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:
Covid seemed to pretty much drop out of the news this week. Usually, I can pick up a lot of virus stories just from news sites’ “most read” or “recent news” lists; this week I had to go looking for them. Part of the reason was that the fuel pipeline shutdown dominated the headlines, but the underlying reason is that new cases in the US and globally, are falling rapidly, even in India – No one wants to cover a story that bleeds less this week than it did last week.
In the US, new cases during the week ending May 15th were down 23.4% from the week ending May 8th, and down 54.6% from the 2nd week of April, which was the peak week of our spring surge. New cases over the past 7 days were the lowest since the 7 days ending June 21st of last year. US deaths attributed to Covid during this past week were down 9.0% from the prior week, and down 39.2% from the last week of March, when the slide in Covid deaths that began at the end January appeared to pause. The 7-day death toll is the lowest since the 7 days ending July 8th.
New Covid infections worldwide were 12.4% lower this week than the prior week, and down 16.9% from the peak hit during the last week of April. However, they’re still up 91.0% from the 3rd week of February, which was the low for this year to date. Deaths from the now numerous variants of the virus were down 3.9% week over week, and down 8.4% from the death peak a few weeks earlier. Although new infections in India, which still accounts for nearly half the new cases worldwide were down 13.1% this week, India’s Covid death toll was up 3.9% this week to an average of just under 4,000 a day.
The chart below from WorldoMeter shows the daily number of new cases for the US, updated through 15 May.
The graphics presented by Johns Hopkins have been changed to a new format. Global new cases, global deaths, and global cummulative vaccinations now all appear in a consolidated chart.
According to Johns Hopkins (first graph below), new cases globally appear to have peaked. The same for global deaths (second graph below), while global vaccinations continue to increase..
Steven Hansen continues to summarize and link 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: 15 May 2021 Coronavirus Charts and News: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi Sounds Alarm on COVID. More Thoughts On The Wuhan Lab Leak Theory.
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:
Scientists may have found a new coronavirus rapid-testing method: Bees – The fight against the coronavirus pandemic has scientists tapping an unlikely resource: the finely tuned olfactory sense of bees.Dutch researchers on Monday said they have trained honeybees to stick out their tongues when presented with the virus’s unique scent, acting as a kind of rapid test.Although it’s a less conventional method than lab tests, the scientists said teaching bees to diagnose the coronavirus could help fill a gap in low-income countries with limited access to more sophisticated technology, like materials for polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests.”Not all laboratories have that, especially in smaller-income countries,” said Wim van der Poel, a professor at Wageningen University, which led the research. “Bees are everywhere, and the apparatus is not very complicated.”The scientists trained roughly 150 bees with a Pavlovian conditioning method in which they gave the insects a sugar-water solution each time they were exposed to the smell of the coronavirus. When the bees were presented with a sample that was negative for the virus, they received no reward. After repeatedly extending their tongues – technically called proboscises – for the sugar water, the scientists said the bees learned to stick out their tongues for a positive sample, even with no reward offered. Within hours, the insects were trained to identify the virus a few seconds after encountering it, the researchers said.
Coronavirus variants called ‘escape mutants’ could throw us back into lockdown – For the first time in over a year, people are starting to feel hope that the pandemic has finally turned a corner. Nearly a third of Americans are fully vaccinated, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has relaxed its recommendations onoutdoor masks. Europe is on track to be extensively vaccinated by summer’s end. Both Paris and New York have announced they’re reopening for business.But in reality we’re entering one of the most precarious moments in the pandemic. We’re in a critical race between vaccines and variants of the virus, and despite all the progress we’ve made in recent months, the outcome is far from certain. Fewer than one in 10 people on the planet has had even a single dose of any COVID-19 vaccine, while new and frightening variants are infecting people at a record pace. And that puts all of us – even, in a worst-case scenario, the vaccinated among us – at risk of having to go back to square one. The situation is so alarming that top public-health experts and virologists I spoke with sound more disheartened about the state of the pandemic now than they did just a few months ago, when it seemed as if vaccines were going to flatten the curve. “It’s not looking good, just to be totally honest,” the leading virologist Dr. James Hildreth, who serves on the Food and Drug Administration advisory committee that authorizes COVID-19 vaccines, told me. “It seems almost as if the availability of vaccines, and the knowledge that they’re coming, has caused some people to let up their guard a little too soon.” Scientists who have tracked the spread of variants since the dawn of the pandemic have watched in horror as new, more infectious mutations have taken over. “Until November, most people really didn’t even give variants a second thought,” said the epidemiologist Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. “They were just kind of curiosities, ways to measure how old the virus might be.” The big question now is, have we seen the worst variations this virus has to offer? More and more, scientists are leaning into the camp ofnot so sure about that. And that prospect has some of the best virus-watchers worried.
4 coronavirus variants can make people sicker or spread faster, including the variant first found in India. Here’s why experts are so concerned about mutant strains. –Dr. Catherine Schuster-Bruce — Several coronavirus variants have evolved mutations that mean they spread more easily, make people sicker, escape immune responses, evade tests, or render treatments ineffective.These are called “variants of concern” by the World Health Organization, and there are four that have spread to the US, including the variant first found in India.There are various other variants that may have troubling features, which experts are looking into. These are called “variants under investigation.” They differ from the original virus strain in a number of key ways. Variants of concern
- B.1.1.7, first found in the UK – B.1.1.7 was first detected in two people in south-east England. It was reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) on December 14. It has been identified in 123 countries worldwide, including the US, where there are more than 20,000 reported cases, according to the CDC. It became the most common variant in the US on April 7.Tennessee has the highest proportion of B.1.1.7 cases of any state, accounting for 73% of sequenced cases. B.1.1.7 is between 30% to 50% better at spreading from person to person than other coronavirus variants, according to UK scientists.B.1.1.7 could be more deadly. The UK government’s New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG)reported a model on January 21 that showed someone infected with B.1.1.7 is 30% to 40% more likely to die than someone with a different variant. COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca all appear to protect against B.1.1.7.
- B.1.351, first identified in South Africa. B.1.351 was first detected in Nelson Mandela Bay, South Africa, in samples dating back to the beginning of October 2020. It was reported to the WHO on December 18. It has been found in 84 countries, including the US, where there are 453 cases reported across 36 states and jurisdictions according to the CDC B.1.351 is thought to be 50% more contagious than the original strain, according to South African health officials. It’s not thought to be more deadly. But there is evidence from South Africa that when hospitals came under pressure because of the variant’s spread, the risk of death increased. The variant may evade the body’s immune response, data suggests. Antibodies work best when they attach snugly to the virus and stop it from entering our cells. The B.1.351 variant has mutations called E484K and K417N at the site where antibodies latch on. In early lab tests, antibodies produced by Pfizer and Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines couldn’t attach as well to B.1.351, compared to the original coronavirus.
