Written by Steven Hansen

The U.S. new cases 7-day rolling average are 20.7 % LOWER than the 7-day rolling average one week ago and U.S. deaths due to coronavirus are now 14.0 % LOWER than the rolling average one week ago. Today’s posts include:

• U.S. Coronavirus New Cases are 36,451
• U.S. Coronavirus deaths are at 693
• U.S. Coronavirus immunizations have been administered to 78.7 doses per 100 people.
• The 7-day rolling average rate of growth of the pandemic shows new cases little changed and deaths improved
• Increased transmissibility of B.1.617 variant may be impacting Covid-19 spread in India
• Scientists race to study variants in India as cases explode
• Is the Real Risk From India Being Detected?
• Authorities scramble to provide drugs to treat a fungal disease affecting India’s COVID-19 patients
• Scientists warn U.S. lawmakers about the continued threat of coronavirus variants
• There Is No Johnson & Johnson Vaccine To Distribute
• Winter COVID Surges Will Bring Lockdowns, Travel Bans, Crammed ICUs
• Pfizer and Moderna’s mRNA vaccines appeared to be effective against the B.1.617.1 variant from India
• Cancun: COVID-19 cases are up and tighter restrictions are in place
• A fourth COVID Wave Avoided
• Nasal Vaccines for COVID-19?
• CMS will require long-term care facilities to report COVID-19 vaccination data for residents and staff every week to the CDC
• World could have prevented COVID catastrophe

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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 continues to improve.

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 improving.

In the scheme of things, new cases decline first, followed by hospitalizations, and then deaths. The potential fourth wave did not materialize likely due to immunizations.

Coronavirus News You May Have Missed

Increased transmissibility of B.1.617 variant may be impacting Covid-19 spread in India – CNN

Some evidence suggests the B.1.617 variant of Covid-19 may be more transmissible, which may be contributing to the surge in cases in India, a World Health Organization scientist said in a public Q&A on Wednesday.

“We have some evidence of increased transmissibility,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, Covid-19 technical lead with WHO. “There are studies that are looking at transmissibility. They’re looking at severity and they’re looking at the impact of diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines.”

On Tuesday WHO published its weekly epidemiological report, which said the variant is increasingly prevalent in multiple countries. According to WHO data, the B.1.617 variant is most prevalent in India, which also has the most new Covid-19 vases and Covid-19 deaths.

Van Kerkhove said that multiple factors, like increased socializing and relaxing public health measures, are contributing to the spike. “The other factors are these variants that were pointed out,” she said.

“Some of these virus variants of concern have mutations, for example, that allow the virus to enter the cell more easily, so they can infect you more easily. It doesn’t mean that the modes of transmission or the way that it spreads is different, it just, it’s easier to actually infect someone else.”

Scientists race to study variants in India as cases explode – AP

… India was slow to start the genetic monitoring needed to see if those changes were happening and if they were making the coronavirus more infectious or deadly.

Such variants also need to be monitored to see if mutations help the virus escape the immune system, potentially leading to reinfections or making vaccines less effective. For now, the WHO stressed that COVID-19 vaccines are effective at preventing disease and death in people infected with the variant.

Indian scientists say their work has been hindered by bureaucratic obstacles and the government’s reluctance to share vital data. India is sequencing around 1% of its total cases, and not all of the results are uploaded to the global database of coronavirus genomes.

When there isn’t enough sequencing, there will be blind spots and more worrisome mutations could go undetected until they’re widespread, said Alina Chan, a postdoctoral researcher at Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard who is tracking global sequencing efforts.

Ravindra Gupta, a professor of clinical microbiology at the University of Cambridge, said: “It has all the hallmarks of the virus that we should be worried about.”

First detected in the coastal Maharashtra state last year, the new variant has now been found in samples in 19 of the 27 states surveyed. Meanwhile a variant first detected in Britain has declined in India in the past 45 days.

Indian health officials have cautioned that it is too soon to attribute the nation’s surge solely to such variants. Experts point out that the spread was catalyzed by government decisions to not pause religious gatherings and crowded election rallies.

A fourth wave, avoided – New York Times

A few months ago, there was widespread talk about the possibility of a “fourth wave” of Covid-19 in the U.S. this spring. Many states were relaxing restrictions, and many Americans, tired of sitting at home, were beginning to expose themselves to greater Covid risk even though they weren’t yet vaccinated.

