Written by Steven Hansen
The U.S. new cases 7-day rolling average are 1.4 % HIGHER than the 7-day rolling average one week ago and U.S. deaths due to coronavirus are now 16.1 % LOWER than the rolling average one week ago. Today’s posts include:
- U.S. Coronavirus New Cases are 13,775
- U.S. Coronavirus deaths are at 287
- People with COVID-19 frequently infect their pets and cats are particularly at risk
- Chasing the cells that predict death from severe COVID-19
- Israel scrambles to curb jump in COVID infections
- People Seek Out mRNA Boosters for J&J Vaccine
- WHO Asks Countries to Approve China’s COVID Vaccine for Emergency Use
- US & UK Travel Restrictions Unlikely To End This Summer
- 1,000 counties in the U.S. have Covid vaccination coverage of less than 30%, CDC says
- COVID Vaccines Put to the Test in Essential Workers
- Plus many more headlines …
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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 and Recovery News You May Have Missed
People Seek Out mRNA Boosters for J&J Vaccine – MedPage
Some experts interpret the evidence in favor of taking an mRNA booster to thwart Delta infection
With increasing concerns about the Delta variant, some people who’ve had the single-dose Johnson & Johnson (J&J) COVID-19 vaccine are taking it upon themselves to get a booster with one of the mRNA vaccines — and a top virologist is among them.
Angela Rasmussen, PhD, of the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, tweeted last week that she got a booster with the Pfizer vaccine, after having the J&J shot in April.
“I think I did the right thing to make sure I am as protected as possible from the Delta variant and thus am protecting others who only have one shot, since Canada right now is rushing to fully vaccinate as many people as possible,” she tweeted.
“Sometimes public health requires making tough decisions without a complete data set to support it,” she added.
Rasmussen isn’t alone in making this recommendation. Seattle-based pulmonary/critical care physician Vin Gupta, MD, tweeted that he’s “seen this advice given multiple times privately: If you received the 1-dose J&J, go and get 1 shot of Pfizer or Moderna as a booster when you’re able. Most I know who got J&J are doing it and are telling others the same — since two seems better than 1 re: delta.”
Israel scrambles to curb jump in COVID infections – AP
Israel, a world leader in coronavirus vaccinations, reported its highest daily infection rate in three months as it scrambles to contain the spread of the new delta variant.
Authorities are racing to vaccinate children and are considering tighter travel restrictions at the country’s main airport.
The Health Ministry on Thursday reported 307 new cases on Wednesday, the highest in nearly three months and a rise from 293 newly-diagnosed cases a day earlier. The health ministry reportedly expects those numbers to jump in coming days, raising concerns that Israel is plunging back toward a crisis.
In recent months, Israel has reopened businesses, schools and event venues, lifting nearly all restrictions after it inoculated some 85% of the adult population. It’s now seen as an early-warning system of sorts for other nations.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Tuesday announced a drive to inoculate thousands of children by mid-month.
Though worrying, the trend still shows little uptick when it comes to deaths from the virus. In the past two weeks, the ministry recorded only one. In Israel, 5.1 million people, among its population of 9.3 million, have received the required double dose of vaccinations. Another 400,000 have received at least one dose.
US & UK Travel Restrictions Unlikely To End This Summer – One Mile At A Time
The United States has a variety of travel bans in place, preventing foreigners who have been in select countries from visiting the United States. Countries impacted by these travel bans including Brazil, China, India, the Schengen zone, and the United Kingdom, among others.
There have been a lot of questions about when reciprocal travel between the United States and United Kingdom will be allowed again, especially with the European Union now opening to Americans. According to the latest update, it sounds like we shouldn’t expect the situation with the United Kingdom to change anytime soon.
We’ve heard in recent weeks that officials from the United States and United Kingdom are in discussions about possibly lifting border restrictions that are currently in place. This would include the United States allowing those from the United Kingdom to visit (currently there’s a blanket ban on this type of travel), and the United States being placed on the United Kingdom’s “green list” (this would allow Americans to visit without quarantining).
The Financial Times suggests that these talks aren’t going very well. According to unnamed sources, the United States isn’t planning on lifting travel restrictions against the United Kingdom anytime soon, and it’s believed that these talks will be extended into August and even September.