- P.1, first identified in Brazil, which is twice as contagious. The variant found in Brazil was first detected in four people in Japan, who had traveled from Brazil on January 2. It was identified by the National Institute of Infectious Diseases on January 6, and reported to the WHO that weekend. It has been found in 45 countries worldwide, including the US, where there have been 497 cases in 31 states, according to the CDC P.1 is twice as contagious as the original coronavirus – it was initially detected in Amazonas, north-west Brazil, on December 4, and by January 21, 91% of people with COVID-19 in the region were infected with P.1, according to the WHO. P.1 has similar E484K and K417T mutations as B.1.351, which means it can evade antibody responses. This could be the reason P.1 reinfects people who have already caught coronavirus – a study published April 14 showed that previous coronavirus infection only offered between 54% and 79% of the protection for P.1 than for other virus strains. P.1’s mutations could also mean that vaccines work less well.
- B.1.617, first identified in India. The variant first found in India, B.1.617, is in fact three distinct viruses. Collectively, they have spread to more than 17 countries, according to the WHO. All three have been detected in the US,according to GISAID. The WHO and UK have designated it a “variant of concern” because it’s more infectious than the original virus. Its mutations include:
- L52R: May make the virus more infectious or it may avoid the antibody response.
- P6814: May make it more infectious.
- E848Q: May help the virus avoid the antibody response.
No studies to date have found that any of the variants first found in India are deadlier than earlier versions of the virus, or that it can evade vaccines.
The Covid-19 Variant in India: What Scientists Know About the B.1.617 Strain – WSJ –Scientists and public health officials are racing to understand the risk posed by a coronavirus variant known as B.1.617, which the World Health Organization on Monday designated a global “variant of concern.”The WHO says preliminary studies show the variant may spread more easily than other strains of the new coronavirus. Scientists and public-health experts are trying to better understand the role it is playing in the record-setting surge of Covid-19 cases that hasoverwhelmed India’s healthcare system in recent days – and what risk it poses to the rest of the world. India reported more than 366,000 new cases of Covid-19 on Monday. The variant, identified in October, is a mutant form of the virus that causes Covid-19. It has 13 mutations, including two notable ones in the spike protein that the virus uses to attach to and infect cells.One of the mutations, dubbed E484Q, is similar to one that is common to the variants identified in South Africa and Brazil. In those variants, the mutation seems to make the virus better at evading the body’s immune responses. The other, known as L452R, is also found in the dominant strain in California, and may boost viral transmission.The two mutations “are in really important parts of the structure of the spike protein,” said Benjamin Pinsky, associate professor of pathology at Stanford University School of Medicine and medical director of the Clinical Virology Laboratory at Stanford Health Care. “They’re important for the interaction of the virus with the host.” Scientists are also looking into a third mutation, P681R, which might help the virus replicate more quickly.Public-health officials in the U.K. said preliminary evidence suggests that one version of the variant is at least as transmissible as a highly contagious variant known as B.1.1.7. That variant has spread around the world after it was first identified in southern England last year.Yet some scientists aren’t sure the virus spreads more easily. “I don’t know that we have a good answer to that right now,” Dr. Pinsky said. “The current pandemic in India is out of control and devastating, but I don’t think it’s entirely clear how much this variant and other variants are contributing to the widespread transmission.” Scientists don’t yet know if the B.1.617 variant is deadlier than other variants.. One recent study documented a cluster of B.1.617 infections in Indian healthcare workers who had been vaccinated with the shot developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca PLC. Lab studies conducted by the authors of the study, which hasn’t yet undergone peer review, suggest that antibodies elicited by the vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE were slightly less effective at neutralizing B.1.617 than other variants. Ravindra Gupta, a professor of clinical microbiology at the University of Cambridge and one of the study’s lead authors, told reporters Monday that even if research confirms the B.1.617 variant is more likely than other variants to cause infection in people who have already been vaccinated, vaccines should nonetheless be effective at preventing severe illness and death.
WHO, CDC Throw in the Towel on Covid Aerosol Transmission, Biden Administration Seems Oblivious —Lambert Strether –As readers know, I have long urged, following the science, that Covid is airborne, and that its main mode of transmission is via aerosols. (I was initially persuaded by an epidemiological study, now consigned to link rot, that showed a seat diagram on a Chinese bus with the index case and how many were infected. It seemed clear that neither fomites nor hacked up droplets could be the cause, since the seats were widely separated. Many more such studies followed. No such studies followed for fomites or droplets.) On April 30 – after enormous efforts from aerosol scientists – WHO changed its guidance to reflect that Covid is airborne. On May 7, CDC followed. So, after more than a year, we have finally agreed Covid’s mode of transmission. It is to be hoped that science-based mitigation measures – especially ventilation – follow. In this post, I will first look at what WHO and CDC actually said. Then I will look at helpful materials produced by the aerosol scientists and their allies during their battle (which may prove helpful in further battles to come, especially in schools and workplaces). Turning to institututional slash political factors, I will look at why WHO and CDC delayed so long, and how the Biden administration seems oblivious to the paradigm shift from droplets to aerosols (going to far as to push useless, even dangerous, plexiglass shields).