Fortunately, however, the fourth wave has not arrived.

Cases and hospitalizations rose only modestly in late March and early April, and they have since begun falling again. Deaths have not risen in months.

What happened? There are several explanations. A large number of Americans have built up natural immunity by already having had Covid. The vaccination program expanded rapidly. And even as some Americans behaved recklessly, others continued to wear masks indoors. (Outdoor masks, as regular Morning readers know by now, seem to make little difference in most circumstances).

Every couple of weeks, I’ve shown you a set of charts that summarizes the state of the pandemic. Today is the latest installment.

Covid isn’t over …
Despite the good news, it’s worth emphasizing that the crisis is not yet over. There are two big Covid problems, both involving vaccination.

First, roughly one in three American adults remain skeptical of the vaccine, including many older people, who are at the highest risk of severe versions of Covid. In the most recent poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 13 percent of adults said they would definitely not get a shot; 6 percent said they would do so only if required by their employer, their school or another group; and 15 percent said they were waiting to see how the vaccines affected others.

(Related: A new Times story focuses on the millions of Americans who say they are open to getting the vaccine but have not yet managed to do so.)

This wariness helps explain why the U.S. continues to trail Britain and Israel in vaccination rates and why deaths have fallen even more sharply in those countries, despite their huge virus outbreaks early this year.

Nasal Vaccines for COVID-19? – MedPage

Despite an arsenal of highly effective injectable vaccines, drugmakers are looking into products that will be easier to store, transport, and administer in the global crisis — particularly, intranasal vaccines.

Could these vaccines also hold an advantage when it comes to blocking transmission? While more data has suggested the vaccines authorized in the U.S. cut transmission, some experts have argued that intranasal vaccines may do an even better job of this.

MedPage Today surveyed the global landscape of intranasal vaccines in development, the majority of which are in early stages.

Rationale for COVID-19 Mucosal Vaccines

The mucosal immune system represents the body’s first line of defense against outside pathogens at surfaces like the nose, lungs, mouth, eyes, and GI tract. Because the nasopharynx is the primary entry point for SARS-CoV-2, targeting the nasal cavity could be one of the best lines of defense for vaccines, according to Michael Russell, PhD, an emeritus professor of microbiology and immunology at the University at Buffalo in New York.

“By generating effective mucosal immune responses, it should be possible to forestall coronavirus infection from the outset, and also more effectively reduce transmission of the virus,” Russell told MedPage Today. “Nasal immunization aims to replicate this natural immunization process in a more effective manner.”

Current injectable vaccines induce a systemic immune response by generating circulating IgG antibodies that neutralize pathogens before they can cause severe tissue damage. But IgG is not very good at controlling viral entry into the body. To do that, the mucosal immune system is needed. It produces secretory IgA at the site of viral entry, and in larger quantities than any other type of immunoglobulin in the body.

“The major advantage of mucosal vaccines would be to create a strong immune response at the initial site of virus entry. If you can stop the virus here, it won’t be able to get into the lungs to cause damage,” said Richard Kennedy, PhD, who studies the development of immune responses after vaccination at the Mayo Clinic.

IgA also seems to be important in early infection. In one study, researchers measured immune responses in 159 patients with COVID-19. They found that IgA dominated the early stage of infection, peaked 3 weeks after symptom onset, and neutralized virus better than IgG. The results suggest that IgA-mediated mucosal immunity may decrease infectivity of the virus in human secretions and decrease viral transmission, according to the authors.

Mucosal Vaccines in the Pipeline

While mucosal vaccines may hold promise, clinical trials have only recently begun.

Is the Real Risk From India Being Detected? – Bloomberg

If you haven’t heard of B.1.617 yet, chances are you soon will.

This particular Covid-19 variant is at least partly behind the overwhelming second wave in India, the current global epicenter of the pandemic. The World Health Organization has now raised B.1.617 from a “variant of interest” to a “variant of concern.” Authorities like Public Health England are already treating it as the latter, meaning there’s something worrying about one or more of the criteria on which a virus is judged — including how fast it transmits, how many it kills, and whether it evades detection or makes vaccines less effective.

