Tag: Vaccines

Ron DeSantis Takes His Authoritarian Ambitions to the Next Level

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As you’ve probably heard by now, Florida governor Ron DeSantis is a bad man who should not be allowed to make decisions that affect people’s lives. What evidence do we have to back that statement up? Well there’s his bigoted “Don’t Say Gay” law. His absurd crusade to prevent schools and businesses from talking about racism. His bullying of anyone who disagrees with him. The fact that he thinks it’s fine to treat immigrants like chattel. The list, quite obviously, goes on and on and also includes the fact that he demonizes public health safety measures to score political points and just today announced his intention to criminalize what he alleges is the nefarious pushing of COVID-19 vaccines.

Yes, on Tuesday, the governor of Florida, who is seen as Donald Trump’s biggest competition for the 2024 GOP nomination should he choose to run, said during a press conference that he has petitioned his state’s Supreme Court to convene a grand jury to “crimes and wrongdoing” related to the life-saving shots. What kind of “crimes and wrongdoing” does DeSantis want investigated? While he offered no specifics live, his petition suggests he believes that anyone who recommended people receive the lifesaving vaccine—for example, the CDC and Joe Biden—must have been financially compensated to do so. Sayeth Ron:

“The federal government, medical associations, and other experts have created an expectation that receiving a COVID-19 vaccine is an ethical or civic duty and that choosing not to get vaccinated against COVID-19 is selfish and harmful to others…. It is impossible to imagine that so many influential individuals came to this view on their own. Rather, it is likely that individuals and companies with an incentive to do so created these perceptions for financial gain.

The grand jury announcement was made following a roundtable with Florida surgeon general Joseph Ladapo, who among other things, has recommended that healthy children not get vaccinated against COVID-19, despite the CDC and American Academy of Pediatrics advising they do so; promoted hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin as effective treatments for the virus; refused to wear a mask while meeting with a state senator who had been diagnosed with breast cancer and was about to start radiation; and his former supervisor at UCLA claimed his opinions on COVID-19 violated the Hippocratic oath to do no harm.

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“Our CDC, at this point, anything they put out, you just assume, at this point, that it’s not worth the paper that it’s printed on. It’s not serving a useful function. It’s really serving to advance narratives,” DeSantis said at the roundtable. He also suggested parallels could be drawn between the recommendation by health professionals and leaders to get vaccinated against COVID-19 and the pushing of opioids by drug companies, noting that Florida recently “got $3.2 billion through legal action against those responsible for the opioid crisis. So, it’s not like this is something that’s unprecedented.” (Note: Opioids kill tens of thousands of people in the US per year while COVID-19 vaccines…do not.) And, as conservatives are now contractually obligated to do, he threw in some half-baked conspiracies about Big Tech, accusing it of punishing “scientific dissenters” who questioned mandates and lockdowns. “Your policies or your positions or your analysis of this medical science should stand on its own, and if it’s not able to accept criticism, if you can’t defend the policy against valid criticism, then maybe you need to be looking in the mirror, but that’s not what these elites wanted to do,” he said.

While some people cynically believe that the highly educated DeSantis does not actually think vaccines are bad, and that he’s only taking this position to appeal to the anti-vax crowd, people close to him insist that is truly not the case, and that the governor is actually this stupid. “This isn’t about 2024. This is about what DeSantis believes in,” one Republican told NBC News.

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Bess Levin

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December 13, 2022
COVID Vaccines Saved More Than 3 Million U.S. Lives Since 2020

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Dec. 13, 2022 – COVID-19 vaccinations prevented 3.2 million deaths and 18.5 million hospitalizations in the United States from December 2020 through November 2022, according to a new report Tuesday from the Commonwealth Fund and Yale School of Public Health.

The report, developed from computer modeling, comes as the U.S. approaches the second anniversary of the administration of the first COVID vaccine in the country to nurse Sandra Lindsay on Dec. 14, 2020.

Cost savings from those averted medical expenses add up to $1.15 trillion in savings to the U.S. health system, according to the report by a team led by Meagan C. Fitzpatrick, PhD, with the Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health at University of Maryland in Baltimore.

“Without vaccination, there would have been nearly 120 million more COVID-19 infections,” the authors write.

In the 2 years, the U.S. has administered more than 655 million doses, and 80% of the population has received at least one dose, according to the report.

