Written by rjs, MarketWatch 666
The news posted last week for the coronavirus 2019-nCoV (aka SARS-CoV-2), which produces COVID-19 disease, has been surveyed and some important articles are summarized here. The articles are more or less organized with general virus news and anecdotes first, then stories from around the US, followed by an increased number of items from other countries around the globe. Economic news related to COVID-19 is found here.
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Summary:
There hasn’t been much change in the trajectory of US Covid metrics: new cases continue to increase at a modest pace, while US Covid deaths continue to fall. New cases of Covid confirmed over the week ending April 3rd were 5.9% higher that those confirmed over the week ending March 27th, and 15.9% higher than those of the week ending March 20th, while US Covid deaths during the week ending April 3rd were 12.2% lower than the prior week, and down 74.7% from the peak week in late January.
Both new Covid cases and deaths continue to increase globally. A surge of new cases of the B.1.1.7 variant in India driving the new cases total higher, while Brazil with its endemic P1 strain has been accounting for more than 20% of the global death toll. Global Covid case counts for the week ending April 3rd were 5.3% higher than the prior week, and up by 58.8% from the lull of the 3rd week in February, while global Covid deaths were 2.6% higher in the most recent week than the one before it, and 15.4% higher than during the week ending March 13th, when global deaths had briefly slid to a 4-month low.
A small downtick in new cases is evident in both US and global totals over the past few days, which might be indicative of a Good Friday reporting issue.
The chart below from WorldoMeter shows the daily number of new cases for the US, updated through 03 April.
According to Johns Hopkins (graph below), new cases globally increasing again and are accelerating.
Also, Johns Hopkins has a graph for global deaths (below). The upturn in deaths is quite clear this week and ominously indicates there may be an acceleration. Another week will be determinate on that factor.
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Of course, Steven Hansen summarizes and links the latest news related to the pandemic every day, 7 days a week, plus displays over a dozen important graphics updated at least daily. The most recent article at the time this is published: 03 April 2021 Coronavirus Charts and News: Scientists Identify Nine Potential New COVID-19 Treatments
This article leads the daily newsletter from Global Economic Intersection every day. Newsletter subscription is free.
Here are the rest of the articles for the past week reviewed and summarized:
CDC: “Age-adjusted death rate increased by 15.9% in 2020”; COVID Third Leading Cause of Death –The CDC released the Provisional Mortality Data – United States, 2020 today: During January – December 2020, the estimated 2020 age-adjusted death rate increased for the first time since 2017, with an increase of 15.9% compared with 2019, from 715.2 to 828.7 deaths per 100,000 population. COVID-19 was the underlying or a contributing cause of 377,883 deaths (91.5 deaths per 100,000). COVID-19 death rates were highest among males, older adults, and AI/AN and Hispanic persons. The highest numbers of overall deaths and COVID-19 deaths occurred during April and December. COVID-19 was the third leading underlying cause of death in 2020, replacing suicide as one of the top 10 leading causes of death This is very close to economist Tom Lawler’s estimates, see: Lawler: Update on the Dismal Demographics of 2020; “Smallest Population increase since 1918”
COVID-19 pandemic has led to more advanced-stage cancer diagnoses, physician survey finds – Doctors who oversee cancer clinics say that new patients are arriving for treatment with more advanced disease than before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new survey from the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO). The national survey of radiation therapy practice leaders fielded this winter also indicates that treatment postponements and deferrals that were common a year ago have largely subsided and that clinics continue to use a variety of enhanced safety measures to protect their patients and staff. “One year into the COVID-19 pandemic, we already see the consequences of pandemic-driven drops in cancer screening and diagnostics,” said Thomas J. Eichler, MD, FASTRO, Chair of the ASTRO Board of Directors.Two-thirds of the radiation oncologists (66%) said new patients are presenting with more advanced-stage cancers. Nearly three-fourths (73%) said physicians in their practice are noticing that patients are not receiving cancer screenings, and many also said existing patients experienced an interruption in their radiation treatment due to the pandemic (66%). “Because the pandemic and cancer cause disproportionately more harm for Black and other medically underserved populations, these rates may be even higher for some vulnerable communities,” added Dr. Eichler.
New studies show COVID-19 leads to significant organ damage and the death of many survivors – A landmark study in the UK by teams at University College London, the University of Leicester and the Office for National Statistics (ONS) confirms how deadly COVID-19 is. It backs up the growing mountain of evidence that the disease results in major organ damage in the human body. The report, “Post-covid syndrome in individuals admitted to hospital with covid-19″ was published Wednesday in the BMJ (formerly, British Medical Journal). It found, “Over a mean follow-up of 140 days, nearly a third of individuals who were discharged from hospital after acute covid-19 were readmitted (14,060 of 47,780) and more than 1 in 10 (5,875) died after discharge…” Those readmitted needed to be taken back into hospital within four months of being sent home. The remit of the cohort study was to “quantify rates of organ specific dysfunction in individuals with covid-19 after discharge from hospital compared with a matched control group from the general population.” The number of readmittances and deaths, it adds, occurred “at rates four and eight times greater, respectively” than in the control group. The study compared medical records of nearly 48,000 people who had received treatment in a National Health Service (NHS) hospital for COVID-19 and been discharged by August 31, 2020. It concluded, “Individuals discharged from hospital after covid-19 had increased rates of multiorgan dysfunction compared with the expected risk in the general population.” It has long been known that COVID-19 causes damage to the bodies’ major organs, including heart damage, kidney damage, lung damage, liver damage, hearing loss and contributing to bringing on Type 1 diabetes. In January, a study found that while no trace of COVID-19 had appeared in the brains of people with the infection, there was evidence of blood vessel damage caused by the body’s inflammatory response in the post-mortem brains of patients who tested positive for coronavirus. This suggests the virus may indirectly attack the organ. The UK study builds on previous research on outcomes for patients taken into hospital with COVID-19 but based on tens of thousands of cases is able to draw conclusions about the extent of dysfunction in organs of those affected. The report states, “Since SARS-CoV-2 infection was recognised in late 2019, the academic and clinical emphasis has been on respiratory manifestations. Increasing evidence exists for direct multiorgan effects, however, and indirect effects on other organ systems and disease processes, such as cardiovascular diseases and cancers, through changes in healthcare delivery and patient behaviours.” The BMJ states “In a recent study of 1,775 veterans in the United States admitted to hospital with covid-19, 20% were readmitted and 9% died within 60 days of discharge. After restricting follow-up in our study to the same length of time, we found similar prevalence rates of 23% and 9%, respectively. Our study extends these findings as we found that covid-19 was associated with dysfunction in a range of organs after discharge in a broader population of patients admitted to hospital.”
COVID variants reach escape velocity — The dense worldwide transportation network constructed by humans is now powering so-called variants (mutations) of COVID-19 across the world from their countries of origin. The British variant (called B.1.1.7), the Brazilian variant (called P.1) and the South African variant (called B.1.351) are all racing across the globe. This shouldn’t be surprising since all three are thought to be more contagious than the original virus.The Brazilian variant is thought to be capable of reinfecting people who have already had the original virus.And, it may have greater capabilities to evade the protections created by vaccines.That this is happening is no surprise to people who understand viruses, particularly those with knowledge of coronaviruses. Almost exactly one year ago I sat across from a colleague at dinner who knows a lot about coronaviruses. Let me summarize what he told me: Coronaviruses mutate very frequently. There are a few (three or four) that cause what we call the common cold. There are other types of viruses that cause colds as well. Once you have a cold caused by a coronavirus, you are not permanently immune to colds caused by this group of viruses. The immunity wears off fairly quickly and in any case you might be infected by another version of the virus that causes colds. In addition, the coronaviruses that cause colds are constantly mutating making it impossible to create an effective vaccine that will cover all of them. The expectation is that even if a vaccine were possible, the immunity provided by it would not last. If COVID-19 acts like other coronaviruses – and there is no reason to believe it will not – then it is likely that there will be no effective vaccine even if many are initially developed and deployed. The CEO of pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson said last month that people may have to receive yearly doses of COVID-19 vaccines because of the proliferating mutations. That sounded at the time like an admission that COVID-19 would become endemic. But surely this CEO and people throughout the industry knew that this was likely from the start. They just failed to mention it when discussing vaccines publicly. I suspect that doing so would have been bad for business. It may turn out that even this pronouncement from Johnson & Johnson’s CEO is too optimistic if my colleague’s assessment is proven correct. We may then be forced to rely on public and individual health measures of the type I have written about twice previously (here and here).
Double-mutant COVID variant has been found: Here’s what that means —India’s Health Ministry has released a new report that reveals a new “double mutant” COVID-19 variant that has already started to spread across the country. A double mutation variant is “two mutations coming together in the same virus,” virologist Shahid Jameel told BBC News. India’s government said it collected samples from COVID-19 testing that showed “an increase in the fraction of samples with the E484Q and L452R mutations” compared to December 2020, according to BBC News.
