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:
Although US Covid deaths continued to rise at a rather brisk pace, the growth in incidence of new cases appears to have slowed considerably, even as there has been considerable divergence between sites reporting this data since the last time I compared them.
New Covid cases reported in the US over the week ending August 21st were 2.5% higher than those reported over the week ending August 14th, but that now represents a 1,069% increase from the number of Covid cases reported eight weeks earlier, during the week ending June 26th. This week’s new cases were also 96.5% greater than the new case count during the worst week of last summer, but they remain 46.7% below the worst week of this year’s mid-winter surge.
In contrast to the Covid data that I retrieve from the WorldoMeters site, the CDC reports a 7-day average of new cases that is about 10% lower, but a week over week increase of 14.0%. The New York Times data tracker reports a 14-day new case average that is only slightly lower, and they give a 14-day increase in new cases of 37%. Johns Hopkins reports more than 5% more new US cases over the past week than does Worldometers, but they don’t give a week over week comparison. I continue to use the WorldoMeters site because they present the historical 7-day average data interactively, allowing for an easy access of prior weekly averages and hence enabling the kinds of comparisons that I make every week.
US deaths attributed to the coronavirus during the week ending August 21st were 18.7% greater than during the week of the 14th, and they’re now 320% higher than number of deaths reported during the week ending July 10th, which was the week that US Covid deaths were at their low for this year. However, this week’s Covid deaths were still 33.6% below the deaths recorded during the worst week last summer, and 77.2% below the Covid death rate peak in January of this year, when more Americans were dying of Covid than of cancer and heart disease combined.
Both new infections and deaths reported globally were a bit lower this week than a week earlier. New Covid cases reported worldwide during the week ending August 21st were 1.6% lower than those reported during the week ending August 14th, but still 76.2% higher than those recorded during the week ending June 26th. Covid deaths reported worldwide this week were 0.4% lower than the prior week, but still 25.0% higher than during the week ending July 3rd, when global death totals bottomed out this year. The US now accounts for 21.4% of all new cases globally, and had more new cases this week than the four next high case countries combined.
The chart below from WorldoMeter shows the daily number of new cases for the US, updated through 21 August. The increase over the last 5 weeks now appears to be slowing. What is happening should be clearer in the next 2 weeks.
The chart below shows the daily number of deaths for the US, updated through 21 August. The daily deaths are showing a steady growth, but still less than in previous waves.
The number of active cases still remains at an elevated level, and on July 24 moved again above 5 million, now sharply above, over 7.4 million.
The graphics presented by Johns Hopkins show global new cases, global deaths, and global cummulative vaccinations in that order.
According to Johns Hopkins (first and second graphs below), a third wave has still growing globally, led by the US. Meanwhile global vaccinations continue to increase (third graph below).
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: 21 August 2021 Coronavirus And Recovery News: A Troubling Picture Of How COVID Affects The Brain.
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:
A grim warning from Israel: Vaccination blunts, but does not defeat Delta | Science | AAAS – “Now is a critical time,” Israeli Minister of Health Nitzan Horowitz said as the 56-year-old got a COVID-19 booster shot on 13 August, the day his country became the first nation to offer a third dose of vaccine to people as young as age 50. “We’re in a race against the pandemic.”His message was meant for his fellow Israelis, but it is a warning to the world. Israel has among the world’s highest levels of vaccination for COVID-19, with 78% of those 12 and older fully vaccinated, the vast majority with the Pfizer vaccine. Yet the country is now logging one of the world’s highest infection rates, with nearly 650 new cases daily per million people. More than half are in fully vaccinated people, underscoring the extraordinary transmissibility of the Delta variant and stoking concerns that the benefits of vaccination ebb over time.The sheer number of vaccinated Israelis means some breakthrough infections were inevitable, and the unvaccinated are still far more likely to end up in the hospital or die. But Israel’s experience is forcing the booster issue onto the radar for other nations, suggesting as it does that even the best vaccinated countries will face a Delta surge.“This is a very clear warning sign for the rest of world,” says Ran Balicer, chief innovation officer at Clalit Health Services (CHS), Israel’s largest health maintenance organization (HMO). “If it can happen here, it can probably happen everywhere.”Israel is being closely watched now because it was one of the first countries out of the gate with vaccinations in December 2020 and quickly achieved a degree of population coverage that was the envy of other nations – for a time. The nation of 9.3 million also has a robust public health infrastructure and a population wholly enrolled in HMOs that track them closely, allowing it to produce high-quality, real-world data on how well vaccines are working.“I watch [Israeli data] very, very closely because it is some of the absolutely best data coming out anywhere in the world,” says David O’Connor, a viral sequencing expert at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “Israel is the model,” agrees Eric Topol, a physician-scientist at Scripps Research. “It’s pure mRNA [messenger RNA] vaccines. It’s out there early. It’s got a very high level population [uptake]. It’s a working experimental lab for us to learn from.”
A U.K. study finds that Pfizer’s vaccine is less effective against Delta 90 days after full vaccination – Vaccines against COVID-19 are less effective against the delta variant, a large U.K. study showed in results that may fuel a push for booster shots for fully vaccinated people. Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE’s messenger RNA vaccine lost effectiveness in the first 90 days after full vaccination, though that shot and the one made by AstraZeneca Plc still staved off a majority of COVID infections. When vaccinated people did get infected with delta, they had similar levels of virus in their bodies as those who hadn’t had their shots, backing up a recent assessment by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The results are likely to fuel calls to give booster shots to the fully vaccinated even as countries around the world still lack enough supply for first immunizations. The U.S. on Wednesday said Americans who got both doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna Inc. mRNA vaccine will be able to get a third one after eight months. U.K. authorities are still deciding how broadly boosters should be given. In Israel, which started giving third doses of Pfizer-BioNTech this month, initial results show they have been 86% effective for people over the age of 60. The U.K. survey, run by the University of Oxford and the Office for National Statistics and published Thursday in a preprint, analyzed more than 3 million PCR tests from a random sample of people for a detailed picture of infection patterns as delta became the dominant variant this year.“We’re seeing here the real-world data of how two vaccines are performing, rather than clinical trial data, and the data sets all show how the delta variant has blunted the effectiveness of both the Pfizer and AstraZeneca jabs,” said Simon Clarke, an associate professor in cellular microbiology at the University of Reading. By roughly four and a half months after the second dose, Pfizer’s shot will probably be about on par with Astra’s at preventing infections with a high viral burden, said Koen Pouwels, an Oxford senior researcher who helped lead the study. There wasn’t a statistically significant difference in the Astra shot’s effectiveness over time. The results cast further doubt on the possibility of achieving herd immunity via vaccination, said Sarah Walker, a professor of medical statistics and epidemiology at Oxford, who helped lead the study. “The hope was that unvaccinated people could be protected by vaccinating lots of people,” Walker said. “The higher levels of virus that we’re seeing in these infections in vaccinated people are consistent with the fact that unvaccinated people are just going to be at higher risk, I’m afraid.”
Pfizer CEO to Public: Just Trust Us on the Covid Booster –Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla was confident in June about the ability of his company’s vaccine to protect against the highly contagious delta variant, as it marched across the globe and filled U.S. hospitals with patients.“I feel quite comfortable that we cover it,” Bourla said.Just weeks later, Pfizer said it would seek authorization for a booster shot, after early trial results showed a third dose potentially increased protection. At the end of July, Pfizer and BioNTech announced findings that four to six months after a second dose, their vaccine’s efficacy dropped to about 84%. Bourla was quick to promote a third dose after the discouraging news, saying he was “very, very confident” that a booster would increase immunity levels in the vaccinated. There’s one hitch: Pfizer has not yet delivered conclusive proof to back up that confidence. The company lacks late-stage clinical trial results to confirm a booster will work against covid variants including delta, which now accounts for 93% of new infections across the U.S.Pfizer announced its global phase 3 trial on a third dose in mid-July. That trial’s completion date is in 2022. Phase 3 results generally are required before regulatory approval.“We are confident in this vaccine and the third dose, but you have to remember the vaccine efficacy study is still going on, so we need all the evidence to back up that,” Jerica Pitts, Pfizer’s director of global media relations, said Monday. The financial stakes are enormous: Pfizer announced in July that it expects $33.5 billion in covid-19 vaccine revenue this year.Meanwhile, Pfizer recently said that if a third dose couldn’t combat the delta or other variants, the drugmaker is poised to come up with a “tailor-made” vaccine within 100 days.All of this has sown a sense of confusion about what exactly will work, and when. The pharmaceutical industry’s rush to recommend boosters for the public is “a little frustrating,” said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and an adviser to the National Institutes of Health and Food and Drug Administration. Even if a booster is found to be safe, he said, the U.S. effort should focus on “vaccinating people who are unvaccinated.”
Third Pfizer dose 86% effective in over 60s, Israeli HMO says – One of Israel’s top health care providers said Wednesday that initial results of a study have showed that a third dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, given to Israelis over 60, has been 86% effective. The study compared 149,144 members of Maccabi HealthCare Services who received three doses at least seven days ago with 675,630 members of the same age, gender, socioeconomic status and population group who only received two inoculations in January and February. Some 37 people tested positive for coronavirus after their third jab, compared with 1,064 positive cases among those who had received only two doses, Maccabi said in a statement. The comparison groups had similar demographic profiles, it added.Maccabi did not provide any information on the severity of the 37 positive cases, or whether they had any underlying conditions. The Health Maintenance Organisation (HMO) did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Pfizer has said that its vaccine’s efficacy drops over time, and that a third dose showed significantly higher neutralising antibodies against the initial SARS-CoV-2 virus as well as against the Beta and highly infectious Delta variants. Israel began administering third Pfizer doses last month to confront a surge in local infections driven by the Delta variant. Some 1.1 million eligible Israelis – people over 50, healthcare workers, and others – have received their third dose. Nonetheless, Israeli health officials worry that cases will continue to mount given that another 1.1 million Israelis – around 11% of the population – remain unvaccinated. Severe cases have also continued to climb, mostly among the unvaccinated. Health ministry data released on Wednesday, based on data per 100,000 people, showed 172 serious cases among unvaccinated people over 60, compared with 21 serious cases among vaccinated individuals in the same age group.
