Coronavirus Disease Weekly News 04July 2021

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:

It appears that we might be in the early stages of what could be the fourth or fifth wave of new coronavirus cases, depending on what previous periods of increasing infections one counts as a “wave”. New cases reported in the US during the week ending July 3rd were 7.0% higher than during the previous week, but the week over week increase was limited because of an anomalously small number of cases reported on July 3rd compared to other Saturdays, which we presume was tied to the July 4th holiday. Before that drop on July 3rd, US cases were showing an 11% week over week increase late this past week. Similarly, US deaths attributed to Covid during the week ending July 3rd were 22.9% lower than during the week ending June 26th, but again, deaths reported on July 3rd were half of the average of those reported on the most recent Saturdays – remove that July 3rd drop, and deaths were down 18.2% from last week. Since reports on July 4th and 5th will be similarly skewed, it may be a few weeks before we get a clear idea how fast new US cases are really rising (if in fact they are).

Meanwhile, new cases of Covid reported worldwide during the week ending July 3rd were 2.9% higher than during the week ending June 26th, as the small US anomaly had little impact on the global totals. New case decreases of 29% in Brazil and 11% in India, which had accounted for a third of new global cases going into the week, mask the surge of new cases going on elsewhere. Among other countries in the top 20, new cases were up by 38% in Indonesia, by 67% in the UK, by 18% in Russia, by 28% in South Africa, by 17% in Iran, by 51% in Bangladesh, by 88% in Spain, by 18% Malaysia, by 16% in Iraq, by 41% in Thailand, by 59% in Tunisia, and by 24% in Mexico. So as you can see, the global Covid surge is no longer limited to just a few countries or regions. Meanwhile, Covid deaths are still trending lower, at least for now: during the past week, deaths attributed to Covid worldwide were down 5.6% from those of the prior week.

The chart below from WorldoMeter shows the daily number of new cases for the US, updated through 03 July.

The chart below shows the daily number of deaths for the US, updated through 03 July.

The number of active cases still remains at an elevated level, just below 5 million.

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, which previously appeared to have peaked and be in a down trend may be showing a new increase. Global deaths (second graph below) still are in a down trend, while global vaccinations continue to increase (third graph below).

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Steven Hansen continues to summarize and link the latest news related to the pandemic and economic recovery 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 July 2021 Coronavirus And Recovery News: Pacific Northwest Has Been Hit With A Rise In COVID-19 From the Alpha, Delta, and Gamma Variants.

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:

Covid Pandemic Causes the Biggest Drop in U.S. Life Expectancy —Black and Brown Americans suffer the most in biggest U.S. drop in life expectancy since WWII, Modern Healthcare, June 2021. The advent of Covid, lack of medical access, and subsequent resistance to vaccinations has played out in a regression in life expectancy. The regression hit the hardest in minorities. That is not to say, the white majority did not experience a regression either . . . a lesser regression. The author points to economic disparity accentuating “the decades of difference existing in the country between the wealth and health of Black and Brown Americans when compared to white Americans.” The stage was set.The Coronavirus pandemic has killed an approximate 600,000 in the US. It has also sickened another 3.4 million with longer range persistent symptoms not easily healed over time. The Covid pandemic was devastating for vulnerable people resulting in the loss of jobs, homes and future opportunities. Millions of people are finding themselves living a sicker life and possibly dying younger. Caused by poverty, hunger and housing insecurity mostly brought about by Covid -19. And it still is not over. The pandemic will also accentuate the decades of difference existing in the country between the wealth and health of Black and Brown Americans when compared to white Americans. New research published in the BMJ details how wide the gap has grown. Life expectancy across the US decreased by ~2 years from 2018 to 2020. It is the largest decline since 1943 when American troops were dying in World War II. While white Americans life span regressed 1.36 years, Black Americans life span lost 3.25 years, and Hispanic Americans worse regressing 3.88 years. Life expectancy typically can vary by a month or two from year to year. Losses of three years are classified as being “pretty catastrophic,” according to Commonwealth University professor Dr. Steven Woolf, the lead author of the study.The two years studied revealed;

• the average loss of life expectancy in the U.S. being almost nine times greater than the average in 16 other developed nations. Residents of those countries are expected to live 4.7 years longer than Americans.
• The disparity in longevity between the US and other countries reveals Americans died not only in greater numbers but at younger ages during the two year period.
• U.S. mortality rate spiked by nearly 23% in 2020, when there were roughly 522,000 more deaths than expected. Not all of these deaths were attributable directly to covid-19. Fatal heart attacks and strokes both increased in 2020, at least partly fueled by delayed treatment or lack of access to medical care,
• More than 40% of Americans put off treatment during the early months of the pandemic. Hospital capacity was limited. Going into a medical facility seemed risky. Without prompt medical attention, heart attacks can cause congestive heart failure; delaying treatment of strokes raises the risk of long-term disability.

Young Americans are dying at rates not seen since 1953 – A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that approximately 19 percent more Americans died in 2020 than in 2019. Researchers also discovered that mortality rates for young adults aged 25 to 34 have skyrocketed in the last decade, reaching levels not seen since 1953. The year-on-year increase in the mortality rate among young Americans is the largest since 1918, when deaths rose by 30 percent amid the Spanish Flu pandemic. Mortality rates for children and those 65 and older had been in steady decline for the last century until the COVID-19 pandemic, which halted this progress. The mortality rates for those aged 55-64 rose slightly before the coronavirus pandemic, but the 45 to 64 age group still saw a general decline in mortality rates until 2020. Due to improvements in medical science, the mortality rates for infants have declined spectacularly in recent decades, with infant deaths moving from the group with the highest mortality rate toward the middle of the pack. However, infant mortality in the US has not fallen as quickly as rates in other developed countries. Children aged 5 to 14 have always regularly held the lowest mortality rate, but the decline has stalled in the last decade. According to the report, those aged 25 through 34 have seen the least improvement of all age groups in recent decades, dying at about the same rate in 2020 as they did in 1953. From 2010 through 2019, death rates among this age group rose by 25.2 percent. This increase, already far worse than that of any other age group in that period, was followed up in 2020 by a staggering 24.5 percent one-year increase, which made for a 55.8 percent rise since 2010. Based on data going back to 1990, the report documents a public health crisis sweeping the American workforce. The downward trend was prevalent before the pandemic arrived, but working-age Americans have been deeply affected by the pandemic, the report noted. “We’re losing more and more Americans in the prime of their lives, in their most productive years, and in their parenting years,” wrote Kathleen Mullan Harris, a sociology professor at the University of North Carolina and chair of the committee that wrote the report. “Our committee was stunned by this mounting crisis, which will only get worse. The most troubling themes in our report-higher mortality than our peer countries; major racial and ethnic, socio-economic, and geographic disparities; lack of access to health insurance and care-have all been exacerbated by the pandemic” Harris said. Researchers determined the rising death rate for adult workers was driven by a sharp increase in deaths from drug overdoses, alcohol, suicide, and cardiometabolic conditions. Drug overdoses have been the primary driving factor, with researchers attributing most of the increase in overdose deaths since 2013 to the ongoing opioid pandemic that claims the lives of thousands each year. However, suicide rates also rose from the mid-2000s to the mid-2010s at a concerning rate.

Study finds sign of long-lasting protection from COVID-19 vaccines – The COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna produce a “persistent” immune response and give a sign of long-lasting protection, a new study finds. The study is a positive development in the discussion around whether booster shots of the vaccines will be needed and when, though there has not been a definitive answer to that question yet. The study published in the journal Nature on Monday centers on what are known as germinal centers, what Ali Ellebedy, the study’s senior author and an associate professor at Washington University in St. Louis, describes as “boot camps for immune cells.” The study found that those training grounds in the body for immune cells were still active 15 weeks after the first dose of vaccine. “Germinal centers are the key to a persistent, protective immune response,” Ellebedy said in a statement. “Germinal centers are where our immune memories are formed. And the longer we have a germinal center, the stronger and more durable our immunity will be because there’s a fierce selection process happening there, and only the best immune cells survive.” Overnight Health Care: Study finds sign of long-lasting protection… The Hill’s 12:30 Report – Presented by Goldman Sachs – Biden muddies… “We found that germinal centers were still going strong 15 weeks after the vaccine’s first dose,” he added. “We’re still monitoring the germinal centers, and they’re not declining; in some people, they’re still ongoing. This is truly remarkable.” One key wild card in the discussion of booster doses is what variants of the virus develop. So far, the vaccines have held up well against new variants of the virus, including the highly transmissible delta variant that is on the rise in the United States. But if a new variant develops that is more resistant to the current vaccines, that could prompt a need for booster doses, possibly with a modified vaccine designed to fight the new variant.