If we don’t address transmission, we’ll be chasing variants forever –With multiple COVID-19 vaccines authorized by the Food And Drug Administration (FDA) for emergency use, we should be basking in the sunlight of our progress. Unfortunately, it feels as though we are always one step behind this virus – constantly adapting our plans to combat an emerging issue. Now, new variants threaten to extend this pandemic and challenge the effectiveness of these vaccines. The key thing to realize is that these are not SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, they are COVID-19 vaccines. They are incredibly effective in stopping the disease of COVID-19 in people, but not necessarily at stopping the viral transmission of SARS-CoV-2 to others. Understanding the partnership between transmission and variants is essential to our collective future. Viruses spread. It’s in their nature. They copy themselves, over and over, infecting as many people as possible. But with each copy, the virus has the potential to change ever so slightly – mutating into something different. This is called a variant. Unless we address transmission and stop the spread of SARS-CoV-2, we will continue to allow the development of new and potentially dangerous variants. We must focus on stopping transmission. Stopping transmission begins with immediately halting the virus’s effects on the body. That is to say, we must create systemic immunity to protect our lungs and blood system where viruses cause severe disease. Most vaccines authorized, or under development, around the world are focused on the activation of the Immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibody in the immune system. Of the five different types of COVID-19 vaccines reportedly being developed, most have one thing in common: they target IgG antibodies and T cell receptors. Whether it be through an mRNA, DNA or adenovirus-developed vaccine, they all circulate within the blood system and prime the systemic immune system to attack the coronavirus. The second step to stopping transmission is to ensure long-term individual immunity. This happens through T cells. They determine the level of immune response to foreign substances in the body. T cells play a critical role in clearing the already-started infection by targeting and destroying virus-infected cells. With this coronavirus, research has shown that these cells are needed for long-term protection from the virus to help fight reinfection. With numerous variants emerging around the world, and more possible to surface, reinfection is a very real possibility that we need to anticipate.
Resignation in Protest, Frontiers in Pharmacology Topic Editors, “Treating COVID-19 With Currently Available Drugs” — Yves Smith –We published a post on work at the University of California, San Francisco, to identify existing drugs that looked like they had the potential to treat Covid, as in at a minimum reduce the severity of disease (We Found and Tested 47 Old Drugs That Might Treat the Coronavirus: Results Show Promising Leads and a Whole New Way to Fight COVID-19). But that was before the vaccine effort was far enough along to look like it was likely to bear fruit. As we’ve pointed out, the West has gone all in with the vaccine magic bullet approach, when that’s not a great public health idea, unless the goal is the low bar of keeping hospitals from collapsing. It’s unlikely that any vaccine that combats a respiratory virus will achieve the level of sterilizing immunity.1 The current round of vaccines accordingly produce 90%ish immunity against serious disease and death … .for how long? Six months? Eight months? Maybe a year? And that’s before the potential for variants to lower the efficacy of vaccines just administered.So a multi-pronged approach would seem to be desirable if the aim is to have the public feel safe enough to resume something like the old normal. That means keeping up handwashing and masking in many indoor settings, and emphasizing ventilation. It also means using prophylactics and treatments. Yet it’s hardly news that discussion of using old off patent drugs as treatments is being depicted as crank-dom. As reader Richard Needham said over the weekend: There are no ‘credible’ journals but no lack of medical professionals who do not read the literature but depend upon the NIH, WHO, and JAMA rather than forming their own opinions from the data and acting upon them in the clinic. A hopeful sign is that many front-line physicians recognize that their judgement matters and are willing to take on the derision of their colleagues by supplying their patients with IVM. It is called practicing medicine and is an ethical responsibility that can not be avoided.Four top medical researchers just resigned from Frontiers in Pharmacology in protest over the rejection of two papers that had gotten to the “final validation” stage of the review process, which is by editors of the publication, and not independent experts. One was on Ivermectin, the other on Celecoxib and high does Famotidine adjuvant therapy. We’ve reproduced their resignation letters so you can see their description of how these cases were handled. Note the initial the refusal to ‘splain the basis for rejection of papers that had made it through all the previous review stages, which when the reviewers did not back down, shifted into nonsensical bureaucratic pretexts and insinuations that the guest editors had behaved improperly). As you’ll see, Frontiers went scorched earth. Per the missive below:
The People Who Plan on Wearing Masks Forever – Robin Argenti cannot yet envision a future in which she doesn’t wear a mask. “We don’t know if it is going to ever be over,” the 57-year-old resident of upstate New York said of the pandemic. She’s in poor health, and concerned that with the emergence of new variants and the “millions of people who refuse to get vaccinated,” the country will never actually overcome the coronavirus. “I will be masked up for many, many years,” she said. “There are too many unknowns.” As more and more Americans get vaccinated, the end of the pandemic feels palpable. Most people probably cannot wait to cut out the social distancing and take their masks off. I can’t wait for the day when I can walk down the street and look at a sea of strangers’ naked faces. But there are some people like Argenti who say they plan to make mask-wearing a part of daily life, even after the authorities give the thumbs-up to bare your entire face.Long before the coronavirus arrived, Ben Rosenblum was taking precautions that we would all eventually come to adopt. “I’ve been a mysophobe since middle school,” the 23-year-old digital archivist told me, meaning he’s afraid of uncleanliness and germs. A global pandemic, as it turns out, didn’t quite exacerbate his condition as much as it substantiated it. “If I go out somewhere and I touch crosswalk lights and stuff like that, and I have to open doors and everything, I don’t feel like I’m insane for coming home and vigorously scrubbing my hands down,” he said. He took to mask-wearing pretty quickly, and has come to enjoy it. “It does give you this sort of privacy in that you’re hiding half of your face,” he said. Even after he is vaccinated and the pandemic ends, Rosenblum plans on continuing wearing a mask in public.Michael Bizzaro, a Colorado teacher, told me that while he doesn’t particularly enjoy wearing a mask, he’s noticed health benefits beyond not getting (or spreading) COVID-19. “Being a public-school teacher, there are multiple times a year that I get sick,” he said. “Being in the presence of lots of teenagers, I get colds quite often. I’m affected pretty badly by seasonal allergies.” Even though he has gone back to teaching in person, he told me, “I have not had any sort of sickness – a cough, a sneeze, a fever, anything – since the pandemic started.” For Bizzaro, continuing to wear a mask in a post-COVID world is somewhat of a no-brainer. “It’s not even a minor inconvenience wearing the mask, so why not wear it in the future?”