The stakes underlying these threat thresholds have risen beyond guessing the true extent of the unfolding disaster in India. Whether daily fatalities and new cases are, as officially reported, around 4,000 and 400,000, respectively, or closer to 25,000 deaths and between 2 million and 5 million infections, as Brown University School of Public Health’s Ashish Jha estimates, the rest of the world needs to help the country combat this menace. Out of pure self-interest.

Of the many changes in the pathogen, the two of greatest concern affect a portion of the spike protein, called the receptor binding domain, that’s key to the virus getting into human cells. A new study has found that an entry driven by the B.1.617 spike protein was “partially resistant against neutralization by antibodies elicited upon infection or vaccination with the Comirnaty/BNT162b2 vaccine.” That’s the official name for the Pfizer-BioNTech shot. Although not in use in India, it’s one of the main lines of defense in developed countries.

India, too, needs to do its part. Even as it struggles to provide hospital beds, oxygen and antivirals to its gasping citizens, New Delhi must step up genome surveillance to figure out — for itself and the rest of the world — what exactly is going on. Plans being laid for reopening and economic recovery everywhere could depend on it.

The efficacy of vaccines in dealing with variants isn’t a new concern. Researchers have fretted about everything from B.1.1.7 in the U.K. and B.1.351 in South Africa to P.1 in Brazil and B.1.429 and B.1.232 in California. (Yes, the naming system is completely bonkers.) So far, the news has been mostly good. As Sam Fazeli, a pharmaceuticals analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence, recently noted, there is some evidence from nonhuman studies that booster shots will neutralize both the original virus and its altered version. As for reports of “breakthrough infections” in Israel, or vaccinated people being struck by the new variant, as Fazeli notes, we shouldn’t worry too much as long as symptoms are mild or nonexistent and hospitalization isn’t required.

A small-scale study of 123 doctors, nurses and other medical staff at a specialized diabetes treatment center in New Delhi discovered that of the 113 employees vaccinated (107 with the required two doses), 18 got infected with Covid-19, though only one person had to be hospitalized. The individual was later discharged, I learned from one of the researchers. It’s not known if this group was exposed to B.1.617.

That’s just one more thing we don’t know amid the reigning chaos in India. People are scrambling to find a hospital bed or an oxygen cylinder. Or — if they’re well — a vaccine shot. Crematoriums are full, and scared villagers are dumping bodies into the river, just as their forefathers did during the 1918 Spanish Flu, a scene economic historian Chinmay Tumbe describes in his book, The Age of Pandemics.

World could have prevented COVID catastrophe – The Hindu

The catastrophic scale of the COVID-19 pandemic could have been prevented, an independent global panel concluded on Wednesday, but a “toxic cocktail” of dithering and poor coordination meant the warning signs went unheeded.

The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response (IPPPR) said a series of bad decisions meant COVID-19 went on to kill at least 3.3 million people so far and devastate the global economy.

Institutions “failed to protect people” and science-denying leaders eroded public trust in health interventions, the IPPPR said in its long-awaited final report.

Early responses to the outbreak detected in Wuhan, China in December 2019 “lacked urgency”, with February 2020 a costly “lost month” as countries failed to heed the alarm, said the panel.

… The report, “Covid-19: Make it the Last Pandemic”, argued that the global alarm system needed overhauling to prevent a similar catastrophe.

“The situation we find ourselves in today could have been prevented,” Ms. Sirleaf told reporters.

“It is due to a myriad of failures, gaps and delays in preparedness and response.”

The report said the emergence of COVID-19 was characterised by a mixture of “some early and rapid action, but also by delay, hesitation, and denial.

“Poor strategic choices, unwillingness to tackle inequalities and an uncoordinated system created a toxic cocktail which allowed the pandemic to turn into a catastrophic human crisis.”

The threat of a pandemic had been overlooked and countries were woefully unprepared to deal with one, the report found.

… The panel did not spare the WHO, saying it could have declared the situation a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) — its highest level of alarm — on January 22, 2020.

Instead, it waited eight more days before doing so.

Nevertheless, given countries’ relative inaction, “we might still have ended up in the same place”, said Ms. Clark.

It was only in March after the WHO described it as a pandemic — a term that is not officially part of its alert system — that countries were jolted into action.