Biden officials say most Americans should get boosters after eight months. -The Biden administration has decided that most Americans should get a booster vaccination eight months after they received their second shot, and could begin offering third shots as early as mid-September, according to administration officials familiar with the discussions. Officials are planning to announce the decision as early as this week. Their goal is to let Americans who received the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines know now that they will need additional protection against the Delta variant that is causing caseloads to surge across much of the nation. The new policy will depend on the Food and Drug Administration’s authorization of additional shots. Officials said that they expect that recipients of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which was authorized as a one-dose regimen, will also need an additional dose. But they are waiting for the results of that firm’s two-dose clinical trial, expected later this month. The first boosters are likely to go to nursing home residents, health care workers and emergency workers. They would probably be followed by older people who were near the front of the line when vaccinations began late last year and then by the general population. Officials envision giving people the same vaccine they originally received. The decision comes as the Biden administration is struggling to regain control of a pandemic that it had claimed to have tamed little more than a month ago. Covid-19 patients are again overwhelming hospitals in some states, and federal officials are worried about an increase in the number of children hospitalized just as the school year is set to begin. The World Health Organization has called for a moratorium on booster shots until the end of September, saying available doses should be used to help countries that are far behind in vaccinations. But Israel is already offering third shots to those at least 50 years old. France and Germany have said that they plan to offer additional shots to vulnerable segments of their populations next month. Britain has a plan to do so, but is holding off for now.
The F.D.A. is aiming to give full approval to Pfizer’s Covid vaccine on Monday. -The Food and Drug Administration is pushing to approve Pfizer-BioNTech’s two-dose Covid-19 vaccine on Monday, further expediting an earlier timeline for licensing the shot, according to people familiar with the agency’s planning. Regulators were working to finish the process by Friday but were still working through a substantial amount of paperwork and negotiation with the company. The people familiar with the planning, who were not authorized to speak publicly about it, cautioned that the approval might slide beyond Monday if some components of the review need more time. An F.D.A. spokeswoman declined to comment. The agency had recently set an unofficial deadline for approval of around Labor Day. The approval is expected to pave the way for a series of vaccination requirements by public and private organizations who were awaiting final regulatory action before putting in effect mandates. Federal and state health officials are also hoping that an approved vaccine will draw interest from some Americans who have been hesitant to take one that was only authorized for emergency use, a phenomenon suggested by recent polling. Some universities and hospitals are expected to mandate inoculation once a vaccine is fully approved. The Pentagon this month said it planned to make Covid vaccinations mandatory for the country’s 1.3 million active-duty troops “no later” than the middle of next month, or sooner if the F.D.A. acts earlier. Once it obtains the approval, Pfizer-BioNTech is planning to quickly ask the F.D.A. to approve a third dose as a booster shot. The Biden administration on Wednesday announced that fully vaccinated adults should prepare to get booster shots eight months after they received their second doses, beginning Sept. 20. Pfizer is expected to finish submitting data that it says shows a third shot is safe and effective next week. The F.D.A. last week updated its authorizations of Pfizer-BioNTech’s and Moderna’s vaccines to allow third doses for some immunocompromised people, a decision backed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Regulators are still reviewing Moderna’s application for full approval for its coronavirus vaccine, and a decision could come at least several weeks after the one for Pfizer-BioNTech. Moderna is planning to submit its data in support of a booster shot in September.
US probing Moderna vaccine after data shows heart condition linked to drug may be more common than previously believed – reports.–New data has prompted US health officials to investigate whether a serious adverse effect associated with Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine may be more widespread than previously thought, according to the Washington Post.The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are studying if myocarditis, a disease that causes heart inflammation, is potentially more common among young adults who got the Moderna vaccine than originally estimated, two people familiar with the probe told the Post. The US health authorities are examining data from Canada that suggests the Moderna shot may be more dangerous for young people than the Pfizer variant, particularly among men aged 30 and younger. The figures, provided by the Canadian government, purportedly show that there might be a 2.5-times higher incidence of myocarditis in those who get the Moderna vaccine compared with the Pfizer shot. The FDA and CDC are poring over US data to see if similar conclusions can be made about the vaccine’s effect on young Americans, WaPo said. One source who spoke with the outlet stressed that it was still too early to say if the issue had been understated. The FDA and CDC did not comment on the alleged probe, but both agencies stressed that they were committed to reviewing new safety data as it becomes available. Moderna did not provide the Post with a comment about the purported investigation.In June, the FDA issued new warning labels for both the Pfizer and Moderna mNRA vaccines, stating that they were likely associated with an increased risk of myocarditis. The CDC issued a report a month later stating that although there is an “elevated risk” for myocarditis from the Pfizer and Moderna shots, particularly among males ages 12 to 29, the benefits of vaccination against Covid-19 “clearly outweigh” any potential side effects.
New research finds vaccines losing effectiveness against getting delta variant but protect against more severe effects -Following the White House’s new initiative to roll out booster COVID-19 vaccinations in late September, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a slew of data showcasing the current vaccinations’ efficacy in preventing severe illness. This clinical data is likely one of the factors that informed the decision of White House COVID-19 advisors in recommending booster shots. Notably, the third vaccinations are intended for people who have already been fully vaccinated with a two-series shot from Pfizer or Moderna. One study conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) looked at vaccine effectiveness over the course of May 3 to July 25 in New York adults. It found a depletion in overall vaccine effectiveness from 91.7 percent on average to 79.8 percent among all adults surveyed. The data was sourced from four state databases that stored vaccination information as well as positive and negative COVID-19 test results. Researchers examined new cases and hospitalizations among vaccinated individuals to gauge the quantity of breakthrough infections and their severity. Ultimately, the study suggested that vaccinated individuals remained out of the hospital more frequently than unvaccinated people, even as the contagious and potent delta variant was circulating. Rates of new infections did occur, however, which revealed a reduced level of efficacy from the vaccines. “To reduce new COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, these findings support the implementation of a layered approach centered on vaccination, as well as other prevention strategies,” the report concludes. A layered vaccination approach would call for booster shots to help regenerate strong immunity levels seen from the first round of vaccinations.
COVID vaccines are less effective against the Delta variant after 90 days, a new study finds – The Pfizer and AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccines are less effective against the Delta variant three months after inoculation, a major new UK study has found.After 90 days of two doses of the vaccines, the efficacy of Pfizer-BioNTech slipped to 75 per cent from 93 per cent two weeks after being jabbed.Oxford/AstraZeneca’s efficiency dropped to 61 per cent after three months from 71 per cent two weeks after the second dose.The drop in effectiveness was also more visible for those aged 35 years and above.But the study highlighted both vaccines still staved off the majority of COVID variants.”With Delta, Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines still offer good protection against new infections,” the study said.”Both of these vaccines, at two doses, are still doing really well against Delta… When you start very, very high, you’ve got a long way to go,” said Sarah Walker, an Oxford professor of medical statistics and chief investigator for the survey.The study was produced by the University of Oxford and the Office for National Statistics.It analysed the periods before and after the Delta variant became prevalent. Between December 2020 and May 2021, it analysed more than 2.5 million swabs from 380,000 adults. Between May 17 and August 1, it analysed the test results of 360,000 people.Neither vaccine was found to be as effective against the Alpha variant, which was first identified in the UK in September 2020.Researchers also said there was insufficient data for Moderna, but said: “A single dose of the Moderna vaccine has similar or greater effectiveness against the Delta variant as single doses of the other vaccines”. The researchers would not project how much more the protection would drop over time.
“Are vaccines becoming less effective at preventing Covid infection?” – –Yves Smith – The headline above is from a Financial Times story, based on a spate of recent research showing waning efficacy of the Covid 19 vaccines, particularly Pfizer, from a variety of sources: data from Israel, which injected most of its population early, in January and February, with the Pfizer vaccine; a Mayo study, which showed falling efficacy for all vaccines, particularly Pfizer, which it found at 42% (Moderna holds by contrast at 76% over the same time period), a new Oxford report, and a study from Qatar.The MSM finally starting to acknowledge that the vaccines are not all that they were cracked up to be came about largely due to foreign sources (doing a better job of tracking Covid cases than the US, a very low bar to beat) and one large US institution beyond reproach posting what has largely been missing from the CDC: actual pretty to very reliable findings. The fault isn’t simply that of the fragmented US public health care system. The CDC has not gone on the road to try to help/prod state public health officials. It hasn’t staffed up to fix VAERS. And the CDC has gone to some lengths to corrupt fact-gathering, most notably by saying it would not track breakthrough cases among the vaccinated as part of its May “Mission accomplished” chest thumping. And the CDC has engaged in dishonest PR by telling Americans that the vaccines would prevent Covid infection.Mind you, in polarized, attention-deficit-disorder afflicted America, not being all in with vaccine cheerleading is a dangerous editorial position. Merely pointing out that the vaccines were overhyped was seen as being against them. So we’ve had to be more careful than we’d like in providing what we thought were early and important indicators that things were not well in vaccine-land. One was the number of breakthrough cases that IM Doc and his MD professional network (large by virtue of their participation in regular Grand Rounds and other sessions) when conventional wisdom was that that was impossible. And as time went on, IM Doc was seeing the breakthrough cases presenting as sicker and was also seeing and getting reports of breakthrough cases winding up in the hospital. From a mid-July e-mail: To put it mildly, they are seeing a huge increase in hospitalizations in the Dallas area this week….A nurse XXX Hospital – deep in the heart of Dallas’ African American community – reported to me today that the hospital was full – certainly not with just Covid but there were many many COVID patients – starting to show up in just the past week or so – and she would guess 40-50% are vaccinated. She works on the COVID unit. She also reported to me that multiple nurses (as in critical numbers for staffing levels) have just up and quit this week – confirming my worst fears of the potential with our entire system. I fear that the front line nurses can see the approaching flood more clearly than anyone. They are paying her to work extra shifts up to 120 dollars an hour…. There are now press reports in Dallas stating that every admitted patient is unvaccinated. Who am I going to believe – my trusted colleagues who have just stated to me otherwise tonight? Or the media which has lied again and again and again? It really is a bad feeling as an American to be living under Pravda. The next day, in a different hospital, when confronted with showing confirmed Covid cases in the area running nearly 57% vaccinated, one doctor went into meltdown, saying something pretty close to: Within a month, he and 6 family members, all fully vaccinated, came down with Covid. Along with IM Doc’s on the ground sightings, GM was relentlessly watching data. He had predicted in April, which was confirmed by Moderna data in May, “So basically protection against those two variants {P.1 and B.1.351] is gone after 6-8 months if you have been vaccinated against the original strain.”. And they have proven to be more vaccine-tractable than Delta.