Variant strain of coronavirus kills four people in Palm Beach County -With the number of COVID-19 cases falling, Florida still leads the nation in new infections as those caused by variant strains of the coronavirus skyrocket, according to the latest reports from state health officials.The number of people in Florida infected with a variant strain of the virus increased 77% in the last three weeks and the number of deaths nearly tripled to 67, state health officials reported Thursday.Four people in Palm Beach County have died from the B.1.1.7 mutation of the virus, commonly known as the British variant. It is by far the most common of the six variants that are circulating throughout the state. The deaths, the first reported in the county, means 30 people in South Florida have died of variant strains, which are more contagious and more deadly. Of the 11,808 people in the state who have tested positive for one of the variants, 6,026 are in Palm Beach, Broward or Miami-Dade counties, the state’s three most populous counties.Since only a fraction of people who contract COVID-19 are tested for the variant, public health experts say the actual number of cases is likely to be three or four times higher than those that have been identified. Even though Florida leads the nation in the number of confirmed variant cases and Palm Beach County, with 714, is one of the hotspots in the state, the county’s health director said she isn’t panicking.”The variants are more widespread but we are not seeing them causing more deaths or hospitalizations,” said Dr. Alina Alonso, director of the county’s state-run health department.Instead, she said, she is working to get as many people between the ages of 15 and 54 vaccinated so they won’t fall victim to the original virus or one of its mutations.Since the vaccines protect people against all forms of the virus, the faster people get inoculated, the less likely vaccine-resistant variants of the virus can develop. “That’s where 82% of our new cases are occurring,” she said of overall infection rates among those between the ages of 15 and 54..Like the main strain of the virus, the variants have been most deadly to the state’s oldest residents. While 54% of those infected with a variant were between the ages of 15 and 44, seniors account for 67% of the deaths. While roughly 85% of the deaths from the coronavirus have been among seniors, since nearly 80% of those 65 and older are vaccinated, deaths in that age group have plummeted.
New mutation of Brazilian COVID-19 variant reported in Florida – A mutation of a COVID-19 strain that is thought to have originated in Brazil has been detected in Florida, health department officials said last week.The Florida Sun-Sentinel reported that two cases of the so-called P2 variant have been recorded in the state so far, one in a 74-year-old and one in a 51-year-old. The strain is believed to be a slight mutation of the Brazilian one that has vexed health authorities in the country for months.Of particular concern to authorities is the strain’s mutation, which experts say allows it to reinfect patients who previously had milder cases of COVID-19 and developed antibodies, including younger people who dealt with weaker or asymptomatic cases of the disease.”We have just two cases in Florida that have the extra mutation, and what that means remains to be seen,” Marco Salemi, a professor with the University of Florida’s Emerging Pathogens Institute, told the Sun-Sentinel. “If in a month from now we go from two cases to 500, that will be concerning.””We don’t know if new mutations are going to make current variants more or less aggressive, which is why we have people around the world actively monitoring them,” Salemi added to the newspaper.Roughly 40 percent of Florida’s population was vaccinated as of last week. The state is still recording thousands of new cases of COVID-19 per day, though far below a previous high reached in early January. The P1 variant, from which the P2 is thought to have mutated, was first discovered in the U.S. in January, when a Minnesota resident who returned from the country was found to have been infected.
Hundreds of bodies of covid-19 victims are still in New York’s refrigerated trucks more than a year into the pandemic -As New York emerged as the center of the coronavirus pandemic last spring, the overwhelmed city began storing the bodies of victims in refrigerated trucks along the Brooklyn waterfront.More than a year later, hundreds remain in the makeshift morgues on the 39th Street Pier in Sunset Park.In a report to a city council health committee last week, officials with the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner acknowledged that the remains of about 750 covid-19 victims are still being stored inside the trucks, according to the City, the nonprofit news website. Officials said during a Wednesday committee meeting that they will try to lower the number soon.Dina Maniotis, executive deputy commissioner with the medical examiner’s office, said most of the bodies could end up on Hart Island, off the Bronx, where the has city buried its poor and unclaimed for more than a century.”We will continue to work with families,” Maniotis told the health committee, according to the City news site. “As soon as the family tells us they would like their loved one transferred to Hart Island, we do that very quickly.”With more than a million people buried there, the mile-long land mass in the Long Island Sound is home to the largest mass grave in the United States.Up to one-tenth of the city’s coronavirus victims may be interred on the island, according to an analysisconducted through a collaboration between the City and the Stabile Center for Investigative Reporting at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. The analysis revealed that at least 2,334 adults were buried on the island in 2020 – more than double the number in 2019.Viral drone video capturing the burial of covid-19 victims on Hart Island in early April brought the elusive mass grave into the national spotlight. In March and April of last year, New York City was among the hardest-hit areas in the world. The medical examiner’s office, equipped to handle 20 daily deaths, was instead flooded with as many as 200 per day, the Wall Street Journal reported.”Long-term storage was created at the height of the pandemic to ensure that families could lay their loved ones to rest as they see fit,” Mark Desire, a spokesperson for the medical examiner’s office, told the Associated Press last week. “With sensitivity and compassion, we continue to work with individual families on a case-by-case basis during their period of mourning.”Between 500 and 800 bodies have been stored in the trucks since April 2020, according to estimates collected by the City and the Stabile Center.
Average US daily COVID-19 cases below 40K for first time since September – The average number of daily COVID-19 infections in the United States fell below 40,000 Monday for the first time since September, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. On Monday, the reported seven-day average for daily new coronavirus cases was at 38,000, the lowest level recorded since Sept. 15 and a decrease of 22 percent from just a week ago. The current rate is also down 46 percent from a daily average of about 71,000 in mid-April, according to Johns Hopkins. The latest seven-day average of daily deaths as a result of COVID-19 was 635 as of Monday, which is much less than the high daily death rates of more than 3,000 in January and February. In total, the U.S. has led the globe in most coronavirus infections and deaths, with roughly 32.7 million cases and more than 582,000 deaths as a result of the virus, according to Johns Hopkins data. However, Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday that the U.S. has likely undercounted the number of coronavirus-related deaths. A recent study from the University of Washington indicated that COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. could be as high as 900,000. DC reports backlog of COVID-19 cases caused by IT issue US reaching turning point in pandemic amid vaccination concerns The drop in the rate of daily infections in the U.S. comes as nearly 60 percent of the U.S. adult population has received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine as of Monday, with 44 percent fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). However, CDC data indicates that the daily rate of vaccinations has dropped substantially from a high of about 3.4 million administered per day in mid-April. Now, the seven-day average of vaccinations fluctuates between 1.9 million and 2.2 million.
May 10th COVID-19 Vaccinations, New Cases, Hospitalizations; Lowest Cases Since September Progress! Imagine if another 20% of the population was vaccinated. We have the capacity to administer 4 million shots per day (about double the current rate). President Biden has set two vaccinations goals to achieve by July 4th:
1) 70% of the population over 18 has had at least one dose of vaccine, and
2) 160 million Americans fully vaccinated.
According to the CDC, on Vaccinations. Total administered: 261,599,381, as of yesterday: 259,716,989. Day: 1.88 million. (U.S. Capacity is around 4 million per day)
2) 114.4 million Americans are fully vaccinated.