Researchers pinpoint possible sign you have COVID-19 after being vaccinated – With most Americans vaccinated, the number of new COVID-19 cases and deaths are falling across the country. But, in rare cases, some are still testing positive for COVID-19 even though they are vaccinated. So, which symptoms should you monitor to see if you have COVID-19 even with the vaccine? Researchers with the ZOE COVID Symptom Study have tracked COVID-19 symptoms from those with and without the vaccine and found that sneezing more than usual can be a sign of COVID-19, but only for people with the vaccine. The ZOE COVID Symptom Study app was created by doctors and scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital, the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, King’s College London and Stanford University School of Medicine – along with ZOE, a health science company. “Our data shows that people who had been vaccinated and then tested positive for COVID-19 were more likely to report sneezing as a symptom compared with those without a jab,” researchers wrote. But, they added: “it’s important to remember that the link between sneezing and COVID-19 isn’t very strong so you should stay alert to the 20 symptoms of the disease, whether or not you’ve been vaccinated.”Researchers say that sneezing is not typically a symptom of COVID-19 and is more likely a sign of a cold, flu or allergies. The vaccines do not ensure complete protection against COVID-19. Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are about 95 percent effective against symptomatic COVID-19; Johnson & Johnson is around 66 percent. Less than 1 in 10,000 people so far have experienced a “breakthrough case” in the United States, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say such cases are to be expected.Experts with the ZOE COVID Symptom Study say people with the vaccine who do contract COVID-19 “experience the same kinds of symptoms as unvaccinated people do, but their illness is milder and shorter” – or they don’t have symptoms at all.Sneezing spreads the virus as it travels into the air. “Sneezing a lot could be a potential sign that someone vaccinated has COVID-19 and, however mild, should take a test and self-isolate to protect their friends, family and colleagues,” researchers note.

Mixing Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines provides strong protection, according to a preliminary study. – Early results from a British vaccine study suggest that mixing different brands of vaccines can provoke a protective immune response against Covid-19. In the trial, volunteers produced high levels of antibodies and immune cells after getting one dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and one dose of the AstraZeneca-Oxford shot. Administering the vaccines in either order is likely to provide potent protection, Dr. Matthew Snape, a vaccine expert at the University of Oxford, said at a news conference on Monday. “Any of these schedules, I think could be argued, would be expected to be effective,” he said. Dr. Snape and his colleagues began the trial, called Com-COV, in February. In the first wave of the study, they gave 830 volunteers one of four combinations of vaccines. Some got two doses of either Pfizer or AstraZeneca, both of which have been shown to be effective against Covid-19. Others got a dose of AstraZeneca, followed by one of Pfizer, or vice versa. For the first wave of volunteers, the researchers waited four weeks between doses. Studies have found that the AstraZeneca vaccine provides stronger protection if the second dose is delayed for up to 12 weeks, so the researchers are also running a separate 12-week trial which should deliver results next month. The researchers found that volunteers reported more chills, headaches and muscle pain than people who get two doses of the same vaccine. But the side effects were short-lived. Dr. Snape and his colleagues then drew blood to measure the immune response in the volunteers. They found that those who got two doses of Pfizer-BioNTech produced levels of antibodies about 10 times as high as those who got two doses of AstraZeneca. Volunteers who got Pfizer followed by AstraZeneca showed antibody levels about five times as high as those with two doses of AstraZeneca. And volunteers who got AstraZeneca followed by Pfizer reached antibody levels about as high as those who got two doses of Pfizer.

A third dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine is found to boost immune response.– A third dose of the Covid-19 vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford generated a strong immune response in clinical trial volunteers, Oxford researchers reported on Monday. The finding indicates that the AstraZeneca vaccine could be an option should third shots end up being needed, for example, to extend immunity. To date, the vaccine has been given as two doses, typically between four and 12 weeks apart. The new data, detailed in a preprint manuscript that has not yet been peer reviewed, came from 90 study volunteers in Britain who were among the earliest to receive the shots in a clinical trial last year. This past March, they were given a third dose, roughly 30 weeks after their second. Laboratory analyses showed that the third dose increased levels of antibodies to the virus in the volunteers to a point higher than seen a month after their second dose – an encouraging sign that the third shot would be likely to bring greater protection if the effectiveness of two doses waned over time. “We do have to be in a position where we could boost if it turned out that was necessary,” Prof. Andrew Pollard, an Oxford researcher who has led studies of the vaccine, said in a news conference on Monday. “I think we have encouraging data in this preprint to show that boosters could be used and would be effective at boosting the immune response.” Scientists and policymakers do not yet know whether booster shots may be needed. Scientists reported Monday that the vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna set off a persistent immune reaction in the body that may protect against the coronavirus for years, but it isn’t clear if the same is happening with other vaccines, including AstraZeneca. Emerging coronavirus variants could also accelerate the need for booster shots. If third shots are deemed necessary in the coming months, their availability could be severely limited, especially in poorer countries that are lacking enough supply to give first doses to their most vulnerable citizens.

Johnson & Johnson says its vaccine protects against the Delta variant. – The Johnson & Johnson vaccine is effective against the highly contagious Delta variant, even eight months after inoculation, the company reported on Thursday – a reassuring finding for the 11 million Americans who have gotten the shot.The vaccine showed a small drop in potency against the variant, compared with its effectiveness against the original virus, the company said. But the vaccine was more effective against the Delta variant than the Beta variant, first identified in South Africa – the pattern also seen with mRNA vaccines like those made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.Antibodies stimulated by the Johnson & Johnson vaccine grow in strength over time, researchers also reported.The results were described in a news release, and the company said that both studies had been submitted for online publication on Thursday. One of those studies has been accepted for publication in a scientific journal. Both studies are small, and the researchers said they had released the results early because of high interest from the public.The intense discourse about Delta’s threat has left even people who are vaccinated feeling anxious about whether they are protected. The variant, first identified in India, is much more transmissible than earlier versions of the virus, and its global spread has prompted new restrictions from Ireland to Malaysia. In the United States, the variant now accounts for one in four new cases. Public health officials had said the vaccines authorized in the United States worked against all existing variants, but the data was mostly based on studies of the mRNA vaccines.

Worried by the Delta variant, W.H.O. officials urged vaccinated people to keep wearing masks.– World Health Organization officials, concerned about the easing of precautions meant to stop the spread of the coronavirus even as the most contagious variant to date has emerged, have urged even fully vaccinated people to continue wearing masks and to keep taking other measures to prevent infection.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, on the other hand, told fully vaccinated Americans in May that they no longer needed to wear masks indoors or to maintain a distance of six feet from other people. The agency also eased advice about testing and quarantine after suspected exposure to the virus.Asked on Monday about the new cautions expressed by the W.H.O. – the world’s largest public health organization – a C.D.C. spokesman pointed to the existing guidance and gave no indication it would change.A highly infectious form of the virus, called the Delta variant, was first detected in India and has been identified in at least 85 countries. In the United States, where its prevalence has doubled in the last two weeks, the variant is responsible for one in every five Covid-19 cases. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease doctor, has called it “the greatest threat” to eliminating the virus in the United States.The rise of new variants “makes it even more urgent that we use all the tools at our disposal to prevent transmission,” including consistent use of both vaccination and public health and social measures, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the W.H.O., said at a news briefing on Friday.Dr. Mariangela Simao, the W.H.O.’s assistant director-general for access to medicines, vaccines and pharmaceuticals, emphasized at the briefing that even vaccinated people should continue to consistently wear masks, avoid crowds and maintain social distance from others, make sure they are in well-ventilated spaces, wash hands frequently, and avoid sneezing or coughing around other people. “What we’re saying is, ‘Once you’ve been fully vaccinated, continue to play it safe, because you could end up as part of a transmission chain.’ You may not actually be fully protected,”

WHO urges fully vaccinated people to continue to wear masks as delta Covid variant spreads – The World Health Organization on Friday urged fully vaccinated people to continue to wear masks, social distance and practice other Covid-19 pandemic safety measures as the highly contagious delta variant spreads rapidly across the globe.”People cannot feel safe just because they had the two doses. They still need to protect themselves,” Dr. Mariangela Simao, WHO assistant director-general for access to medicines and health products, said during a news briefing from the agency’s Geneva headquarters.”Vaccine alone won’t stop community transmission,” Simao added. “People need to continue to use masks consistently, be in ventilated spaces, hand hygiene … the physical distance, avoid crowding. This still continues to be extremely important, even if you’re vaccinated when you have a community transmission ongoing.”The health organization’s comments come as some countries, including the United States, have largely done away with masks and pandemic-related restrictions as the Covid vaccines have helped drive down the number of new infections and deaths.The number of new infections in the U.S. has held steady over the last week at an average of 11,659 new cases per day, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Still, new infections have been plummeting over the last several months.WHO officials said they are asking fully vaccinated people to continue to “play it safe” because a large portion of the world remains unvaccinated and highly contagious variants, like delta, are spreading in many countries, spurring outbreaks.The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that about half of adults infected in an outbreak of the delta variant in Israel were fully vaccinated with the Pfizer–BioNTech vaccine, prompting the government there to reimpose an indoor mask requirement and other measures.”Yes, you can reduce some measures and different countries have different recommendations in that regard. But there’s still the need for caution,” Dr. Bruce Aylward, a senior advisor to the WHO’s director-general, said at the briefing. “As we are seeing, there are new variants emerging.”The WHO said last week that delta is becoming the dominant variant of the disease worldwide.WHO officials have said the variant, first found in India but now in at least 92 countries, is the fastest and fittest coronavirus strain yet, and it will “pick off” the most vulnerable people, especially in places with low Covid vaccination rates.

