVID-19 symptoms emerge among fully vaccinated – Desert News

More data continues to come out about new COVID-19 symptoms from patients who have been vaccinated. Specifically, the ZOE COVID Symptom study has been updating its list of symptoms for those who have been vaccinated.

The top 5 COVID-19 symptoms after vaccinations

The study suggested there are five COVID-19 symptoms to worry about if you’ve been vaccinated, according to CNBC. Those symptoms include:

• Headaches
• Runny nose
• Sneezing
• Sore throat
• Loss of smell

What’s changed?

Per CNBC, the common symptoms from COVID-19 patients before vaccinations — like anosmia (loss of smell), fever and shortness of breath — were ranked lower on the list. Loss of smell, though still in the top five, was higher in previous rankings, according to CNBC.

• “A persistent cough now ranks at number 8 if you’ve had two vaccine doses, so is no longer the top indicator of having COVID,” according to CNBC.

The following are foreign headlines with hyperlinks to the posts

Mexico enters 3rd wave of coronavirus, infections up 29%

IMF approves $650 billion expansion to fight pandemic

Study shows that poorer people less likely to be tested for SARS-CoV-2, and more likely to be hospitalised, enter ICU and die

Asian Countries Move to Stop Sharp Rise in Coronavirus Cases

The following additional national and state headlines with hyperlinks to the posts

In some areas of the U.S., Delta now accounts for 80 percent of cases

Why you should be wary of the Windows 11 10-day rollback countdown. If you want to go back to the old version once you’ve updated to Windows 11, the clock starts ticking right away.

Los Angeles County reports 165 percent spike in COVID-19 cases in a week

Mississippi warns vulnerable residents to avoid indoor gatherings no matter vaccination status

Maui Pushing for 3 Percent Additional Sales Tax on Visitors

There’s no evidence a Covid booster shot is necessary, says Dr. Ashish Jha

Death Valley soars to 130 degrees, matching Earth’s highest temperature in at least 90 years

Rent prices are soaring as Americans flock back to cities

200 campers sent home after 2 test positive for COVID, stomach virus spreads at Covington camp

Florida COVID-19 cases surge; positivity rates up sharply. Jacksonville added most new coronavirus cases in 7 days since mid-February

Today’s Posts On Econintersect Showing Impact Of The Pandemic and Recovery With Hyperlinks

A Remarkable Recovery – What The IMF Thinks Of The U.S. Economic Condition

Uninsured Health Coverage Rates Decline In Majority Of U.S. Counties After ACA

Should More Student Loan Borrowers Use Income-Driven Repayment Plans?

What The Media Gets Wrong About Red-State Vaccine Hesitancy

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