- The government said those variants had been found in 15% to 20% of all collected samples.
- The L452R mutation originally emerged in California and has been seen in the two COVID-19 variants in that state.
- The E484Q mutation has been reported in 11 different countries.
However, India said the new “double mutant” hasn’t led to an increase in cases yet. “Though (variants of concern) and a new double mutant variant have been found in India, these have not been detected in numbers sufficient to either establish or direct relationship or explain the rapid increase in cases in some states. Genomic sequencing and epidemiological studies are continuing to further analyze the situation,” according to the healthy ministry. Jameel, the virologist, told BBC News that a “double mutant” might make key changes to the virus that will allow it to evade vaccines. “A double mutation in the key areas of the virus’s spike protein may increase these risks and allow the virus to escape the immune system and make it more infectious,” he added.
Vaccines appear effective vs New York virus variant; super-spreader events drive variants (Reuters) – The following is a roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus.
- New York variant does not escape vaccines. Antibodies induced by the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines and the antibody therapy from Regeneron Pharmaceuticals all are able to neutralize a coronavirus variant on the rise in New York, lab experiments show. The New York variant contains mutations – E484K, S477N and D235G – that experts feared might reduce antibody efficacy. The new results “show that this potential problem is not going to be a problem,” said Nathaniel Landau of New York University, who coauthored a report posted Wednesday on bioRxiv ahead of peer review. The mutations all cause changes to the spike protein the virus uses to infect cells and are located in the part of the spike protein where antibodies bind. The researchers exposed replicas of the New York variant to blood from recipients of either the vaccines or the Regeneron antibody combination used to treat infected patients. Antibodies induced by the vaccines were “very effective at binding to the altered spike protein,” Landau said. The Regeneron therapy also was “still a potent blocker” of the virus. “The vaccines are very effective at stopping this highly contagious variant strain of SARS COV2 which is why it is more important than ever to get vaccinated,” Landau said. (https://bit.ly/3ssmR9u)
- Super-spreader events give life to virus variants.Super-spreader events, in which an infected person transmits the virus to many other people, are critical to the survival and predominance of new variants, researchers have found. If coronavirus transmission only occurs one person at a time, a new variant is unlikely to gain a foothold and will usually die out in the population by chance, said Daniel Reeves of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. “Even very strong variants can die out if they are ‘unlucky’ and don’t happen by chance to be transmitted in a super-spread event,” he added. His team’s new mathematical models, posted on Wednesday on medRxiv ahead of peer review, show that early super-spreader events infecting more than five people are critical to a variant’s survival, while super-spreader events infecting more than 20 people are critical to its eventual predominance. Even a very infectious new variant usually needs a super-spreader event to help it overtake a current variant, Reeves explained. The findings provide yet another reason to focus on preventing large super-spreader events by prohibiting large indoor gatherings, focusing on adequate ventilation indoors, and mandating highest quality masks (K95 or N95) when group exposures are unavoidable, the researchers concluded. (https://bit.ly/39fZ4C7)
- Coronavirus can infect mouth tissues, spreading infection. The new coronavirus can infect salivary glands, which can then play a role in transmitting the virus to the lungs or digestive tract via saliva, according to a report published on Thursday in Nature Medicine. Researchers first studied mouth cells from healthy volunteers, looking for two proteins the coronavirus uses as entryways. Cells in the salivary glands and the gums expressed both proteins, making them vulnerable to infection. Next, researchers discovered genetic material from the virus in mouth tissues from COVID-19 patients, indicating infection. They also found evidence that the virus was replicating in some of these cells. Among 27 volunteers with mild COVID-19, those with virus in their saliva were more likely to report loss of taste and smell, suggesting that infected salivary glands might help explain some oral symptoms of COVID-19, the researchers said. “The study’s findings suggest that the mouth, via infected oral cells, plays a bigger role in SARS-CoV-2 infection than previously thought,” study coauthor Kevin Byrd of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill said in a statement. “When infected saliva is swallowed or tiny particles of it are inhaled, we think it can potentially transmit SARS-CoV-2″ further into the body.” (https://go.nature.com/3spbFdQ)
Factory Mix-Up Ruins Up to 15 Million J&J Coronavirus Vaccine Doses – – Workers at a plant in Baltimore manufacturing two coronavirus vaccines accidentally conflated the ingredients several weeks ago, contaminating up to 15 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine and forcing regulators to delay authorization of the plant’s production lines. The plant is run by Emergent BioSolutions, a manufacturing partner to both Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca, the British-Swedish company whose vaccine has yet to be authorized for use in the United States. Federal officials attributed the mistake to human error. The mix-up has delayed future shipments of Johnson & Johnson doses in the United States while the Food and Drug Administration investigates what occurred. Johnson & Johnson has moved to strengthen its control over Emergent BioSolutions’ work to avoid additional quality lapses. The mistake is a major embarrassment both for Johnson & Johnson, whose one-dose vaccine has been credited with speeding up the national immunization program, and for Emergent, its subcontractor, which has faced fierce criticism for its heavy lobbying for federal contracts, especially for the government’s emergency health stockpile. The error does not affect any Johnson & Johnson doses that are currently being delivered and used nationwide, including the shipments that states are counting on next week. All those doses were produced in the Netherlands, where operations have been fully approved by federal regulators. Further shipments of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine – expected to total 24 million doses in the next month – were supposed to come from the giant plant in Baltimore. Those deliveries are now in question while the quality control issues are sorted out, according to people familiar with the matter. Federal officials still expect to have enough doses from Johnson & Johnson and the other two approved coronavirus vaccine makers to meet President Biden’s commitment to provide enough vaccine to immunize every adult by the end of May. Pfizer is shipping its doses ahead of schedule, and Moderna is on the verge of winning approval to deliver vials of vaccine packed with up to 15 doses instead of 10, further bolstering the nation’s stock. The problems arose in a new plant that the federal government enlisted last year to produce vaccines from Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca. The two vaccines use the same technology employing a harmless version of a virus – known as a vector – that is transmitted into cells to make a protein that then stimulates the immune system to produce antibodies. But Johnson and Johnson’s and AstraZeneca’s vectors are biologically different and not interchangeable. In late February, one or more workers somehow confused the two during the production process, raising questions about training and supervision. In the past year, Emergent has hired and trained hundreds of new workers to produce millions of doses of both vaccines that were supposed to be ready by the time clinical trials showed whether the vaccines actually worked.
Reaction To COVID-19 Vaccine Caused Man’s Skin To Peel Off: Doctors – A reaction to Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine caused a severe rash that eventually led to a man’s skin peeling off, doctors and the man said. “It all just happened so fast. My skin peeled off. It’s still coming off on my hands now,” Richard Terrell, 74, of Virginia, told WRIC. Terrell received the shot earlier this month but was soon forced to go to the Virginia Commonwealth University’s (VCU) Medical Center for treatment. The issues began appearing four days after the injection. Discomfort turned into an itchy rash that began to swell. Graphic photographs show how Terrell’s legs and feet turned bright red as swelling intensified. “It was stinging, burning, and itching,” Terrell said. “Whenever I bent my arms or legs, like the inside of my knee, it was very painful where the skin was swollen and was rubbing against itself.” Fnu Nutan, a dermatology hospitalist at VCU, said doctors determined what happened to Terrell was a reaction to the vaccine. “We ruled out all the viral infections, we ruled out COVID-19 itself, we made sure that his kidneys and liver was okay, and finally we came to the conclusion that it was the vaccine that he had received that was the cause,” Nutan told WRIC.
Woman suffers agonizing rash after Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine – A 41-year-old Scottish woman who received a COVID-19 vaccine broke out in a severe rash that has left her in agony more than two weeks after her fateful jab, according to a report. Leigh King, of Wishaw in North Lanarkshire, got her first dose of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine on March 12 but is still suffering from intense pain from the rash, which covers her face, chest and arms, the Wishaw Press reports. “My skin was so sore and constantly hot. I have never felt pain like this – it has been a horrible experience,” said the hairdresser, the mother of a 13-year-old autistic boy named Aidan. “I am a very healthy person and am not on any medication or anything like that. I am not even in a vulnerable category,” King told the news outlet. “I only got the vaccine as I am an unpaid carer for my son, who has autism and mobility issues.” She added: “I haven’t even been able to care for him since I got the vaccine as I am in such pain.” King said she began to feel the alarming reaction almost immediately after receiving the shot at the Ravenscraig super center. “It was a horrible feeling. Never in my life was I prepared for what I was about to experience,” she said. “To say it’s been the worst time of my life is an absolute understatement.”
