Written by Steven Hansen
The U.S. new cases 7-day rolling average are 11.5 % HIGHER than the 7-day rolling average one week ago and U.S. deaths due to coronavirus are now 24.1 % HIGHER than the rolling average one week ago. Today’s posts include:
- U.S. Coronavirus New Cases are 72,286
- U.S. Coronavirus deaths are at 476
- U.S. Coronavirus immunizations have been administered to 55.9 % of the population
- The 7-day rolling average rate of growth of the pandemic shows new cases worsened and deaths worsened
- FDA, CDC recommend pausing use of Johnson & Johnson vaccine after reports of rare but severe blood clots
- FDA official says similarities between J&J and AstraZeneca vaccines are “plainly obvious”
- What Is Cerebral Venous Sinus Thrombosis? J&J COVID Vaccine Paused Over Blood Clots
- Risk of blood clots higher from Covid than from J&J vaccine, says NYU immunologist
- J&J Vax Pause Is Actually Good for COVID Long Game
- How to double the rate of vaccinations.
- U.K. Variant Of Coronavirus Doesn’t Cause More Severe Covid-19 Cases, Study Finds
- India reels amid virus surge, affecting world vaccine supply
- Could cow’s milk provide some passive immunity against COVID-19?
- State record-keeping on vaccinations leads to patchwork approach
- 12% of Children With COVID Are Hospitalized, Study Says
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Hospitalizations Are The Only Accurate Gauge
Hospitalizations historically appear to be little affected by weekends or holidays. The hospitalization growth rate trend is improving.
source: https://gis.cdc.gov/grasp/covidnet/COVID19_3.html
Historically, hospitalization growth follows new case growth by one to two weeks.
As an analyst, I use the rate of growth to determine the trend. But, the size of the pandemic is growing in terms of real numbers – and if the rate of growth does not become negative – the pandemic will overwhelm all resources.
The graph below shows the rate of growth relative to the growth a week earlier updated through today [note that negative numbers mean the rolling averages are LOWER than the rolling averages one week ago]. As one can see, the rate of growth for new cases peaked in early December 2020 for Thanksgiving, and early January 2021 for end-of-year holidays – and it now shows that the coronavirus effect is lower.
In the scheme of things, new cases decline first, followed by hospitalizations, and then deaths.
The New Variants Are The Primary Cause Of This Fourth Wave
Even with vaccinations picking up, the fourth wave is now underway.
- the more people that are vaccinated reduces the pool of people that can be infected. Today we have removed over 55 % of the population from being infected which theoretically should reduce the infection rate by 55 % [it is unproven whether the vaccines prevent a vaccinated person from being a carrier of the virus even though showing no signs]. If the vaccines are shown to stop transmission, then in theory it would reduce the infection rate by double the percent vaccinated [in this case you prevent your own infection and do not pass it along to another].
- it is also unknown what the effective rate of the current vaccines is against mutations that seem to appear almost daily. As an example, if the effective rate drops to 60%, it means the 55 % reduction in the infection rate discussed above is almost cut in half. The South African and Brazilian variant is reported somewhat immune to the current vaccines.
- In theory, the pandemic should be over immediately if everyone could be vaccinated today. The problem is that every day brings a new mutation (which would not appear if the pandemic was stopped). The longer the immunization process takes – the more ineffective the vaccine will become.
- It is not clear whether the vaccine prevents those vaccinated from spreading the virus. It seems to be well documented that it normally stops the virus from taking hold and when it does not – the infection is mild.
The real question is whether the vaccines will be mitigating this surge – and to what extent.
Coronavirus News You May Have Missed
How to double the vaccine pace – New York Times
The development of the Covid-19 vaccines happened with great urgency, for obvious reasons.
One of the timesaving techniques by Moderna and Pfizer involved scheduling the two vaccine doses fairly close together — just three or four weeks apart — during the research trials. The companies did not test multiple gaps between the two shots to see which was the most effective. They each chose a short gap to finish the trials as quickly as possible.
The decision made a lot of sense. It allowed the U.S. mass vaccination program to start in December, rather than pushing it back a few months. Many lives have been saved as a result.
But the approach means that nobody knows what is the most effective gap between the two shots. Maybe it really is three to four weeks. Maybe a longer delay is just as effective (or, for that matter, even more effective).
And the short delay does come with a large downside.