Covid Vaccine Whack-a-Mole? — by Yves Smith – From early on, we pointed out that the officialdom in the US was wagering heavily on magic Covid vaccines as the solution to the pandemic. They made that position explicit when the CDC went into “Mission Accomplished” mode and gave the public license to stop wearing masks if they were fully vaccinated. Not only was that decision risky given the proportion of the population that had gotten the needed jabs was under 50%, but it also gave the refusniks, as the wags on Twitter put it, to declare that they identified as vaccinated. Our Covid brain trust continues to be of the view that combating Covid will require a multi-pronged approach, including treatments like antivirals. By contrast, the vaccine boosters argue that mRNA vaccines can be developed so rapidly, in a week, that it will be easy to fire up new versions to beat back new variants. But even so, approval, manufacture, distribution and persuading people to get another shot all take time, as in months. GM has sounded some cautionary notes, such as the vaccines being less effective on the immuocompromised and the elderly. For instance, from the abstract of this paper: Here we assessed humoral and cellular immune responses following vaccination with mRNA vaccine BNT162b22 in elderly participants prospectively recruited from the community and younger health care workers. Median age was 72 years and 51% were females amongst 140 participants. Neutralising antibody responses after the first vaccine dose diminished with increasing age, with a marked drop in participants over 80 years old. Sera from participants below and above 80 showed significantly lower neutralisation potency against B.1.1.7, B.1.351 and P.1. variants of concern as compared to wild type. Those over 80 were more likely to lack any neutralisation against VOC compared to younger participants following first dose. The adjusted odds ratio for inadequate neutralisation activity against the B.1.1.7, P.1 and B.1.351 variants in the older versus younger age group was 4.3 (95% CI 2.0-9.3, p<0.001), 6.7 (95% CI 1.7- 26.3, p=0.008) and 1.7 (95% CI 0.5-5.7, p=0.41). Binding IgG and IgA antibodies were lower in the elderly, and frequency of SARS-CoV-2 Spike specific B-memory cells was higher in elderly responders versus non-responders. We observed a trend towards lower somatic hypermutation in participants with suboptimal neutralisation, and elderly participants demonstrated clear reduction in somatic hypermutation of class switched cells, particularly in the IgA1/2 isotype. GM also pointed out: We have historically never had much of success with viruses. Treatment is symptomatic. We can keep you alive with the more recently developed antivirals if you have HIV, but not cure you. And we’ve had fairly good proper cure success with antivirals for hepatitis C. And that’s about it.

Some Vaccinated People Are Dying of Covid-19. Here’s Why Scientists Aren’t Surprised. – WSJ -As the Delta variant of the coronavirus surges through the U.K., almost half of the country’s recent Covid-19 deaths are of people who have been vaccinated. But doctors and scientists aren’t sounding the alarm about the apparently high proportion of deaths among the vaccinated population.On the contrary, they say the figures so far offer reassurance that vaccines offer substantial protection against the variant, particularly after two doses. Delta, first identified in India, has since spread to at least 85 countries, including the U.S., where it is now estimated to be the most common variant.The U.K. is a testing ground for how vaccines are coping. Delta is racing through the country-with 146,000 identified cases in the past week, 72% up on the week before. The country is also a world leader in identifying through testing and genetic sequencing which versions of the virus are prevalent: By mid-June, 97% of cases were Delta infections. And Delta is spreading among a population that is among the most highly vaccinated in the world: 85% of adults have had at least one vaccine shot and 63% have had two.The spread of Delta has led the U.K. government to postpone by a month the ending of Covid restrictions until July 19. But ministers are increasingly confident that the unlocking will take place as planned because vaccinations have broken the lockstep between new cases, later hospitalizations and deaths.U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a four-week extension to the country’s Covid-19 restrictions in mid-June as the country deals with an increase in Delta variant infections. Data from Public Health England show that there were 117 deaths among 92,000 Delta cases logged through June 21. Fifty of those-46%-had received two shots of vaccine.But rather than suggest Delta is displaying a worrying ability to evade the vaccine and cause severe illness, scientists say those figures support the shots’ effectiveness. There are three main reasons why.First, vaccines aren’t 100% effective. Not everyone who is inoculated will respond in the same way. Those who are elderly or whose immune systems are faulty, damaged or stressed by some other illness are less likely to mount a robust response than someone younger and fitter. Covid-19 vaccines are highly effective but some people will still be vulnerable to the virus even after receiving their shots.Second, the risk of dying from Covid-19 increases steeply with age. If a vaccine reduces an 80-year-old’s risk of death from Covid-19 by 95%, for instance, that 80-year-old’s risk of death might still be greater than the risk faced by an unvaccinated 20-year-old. Some chronic illnesses such as diabetes, hypertension and lung disease are also associated with a higher risk of severe illness and death.Third, as more of the population gets vaccinated, there are fewer unvaccinated people for the virus to infect. If the pool of vaccinated people is larger than the pool of unvaccinated people, then it is possible and even likely that breakthrough infections resulting in death in the older, vaccinated group would match or exceed deaths in the younger, unvaccinated group. Consider an imaginary country with 100% of people vaccinated, where the virus can still somehow spread. All Covid-19 deaths would be in vaccinated individuals.Of those 50 deaths in fully vaccinated people in England, all were in people aged 50 years and over, the data show. There have been no deaths recorded in double-vaccinated under 50s.

A map shows how many people had undiagnosed COVID-19 in the first 6 months of the pandemic, across 7 regions of the US – On paper, the US’s summer and winter coronavirus surges look far more devastating than the first one in the spring of 2020. But a new report published in the journal Science Translational Medicine offers the most robust look yet at how widespread the virus actually was during that initial wave. The results show that for every diagnosed case of COVID-19 in the US, nearly five others went undiagnosed during the first six months of the pandemic. That amounts to roughly 16.8 million undiagnosed cases by mid-July 2020 – in addition to the 3 million cases officially reported during that time. Kaitlyn Sadtler, an investigator at the National Institutes of Health who worked on the study, told Insider that her team spent several months making sure the figure was right. “It was shocking to an extent of, ‘Wow, that’s a lot of people,’ but at the same time, we knew that there was this big black box out there – the unknown,” she said. The estimates are based on a collection of blood samples, which the researchers gathered from around 9,000 people across the US from April 1 to August 4, 2020. None of the individuals sampled had ever been diagnosed with COVID-19, but nearly 5% of the samples came back positive for coronavirus antibodies. The researchers determined that these people had gotten undiagnosed infections. Some regions were hit harder than others, they found. The Mid-Atlantic saw the highest prevalence of COVID-19 cases: Nearly 9 out of every 100 people in the region had an undiagnosed infection, according to the report. The map below shows how that compares to other regions across the country.

Delta Plus’ Variant Of Covid-19 Coronavirus Emerges, What You Need To Know — Delta Plus refers to a new variant of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV2). It’s received the “Plus” designation because it’s not quite different enough from the original Delta variant to merit its own Greek alphabet letter. In fact, it’s basically the already-concerning Delta variant, plus one new addition. That new edition is a K417N mutation, a mutation that affects the virus’s spike protein. New variants emerge when mutations occur in the genetic code of the virus. When the Covid-19 coronavirus reproduces in the cells of your body, it can be similar to a drunk person hastily making photocopies of his or her bottom at the office. The virus can end up making various mistakes when replicating its genetic code. These “mistakes” are essentially mutations that can yield slightly different versions of the virus. Some of these mutations may make the virus weaker. Some may have little effect. Others may make the virus stronger like what has happened with the Delta variant and what now may be the case with the Delta Plus variant. India was the first country to find the Delta Plus variant, just like it was the first to find the original Delta variant. In fact, the Indian government has already designated this Delta Plus variant a “variant of concern.” Being designated a “variant of concern” is like winning an Oscar for viruses, but the exact opposite. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines a “variant of concern” as one that has any of the following:

• “Increase in transmissibility or detrimental change in Covid-19 epidemiology
• Increase in virulence or change in clinical disease presentation
• Decrease in effectiveness of public health and social measures or available diagnostics, vaccines, therapeutics.”