The United States is allegedly not planning on lifting travel restrictions against the United Kingdom for two major reasons:
- A spike of the Delta variant in the United Kingdom
- Uncertainty over the status of the AstraZeneca vaccine, especially when it comes to variants
It’s suggested that the United Kingdom is pushing for an agreement much more so than the United States, so in this case it’s the United States preventing anything from changing. Any policy change from the United States is complicated by the number of government organizations that are involved, including the White House, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the State Department, and even the Department of Transportation.
Widespread SARS-CoV-2 mutation escapes vaccine- and infection-induced CD8 T-cell responses – News-Medical
Researchers in the UK have warned that a widespread mutation that has arisen in the spike protein of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) appears to escape recognition by CD8 T-cell responses in both convalescent patients and recipients of the current coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines.
The spike protein mediates the initial stage of the SARS-CoV-2 infection process and is the structure that currently-approved COVID-19 vaccines have been based on.
The spike mutation – P272L – has so far arisen in five different SARS-CoV-2 lineages, including the B.1.177 lineage that was associated with a second pandemic wave in Europe.
Now, a team from Cardiff University, Cardiff University School of Medicine, the University of Oxford, and the COVID-19 Genomics UK consortium have shown that CD8 T-cells from a cohort of convalescent patients that comprised more than 120 different T cell receptors (TCRs) failed to respond to the P272L variant.
Furthermore, sizeable populations of CD8 T-cells from individuals immunized with the currently approved COVID-19 vaccines failed to bind to a P272L reagent.
Andrew Sewell and colleagues say that viral escape at prevalent T-cell epitopes may be particularly problematic when vaccine immunity is focused on a single protein such as the SARS-CoV-2 spike.
The viral escape observed here provides a strong argument for the inclusion of multiple viral proteins in next-generation vaccines and highlights the urgent need for monitoring T-cell escape in new SARS-CoV-2 variants, says the team.
Common cold or Covid? Upper respiratory symptoms are growing more prevalent, docs say – NBC
Doctors are beginning to notice Covid-19 cases that look more like a very bad cold, especially in areas of the country where the highly contagious delta variant is quickly spreading.
While shortness of breath and other lung issues remain among the most worrisome Covid-19 symptoms, it appears upper respiratory complaints — marked by congestion, a runny nose and headache — may be increasing.
“We’ve seen a number of folks with cold-like symptoms,” said Dr. Robert Hopkins Jr., an internist at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock.
The potential shift in symptoms is not to say that the illness should be brushed off as just a cold. Respiratory droplets emitted from coughs and sneezes can infect other, more vulnerable, people. And cases that start off mild can worsen and become more serious.
“Covid can present in different ways,” said Dr. Russell Vinik, chief medical operations officer at the University of Utah Health in Salt Lake City. “If you think you have a cold, you’re infectious, and whether that’s Covid or a cold, you should consider getting a test.”
Vinik has also seen more people coming in with cold-like symptoms. And previously typical Covid-19 symptoms such as loss of taste and smell are not as commonly reported anymore, he said.
Both Hopkins and Vinik said their patients tend to be unvaccinated and skew younger than earlier in the pandemic.
It is not clear why common cold symptoms are increasingly reported in Covid-19 cases, though some experts suspect it could be due to the delta variant, which now accounts for about 20 percent of new cases in the U.S. Arkansas and Utah, where Hopkins and Vinik are respectively based, have some of the highest rates of delta cases in the country, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Indeed, in the United Kingdom, where delta is implicated in more than 95 percent of new cases, researchers say the most common symptoms of Covid-19 are now that of a bad cold: headache, sore throat, runny nose and fever.
People with COVID-19 frequently infect their pets and cats are particularly at risk – News-Medical
Previous studies have shown that cats and dogs can catch coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) from their owners, but new research attempting to understand how and why this occurs shows sleeping with the owner puts pets at risk.
Recent clinical evidence has shown that people with COVID-19 frequently pass it on to their pets. During the onset of the pandemic, concerns were raised on the possibility of COVID-19 transmission between people and their pets. Although this mode of transmission was deemed of limited severity, research has yet to determine the mechanism and outcomes of disease transmission when it occurs.
New research being presented at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID), suggests that infection rates can vary between pets, and that specific activities may increase the risk of infection. Specifically, the event that poses the highest infection risk appears to be when cats sleep on their owner’s bed.
The research conducted by Dorothee Bienzle, a professor of veterinary pathology at the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada, and colleagues, studied the cats and dogs of people who had had COVID-19.