The U.S. is choosing to give millions of people a second shot while making millions of others wait for their first. That’s happening even though a single shot provides a high degree of protection and even as a more severe, contagious coronavirus variant is sweeping the country. Both cases and hospitalizations have risen in recent days, and deaths have stopped declining.
In response, a growing number of medical experts are calling on the Biden administration or governors to change policy and prioritize first doses:
“We’ve missed a window, and people have died,” Sarah Cobey of the University of Chicago told my colleague Carl Zimmer.
“Getting as many people as possible a vax dose is now urgent,” Dr. Atul Gawande, the surgeon and medical writer, tweeted.
“We need to get more people vaccinated,” Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel of the University of Pennsylvania told me.
In a USA Today op-ed, Emanuel, Govind Persad and Dr. William Parker argue that spreading out the first and second shots would be both more equitable and more efficient. It’s more equitable because working-class, Black and Latino communities all have lower vaccination rates, which means that first shots disproportionately now go to the less privileged and second shots go to the more privileged. It’s more efficient because a delay in second shots would allow the country to double the number of people who receive a first shot in coming weeks.Doing so could prevent other states from experiencing the current misery in Michigan, where a severe outbreak fueled by the B.1.1.7 variant has overwhelmed hospitals. In much of the South and the West, the variant is not yet as widespread.
… resident Biden and his aides are fond of saying that they “follow the science” when setting Covid policy. Their current definition of the science, however, is quite narrow. It revolves almost completely around the Moderna and Pfizer trials, which didn’t test what the ideal gap between shots was. Their definition ignores the mountain of real-world evidence about the strength of a single shot.
In the meantime, about 140 million American adults — more than half — still have not received a shot. The country has made a deliberate choice not to reduce that number as quickly as possible.
India reels amid virus surge, affecting world vaccine supply – AP
The Indian city of Pune is running out of ventilators as gasping coronavirus patients crowd its hospitals. Social media is full of people searching for beds, while relatives throng pharmacies looking for antiviral medicines that hospitals ran out of long ago.
The surge, which can be seen across India, is particularly alarming because the country is a major vaccine producer and a critical supplier to the U.N.-backed COVAX initiative. That program aims to bring shots to some of the world’s poorest countries. Already the rise in cases has forced India to focus on satisfying its domestic demand — and delay deliveries to COVAX and elsewhere, including the United Kingdom and Canada.
India said Tuesday that it would authorize a slew of new vaccines, but experts said that the decision was unlikely to have any immediate impact on supplies available in the country. For now, its focus on domestic needs “means there is very little, if anything, left for COVAX and everybody else,” said Brook Baker, a vaccines expert at Northeastern University.
Pune is India’s hardest-hit city, but other major metropolises are also in crisis, as daily new infections hit record levels, and experts say that missteps stemming from the belief that the pandemic was “over” are coming back to haunt the country.
[editor’s note: also read India, overwhelmed by COVID surge, fast-tracks approval for foreign vaccines]
U.K. Variant Of Coronavirus Doesn’t Cause More Severe Covid-19 Cases, Study Finds – Forbes
The B.1.1.7 variant of the coronavirus first identified in the U.K. last year does not cause more severe disease among hospitalized patients despite being able to spread more easily according to a new study which comes just a week after the CDC announced that the fast-spreading strain has now become the dominant one in the U.S.
The study published in The Lancet medical journal on Monday looked at hospitalization data from last fall in two U.K. hospitals and found that patients infected with the B.1.1.7 variant were not at increased risk of severe illness or death.
The study also found that patients infected with the B.1.1.7 strain had higher viral loads or more quantity of the virus in their bodies.
One of the study’s lead authors Dan Frampton told NBC News the higher viral loads in patients infected with the U.K. variant may be the reason why the virus is more transmissible.
The study observed that patients infected with the B.1.1.7 strain were more likely to be given supplemental oxygen however it noted that this may not correlate with disease severity as several unrelated factors may lead to its administering.
The study, however, did not cover the two other fast-spreading strains first discovered in South Africa and Brazil, both of which have been shown to blunt the effectiveness of Covid-19 vaccines.
J&J Vax Pause Is Actually Good for COVID Long Game – MedPage
In Europe, recent reports of extremely rare clotting complications of the AstraZeneca vaccine made European vaccine recipients markedly more nervous about vaccine safety. Many public health authorities worried public safety fears could hurt efforts to vaccinate past a fourth wave of COVID-19 deaths.