Fewer Cases, Hospitalizations, and Deaths

Since Dec. 12, 2020, 82 million infections, 4.8 million hospitalizations, and 798,000 deaths from COVID-19 have been reported in the U.S., according to study data.

Without vaccination, the U.S. would have had 1.5 times more infections, 3.8 times more hospitalizations, and 4.1 times more deaths, the modeling indicates.

All Variants Accounted For

The research took into account patterns of five variants, each of which have accounted for at least 3% of cases in the U.S., including Iota, Alpha, Gamma, Delta, and Omicron, in addition to the original SARS-CoV-2 strain.

“We evaluated the impact of vaccine rollout by simulating the pandemic trajectory under the counterfactual scenario without vaccination,” the authors write.

“This report highlights the basic and important fact that vaccines save lives,” says Syra Madad, DHSc, senior director of the System-wide Special Pathogens Program at NYC Health and Hospitals.

She says this study, and a study last month in JAMANetwork Open looking at New York City’s COVID-19 vaccine campaign and its return on investment, show the campaigns “reduce the number of infections and death rates, decrease hospitalization rates, avert health care costs, and provide broader economic benefit such as maintaining a healthier and more productive workforce.”

The New York report last month found that every $1 invested in vaccination yielded estimated savings of $10.19 in direct and indirect costs that would have been incurred without the vaccine.

Timothy Brewer, MD, a professor of medicine and epidemiology at UCLA, says the ranges for the estimates of savings are fairly tight, which makes them more reliable.

He says the projections are in line with recent findings of second boosters’ continued high protection against hospitalizations and deaths (compared with first boosters) in a CDC study of more than 9,500 nursing home residents.

“I think they are likely to be very reasonable numbers,” Brewer says.

He says it’s important to keep the vaccines’ measure of success focused on how many hospitalizations and deaths they prevent, the main goal of vaccines, and not on breakthrough infections.

Numbers May Underestimate Savings

Co-author Alison Galvani, PhD, founding director of the Yale Center for Infectious Disease Modeling and Analysis, says the model looks only at acute infection and may underestimate the total benefit.

Fewer infections, she noted, also mean fewer cases and accompanying costs of long COVID, for instance.

Galvani said though this study was done in the U.S., the savings and prevention of infections may inspire other countries struggling with vaccine coverage efforts and to organizations that distribute vaccines to less-resourced countries.

William Schaffner, MD, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, says “the numbers are impressive in their size.”

“This is a report back to the American people,” he says, “saying, ‘We asked you to invest in this, and you did through your tax money. You know, the vaccines really work. Many of your family members, your neighbors, your friends are with you today, able to celebrate the holidays, because they were vaccinated.’”

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December 13, 2022
Surge in respiratory virus cases push hospitals to the limit

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Surge in respiratory virus cases push hospitals to the limit – CBS News

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Hospitals across the U.S. are seeing an influx of patients due to a “tripledemic” of flu, Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) and COVID-19 cases. Danya Bacchus has the details.

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December 10, 2022
CDC urges masking in NYC and Los Angeles as COVID-19 cases surge

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CDC urges masking in NYC and Los Angeles as COVID-19 cases surge – CBS News

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is urging people in New York City, Los Angeles and other communities to mask up as COVID-19 cases surge amid a spike in other respiratory viruses. Elise Preston has more.

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December 9, 2022
Omicron subvariants are now dominant in the U.S. as COVID cases tick up and New York City becomes a hot spot

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Omicron subvariants continued to account for more new cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. in the latest week than did BA.5, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

BQ.1 and BQ.1.1, which are sublineages of BA.5, accounted for 67.9% of cases in the week through Dec. 10, while BA.5 accounted for 11.5%, the data show.

Last week, BQ.1.1 and BQ.1 accounted for 62.8% of all cases in the U.S., while BA.5 accounted for 13.8%.

In the New York region, which includes New Jersey, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, the numbers were even higher, with BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 accounting for 73.3% of new cases, compared with 10% for BA.5.

In the previous week, BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 accounted for 72.4% of all cases, compared with 6.9% for BA.5.

New York City is again emerging as a hot spot for COVID, according to a New York Times tracker, which shows cases up about 60% in recent weeks and hospitalizations at their highest level since February.