Is designating the Delta Plus variant as a “variant of concern” separate from the original Delta variant a case of premature nomination? Is the Delta Plus variant different enough from the original Delta variant? The key question really is how much worse than Delta might Delta Plus be? Well, there’s little question that the original Delta variant is already highly concerning. This more contagious version of the virus has been spreading rapidly throughout different parts of the world.There’s also the concern that the Delta variant may be more adept at attacking your lung cells.So what difference will this K417N mutation make? Remember that the Covid-19 coronavirus looks like a little spiky massage ball or the spiked ball at the end of a mace used for BDSM (not that you would necessarily know anything about that). The virus is covered with spike proteins. Anything that changes the spike protein deserves a closer look, since the virus uses the spike proteins on its surface to attach to and enter your cells. Depending how the spike protein is altered, a change could potentially enhance the virus’s ability to infect your cells. The K417N mutation is not a completely new mutation. It already is present in the Beta variant (B.1.351 lineage) that was first found in South Africa. The question though is what will happen when this mutation is combined with the mutations already present in the original Delta variant. Time and more research will tell.

DNA Explainer: Difference between Delta and Delta Plus variants – Symptoms, treatment, who’s at risk – The Delta Plus variant is fast emerging as the global COVID-19 variant of concern. It is a mutation of the Delta variant, which has been the dominant variant behind the COVID caseload around the world in 2021. Delta variant was largely behind India’s catastrophic second wave and was identified spreading in communities in 84 other countries. Its mutation, Delta Plus, has reportedly been found in 11 countries already. The Indian government recognized Delta Plus as a “variant of concern”, after finding cases in three states – Maharashtra, Kerala and Madhya Pradesh. Strict containment measures have been put in place in the clusters of Delta Plus, as identified by the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomic Consortia (INSACOG). In Maharashtra, experts fear a third wave in near future, fuelled by the new variant of concern. Outside India, the Delta Plus variant has been found in countries like US, UK, Japan, Russia, China, Portugal, Switzerland and Poland. What makes the Delta Plus variant a global concern is that it shows mutations acquired from both the Delta strain, first discovered in India, and the Beta strain, which was discovered in South Africa. The new mutation of the B.1.617.2 strain or the Delta variant, as named by the WHO, has been found to have two graded mutations L452R and P871R. As per Dr Raman R Gangakhedkar, former head scientist of epidemiology and communicable diseases at ICMR, who spoke to a leading news website, these two mutations “add to the higher transmission efficiency so that the variant can spread quickly from one person to another or can enter into the cells much more efficiently compared to other strains that exist.” Furthermore, the Delta Plus variant, also known as AY.1, has acquired the K417N mutation from the Beta variant.

Lambda lineage of SARS-CoV-2 has potential to become variant of concern. Researchers have described the first reported infection with the C.37 (Lambda) lineage of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in Southern Brazil. The SARS-CoV-2 virus is the agent responsible for the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The Lambda lineage was classified as a variant of interest (VOI) by the World Health Organization on June 15th, 2021. The C.37 variant, which lies within the B.1.1.1 lineage, has already been reported as highly prevalent in Peru and has also been identified in many countries across the Americas, Europe and Oceania, says Priscila Wink from the Hospital de Clinicas de Porto Alegre in Rio Grande do Sul and colleagues. However, C.37 has only been reported occasionally in Brazil despite its global spread, adds the team. Now, Wink and colleagues have described the first case of C.37 infection in Southern Brazil. The researchers discovered eight defining mutations in the variant, in addition to the 19 mutations that have already been described for other members of this lineage. “Considering that this VOI has been associated with high rates of transmissibility, the possible spread in the Southern Brazilian community is a matter of concern,” they write. A pre-print version of the research paper is available on the medRxiv* server, while the article undergoes peer review.

Health care workers face mental health crisis as the result of pandemic disaster – The coronavirus pandemic has lasted for more than 15 months, severely impacting not only the physical but the mental health of the vast majority of the world’s population. While almost 4 million people have died globally, hundreds of millions more have experienced overwhelming levels of stress, loss, economic anxiety, depression, isolation and uncertainty. In few other fields have workers been exposed to such high levels of stress as in health care. Health care workers, especially those on the frontline, have faced increased work hours, shortages of lifesaving personal protective equipment (PPE) and endless exposure to patient deaths. Large numbers of their colleagues have also died fighting to save lives. During the first year of the pandemic, more than 3,600 health care workers died in the United States, according to the ongoing study, “Lost on the frontline,” by Kaiser Health News and the Guardian newspaper. Nurses and health care support specialists accounted for the largest share of these deaths. More than 700 died in New York and New Jersey alone, the study found. While the report outlines a shocking scale of death among health care workers, these statistics are not comprehensively tracked by the government, and the authors of the study suggest the true toll is higher. Many of these deaths were the product of a direct failure of hospital administrators and governments to procure adequate supplies of masks and other personal protective gear, lack of mass testing and contact tracing, inadequate safety measures at workplaces, and refusal to implement necessary public health measures like lockdowns and restrictions until COVID-19 was successfully contained. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, “essential workers” are more likely to report symptoms of anxiety or depressive disorder, substance use and suicidal thoughts during the pandemic. Many current studies of health care workers are showing increased rates of post-traumatic symptoms among those workers caring for COVID-19 patients, with nurses being more often adversely impacted than doctors.

The US hasn’t vaccinated enough people to stop a Delta variant spike of infections, one of the leading US public-health experts has warned A top US public-health doctor has warned that the nation hasn’t vaccinated enough people to stop a spike in cases from the Delta coronavirus virus.Dr. Ashish Jha, dean at the Brown School of Public Health, said onTwitter on Friday that rising infections in the UK, where vaccination rates are high, suggested the US would not ward off a surge in cases of the more-infectious Delta variant. Jha predicted a surge in infections over the next few weeks as Deltabecomes the dominant strain in the US. “Low vax communities are particularly at risk,” he said. The Delta variant now accounts for at least 20% of new infections in the US, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, who said on Wednesday that the variant was the “greatest threat” to the nation’s efforts to eradicate COVID-19. Rochelle Walensky, director at the CDC, said June 18 that Delta would become the most common strain of coronavirus in the US within months.The Delta variant is spreading especially quickly in kids, who are unvaccinated – but it doesn’t appear to be causing more severe COVID-19 than other variants.Jha explained that in the UK, where Delta has been dominant since June 18, infections had risen five-fold and hospitalizations were up 80% over the past month. This is despite the UK vaccinating more of its population than the US – roughly 54% of Brits are fully vaccinated, according to UK government data, compared with 45% of Americans, per the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).Jha added that deaths were low in the UK because “almost all older folks are vaccinated” – about 94% of Brits over 70-years-old are fully vaccinated, according to government data.

Young adults are among the biggest barriers to mass immunity. – As the country’s vaccination campaign slows and doses go unused, it has suddenly become clear that one of the biggest challenges in reaching mass immunity will be persuading skeptical young adults of all backgrounds to get vaccinated.Federal officials expressed alarm in recent days about low vaccination rates among Americans in their late teens and 20s, and have blamed them for the country’s all-but-certain failure to reach President Biden’s goal of giving 70 percent of adults at least an initial dose by July 4.The straightforward sales pitch for older people – a vaccine could very possibly save your life – does not always work on healthy 20-somethings who know they are less likely to face the severest outcomes of Covid.As public officials race to find ways to entice young adults to get vaccinated, interviews across the country suggest that no single fix is likely to sway these holdouts. Some are staunchly opposed. Others are merely uninterested. And still others are skeptical.But pretty much everyone who was eager for a vaccine already has one, and public health officials now face an overlapping mix of inertia, fear, busy schedules and misinformation as they try to cajole Gen Z into getting a shot.Public health experts say vaccinating young adults is essential to keeping infection numbers low and preventing new case outbreaks, especially as the more infectious Delta variant spreads.Since vaccines became available six months ago, health departments have focused with varying degrees of success on urging groups identified as reluctant – including people living in rural communities, African American residents, conservatives – to get vaccinated. But in recent days, public health officials have identified young adults as a significant challenge for a country where fewer than a million people a day are receiving a vaccine, down from an April peak of more than 3.3 million. In a federal report released last week, just over one-third of adults ages 18 to 39 reported being vaccinated, with especially low rates among Black people; among people 24 or younger; and among those who had lower incomes, less education and no health insurance.

Growing Gaps in U.S. Vaccination Rates Show Regions at Risk – The gap between the most vaccinated and least vaccinated places in the U.S. has exploded in the past three months, and continues to widen despite efforts to convince more Americans to get a Covid shot. On a national level, the news appears good. About 300,000 new people are getting a Covid vaccine every day in the U.S., and 54% of the full U.S population has at least one dose. The country’s vaccine campaign is among the most successful in the world, states have lifted restrictions on business and socializing, and hospitalizations have plunged.But newly available county-level data show how those national figures hide very different local vaccine realities. In the least vaccinated group of counties, many of which are in the South and Central regions of the U.S., less than half as many people have gotten at least one Covid vaccine dose as in the most vaccinated counties in the cities and on the coasts. Those less vaccinated places are not catching up, either. The gap between more- and less-vaccinated counties is expanding, and the trailing counties are far below levels needed to halt future waves of infection. In the bottom fifth of counties – which tend to be more rural, more poor, less educated and more likely to lean politically to the right – only 28% of people have received a first dose of a vaccine, on average, and 24% are fully vaccinated. The slowing rate of new vaccinations shows that despite the Biden administration’s “month of action” to hit its vaccine target of 70% of adults with at least one dose by July 4, some areas are proving hard to reach. Gaps in vaccination rates can leave smoldering embers of infection, ready to set an epidemic newly ablaze elsewhere. And they can create fertile ground for new mutations, giving the virus a chance to evade vaccines. An analysis last weekof Covid cases in 700 counties, for example, found that the new delta variant first identified in India – believed to be far more contagious – has been found more often in less-vaccinated U.S. counties. Bloomberg’s analysis looks at county-level data on the number of people who have received at least one dose of a vaccine, from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as well as the state of Texas. While previous analyses have examined county-level data on complete vaccinations, the newly available one-dose data gives a more up-to-date view.