Why the delta variant is both more potent and more contagious – The delta variant, first detected in a domestic patient on April 20, is now the main COVID-19 variant in many parts of Japan. Classified as one of four variants of concern by the World Health Organization, the delta variant has quickly outpaced other strains in Japan and is now estimated to account for 95% of all cases in Tokyo, the government’s advisory panel said this week. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention believes it is as transmissible as chickenpox and about twice as contagious as the previous variants. Initially, experts didn’t believe that fully vaccinated individuals who contracted the virus could spread it to other people, but the CDC no longer believes that is the case when it comes to delta as the variant appears to produce the same high amount of the virus in both unvaccinated and fully vaccinated people. Fully vaccinated people, however, are likely to be infectious for a shorter period of time, the CDC says, as the amount of virus drops more quickly in breakthrough infections than infections in unvaccinated people. SARS-CoV-2, the formal name of the virus that causes COVID-19, is composed of a chain of around 1,200 amino acids and has a spike protein that the coronavirus uses to infect human cells. It also mutates every few weeks. Many variants tend to have mutations around the middle of the amino acid sequence, and the delta variant, which has a genetic change in the 452nd amino acid, is no exception. But mutations can occur in multiple areas of the virus, such as in delta plus, a subvariant of delta, which has additional mutations but is not necessarily more dangerous. COVID-19 vaccines effectively provide a lid for the spike protein to prevent the virus from binding to the receptor and enter respiratory and digestive cells, explained Akira Nishizono, a professor of microbiology at Oita University’s Faculty of Medicine. But even a slight change to the surface structure of the spike protein, as seen in new variants, may weaken the defense of the immune system triggered by the vaccine by causing it to fail to recognize the spike protein and produce antibodies against it. This results in increased contagiousness among vaccinated individuals compared to the original strain, he added. Some scientists describe the delta variant as significantly more “sticky” than other variants in that it doesn’t let go easily once it gets hold of the target cells. Studies from Canada and Scotland have shown that patients infected with the delta variant are more likely to be hospitalized than those infected with alpha or the original strain.
Will COVID vaccine work? Not just delta: Variants list getting longer – Haaretz.com – Besides delta, at least five other COVID variants are being followed closely by scientists in Israel and around the world, who say AY3 could be a game changer
Early COVID-19 vaccine campaign in US prevented 140,000 deaths —The early COVID-19 vaccination campaign in the U.S. prevented nearly 140,000 deaths and 3 million cases of COVID-19 by the second week of May, according to a new study. As a result of early vaccination efforts, the average state experienced five fewer deaths from COVID-19 per 10,000 adult residents. The study estimates the number of lives saved during the first five months of the vaccination campaign in each of the 50 states and Washington, DC. Adjusting for population size, New York saw the largest estimated reduction, with 11.7 fewer COVID-19 deaths per 10,000 adult residents. Hawaii observed the smallest reduction, with 1.1 fewer COVID-19 deaths per 10,000 adult residents. The study, published online by the journal Health Affairs, is one of the first to provide an assessment of the impacts of state-level vaccination campaigns to address the COVID-19 pandemic. “This study brings into focus the dramatic success of the early months of the nation’s coronavirus vaccine rollout,” said Christopher Whaley, senior author of the study and a policy researcher at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. “The findings provide support for policies that further expand vaccine administration to enable a larger proportion of the nation’s population to benefit.”
Vaccines’ protection against virus infection is waning, C.D.C. studies suggest. — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released three studies on Wednesday that federal officials said provided evidence that booster shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna coronavirus vaccines would be needed in the coming months.But some experts said the new research did not back up the decision to recommend booster shots for all Americans.Taken together, the studies show that although the vaccines remain highly effective against hospitalizations and deaths, the bulwark they provide against infection with the virus has weakened in the past few months. The finding accords with early data from seven states, gathered this week by The New York Times, suggesting a rise in breakthrough infections and a smaller increase in hospitalizations among the vaccinated as the Delta variant spread in July.The decline in effectiveness against infection may result from waning vaccine immunity, a lapse in precautions like wearing masks or the rise of the highly contagious Delta variant, experts said – or a combination of all three.“We are concerned that this pattern of decline we are seeing will continue in the months ahead, which could lead to reduced protection against severe disease, hospitalization and death,” Dr. Vivek Murthy, the surgeon general, said at a White House news briefing on Wednesday.Citing the data, federal health officials outlined a plan for Americans who received the two vaccines to get booster shots eight months after receiving their second doses, starting Sept. 20. People who received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine may also require additional doses. But that vaccine was not rolled out until March 2021, and a plan to provide boosters will be made after reviewing new data expected over the next few weeks, officials said.
Hospitalized kids with COVID-19 just hit record high: US Dept. of Health – There are some 1,900 children in the United States hospitalized with COVID-19, according to updated data logged Monday by the US Department of Health and Human Services – setting a new pandemic record for kids.That figure represented about 2.4% of the nation’s total coronavirus hospitalizations as of Saturday, according to a Reuters report.The spike is leading in states with notable outbreaks, including Texas, Florida, California, Ohio and Georgia – densely populated states where full vaccination rates are below 55%, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which hopes to eventually see a minimum of 70% of the country inoculated. For now, kids under age 12 have not been permitted to receive any of the available COVID-19 vaccines. While many school districts have made a call to require both students and faculty to wear masks on campus, some state governments have attempted to prohibit such mandates, namelyFlorida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who threatened to withhold education funding for districts found in violation, and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who has sued Dallas County over its mask requirement.Those calls were made despite the CDC’s most recent guidelinesurging masks indoors, including K-12 schools. “Children should return to full-time in-person learning in the fall with proper prevention strategies,” said CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky at the time.
Hospitalizations of Americans under 50 have reached new pandemic highs – A lagging vaccination campaign and the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant are driving a surge in Covid-19 hospitalizations in the United States.Among Americans under age 50, average daily hospital admissions have hit a pandemic high, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.“We’re seeing a lot of people get seriously ill,” Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the Biden administration’s lead adviser on the pandemic, said on the CBS program “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “The hospitalizations are on the brink of actually overrunning the hospitals, particularly intensive care units.”The trend is particularly notable among children and younger adults. From Aug. 5 to Aug. 11, 263 children were admitted to hospitals every day, on average, compared with 217 in early January, the last peak. Average daily admissions also rose to a record among 18- to 49-year-olds, according to the C.D.C. Gov. Kate Brown of Oregon has called in at least 500 National Guard troops to help hospitals cope with a flood of coronavirus patients as the state faces its largest wave of infections in the pandemic.
Babies and toddlers spread the virus in homes more easily than teenagers, a study finds. – Babies and toddlers are less likely to bring the coronavirus into their homes than teenagers are, but once they are infected, they are more likely to spread the virus to others in their households,according to a large new study by a Canadian public health agency. The findings can be explained, at least in part, by behavioral factors, experts said, including the fact that very young children require lots of hands-on care and cannot be isolated when they are sick.The study, which was published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics on Monday, does not resolve the debate over whether infected children are as contagious as adults, and it does not suggest that toddlers are driving the pandemic. But it demonstrates that even very young children can still play a role. “This study showed that even the youngest of children readily transmit the virus,” said Zoe Hyde, an epidemiologist at the University of Western Australia, who was not involved in the research. She added: “The key takeaway for me is that it clearly shows that there’s transmission from children occurring in the household. This means we urgently need to think about how we’re going to protect schools when they reopen shortly.” During the early months of the pandemic, some scientists suggested that young children, in particular, rarely got infected with or transmitted the virus. But those observations may have been distorted by the fact that most children had few social encounters during that time. “I think they were biased by the fact that children were sequestered at home,” “They were recommended not even to play with neighbors, they didn’t go to school, they didn’t go to day care.”
Covid-19: Children born during the pandemic score lower on cognitive tests, study finds – BMJ -Children born during the pandemic score markedly lower on standard measures of verbal, motor, and overall cognitive ability, US researchers have found.In a longitudinal study of 672 children from Rhode Island that has run since 2011, those born after the pandemic began showed results on the Mullen scales of early learning that corresponded to an average IQ score of 78, a drop of 22 points from the average of previous cohorts.The study, which was funded by the US National Institutes of Health is awaiting peer review before publication inJAMA Pediatrics. But a preprint copy is available online.1The researchers have largely ruled out a direct effect of the virus, as mothers or children with a history of testing positive for covid-19 were excluded from the analysis. Instead, the authors say, reduced interaction with parents and less outdoor exercise are likely culprits, along with effects that occurred during pregnancy.Other research has hinted at behavioural effects in children born during the pandemic, including a recent study from Italy.2Children born in 2019 did not experience a decline in development scores during the pandemic. “Their trajectories of maturation were unaltered,” said lead author of the longitudinal study and paediatrician Sean Deoni of Brown University. “They seemed to be doing alright. It’s really affecting those born during the pandemic, whether through transference from their mother, what she’s experiencing during late term pregnancy, or during those crucial earliest months after birth.”Scores among children born during the pandemic began to decline in 2020 in an early learning composite that measured fine and gross motor control, visual reception, and expressive and receptive language. But it was in 2021 that the developmental deficit became significant (P<0.001). The effect was larger in boys than in girls.