The test-positivity rate in New York City stood at 13% on Thursday, the tracker shows.

Overall, known U.S. cases are up 53% from two weeks ago. The daily average for hospitalizations is up 30% at 37,066, while the daily average for deaths is up 35% to 460.

For now, the numbers remain far below the peaks seen last winter, when omicron first hit, but with flu and other respiratory infections currently sweeping the country and affecting young children, experts are warning people to take precautions.

Coronavirus Update: MarketWatch’s daily roundup has been curating and reporting all the latest developments every weekday since the coronavirus pandemic began

Other COVID-19 news you should know about:

• A rash of COVID-19 cases in schools and businesses was reported by social-media users Friday in areas across China. This comes after the ruling Communist Party loosened its antivirus rules as it tries to reverse a deepening economic slump, the Associated Press reported. Official data showed a fall in new cases, but after the government on Wednesday ended mandatory testing for many people, those data no longer cover large parts of the population. That was among the dramatic changes aimed at gradually emerging from the zero-COVID restrictions that have confined millions of people to their homes and sparked protests and demands for President Xi Jinping to resign.

• U.S.-listed shares of China Jo-Jo Drugstores Inc.
CJJD,
+51.20%
rallied on Friday as the stores filled with customers buying cold medicines after COVID restrictions were eased, MarketWatch’s Jaimy Lee reported. The stock was up 22%. The company, which is based in Hangzhou, China, operates drugstores and an online pharmacy in China. It is also a wholesale distributor of pharmacy products and grows and sells herbs used in traditional Chinese medicine.

Some movie theaters in China reopened and COVID-testing booths were dismantled ahead of an announcement by authorities on Wednesday that will scrap most testing and quarantine requirements. The changes come after nationwide protests against Beijing’s zero-COVID policy. Photo: Ng Han Guan/Associated Press

• Pfizer
PFE,
-0.12%
and German partner BioNTech
BNTX,
-0.88%
have received fast-track designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for a single-dose mRNA-based vaccine candidate targeting both COVID and flu. The companies have already announced that they are in early-stage trials to review the safety and immunogenicity of their combined vaccine in healthy adults. The vaccine will target the BA.4 and BA.5 omicron sublineages, which have become dominant globally, as well as four different flu strains recommended for use in the Northern Hemisphere by the World Health Organization. If approved, the vaccine would be the first to target both COVID and flu.

• A bill to rescind the COVID vaccine mandate for members of the U.S. military and to provide nearly $858 billion for national defense was passed by the House on Thursday as lawmakers scratch one of the final items off their yearly to-do list, the AP reported. The bill provides about $45 billion more for defense programs than President Joe Biden requested, the second consecutive year Congress has significantly exceeded his request, as lawmakers seek to boost the nation’s military competitiveness with China and Russia. The bill is expected to easily pass the Senate and then be signed into law by Biden.

Here’s what the numbers say:

The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 648 million on Friday, while the death toll rose above 6.65 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.

The U.S. leads the world with 99.4 million cases and 1,084,236 fatalities.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 228.6 million people living in the U.S., equal to 68.9% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots.

So far, just 42 million Americans have had the updated COVID booster that targets the original virus and the omicron variants, equal to 13.5% of the overall population.

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December 9, 2022
LJI scientists confirm smallpox vaccine also teaches T cells to fight mpox

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Newswise — LA JOLLA, CA—There’s even more reason to think a vaccine developed against smallpox can help the body fight against mpox (monkeypox virus disease) as well, according to researchers at La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI). Their new study, published in Cell Host & Microbe, is the first to provide evidence that the vaccinia vaccine MVA-BN (brand name JYNNEOS) should also train virus-fighting T cells to recognize mpox sequences.

“This study gives us confidence that T cell response induced by the JYNNEOS vaccine should be able to also recognize mpox virus,” says LJI Professor Alessandro Sette, Dr.Biol.Sci., who co-led the new study with LJI Instructor Alba Grifoni, Ph.D.

The study comes as more than 100 countries reported unprecedented mpox outbreaks. In the United States, there have been more than 28,000 reported cases and 11 deaths attributed to mpox since May 2022.

