A cocktail of long-acting antibodies administered intramuscularly as COVID-19 prevention cut the risk of developing symptomatic disease in a high-risk unvaccinated patient population.

Written by Steven Hansen

The U.S. new cases 7-day rolling average are 14.2 % HIGHER than the 7-day rolling average one week ago and U.S. deaths due to coronavirus are now 47.9 % HIGHER than the rolling average one week ago. Today’s posts include:

• U.S. Coronavirus New Cases are 159,787
• U.S. Coronavirus deaths are at 1,734
• WHO to Launch Another COVID Origin Investigation, This Time With an Independent Panel
• World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was perhaps not as soft on China during the pandemic as was previously thought,
• 72% of the two largest insurers in each state and DC (102 health plans) are no longer waiving patient cost sharing for COVID-19 treatment
• 1 in 5 medical researchers reports pressure from funders to change study results
• Risk of household SARS-CoV-2 transmission may be equal among children and adults
• COVID-19 vaccines may trigger superimmunity in people who had SARS long ago
• A COVID-19 medical exemption is a little like having an emotional support python: In the vast majority of cases, it’s unjustifiable, irresponsible, and needlessly dangerous.
• 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

COVID-19 vaccine ‘medical exemptions’ are the new emotional support animals – The Week

A COVID-19 medical exemption is a little like having an emotional support python: In the vast majority of cases, it’s unjustifiable, irresponsible, and needlessly dangerous.

But that hasn’t stopped perhaps millions of Americans from smugly walking around with a metaphorical snake wrapped around their necks. Medical exemptions have increasingly become the à la mode way for anti-vaxxers to deflect judgment and excuse themselves from mandatory vaccination requirements — even when doctors say there is almost never a well-founded reason to not get the safe and effective shot. What’s worse, like those who abuse the emotional support animal system, the people who take a “rules don’t apply to me” approach to the COVID-19 vaccine are actively endangering the members of the community they purport to be a part of.

In recent weeks I’ve steadily encountered friends and family members who claim they haven’t gotten the vaccine yet due to a medical condition. And though I appreciate the disclosure, all science indicates it’s a phony excuse. Even as everything from a weakened immune system to asthma are cited as reasons to not get the vaccine, doctors say those conditions don’t actually make one ineligible.

Art Krieg, an expert in immune disorders, was recently asked by Bloomberg if he could think of any health conditions that would disqualify someone from the COVID-19 shot: “Absolutely not,” was his answer. “[T]here is no health condition where you should not get the vaccine.” William “Andy” Nish, an allergy and immunology specialist, concurred: “[T]he risk of getting COVID-19 is so much higher and so much worse than the risks of getting the vaccine that it’s just not even debatable,” he told The American Journal of Managed Care. “It’s just something that people need to do.” Joel Fishbain, the medical director for infection prevention at Beaumont Hospital Grosse Pointe, further clarified to Detroit’s 7 Action News that “we do recommend avoiding live virus vaccines in people with immune systems that cannot handle it. This is NOT a live virus vaccine. So that exclusion would not apply.”

COVID-19 vaccines may trigger superimmunity in people who had SARS long ago – Science

Almost 20 years before SARS-CoV-2, a related and even more lethal coronavirus sowed panic, killing nearly 10% of the 8000 people who became infected. But the 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) may have left some survivors with a gift. Former SARS patients who have been vaccinated against COVID-19 appear able to fend off all variants of SARS-CoV-2 in circulation, as well as ones that may soon emerge, a new study suggests. Their formidable antibodies may even protect against coronaviruses in other species that have yet to make the jump into humans—and may hold clues to how to make a so-called pancoronavirus vaccine that could forestall future outbreaks.

A team led by emerging disease specialist Linfa Wang from Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore identified eight SARS survivors who recently received two shots of a messenger RNA COVID-19 vaccine. In the test tube, antibodies sieved from their blood potently “neutralized” an early strain of SARS-CoV-2 as well as SARS-CoV, the virus that caused SARS, Wang and colleagues report today in The New England Journal of Medicine. The team further found these neutralizing antibodies worked well against the Alpha, Beta, and Delta variants of SARS-CoV-2 and stymied five related coronaviruses found in bats and pangolins that potentially could infect humans.