[editor’s note: the report is here: https://theindependentpanel.org/mainreport/]

Cancun: COVID-19 cases are up and tighter restrictions are in place. Here’s what you need to know – USA Today

Traveling to Cancun? There are developments you need to be aware of before boarding your flight.

The rate of COVID-19 infections is up in the popular resort town, located on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula in the Caribbean Sea.

Quintana Roo, Mexico, Gov. Carlos Joaquín estimated a 65% spike in Benito Juarez, the municipality that includes Cancun, marking its highest rate of infection to date at a time when the rest of Mexico is improving.

“This is highly concerning,” he said.

It’s hard to tell just how widespread coronavirus actually is in Cancún because of low testing rates and incomplete data. According to Our World In Data, just 17% of COVID-19 tests in Mexico come back positive. Experts at Johns Hopkins University have said that’s far below than the levels needed to properly monitor coronavirus outbreaks.

More COVID-19 restrictions are in place. Under orange conditions, hotels, restaurants, tours and water parks must operate at 50% capacity, while beaches can only admit 30% of their normal levels. Bars, nightclubs and casinos must close.

If you test positive while in Mexico, you may have trouble getting home. Since January, Americans have been required to present a negative COVID-19 test in order to board a flight back to the U.S. You’ll still need to be tested even if you’re fully vaccinated. Anyone who tests positive must remain in Mexico until they test negative.

Starting in 2 weeks, CMS will require long-term care facilities to report COVID-19 vaccination data for residents and staff every week to the CDC. – CDC

As part of the ongoing response to address the COVID-19 pandemic, and to improve health care access and reduce the risk of severe illness and death from COVID-19, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) today issued a rule that will ensure long-term care facilities, and residential facilities serving clients with intellectual disabilities, educate and offer the COVID-19 vaccine to residents, clients, and staff. These requirements apply to Long-Term Care (LTC) facilities and Intermediate Care Facilities for Individuals with Intellectual Disabilities, or ICFs-IID, and align with existing requirements for influenza and pneumococcal vaccines in LTC facilities.

The rule also requires LTC facilities to report weekly COVID-19 vaccination status data for both residents and staff. The new vaccination reporting requirement will not only assist in monitoring uptake amongst residents and staff, but will also aid in identifying facilities that may be in need of additional resources and/or assistance to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“These new requirements reinforce CMS’ commitment of ensuring equitable vaccine access for Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries,” said Dr. Lee Fleisher, MD, CMS Chief Medical Officer and Director of CMS’ Center for Clinical Standards and Quality (CCSQ). “Today’s announcement directly aids nursing home residents and people with intellectual or developmental disabilities who have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19. Our goal is to increase COVID-19 vaccine confidence and acceptance among these individuals and the staff who serve them.”

To ensure LTC facilities receive support for COVID-19 vaccination efforts, they are now required to report weekly vaccination data of residents and staff to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN), the nation’s most widely used healthcare-associated infection tracking system. LTC facilities are already required to report COVID-19 testing, case, and mortality data to the NHSN for residents and staff, but have not been required to report vaccination data. As data becomes available, CMS will post facility-specific vaccination status information reported to the NHSN for viewing by facilities, stakeholders, and the public on CMS’ COVID-19 Nursing Home Data website.

While today’s announcement is specific to LTC facilities and ICFs-IID, CMS is also seeking comment on opportunities to expand these policies to help encourage vaccine uptake and access in other congregate care settings, such as psychiatric residential treatment facilities (PRTFs), group homes and assisted living facilities. By requiring vaccine education and offering within LTC facilities and ICFs-IIDs, CMS is improving health care access and reducing the risk of severe illness and death from COVID-19.

[editor’s note: also read Medicare requiring nursing homes to report weekly vaccination statistics]

States won’t get Johnson & Johnson’s COVID vaccine next week, White House officials told governors. – Politico

States won’t receive any doses of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine next week, the latest sign of how production problems are hurting output of the single-dose shot, according to four sources with knowledge.

White House officials told governors on a private call Tuesday that new supply of the J&J shot wasn’t immediately available for ordering, POLITICO has learned. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the federal government would ship out J&J doses through federal distribution channels, such as those for pharmacy chains and community health centers.

The White House and HHS didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Shipments of the J&J shots have been relatively limited since the vaccine was authorized in late February. States, tribes and territories have received less than 1.5 million J&J shots in the last two weeks, after federal officials lifted a recommended pause on use of the shot following reports of rare but serious blood clots after vaccination.