And check out COVID Act Now to see how each state is doing. Almost 5,500 US deaths were reported so far in May due to COVID. This graph shows the daily (columns) 7 day average (line) of positive tests reported. Note: The ups and downs during the Winter surge were related to reporting delays due to the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. This data is from the CDC. The 7-day average is 38,678, down from 40,677 yesterday, and down sharply from the recent peak of 69,881 on April 13, 2021. This is the lowest since September 16, 2020, but still above the post-summer surge low of 34,668. 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 30,508, down from 31,992 reported yesterday, but still above the post-summer surge low of 23,000.
DC reports backlog of COVID-19 cases caused by IT issue – The Washington, D.C., government reported on Tuesday that the city saw a backlog in COVID-19 cases over the last three to four days because of an IT issue, a day after Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) announced plans to loosen coronavirus restrictions. The city first raised the matter in its written daily coronavirus data update, saying the backlogged cases will appear in Monday’s case count “partially” and in Tuesday’s case count. “Due to an IT issue that has since been resolved, DC Health has identified that there is a backlog of cases from the past 3-4 days that is partially reflected in today’s case count and will also be present in tomorrow’s case count,” the update said. DC recorded 87 additional positive COVID-19 cases on Monday and three additional deaths, contributing to a total of 48,282 cases and 1,113 fatalities throughout the pandemic. In the previous four days, the city counted a downtrend in cases with 56, 28, 16 and then 15 new cases per day. The complication in the city’s data reporting came a day after Bowser announced that most coronavirus restrictions would be dropped on May 21, citing a decrease in DC’s seven-day average of new daily cases. Data from before the reporting issue showed the average number of daily cases per 100,000 people had still largely declined throughout April and May, according to The New York Times. The mayor’s office did not immediately return The Hill’s request for comment. DC Health referred to the statement in the update.
Bill Maher tests positive for COVID-19 – HBO’s Bill Maher has tested positive for COVID-19, despite being fully vaccinated, his show announced Thursday. Maher’s show, “Real Time with Bill Maher,” said in a statement posted to Twitter that the host tested positive during a weekly testing of all employees. He is asymptomatic and “feels fine,” the statement said. As a result of the positive test result, Maher will not tape his weekly show this Friday. The episode will be rescheduled at a later date. So-called breakthrough coronavirus cases like Maher’s have affected thousands of Americans. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines a “breakthrough” coronavirus case as a COVID-19 infection that occurs after a person is fully vaccinated. The CDC previously said that as of April 26, it had received 9,245 reports of breakthrough cases out of the more than 95 million people fully vaccinated. According to the agency, 27 percent of individuals with breakthrough cases were asymptomatic. Nine percent of the breakthrough infections resulted in hospitalizations while 132 cases, or about 1 percent, resulted in death.
Coronavirus variant cases on the rise in Wichita KS area –A wave of COVID-19 cases from coronavirus variants in Kansas has been led by a surge of the UK strain statewide and especially in Sedgwick County. The Kansas Department of Health and Environment on Monday reported 701 confirmed variant cases in 45 counties. The state’s total is up 6.5% from 658 variant cases in 43 counties on Friday, and up 57.5% from 445 variant cases in 36 counties one week ago. Sedgwick County is the second-most populous county in the state and has 285 variant cases. That’s more variant cases than the rest of the 13 most populous counties combined. Sedgwick County’s total is up 46% in one week. “At least half of the infections in Kansas now are no longer the wild type, they are a variant,” said Dr. Steve Stites, the chief medical officer at The University of Kansas Health System, during a Friday media briefing. Dr. Dana Hawkinson, medical director of infection prevention and control at KU, said the UK variant accounts for about 65-70% of all recent samples tested in Kansas. Hawkinson said the UK variant accounts for about 70% of recent samples in Sedgwick County. Since the start of the pandemic, Kansas has had 310,927 confirmed and probable COVID-19 cases, 10,405 hospitalizations, 2,882 ICU admissions and 5,016 deaths, according to the KDHE. There were 345 new cases, 31 new hospitalizations, eight new ICU admissions and zero new deaths over the weekend. Read more here: https://www.kansas.com/news/coronavirus/article251291339.html#storylink=cpy
Mesa County warns of hospital strain amid rising COVID cases –Local health officials are warning that an increase in COVID-19 cases has also led to an increase in hospitalizations just as the outdoor recreation season arrives. That’s important, hospital officials say, because now is the time that there’s usually an uptick in recreation-related injuries. “This is the season with increased outdoor activity; traditionally our hospitals fill up this time of year due to injuries and trauma related to those activities,” said Community Hospital Chief Medical Officer Dr. Thomas Tobin in a news release from Mesa County Public Health on Friday. In the past month, Mesa County has gone from three Intensive Care Unit COVID-19 patients to eight. The total number hospitalized is now 25, according to the release. “The additional patients due to COVID-19 are putting a strain on the system. I encourage all eligible individuals to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, as this effectively prevents most illness and nearly all serious disease,” said Dr. Andrew Jones, vice president and chief medical officer for St. Mary’s Medical Center. In recent days, the two-week case count for Mesa County has risen to more than 630 with a one-week positivity rate that has again reached 5%. According to the Mesa County Data Dashboard, 90% of staffed ICU beds are occupied, though hospitals across the county have long had surge plans in place to expand capacity when needed. By the same report, 94% of all total beds are occupied.
May 14th COVID-19 New Cases, Hospitalizations; 7-Day Average Cases Lowest Since June 25, 2020 —According to the CDC, on Vaccinations. Total administered: 268,438,666, as of yesterday: 266,596,486. Day: 1.84 million. (U.S. Capacity is around 4 million per day)
1) 59.1% of the population over 18 has had at least one dose (70% goal by July 4th).
2) 120.3 million Americans are fully vaccinated (160 million goal by July 4th)
And check out COVID Act Now to see how each state is doing. Almost 8,000 US deaths were reported so far in May 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 34,369, down from 35,474 yesterday, and down sharply from the recent peak of 69,881 on April 13, 2021. This is the lowest since June 25, 2020.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 29,588, down from 30,244 reported yesterday, but still above the post-summer surge low of 23,000.