The announcement today by the FDA and CDC recommending a pause in states’ use of the Janssen (Johnson & Johnson) vaccine due to similar reports of extremely rare clotting complications made clinicians like me, public health authorities, and various pundits fearful that mentioning these safety concerns could lead people to defer their vaccine appointments and thus remain unprotected from the far greater risks of COVID-19.
As the world nears three million deaths from COVID-19, it’s tempting to keep the vaccine side effect genie in the bottle, particularly regarding extremely rare complications whose causal linkage to vaccination is only just coming into the light. If the European Medicines Agency never voiced clotting concerns related to the AstraZeneca vaccine, might fewer people have died of COVID-19? Will the same thing happen here in the U.S.?
We should view scientific transparency – about vaccine-related clotting concerns and beyond – as having massive long-term benefits and tiny short-term side effects, much like COVID-19 vaccines themselves.
COVID-19 vaccines confer massive protection from hospitalization and death from COVID-19, not to mention protection from persistent symptoms that have dogged upwards of a third of people afflicted with COVID-19. These benefits come at the cost of common side effects like sore arm, low-grade fevers, achy muscles and fatigue, as well as extremely rare toxicities like blood clots arising from the auto-immune generation of antibodies that activate platelets.
Scientific transparency is similar. Most people are reassured that scientists and regulatory officials are being exceedingly careful with COVID-19 vaccines, including pausing distribution to investigate safety signals. Surely this can drive short-term vaccine hesitancy, but since vaccine hesitancy derives from mistrust of science, trying to hide vaccine side effects will only exacerbate the problem over the long term.
We should tolerate the short-term side effect of temporarily increased vaccine hesitancy in order to derive the long-term benefit of public trust in global efforts to scale up COVID-19 vaccines to protect our loved ones and restore our beloved normal ways of life.
[editor’s note: also read J&J pause risks ‘feeding’ hesitancy: Virus updates]
FDA, CDC recommend pausing use of Johnson & Johnson vaccine after reports of rare but severe blood clots – USA Today
The Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are recommending the U.S. pause administering the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine after reports of blood clots in a small number of people who received it.
The health agencies released a statement Tuesday morning recommending the pause “out of an abundance of caution,” saying blood clots still seem to be “extremely rare.” So far, the CDC and FDA are reviewing six reported cases out of the nearly 7 million Johnson & Johnson vaccines administered in the U.S.
All six were in women between the ages of 18 and 48, with symptoms occurring six to 13 days after vaccination, according to agencies. One woman died and one was hospitalized in critical condition.
Johnson & Johnson released a statement Tuesday saying it also was reviewing the cases with European health authorities and has decided to delay the rollout of its vaccine in Europe.
“The safety and well-being of the people who use our products is our No. 1 priority,” the company statement said. “We have been working closely with medical experts and health authorities, and we strongly support the open communication of this information to healthcare professionals and the public.”
The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) will hold a meeting Wednesday to analyze the cases. The FDA said it will review the committee’s analysis as it also investigates.
“Until that process is complete, we are recommending this pause,” Dr. Anne Schuchat, Principal Deputy Director of the CDC and Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research said in a joint statement. “This is important to ensure that the health care provider community is aware of the potential for these adverse events and can plan due to the unique treatment required with this type of blood clot.”
Health officials said during a joint briefing Tuesday the pause is expected to last “a matter of days,” but noted the duration would be determined by how quickly they can review the available information and contact clinicians to ensure proper diagnosis and treatment.
[editor’s note: also read Q/A: What to know about J&J’s vaccine pause. Note that About 6.8 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine have been administered, and there have been only six reports of blood clots, a rate of about 1 in 1.1 million vaccinations. When distribution resumes, it’s important to remember just how rare these incidents are. More than two dozen states reacted quickly to Tuesday’s announcement by the Food and Drug Administration (Alabama, California, Illinois, Kansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin and Puerto Rico ceased distribution while the CDC and the FDA investigates the cases) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention regarding the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, pausing injections while officials review the reports of blood clots. Fauci: If you took the J&J vaccine more than a month ago, “you’re OK”. CVS and Walgreens pause administration of Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine CDC vaccine advisers will meet about Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine tomorrow]
FDA official says similarities between J&J and AstraZeneca vaccines are “plainly obvious” – CNN
There appears to be similarities between the rare blood clotting events possibly associated with Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine and the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine, Dr. Peter Marks, director of the US Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said during a virtual briefing on Tuesday.