The White House earlier this spring had told states to expect the supply of the J&J vaccine to ramp up at the end of April, but that was before more problems emerged at a contractor, Emergent BioSolutions. In private, Biden administration officials have recently downplayed the importance of the J&J shot in reaching the White House’s broad vaccination goals while production of shots from Pfizer and Moderna has remained strong.

[editor’s note: also read CDC reports 28 cases of rare blood clotting among 8.7 million people given Johnson & Johnson vaccine]

Pfizer and Moderna’s mRNA vaccines appeared to be effective against the B.1.617.1 variant from India, preprint findings suggested. – bioRxiv

SARS-CoV-2 has caused a devastating global pandemic. The recent emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants that are less sensitive to neutralization by convalescent sera or vaccine-induced neutralizing antibody responses has raised concerns. A second wave of SARS-CoV-2 infections in India is leading to the expansion of SARS-CoV-2 variants. The B.1.617.1 variant has rapidly spread throughout India and to several countries throughout the world. In this study, using a live virus assay, we describe the neutralizing antibody response to the B.1.617.1 variant in serum from infected and vaccinated individuals. We found that the B.1.617.1 variant is 6.8-fold more resistant to neutralization by sera from COVID-19 convalescent and Moderna and Pfizer vaccinated individuals. Despite this, a majority of the sera from convalescent individuals and all sera from vaccinated individuals were still able to neutralize the B.1.617.1 variant. This suggests that protective immunity by the mRNA vaccines tested here are likely retained against the B.1.617.1 variant. As the B.1.617.1 variant continues to evolve, it will be important to monitor how additional mutations within the spike impact antibody resistance, viral transmission and vaccine efficacy.

Fungal disease is emerging among hundreds of COVID-19 patients in India, shows study – News-Medical

Authorities scramble to provide drugs to treat a fungal disease affecting India’s COVID-19 patients. A fungal disease called mucormycosis is emerging among hundreds of COVID-19 patients in India, placing further strain on hospitals already at breaking point.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that mucormycosis, also known as black fungus, is a “serious but rare” infection caused by a group of moulds called mucormycetes. It usually affects the sinuses or lungs after fungal spores are inhaled from the air but can also occur on the skin after a cut or burn.

The Indian government has not yet announced the number of mucormycosis cases among patients with COVID-19, but media reports say there are more than 400 victims in Gujarat, 200 in Maharashtra and several others in the hospitals of Delhi, Bengaluru and Hyderabad cities.

Diptendra Sarkar, a COVID-19 strategist, public health analyst and professor at the Institute of Post Graduate Medical Education and Research, Kolkata, India, tells SciDev.Net that extensive use of immunosuppressant drugs for the treatment of COVID-19 may be responsible for the rising incidence.

“This is more common amongst diabetics, transplant patients, prolonged high-dose steroid recipients and patients on cancer chemotherapy. Though the incidence is sporadic, busy ICUs [intensive care units] can become epicentres for the surge in [mucormycosis] cases and create a huge challenge to health resources.”

Winter COVID Surges Will Bring Lockdowns, Travel Bans, Crammed ICUs – Newsweek

As India descended into a COVID-19 tragedy that dwarfed anything the country had experienced in the pandemic so far, with hospitals inundated, oxygen supplies short and vaccines reportedly being stolen from warehouses, American politicians thousands of miles away were clamoring to end pandemic restrictions.

Representative Jim Jordan railed at Dr. Anthony Fauci in the House chambers, “You don’t think Americans’ liberties have been threatened in the last year, Dr. Fauci? They’ve been assaulted!” Alabama Governor Kay Ivey told Fox News, “We have been at this for more than a year now, and we have simply got to move forward. Endless government mandates are not the answer.”

… The coronavirus will continue to circulate widely for months, giving it plenty of opportunities to mutate into troublesome new forms that chip away at the effectiveness of vaccines. The prospect that dangerous new variants will trigger fresh outbreaks—with the accompanying lockdowns, travel restrictions and calls for social distancing and mask-wearing—is a dark cloud over hopes of a return to pre-pandemic normal in 2021 and 2022.