Pfizer Vaccine for 12 to 15 Year Olds Could Get Fall FDA Approval: Gottlieb -Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine could get FDA approval for 12 to 15 year olds “in time for the fall school year,” the former FDA commissioner said.Scott Gottlieb was asked on CNBC on Tuesday when he thought the FDA could approve the vaccine for that age group. Gottlieb is also a member of Pfizer’s board.His comments come after Pfizer announced on Wednesday that its vaccine was highly effective at preventing COVID-19 infection in kids aged 12 to 15 in a late-stage trial of more than 2,000 participants.Pfizer said it plans to submit the data to the US Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency to request for emergency authorization of the vaccine. Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said: “We plan to submit these data to FDA as a proposed amendment to our Emergency Use Authorization in the coming weeks and to other regulators around the world, with the hope of starting to vaccinate this age group before the start of the next school year.”
Christian Nationalism Is a Barrier to Mass Vaccination Against COVID-19 – While the majority of Americans either intend to get the COVID-19 vaccine or have already received their shots, getting white evangelicals to vaccination sites may prove more of a challenge – especially those who identify as Christian nationalists. A Pew Research Center survey conducted in February found white evangelicals to be the religious group least likely to say they’d be vaccinated against the coronavirus. Nearly half (45%) said they would not get the COVID-19 shot, compared with 30% of the general population. Some evangelicals have even linked coronavirus vaccinations to the “mark of the beast” – a symbol of submission to the Antichrist found in biblical prophecies, Revelation 13:18. As a scholar of religion and society, I know that this skepticism among evangelicals has a background. Suspicion from religious conservatives regarding the COVID-19 vaccine is built on the back of their growing distrust of science, medicine and the global elite. Vaccine hesitancy is not restricted to immunization over COVID-19. In 2017, the Pew Research Center found that more than 20% of white evangelicals – more than any other group – believed that “parents should be able to decide not to vaccinate their children, even if that may create health risks for other children and adults.” Meanwhile, there are concerns that many white evangelicals are becoming more radical. Faith is not in itself an indication of extremism, but the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6 showed that there is a problem when it comes to some evangelicals also holding extreme beliefs. White evangelicalism, in particular, has been susceptible to Christian nationalism – the belief that the U.S. is a Christian nation that should serve the interests of white Americans. Those who identify as Christian nationalists believe they are God’s chosen people and will be protected from any illness or disease.This proves problematic when it comes to vaccinations. A study earlier this year found Christian nationalists were far more likely to abstain from taking the COVID-19 vaccine. It builds on research that found Christian nationalism was a leading predictor of ignoring precautionary behaviors regarding coronavirus. Christian nationalists tend to place vaccinations within a worldview that generally distrusts science and scientists as a threat to the moral order. This was seen in the response of many on the religious right to guidance on masks and social distancing as well as, now, vaccines. This anti-vaccine attitude fits with the anti-government libertarianism that predominates among Christian nationalists. Many within the movement place this belief in freedom from government action within a traditional religious framework. They feel that COVID-19 is God’s divinely ordained message telling the world to change. If the government tells them to go against that idea and vaccinate, many of them they feel they are either going against God’s will or that the government is violating their religious freedom. White evangelicals were the least likely religious group to support mandated closures of businesses, for example.
CDC walks back claim that vaccinated people can’t carry COVID – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has walked back the claim made by its director that vaccinated people don’t carry the coronavirus. CDC chief Rochelle Walensky said earlier this week that “vaccinated people do not carry the virus, don’t get sick.” But the health agency clarified the statement Thursday, saying “the evidence isn’t clear” and that Walensky was “speaking broadly.” “It’s possible that some people who are fully vaccinated could get COVID-19,” a CDC spokesperson told the New York Times. “The evidence isn’t clear whether they can spread the virus to others. We are continuing to evaluate the evidence.” Dr. Peter Bach, director of the Center for Health Policy and Outcomes at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, said confusion about bulletproof immunity could lead to Americans refusing to wear a mask after getting the jabs. Residents and staff gather and dance during an Easter concert for vaccinated residents at the Ararat Nursing Facility in the Mission Hills on April 1, 2021, in Los Angeles. Residents and staff gather and dance during an Easter concert for vaccinated residents at the Ararat Nursing Facility in the Mission Hills on April 1, 2021, in Los Angeles. Mario Tama/Getty Images “This opens the door to the skeptics who think the government is sugarcoating the science,” Bach told the paper. On Monday, Walensky told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow: “Our data from the CDC today suggests that vaccinated people do not carry the virus, don’t get sick.” “And that it’s not just in the clinical trials, it’s also in real-world data,” she added.
CDC director warns of ‘impending doom’ on potential new COVID-19 surge –The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Monday warned of “impending doom” over rising coronavirus cases, telling the public that even though vaccines are being rolled out quickly, a fourth surge could happen if people don’t start taking precautions. “I’m going to lose the script, and I’m going to reflect on the recurring feeling I have of impending doom. We have so much to look forward to so much promise and potential of where we are, and so much reason for hope. But right now I’m scared,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said during a White House briefing Monday. “We do not have the luxury of inaction,” Walensky added. Walensky’s warning comes a day after the United States surpassed 30 million cases of COVID-19, and cases are continuing to increase. According to Walensky, the seven day average of new cases is around 60,000 cases per day, a 10 percent increase over the past week. The numbers are still a far cry from the peak in January, but the rise comes after a sustained period of stagnation. “When we see that uptick in cases, what we have seen before is that things really have a tendency to surge, and surge big,” Walensky said. Walensky said hospitalizations have also increased over the past week, as the most recent seven day average is about 4,800 admissions per day, up from 4,600 admissions per day in the prior seven days. She said that the country has come “such a long way” with three authorized vaccines and pleaded with the nation to keep following mitigation measures and “just please hold on a little while longer.” The U.S. trends are mirroring what’s happening in Europe, where nations are once again locking down amid a rapid increase in cases that is straining health care systems.
COVID Variant In Brazil Becoming More Concerning: ‘It May Be Able To Evade Immunity… It May Be More Deadly’ – – The news about COVID vaccine effectiveness continues to improve, but with some caution. The coronavirus variant that’s circulating in Brazil is becoming more concerning, both for infectiousness and for severity of disease. As CBS2’s Dr. Max Gomez, the good news comes from a CDC report Monday evaluating the effectiveness of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines in widespread, real world use. Similar to clinical trial results, both vaccines prevented 90% of infections by two weeks after the second shot. Even one dose provided 80% protection. Just as importantly, the vaccines appeared to provide good protection against the variants that were circulating during the study period from December of last year until two weeks ago, which includes the U.K. and South Africa mutations. However, what is concerning is how these vaccines will work against the variant first identified in Brazil. “It seems that – and I’m using my words carefully here – that it’s more infectious, meaning spread more easily,” said Dr. Thomas Balcezak, chief clinical officer for the Yale New Haven Health system. “It seems to have infected people who were already infected with the coronavirus and have had COVID-19 previously. So it may be able to evade immunity. And number three, there’s some beginning data here to suggest that it may be more deadly,” he said. Gomez spoke recently with the CEO of Moderna, who committed his company to quickly generate a vaccine against any and every clinically significant variant that pops up. They’re already testing a vaccine against the South Africa variant. Balcezak and others emphasize that our best defense right now is to get as many people vaccinated as possible because when there’s less virus circulating, there’s less opportunity for the virus to mutate.
New COVID variants could reinfect people every few years, expert says – Different strains of the coronavirus will likely reinfect people every few years, according to a British medical expert. Paul Hunter, professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia, predicts more variants of the virus could emerge even as the pandemic ends, according to a recent report. The World Health Organization has identified three variants of the coronavirus, including the South Africa and Brazil strains, which experts say could be resistant to vaccines. Hunter said it was “difficult to predict” how COVID will mutate, adding new strains might not lead to serious illness. Still, in an interview with BBC Radio 4, he urged governments to be vigilant as they reopen economies. “We do know that new variants develop, that’s very obvious, and some new variants spread and become dominant,” he said. “Many new variants just die out. … Ultimately with the other human coronaviruses, we expect to get reinfected on average every two to four years with the same virus.” The World Health Organization has identified three COVID variants that experts say could be resistant to vaccines.
Our Collective Long Covid – Yves Smith -For some time, we’ve been pointing to information and developments that suggest that efforts to contain Covid are having only limited success. That means Covid will be with us a very long time. Yet there’s still a tremendous amount of wishful thinking and denial which has the potential to make this bad situation worse. Ambrit’s take yesterday: “The Pandemic is not even slowing down, yet, a false sense of triumphalism holds sway on that front” is consistent with by a Bloomberg article last week, When Will Covid End? We Must Start Planning For a Permanent Pandemic. In other words, even as the idea that Covid will be with us for years at best is moving from the fringes to a legitimate viewpoint, more and more people (outside the EU and UK) are acting on the assumption that normalcy is nigh. Consider:
- Poor countries denied Covid vaccines until 2023. That means virus will keep circulating there. Even if these countries get to be very successful at identifying and distributing prophylactics, they have to be administered regularly, which is even more difficult logistically than administering vaccines, so there are certain to be large gaps in who will get these treatments. That insures that variants will keep developing.