Missouri records highest rate of new COVID-19 infections in US US health experts warn that the Delta variant of the coronavirus is driving up new infections and deaths nationwide, particularly in states with below-average vaccination rates. The increased COVID-19 rate is attributed to the Delta variant initially discovered in India, also known by the alpha-numerical designation B.1.617.2. President Joe Biden’s original target of 70 percent vaccination of US adults by July 4 will not be met, as the vaccination campaign has come to a near halt. As of June 27, only 46 percent of the US population had been fully vaccinated, and 54 percent had received at least one dose. The seven-day average of vaccinations nationally had declined to 715,000 per day. The low national vaccination rate, coupled with the insistence of federal and state authorities that everything reopen without restrictions, is causing efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19 to start to unravel. Cases are rising primarily in the states with the lowest vaccination levels. Since most of the world’s population will not receive vaccines due to lack of supply, new virus strains will inevitably evolve. There is a possibility that in time a variant will emerge that renders the current vaccines essentially ineffective and ends the progress made in the United States towards lowering cases and deaths. Already the decline in the number of new cases of COVID-19 across the country has plateaued at just above 12,000 infections per day. Missouri was recently declared to have the nation’s highest rate of new COVID-19 cases. Only 38 percent of Missouri’s population is fully vaccinated. During the week of June 19 to 26, the state saw 5,428 new infections. The Delta strain of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is particularly entrenched in southwestern Missouri. Webster County Health Unit Administrator Scott Allen told the local media, “That variant is dominant in 96 percent in our sewer shed.”

Delta variant surge explodes claims that the pandemic is over in the US – For months, the Biden administration, the media and major US corporations have promoted the fiction that the COVID-19 pandemic is all but over. Last month, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reversed its guidance on mask-wearing, urging vaccinated people to stop wearing masks and socially distancing in crowded areas. Biden claimed vaccinated Americans had reached the “finish line” in the pandemic, encouraging the public to “take your mask off, you’ve earned the right.” “America is headed into a summer dramatically different from last year,” the White House wrote earlier this month. “A summer of freedom. A summer of joy. A summer of reunions and celebrations.” But the absurd pretext that the pandemic is over, even as over 300 people continue to die every day in the United States and as the disease continues to surge throughout the globe, was exploded Monday when Los Angeles County-the most populous county in the US-issued a recommendation that residents disregard the CDC order on mask-wearing and social distancing and take health measures recommended by scientists. “Until we better understand how and to who[m] the Delta variant is spreading, everyone should focus on maximum protection,” the county health department said. The move by Los Angeles County came after the World Health Organization (WHO) repeated its calls that vaccinated people should continue to wear masks in public, openly clashing with the Biden administration. “Vaccines alone will not stop the community transmission, and we need to ensure that people follow public health measures,” WHO Assistant Director-General Mariangela Simao said at a press briefing Friday.

As the Northwest broils, officials rate cooling off a higher priority than Covid precautions. To help people in the Pacific Northwest escape record-breaking temperatures, local officials have opened cooling centers – and relaxed some Covid-19 restrictions.In Oregon, where temperatures are forecast to reach 113 degrees on Monday, roads have buckled from the extreme heat, and relatively few homes have air-conditioners, state health officials suspended capacity limits at swimming pools, movie theaters and shopping malls on Friday, and said that no one would be turned away from cooling centers because of crowding.The decision follows a sustained decline in new reported coronavirus cases and deaths in the state, and Gov. Kate Brown’sannouncement that Oregon would fully open no later than June 30. Nearly 70 percent of adult residents in the state have received at least one vaccine dose, Governor Brown’s benchmark for lifting the state’s remaining restrictions.Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington has suspended capacity restrictions at publicly owned or operated cooling centers and those run by nonprofit organizations in his state, though not for “private, for-profit businesses that offer air-conditioned spaces to the general public,” according to a memo released on Friday.More than 70 percent of adults in Washington have received at least one vaccine dose, according to a vaccine tracker maintained by The New York Times. Governor Inslee has said that all restrictions in his state will be lifted no later than June 30 as well. In Portland, people have been asked to wear face masks and maintain social distance at official cooling centers, including several public libraries with extended hours, movie theaters and the Oregon Convention Center, “Cooling people down is the more immediate life safety issue,”

With cases rising, Missouri asks for a ‘surge response team’ under new White House program. – State officials in Missouri, where vaccination rates are relatively low and the highly contagious Delta variant is more prevalent than in other states, asked the White House for help on Thursday in coping with a surge in coronavirus cases and deaths.The state reached out to the Biden Administration only hours after the White House announced that it was creating “surge response teams” to help states contain outbreaks fueled by the new variant and low inoculation rates.In the past two weeks, the daily number of reported cases in Missouri has more than doubled, and hospitalizations have increased 20 percent, though the figures remain a fraction of their November peak, according to a New York Times database.The spike has been especially pronounced in the southwestern part of the state, which is home to tourist destinations like Branson and the Lake of the Ozarks, and where several hospitals recently had to move about a dozen Covid patients to other facilities because of staffing and capacity issues. C.D.C. estimates based on genomic testing put the prevalence of Delta cases in the state atnearly 30 percent.”It is obvious this increase in cases has to do with increasing presence of the Delta variant,” Dr. George Turabelidze, Missouri’s state epidemiologist, told St. Louis Public Radio in an interviewbroadcast on Friday.On Thursday, Jeffrey D. Zients, the Biden administration’s Covid-19 response coordinator, told reporters that the White House was assembling teams to help states confront outbreaks fueled by the Delta variant, tapping a mix of federal resources and personnel. “These are dedicated teams working with communities at higher risk for or already experiencing outbreaks, due to the spread of the Delta variant and their low vaccination rate,” Mr. Zients said. Missouri’s rise in reported infections and hospitalizations highlights the growing concern among public health officials that regions with large populations of unvaccinated people could see case surges.

Covid-19 caused a significant decline in life expectancy in Brazil. – The coronavirus has reversed a steady rise in life expectancy in Brazil, with an estimated decline of 1.3 years in 2020 and an even more accelerated drop during the first months of 2021, according to a new report published in the journal Nature Medicine.Significant, abrupt declines in life expectancy are rare and Brazil’s represents a major blow given the strides the country had made in improving health outcomes in recent decades, said Marcia Castro, the chair of the Department of Global Health and Population at Harvard, the lead author of the study.”We expect declines of this magnitude when you have a major shock that leads to high mortality, like a war or a pandemic,” she said.Brazil has reported more than 514,000 deaths from Covid-19, an official death toll surpassed only by that in the United States, which has lost more than 604,000 people. Even so, the United States, which has a considerably larger population, experienced a slightly lower life-expectancy drop last year: 1.13 years.The pandemic has continued to steadily worsen in Brazil, where vaccinations have lagged. At least 18 million Brazilians have been infected so far, or at least one in 11 people, and the country is averaging over 65,000 new reported cases and over 1,600 deaths a day, according to official data. But, as in India, which has the world’s third-largest official death toll, many experts believe the numbers understate the true scope of the country’s epidemic. So far, about a third of Brazil’s population has had at least one shot of a vaccine, according to Our World in Data. The decline in life expectancy is a jarring setback for Brazil, Latin America’s largest nation, which has spent billions of dollars in recent decades to expand the reach and quality of its universal public health care system. Between 1945 and 2020, life expectancy in Brazil increased from 45.5 years to 76.7 years, an average of about five months per year. The setbacks of the Covid-19 era have reverted the country to 2014 levels, according to the study.