… When Dr. Fauci announced at the end of 2020 that vaccines would be distributed in the spring, he was optimistic that the U.S. would achieve herd immunity—a level of immune resistance in a population that eliminates, or sharply curtails, the virus’ ability to spread—by the fall. “If we do it correctly, we could have 70 percent-to-85-percent of the population vaccinated. When that occurs, there will be an umbrella of protection over the entire country that the level of virus will be so low that you will essentially have been able to establish herd immunity,” Fauci told WebMD in December.

It’s now clear that this is not likely to happen.

… For one thing, children under the age of 12 won’t be eligible because vaccines for them won’t receive emergency-use authorizations from the FDA in time to be administered before the end of the year. And of course, not all adults who are eligible will roll up their sleeves. Surveys suggest that the number of adults who plan to refuse a vaccine remains stubbornly at about 30 percent. IHME’s model assumes that 12-to-15 year-olds will be vaccinated in time with refusal rates of 30 percent, but could be more risk-averse with their children than themselves.

… The worry is what happens when cool weather drives everyone back into crowded rooms, where viral particles tend to collect like cigarette smoke, raising exposure to the virus. That’s why, to keep the amount of virus in circulation at low levels, vaccination levels have to be higher in winter than they in summer—85 percent would be about right, says Mokdad.
“What many people don’t understand is that the herd immunity required to contain a virus like COVID-19 is much lower in summer,” he says. “It requires higher immunization coverage during winter, simply because the virus is circulating [at] much higher [levels]. That’s the biggest problem we’ll face.”

Come winter, pockets of vaccine-hesitant people in the U.S. will still have no immune protection against SARS-CoV-2 (also called SARS2), the virus that causes COVID-19. They could unwittingly serve as a welcome party for variants that originate in the U.S. or abroad, including those that can evade protection that more than 100 million Americans have already acquired through vaccinations. With vaccination programs just getting started in many countries, variants will likely make trouble for many months, perhaps years.

Scientists warn U.S. lawmakers about the continued threat of coronavirus variants. – New York Times

Coronavirus variants will pose a continuing threat to the United States, with the potential to spread quickly and blunt the effectiveness of vaccines, scientists told a House panel on Wednesday.

“We must ensure that the tools we use to detect, treat, and forecast the virus are keeping up with emerging variants,” said Rep. Bill Foster, Democrat of Illinois and the chairman of the House subcommittee that heard the scientists’ testimony.

Last month, the White House announced almost $2 billion in funding for tracking coronavirus variants. The plan calls for large-scale sequencing of virus genomes, as well as research to understand how mutations alter the biology of viruses.

The funding is needed urgently, said Salim S. Abdool Karim, a professor of clinical epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. “Over the coming months, we can reasonably expect new variants to emerge that are able to escape vaccine-induced immunity, because the virus is being put under pressure from wide-scale vaccination,” he said.

The world is not doing enough to track such variants, said Nathan Grubaugh, an epidemiologist at the Yale School of Public Health. “These global and national genomic surveillance gaps severely limit our ability to detect new and emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants, and should be considered as a threat to U.S. public health,” he said.

In addition to sequencing more genomes, scientists said that they needed ways to share their data quickly. That data should include more than just mutations carried by viruses, according to Caitlin Rivers, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. Dr. Rivers said that scientists also needed a way to learn about the health of people after they get infected with variants.

“We must be able to observe how the variant behaves in individuals and populations,” Dr. Rivers said.

For example, when New York researchers connected information about B.1.526, a variant common in the city, with medical records, they found that it does not make people unusually sick with Covid-19.

By monitoring variants, Dr. Rivers said, researchers could offer early warnings about threats to the protection afforded by vaccines. Vaccine developers could then respond by creating formulations tailored to the variants.

The following are foreign headlines with hyperlinks to the posts

The situation in the Seychelles, an island nation that has suffered from a recent surge in COVID-19 cases despite boasting the world’s highest vaccination rate, is going from bad to worse.

A variant first discovered in India may be more contagious than most versions of the coronavirus, the World Health Organization warned Tuesday. Though impacts from vaccines on the triple-mutant virus are unclear, there is some evidence it may able to evade some of the protections provided by vaccines. The WHO also said the variant was probably one of several contributing factors contributing to the crushing surge in India.