“It’s plainly obvious to us already that what we’re seeing with the Janssen vaccines looks very similar to what was being seen with the AstraZeneca vaccine,” Marks said. Janssen is the vaccine arm of Johnson & Johnson.
The European Medicines Agency recently concluded that unusual blood clots with low blood platelets should be listed as “very rare side effects” of the AstraZeneca vaccine. The AstraZeneca vaccine isn’t in use in the United States but has been authorized in other countries.
“The AstraZeneca is a chimpanzee adenoviral vector vaccine. The Janssen is a human adenoviral vector vaccine,” Marks said. “We can’t make some broad statement yet, but obviously they are from the same general class of viral vectors.”
The mechanism behind the blood clotting events among those who have received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine remains unknown – but may be similar to the mechanism behind possible events connected to the AstraZeneca vaccine, Marks said.
“We don’t have a definitive cause, but the probable cause that we believe may be involved here – that we can speculate – is a similar mechanism that may be going on with the other adenoviral vector vaccine,” Marks said. “That is that this is an immune response that occurs very, very rarely after some people receive the vaccine and that immune response leads to activation of the platelets and these extremely rare blood clots.”
[editor’s note: Clotting events may be activated by immune response after vaccination, FDA leaders say]
What Is Cerebral Venous Sinus Thrombosis? J&J COVID Vaccine Paused Over Blood Clots – Newsweek
The Baltimore, Maryland-based Johns Hopkins Medicine says the condition, also called CVST, is a rare type of stroke that typically affects about 5 in 1 million people every year, and occurs when a blood clot forms in the brain’s venous sinuses.
The clot stops blood from draining from the brain which means blood cells “may break and leak blood into the brain tissues, forming a hemorrhage.”
It is part of a stroke that can occur in adults and children and even babies in the womb, a fact sheet says. It is also known as cerebral sinovenous thrombosis.
Physical symptoms linked to CVST include headache, blurred vision, fainting or loss of consciousness, seizures and loss of control over movement in a part of the body.
Experts warned that a stroke can damage the brain and nervous system, and requires immediate medical attention. The exact link with the vaccine is now under review.
CVST was also linked to 18 cases in the U.K. and European Economic Area following the rollout of the AstraZeneca COVID vaccine, at least as of March 16, 2021.
Of the 20 million AstraZeneca doses distributed across the regions at the time, experts reviewed seven cases of blood clots in blood vessels, called disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) and 18 cases of CVST, but a “causal link” was not proven.
A preliminary review by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) concluded the benefits of the vaccine in combating COVID continued “to outweigh the risk of side effects.”
How is CVST treated?
According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, treatments are conducted in a hospital setting, including the use of antibiotics (if an infection is found), controlling pressure inside the head, anticoagulants to stop blood from clotting and possibly even surgery.
It listed some of the potential complications as vision problems, nerve pressure, brain injuries, developmental delays, difficulty moving parts of the body—and death.
The U.S. health agencies said treating CVST is usually based around an anticoagulant drug, but warned that use inside a vaccine center setting could be dangerous.
[editor’s note: US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Principal Deputy Director Dr. Anne Schuchat recommends that people be on the lookout for any serious symptoms, such as severe headache, abdominal pain, leg pain or shortness of breath.]
Risk of blood clots higher from Covid than from J&J vaccine, says NYU immunologist – CNBC
The risk of developing blood clots from Covid-19 is greater than the apparent likelihood of developing them from Johnson & Johnson‘s coronavirus vaccine, Dr. Purvi Parikh told CNBC on Tuesday.
Parikh, a New York-based allergist and immunologist, has worked as an investigator for other Covid vaccine trials, including Pfizer.
Looking at Tuesday’s FDA recommendation to pause use of J&J’s one-shot vaccine through that prism, Parikh said the temporary halt indicates that regulators’ “safety checks and balances are working.”
“For now, I would be careful with any of these conspiracy theories and again with the panic,” said Parikh, a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Medicine at NYU Grossman School of Medicine.
“You’re much more likely to clot from the real Covid-19 virus, which is about 1 in 20 people hospitalized or even 1 in 100 recovering at home. That’s far more likely,” she added on “Squawk on the Street,” citing data from industry group Thrombosis Canada.