Delay in Sydney lockdown allows COVID Delta outbreak to spread across Australia –After more than a week of refusing to introduce lockdown measures in response to a worsening COVID-19 outbreak, the Liberal-National government in New South Wales (NSW), Australia’s most populous state, on Saturday imposed limited two-week “stay at home” orders covering the Sydney metropolitan area and surrounding regions. The days of delay, in defiance of warnings by medical experts, allowed the highly infectious and dangerous Delta variant, first detected in India, to spread from a cluster in Sydney’s eastern suburbs throughout much of the city and across the continent, as well as to New Zealand. This developing disaster is another indictment of the corporate profit-driven response of Australian governments, like their counterparts internationally, which have failed to implement effective lockdown, quarantine and vaccination measures, permitting new mutant strains to emerge, such as Delta, which has spread to more than 80 countries. Technicians prepare Pfizer vaccines at the newly opened COVID-19 Vaccination Centre in Sydney, Australia, Monday, May 10, 2021. (James Gourley/Pool Photo via AP) Over the past year, Liberal-National and Labor Party governments alike in Australia have only instituted coronavirus safety measures when compelled to do so by health staff and other workers. These measures have largely led to much lower infections than in comparable countries, but epidemiologists warned for weeks that outbreaks were inevitable because of the Delta surge. Since the current outbreak began on June 16, NSW state Premier Gladys Berejiklian, backed by Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s federal government, had dismissed appeals from public health experts and doctors for lockdown measures, despite Berejiklian herself describing the situation in Sydney as the “scariest” the city had faced during the pandemic. As recently as Friday, Morrison declared in a Sky News interview that Berejiklian’s government had “gold standard contact tracing” and people should “feel very confident that if anyone’s going to get on top of this with their tracing and not have to shut the city down, it’s the New South Wales government.” Saturday’s belated “stay-at-home” order, giving the city’s residents only four hours’ notice, was made after Sydney recorded the largest number of daily infections thus far since June 16. The 30 cases in 24 hours took the total to 112. Today, that figure rose by another 18 to 130. The long list of exposure sites across Sydney has now exceeded 300, including busy shopping centres in working class suburbs and the state government’s own vaccination hub at Westmead hospital, the largest public hospital in the western suburbs. Of particular concern also is an outbreak linked to Great Ocean Foods, a seafood wholesaler in inner-west Marrickville, where delivery drivers linked to the business tested positive. By yesterday too, the infections had spread to five of Australia’s eight states and territories, forcing a snap two-day lockdown in the Northern Territory capital of Darwin and mask mandates, reinforced restrictions and border closures elsewhere.

Over a dozen vaccinated doctors dead as Indonesia’s virus cases surge – Over a dozen fully vaccinated doctors have died of COVID-19 in Indonesia, a medical association said Friday, as the Southeast Asian country battles a rash of severe cases in inoculated medical workers and highly infectious new virus strains. Infections have surged in the nation of 270 million people in the past week, passing two million cases on Monday as hospital occupancy rates soared to over 75 percent in Jakarta and other hard-hit areas. Nearly 1,000 Indonesian health workers have died from the virus since the pandemic started, with the country’s medical association confirming Friday that 401 doctors were among the victims-14 of whom were fully vaccinated. “We are still updating the data and confirming whether the other cases had been vaccinated or not,” the association’s COVID-19 mitigation head Mohammad Adib Khumaidi told journalists. The rise of severe cases in inoculated medical workers has raised questions about the China-produced Sinovac jab, which Indonesia is heavily relying on to vaccinate more than 180 million people by early next year. This month, more than 300 vaccinated doctors and health care workers in Central Java were found to have been infected with COVID-19, with about a dozen hospitalised. The country is also grappling with new virus strains, including the highly infectious Delta variant first identified in India. Clinical symptoms suggest that strain is responsible for a surge in cases in West Java, the medical association’s spokesperson for the province, Eka Mulyana, said. “In West Java, bed occupancy rates have exceeded 90 percent. Some hospitals’ rates are even more than 100 percent,” he told reporters. “At this rate, our health system is close to collapse.” . The surge has been partly blamed on millions travelling from that region across the Muslim-majority nation at the end of Ramadan last month, despite an official ban on the annual migration. The Indonesian medical association’s Kudus representative, Ahmad Ipul Syaifuddin, has said the mass movement of people had made it next to impossible to determine where the surge began. “We have no clue on how to trace and find the first spreader of the Delta cases because the sampling test result came out around three weeks after the mass exodus,” he said. “My sample was among the tested sampling for the Delta variant. I have already recovered and (have) tested negative now, but I still have a cough.”

‘Health system close to collapse’: Indonesia battling COVID surge — COVID infections have surged in Indonesia, a nation of 270 million people, in the past week, with more than 2 million cases reported as of Saturday, and hospital occupancy rates soared to more than 75 percent in the capital Jakarta and other hard-hit areas. The country is also grappling with new virus strains, including the highly infectious Delta variant first identified in India. In Jakarta, the surge in cases have forced hospitals to set up emergency tents, according to Detik news website, which quoted provincial government officials.In Medan, the capital city of North Sumatra province, Dr Inke Nadia D Lubis, member of the COVID task force in the area, reported that in the last six months as many as 1,800 children have been infected with the virus, including 14 who have died. More than a third of the cases reported were elementary school-age students, while a quarter were high school-age students, Inke was quoted by Detik as saying. On Friday, President Joko Widodo said that the country is facing an “extraordinary situation”, vowing to respond with “quick and appropriate policies”. Nearly 1,000 Indonesian health workers have also died from the virus since the pandemic started, with the country’s medical association confirming on Friday that 401 doctors were among the victims, including 14 who were fully vaccinated. This month, more than 300 vaccinated doctors and healthcare workers in Central Java were found to have been infected with COVID-19, with about a dozen hospitalised. The rise of severe cases in inoculated medical workers has raised questions about the China-produced Sinovac jab, which Indonesia is heavily relying on to vaccinate more than 180 million people by early next year.

Indian COVID-19 mutant strain reaches Iraq -Iraq’s health minister announced on Tuesday that India’s mutated COVID-19 strain known as “Delta” had reached Iraq.”The mutated Indian strain “Delta” is one of the most dangerous strains, and several factors have proven its presence, including the increase in infections among young people and the high number of patients admitted into intensive care,” Iraqi health official, Jasib Al-Hajami, said in a statement to the Iraqi News Agency (INA).The number of those infected with coronavirus in a critical condition increased from 300 to more than 500 cases across the country, Hajami said.

A cascading series of failures left hospitals across India without medical oxygen. – At 9:45 p.m., alarms blared across the intensive care unit of Jaipur Golden Hospital. Over two dozen patients on ventilators couldn’t breathe. Some flailed their arms and legs. Others cried for help, choking sounds coming from their throats as if they were being strangled. Mechanics sprinted to the maintenance room to see what was wrong. Nurses grabbed small plastic pumps to fill the lungs of critically ill patients by hand. It wasn’t enough. Jaipur Golden, a respected hospital in Delhi, had run out of medical oxygen. Over the next seven hours, 21 coronavirus patients died. “Nobody can forget that night,” said Shaista Nigar, the hospital’s nursing superintendent. “It was a total breakdown.” Across India, amid a devastating second wave of Covid-19, hospitals ran out of beds and critical supplies, contributing to deaths and worsening an already tragic outbreak. By one count, oxygen shortages alone have killed at least 600 people over the past two months. India’s leaders knew the country was vulnerable. Yet Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government and local officials alike failed to prepare for the second wave, according to interviews and a review of government documents by The New York Times. India is a major producer of compressed oxygen. But the Indian government moved too late to distribute supplies. State governments feuded over oxygen and seized tankers, creating bottlenecks and delays. Delhi city officials didn’t build systems to produce or store oxygen and struggled to allocate dwindling supplies. When tight supplies and government missteps led oxygen to run out at Jaipur Golden, some families said the hospital offered no warning. Without a comprehensive coronavirus plan, Mr. Modi’s government has left much of the burden to states, cities, hospitals and even individuals. The oxygen crisis tragically revealed the limits of a do-it-yourself approach.

In Worst-Hit African Nation, Covid Vaccines Halted and Hospitals Hit Capacity –In Namibia, which has Africa’s fastest-growing Covid-19 epidemic, vaccines are running out, hospitals and mortuaries are overwhelmed and the blame game has begun.The government, criticized by politicians and medical experts for its response to the pandemic, rolled back a decision to reserve its limited doses for people awaiting a second shot and will now also use the vaccines it has for first-time inoculations, in line with World Health Organization advice.”Systems in the hospitals are under severe pressure, including staff who are overworked and not performing at their best,” said Gordon Cupido, head of internal medicine at the Katutura State Hospital in the capital, Windhoek. “The human cost is tremendous, often patients are dying unnoticed.”Namibia is one of a swathe of African nations in the grips of a third wave of coronavirus infections that’s overwhelming the least-vaccinated continent. While the U.S. and U.K. have fully inoculated at least 45% of their populations, that figure is just 1.1% for Africa.In Namibia, 0.8% of the population is fully vaccinated, according to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.In the week to June 28, the southwest African nation with a population of about 2.5 million had an infection rate of 4,302 cases per million people, the second-highest rate in the world after Mongolia, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Deaths more than doubled from the week earlier. Mortuaries across the country are overwhelmed with the increasing number of Covid-19 deaths, putting “even more pressure on the situation,” Health Minister Kalumbi Shangula said in an interview.