AstraZeneca antibody cocktail 77 percent effective in preventing symptomatic COVID-19 among the high-risk – AstraZeneca scored a win on Friday as data showed its antibody cocktail is 77 percent effective at preventing symptomatic COVID-19 in high-risk populations. The research found no one who took AstraZeneca’s combination, called AZD7442, developed severe COVID-19 or died due to the virus. In comparison, three participants who received the placebo endured serious illness, with two fatalities. AstraZencea called the treatment, involving the antibodies ixagevimab and cilgavimab, the first “long-acting antibody combination to prevent COVID-19″ in a release. Overall, 25 positive coronavirus infections were confirmed in the Provent study involving more than 5,100 patients across sites in the U.S., U.K., Belgium, France and Spain. The participants were unvaccinated at the time and had a negative test. The study is expected to be sent to a peer-reviewed medical journal to be published as well as to regulators for an emergency use authorization or conditional approval. Drug manufacturers have been testing different antibody treatments for COVID-19 to provide a way to help those who may not have adequate vaccine protection, including cancer patients, fight the virus. “With these exciting results, AZD7442 could be an important tool in our arsenal to help people who may need more than a vaccine to return to their normal lives,” Myron Levin, principal investigator in the study, said in a statement. The results follow a less successful trial: AstraZeneca announced in June that AZD7442 did not prevent symptomatic COVID-19 in recently exposed people. That study determined that those with the antibody cocktail were just 33 percent less at risk of developing symptoms. But the treatment decreased the risk of symptoms by 73 percent among those who tested negative for COVID-19 at the start of the trial. The U.S. has ordered 700,000 doses of AZD7442 in a deal that was potentially in jeopardy due to the results of the June study.
NIH study shows no significant benefit of convalescent plasma for COVID-19 outpatients with early symptoms – NIH –The final results of the Clinical Trial of COVID-19 Convalescent Plasma in Outpatients (C3PO) demonstrate that COVID-19 convalescent plasma did not prevent disease progression in a high-risk group of outpatients with COVID-19, when administered within the first week of their symptoms. The trial was stopped in February 2021 due to lack of efficacy based on a planned interim analysis. The formal conclusions from the trial, which was funded primarily by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), part of the National Institutes of Health, and by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), part of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, appear in the current online issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.“We were hoping that the use of COVID-19 convalescent plasma would achieve at least a 10% reduction in disease progression in this group, but instead the reduction we observed was less than 2%,” said Clifton Callaway, M.D., Ph.D., the contact principal investigator for the C3PO trial and professor of emergency medicine at the University of Pittsburgh. “That was surprising to us. As physicians, we wanted this to make a big difference in reducing severe illness and it did not.”COVID-19 convalescent plasma, also known as “survivor’s plasma,” is blood plasma derived from patients who have recovered from COVID-19. Last year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued an Emergency Use Authorization to allow use of convalescent plasma in hospitalized patients with COVID-19. Researchers wanted to know whether administering COVID-19 convalescent plasma might also be beneficial in persons who were recently infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the disease, but who were not severely ill and could be treated as outpatients. The objective was to prevent progression to severe COVID-19 illness. “The results show that convalescent plasma does not appear to benefit this particular group,” The reason the intervention did not produce the expected results is unclear, Callaway said. Researchers are continuing to look at possible explanations, including insufficient plasma dose, timing of plasma administration, host-related factors, or other aspects of the host tissue responses to the infection, he added.
How does COVID-19 affect the brain? A troubling picture emerges. Hannah Davis contracted COVID-19 in March 2020, the early days of the pandemic. At the time, the New Yorker was a healthy, 32-year-old freelance data scientist and artist. But unlike many people who come down with the disease, Davis’s first sign of infection wasn’t a dry cough or fever. Her first symptom was that she couldn’t read a text message from a friend. She thought she was just tired, but the fuzziness she felt didn’t go away after a full night’s sleep.More neurological issues followed. She developed sudden and severe headaches. Her attention span suffered. She couldn’t watch TV or play video games. She had trouble concentrating on everyday tasks like cooking. She’d leave a pot on the stove and forget about it until she smelled food burning. She failed to look both ways while crossing the street, narrowly missing traffic. She’d never had any of these issues before COVID-19.Davis is among a large portion of COVID-19 patients – possibly as high as 30 percent, according an estimate from the National Institutes of Health – who suffer some type of neurological or psychiatric symptoms. Even more troubling is that for many of these individuals, like Davis, these cognitive issues can linger for weeks or months after the initial infection.Last year, dozens of hospitals and healthcare systems across the country opened post-COVID clinics to help patients who had been admitted to intensive care units with severe COVID-19. But as the pandemic has dragged on, those clinics have filled with people who were never hospitalized but suffer lingering symptoms, including brain fog and other cognitive issues.“The expectation was that all these people in the ICU were going to have really long protracted recovery periods,” says Walter Koroshetz, director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, part of the National Institutes of Health. “The big surprise was the people who never required hospitalization that are having persistent trouble.” Koroshetz isco-leading a study at NIH to understand why some COVID-19 patients recover faster than others and to learn the biological reasons why others don’t get well even months later. A picture is starting to emerge of how COVID-19 causes these cognitive issues. What’s less clear is how many people will eventually recover and how many will be left with devastating long-term effects. A year and a half later, Davis can only work a few hours a day because of lingering brain fog, short-term memory loss, and other cognitive issues. She’s seen a dozen or so medical specialists and has been diagnosed with post-viral dysautonomia, a nervous system disorder that causes dizziness, rapid heartbeat, and fast breathing when rising from sitting or lying down. It’s sometimes treated with fludrocortisone, a corticosteroid, or midodrine, a blood pressure drug. “I’ve never experienced anything like this in my life,” Davis says. “Your body just it feels like it’s breaking down. You lose your sense of self.”
Wildfire Smoke Exposure Linked to Increased COVID Deaths — Smoke from wildfires can make people more susceptible to catching COVID – and dying from it. Over 700 more people died and nearly 20,000 more were infected with the virus than would have been expected if they had not been exposed to air polluted with particulate matter from fires that burned during last summer’s record-breaking fire season, a new study from Harvard and published in the journal Scientific Advances on Friday found.Health experts have suspected since the early days of the pandemic that a link existed between air pollutionand the likelihood of catching the disease and experiencing a more severe infection, because small particulate matter known as PM 2.5 in smoke can impair the ability of white blood cells in the lungs to combat respiratory infections. Historically, this has led to higher rates of health problems such as asthma for people – more likely people of color and low income – who live near polluting facilities. “We were not terribly surprised by the results as scientists,” co-author Kevin Josey told Gizmodo, “but as humans we are dismayed about the impacts.”As reported by the San Francisco Chronicle:While a correlation between wildfire smoke and COVID-19 doesn’t prove causation, the study’s authors say the tie is no coincidence. Plenty of research since the start of the pandemic has suggested that exposure to smoke’s primary unhealthy component PM 2.5, which refers to particulate matter that is 2.5 micrometers in size or smaller, compromises people’s immunity and increases susceptibility to COVID-19. Scientists also hypothesize that the virus may be spread by the particles.The new findings come as the delta variant fuels yet another surge of coronavirus infections across the country while fire season is again in high gear in the West. Parts of California are already blanketed in smoke, with bad air recently reported as far away as New York and North Carolina.“It’s a horrible combination,” said Francesca Dominici, one of the authors of the study and a biostatistician at Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “Together, the wildfires and COVID-19 make us even sicker.”
First cases of COVID Lambda variant reported in north Louisiana — The new COVID Lambda variant has been detected in Louisiana, doctors told WBRZ Thursday. It was first reported in the U.S. in Houston and health care officials believe since Texas and Louisiana share a border, the virus variant was easily spread. “I do know that with the proximity with Texas, there have been a few cases detected in North Louisiana with the Lamda variant. But we don’t know whether this is going to be a more aggressive or less aggressive virus,” Dr. Aldo Russo, the medical director at Ochsner said. Dr. Russo said the Lambda variant has not been detected in the capital region yet, but health care professionals are testing for it. “We are monitoring this very closely. Our teams are sequencing the different variants,” Dr. Russo said. The Lambda variant was first reported in Peru in December and has become the dominant strain of the virus there. It’s concerning for the country because the vaccine used in Peru is not effective against this new variant. “They have stated that there may be some resistance to the vaccine, but that it was a different vaccine that they were using. They were using the Chinese vaccine,” Dr. Russo said. It’s unknown how well the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines will help control this new variant.
Coronavirus Test Positivity Rate Rises Above 15% In US — Coronavirus test positivity rate continues to rise in an alarming rate in the United States. The latest positivity rate of 15.2 percent is five times higher than the number of people tested positive for the disease a month ago. Coronavirus testing has increased by about 50 percent nationwide over the last two weeks, according to data analyzed by the New York Times. The highest daily COVID death toll in 75 days was reported on Tuesday. With 819 deaths, the highest since May 27, the total number of casualties recorded in the country has risen to 618,137, as per the latest data from Johns Hopkins University. There is 102 percent increase in weekly average of the casualties. From an average of 22000-plus cases reported on July 9, the seven day average has surged by five times to 118067. Florida reported the most number of cases – 56610 – and most COVID-related deaths – 233. California is the worst affected state in terms of both the COVID metrics.