- Only temporary immunity. Immunity to other common coronaviruses lasts anywhere from 6 months to 34 months. Various studies, like the large-scale periodic surveys in the UK, have suggested immunity lasts six months, and some have argued at least eight months. But then we come across datapoints like this one: SARS-CoV-2 seropositivity and subsequent infection risk in healthy young adults: a prospective cohort study:Seropositive young adults had about one-fifth the risk of subsequent infection compared with seronegative individuals.The “healthy young adults” were Marines undergoing basic training. Of the ones who had tested positive, 10% tested positive again during a six-week follow up. The reinfections were of the same strain.
- We don’t know how much the vaccines reduce contagion. Given the concerted effort to vaccinate nursing home residents and staffs, the impressive decline in cases there points more to vaccine success among the vaccinated than in reducing transmission. The assumption has been that the vaccines will reduce disease spread since they considerably reduce the number of severe cases, and lower viral loads and fewer Covid coughs ought to mean less disease propagation. But we now also know that mild and asymptomatic cases can spread the disease, and can also produce lasting damage, to lungs, kidneys, the heart, as well as long Covid.
- Uncertainty about effectiveness of existing vaccines will be with new variants. mRNA vaccines are touted for speed of development, so it should come as no surprise that Pfizer and Moderna are looking into whether a third shot will be necessary to contend with new variants.
- Vaccination levels won’t be high enough tamp down the disease. This is not new news but it bears repeating. From Bloomberg’s “permanent pandemic” piece: In the case of SARS-CoV-2, however, recent developments suggest that we may never achieve herd immunity. Even the U.S., which leads most other countries in vaccinations and already had large outbreaks, won’t get there. And from a newer story in Bloomberg: What that means is that new Covid cases will likely emerge in younger age groups. That occurred in Israel, where infections were recently plateauing despite the country’s world-leading immunization program. It turned out that cases among young people were surging, even as infections dropped in the 50-and-older crowd.
- Lack of will to take stringent enough control measures. South Korea has shown how to get Covid down to a low enough level to allow for normal life to continue: impose strict quarantines for all incoming travelers, track and trace any new infections, and require those exposed to quarantine. In the West, we’ve only done leaky lockdowns and our quarantines have almost all been jokes (see New York as an example).
- Inadequate official action compounded by optimism bias and compliance fatigue. Lambert and the Institute for New Economic Thinking both have warned that the CDC’s failure to take aerosol spread as a serious risk and its biased reading of other data have led it to recommend school reopenings without implementing adequate safety measures or pumping for improved ventilation.
It’s Time To Talk About Ivermectin — I am not a medical doctor. This article is not intended as medical advice. It’s a layman’s account of how an extremely cheap, safe and widely available off-patent medicine called ivermectin appears to be saving the lives of countless Covid-19 patients across Latin America and beyond. Yet hardly anybody is talking about it. Here’s the caveat: The first section of the article, which was completed on Friday, is about Mexico City’s recent deployment of ivermectin in its fight against Covid-19. On Saturday, Mexico’s Ministry of Health jacked up its total excess death count due to Covid (for the whole country) by 60%, from 182,000 to 294,000. However, most of these deaths took place before Mexico City began using ivermectin as part of its its test-and-treat approach to Covid. . In many countries, locking down entire cities or regions and paying millions of non-essential workers not to work while front-line doctors and nurses battle to contain the virus is not an option. There simply isn’t enough money available. This has left doctors and health authorities with little choice but to try out cheap, widely available generic medicines. Those drugs include ivermectin, a “well-studied, well tolerated,” (in the words of a 2013 FT article) off-patent anti-parasitical. The results have been extremely promising, according to almost all of the clinical studies conducted thus far. Many of the studies took place in Latin America where around half of the countries in the region have used or are using ivermectin to some degree or another. A meta analysis of 42 clinical trials, involving approximately 15,000 patients, found that 83% showed improvements with early treatment, 51% improved during late-stage treatment and there was an 89% prevention of onset rate noted. Yet the studies have received scant attention in more advanced economies – so much so that the vast majority of the people I talk to here in Europe have still not even heard of the medicine.
Fauci warns parents about children playing together without masks – Dr. Anthony Fauci on Sunday warned that vaccinated parents still need to worry about their children becoming infected while playing with other kids. “The children can clearly wind up getting infected,” Fauci told CBS anchor Margaret Brennan on “Face the Nation” when asked about the risk of kids playing in groups. The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said that while adults inoculated against COVID-19 don’t always have to wear masks around each other, children – who are not yet eligible for the jab – should wear them around each other. “When the children go out into the community, you want them to continue to wear masks when they’re interacting with groups or multiple households,” he said. But when asked whether kids can return to camp or playgrounds this summer, Fauci said it was “conceivable that will be possible.” “We now have 3 to 3.5 million vaccinations each day. If we keep up with that pace, invariably, that’s going to drive the rate and the level of infections per day to a much, much lower level,” Fauci said, adding that lower infection rates will enable the country to have a “good degree of flexibility during the summer … with things like camps.”
COVID-19 cases in Chicago and throughout Illinois increase following reopening of schools and businesses – Cases of COVID-19 increased sharply in Chicago and the rest of Illinois over the past week, following the widespread reopening of elementary schools for in-person instruction and the relaxation of public health restrictions on restaurants and other businesses. Despite the spread of the disease and the danger posed by new coronavirus variants, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) officials have continued their push to get more students and educators back into classrooms for the start of the fourth quarter term on April 19. According to Chicago’s COVID Dashboard, the current citywide test positivity rate is 3.8 percent, based on a seven-day rolling average, up from the 3.0 percent the week before. Daily average cases in the city are up 407, a 27 percent increase over the last week. The Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH) classifies the current situation as “High Risk,” meaning there have been five days or more of 10 percent increases in cases over the previous week.Tragically, the increase in infections in Chicago resulted in the death this week of CPS student Zmaya Bell. Bell, an 18-year-old student at Simeon Career Academy, died of COVID-19-related complications on Wednesday, according to her family. The increase in cases is not limited to Chicago. COVID-19 infections are increasing throughout the state and the country, a consequence of the Biden administration’s push to reopen schools and the broader economy. In Illinois, schools remain the number one source of new COVID-19 infections, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH). Schools account for 21.5 percent of cases, more than double the rate of the next highest category, Business or Retail establishments.IDPH data also indicates there are currently 16 school-based COVID-19 outbreaks, defined as five or more cases, across the state. Since the week beginning February 28, there have been 1,889 infections registered among children ages 5 – 11 and 3,046 registered among children 12 – 17. Chicago officials, like their counterparts nationally, have repeatedly claimed schools are “safe,” in contradiction to serious research which has found that closing schools is one of the most effective ways to stop the spread of coronavirus. Dr. Marielle Fricchione, CDPH’s medical director, even claimed in January that teachers are “very good at infection control” because they have an “innate sense” of whether things like surfaces or objects are clean because of their extensive experience being around sick children.
COVID-19 variant causing surge in Brazil has been detected in Shelby County —Another dangerous COVID-19 variant has arrived in Memphis and Shelby County, the Shelby County Health Department confirmed Monday morning. David Sweat, the deputy director of the health department, said local labs detected the P.1 strain of the novel coronavirus last Thursday and Friday. He said the labs, at first, detected two separate, unrelated cases and that more cases had been found over the weekend. “There is concern obviously because of the trouble this variant is causing in Brazil and we’re trying to investigate and learn as much as we can about the context of how this came here, but right now it’s, it’s an ongoing investigation,” Sweat said. The P.1 variant is roiling Brazil where it has caused a surge of cases and deaths.Scientists estimate it is more contagious, making it easier to pass from person-to-person. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the P.1 variant was first detected in the U.S. in January. News reports show that it has spread throughout the country and is now in Shelby County, per the health department. This variant worries epidemiologists and public health officials because it has shown the capacity to reinfect people who have already had COVID-19 and there is unclear information about how effective the authorized coronavirus vaccines are against it. The news of P.1’s arrival also comes after the county’s transmission number – how many new cases each new infected person causes – has nearly doubled, going from .59 on March 16 to 1.15 Monday.