Could cow’s milk provide some passive immunity against COVID-19? – News-Medical
Researchers at the Department of Animal Health, University of Cordoba, Córdoba, Spain, speculate that bovine milk consumption – specifically from cows with resistance to bovine coronaviruses – may potentially provide at least some degree of protection from severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. The article is available to read in full on the Frontiers in Immunology website.
The global coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, caused by the SARS-CoV-2 pathogen, continues to evolve and spread worldwide. As new variants begin to show resistance to currently circulating vaccines, it is necessary to find alternative therapies in order to eradicate the virus or to mitigate disease severity in those it reaches.
The researchers theorize such an alternative: consumption of bovine milk.
Milk is a unique nutrient-rich food source produced by mammals. It has historically been farmed from many domesticated animal species for human consumption, providing nutrients, protein, and calcium to the consumer. Additionally, milk consumption also transfers antibodies from the parent animal to the recipient, which bolsters the immune system.
SARS-CoV-2 belongs to the subgenus Sarbecovirus within the genus Betacoronavirus. A second subgenus, Embecovirus, contains Human coronavirus OC43 (OC43) and Bovine coronavirus (BCoV), which are 96% identical. Arenas and co-authors suggest that transference of BCoV antibodies to humans, which also neutralizes OC43, may also provide sufficient cross-immunity to SARS-CoV-2.
As Betacoronaviruses, SARS-CoV-2 and BCoV share many similarities. BCoV has five structural proteins: the spike glycoprotein (S), the envelope (E) protein, the membrane (M) protein, the nucleocapsid (N) protein, and the hemagglutinin-esterase (HE) protein. SARS-CoV-2 is comprised of just four structural proteins, sharing all of these except for HE.
… Due to many of the heat and pasteurization treatments milk undergoes before it ultimately ends up in supermarkets, many of the antibodies are broken down or destroyed, so would likely fail to provide sufficient passive immunity. The authors, therefore, suggest that, while study into bovine milk as a novel SARS-CoV-2 immunity provider must urgently be undertaken, these treatments should be considered. Furthermore, the encompassment of milk derivatives, egg yolk, and other animal products, which can also confer passive immunity, should also be investigated to control the spread of COVID-19.
12% of Children With COVID Are Hospitalized, Study Says – WebMD
About 12% of U.S. children with COVID-19 were hospitalized in 2020, and nearly a third of those had severe disease that required mechanical ventilation or admission to an intensive care unit, according to a new study published in JAMA Network Open on Friday.
That means about 1 in 9 kids with COVID-19 needed hospitalization, and about 1 in 28 had severe COVID-19.
“Although most children with COVID-19 experience mild illness, some children develop serious illness that leads to hospitalization, use of invasive mechanical ventilation, and death,” the researchers wrote.
The research team analyzed discharge data from 869 medical facilities in the Premier Healthcare Database Special COVID-19 Release. They looked for COVID-19 patients ages 18 and under who had an in-patient or emergency department visit between March and October 2020.
State record-keeping on vaccinations leads to patchwork approach – The Hill
States are taking various approaches to keeping track of COVID-19 vaccine recipients in the absence of a national database.
That’s led to a variety of methods for providing residents with documentation should they lose the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) card that’s often handed to recipients for their own records.
The CDC does not keep track of individual vaccinations, and records usually are left with patients, doctors and clinics. From there, states can decide how much or how little data they want to collect.
Oklahoma records its vaccinations through a state immunization database, allowing patients to find verification of their vaccine online if they lose or damage their vaccine cards. In Illinois, providers are required to report COVID-19 vaccinations to the state health department, and recipients can voluntarily enter their information into an online registry.
Experts say the differing methods will require coordination among various online portals to ensure individuals can prove they have been vaccinated.
“By asking states to create and manage their own IT infrastructure systems, we have essentially reinvented the wheel 50 times,” said Aparna Soni, an assistant professor in the Department of Public Administration and Policy at American University.
Soni said statewide recording systems can let health officials know which residents of theirs have been vaccinated, but those same states are unable to see how many visitors have been vaccinated.
The existing setup also creates inequities on the tech front as well, she said.