Coronavirus dashboard for August 16: some (relatively) “good” news, some bad news – Recently I’ve speculated in a few places that Delta may be acting as a backfire-type firebreak against Lamdba, which has been getting a lot of press as potentially evading vaccines. Confirmation that this may in fact be the case comes from Dr. Eric Topol who writes: The Lambda variant is going out like a lamb. (from the hard to find pandemic good news list) https://outbreak.info/situation-reports?pango=C.37 … It can’t compete with Delta. and here is the graph (C.37 is Lambda): Delta appears to be so infectious that it is preventing Lambda from getting a foothold anywhere beyond the west coast of South America. Elsewhere in the (relatively) “good” news front, there is further confirmation that the Delta wave appears to be peaking or maybe even past peak in the earliest States that it hit: Cases in California also appear to have plateaued, and even Texas has shown at least marked deceleration: Meanwhile, deaths in the UK’s Delta wave also appear to have plateaued, as have new cases since its “Freedom Day” living all restrictions one month ago: But in the “continued bad news” department, deaths in the US have continued to climb, and can be expected to continue to climb for at least the next 2.5 weeks: And even in the most vaccinated States of New England and New York, the case count continues to climb: In only 3 States – CT, MA, and VT – has over 60% of the total population been fully vaccinated. It appears that even this level of vaccination has not prevented a Delta wave. And there is no guarantee, especially as colder weather arrives in the north in the next 75 days, that a really bad situation, such as we have among the Gulf Coast States now, can’t happen.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott Tests Positive For The Coronavirus — Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who has been fully vaccinated, has tested positive for the coronavirus, his office announced Tuesday. Abbott has opposed mask mandates, and his orders have drawn legal challenges.The Republican governor is experiencing no symptoms and “has been testing daily, and today was the first positive test result,” his office said.Abbott “will isolate in the Governor’s Mansion and continue to test daily. Governor Abbott is receiving Regeneron’s monoclonal antibody treatment,” the statement said.Texas first lady Cecilia Abbott tested negative.With more than 16,000 new daily cases, Texas is one of the states with the highest risk of COVID-19. Last week, Abbott directed state officials to use staffing agencies to find additional medical personnel from outside Texas as the state’s resources became overwhelmed. He also asked hospitals to postpone all elective medical procedures voluntarily.
Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, a Covid-19 vaccination critic, is hospitalized and on a ventilator – CNN – Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke has been hospitalized with Covid-19 and placed on a ventilator, according to a tweet over the weekend from his official account.In an tweet on August 10, Burke, a Covid-19 vaccination critic, announced he had tested positive for coronavirus, and said, “Thanks be to God, I am resting comfortably and receiving excellent medical care.” It is unclear whether Cardinal Burke, who is in his early 70s, has been vaccinated against Covid-19.
Cardinal who criticized vaccine now on ventilator after positive COVID-19 test – A cardinal who has criticized the COVID-19 vaccine is now on a ventilator after testing positive for the coronavirus, multiple news outlets reported. Cardinal Raymond Burke’s team tweeted on Saturday that he “has been admitted to the hospital with COVID-19 and is being assisted by a ventilator. Doctors are encouraged by his progress.”Burke, who lives in Rome, tweeted a few days earlier that he had been diagnosed with COVID-19. He was on a trip to Wisconsin when he contracted the virus, The Washington Post reported. Burke has been vocal about his skepticism of the vaccine, verging at times into misinformation by saying some people believe there should be a “microchip … placed under the skin of every person, so that at any moment he or she can be controlled by the state regarding health and about other matters which we can only imagine,” the Post reported.The Vatican said in December that taking the COVID-19 vaccine is “morally acceptable,” even if the development of the vaccine involved the use of cell lines from aborted fetuses during the research phase. Burke, 73, is known for expressing his conservative beliefs. In 2004, he refused to give communion to then-Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) because of Kerry’s support for abortion rights, and he criticized Notre Dame University for giving former President Obama an honorary degree, arguing that Catholics who voted for Obama were collaborating with evil, according to the Post.
August 17th COVID-19: Wave Still Increasing –New data from Israel: A grim warning from Israel: Vaccination blunts, but does not defeat Delta (get vaccinated and mask up!)The 7-day average cases is the highest since February 5th.The 7-day average hospitalizations is the highest since February 11th.The 7-day average deaths is the highest since May 14th.This data is from the CDC.According to the CDC, on Vaccinations.Total doses administered: 357,894,995, as of a week ago 352,550,944. Average doses last week: 0.76 million per day.C1 Minimum to achieve “herd immunity” (estimated between 70% and 85%). 2my goals to stop daily posts,37 day average for Cases, Currently Hospitalized, and Deaths Increasing 7 day average week-over-week for Cases, Hospitalized, and DeathsT: For “herd immunity” most experts believe we need 70% to 85% of the total population fully vaccinated (or already had COVID). KUDOS to the residents of the 6 states that have achieved 60% of total population fully vaccinated: Vermont at 67.1%, Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Maryland.The following 19 states have between 50% and 59.9% fully vaccinated: New Jersey at 59.9%, New Hampshire, Washington, New York State, New Mexico, Oregon, District of Columbia, Virginia, Colorado, Minnesota, Hawaii, California, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Nebraska, Florida and Iowa all at 50.6%.Next up (total population, fully vaccinated according to CDC) are Illinois at 49.9%, Michigan at 49.6%, South Dakota at 48.0, Ohio at 47.4%, Kentucky at 46.9%, Arizona at 46.6%, Kansas at 46.6%, Alaska at 46.3%, Nevada at 46.0% and Utah at 45.8%. This graph shows the daily (columns) and 7 day average (line) of positive tests reported. This data is from the CDC.
Delta variant fuels rapid surge of COVID-19 cases across southern US – The rapid spread of the coronavirus across the southern US has caused growing concern among public health experts. During a press briefing last Thursday, White House COVID-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients noted that Texas and Florida accounted for nearly 40 percent of new COVID-related hospitalizations in the US over the past week. In Texas, cases and hospitalizations are reaching heights not seen since February. According to the Texas Tribune, hospitalizations in the state have skyrocketed by 400 percent within the last month. The increase in cases has been fueled by the criminal policies spearheaded by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who recently declared Texas is “past the time of government mandates.” “Going forward, in Texas, there will not be any government-imposed shutdowns or mask mandates,” Abbott said. “Everyone already knows what to do.” After lifting statewide mask mandates earlier this year, Abbott claimed personal responsibility and vaccinations would sufficiently contain the pandemic. However, the numbers are so staggering that the state health department was forced to admit in a tweet Wednesday that Texas is “facing a new wave” and the variant “has erased much progress to end the pandemic.” Abbott himself was reported Tuesday to have contracted coronavirus, in a breakthrough infection, since he has been vaccinated. At his age, 63, and physical condition – he has been paralyzed from the waist down since 1984, due to an accident – the governor would be considered at higher risk from the virus. Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton have focused on blocking local masking mandates and eviscerating public health and safety measures. On Sunday, the Texas Supreme Court sided with Abbott and reversed a ruling that prevented him from enforcing a ban on local mask mandates in workplaces and schools. Texas’ vaccination rate has consistently lagged behind other states. Its 44 percent full vaccination rate as of Tuesday ranks 36th nationally. The state’s positivity rate – the percent of virus tests coming back positive – was 17.7 percent on Tuesday, well above the 10 percent threshold that Abbott has previously identified as a danger zone. Furthermore, several of the state’s hospital regions have seen the percentage of COVID patients in their care rise about 15 percent. Texas now has 11,552 people being treated in hospitals for COVID-19, according to the latest data provided by the state health department. The number of available ICU beds across the entire state has dwindled to 322, with some regions having none at all. According to state officials, 12 of 22 hospital regions in the state have 10 or fewer available ICU beds.
Casualties of reopening schools: Children dying from COVID-19 – Ryland Lee Daic died on August 10 at the Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston, Texas, after contracting COVID-19. He was just one month shy of his thirteenth birthday and set to start the sixth grade at Woodrow Wilson Junior High in Dayton, Texas. His mother, Casey Castorina, told Bluebonnet News that Daic’s illness took a quick turn for the worse from initial mild cold-like symptoms to only being able to speak in a whisper. Castorina rushed him to an emergency clinic and then to the hospital in Houston where he was placed in a medically induced coma. “They ended up putting him on life support. His lungs had filled with fluid from COVID. The doctors and nurses did everything they could for him but he died on Tuesday,” she explained. “It was stupid fast.” Mkayla Robinson, 13, died on Saturday, just one day after testing positive for COVID-19. The eighth grader was already back in classes at Raleigh Junior High in Raleigh, Mississippi, without any mask requirements, when she got ill. Robinson was among 76 confirmed cases among students and 11 among staff. While Republican Governor Tate Reeves has dismissed coronavirus infections in children as “the sniffles,” Robinson is the fifth child to die from COVID-19 in Mississippi. Seventeen-year-old Matthew Kirby of Creedmoor, North Carolina, spent nine days in an intensive care unit with COVID-19 before he succumbed to the disease last Thursday. His father, Stephen Kirby, reported in a post on Facebook that the infection has caused myocarditis, inflammation of the heart which can trigger a heart attack or stroke. Matthew’s parents also contracted the disease and are planning a memorial for their son once they recover. An unidentified 16 year old died of COVID-19 on August 5 at Wolfson Children’s Hospital in Jacksonville, Florida. The hospital reports that the teen had no underlying health issues but was unvaccinated. This marked the first pediatric death of the latest surge of the pandemic at a hospital which services one of the cities hardest-hit by the fourth wave – fueled by the more infectious Delta variant – which has been ravaging the South and is pushing up cases in the rest of the US. Republican Governor Ron DeSantis has banned schools from implementing mask mandates and threatened to pull state funding from districts that put requirements in place. These are just four of the latest and youngest victims of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States and more are to come as the ruling class pushes forward with the reopening of schools for in-person learning.