Delta variant outbreak in Israel spreads to some vaccinated adults – An outbreak of the Delta variant of COVID-19 in Israel has spread to some vaccinated people – with about half of the adults infected fully inoculated with the Pfizer shot, a health official said.Ran Balicer, who heads a COVID-19 government advisory committee, said that about 90 percent of new infections in the country were likely caused by the Delta variant, a highly-contagious strain that first emerged in India, the Wall Street Journal reported.”The entrance of the Delta variant has changed the transmission dynamics,” Balicer said.Children under the age of 16 – the majority of whom had not received the vaccine – were responsible for about half of the new cases, Balicer said.But about half of adults infected in the outbreak were considered fully-vaccinated – meaning that it had been at least two weeks since they received their final dose of the Pfizer shot, he said. Balicer added that the so-called breakthrough cases were expected because though Pfizer is highly effective against the virus, it’s not 100 percent protective.

Why most people who now die with Covid in England have been vaccinated -A MailOnline headline on 13 June read: “Study shows 29% of the 42 people who have died after catching the new strain had BOTH vaccinations.” In Public Health England’s technical briefing on 25 June, that figure had risen to 43% (50 of 117), with the majority (60%) having received at least one dose.It could sound worrying that the majority of people dying in England with the now-dominant Delta (B.1.617.2) variant have been vaccinated. Does this mean the vaccines are ineffective? Far from it, it’s what we would expect from an effective but imperfect vaccine, a risk profile that varies hugely by age and the way the vaccines have been rolled out. The vaccines are not perfect. PHE estimates two-dose effectiveness against hospital admission with the Delta infections at around 94%. We can perhaps assume there is at least 95% protection against Covid-19 death, which means the lethal risk is reduced to less than a twentieth of its usual value. But the risk of dying from Covid-19 is extraordinarily dependent on age: it halves for each six to seven year age gap. This means that someone aged 80 who is fully vaccinated essentially takes on the risk of an unvaccinated person of around 50 – much lower, but still not nothing, and so we can expect some deaths.The PHE report also reveals that nearly a third of deaths from the Delta variant are of unvaccinated people over 50, which may be surprising given high vaccine coverage; for example, OpenSAFELY estimates more than 93% among the 65-69s. But there are lower rates in deprived areas and for some ethnicities and communities with limited coverage will continue to experience more than their fair share of loss.Coverage and effectiveness are important numbers for assessing vaccination programmes. It is better to look at cool analysis by analysts, rather than hot takes on social and other media.

Rapid spread of delta coronavirus variant prompts new lockdowns and restrictions worldwide – The rapid spread of the delta coronavirus variant has forced a growing number of countries to reimpose lockdowns and other public health restrictions, raising fears that the more contagious variant was hampering global efforts to contain the pandemic.The new curbs on travel and daily life stretched from Australia and Bangladesh to South Africa and Germany, where authorities over the weekend set new limits on travelers from “virus-variant zones” such as Portugal and Russia.South Africa on Sunday extended a nightly curfew and introduced a ban on gatherings, alcohol sales, indoor dining and some domestic travel for 14 days to halt a worrying surge in cases driven by the delta variant, President Cyril Ramaphosa said. In Bangladesh, the government pointed to a “dangerous and alarming” rise in delta-related infections and halted all public transportation starting Monday, prompting thousands of migrant workers to flee the capital, Dhaka, before the restrictions took hold.Australia is on the verge of a national coronavirus outbreak just as most other developed economies are emerging from restrictions, with the delta variant of the virus seeding new clusters across the continent. Thai authorities declared a month-long limited lockdown in the capital, Bangkok, and neighboring provinces, amid a spike in new cases attributed to the delta variant. And Malaysia extended a nationwide shutdown that was scheduled to be relaxed Monday.In Taiwan, which reported its first delta case on Saturday, the local Centers for Disease Controlannounced new restrictions for people arriving from seven “high-risk countries”: Bangladesh, Britain, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Israel and Peru.Hong Kong also said Monday that it was banning all passenger flights from Britain beginning later this week, because of the growing number of new coronavirus cases and “widespread delta variant virus strain there,” according to a government statement.Health experts have warned that the delta variant – which was first identified in India – is on track to become the most dominant version of the coronavirus worldwide. The World Health Organization said last week that it has been detected in at least 92 countries.Israel has one of the world’s highest vaccination rates but has also seen delta cases jump in recent weeks, causing authorities to reinstate an indoor mask mandate that was dropped just two weeks ago.Israeli officials on Sunday night, however, ruled against reviving more stringent coronavirus measures. Instead, the government is relying on the country’s high vaccination rate to protect residents from virus-related hospitalizations and deaths. Ahead of England’s plan to ease remaining coronavirus restrictions on July 19, the delta variant has continued to spread, and is now responsible for more than 90 percent of new infections in Britain. Concerns about the variant have prompted U.K. authorities to shorten the time between vaccine doses for those over 40.

North Korea reports a ‘great crisis’ in its virus response. – North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, said that lapses in his country’s anti-pandemic campaign have caused a “great crisis” that threatened “grave consequences,” state media reported on Wednesday.Mr. Kim did not clarify whether he was referring to an outbreak in North Korea, where the authorities had said there were no cases of the virus. But state media reported that the matter was serious enough for Mr. Kim to convene a meeting of the Political Bureau of his ruling Workers’ Party on Tuesday, during which Mr. Kim reshuffled the top party leadership.Senior officials neglected implementing antivirus measures and had created “a great crisis in ensuring the security of the state and safety of the people,” Mr. Kim said.Mr. Kim also berated party officials for their “ignorance, disability and irresponsibility,” said the official Korean Central News Agency.A report said there would be some “legal” consequences for the officials.The news agency said that some members of the Politburo and its Presidium, as well as some Workers’ Party secretaries, were replaced. In North Korea, all power is concentrated in the leadership of Mr. Kim, and he frequently reshuffles party officials and military leaders, holding them responsible for policy failures.The North claims officially to be free of the virus, although outside experts remain skeptical, citing the country’s threadbare public health system and lack of extensive testing. Still, North Korea has enforced harsh restrictions to contain transmission.Last year, it created a buffer zone along the border with China, issuing a shoot-to-kill order to stop unauthorized crossings, according to South Korean and U.S. officials. South Korean lawmakers briefed by their government’s National Intelligence Service last year have said that North Korea executed an official for violating a trade ban imposed to fight the virus.

Concern over the Delta variant triggers lockdowns in Asian and Pacific countries. – Countries across the Asia-Pacific region are scrambling to slow the spread of the more infectious Delta variant, reimposing restrictions and stay-at-home orders in a jarring reminder – for societies that had just begun to reopen – that the pandemic is far from over.In Australia, outbreaks of the variant have forced four major cities – Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and Darwin – into strict lockdowns. On Monday, the Malaysian government said nationwide stay-at-home orders would be extended indefinitely. And Hong Kong officialsbanned flights from Britain, where cases of the Delta variant, which was first identified in India, are rising fast.In Bangladesh, soldiers are preparing to patrol the streets to enforce stay-at-home orders, with new cases rapidly approaching their early April peak. “The Delta variant of Covid-19 is dominating,” said Robed Amin, a health ministry spokesman, adding that testing suggested the strain was responsible for more than 60 percent of new cases.The lockdowns and restrictions have deflated hopes across the region, where many countries avoided the worst of the pandemic’s initial spread last year. Now, weary residents are frustrated by what some describe as their countries’ pandemic regression, as other parts of the world edge toward normalcy.Outside Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s largest city, a restaurant owner, Marcus Low, bemoaned the fourth lockdown of the pandemic. Daily infections in Malaysia peaked in early June, but even after weeks of lockdown, new cases have dipped by only 5 percent over the past two weeks, according to New York Times data. Only 6 percent of the country’s 33 million people are fully vaccinated. “My restaurant is known for its hospitality and shared dishes, the antithesis of social distancing,” Mr. Low said. For his and other small businesses struggling to survive, this lockdown “might be the last straw,” he said.

Delta variant of coronavirus fuels rise in cases in Europe –While governments in Europe abandon social distancing measures, coronavirus cases are rising across the continent, increasingly dominated by the more infectious Delta strain of the virus. The Delta variant, first detected in India, is considered to be up to 60 percent more contagious than even the Alpha strain first detected in the UK, and to be up to four times as likely to lead to hospitalisations. The most advanced situation on the continent is the UK. This is largely because the Delta variant began to spread in Britain earlier than elsewhere, despite it having a higher vaccination rate than most EU countries, with almost 60 percent of the adult population having received two doses. A bullfight amid the coronavirus pandemic at Las Ventas bullring in Madrid, Spain, June 26, 2021. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez) On Tuesday, the UK recorded a further 20,479 cases, the second consecutive day that they have topped 20,000, taking new infections recorded in the last seven days to 123,566. There were 108 deaths due to COVID-19 over the period, a comparatively low figure solely due to the impact of the vaccination program. Despite this resurgence of the virus fuelled by the Delta variant, and a total of more than 152,000 deaths from COVID-19, Sajid Javid, in his first speech to parliament as UK Health Secretary, insisted that July 19 would be “end of the line” for safety restrictions. “We see no reason to go beyond July 19 because in truth no date we choose comes with zero risk, we know we simply cannot eliminate it. We have to learn to live with it,” he said. Javid made no bones that the protection of big business was his main concern: “We also know that people and businesses need certainty. So we want every step to be irreversible. Make no mistake, the restriction on our freedoms must come to an end.” Much of the current surge has been due to the infection of youth and schoolchildren. On Tuesday, the Department of Education released figures showing that more than 375,000 pupils were absent from school last week in England due to the spread of COVID-19. This was an increase of more than 130,000 in a week, 66 percent, and equates to 5.1 percent of all schoolchildren.