This study’s demonstration of broad spectrum immunity against sarbecoviruses—a subset of coronaviruses that includes the causes of SARS and COVID-19—is “amazing and very good news,” says Priyamvada Acharya, a structural biologist at Duke University who works on pancoronavirus vaccine research and was not involved in the new study. “This paper provides a proof of principle that a pansarbecovirus vaccine is possible.” It also marks an important step toward a long-term hope—a vaccine that works against all coronaviruses—several researchers trying to develop this dreamed of protection say.

SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 are about 80% identical, and both initiate infections when their surface protein, spike, binds to the human cellular receptor known as angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2). So Wang was surprised this year when other researchers reported that people who had recovered from SARS retained antibodies that could prevent SARS-CoV from binding to the ACE2 receptor, but didn’t seem to have any power against SARS-CoV-2. “It was always in the back of my mind that the two viruses bind to the same receptor, so why don’t [these people’s antibodies] cross neutralize?” he wondered.

When the WHO director general privately ‘lost patience’ with China – Yahoo

World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was perhaps not as soft on China during the pandemic as was previously thought, according to The Washington Post, per reporting from the upcoming novel Aftershocks: Pandemic Politics and the End of the Old International Order.

The book, written by Thomas Wright and Colin Kahl, details how Ghebreyesus “cautiously praised China in public while pressuring it in private,” and in fact even “lost patience” with the country for attempting to influence COVID-19 origin probes, the Post reports.

When a WHO team in China reportedly twice dismissed the lab leak theory as “extremely unlikely” and “unworthy of further investigation,” Ghebreyesus pushed back on the results, maintaining that the research was not “extensive enough” and lacked “timely and comprehensive data-sharing,” writes the Post, per Wright and Kahl. The investigative team was reportedly “defensive” in their response, and mentioned “pressure from Chinese officials that led to a compromise.”

And since then, relations between the two entities have “nosedived.” When the WHO team’s official findings, released in March, repeated the lab leak theory to be extremely unlikely, Ghebreyesus told China’s envoy in Geneva that he would tell the truth about the report “even if China did not like it,” per Wright and Kahl.

But Ghebreyesus’ soft public posture toward China was at odds with the stance taken by the administration of former President Donald Trump, who Wright claims “undermined” the lab leak theory by “taking it too far.” “That U.S.-China rivalry really shaped everything else,” he said. Read more at The Washington Post.

US Investigates Moderna Jab After Data Show 2.5x Higher Risk Of Heart Inflammation – ZeroHedge

The Internet’s social-media censors have been extremely vigilant at suppressing every tidbit of COVID vaccine “misinformation” that comes their way. So, as readers might imagine, drawing attention to publicly released data about the rare (but sometimes deadly) side effects associated with both mRNA and adenovirus-vector jabs has been…a challenge.

But let’s back up: over the past couple of months, health authorities in the US and Israel connected rare instances of myocarditis – that is, inflammation of the heart – to the mRNA jabs produced by Pfizer and Moderna. After a hurried secret meeting with its advisors in late June, the FDA reluctantly released a warning about a “likely association” between incidences of myocarditis and the new side effects.

And now, a new twist: On Thursday evening, the Washington Post published a report claiming that the Moderna coronavirus vaccine may be associated with a higher risk of myocarditis in younger adults than previously believed. The report relies on new data from a Canadian study that has yet to be released.

How much more dangerous is the Moderna jab than the Pfizer? Well, the preliminary data leaked to WaPo show the risk of myocarditis might be as much as 2.5x higher for the Moderna jab.

The news represents the latest bump in the road for Moderna’s high-flying stock, as patients (especially younger men in their 20s and 30s deemed at highest risk to suffer the side effect) now have an incentive to prefer Pfizer’s jab over Moderna’s (if they still have any confidence in the mRNA jabs at all, that is).

WaPo’s sources stressed that the new research hasn’t yet been concluded, and that there’s still plenty of work to be done before the FDA decides whether to attach another warning label to the Moderna jabs. The sources also claimed that the new data “are not slam bang”.