Why we need mpox vaccine data

Although the JYNNEOS vaccine, based on a non-live attenuated orthopox virus called modified vaccine ankara (MVA), is approved to prevent mpox infection and severe disease, researchers don’t yet have clinical efficacy data from human trials. Still, researchers know that mpox virus is similar enough to other orthopoxviruses that immunization against an orthopoxvirus called vaccinia (VACV) can also train the immune system to fight mpox.

Mpox (termed “monkeypox” until recently) is a member of the orthopox family of viruses. The deadliest, of course, was variola virus,causing the disease known as smallpox. Smallpox was eradicated worldwide in 1980 thanks to a massive and successful vaccination campaign to administer the Dryvax vaccine, based on VACV.

VACV and variola virus have a lot of immune system targets (called antigens), in common. This means training the body to recognize VACV also taught immune cells to recognize variola virus. But there was a downside—Dryvax (and a newer version called Acambis 2000) had harmful side effects, especially in immunocompromised people.

JYNNEOS was designed to have a better safety profile. While the vaccine performed well in pre-clinical tests, the eradication of smallpox meant scientists couldn’t see how JYNNEOS performed in human patients in real-world infection scenarios, such as a smallpox outbreak or possible case of smallpox-based biological warfare (a concern in the early days of the Iraq War).

How a smallpox vaccine protects against mpox

For the new study, the LJI team set out to study if the viral proteins known to be targeted by T cells induced by VACV vaccination, would also be conserved in JYNNEOS and in mpox. As Grifoni explains, while antibodies are key for vaccine efficacy and preventing reinfections, T cells are essential for both preventing severe infections and “remembering” past infections.

“By recognizing infected cells, T cells are able to limit how much viruses can spread inside the body modulate disease severity, and ultimately terminate the infection” says Grifoni. “T cell responses also tend to be long lasting, and resilient to viral mutations to escape immune recognition. What we have seen in the context of SARS-CoV-2 is that even if the virus mutates somewhat, T cells reactivity is still largely preserved.”

The researchers demonstrated that the known targets of T cell responses seen in the VACV proven -efficacy vaccine, are also found in JYNNEOS and mpox, suggesting that the JYNNEOS vaccine can indeed trigger an effective T cell response against mpox infection. The initial test of their hypothesis was based on developing viral peptide “megapools,” or reagents designed to detect T cell reactivity to mpox antigens. The experiments further showed that these megapools can be used to accurately detect specific T cells.

“Vaccines such as JYNNEOS should be able to induce T cells that also recognize mpox and can provide protection from severe disease,” says Grifoni.

Could the vaccine work in immunocompromised patients?

“The majority of mpox cases have been in men who have sex with men,” Sette explains. “In that community, a significant fraction of the people that have been infected with mpox also happened to be HIV-positive. So it is important to learn how people who are HIV-positive respond to infection and vaccination compared to HIV-negative individuals. The present study enables future study to establish this key point”

Sette emphasizes that most HIV-positive individuals are not necessarily at greater risk of mpox infection or severe disease. “We do not expect that HIV-positive individuals will respond differently to infection and vaccination, because in most cases, people who live with HIV live with a controlled HIV because of the available therapies,” he says. “Nevertheless, it’s important to provide these data to the community affected by this outbreak and to the general scientific community.”

Whether the JYNNEOS vaccine sparks a similar immune response in people with and without HIV—and the role of T cells—will have to be determined in future studies. “We also expect to see no difference in the duration of protection between HIV positive and HIV negative individuals, but that still all needs to be proven and evaluated experimentally. We are actively engaging the community most affected by the outbreak and the scientific community at large ” says Sette.

Next steps for the LJI team

The researchers are now working to characterize the T cell response to mpox in more detail. They are especially interested in how T cell responses differ after vaccination versus natural infection. Sette and Grifoni would also like to compare T cell responses following JYNNEOS vaccination with the older Dryvax vaccination.

Just as they’ve done throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Sette and his colleagues hope to share their reagents freely to and spur more life-saving studies around the globe. “We want to make these reagents widely available to whoever asks,” says Sette.

Additional authors of the study, “Defining antigen targets to dissect vaccinia virus (VACV) and Monkeypox virus (MPXV)-specific T cell responses in humans,” include Yun Zhang, Alison Tarke, John Sidney, Paul Rubiro, Maria Reina-Campos, Gilberto Filaci, Jennifer Dan, and Richard H. Scheuermann.