COVID variants caused at least 2,700 infections in NY. What to know —Coronavirus variants have caused at least 2,700 infections in New York state amid a dire push to ramp up COVID-19 vaccinations before the mutations ignite another pandemic surge, new state data show. Of the cases, one variant originally identified in New York City in November now accounted for nearly 2,300 infections, underscoring the threat posed by variants that could prove more contagious and deadlier than the original novel coronavirus. Indeed, confirmed cases of a variant linked to the United Kingdom have spiked in New York state from about 136 in late February to 464 as of last week. The rise in variant cases stemmed in part from increased testing that targeted mutations, suggesting scientists were finding more cases that went undetected previously. But the actual number of variant cases is also likely higher than reported because the numbers are a result of random sampling intended to track variants across the state. Further, early warning signs that COVID-19 vaccines could prove less effective against some coronavirus variants have come as recent progress towards ending the pandemic has slowed, with the daily tally of infections in New York and other states plateauing in recent weeks.While experts remained cautiously optimistic that rapidly rising vaccination rates outpaced infections linked to the growing list of variants, authorities emphasized the importance of getting enough people vaccinated to limit risks of extending the pandemic suffering. In addition to the New York variant, called B.1.526, and United Kingdom variant, called B.1.1.7, testing in New York state has confirmed five cases of the B.1.351, or South Africa variant; and one case of the P1, or Brazil variant, state data show. Monroe County health officials last week also noted a variant first identified in California has been confirmed in their community. Meanwhile, in the most recent update, the U.S. last week reported 2,926 new variant cases in just one week, which is more than the country reported in December, January and February combined. By Jan. 2021, the variant represented about 3% of samples analyzed by researchers, rising to 12.3% by mid-February, according to a study by scientists at Columbia University
New York health officials are worried South African and Brazil Covid variants will REINFECT people New York health officials are worried that some coronavirus variants will reinfect people who have had COVID-19 before.At a press conference on Tuesday, Dr Dave Chokshi, the city’s health commissioner, said that reinfection appears to be rare. However, he noted that the coronavirus variants that were first identified in South Africa and Brazil have been show in lab studies to have a greater ability elude antibodies that the body generates after infection. ‘[They] do appear to be able to evade our immune response more so that some of the other variants of the virus,’ Chokshi said. ‘So that is something we are following closely and there appears to be evidence that those people who get those variants are more at risk of reinfection.’ Both he and Mayor Bill de Blasio reiterated that the best way to protect yourself from reinfection is to get vaccinated. South Africa’s variant was first announced by the health department in the Eastern Cape province of the county on December 18. It has 21 mutations, including one it shares with the variant first identified in the UK in a location on its genome known as N501Y. This variant first caught international attention when four travelers arriving to Tokyo from Manaus, Brazil, tested positive on January 2. The variant has the same spike protein mutation as the highly transmissible versions found in the UK and South Africa – named N501Y – which makes the spike better able to bind to receptors inside the body. However, very few cases of either variant have been identified in either New York City or the state. Just two cases of the South African variant and one of the Brazilian variant have been confirmed in the city, according to the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH). In New York State, there have been five confirmed case of the South African variant and two confirmed cases of the Brazilian variant, according to The Journal News. Currently, the variant that is the most prevalent in the Big Apple is the homegrown New York City variant, B.1.526. The New York variant was first detected in samples collected in mid-November in Washington Heights, neighborhood in Upper Manhattan. It is thought to have had a chance to develop in a person who had advanced AIDS.
This Week in Virology: TWiV 737: SARS-CoV-2 in NYC wastewater (two hour video) John, Monica, and Davida join TWiV to discuss development of a method to detect SARS-CoV-2 in raw sewage from all 14 of New York City’s treatment plants, and its use to determine the presence of the genome throughout the pandemic and detection of genome mutations from variants of concern.
Amish community may have reached COVID ‘herd immunity,’ health official says — An Amish community in Pennsylvania may have become the first group in the US to achieve herd immunity, a local health official claims. The administrator of a medical center in the heart of Lancaster County’s New Holland Borough, which is known for its Amish and Mennonite communities, estimates that as many as 90 percent of the religious families have had at least one family member infected with the virus. “So, you would think if COVID was as contagious as they say, it would go through like a tsunami; and it did,” said Allen Hoover, an administrator of the Parochial Medical Center, which caters to the religious community and has 33,000 patients. The Amish and Mennonite groups initially complied with stay-at-home orders at the beginning of the pandemic – shuttering schoolhouses and canceling church services. But by late April, they had resumed worship services, where they shared communion cups and holy kisses, a church greeting among believers. Soon after, the virus tore throughout the religious enclave. “It was bad here in the spring; one patient right after another,” said Pam Cooper, a physician’s assistant at the Parochial Medical Center. In late April and early May, the county’s positivity rate for COVID-19 tests exceeded 20 percent, according to nonprofit Covid Act Now. But Hoover said that it’s impossible to know the full extent of the virus outbreak since he estimates that fewer than 10 percent of patients displaying symptoms consented to being tested.
Roseville CA COVID-19 vaccine site to close for anime event – The Roseville site that serves as Placer’s main county-run vaccination center will be closed this Thursday and Friday as the venue hosts an anime event.A county webpage showing dates and times for COVID-19 vaccine appointments available at The Grounds, formerly the Placer County Fairgrounds, says the clinic will be closed April 1 and April 2 due to an “event at venue.”The event in question is a swap meet organized by SacAnime. According to websites for the venue and for SacAnime, the event will be held Friday through Sunday at The Grounds, with face masks required and social distancing protocols observed. County spokeswoman Katie Combs-Prichard in an emailed response to The Bee confirmed Thursday and Friday’s vaccine clinic closures are due to “pre-existing events” planned at The Grounds. Additionally, Combs-Prichard said about 90% of this week’s roughly 5,400 appointments at The Grounds are second-dose appointments, “so closure or not, the impact on first dose appointments available in that time window is not very large,” she wrote. Still, some social media users criticized the event being held in lieu of vaccine clinics. “I’m so glad an anime convention is being held in the same area they’re administering vaccines,” one person commented on a recent SacAnime Facebook post. “Bonus points for delaying my
March 31 COVID-19 Vaccinations, New Cases, Hospitalizations –Note: I’ve been posting this data daily for over a year. I’ll stop once 70% of the population over 18 has had at least one dose of vaccine, new cases are under 5,000 per day, and hospitalizations below 3,000.According to the CDC, 150.3 million doses have been administered. 21.1% of the population over 18 is fully vaccinated, and 37.7% of the population over 18 has had at least one dose (97.2 million people have had at least one dose).And check out COVID Act Now to see how each state is doing. Almost 35,000 US deaths have been reported in March due to COVID. This graph shows the daily (columns) 7 day average (line) of positive tests reported.This data is from the CDC. The 7-day average is 62,542, up from 61,998 yesterday, and close to the summer surge peak of 67,337 on July 23rd. The second graph shows the number of people hospitalized. This data is also from the CDC. The CDC cautions that due to reporting delays, the area in grey will probably increase. The current 7-day average is 33,376, up from 33,141 yesterday, and well above the post-summer surge low of 23,000.
The Fourth Surge Is Upon Us. This Time, It’s Different. Across the United States, cases have started rising again. In a few cities, even hospitalizations are ticking up. The twists and turns of a pandemic can be hard to predict, but this most recent increase was almost inevitable: A more transmissible and more deadly variant called B.1.1.7 has established itself at the precise moment when many regions are opening up rapidly by lifting mask mandates, indoor-gathering restrictions, and occupancy limits on gyms and restaurants. The good news is that this one is different. We now have an unparalleled supply of astonishingly efficacious vaccines being administered at an incredible clip. If we act quickly, this surge could be merely a blip for the United States. But if we move too slowly, more people will become infected by this terrible new variant, which is acutely dangerous to those who are not yet vaccinated. The United States has an advantage that countries such as Canada, France, Germany, and Italy, who are also experiencing surges from this variant, don’t. The Moderna, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson vaccines work very well against this variant, and the U.S. has been using them to vaccinate more than 3 million people a day. That’s more than 4 percent of our vaccine-eligible population every three days. An astonishing 73 percent of people over 65, and 36 percent of all eligible adults in the country, have already received at least one dose. More than 50 million people are now consideredfully vaccinated, having received either their booster dose or the “one and done” Johnson & Johnson shot. Many states have already opened up vaccination to anyone over 16, and everyone eligible is expected to have a chance to get at least a first dose no later than May. In addition, the United States has had one of the largest outbreaks in the world. This has caused us immense suffering and loss, but it also means that we are now less vulnerable to future waves. So far, 30 million people in the United States have had a confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection, although the real (unmeasured) number is perhaps as high as 100 million. As expected, those people retain some level of immunity for a substantial amount of time. It’s hard to know exactly how long, because the virus is so new, but for SARS (the related coronavirus that almost sparked a pandemic in 2003), people who were infected retained an antibody response, and thus protection, for an average of two years. Though amazingly, the vaccines appear to provide better immunity than natural infection, those previously infected also gain defenses. Carefully done studies on large populations show a very low rate of reinfection for this coronavirus: less than 1 percent. Plus, many documented reinfections tend to be mild or asymptomatic, an unsurprising outcome given that in these cases the virus is no longer totally novel for the immune system, and thus not as catastrophic in its consequences.