… The results of the antibody test and surveys showed varying results between pets and activities.
Of the pets tested, 67% of household cats and 43% of household dogs tested positive for antibodies, showing they had had COVID-19.
Contrastingly, only 9% of dogs and cats from animal shelters and 3% of stray cats showed antibody responses. This shows that the most likely route of disease transmission is from human to pet, rather than the other way round.
For dogs, 20% showed symptoms during illness including a lack of energy and loss of appetite, with some animals also experiencing coughs and diarrhea. However, all symptoms were mild and animals quickly recovered.
Chasing the cells that predict death from severe COVID-19 – EurekAlert
While vaccines are doing a remarkable job of slowing the COVID-19 pandemic, infected people can still die from severe illness and new medications to treat them have been slow to arise. What kills these patients in the end doesn’t seem to be the virus itself, but an over-reaction of their immune system that leads to massive inflammation and tissue damage.
By studying a type of immune cells called T cells, a team of Gladstone scientists has uncovered fundamental differences between patients who overcome severe COVID-19 and those who succumb to it. The team, working together with researchers from UC San Francisco and Emory University, also found that dying patients harbor relatively large numbers of T cells able to infiltrate the lung, which may contribute to the extensive lung deterioration that is a hallmark of fatal COVID-19.
The findings, published in the scientific journal Cell Reports, could pave the way for new treatments. Currently, patients who are hospitalized for severe COVID-19 mostly receive dexamethasone, a drug used to reduce inflammation.
“Dexamethasone has been a life saver for many patients,” says Gladstone Associate Investigator Nadia Roan, PhD, a senior and corresponding author of the study. “But it is not always sufficient. Our study suggests that it may also be beneficial to directly prevent excess immune cells, including inflammatory T cells, from entering the lung and causing further damage. This approach could be a good complement to anti-inflammatory treatments for COVID-19 patients in the intensive care unit.”
WHO Asks Countries to Approve China’s COVID Vaccine for Emergency Use – Newsweek
The World Health Organization (WHO) asked that all countries recognize any COVID-19 vaccine it has approved for emergency use, including the ones made by China, as borders reopen to vaccinated travelers, the Associated Press reported.
The WHO called for Western countries to accept the vaccines produced by China, saying that refusal to accept them was “undermining confidence in life-saving vaccines that have already been shown to be safe and effective.”
The U.N. health agency has licensed the vaccines made by Sinovac and Sinopharm, which the agency’s reviews said were found to significantly reduce hospitalization and death risks. The other vaccines approved were the shots manufactured by Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson.
Most European and North American countries have not yet accepted the Chinese vaccines.
… The two Chinese shots are “inactivated” vaccines, made with killed coronavirus, whereas the Western-made shots are made with newer technologies that instead target the “spike” protein that coats the surface of the coronavirus.
Although Western countries have largely relied on vaccines made in the U.S. and Europe, such as Pfizer-BioNTech and AstraZeneca, many developing countries have used the Chinese-made shots.
Earlier this year, the head of China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention acknowledged the effectiveness of its home-grown shots was low. Numerous countries that have used millions of doses of the two Chinese shots, including the Seychelles and Bahrain, have seen COVID-19 surges even with relatively high levels of immunization.
1,000 counties in the U.S. have Covid vaccination coverage of less than 30%, CDC says – CNBC
- About 1,000 counties in the United States have vaccination coverage of less than 30%, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said.
- The more transmissible delta variant currently makes up about 25% of sequenced new cases in the U.S.
- In some counties, delta variant rates are as high as 50%.
COVID Vaccines Put to the Test in Essential Workers – MedPage
Real-world study examines vaccine effectiveness, breakthrough infection severity.
COVID-19 vaccination with Pfizer or Moderna mRNA vaccines was effective in essential workers, preventing infection and reducing the severity of breakthrough illness, a real-world study found.
Adjusted vaccine effectiveness was 91% (95% CI 76-97%) for full vaccination (defined as 14 days or more after dose two) and 81% (95% CI 64-90%) for partially vaccinated workers (defined as less than 14 days after dose two), reported Mark Thompson, PhD, of the CDC in Atlanta, and colleagues.
Moreover, risk of febrile illness in partially or fully vaccinated participants with breakthrough illness was 58% lower (OR 0.42, 95% CI 0.18-0.98), and time spent sick in bed was about 2 days shorter compared to their unvaccinated colleagues, they wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine.