At least 127 Delta variant cases in Ontario linked to massive COVID-19 outbreak at Nunavut mine – A major COVID-19 outbreak that has developed over the past two months at a mine in Canada’s far north has once again laid bare the disastrous consequences of the “profits before lives” policy during the pandemic. The refusal to allow serious public health measures to impinge on the accumulation of corporate profits has resulted not only in scores of miners getting sick. It has also led to hundreds of additional infections in Canadian provinces to the south. COVID-19 began to spread among workers at the Nunavut Territory’s Mary River Mine on April 19, and by May 5 the outbreak had become so severe that the mine was forced to suspend its operations. One of the northernmost mines in the world, the open-pit iron ore mine is located in the Qikiqtani region of Baffin Island. Workers fly in and out of the remote site as part of a three-week shift rotation, and approximately 800 workers are located at the mine at any given time. The fact that the highly transmissible Delta strain, first identified in India, had been detected among the mine workforce was not made publicly known in the company’s May 2 press release announcing the outbreak. Consequently, the number of Delta variant cases rapidly mushroomed. As of June 12, there were 106 confirmed cases of mineworkers contracting the virus, and 96 of these are of the Delta variant. According to International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) Local 793 spokesperson Mike Gallagher, one worker has died. Another is recovering after being hospitalized due to the virus. Currently, the Mary River Mine outbreak is one of the largest known outbreaks of the Delta variant to have occurred in Canada. Workers deemed “by the company as low risk” were allowed to fly out of the site and travel home when operations came to a halt. As a result, 1,200 workers returned to their homes, located in every province and territory across Canada. Many of these workers have unwittingly carried the COVID-19 virus and its dangerous and partially vaccine-resistant Delta variant into their home communities. Over 400 workers went back to their homes in Ontario. Flight manifests retrieved by Nunavut Public Health show that the workers flew into airports in all 34 of the province’s health jurisdictions. As of June 12, 127 COVID-19 cases in Ontario had been linked to the Mary River Mine outbreak, and it is known that 10 of these are of the B.1.617 lineage, which includes the Delta variant. Similarly, in Alberta, 120 cases are currently linked to the mine and at least 9 of those are confirmed to be Delta cases.

The virus is soaring in Myanmar, where a junta that seized power holds the vaccines. -Three days before she was arrested by soldiers, Myanmar’s civilian leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, received her first dose of a coronavirus vaccine. Her high-profile inoculation was part of a nationwide campaign to combat the virus through testing, mask-wearing, lockdowns and vaccination. But like the civilian government that Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi headed, her program to contain Covid-19 was cast aside by the military when it seized power in the Feb. 1 coup. “There had been a real push toward testing, surveillance and vaccination and all of that just crumbled after the first of February,” said Alessandra Dentice, the head of Myanmar’s UNICEF office. Now, the country, reeling from a brutal military crackdown and crippled by a monthslong national strike, is paying the price for the junta’s neglect of the pandemic. According to data reported by the regime’s health ministry, the number of daily reported Covid cases has risen sharply, and with limited testing underway, the positivity rate jumped to nearly 22 percent on Thursday. Health experts believe many more cases are going undetected. Most worrisome are outbreaks in the three largest communities near the border with India, the country where the highly contagious Delta variant was first identified. The variant has been detected among the cases. As of Thursday, 20 townships in six states and regions have been placed under pandemic-related stay-at-home orders by the military. Outbreaks have also been reported in Yangon, the largest city, and Naypyidaw, the capital. In Mandalay, the second-largest city, all seven townships were placed under stay-at-home orders on Thursday. The six hospitals in the city that accept coronavirus patients have been filled to capacity since last week, according to a local medical charity. The ousted government in the Southeast Asian nation had acquired 3.5 million vaccines from India before the coup. The junta commandeered most of the shots, but ignored plans to prioritize vaccinations for the elderly. Some shots went to vaccinate soldiers, according to a doctor at a Yangon military hospital. In protest, many doctors refused to get a second dose from the regime. The military’s unwillingness to provide details about its vaccination program prompted Covax, the global vaccine-sharing program, to delay a shipment of 5.5 million doses in March, said Dr. Stephan Paul Jost, the World Health Organization’s representative for Myanmar. No new shipment has been scheduled. With doctors and other health care workers on strike against the coup, Myanmar’s health care system may buckle under the outbreak.

India’s Covaxin effectively neutralises Delta variant of Covid, says U.S.’ health research institute – India’s Covaxin, developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research, effectively neutralises both Alpha and Delta variants of coronavirus, the U.S.’ National Institute of Health has said.The NIH said results of two studies of blood serum from people who had received Covaxin suggest that the vaccine generates antibodies that effectively neutralise the B.1.1.7 (Alpha) and B.1.617 (Delta) variants of SARS-CoV-2, first identified in the U.K. and India, respectively.The top American health research institute, which has a history of strong scientific collaboration with India, also said that an adjuvant developed with funding from it has contributed to the success of the highly efficacious Covaxin, which has been administered to roughly 25 million people till date in India and elsewhere.Adjuvants are substances formulated as part of a vaccine to boost immune responses and enhance a vaccine’s effectiveness.Covaxin comprises a disabled form of SARS-CoV-2 that cannot replicate but still stimulates the immune system to make antibodies against the virus. Published results from a phase 2 trial of the vaccine indicate that it is safe and well tolerated, the NIH said, adding that safety data from a phase 3 trial of Covaxin will become available later this year. “Meanwhile, unpublished interim results from the phase 3 trial indicate that the vaccine has 78% efficacy against symptomatic disease, 100 per cent efficacy against severe COVID-19, including hospitalisation, and 70% efficacy against asymptomatic infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19,” it said.

Germany recommends mixing vaccine doses to counter Delta – In a bid to provide effective coverage against the Delta variant, German health authorities broadened their recommendation that those who received a first shot of the AstraZeneca vaccine get a second dose with either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines. This “is one of the best available vaccine combinations currently available,” Jens Spahn, the country’s health minister, said on Friday, after agreeing to formally adopt a recommendation from the country’s vaccination expert panel with state lawmakers. Studies have shown that while mixing vaccines may increase the odds of mild and moderate side effects, including fever, fatigue and headache, the protection is at least on par with two jabs of the mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. Germany had already been advising people under 60 to take the mixed regimen after worries about rare but severe side effects were observed in younger women receiving AstraZeneca shots. Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is 66, was inoculated with a Moderna vaccine last month after receiving an AstraZeneca shot earlier this year. Now, authorities believe the combination can help protect all vaccine recipients in the fight against the Delta virus, which is currently estimated to make up 50 percent of new cases across the country. Mr. Spahn also said that doctors and nurses could give the second shot just four weeks after the first, significantly shortening the period between shots that was initially recommended for a full AstraZeneca treatment, when the wait between shots could be as long as 12 weeks.

The Delta variant could end Australia’s pursuit of ‘Covid Zero.’ – Three days after the emergence of a rare Covid case in Sydney, around 40 friends gathered for a birthday party. Along with cake and laughter, there was a hidden threat: One of the guests had unknowingly crossed paths with that single Covid case. Two weeks later, 27 people from the party have tested positive, along with 14 close contacts. And the seven people at the gathering who were not infected? They were all vaccinated. For Australia and every other nation pursuing a so-called “Covid zero” approach, including China and New Zealand, the gathering in western Sydney amounts to a warning: Absent blanket vaccinations, the fortress cannot hold without ever more painful restrictions. The Delta mutation has already raced from Sydney across Australia. Half of the country’s 25 million people have been ordered to stay home as the caseload, now at around 200, grows every day. State borders are closed, and exasperation is intensifying. It’s a sudden turn in a country that has spent most of the past year celebrating a remarkable achievement. With closed borders, widespread testing and efficient tracing, Australia has quashed every previous outbreak, even as almost every other country has lived with the virus’s unceasing presence, often catastrophically. In Australia, no one has died from Covid-19 in all of 2021. While New York and London sheltered last year from a viral onslaught, Sydney and most of the country enjoyed full stadiums, restaurants, classrooms and theaters with “Hamilton.” That experience of normalcy – diminished only by a lack of overseas travel, occasional mask mandates and snap lockdowns – is what Australian politicians are so desperate to defend. To them, keeping Covid out, whatever it takes, remains a winning policy. On Friday, Australia doubled down on this approach, announcing that the trickle of a few thousand international arrivals allowed each week (and quarantined) would be cut by half.

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