Michigan, Minnesota see COVID-19 variant increases More states are reporting increased B117 variant cases, the variant first identified in the United Kingdom that is roughly 50% more transmissible than the original COVID-19 strain. Today Minnesota confirmed the variant is now widespread in the state, accounting for more than half of the viruses in a sample selected for genetic sequencing. So far the state has detected 479 cases caused by B117. Across the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has tracked 7,501 B117 cases in 51 jurisdictions; that number is likely a gross underestimate, as it’s based only on a samples selected for genomic surveillance. Officials from the White House and CDC have said in recent weeks that B117 likely represents 30% of COVID-19 cases in the country, and it will become the dominant strain by April. In another state that has recently reported increased B117 cases, Michigan reported its highest single-day positivity rate of 2021 on Monday, along with 3,579 new COVID-19 cases, according to mlive. The state is averaging 2,938 new cases per day.
COVID variant could become dominant strain in RI by end of April, RIDOH medical director says –A coronavirus variant is on track to become the dominant strain of the virus this month, according to Dr. James McDonald from the R.I. Department of Health (RIDOH).“It looks like if you get infected with COVID in the next week or two, over half of those cases more likely or not, you probably have the B117 variant,” he explained. “We kind of expect by the end of April it might even be almost everybody at that point.”RIDOH Director Dr. Nicole Alexander Scott said it’s a foot race between the variant and the vaccine,during the state’s weekly coronavirus briefing Thursday.In other vaccine news, Pfizer announced Wednesday shots in kids as young as 12 have proven to be safe and strongly protective.“That was not a given so I was very excited about that,” McDonald said.
Over 100 fully vaccinated contract COVID in US state — A total of 102 people who have been fully vaccinated for the coronavirus have contracted the disease in the US state of Washington, according to officials on Wednesday. Officials reported 102 infections since Feb. 1 from among the 1.2 million who have been fully vaccinated for the virus in the northwestern state. Individuals have died in two cases, according to the Washington State Department of Health, which is investigating those older than 80 years old suffering from health issues. “Finding evidence of vaccine breakthrough cases reminds us that, even if you have been vaccinated, you still need to wear a mask, practice socially distancing, and wash your hands to prevent spreading COVID-19 to others who have not been vaccinated,” said Washington State Secretary of Health Dr. Umair Shah. While the US has seen more than 551,000 coronavirus-related deaths, the number of cases is almost 30.4 million, according to Johns Hopkins University. Out of 189 million distributed doses of coronavirus vaccines in the US, 147 million have been administered as of early Tuesday, but fewer than 54 million people, or 16.1% of the population, have received two doses, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
COVID-19: Tulare County sees first South Africa variant case –Three people in Tulare County have been confirmed to have caught variants of COVID-19 believed to be about 50% more infectious than the more common strain that’s been in circulation for more than a year. The cases include the Valley’s first confirmed incidence of the B.1.351 strain of the coronavirus, also known as the South African variant. The other two were identified as the so-called U.K. variant, B.1.1.7. They are the first known cases of variants of COVID-19 to turn up in Tulare County, according to health officials Friday. “Considering the national trend, we’ve been aware of the variants being present in our state as well as surrounding counties,” said Dr. Karen Haught, Tulare County’s public health officer. The cases were identified by genomic sequencing of samples tested by the Tulare County Public Health Laboratory. The B.1.1.7 variant was first identified last fall in the United Kingdom, and has since spread to more than 200 countries around the world. As of Thursday, the California Department of Public Health reported that there were 851 known cases of the B.1.1.7 strain in California. The B.1.351 strain was initially detected in South Africa in December and was first identified in the U.S. in late January, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Ten cases of the South African strain have been confirmed in California. Both the U.K. and South African strains have been dubbed by state and national health officials as “variants of concern,” along with two closely related strains collectively called the “West Coast” or “California” variant.” The state health department reports that in addition to being more transmissible than the more common COVID-19 strain, the U.K. variant is believed to be associated with a higher risk of severe disease or death. The South African strain may be moderately less susceptible to antibody treatments used to care for mild, early-onset cases of COVID-19. Read more here: https://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/article250395861.html#storylink=cpy
Double mutant’ COVID-19 variant from India found in Bay Area – Another new form of the coronavirus, whose emergence in India is coinciding with a surge in cases, has been detected in the San Francisco Bay Area by Stanford University. One confirmed case and seven presumed cases of the Indian variant were found by Stanford’s Clinical Virology Laboratory, which has developed tests to detect the presence of viruses already spreading around the world. The cases involved Stanford patients. “This demonstrates the rapid spread of this variant,” said Dr. Ben Pinsky, medical director of the laboratory. The discovery of the strain, along with growing numbers of other versions of the virus, comes as no surprise to experts – viruses ignore international borders, traveling with people. But the variant – dubbed “double mutant” by Indian media – carries two worrisome mutations in a key part of the virus which help it latch onto cells. COVID-19 cases in India had been falling since September. But now an explosion of cases is occurring in the Maharashtra state, on India’s southwestern coast, which includes Mumbai. The region reported a 55% increase in this past week. Authorities suspect a link between the variant and the surge, although there are yet no lab studies of transmissibility. An analysis of samples collected from the Maharashtra region showed a recent rise in viruses with the variant’s two mutations, E484Q and L452R. Mumbai, the country’s financial, commercial and high-tech center, has close ties to the Bay Area.
Canada pauses AstraZeneca vaccine for under 55 — Canada on Monday suspended the use of the Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine for people under age 55 following concerns it might be linked to rare blood clots. The National Advisory Committee on Immunization had recommended the pause for safety reasons and the Canadian provinces, which administer health in the country, announced the suspension Monday. “There is substantial uncertainty about the benefit of providing AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccines to adults under 55 given the potential risks,” said Dr. Shelley Deeks, vice chair of the National Advisory Committee on Immunization. Deeks said the updated recommendations come amid new data from Europe that suggests the risk of blood clots is now potentially as high as one in 100,000, much higher than the one in one million risk believed before. She said most of the patients in Europe who developed a rare blood clot after vaccination with AstraZeneca were women under age 55, and the fatality rate among those who develop clots is as high as 40%. Dr. Joss Reimer of Manitoba’s Vaccine Implementation Task Force said despite the finding that there was no increase risk of blood clots overall related to AstraZeneca in Europe, a rare but very serious side effect has been seen primarily in young women in Europe. Reimer said the rare type of blood clot typically happens between four and 20 days after getting the shot and the symptoms can mirror a stroke or a heart attack.
WHO slammed for saying COVID-19 likely didn’t originate from Wuhan lab –The World Health Organization is being slammed as Beijing’s “useful idiots” after it dismissed as “extremely unlikely” the theory that the deadly bug escaped from a Wuhan lab. A joint WHO-China study on the origins of the pandemic says that transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from bats to humans through another animal is the most likely scenario, according to a draft copy obtained by The Associated Press. The report’s release has been delayed, raising questions about Beijing’s side trying to skew the conclusions to prevent blame for the pandemic falling on China. A WHO official said late last week that he expected the report would be ready for release “in the next few days.” The AP received a copy on Monday from a Geneva-based diplomat from a WHO-member country. It was unclear whether the report might still be changed prior to release, though the diplomat said it was the final version. Another diplomat also confirmed receiving the report. Both refused to be identified because they were not authorized to release it before publication. New York Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin blasted Beijing for the way it handled the outbreak. U.S. Supreme Court takes up bid to revive defense of Kentucky abortion law | Reuters
Brazil faces the coronavirus abyss. It has the highest daily deaths in the world and the COVID-19 crisis is going to get worse, experts warn.– Brazil is facing the coronavirus abyss. Deaths are spiraling and crematoriums are struggling to keep up, according to reports.The county currently has far more daily COVID-19 deaths than any other nation in the world, the Associated Press reported.Brazil reported 3,368 new coronavirus-related deaths on Saturday, according to Worldometers.The seven-day average – 2,542 daily deaths – accounts for over a quarter (26 percent) of the world’s total death toll, according to Our World In Data.There have been so many deaths that burials are happening in Sao Paulo cemeteries every few minutes, CNN reported.Crematoriums can’t keep up, the media outlet reported. At one facility, CNN said, the demand for cremations exceeded its daily capability by three times.The situation is bleak and, according to experts, is set to only get worse.”We have surpassed levels never imagined for a country with a public health care system, a history of efficient immunization campaigns, and health workers who are second to none in the world,” Miguel Nicolelis, a professor of Neurobiology, said in an interview with AP. “The next stage is the health system collapse.”The healthcare system is buckling under the pressure, AP reported. Almost all intensive care units are at or near capacity, the news agency said.Daily deaths could also soon reach peaks of 4,000, an expert told AP. “Four thousand deaths a day seems to be right around the corner,” Dr. Jose Antonio Curiati, a supervisor at a Sao Paulo hospital, said. A highly contagious variant is wreaking havoc, contributing to the country’s 300,000+ COVID-19 deaths so far.President Jair Bolsonaro’s critics are also placing the blame on the leader’s resistance to introducing lockdown restrictions. Bolsonaro has repeatedly said that lockdowns aren’t viable for the economy and has instead continued to promote baseless COVID-19 treatments, The New York Times reported.He has referred to governors and mayors who planned to introduce lockdown measures as “tyrants,” BBC reported.Earlier this month, Bolsonaro told Brazilians to “stop whining”about the virus.