Can COVID-19 Be Eradicated? – MedPage
Most experts believe the answer is no and predict that the virus will continue to circulate indefinitely, transitioning from the current pandemic to a steady, but much lower, endemic rate of infection. Such pessimism is not unlike the views of many prior to the eradication of smallpox. In 1965, René Dubos, perhaps the most well-known microbiologist of his time, wrote in Man, Adapting, “Eradication of microbial disease is a will-o’-the-wisp; pursuing it leads into a morass of hazy biological concepts and half-truths.” His view is perhaps a cautionary tale as to why we should not so readily dismiss the possibility of eradication. While assessments on the feasibility of eradication tend to focus on the biology of the pathogen, the infection it causes, and the vaccine effectiveness, it’s important to consider many broader factors such as the capacity of the public health system, and, perhaps most importantly, the sociopolitical realities that will dictate the available resources, length, and scope of any efforts.
At the level of the pathogen, there are several properties that make any infectious disease more or less amenable to control. Only one, however, precludes any attempt at eradication, and that is if there is a significant reservoir where the agent can survive outside of humans on an indefinite basis and from which humans can acquire infection. For COVID-19, there is little evidence to date that this is the case. If we can sustain an interruption in the transmission of this virus among a sufficient number of humans, we could eradicate COVID-19. Can the vaccines achieve this? The evidence is early and incomplete at this point, but the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines do appear to provide impressive levels of protection against infections.
Of course, effective vaccines will not be helpful unless we can rapidly get them into large number of arms all over the world. The main challenge here will be in supplying enough doses, especially to those in resource-poor settings, to achieve herd immunity. The current COVAX initiative to provide equitable global access to COVID vaccines has committed to providing doses for at least 20% of a country’s population. Billions more will be needed.
What about viral variants? If the virus mutates in such a way that the available vaccines are no longer protective, one future scenario with COVID-19 is akin to seasonal influenza in which the infection becomes endemic, circulating throughout the globe in waves of infections requiring regular re-vaccinations of variable efficacy in a Sisyphean response to emerging variants. The development of variants, which can only occur when the virus replicates, is one compelling reason to pursue more aggressive suppression measures. Unlike previous vaccines, the new coronavirus vaccines are much more amenable to rapidly catching up with new variants as they emerge. The current vaccines were developed in as short as eight months; the availability of vaccines adjusted to protect for variants is really only limited by the time to manufacture and secure authorization using these platforms.
Viruses generally weaken or attenuate to become less virulent over time, and there is intriguing evidence that our current coronaviral pandemic may not have been our first. Since the 1960’s, we have identified four coronaviruses that are endemic to humans. While these coronaviruses collectively are considered to be the second leading cause of the common cold, they have the potential to very rarely cause much more serious respiratory disease similar to COVID-19. An 1889 pandemic attributed to influenza may actually have been the result of a then-novel coronavirus in humans that spilled over from a nearly identical strain found in cows. If correct, this coronavirus subsequently weakened to become one of the four current strains endemic to humans. The massive investment necessary to achieve elimination or eradication would clearly not be justified for the common cold.
The following are foreign headlines with hyperlinks to the posts
Johnson & Johnson delays its Covid-19 vaccine rollout in Europe.
England began to emerge from its lockdown, opening gyms, shops and outdoor dining.
Muslims open Ramadan with social distanced prayers, vaccines
Australia abandons plans to buy Johnson & Johnson vaccine
Mexico’s poor pandemic response may have cost 190,000 lives, report says
India to accelerate approvals for foreign vaccines amid ferocious second wave
Ontario is canceling in-person schooling indefinitely as COVID-19 cases surge, fueled by variants.
Indian City With Over 100K COVID Patients Has Only 28 Unused Ventilators
Inhaled budesonide (Pulmicort), commonly used in asthma, helped COVID-19 outpatients at extra risk for severe illness recover more quickly relative to standard care in the pragmatic PRINCIPLE trial, British researchers said.
COVID-19 in our dust may help predict outbreaks, study finds
SARS-CoV-2 viable 21 days in blood, mucus, semen, urine, but just 24 hours in breast milk
Children less likely to spread SARS-CoV-2 than adults
Merkel moves to create a nationwide lockdown system in Germany.