3 Florida Educators Die Of COVID-19 Within 24 Hours As Schools Prepare To Reopen –Less than a week before schools are set to reopen in Florida’s Broward County, local union officials say three educators have died of complications from the coronavirus. The deaths were all recorded within a 24-hour span, according to union officials representing employees of the local school district.Broward Teachers Union President Anna Fusco said the start of the new school year has been a mix of emotions as the first day approaches.”The whole excitement of going back was just running through our teachers when we went back to work on Wednesday,” Fusco told NPR by phone Saturday. “And then the sense of anxiety that our governor’s interfering with the safety protocols and wanting to block the mask mandate because they know it’s an extra layer of protection. And then the deaths that were reported.”Fusco said 48-year-old Pinewood Elementary teacher and union steward Janice Wright, 49-year-old Dillard Elementary teacher Katina Jones and 49-year-old teaching assistant Yolonda Hudson-Williams, also of Dillard Elementary, were the educators who lost their lives to COVID-19 this past week.In an act of defiance aimed at Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, the Broward County School Board voted 8-1 Tuesday to make wearing masks in all district schools and facilities mandatory for students, staff, and visitors, member station WLRN reported. The board allowed for parents to have their children “opt out” of wearing a mask.DeSantis has threatened to withhold pay from superintendents and board members who buck an executive order banning mask mandates in schools.”He’s just pushing his political agenda to cater to the same constituents that were pro-Donald Trump,” Fusco said of the governor. “I think because they scream louder, [he thinks] there must be more of them than the constituents that are taking this virus really [seriously] and want to be safe and secure.”
Thousands of students in Tampa, Florida placed on quarantine days after schools reopen – More than 10,380 students in Florida’s Hillsborough County school district were sent into quarantine this week after hundreds COVID-19 positive infections were detected among children. Nearly 400 students were confirmed positive for the virus on Monday after a little more than a week into fall semester as the entire state has moved to resume full in-person learning in schools. According to Hillsborough County Public Schools’ dashboard, 1,805 total cases among students and employees have been reported since classrooms opened up on August 9. The district, which encompasses Tampa and its immediate suburbs, is the third largest district in Florida. It currently has 338 school employees in quarantine out of 23,596 in addition to the 10,384 students in isolation out of a total of 213,491 districtwide. The extraordinary toll the virus is now taking on the population is a testament to the recklessness of the reopening strategy designed by district officials and underlines the criminal handling of the pandemic by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, whose administration has threatened all school districts with funding cuts, fines and reductions in salaries if they enforce mask mandates on campuses. The county joined the majority of regions in the state which elected to adopt an “opt-out” option for mask wearing, which gives parents and students the choice to wear masks without mandating it be worn on school premises. In response to the ominous growth in cases, the school district’s policy has been to isolate students for seven days after close contact with unmasked COVID-19 cases. Vaccinated students, despite being able to transmit the virus, are not required to be isolated unless they show symptoms. A majority of the isolated students, nearly five percent of the student population, were placed on quarantine because they had opted-out of wearing masks or were exposed during lunch periods or other settings where masks could not be worn sufficiently. Like all major school districts in Florida, Hillsborough has completely scrapped its online e-learning remote program as an option this year, which has left thousands of students in isolation potentially having no access to instruction during their quarantine.
Early data hint at a rise in breakthrough infections in the U.S. – Since Americans first began rolling up their sleeves for coronavirus vaccines, health officials have said that those who are immunized are very unlikely to become infected, or to suffer serious illness or death. But preliminary data from seven states hints that the arrival of the Delta variant in July may have altered the calculus.Breakthrough infections in vaccinated people accounted for at least one in five newly diagnosed cases in six of those states and higher percentages of total hospitalizations and deaths than had been previously observed in all of them, according to figures gathered by The New York Times.The absolute numbers remain very low, however, and there is little doubt that the vaccines remain powerfully protective. This continues to be “a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” as federal health officials have often said.Still, the trend marks a change in how vaccinated Americans might regard their risks.“Remember when the early vaccine studies came out, it was like nobody gets hospitalized, nobody dies,” said Dr. Robert Wachter, chairman of the department of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. “That clearly is not true.”The figures lend support to the view, widely held by officials in the Biden administration, that some Americans may benefit from booster shots in the coming months. Federal officials plan to authorize additional shots as early as mid-September, although it is not clear who will receive them.“If the chances of a breakthrough infection have gone up considerably, and I think the evidence is clear that they have, and the level of protection against severe illness is no longer as robust as it was, I think the case for boosters goes up pretty quickly,” Dr. Wachter said. The seven states – California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Oregon, Utah, Vermont and Virginia – were examined because they are keeping the most detailed data. It is not certain that the trends in those states hold throughout the United States.
Alabama has no more I.C.U. beds available, the state authorities said. – There wasn’t a single I.C.U. bed available in Alabama on Wednesday, a possible sign of what other states may confront soon amid a deadly surge of new infections in parts of the United States with low vaccination rates.I.C.U. beds, where hospitals’ critically ill patients are treated, are filling up across Southern states, and Alabama is one of the first to run out. The Alabama Hospital Association said on Wednesday night that there were “negative 29″ I.C.U. beds available in the state, meaning there were more than two dozen people being forced to wait in emergency rooms for an open I.C.U. bed.The situation has grown desperate in Alabama, one of several states reporting a wave of cases driven by the highly contagious Delta variant and low vaccination rates.In the week ending Aug. 12, one in five American I.C.U.s had reached or exceeded 95 percent of beds full. The crisis is concentrated in the South, with small pockets of high occupancy elsewhere in the country. The national average I.C.U. occupancy in 2010 was 67 percent, according to the Society of Critical Care Medicine, though the occupancy baseline changes depending on the place, time of year and size of hospital.During other surges across the country, hospitals have been forced to improvise, expanding capacity by creating new I.C.U.s in areas normally used for other purposes, like cardiac or neurological care, and even hallways or spare rooms. Experts say maintaining existing standards of care for the sickest patients may be difficult or impossible at hospitals with more than 95 percent I.C.U. occupancy.Alabama has never before faced this sort of I.C.U. crisis during the pandemic, the state health officer, Dr. Scott Harris, said on Wednesday in a television interview with WSFA12 News. Such patients are still being treated elsewhere in hospitals, including in “perhaps a regular room on a floor that’s been converted into an I.C.U.,” he said.But the strain on hospitals threatens to overwhelm staff already stretched thin and endanger the quality of care for non-Covid patients, he said. “In most parts of the state, the average person who has a heart attack today or is involved in a serious automobile accident, it’s going to be difficult,” Dr. Harris said. “The hospitals are going to have to be real creative in finding a place to be able to care for that patient.”
American Hospitals Buckle Under Delta, With I.C.U.s Filling Up – – The summer surge in coronavirus cases in the United States, led by the domination of the more contagious Delta variant, is well into its second month, and the number of those hospitalized with Covid-19 has reached heights last seen during the overwhelming winter wave.The number of those patients who are critically ill, requiring treatment in an intensive care unit, has risen, too. Data from the Department of Health and Human Services shows that the number of hospitals with very full I.C.U.s doubled in recent weeks. Now, one in five I.C.U.s have reached or exceeded 95 percent of beds occupied, a level experts say makes it difficult or impossible for health professionals to maintain standards of care for the very sick. In many states, hospital workers are seeing admission numbers that resemble what they saw at the height of the pandemic over the winter. Some are struggling to find enough beds, while others have employees working overtime and are relying on contract nurses and emergency medical technicians. Outside some hospitals, officials are erecting large tents to house everyone.Typically, coronavirus patients are admitted to a hospital when their condition affects their ability to breathe, according to Dr. De La Zerda. But if a patient’s breathing deteriorates enough or their blood pressure falls too low, they are taken to the I.C.U.“Some of them are so sick that they are immediately taken there,” he said. “And it’s usually around the second day of admission that they either get better or they get worse, but it all depends.”The national average I.C.U. occupancy in 2010 was 67 percent, according to the Society of Critical Care Medicine, though the occupancy baseline changes depending on the place, time of year and size of hospital.The number of people hospitalized nationally has already surpassed the level seen during last summer’s surge, and it is still climbing. In some states, particularly in the South, the hospitalization rate is approaching, or has already reached, an all-time high. Seven states – Arkansas, Florida, Hawaii, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oregon and Washington – have hospitalization levels exceeding their most recent winter and summer peaks. There are few signs that the rise in hospitalizations is slowing nationally, although in Missouri and Nevada, where hospitalizations started rising earlier in the summer, the increase may be slowing.
August 18th COVID-19: Average Daily Deaths have Tripled Since Low in July – On daily deaths: Just over a month ago, the 7-day average for daily COVID deaths was around 180. Since then, the 7-day average of daily deaths has tripled, and since deaths lag hospitalizations, it seems likely daily deaths will double again. Be careful!
- The 7-day average cases is the highest since February 2nd.
- The 7-day average hospitalizations is the highest since February 10th.
- The 7-day average deaths is the highest since May 13th.
- This data is from the CDC.
According to the CDC, on Vaccinations. Total doses administered: 358,599,835, as of a week ago 353,205,544. Average doses last week: 0.77 million per day.(see table) 1 Minimum to achieve “herd immunity” (estimated between 70% and 85%). 2my goals to stop daily posts, 37 day average for Cases, Currently Hospitalized, and Deaths Increasing 7 day average week-over-week for Cases, Hospitalized, and Deaths Goal met. : For “herd immunity” most experts believe we need 70% to 85% of the total population fully vaccinated (or already had COVID). Residents of the 6 states have achieved 60% of total population fully vaccinated: Vermont at 67.1%, Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Maryland. The following 18 states and D.C. have between 50% and 59.9% fully vaccinated: New Jersey at 59.9%, New Hampshire, Washington, New York State, New Mexico, Oregon, District of Columbia, Virginia, Colorado, Minnesota, California, Hawaii, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida, Nebraska, Iowa and Illinois at 50.0%.Next up (total population, fully vaccinated according to CDC) are Michigan at 49.7%, South Dakota at 48.1, Ohio at 47.5%, Kentucky at 47.0%, Kansas at 46.7%, Arizona at 46.6%, Alaska at 46.4%, Utah at 46.2%, and Nevada at 46.1%.This graph shows the daily (columns) and 7 day average (line) of positive tests reported.