COVID-19 infections soar in Alberta as third wave continues to rampage across Canada – Alberta had the highest per capita number of active COVID-19 cases of any region in North America last week, reaching 562 cases per 100,000 residents. If Alberta were a country, it would have the second-highest infection rate in the G20 behind only Argentina. The rapid increase in infection rates across the province is part of Canada’s surging third wave. In Ontario, the number of COVID-19 patients in intensive care (ICU), currently close to 900, is more than double the upper limit set by the provincial government for providing regular levels of care. Manitoba has emerged over the past week as the jurisdiction with the third-highest infection rate in North America, behind only Alberta and Michigan. On Saturday, Manitoba reported the death of a woman in her 20s. The main source of COVID-19 spread in Alberta, as across Canada, is workplaces. Many of the new infections are being registered in the province’s tar sands oil operations around Fort McMurray. This is a direct product of the hard right United Conservative Party’s open economy policy. Since the outset of the pandemic, Premier Jason Kenney has stridently refused to impose any restrictions on the activities of Alberta’s oil corporations and related industries, with the result that growing numbers of young, otherwise healthy working-age people are being laid low by more infectious and deadly COVID-19 variants. Newfoundland and Labrador is a major source of migrant labour for Alberta’s energy sector. As of May 4, the Newfoundland government warned on its COVID-19 website of outbreaks at numerous worksites in northern Alberta. These included: CNRL Albian Oil Sands Site, CNRL Jackfish, Cenovus Foster Creek, Cenovus Sunrise Lodge, CNOOC Long Lake Lodge, IOL Kearl Wapasu Oil Sands Site, Canadian Natural Resources Horizon Oil Sands Site, Syncrude Aurora, Syncrude Mildred Lake Oil Sands Site, Suncor Base Plant, Suncor Firebag, Suncor Fort Hills, Suncor MacKay River, Michels Canada, Oilsands Industrial Lodge, and Grand Prairie Royal Camp Services. Media outlets in Alberta have not reported these outbreaks.
WHO chief: Global COVID-19 cases, deaths plateauing but at ‘unacceptably high’ level – World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Monday that global COVID-19 case counts are plateauing but at an “unacceptably high” level. “Globally, we are now seeing a plateauing in the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths, with declines in most regions including the Americas and Europe, the two worst-affected regions,” Tedros said at a news briefing. “But it’s an unacceptably high plateau, with more than 5.4 million reported cases and almost 90 thousand deaths last week.” After rising throughout March and April, cases worldwide have now peaked and come down slightly, according to figures from Our World in Data, but there are still about 780,000 new cases every day, and almost 13,000 deaths. Cases have started to level off in India, which is facing a severe crisis, but they are still at the very high level of almost 400,000 every day, according to Our World in Data. The United States, where there is now an abundant vaccine supply, has seen cases decline, though Tedros warned that poorer countries do not have the same access to vaccines. “The shocking global disparity in access to vaccines remains one of the biggest risks to ending the pandemic,” he said. “High- and upper-middle income countries represent 53 percent of the world’s population, but have received 83 percent of the world’s vaccines,” he added. “By contrast, low- and lower-middle income countries account for 47 percent of the world’s population, but have received just 17 percent of the world’s vaccines.” The Biden administration has been facing calls to take greater action to help other countries. It has taken some steps, like announcing plans to donate 60 million doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine over the next couple of months. It also backed a waiver for vaccine patents at the World Trade Organization, but that process could take months to play out. Some experts say a more useful route in the near-term would be focusing on increasing supplies of raw materials and boosting manufacturing capacity.
Experts estimate COVID-19 death toll in India at over one million – Millions of Indians continue to suffer as COVID-19 takes thousands of lives and new infections are recorded every day. On May 9, the country passed another grim milestone of almost 22.3 million coronavirus cases, after reporting 403,738 new cases in the previous 24 hours. The official death toll climbed by 4,092 to 242,362. India, which has experienced 10 million new cases in the last four months, now accounts for 20.24 percent of all active cases and 7.12 percent of all deaths globally. The figures find concrete expression in the grim news reports of frantic scenes at hospitals, overcrowded crematoriums and round-the-clock pyres burning in city after city across the country, including in the national capital, Delhi. A May 8 editorial in the Lancet medical journal, citing statistics from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, estimates that India will see a staggering one million COVID-19 deaths by August 1. However, according to Dr. Murad Banaji, a Senior Lecturer in Mathematics at Middlesex University, that catastrophic figure has already been reached. Banaji told Karan Thapar, a journalist with the Wire, on May 8, that “80 percent of deaths” in India “have been missed … [and] for every five deaths which have occurred, only one has been counted.” In other words, he said, “over one million people have already died” from the coronavirus. Commenting on predictions that the daily death toll could reach 6,800 over the next two weeks, Banaji said the daily death numbers could be even higher because “infections are many times higher than daily cases … but most infections don’t get detected (because of low tests numbers).” Thapar pointed out that although the Indian government claims that 86 percent of all deaths have been registered, “only 22 percent have actual doctor’s medical certificates.” He referred to the situation in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, where COVID-19 medical death certificates are just 5 percent and 2.4 percent respectively. Many of those who fall ill and die from COVID-19 are not recorded as coronavirus victims, Banaji said, because they had no prior access to doctors or were not tested.
COVID-19 bodies being disposed of in India rivers as cremation costs… The bodies of Indians believed to have died of COVID-19 are lining the river Ganges in northern parts of the country as cremation costs have forced many to deal with the remains of their loved ones personally amid a massive, deadly surge of the virus.The New York Times reported that dozens of bodies, at least 30, had been discovered by authorities near Chausa, a town in the country’s northeast, with authorities suspecting but being in most cases unable to prove that the deaths were a result of the virus.Some witnesses put the number of bodies discovered as high as 100.Local tradition, according to the Times, leads some to weigh the bodies of the dead down with stones before releasing them into the Ganges, which is a holy river in Hinduism, but local officials told the Times that the number of recovered bodies has shot up in recent weeks.”I’ve never seen so many bodies,” Arun Kumar Srivastava, a government doctor based in Chausa, told the Times of the situation. “Definitely, more deaths are happening.”India has experienced a massive second wave of infections in recent weeks that has overwhelmed many hospitals in the country and left thousands struggling to find medical care for very sick family members or even themselves.The problem has been exacerbated by a shortage of medical staff, oxygen supplies and vaccines, according to a number of news reports.India set single-day records for new COVID-19 cases at least three times last week as health officials continue to battle the surge and a number of countries, including th e U.S., have offered aid, such as vaccine materials, COVID-19 tests and oxygen supplies.