The investigation, which involves the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is focusing on Canadian data that suggests the Moderna vaccine may carry a higher risk for young people than the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, especially for males below the age of 30 or so. The authorities also are scrutinizing data from the United States to try to determine whether there is evidence of an increased risk from Moderna in the U.S. population.

The two people who described the investigation spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing review because they were not authorized to discuss it.

One of the people familiar with the review emphasized it is too early to reach a conclusion. The person said the agencies must do additional work before deciding whether to issue any kind of new or revised warning or recommendation about the situation. In June, the FDA added a warning label for the Pfizer and Moderna shots — both known as mRNA vaccines — about increased risk of myocarditis.

“We have not come to a conclusion on this,” one of the people familiar with the investigation said. “The data are not slam bang.”

The FDA and CDC both said they’re looking into the data. To be sure, WaPo notes that the side effects remain “extremely rare” – or at least “very uncommon.” Probably…

The myocarditis side effect is extremely rare and even if it is more likely in people receiving the Moderna vaccine, it probably is still very uncommon. Officials want to be careful not to cause alarm among the public, especially when officials are trying to persuade more people to be vaccinated amid a surge of cases fueled by the fast-moving delta variant.

[editor’s note: U.S. health officials are investigating whether Moderna’s COVID shot may be associated with a higher risk for myocarditis in younger adults than previously thought. ]

Most private insurers are no longer waiving cost-sharing for COVID-19 treatment – Health System Tracker

Federal law requires all private insurance plans to cover the entire cost associated with approved COVID-19 testing so long as the test is deemed medically appropriate. Additionally, the U.S. government pre-paid for COVID-19 vaccines and required COVID-19 vaccines be made available at no out-of-pocket costs regardless of whether the vaccine recipient is insured. However, while a handful of states required or created agreements with insurers to waive COVID-19 out-of-pocket treatment costs for their fully-insured plan enrollees, there is no federal mandate requiring insurers to do so.

Earlier in the pandemic, we found that the vast majority (88%) of people enrolled in fully-insured private health plans nonetheless would have had their out-of-pocket costs waived if they were hospitalized with COVID-19. At the time, health insurers were highly profitable due to lower-than-expected health care use, while hospitals and health care workers were overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients. Insurers may have also wanted to be sympathetic toward COVID-19 patients, and some may have also feared the possibility of a federal mandate to provide care free-of-charge to COVID-19 patients, so they voluntarily waived these costs for at least some period of time during the pandemic. Our subsequent analysis found that several of these insurers were starting to phase out COVID-19 cost-sharing waivers by November 2020.

In the last few months, the environment has shifted with safe and highly effective vaccines now widely available. In this brief, we once again review how many private insurers are continuing to waive patient cost sharing for COVID-19 treatment. We find that 72% of the two largest insurers in each state and DC (102 health plans) are no longer waiving these costs, and another 10% of plans are phasing out waivers by the end of October.

Across the two largest health plans in each state and D.C. (102 plans), 73 plans (72% of 102 plans) are no longer waiving out-of-pocket costs for COVID-19 treatment. Almost half these plans (50 plans) ended cost-sharing waivers by April 2021, which is around the time most states were opening vaccinations to all adults. Of the 29 plans still waiving cost-sharing for COVID-19 treatment, 10 waivers are set to expire by the end of October. This includes waivers that tie to the end of the federal Public Health Emergency, which is currently set to expire on October 17, 2021, though may be extended. Another 12 plans state that their cost-sharing waivers will expire by the end of 2021. Two plans specified end dates for COVID-19 treatment waivers in 2022 and 5 plans did not specify an expiration date.

All of the 102 plans we reviewed (two largest plans in each state) had waived cost-sharing for COVID-19 treatment at some point since 2020. (These health plans represent 62% of enrollment across the fully insured individual and group markets).

Survey: 1 in 5 medical researchers reports pressure from funders to change study results – UPI

Nearly one in five public health researchers feels pressured by study funders to delay publication of, or change, findings, a survey published Wednesday by PLOS One found.

In the small survey of 104 researchers in fields such as nutrition, sexual health, physical activity and substance use, 18% of respondents said that they had, on at least one occasion, felt pressured by funders, the data showed.

The affected studies were published between 2007 and 2017, the researchers said.