This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (Contract No. 75N93019C00001, 75N9301900065, and HHS75N93019C00076) and through a Ph.D. student fellowship from the Clinical and Experimental Immunology Course at the University of Genoa, Italy, and with support from other private foundations.

DOI: 10.1016/j.chom.2022.11.003

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La Jolla Institute for Immunology

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December 6, 2022
Have Long COVID? Newest Booster Vaccines May Help You

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SOURCES:

Jackie Dishner, Phoenix.

Ziyad Al-Aly, MD, director, Clinical Epidemiology Center, Washington University, St. Louis; chief of Research and Development Service, Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System.

Nature Medicine: “Acute and postacute sequelae associated with SARS-CoV-2 reinfection.”

The Lancet eClinical Medicine: “Impact of COVID-19 vaccination on the risk of developing long-COVID and on existing long-COVID symptoms: A systematic review.”

The British Medical Journal: “Trajectory of long covid symptoms after covid-19 vaccination: community based cohort study.”

Stephen J. Thomas, MD, director, Institute for Global Health and Translational Science, Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, NY.

Cell Death & Differentiation, “Long Covid: where we stand and challenges ahead.”

Scott Roberts, MD, associate medical director, infection prevention, Yale New Haven Hospital, New Haven, CT.

Yale School of Medicine Iwasaki Lab: “Immunology of long COVID.”

FDA: “Covid-19 Bivalent Vaccine Boosters.”

CDC: “Stay Up to Date with COVID-19 Vaccines Including Boosters,” “COVID Data Tracker, COVID in Your Community,” “COVID Data Tracker, COVID-19 Vaccinations in the United States.”

The New England Journal of Medicine: “A Bivalent Omicron-Containing Booster Vaccine against Covid-19.”

bioRxiv: “Improved Neutralization of Omicron BA.4/5, BA.4.6, BA.2.75.2, BQ.1.1, and XBB.1 with Bivalent BA.4/5 Vaccine.”

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December 5, 2022
Have Long COVID? Newest Booster Vaccines May Help You

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Have Long COVID? Newest Booster Vaccines May Help You

By
Debby Waldman
WebMD Health News

Dec. 5, 2022 – Jackie Dishner hasn’t been the same since June 2020, when COVID-19 robbed her of her energy level, ability to think clearly, and sense of taste and smell. Yet at 58, the Arizona writer is in no hurry to get the latest vaccine booster. “I just don’t want to risk getting any sicker,” she says.

Dishner has had two doses of vaccine plus two boosters. Each time, she had what regulators consider to be mild reactions, including a sore arm, slight fever, nausea, and body aches. Still, there’s some evidence that the newest booster, which protects against some of the later variants, could help people like Dishner in several ways, says Ziyad Al-Aly, MD, a clinical epidemiologist and prolific long COVID researcher at Washington University in St. Louis.

“A bivalent booster might actually [help with] your long COVID,” he says.

There may be other benefits. “What vaccines or current vaccine boosters do is reduce your risk of progression to severe COVID-19 illness,” Al-Aly says. “You are avoiding hospital stays or even worse; you’re avoiding potentially fatal outcomes after infection. And that’s really worth it. Who wants to be in the hospital this Christmas holiday?”

<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-conversation=”none”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>I agree that it%u2019s not being taken seriously enough and hasn%u2019t since day 1. I still wear my mask. Just got the bivalent booster a few days ago. Have you tried the booster? I%u2019ve heard the vaccine can help with long Covid. How%u2019s that going btw? Hope you are starting to feel better!</p>— Mike (@FactsDoMatter4) <a href=”https://twitter.com/FactsDoMatter4/status/1572219073412599808?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>September 20, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>

Each time people are infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, they have a fresh risk of not only getting severely ill or dying, but of developing long COVID, Al-Aly and colleagues found in a study published in the journal Nature Medicine in November. “If you dodged the bullet the first time and did not get long COVID after the first infection, if you get reinfected, you’re trying your luck again,” Al-Aly says. “I would advise people not to get reinfected, which is another reason to get the booster.”

In a recent review in the journal The Lancet e-Clinical Medicine, an international team of researchers looked at 11 studies that sought to find out if vaccines affected long COVID symptoms. Seven of those studies found that people’s symptoms improved after they were vaccinated, and four found that symptoms mostly remained the same. One found symptoms got worse in some patients.