World Health Organization declares B.1.617, first identified in India, the fourth variant of concern – At their Monday COVID-19 press brief, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the highly contagious variant first identified in India, classified as B.1.617, as a variant of concern, meaning that it is now considered a global health threat. Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, the technical lead for the COVID-19 pandemic, explained, “In our consultation with our virus evolution working group, our epidemiology teams, and our lab teams internally, there is some available information to suggest increased transmissibility of B.1.617.” She added that this variant could also reduce neutralization from antibodies, implying it has the ability to evade immunity to some degree, one of the key reasons it was classified as a variant of concern. The designation is used for those mutations that have been demonstrated to be more contagious, deadly or resistant to the COVID-19 vaccines currently being employed. Along with the B.1.117 (UK variant), B.1.351 (South African variant), and P.1 (Brazil variant), this makes B.1617 the fourth strain of the SARS-CoV-2 virus to have undergone a mutation toward a more virulent and transmissible form, arising independently under the pressures of mass infections, brought on by the criminal policy of herd immunity that threatens to make the coronavirus endemic. The B.1.617 variant that is behind the massive surge across India and neighboring countries such as Nepal has three sub-lineages. The B.1.617.3 was first detected in Maharashtra, India, on October 5, 2021, but has remained the uncommon form compared to the two sub-lineages B.1617.1 and B.1.617.2, first seen in December. The average daily COVID-19 case count in India is approaching 400,000, and the official daily death toll, a vast underestimation, is close to 4,000. The current official tally for India has tallied over 23 million COVID-19 cases and more than a quarter-million deaths. More recent estimates place that figure over 1 million. In recent animal models, the B1.617.1 variant showed a higher viral load and pathogenicity than the B.1 variant. The early evidence suggests that the B.1.617 is more transmissible and immune evading compared to the B.117 and B.1.618 mutants. In West Bengal, a state in eastern India, between the Himalayas and the Bay of Bengal, where B.1.618, which contains the E484K mutation, was dominant, it has been supplanted by the B.1.617 lineage. Additionally, the B.1.617 has spread to 40 other nations, including the United Kingdom, the US and Canada. Dr. Sujeet Singh, director of the National Center for Disease Prevention and Control, based out of New Delhi, speaking at a press conference on May 5, said, “In some states, the surge can be tied to B.1.617.”
Deadly ‘black fungus’ cases add to India’s covid crisis –As coronavirus cases and deaths soared in India recently, doctors began to notice another disturbing trend. Some covid-19 patients who had been released from hospitals were coming back with different symptoms, including sinus pain, blurred vision, black and bloody nasal discharge and a dark discoloration around the nose. The culprit was a deadly fungal infection called mucormycosis that physicians say is increasingly preying on people with immune systems weakened by covid-19 and the steroids used to treat it. Though cases of what is known as “black fungus” remain rare, its lethality and increasing prevalence have prompted government warnings, put doctors on high alert and added to the country’s health crisis. “The death rate from mucormycosis is 50 percent,” said Amarinder Singh Malhi from All India Institute of Medical Science, a public hospital in New Delhi. “The death rate from covid is 2.5 percent. So we have to use these steroids very cautiously.” Malhi said his hospital had not seen a spike in mucormycosis cases. But about a week ago, a journalist connected him on WhatsApp with a woman who had lost vision in one eye and was going blind in the other. “I referred that case to the emergency room,” he said, suspecting the woman had mucormycosis. “She needed antifungal drugs immediately.” Unless treated early, the aggressive fungal infection can often only be stopped with surgery. One Mumbai-based eye surgeon said he saw 40 mucormycosis cases last month alone, and 11 had to have an eye removed. “I will be removing her eye to save her life,” the doctor, Akshay Nair, told the BBC shortly before operating on a 25-year-old woman who had recovered from covid three weeks ago only to contract mucormycosis. “That’s how this disease works.”
Bodies float down Ganges as nearly 4,000 more die of COVID in India – (Reuters) -Scores of bodies are washing up on the banks of the Ganges as Indians fail to keep pace with the deaths and cremations of around 4,000 people a day from the novel coronavirus. India currently accounts for one in three of the reported deaths from coronavirus around the world, according to a Reuters tally, and its health system is overwhelmed, despite donations of oxygen cylinders and other medical equipment from around the world. Rural parts of India not only have more rudimentary healthcare, but are now also running short of wood for traditional Hindu cremations. Authorities said on Tuesday they were investigating the discovery of scores of bodies found floating down the Ganges in two separate states. “As of now it is very difficult for us to say where these dead bodies have come from,” said M P Singh, the top government official in Ghazipur district, in Uttar Pradesh. Akhand Pratap, a local resident, said that “people are immersing bodies in the holy Ganges river instead of cremation because of shortage of cremation wood”. Even in the capital, New Delhi, many COVID victims are abandoned by their relatives after cremation, leaving volunteers to wash the ashes, pray over them, and then take them to scatter into the river in the holy city of Haridwar, 180 km (110 miles) away. “Our organisation collects these remains from all the crematoriums and performs the last rituals in Haridwar so that they can achieve salvation,” said Ashish Kashyap, a volunteer from the charity Shri Deodhan Sewa Samiti. The seven-day average of daily infections hit a record 390,995 on Tuesday, with 3,876 deaths, according to the health ministry. Official COVID-19 deaths, which experts say are almost certainly under-reported, stand at just under a quarter of a million. The World Health Organization said on Monday that it regarded the coronavirus variant first identified in India last year as a variant of global concern, with some preliminary studies showing that it spreads more easily.