Germany reports more than 10,000 single-day Covid-19 cases
Lockdown measures in the Netherlands to remain in place for another 2 weeks
Turkey announces partial lockdown as daily Covid-19 cases hit record high
Rio de Janeiro had more deaths than births for sixth month in row, government data shows
India approves use of Russia’s Sputnik V Covid–19 vaccine
Canada reports first case of rare blood clot with AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine
The following additional national and state headlines with hyperlinks to the posts
Are Vaccine Mandates and Passports Even Legal?
Zients says J&J pause will not have significant impact on White House’s vaccine goals
Fauci stresses that vaccines are safe, pause has nothing to do with efficacy of J&J shot
Analysis: Quarter of the country won’t get vaccinated and half of them trust Trump on medical issues
In response to comments by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) that his state is approaching herd immunity, a leading epidemiologist said the state is not “anywhere even close.”
At least five hospitals in the U.S. have launched pediatric long-haul clinics to assist kids with lingering COVID-19 health problems, as a large-scale national study of long-haul COVID revs up.
U.K. Coronavirus Strain Does Not Lead To More Severe Illness And Death, Study Finds
15 percent of Americans in worse financial shape now than before pandemic
FDA ends restrictions on mailing abortion pills during pandemic
Fauci, Left-Wing Media Hurting Vaccine Cause
San Fran Lost More Residents Than Anywhere Else as Big Tech Battles City
A Los Angeles movie theater chain won’t be reopening after the pandemic.
Studies have found that women in academia have published fewer papers, led fewer clinical trials and received less recognition for their expertise during the pandemic.
CVS, Walgreens halt Johnson & Johnson vaccines, debate how to proceed
Nearly 23% of US population is fully vaccinated against Covid-19, CDC data shows
Moderna says its Covid-19 vaccine is not associated with blood clots
Experts worry Michigan could be a warning sign for what could becoming in other parts of the US soon
Today’s Posts On Econintersect Showing Impact Of The Pandemic With Hyperlinks
March 2021 CPI: Year-over-Year Inflation Rate Rises To 2.6%
March 2021 Consumer’s Inflation, Home Price and Spending Expectations Keep Rising
March 2021 Small Business Optimism Increases As Pandemic Restrictions Eased
Average Gasoline Prices for Week Ending 12 April 2021 Up 99 Cents From A Year Ago
Warning to Readers
The amount of politically biased articles on the internet continues to increase. And studies and opinions of the experts continue to contradict other studies and expert opinions. Honestly, it is difficult to believe anything anymore.
I assemble this coronavirus update daily – sifting through the posts on the internet. I try to avoid politically slanted posts (mostly from CNN, New York Times, and the Washington Post) and can usually find unslanted posts on that subject from other sources on the internet. I wait to publish posts on subjects that I cannot validate across several sources. But after all this extra work, I do not know if I have conveyed the REAL facts. It is my job to provide information so that you have the facts necessary – and then it is up to readers to draw conclusions.
Analyst Opinion of Coronavirus Data
There are several takeaways that need to be understood when viewing coronavirus statistical data:
- The global counts are suspect for a variety of reasons including political. Even the U.S. count has issues as it is possible that as much as half the population has had coronavirus and was asymptomatic. It would be a far better metric using a random sampling of the population weekly. In short, we do not understand the size of the error in the tracking numbers.
- Just because some of the methodology used in aggregating the data in the U.S. is flawed – as long as the flaw is uniformly applied – you establish a baseline. This is why it is dangerous to compare two countries as they likely use different methodologies to determine who has (and who died) from coronavirus.
- COVID-19 and the flu are different but can have similar symptoms. For sure, COVID-19 so far is much more deadly than the flu. [click here to compare symptoms]
- From an industrial engineering point of view, one can argue that it is best to flatten the curve only to the point that the health care system is barely able to cope. This solution only works if-and-only-if one can catch this coronavirus once and develops immunity. In the case of COVID-19, herd immunity may need to be in the 80% to 85% range. WHO warns that few have developed antibodies to COVID-19 when recovering from COVID-19. Herd immunity does not look like an option without immunization although there is now a discussion of whether T-Cells play a part in immunity [which means one might have immunity without antibodies]
- Older population countries will have a significantly higher death rate as there is relatively few hospitalizations and deaths in younger age groups..
- There are at least 8 strains of the coronavirus. California and New York may have a deadlier strain imported from Europe, compared to less deadly viruses elsewhere in the United States.
- Each publication uses different cutoff times for its coronavirus statistics. Our data uses 11:00 am London time. Also, there is an unexplained variation in the total numbers both globally and in the U.S.