Mexico reports 417,002 excess deaths during the pandemic – On Saturday, the Mexican Health Ministry published a report acknowledging that the COVID-19 death toll is at least 60 percent higher than the official count of 201,623 deaths. The country has confirmed 2.23 million cases, which are also vastly under-reported. The ministry found that between December 20, 2019, and February 13, 2021, Mexico recorded a total of 417,002 excess deaths – i.e., above those “expected” based on the weekly averages from 2015 to 2019. Employing “word searches” of death certificates “where possible” that “mention words such as COVID-19, SARS-Cov-2, Coronavirus, among others” and an algorithmic extrapolation, the report estimates that 294,287 of these excess deaths are “associated to COVID-19.” In this April 29, 2020 file photo, Aurora Azamar reacts after learning that her mother died, believed from complications related to the coronavirus, outside a public hospital in the Iztapalapa neighborhood of Mexico City. Since February 13, the government has confirmed 28,419 more deaths, raising the total to 322,706. This places Mexico as the country with the second highest death toll in the world after the United States. While the figure is higher than the 312,206 confirmed COVID-19 deaths in Brazil, hospitals and morgues in the country have been overwhelmed for weeks and countless COVID-19 deaths, particularly in slums and remote areas, are also going unrecorded. Mexican engineer Alejandro Cano found that if Mexico had maintained the same per capita excess mortality as Brazil – whose population is 60 percent greater – about 232,000 people would still be alive in Mexico. Hundreds of thousands of lives have been sacrificed to defend the massive fortunes and profits of the financial and corporate oligarchies throughout the world. . While refusing to ramp up testing levels, the Mexican ruling elite has used phony official figures to justify premature reopenings. Malaqu’as López, a member of the coronavirus task force at the Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), said to daily Reforma on Sunday: “We don’t know what the real undercount is because all reports are impossible to interpret. … We could even add to those cases the 182,301 records confirmed by the epidemiological monitoring system [but untested], whose inclusion in the excess toll is not indicated – we could be talking of a figure closer to 500,000 deaths. The number is brutal.”
Philippines orders lockdown through Easter amid COVID-19 surge -The Philippines will go under a lockdown through Easter after the country confirmed a record-breaking 9,829 cases on Saturday. Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque made the announcement on Saturday, CNN reports, with the lockdown set to last one week from March 29-April 4, which is Easter Sunday. The Philippines is a majority-Catholic country and this lockdown will likely prevent millions from observing the holiday as they normally would with church services. The lockdown also includes a curfew from 6 p.m. to 5 a.m. and gatherings of more than 10 people outside have been barred. Non-household members are not permitted to gather indoors. Indoor dining will be prohibited for the following week, though takeout and delivery will still be allowed. Thousands of officers have been deployed by the Philippine National Police to enforce the new rules, CNN reports. The outlet notes that vaccines have begun to be sent out to front-line medical workers, with the Filipino Department of Health urging nonmedical workers to not jump the line for vaccines. CDC director warns of ‘impending doom’ on potential new COVID-19 surge Biden announces 90 percent of adults to be eligible for vaccine by… “Do not worry. Our goal is still to ensure that everybody will be vaccinated,” Carlito Galvez, chief implementer of the National Task Force Against Covid-19, said. “But while we do this, the government is prioritizing healthcare workers as they are the most exposed and the most at risk of getting Covid.” “More vaccines will arrive, we are sure of that. We just have to wait for our turns to be vaccinated,” Galvez added. According to the World Health Organization, nearly 300,000 doses of coronavirus vaccines have been administered in the Philippines.
India suspends export of COVID-19 vaccines – India’s right-wing authoritarian Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government has suspended exports of COVID-19 vaccines for at least two months. This decision will severely impact vaccination programs in lower- and middle-income countries in Africa, Latin America and the rest of Asia, contributing to the further spread of the pandemic, including the new more contagious and lethal variants. The BJP government has yet to issue an official statement announcing that it is suspending COVID-19 vaccine exports. However, Indian and international media have quoted “government sources” justifying the decision by pointing to increasing domestic requirements under conditions of a dramatic rise of infections within India in recent weeks. An official source quoted by the Chennai-based daily the Hindu said last Wednesday night, “Given our current manufacturing capacity and requirements of national vaccination programmes, there may be a need to calibrate the supply schedules from time to time. All stakeholders would have to work together to adjust the schedules as required.” A man comes out after receiving COVID- 19 vaccine at a government hospital, in New Delhi, India, Monday, March 22, 2021. India has reported its highest number of coronavirus cases since October, amid a worrying surge that has prompted multiple states to return to some form of restrictions on public gathering. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup) In an attempt to downplay the implications of the government’s decision, he claimed that India – the world’s leading exporter of generic medicines – remains “committed” to providing vaccine supplies to the world. He said that “unlike many other countries,” the Indian government has not placed an official ban on vaccine exports, but the policy he and other officials went on to outline is a ban in all but name. According to the officials, exports will now take place in a phased manner, “keeping in view the domestic requirements.” Moreover, while all pending orders will ultimately be delivered, new orders will not be accepted for several months. However the Narendra Modi-led BJP government chooses to justify its decision and downplay its impact, the reality is its suspension of vaccine exports is bound up with the reactionary nationalist calculations of India’s ruling elite. It is the Indian version of the “vaccine nationalism” pursued by governments in the US and Europe, which have subordinated the production and distribution of vaccines to the drive for profit and the geopolitical interests of the various competing ruling elites. .
COVID-19 contagion accelerates across Europe amid chaotic vaccine rollout – Coronavirus deaths are soaring across Europe, which passed 900,000 COVID-19 deaths in mid-March, with over 39 million recorded cases. The United Kingdom has Europe’s highest official death total, at 126,615, followed by Italy (108,350), Russia (96,413), France (95,114), Germany (76,139), Spain (75,199) and Poland (51,932). These figures represent a major undercounting, as excess mortality statistics show significantly higher numbers. Since mid-February, nearly every country on the continent has seen a rapid rise in daily cases and deaths. Last week, nearly 25,000 people died of the virus in Europe, the highest seven-day total in a month. Europe is on track to see a staggering 1 million dead before the end of April, becoming the first continent to reach this milestone. Central and Eastern Europe are currently the worst affected. Last Friday, Poland and Hungary both recorded their highest ever one-day COVID-19 infection totals: 35,145 and 11,265, respectively. On Saturday, Ukraine (29,458 new cases) and Serbia (9,722) registered record daily infection totals. Ukraine and Hungary suffered their highest coronavirus death tolls last week, with 2,057 and 1,710 fatalities recorded in a seven-day period. Serbia, with a population of less than 7 million, reported a record 76 deaths on Saturday. France has also been particularly badly hit, as the explosion of cases overwhelms hospitals across the country. Around 90 percent of intensive care unit (ICU) beds in France are now occupied. On Monday, 4,974 patients were in ICUs, the most since April 2020. A further 28,322 people are currently hospitalised in France with coronavirus. Doctors in France are demanding a strict lockdown, with Eric D’Ortenzio, an epidemiologist at Inserm (the National Institute of Health and Medical Research), telling Le Parisien that a lockdown should last “a month at the minimum”. Another epidemiologist told the same newspaper that France must “strictly lock down, as in March 2020, for at least six weeks.” President Macron is expected to announce further restrictions tonight. A similarly catastrophic story is repeated across Europe. ICU occupancy in the Greek capital of Athens reached 95 percent in mid-March. The Polish health care system is stretched to its limit, with hospitals so full that extra beds are erected in corridors. On March 21, Poland reached a record high 23,583 hospitalised COVID-19 patients.
New coronavirus variant identified in Europe – A new coronavirus variant has been identified by the University of Liege in Belgium with a number of key spike mutations and a spike insertion, Deutsche Welle reported on Monday. The variant, B.1.214.2, has been sequenced 332 times and was first identified in Switzerland, although over half of all the sequences are from Belgium, according to PANGO Lineages (Phylogenetic Assignment of Named Global Outbreak). The variant has also been identified in France, Britain, Ireland, Germany, Portugal, the US, Senegal, the Netherlands and Bulgaria. The origin of the variant is still unknown, but it is descended from another one first identified in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in April of last year, according to German international broadcaster. It is still unclear whether or not the new variant is more contagious or severe. The variant joins a series of coronavirus variants detected around the world, including the South African variant, the UK variant, the Brazilian variants, the New York variant, the California variant and the German variant, among others.