Because of what the researchers describe as a history of interference from industry funders, such as drug companies in public health research, they expected those leading industry-funded studies to report the most attempted influence, they said.

“But we didn’t find any instances of that,” study co-author Sam McCrabb said in a press release.

Instead, more respondents reported receiving pressure from government funders seeking to influence research findings than from industry, non-profit funders or public funders, said McCrabb, a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Newcastle in Australia.

Given the costs associated with medical research, efforts by funders to influence study findings have long been a concern.

In a 2007 survey, for example, 21% of respondents said that funders attempted to suppress their research findings, while 66% indicated that financial supporters attempted to change results or delay publication.

Meanwhile, a study published last year found that journals that allowed companies to pay to reprint articles that describe research on their products for marketing purposes were more likely to be biased.

For this study, McCrabb and her colleagues surveyed 104 researchers in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

AstraZeneca Says Antibody Combo Can Prevent COVID. – MedPage

A cocktail of long-acting antibodies administered intramuscularly as COVID-19 prevention cut the risk of developing symptomatic disease in a high-risk unvaccinated patient population, AstraZeneca announced on Friday.

In top-line data from a phase III trial, AZD7442 (tixagevimab and cilgavimab) as pre-exposure prophylaxis significantly reduced the risk of developing COVID-19 symptoms by 77% (95% CI 46%-90%) versus placebo, meeting the trial’s primary endpoint.

Moreover, AstraZeneca noted there were no cases of severe COVID-19 or COVID-19-related deaths in the intervention group compared to three cases of severe COVID-19 and two deaths in the placebo group.

There were no safety concerns, as the treatment was well-tolerated and adverse events were balanced between groups, the manufacturer said.

Importantly, 75% of the trial population had comorbidities, including being “at risk of an inadequate response to active [immunization],” such as older adults and those with immunosuppressive disease or on immunosuppressive medication.

“With these exciting results, AZD7442 could be an important tool in our arsenal to help people who may need more than a vaccine to return to their normal lives,” the trial’s principal investigator, Myron Levin, MD, of the University of Colorado School of Medicine, said in a statement.

AZD7442 was derived from the B cells of convalescent patients. PROVENT was a phase III randomized trial conducted at 87 sites in the U.S., U.K., Spain, France, and Belgium. Participants were adults “who would benefit from prevention” with the long-acting antibody, were unvaccinated at the time of enrollment, and were negative for SARS-CoV-2 via serology testing.

Risk of household SARS-CoV-2 transmission may be equal among children and adults, says study – News-Medical

A team of scientists in the United States recently estimated the risk of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) transmission from primary cases to household contacts.

By stratifying the transmission risk by age, they have observed that both children and adults are equally susceptible to acquire SARS-CoV-2 infection and can transmit the virus to their family members. The study is currently available on the medRxiv* preprint server.

WHO to Launch Another COVID Origin Investigation, This Time With an Independent Panel – Newsweek

The World Health Organization (WHO) is launching its second investigation into the origins of COVID-19, this time with a new independent advisory group, the Associated Press reported.

The panel will focus on advising the U.N. agency on the “origins of emerging and re-emerging pathogens of epidemic and pandemic potential,” such as MERS-CoV, Ebola and avian influenza, according to a statement released Friday. It will also help analyze the WHO’s past work in investigating COVID origins and counsel the organization as it begins its new probe.

“This is critical to helping WHO, member states and partner institutions to prepare for future spillover threats and to minimize the risk of a disease outbreak growing into a pandemic,” the statement said.

The statement announced an open call for “a wide range of experts” to join the panel, officially titled WHO Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO). Applications are due by September 10, and up to 25 experts could be chosen to serve on SAGO, the statement said.

In March, a WHO-led team of international experts issued a preliminary report that deemed it “extremely unlikely ” that the origins of COVID-19 were linked to a laboratory. Although scientists think it’s most probable that the virus jumped to humans from animals, the theory that a laboratory was involved has gained traction in recent months, with an intelligence review ordered by U.S. President Joe Biden to examine the possibility.

Critics have slammed the WHO’s initial assessment, saying it was a flawed effort and noting that all of the team members sent to China needed Chinese government approval, as did the WHO report.

WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus acknowledged last month it was “premature ” to rule out the lab leak theory, describing lab accidents as “common.”