What we know about the Indian Covid variant so far — The new variant of the Covid-19 virus first detected in India comes inthree forms: B.1.617.1 (abbreviated as variant 1), B.1.617.2 (variant 2) and B.1.617.3 (variant 3). Each of these has a slightly different genetic makeup. The one that is surging in England is variant 2. There is some good news and bad news about this variant, based on the limited data we have available. The good news is that we think it does not contain the 484K/Q mutation that has been linked to some degree of vaccine resistance. So the current AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines should work relatively well against it, and at least protect most of us from severe Covid-19 disease and death. We do not have any evidence of this variant causing more severe disease, either – at the moment. The bad news is that we think all the “Indian variants” contain the L452R mutation, which is also found in the “Californian variant”, and which seems to confer some vaccine resistance and possibly more transmissibility. Variant 2 does seem to be spreading quickly in the English population – possibly more quickly than even the existing B.1.1.7 “Kent variant”. It also contains a new mutation, and we are not sure what this does yet – it may also be enhancing transmissibility. What does this all mean, as England plans to open up further on 17 May and then 21 June? More data is required from laboratory and real-world population studies but in the meantime, you could think of it like this. Some virologists are fond of using the metaphor of an immunological landscape. Picture a savannah, with grassland, some hills and a mountain in the distance. We are the prey – say, antelopes – while the virus takes the form of predators, like hyenas or lions. If we are non-immune, you could see us as feeding on low-level grasslands. If the virus comes in a more rapidly spreading form (like the Kent or Indian variant), we could imagine this as a faster-moving predator chasing us down. If we are vaccinated with at least one vaccine dose of a fairly effective vaccine (for instance, AstraZeneca or Pfizer) or have natural immunity, we might be standing on hills of different heights, depending on the effectiveness of our protective immune responses (and not everyone will respond to the vaccine). This makes it more difficult, though not impossible, for predators to catch us. This analogy is not exact but may be quite useful at this time, in that not all antelopes chased by these predators will die; in fact, most of the time, the antelopes escape. Most non-immune people in the UK will not be exposed to the virus at this time of low virus prevalence. And where such non-immune cases do get infected, most will only get mild Covid-19 disease (the equivalent of a few scratches and bites). All the Covid-19 vaccines are likely to prevent severe disease and death, though they may not protect you against mild or moderate disease. However, new variants can always appear that may be able to bypass the vaccine or natural immunity barriers – unless we keep readjusting our Covid-19 vaccines (climbing higher hills) to keep out of their reach.
German government opposes lifting of patents on coronavirus vaccines – Germany’s government is resisting with all means at its disposal the lifting of the patents on coronavirus vaccines. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the World Health Organisation, has been advocating an end to the patents for some time in order to overcome the shortage of vaccines in developing countries. More than 100 member countries of the World Trade Organisation, led by South Africa and India, have launched such an initiative. Several non-government organisations, including Doctors Without Borders, are supporting the call. When US President Joe Biden announced on Wednesday that his administration was considering suspending the patents, alarm bells began ringing in government buildings in Berlin. Chancellor Angela Merkel personally called UÄŸur Åžahin, founder of the Mainz-based company Biontech, which brought the first approved coronavirus vaccine to market in conjunction with the US-based pharmaceutical giant Pfizer. Caption: Biontech-Pfizer vaccine (Picture: Marco Verch / CC-BY 2.0) The federal government subsequently declared its firm opposition to lifting the patents. “The protection of intellectual property is the source of innovation and must remain so in the future,” stated a government spokeswoman. The factors limiting the manufacturing of vaccines are not the patents, but the lack of production capacity and high-quality standards, the statement continued. The federal parliament opposed a motion by the Left Party calling for the abandonment of the patents by 498 votes to 117. The media was full of comments as to why patent protections must be retained. “The pharmaceutical companies have invested considerably to manufacture effective vaccines quickly, even though they received state subsidies,” stated the conservative daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “Their right to intellectual property should not be underestimated. The incentive to take risks and produce such achievements must be retained.” The Suddeutsche Zeitung commented, “Property is a valuable motivation for innovation. The fact that the first vaccine against coronavirus came from Germany is thanks to the local economy, which is based on incentives for entrepreneurs. The pioneering spirit of some researchers and businessmen is based on a systemic principle: my idea, my project, my business, my colleagues, and yes, my profit.” p
Deadly coronavirus strain in France slipped through testing net, says study –A variant of the coronavirus that caused a deadly outbreak in France can evade standard tests, detectable only deep in the lungs, according to a new study. In a paper published on the preprint service medRxiv.org on Monday, researchers in western France said that only 15 per cent of patients in their study who had the B.1.616 variant tested positive in standard nasopharyngeal swabs, versus the 97 per cent hit rate for other variants circulating in France.And nearly half of the patients died in less than a month, a much higher rate than the 16 per cent mortality among other hospitalised Covid-19 patients. “[The] new variant [is] poorly detected … with high lethality,” the researchers led by Pierre Fillatre, from the Centre Hospitalier de Saint-Brieuc, said in the paper. The study has not been peer reviewed. An infectious disease researcher with the Institute of Microbiology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing said the variant, first detected in France earlier this year, had made the Chinese health authorities “quite nervous”. With large-scale testing and contact tracing, China has been able to quickly suppress nearly all outbreaks at home for more than a year. The central government requires all Chinese cities, including those with more than 10 million residents, to be able to roll out blanket testing programmes within a week after an initial case is reported. “If the mutation escapes surveillance, the whole system will collapse,” the Beijing-based researcher said, asking not to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue. Coronavirus: what’s the difference bet
Indonesia reports 2,385 new COVID-19 cases, 144 more deaths – The COVID-19 cases in Indonesia rose by 2,385 within one day to 1,736,670, with the death toll adding by 144 to 47,967, the Health Ministry said on Saturday. According to the ministry, 4,181 more people were discharged from hospitals, bringing the total number of recovered patients to 1,597,067. The virus has spread to all the country’s 34 provinces. Specifically, within the past 24 hours, West Java recorded 723 new cases, Central Java 248, Jakarta 227, Riau Islands 190 and East Java 183.
Hong Kong researchers find early COVID-19 mutant strain with characteristics of attenuated vaccine — The University of Hong Kong announced on Friday that its research team had found a mutant strain of COVID-19 at the early phase of the pandemic with the characteristics of an attenuated vaccine, bringing a major breakthrough in the further development of related vaccines. In the study with hamsters, researchers from the State Key Laboratory of Emerging Infectious Diseases of the university found that the mutant strain of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 and loses the basic amino acid motif, is almost non-pathogenic to hamsters. Hamsters that have been infected with the mutant virus can completely resist the re-infection of the wild-type virus, suggesting that this non-pathogenic mutant strain of the SARS-CoV-2 has the characteristics of an attenuated vaccine, the study revealed. The research also found that in human cell culture, the virus with the mutant strain has a reproductive rate even higher than that of the prototype virus, which is of great significance for the preparation of inactivated vaccines from the new coronavirus. According to the researchers, findings of the study also suggested that the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus is a cross-species event of infection from animals. Chen Honglin, a professor from the university’s department of microbiology and also a member of the research team, said the study indicated that the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus is still in the process of adapting to humans, and more mutant strains will occur in the COVID-19 pandemic. “At the same time, the mutant virus that loses the basic amino acid of the spike protein has low pathogenicity and higher reproductive ability in cultured cells than the original wild-type virus, and is an ideal strain for use in the production of inactivated vaccine,” Chen said. These findings have recently been published in the science journal Nature Communications.
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