Vermont sees the biggest surge in COVID-19 cases despite having the country’s highest vaccination rate – Vermont has the highest vaccination rate in the country and is outpacing the national vaccination rate, even as COVID-19 cases have spiked in the state in recent weeks.The surge in cases comes as the Delta variant continues to spread among the unvaccinated. Vermont Health Commissioner Dr. Mark Levine said the Delta variant was found in an estimated 90% of recent COVID samples tested in the state. To continue to boost vaccinations, Vermont Gov. Phil Scott announced Tuesday that the state will mandate COVID vaccines for some state employees in veterans’ homes, correctional facilities, and psychiatric hospitals.Gov. Scott said he expects COVID cases to rise over the coming weeks. In a tweet, the governor urged eligible residents to get vaccinated, saying that the Delta variant will spread in the 85,000 eligible but unvaccinated residents of Vermont.
South Dakota sees the country’s largest two-week COVID surge -South Dakota experienced a large spike in COVID-19 cases recently after the state’s governor, Kristi Noem, a Republican, said at the end of Julyshe will not be ratcheting up efforts to encourage people to get the COVID vaccine. The state has fully vaccinated 41% of its population as of publication, according to New York Times data.At last week’s 81st annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, Gov. Noem reiterated that she will avoid mandates, including masks or vaccines. Noem said she prefers to give her constituents the information they need to make informed personal decisions. The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally was criticized by Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who worried it could become a superspreader event,as it had been in 2020.“There comes a time when you’re dealing with a public health crisis that could involve you, your family, and everyone else that something supersedes that need to do exactly what you want to do,” Fauci said onMeet the Press.In a tweet about the motorcycle rally, Noem said she has “chosen to let people take personal responsibility for decisions the government has no authority to make.”When COVID vaccines were first broadly introduced, Gov. Noem put out a video supporting vaccinations and talked about South Dakota’s initially high vaccination rate, which has since fallen.The governor also took a shot at President Biden on Twitter Wednesday, saying he was pushing his authority too much. “President Biden is overstepping his authority to try to push masks in schools and mandate vaccines,” read a tweet from Gov. Noem’s account. “He’s doing it to distract from the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan where Americans are left behind.”
Mississippi officials warn against using ivermectin for COVID-19 amid spike in poisonings — Mississippi health officials are warning residents against using ivermectin, a horse dewormer medication, to treat COVID-19 infections at home amid a spike in poisoning calls to the Mississippi Poison Control Center. The Mississippi Department of Health sent a letter out to to the MS Health Alert Network on Friday warning health professionals of the spike in poisonings from individuals digesting ivermectin. “At least 70% of the recent calls have been related to ingestion of livestock or animal formulations of ivermectin purchased at livestock supply centers,” the letter stated. Only one person was told to seek further help due to the amount of the ivermectin ingested and 85 percent of callers had mild symptoms. Some of the symptoms individuals can experience are rash, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, neurologic disorders, and sometimes severe hepatitis. There have been no hospitalizations reported to the department yet from someone ingesting ivermectin to cure the coronavirus. “Animal drugs are highly concentrated for large animals and can be highly toxic in humans,” the letter signed by state epidemiologist Paul Byers stated. “Patients should be advised to not take any medications intended to treat animals and should be instructed to only take ivermectin as prescribed by their physician.” The increase in ivermectin use comes as Mississippi is struggling to deal with an increase in coronavirus cases as the state has the second-lowest vaccination rate in the U.S.
August 19th COVID-19: Over 1,000 Deaths, Over 75,000 Hospitalized, Almost 160,000 Cases Reported Today – Several readers have asked why their state health department data doesn’t exactly match the CDC data for a given state. Sometimes the reason is a different denominator (total population vs. 12+ for example), sometimes the reason isn’t clear. These are questions for the state health departments. This data is from the CDC.The 7-day average cases is the highest since February 2nd.The 7-day average hospitalizations is the highest since February 9th.The 7-day average deaths is the highest since April 24th.According to the CDC, on Vaccinations.Total doses administered: 359,623,380, as of a week ago 353,859,894. Average doses last week: 0.82 million per day. COVID Metrics (see table). For “herd immunity” most experts believe we need 70% to 85% of the total population fully vaccinated (or already had COVID). 7 states that have achieved 60% of total population fully vaccinated: Vermont at 67.2%, Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maryland and New Jersey at 60.1%. The following 17 states and D.C. have between 50% and 59.9% fully vaccinated: New Hampshire at 59.1%, Washington, New York State, New Mexico, Oregon, District of Columbia, Virginia, Colorado, Minnesota, California, Hawaii, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida, Nebraska, Iowa and Illinois at 50.1%. Next up (total population, fully vaccinated according to CDC) are Michigan at 49.7%, South Dakota at 48.2%, Ohio at 47.5%, Kentucky at 47.1%, Kansas at 46.8%, Arizona at 46.6%, Alaska at 46.5%, Utah at 46.3%, and Nevada at 46.3%.This graph shows the daily (columns) and 7 day average (line) of positive tests reported. This data is from the CDC.
GOP Sen. Roger Wicker tests positive in COVID-19 ‘breakthrough’ case – Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), who is fully vaccinated, tested positive on Thursday for COVID-19.Wicker is the second known “breakthrough” case among senators, after Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who is also fully vaccinated, tested positive earlier this month.“Senator Wicker tested positive this morning for the COVID-19 virus after immediately seeking a test due to mild symptoms. Senator Wicker is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, is in good health, and is being treated by his Tupelo-based physician,” Phillip Waller, Wicker’s communications director, said in a statement. “He is isolating, and everyone with whom Senator Wicker has come in close contact recently has been notified,” he added.
Three senators announce positive COVID-19 tests in single day – Three senators announced within hours of each other on Thursday that they had tested positive for the coronavirus, despite each being fully vaccinated. Sens. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Angus King (I-Maine) and John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) said they had tested positive in what is known as a breakthrough case, when fully vaccinated individuals test positive for COVID-19. It marks three known breakthrough cases among senators within 24 hours. The positive tests come as senators have been back in their home states for roughly a week and aren’t expected to return to Washington, D.C., until mid-September.Hickenlooper became the latest on Thursday afternoon to announce he had tested positive, saying he tested positive after “experiencing mild symptoms.” “I’m feeling much better and will continue to isolate at the direction of the Congressional Attending Physician,” he said Both Wicker and King – the Senate’s second and third breakthrough cases, respectively, after Sen. Lindsey Graham‘s (R-S.C.) positive test earlier this month – said they tested positive after experiencing symptoms. King, in his statement, said that while he and his staff took precautions to social distance while in D.C., that he began “feeling mildly feverish” on Wednesday and got tested in Maine on Thursday.”It came back positive. While I am not feeling great, I’m definitely feeling much better than I would have without the vaccine. I am taking this diagnosis very seriously, quarantining myself at home and telling the few people I’ve been in contact with to get tested in order to limit any further spread,” King said in a statement.Symptoms for COVID-19 can appear between two to 14 days after exposure to the virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).Senators spent hours on the Senate floor together last week, on Aug. 11, before leaving town. The Senate was in session for roughly 20 hours starting Tuesday morning through early Wednesday to pass a bipartisan infrastructure bill and approve Democrats’ budget, with senators together for much of that time. Their announcements Thursday bring the total number of known COVID-19 breakthrough cases among senators to four. Graham became the first earlier this month when he announced that he had tested positive despite being fully vaccinated.
Greg Abbott undergoes antibody COVID-19 treatment following diagnosis -Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has undergone COVID-19 antibody treatment following his breakthrough positive diagnosis. “Governor Abbott’s doctor prescribed Regeneron’s monoclonal antibody therapy treatment, which is available at no cost to all Texans who get a doctor’s referral,” Abbott’s office said in a statement Thursday. “It is recommended that Texans testing positive for COVID-19 seek this antibody therapeutic drug because of its effectiveness to help keep people out of hospitals.” Abbott’s office also shared that the governor has expanded the COVID-19 Antibody Infusion Centers across the state, as well. This comes as Abbott announced on Tuesday that he has tested positive for the virus, even though he’s been fully vaccinated. COVID-19 cases have surged across the nation due to the highly contagious delta variant.
The prospect of booster shots is igniting a global health debate. — As the Delta variant rages around the world, a heated debate has arisen over whether public health officials should recommend booster shots.On one side are global health officials who contend that available vaccines would be better used to inoculate high-risk people in poor nations where few have gotten the shots.On the other are leaders and health officials in wealthier countries, who are setting aside doses for more vulnerable people who may need additional doses to protect them from the virus.Biden administration officials have already begun developing a plan that would roll out third shots of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines as early as this fall, saying the logistics are too complicated to wait for scientific certainty that the extra doses are really needed.Full vaccination is highly effective at protecting against severe disease caused by the virus, and it is not yet clear how soon additional doses might be necessary for certain groups. Some vaccines require boosters to remain highly protective.In the United States, federal officials last week authorized a third shot of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines for people with compromised immune systems because of organ transplants, chemotherapy or other medical conditions.But officials at the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have said that authorizing third doses for immunocompromised people was a separate issue from whether booster doses were needed for the rest of the population. Pfizer and BioNTech have pushed for swift authorization of third doses of their vaccine, but U.S. officials said in July that they would need more data, possibly months’ worth, before they could answer the question. On Monday, the companies announced that they have given the F.D.A. data from phase 1 of their clinical trial indicating that a third dose was safe and significantly bolstered the immune response of recipients against the virus, including the Delta variant.