Have a visa? Get to the U.S. for a COVID vaccine, a travel agency ad tells Mexicans.

Brazil halted vaccination of pregnant women after the death of a Rio de Janeiro woman-led health officials to warn against using the AstraZeneca vaccine.

Ontario, Canada will stop offering first doses of AstraZeneca’s shots due to increased reports of rare blood clots, provincial officials said.

New research published in BMJ confirmed evidence of blood clotting finding a small risk after receiving one Oxford-AstraZeneca ChAdOx1-S severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) vaccine.

Patients with neurological symptoms associated with COVID-19 are six times more likely to die

French Open giving players one free hour outside the social-distancing bubble

WHO: Indian coronavirus variant found in almost 50 nations

India Tells Citizens 5G Not Cause of COVID-19, Also Country Doesn’t Have 5G

A U.S.-based task force is working to deliver 100,000 oxygen concentrators to India to assist with the country’s latest COVID-19 wave.

US track and field team cancels pre-Olympics training camp in Japan over virus concerns

In Nepal, oxygen cylinders from Mount Everest could soon be used by Covid patients.

Taiwan sees a small outbreak, and its stock market plunges.

Slovakia to offer Russia’s Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine in June

Former Italian PM Berlusconi hospitalized with Covid-related illness

US issues ‘Do Not Travel’ advisory for Nepal

Don’t call B.1.617 the ‘Indian variant,’ says India

The following additional national and state headlines with hyperlinks to the posts

COVID-19 pet boom has veterinarians backlogged, burned out

A federal advisory committee will meet Wednesday to decide whether to recommend Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine for adolescents ages 12 to 15.

At least nine states have announced they will end participation in federal unemployment assistance programs directed at alleviating problems caused by the pandemic.

Pandemic pups: Many adopted in 2020 are being returned

Now, clinical trials in Burkina Faso suggest a promising new weapon may be on the horizon. Just as a COVID-19 vaccine triggers the body’s immune response against the virus, a new malaria vaccine gets the immune system to attack the Plasmodium parasite. The shot is reportedly 77 percent effective in phase two trials, making it the first candidate to cross a critical threshold set by the World Health Organization

Does staying well-hydrated before a COVID-19 vaccination help mitigate any side effects of the jab? Science says no, except for the few extremely dehydrated people.

Oklahoma will get a refund for its unused stockpile of hydroxychloroquine, the state’s attorney general announced.

The Pacific Northwest continues to grapple with a fourth wave of cases that’s filled hospitals in metro Seattle and Portland.

Beaches, schools, camps: with the school year ending soon, health officials race to figure out how to vaccinate younger teens.

GOP Senators Warn of Eroding Trust in CDC

Biden boasts about equitable senior vaccination rate by race without data to back it up

HIV patients are more likely to die from COVID-19 infection

Inexpensive test for rapid detection of COVID-19 with 90% accuracy

mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines are effective against Indian SARS-CoV-2 variant, says study

Adulterants in Street Drugs Tied to Increased COVID Risk

South Carolina Governor Bans Mask Mandates

MGM Resorts casinos allowed to open at 100 percent capacity in Las Vegas

At least five New York Yankees coaches test positive for COVID-19

Experts have invalidated claims that magnets can stick to your arm after receiving a COVID vaccine shot.

Millions of Americans remain unvaccinated because of practical obstacles, not hesitancy.

Many parents are hesitant about the Covid shot, even if they’re not anti-vaccine.

U.S. vaccination pace improves, averaging 2.2 million shots per day

15 US states have fully vaccinated at least half of adult residents, CDC data shows

It’s OK to give Covid-19 vaccine alongside other vaccines, CDC advises

More teens hospitalized for Covid-19 than for flu, CDC says

Biden administration has distributed $2.7 billion of relief funds to 21,000 restaurants across nation

US Secret Service recovers $2 billion in fraudulently obtained Covid-19 relief funds

CDC ensemble forecasts predict decrease in Covid-19 cases and deaths over next 4 weeks

CDC advisers vote to recommend giving Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine to 12- to 15-year-olds

Today’s Posts On Econintersect Showing Impact Of The Pandemic With Hyperlinks

April 2021 CPI: Year-over-Year Inflation Heats Up

Extremely High Dislocation In The Labor Market

Has The Pandemic Changed Cities Forever?

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