The following are foreign headlines with hyperlinks to the posts

Martial arts star Sonny Chiba, who demonstrated his skills in graphic fashion in “Kill Bill” and other movies, has died of COVID-19.

US struggles to speed Kabul airlift despite Taliban, chaos

US Black Hawk Helicopters Captured by Taliban as ‘Horrified’ Senators Demand DOD Audit

Protests against the Taliban spread to several Afghan cities, including Kabul. Taliban fighters used gunfire and beatings to disperse crowds.

As many as 6,000 people were on standby to be flown out of Kabul’s airport last night and this morning, after a dayslong pause in the processing of visas. Since Saturday, the U.S. military has evacuated about 7,000 people.

Taliban ‘Carrying Out Door-to-Door Manhunt’: Intelligence Group

Oxygen plant among earthquake-damaged buildings in Haiti

As quickly as one COVID patient is discharged, another waits for a bed in northeast Florida, the hot zone of the state’s latest surge.

Millions of Africans are at risk of contracting COVID-19 due to lack of public health tools

US extending travel restrictions with Mexico, Canada

Sydney’s lockdown is extended for another month.

Traveling to Hong Kong in the pandemic is hard. The government just made it harder.

U.S. sees an opening in Asia as Chinese vaccines stumble.

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

NYC Restaurateurs: It’s Not Our Job to Enforce Vaccine Mandates

US intermodal congestion derailing peak season imports. US rail regulators are warning railroads that the industry could end up re-regulated if it doesn’t move to stem inland rail congestion and skyrocketing rates.

Calif. Medical Board: Stop Issuing Bogus Mask Exemptions to Students

61% of Americans paid no federal income taxes in 2020, Tax Policy Center says

Who’s In Charge? Most Voters Don’t Think It’s Biden. A majority of voters don’t think President Joe Biden is mentally and physically capable of doing his job, and suspect the White House is actually being run by others.

A look inside the laboratory that started all the talk about vaccine boosters.

Tobacco giant Philip Morris has begun moving toward a buyout of Vectura, a company focused on treatment of lung diseases.

President Biden has apparently ruled out Janet Woodcock, MD, as permanent chief of the FDA, she can stay on as acting commissioner until at least mid-November.

CDC data show that 70% of vaccine-eligible Americans have now received at least one dose.

The Texas Supreme Court upheld on a technicality a temporary restraining order that allows school districts to ignore Gov. Greg Abbott’s ban on mask mandates.

As remote work drags on, here are all the ways your employer can monitor your activity

As delta variant spreads, some companies with vaccine mandates deploy tech to verify records

A systematic review of in vitro studies evaluating the efficacy of mouth rinses on SARS-CoV-2

SARS-CoV-2 mutations alter dynamics of neutralizing antibodies. A new study describes how monoclonal antibodies raised against SARS-CoV-2 are affected by mutations in the antibody binding site.

‘We sent a terrible message’: Scientists say Biden jumped the gun with vaccine booster plan. The Biden administration’s plans to make covid-19 booster shots available next month has drawn a collective scream of protest from the scientific community.

One-Quarter of Americans Oppose COVID Vaccine Mandate to Fly, Attend Events. A majority of Americans support requiring inoculation for people going to bars or restaurants, according to the poll.

Florida Accounting for 1 of Every 5 Hospitalized COVID Patients in U.S. “Jacksonville is kind of the epicenter of this. They had one of the lowest vaccination rates going into July,” said Justin Senior, CEO of the Florida Safety Net Hospital Alliance.

COVID Cases Rise in Georgia School District Despite Child Mask Mandate. The numbers remain low, say Gwinnett County School District administrators, as about 0.5 percent, or 947 students, have been impacted by COVID-19 so far.

Boston joins a growing list of cities to require masks indoors.

New York City imposes vaccine mandate for many high school athletes and coaches.

Washington state Covid transmissions and hospitalizations hit all-time high

Apple delays return to office until January as Covid cases surge

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

13 August 2021 ECRI’s WLI Growth Rate Decline Continues

Covid Politics And Fatigue Work Against Contact-Tracing Foot Soldiers

Why I No Longer Think We Can Eliminate COVID – Public Health Expert

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