They added that while efficacy of the vaccine in preventing symptomatic infection is well known from the clinical trials, there are less data on secondary benefits, such as potential reductions in COVID-19 severity, viral RNA load, and how long viral RNA can be detected.
The HEROES-RECOVER network included healthcare personnel, first responders, and other essential workers in Arizona, Florida, Minnesota, Oregon, Texas, and Utah from December 2020 to April 2021.
The following are foreign headlines with hyperlinks to the posts
China is building more than 100 new missile silos in its western desert, analysts say
Health Canada Adds Heart Inflammation Warning to Pfizer, Moderna COVID-19 Shots
WHO warns European soccer tournament crowds driving increased COVID-19 infections
Boris Johnson Believes U.K. Lockdown Can End in Mid-July
U.S. Misses Goal of 80M COVID Vaccines Sent to Other Countries
African Union Official Slams EU for Delay in Supplying COVID Vaccines
Thousands Line Up for COVID Vaccines in Indonesia During Deadliest Day
Russia Reports new COVID Death Record, Asks Vaccinated to get Booster Shot
CureVac COVID-19 Vaccine Records Only 48% Efficacy in Final Trial Readout
CureVac to ‘plow forward’ with Covid vaccine despite disappointing results
The following additional national and state headlines with hyperlinks to the posts
Supreme Court upholds Arizona voting laws a lower court found were unfair to minorities
Some Young Cancer Survivors Express Hesitancy on COVID Vaccine
The director of the C.D.C. reiterated that vaccinated people usually did not need masks, but she said that areas with low inoculation rates might choose to enact mask mandates.
Will one dose of a two-dose COVID-19 vaccine protect me?
May home sales rebound to highest level since 2005, shocking even the Realtors
Tight Capacity on Shipping Lines Brings Record Rates, Delays
The Looming Stagflationary Debt Crisis – Nouriel Roubini
Lumber prices dive more than 40% in June, biggest monthly drop on record
Britney Spears’ request to remove father as conservator shot down by judge
Historic heat wave in Pacific Northwest has killed hundreds in U.S. and Canada over the past week
Fauci suggested that CDC’s mask guidance for the fully vaccinated is here to stay, even with the more transmissible Delta variant.
Wisconsin health officials reported that 95% of the state’s COVID deaths since March are in the unvaccinated population.
Just 3% of unvaccinated Americans are saying they plan to get a shot as soon as possible, a Kaiser Family Foundation survey found.
Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine demonstrated strong efficacy in a U.K. trial, with analyses showing similar results among circulating variants.
The FDA yanked emergency use authorizations for several respirators and decontamination systems as N95 supply across the U.S. has increased.
If used every 3 days, rapid antigen tests for COVID-19 are about as accurate as RT-PCR testing, a study in the Journal of Infectious Diseases suggested.
COVID-19 vaccines are effective in 94% of cancer patients, shows study
Regardless of Health Status, Men Do Worse With COVID-19
COVID-19 is Receding and Wedding Costs Are Going Through the Roof
Today’s Posts On Econintersect Showing Impact Of The Pandemic and Recovery With Hyperlinks
June 2021 ISM and Markit Manufacturing Surveys Continue To Show Strong Growth
26 June 2021 New York Fed Weekly Economic Index (WEI): Index Declined
May 2021 Headline Construction Spending Marginally Slows
26 June 2021 Initial Unemployment Claims Rolling Average Contiues To Modestly Declines
June 2021 Job Cuts Fall to Lowest Monthly Total Since 2000
The Quant Case For Open-Access COVID Vaccines
July 2021 Economic Forecast – The Economy Continues To Improve
Warning to Readers
The amount of politically biased articles on the internet continues. 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 update daily – sifting through the posts on the internet. I try to avoid politically slanted posts. This daily blog is not an echo chamber for any party line – and will publish controversial topics unless there are clear reasons why the topic is false. And I usually publish conflicting topics. It is my job to provide information so that you have the facts necessary – and then it is up to readers to draw conclusions. It is not my job to sell any point of view.
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.
- Older population countries will have a significantly higher death rate as there is relatively few hospitalizations and deaths in younger age groups..
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 12 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 effectiveness as it counts anyone who came down with a mild case of Covid-19 as a failure.
- 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 remains 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.
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