What we do or do not know about the coronavirus [actually there is little scientifically proven information]. Most of our knowledge is anecdotal, from studies with limited subjects, or from studies without peer review.
- How many people have been infected as many do not show symptoms?
- Masks do work. Unfortunately, early in the pandemic, many health experts — in the U.S. and around the world — decided that the public could not be trusted to hear the truth about masks. Instead, the experts spread a misleading message, discouraging the use of masks.
- Current thinking is that we develop at least 5 months of immunity from further COVID infection.
- The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines have an effectiveness rate of about 95 percent after two doses. That is on par with the vaccines for chickenpox and measles. The 95 percent number understates the effectivenessas it counts anyone who came down with a mild case of Covid-19 as a failure. But turning Covid into a typical flu — as the vaccines evidently did for most of the remaining 5 percent — is actually a success. Of the 32,000 people who received the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine in a research trial, only one contracted a severe Covid case.
- To what degree do people who never develop symptoms contribute to transmission? Research early in the pandemic suggested that the rate of asymptomatic infections could be as high as 81%. But a meta-analysis, which included 13 studies involving 21,708 people, calculated the rate of asymptomatic presentation to be 17%.
- The accuracy of rapid testing is questioned – and the more accurate test results are not being given in a timely manner.
- Can children widely spread coronavirus? [current thinking is that they are a minor source of the pandemic spread]
- Why have some places avoided big coronavirus outbreaks – and others hit hard?
- Air conditioning contributes to the pandemic spread.
- It appears that there is increased risk of infection and mortality for those living in larger occupancy households.
- Male patients have almost three times the odds of requiring intensive treatment unit (ITU) admission compared to females.
- Outdoor activities seem to be a lower risk than indoor activities.
Treatments with solid scientific support:
- Dexamethasone
- Proning, or turning someone on their stomach
- Remdesivir
- Baricitinib
Treatments with potential but limited evidence:
- ECMO, or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation
- fluvoxamine
- Cyclosporine
- Famotidine
- Intravenous immunoglobulin
- Ivermectin
- Interferons
Drugs shown to be ineffective:
- The combination of lopinavir-ritonavir
- Hydroxychloroquine
- Insulin
- High dose zinc and vitamin C
- Convalescent plasma
- Monoclonal antibodies
- Tocilizumab
- Anti-coagulants
- A current scientific understanding of the way the coronavirus works can be found [here].
There is now a vaccine available – the questions remain:
- will there be any permanent side effects that will appear months from now,
- how long immunity will last [we can currently say we do not know if it will last more than 4 months],
- there is no solid evidence yet the vaccine will block transmission
Heavy breakouts of coronavirus have hit farmworkers. Farmworkers are essential to the food supply. They cannot shelter at home. Consider:
- they have high rates of respiratory disease [occupational hazard]
- they travel on crowded buses chartered by their employers
- few have health insurance
- they cannot social distance and live two to four to a room – and they eat together
- some reports say half are undocumented
- they are low paid and cannot afford not to work – so they will go to work sick
- they do not have access to sanitation when working
- a coronavirus outbreak among farmworkers can potentially shutter entire farm
The bottom line is that COVID-19 so far has been shown to be much more deadly than the data on the flu. Using CDC data, the flu has a mortality rate between 0.06 % and 0.11 % Vs. the coronavirus which to date has a mortality rate of 4 % [the 4% is the average of overall statistics – however in the last few months it has been hovering around 1.0%] – which makes it between 10 and 80 times more deadly. The reason for ranges:
Because influenza surveillance does not capture all cases of flu that occur in the U.S., CDC provides these estimated ranges to better reflect the larger burden of influenza.
There will be a commission set up after this pandemic ends to find fault [it is easy to find fault when a once-in-a-lifetime event occurs] and to produce recommendations for the next time a pandemic happens. Those that hate President Trump will conclude the virus is his fault.
Resources:
- Get the latest public health information from CDC: https://www.coronavirus.gov .
- Get the latest research from NIH: https://www.nih.gov/coronavirus.
- Find NCBI SARS-CoV-2 literature, sequence, and clinical content: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sars-cov-2/.
- List of studies: https://icite.od.nih.gov/covid19/search/#search:searchId=5ee124ed70bb967c49672dad
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