Booster shots ‘make a mockery of vaccine equity,’ the W.H.O.’s Africa director says.– – The Africa director at the World Health Organization, Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, criticized the decisions by some wealthy nations to start administering coronavirus booster shots, saying the decisions “make a mockery of vaccine equity” when the African continent is still struggling to get vaccine supplies.African countries continue to lag far behind other continents in inoculations, with only 2 percent of the continent’s 1.3 billion people fully vaccinated against Covid-19 so far. Though vaccine shipments have accelerated in recent weeks, African nations are still not getting nearly enough to meet their needs, Dr. Moeti said.Instead of offering additional doses to their already fully vaccinated citizens, she said, rich countries should give priority to poor nations, some of which are being ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic.“Moves by some countries globally to introduce booster shots threaten the promise of a brighter tomorrow for Africa,” Dr. Moeti said in an online news conference on Thursday. “As some richer countries hoard vaccines, they make a mockery of vaccine equity.”The World Health Organization has called for a moratorium on booster shots until the end of September to free up vaccine supplies for low-income nations. But several wealthy nations have said they would not wait that long. In the United States, the Biden administration said on Wednesday that it would provide booster shots to most Americans beginning as soon as Sept. 20. France and Germany also said they plan to offer shots to vulnerable populations, and Israel has already given third shots to more than a million residents.President Biden said in a television interview broadcast on Thursday that he and his wife, Jill Biden, plan to get booster shots themselves, assuming federal regulators give the go-ahead.Mr. Biden defended offering Americans an additional shot when many countries were struggling to deliver initial doses to their populations.“We’re providing more to the rest of the world than all the rest of the world combined,” Mr. Biden said in the interview on ABC. “We’re keeping our part of the bargain.”
While South Africa waits for vaccine supplies, J.&J. doses made there are sent to Europe. -While many African nations remain desperately short of vaccine supplies, Johnson & Johnson has been exporting to Europe millions of doses that were bottled and packaged in South Africa, according to executives at Johnson & Johnson and the South African manufacturer, Aspen Pharmacare, as well as South African government export records reviewed by The New York Times. South Africa has yet to receive the overwhelming majority of the 31 million vaccine doses it has ordered from Johnson & Johnson. The country has administered only about two million Johnson & Johnson shots so far. That is a major reason that fewer than 7 percent of South Africans are fully vaccinated – and that the country has been devastated by the Delta variant. “It’s like a country is making food for the world, and sees its food being shipped off to high-resource settings while its citizens starve,” said Dr. Glenda Gray, a South African scientist who helped lead Johnson & Johnson’s clinical trial there. Many Western countries have kept domestically manufactured vaccine doses for themselves. That wasn’t possible in South Africa because of an unusual stipulation in the contract the government signed this year with Johnson & Johnson. The confidential contract, reviewed by The Times, required South Africa to waive its right to impose export restrictions on the company’s vaccine doses. Popo Maja, a spokesman for the South African health ministry, said the government was not happy with the contract terms but lacked the leverage to refuse them. “The government was not given any choice,” he said in a statement. “Sign contract, or no vaccine.”m
Australia’s worsening outbreak raises concerns about Aboriginal communities. As the Delta variant of the coronavirus spreads beyond Sydney into the surrounding state of New South Wales, concern is mounting about the potential impact on vulnerable, unvaccinated Aboriginal Australians. The Australian government had made Aboriginal people a priority group for vaccination because of the lack of health care services in the remote areas where many of them live. But as of Sunday, only 15 percent of Indigenous Australians over the age of 16 had been fully inoculated, compared with 26 percent of people in all of Australia. The low rates among Aboriginal Australians are particularly concerning in the western part of New South Wales, which went into a lockdown on Saturday. Most of the area’s 98 coronavirus cases are among Indigenous people, Scott McLachlan, chief executive of the region’s health services, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Four of the cases have been found in the town of Walgett, where nearly half of the 6,000 residents are Aboriginal. There is a high prevalence of chronic health conditions among that population, and officials and Indigenous leaders fear that a wider outbreak could overwhelm local health care.The Dharriwaa Elders Group, an association of Aboriginal elders in Walgett, said in a statement: “Many of our elders and others in Walgett experience health and social issues that make them vulnerable to contracting Covid-19. The impact on our community could be devastating.”Ken Wyatt, the minister for Indigenous Australians, said that some were hesitant to get vaccinated because of news reports about the rare chance of blood clots associated with the AstraZeneca vaccine.Prime Minister Scott Morrison last week defended the government’s slow vaccination efforts, which have been widely criticized.“Australia is a very big country, and our Indigenous populations live in some of the remotest parts of our country,” he said on Friday. “It was always going to be the most challenging element of all the vaccine rollout.”Tighter virus restrictions were introduced on Monday in several parts of Australia. In New South Wales, it was the worst day of the pandemic so far. The state reported seven coronavirus-related deaths and 478 new cases. Hundreds of soldiers patrolled the streets of Sydney, which is in its eighth week of lockdown, to help enforce stay-at-home orders. The state of Victoria, which includes Melbourne, tightened its lockdown restrictions, imposing a curfew of 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. and closing outdoor playgrounds. The Northern Territory, whose capital is Darwin, went into a snap 72-hour lockdown after the discovery of a single asymptomatic infection.
Chinese COVID-19 vaccine maintains protection in variant-plagued Brazil – As potentially more dangerous coronavirus variants spread worldwide, scientists and clinicians have raced to discover how well the available COVID-19 vaccines protect against the mutant strains. Preliminary results from a large study of health care workers now suggest one dose of CoronaVac, a vaccine developed by a Chinese company, is still about 50% effective against symptomatic COVID-19 in a Brazilian city where more than three-fourths of new cases are caused by the highly transmissible variant known as P.1. That real-world protection is about the same level clinical trials saw with two doses of CoronaVac against the standard, or “wild type,” pandemic coronavirus in the country, suggesting the variant’s mutations have not increased SARS-CoV-2’s ability to evade vaccine-evoked immune responses. “This is very good news and supports the continued use of this vaccine in Brazil and other countries with the circulation of the same variant,” says Julio Croda, a physician and researcher at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, who led the study. The vaccine’s protection may be even better after the second dose, he adds, noting the study is ongoing. Although 50% effectiveness is far below the greater than 90% real-world protection of COVID-19 vaccines made with messenger RNA (mRNA), it may still be good enough to curb the disease’s spread within Brazil; vaccines with that level of efficacy in a clinical trial qualify for emergency use in many places and meet the World Health Organization’s threshold, as well.It’s also not clear how well the mRNA vaccines protect against the P.1 variant; their clinical tests happened before it was circulating or in places with little of the variant. Moreover, CoronaVac likely offers far greater protection against severe disease, hospitalization, and death than against milder cases of COVID-19. That was seen in two dose efficacy trials conducted in Brazil and other countries and is typical of COVID-19 vaccines. But the new study has not yet collected enough severe cases to calculate effectiveness, Croda says.
Israel hits six-month high with more than 8,000 new daily COVID cases – Israel has logged 8,646 new coronavirus cases on Monday, according to Health Ministry data published on Tuesday, marking a six-month daily record in new cases. The percentage of positive tests also hit a six-month high, with Monday’s data showing 6.2 percent of all tests taken returning COVID-positive.Of the 55,323 active cases in Israel, 559 are in serious condition. The final figures for Monday showed a slight drop since Sunday.Over 5.8 million Israelis have received their first coronavirus shot; 5.4 million have received both shots. Monday marked one million Israelis receiving their third coronavirus vaccine, two weeks since the government’s campaign began. The 1,048,767 booster shots administered so far represent more than half of the 1.9 million Israelis currently eligible for a third dose: people aged 50 up who had their second shot of the Pfizer vaccine at least five months ago. Labor lawmaker Gilad Kariv, who has been diagnosed with COVID-19, was hospitalized in Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer overnight into Tuesday.Kariv is “feeling well and is under supervision in a coronavirus ward,” a statement from his office read. Bennett celebrated the landmark as “wonderful news and a huge achievement, but there’s still much work ahead of us,” urging more people to get vaccinated. Health Ministry Director-General Nachman Ash said Mondaythat if current infection rates don’t go down “there will be no choice but to delay the beginning of the school year.”However, he added that there is an advantage to starting the school year September 1 as it will allow “experimentation with all the methods we want to introduce, such as quick tests, quarantining versus not quarantining, and gaining trust in serological tests.”Also on Monday, new restrictions at Ben-Gurion Airport went into effect. Arrivals from only 10 countries will be exempt from quarantine.Passengers from Austria, Australia, Hong Kong, Hungary, Taiwan, Moldova, New Zealand, China, Singapore and the Czech Republic will not be required to enter isolation. However, only Austria, Hungary, Moldova and the Czech Republic allow Israelis to enter at the moment.
The Origins of SARS-CoV-2 – Critical Review – Given what we know about the origins of nearly all viral pandemics – that they resulted from a virus jumping from an animal to a human host (zoonotic infection) – the null hypothesis for the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic should be and was zoonotic. The competing claim the SARS-CoV-2 originated in a research lab at the Wuhan Institute for Virology (WIV) has been widely circulating on conspiracy theory web sites. Based on what we know about SARS-CoV-2 genome structure, comparative coronavirus genomics and viral epidemiology in general, it is fair to say that the burden of proof falls upon those who support the lab origin hypothesis. According to a recent preprint review, this burden has not been met, and the most parsimonious hypothesis is a zoonotic origin. The authors also underscore the importance of further research to define the origin of COVID-19 and the danger of distracting claims to the research necessary to prepare for future pandemics: “There is currently no evidence that SARS-CoV-2 has a laboratory origin. There is no evidence that any early cases had any connection to the WIV, in contrast to the clear epidemiological links to animal markets in Wuhan, nor evidence that the WIV possessed or worked on a progenitor of SARS-CoV-2 prior to the pandemic. The suspicion that SARS-CoV-2 might have a laboratory origin stems from the coincidence that it was first detected in a city that houses a major virological laboratory that studies coronaviruses. Wuhan is the largest city in central China with multiple animal markets and is a major hub for travel and commerce, well connected to other areas both within China and internationally. The link to Wuhan therefore more likely reflects the fact that pathogens often require heavily populated areas to become established. “We contend that there is substantial body of scientific evidence supporting a zoonotic origin for SARS-CoV-2. While the possibility of a laboratory accident cannot be entirely dismissed, and may be near impossible to falsify, this conduit for emergence is highly unlikely relative to the numerous and repeated human-animal contacts that occur routinely in the wildlife trade. Failure to comprehensively investigate the zoonotic origin through collaborative and carefully coordinated studies would leave the world vulnerable to future pandemics arising from the same human activities that have repeatedly put us on a collision course with novel viruses.”
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