German vaccine commission says people under 60 shouldn’t receive AstraZeneca second dose – A German vaccine commission is advising people under the age of 60 that have received their first dose of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine to not receive their second dose.Reuters reported that the committee, called STIKO, recommended that people receive a dose of an mRNA-based vaccine, such as those from Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna, 12 weeks after receiving their first AstraZeneca dose.“Until the appropriate data is available, STIKO recommends for people under 60 years old that instead of the second AstraZeneca dose, a dose of an mRNA-vaccine should be given 12 weeks after the first vaccine,” STIKO said, according to Reuters.STIKO noted that here was no scientific evidence on the safety of a mixed series of vaccines, according to the wire service. The recommendation comes after Germany suspended the use of AstraZeneca’s vaccine for those under the age of 60 over concerns of a rare occurrence of blood clots found in a small number of people that received the vaccine.STIKO at the time planned on releasing recommendations for those who had received their first dose by the end of April.A handful of countries have paused or suspended the use of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine amid reports of blood clots in a small percentage of patients.
Brazil registers 3,780 new deaths from Covid-19, a new daily record (March 30) — Brazil registered 84,494 new cases and 3,780 deaths associated with the coronavirus in the last 24 hours, setting a new daily record for deaths, the Ministry of Health reported on Tuesday, March 30, in its most recent epidemiological bulletin. According to official government figures, the highest number of daily deaths in the thirteen months of the pandemic was recorded between Monday and Tuesday, a figure that comes in the midst of more severe confinement measures, social isolation, and closure of non-essential activities decreed by governors and mayors.
Brazil: More than 60,000 people died of Covid-19 in March – BBC News Some 66,570 people in Brazil died of Covid-19 in March, more than double the previous monthly record, figures show. The country’s health service has been pushed to the brink as cases of the virus continue to climb. President Jair Bolsonaro has faced intense criticism for his handling of the crisis and was hit by high-profile resignations this week. But on Wednesday he again railed against lockdown measures imposed by local governors and mayors. “We had, and we have, two enemies – the virus and unemployment! It is a reality! We are not going to solve this problem by staying at home,” he said. Wednesday also saw a further 3,800 new deaths and over 90,000 new coronavirus cases. Brazil’s daily deaths currently account for about a quarter of all coronavirus fatalities in the world. What is the Brazil variant and do vaccines work against it? New chiefs of the army, navy and air force were announced on Wednesday to replace those who resigned on Tuesday in an apparent protest at the sudden sacking of Defence Minister Fernando Azevedo e Silva. Mr Bolsonaro and his minister had clashed over the issue of the armed forces’ loyalty, which the defence minister said should be directed to upholding the constitution rather than supporting the president personally.
Chinese COVID-19 vaccines have neutralizing effect on mutant strains found in South Africa, UK – The COVID-19 vaccines that have been marketed in China have a neutralizing effect on some mutated viruses, including the ones found in the UK and South Africa, according to Sinopharm and Sinovac. Sinopharm has been testing the antiviral mutation ability of vaccines already on the market in China, such as the inactivated vaccine developed by Sinopharm, to study whether the mutation of the virus would alter the efficacy of the vaccine, said Zhang Yuntao, vice president and chief scientist of China National Biotec Group (CNBG), a Sinopharm subsidiary, at a press conference on Sunday. Two inactivated vaccines from Sinopharm have been used in a crossover trial on the strains found in South Africa and the UK as well as more than 10 strains found in different regions in China, using the serum after the phase II and III clinical trials in China and overseas, he said. The results showed that the neutralizing antibodies produced by the two inactivated vaccines neutralized these strains well. He also noted that Sinopharm is conducting neutralization trial monitoring on the strains found in Brazil and Zimbabwe. At the press conference, Gao Qiang, general manager of Sinovac, another producer of COVID-19 vaccines, said that Sinovac has also carried out studies on the protection of its CoronaVac vaccine against the variant strains found in various countries in cooperation with several research institutions. Sinopharm carried out neutralization trials on the variant strains in 10 countries during the initial stage of the study and the results showed that the vaccine developed at the time was protective against the variant strains discovered in each country, Zhang said. Sinovac also used the strain discovered in Wuhan and the newly mutated strains found in the UK and South Africa to conduct the neutralizing antibody detection of immune serum after vaccination in 2021, and test results showed that the seroconversion rate was 100 percent after a dose of vaccine against the strains found in Wuhan and the UK, and 97 percent against the strains discovered in South Africa. The overall antibody level between the strains discovered in Wuhan and the UK was basically the same, he said. China has administered more than 100 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines as of Saturday, the National Health Commission announced at a press conference on Sunday. The country’s global supply of COVID-19 vaccines also topped 100 million doses as of Friday. The inactivated vaccine developed by Sinopharm has been used in 50 countries and regions around the world. Zhang said the population sample size and large scale fully demonstrate the broad spectrum effect of the inactivated vaccine.
UK strain behind surge in Punjab’s Covid cases | Hindustan Times –The high presence of the UK strain of Covid-19 has led to a steep rise in active cases in Punjab with the state already registering a bigger surge in cases this time as compared to the first wave last year. Though the state health department is still not sure if the strain, which spreads 70% faster, made its way to Punjab through travellers from the United Kingdom, the government is considering its high prevalence as the prime reason for the spike. 80% of samples of Covid positive people sent for genome sequencing to the Pune laboratory in March were found having the UK strain. The strain was found in 10 of the 22 districts of Punjab with a maximum of 106 samples belonging to Mohali district. This was followed by Amritsar (94), Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar (56), Faridkot (18) and Patiala (15). “During our meetings with the Government of India as well, we haven’t heard much about the high presence of the UK strain in other states as is there in Punjab. So obviously the strain can be termed as the main reason behind the faster surge,” state principal secretary, health and family welfare, Hussan Lal said. According to the Union health ministry data released on Saturday, Covid-19 cases increased 12-fold in Punjab between February 3 and April 3 at a rate that surpasses Maharashtra’s nine-fold case growth rate during the period. The faster rate of infection due to this strain can be judged from the fact that in the past one week, the state has added more than 20,000 new cases. When the state had hit the peak in September last year, the maximum single-day hike was of 2,896 infections on September 17. With experts predicting the second wave peak in the third week of April, the state has already broken last year’s records by registering a single-day hike of 3,176 cases on March 26. In the past week, the state’s ratio of active cases reached 10%, which is the highest ever of the first and the current wave. In September, Punjab saw a single-day spike of more than 2,000 cases a day on nine occasions, in this wave, between March 15 to April 3, the state has seen more than 2,000 cases for 12 occasions. SBS Nagar, where the maximum cases of the UK strain were detected, has at present the highest number of active cases of 3,414 in Punjab, followed by 3,297 in Amritsar, which is at the second spot in terms of the presence of the UK strain.
Strain on NHS as tens of thousands of staff suffer long Covid –Intense pressures on the already overstretched NHS are being exacerbated by the tens of thousands of health staff who are sick with long Covid, doctors and hospital bosses say. At least 122,000 NHS personnel have the condition, the Office for National Statistics disclosed in a detailed report that showed 1.1 million people in the UK were affected by the condition. That is more than any other occupational group and ahead of teachers, of whom 114,000 have it. Patient care is being hit because many of those struggling with long Covid are only able to work part-time, are too unwell to perform their usual duties, or often need time off because they are in pain, exhausted or have “brain fog”. “Ongoing illness can have a devastating impact on individual doctors, both physically and by leaving them unable to work. Furthermore, it puts a huge strain on the health service, which was already vastly understaffed before the pandemic hit,” said Dr Helena McKeown, the workforce lead at the British Medical Association, which represents doctors. “With around 30,000 sickness absences currently linked to Covid in the NHS in England, we cannot afford to let any more staff become ill. Simply put, if they are off sick, they’re unable to provide care and patients will not get the care and treatment they need. “In the longer term, if more staff face ongoing illness from past Covid-19 infection, the implications for overall workforce numbers will be disastrous.” “Long Covid is a real and growing concern for trust leaders because of its impact on the health and wellbeing of the NHS staff affected and the effect their unavoidable absence has on the ability to deliver healthcare services. “It is particularly worrying that in the latest ONS data healthcare workers self-reported the highest rates of long Covid among all professions, with nearly 4% – accounting for about 122,000 of the estimated 1.094 million people in the UK reporting ongoing symptoms.” Dealing with long Covid will be “a significant challenge [for the NHS] for months and most likely years to come”, he added.
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