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December 5, 2022
Flu shots are recommended for those 65 and older as cases rise

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Newswise — DALLAS – Nov. 30, 2022 – With flu cases on the rise, geriatric specialists at UT Southwestern Medical Center say vaccinations are particularly important this year for people 65 and older who are more at risk from complications than other age groups.

As we age, our immune system changes, making us more susceptible to infections like influenza. Older adults make up 70%-85% of seasonal flu-related deaths in the United States and account for 50%-70% of hospitalizations from influenza, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Even older adults who spend most of their time at home have family members or home health aides visit, providing opportunities for the influenza virus to spread. The Texas Department of State Health Services has reported a higher number of influenza-like illnesses statewide so far this season compared with recent years.

“It is important to take action now to prevent the possibility of severe infections, especially for populations at higher risk for complications, which includes older adults,” said geriatrician Deborah Freeland, M.D., Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine at UT Southwestern. “Because the influenza virus changes over time, we need annual vaccinations to help protect against infection and reduce the severity of infection.”

Dr. Freeland recommends that those age 65 and older get a high-dose influenza vaccine. Research shows that high-dose vaccines reduced the risk of infection by 24% in older adults compared with the standard dose. In addition, the influenza vaccination is shown to lower the risk of heart attacks and death. It can take up to two weeks for the vaccine to become effective, and flu season is already in full swing, so Dr. Freeland advises people to obtain the vaccine as soon as possible.

Wearing masks in crowded places and washing hands regularly are additional steps people can take to stay healthy. It’s also important for those living with older adults to get the flu vaccine to help decrease the spread of infection to groups at greater risk.

While some older adults refrain from getting the flu vaccine for fear of catching the flu, Dr. Freeland said vaccines cannot cause influenza infections. However, there can be side effects, including soreness at the injection site, headache, fever, nausea, and muscle aches, which typically resolve within 24-48 hours. UT Southwestern offers flu shots to patients at several locations; they are also available at local pharmacies, doctor’s offices, and other locations.

“There is robust data behind the benefits of influenza vaccination,” Dr. Freeland said. “Get your flu vaccination today to protect yourself and those around you.”

About UT Southwestern Medical Center

UT Southwestern, one of the nation’s premier academic medical centers, integrates pioneering biomedical research with exceptional clinical care and education. The institution’s faculty has received six Nobel Prizes, and includes 24 members of the National Academy of Sciences, 18 members of the National Academy of Medicine, and 14 Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigators. The full-time faculty of more than 2,900 is responsible for groundbreaking medical advances and is committed to translating science-driven research quickly to new clinical treatments. UT Southwestern physicians provide care in more than 80 specialties to more than 100,000 hospitalized patients, more than 360,000 emergency room cases, and oversee nearly 4 million outpatient visits a year.

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UT Southwestern Medical Center

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December 1, 2022
US intelligence chief: How China protests evolve ‘important to Xi’s standing’

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A wave of Chinese demonstrations against Beijing’s draconian COVID policies is testing President Xi Jinping, and how they develop from here “will be important to Xi’s standing,” the U.S.’s top intelligence official said.

The spread of angry protests and the government’s repressive response to them are “countering the narrative that he likes to put forward, which is that China is so much more effective at government” than the West, said U.S. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines.

“How it develops will be important to Xi’s standing,” she said. But it’s “not something we see as being a threat to stability at this moment, or regime change or anything like that,” she added.

The comments were delivered Saturday as part of a wide-ranging interview at the annual Reagan National Defense Forum in California.

Several Chinese cities have started easing COVID rules, after demonstrations against the government’s strict lockdown measures swept across the country. Authorities are shifting to more-targeted measures following the wave of angry protests against the country’s strict zero-COVID rules.

Two more deaths from COVID were reported on Sunday, the Associated Press reported. The National Health Commission said the provinces of Shandong and Sichuan each reported a death, the AP said. No information was given about the ages of the victims or whether they had been fully vaccinated.

Haines said she believed the turmoil in China was partly due to the the fact that Xi “is unwilling to take a better vaccine from the West, and is instead relying on a vaccine in China that’s just not nearly as effective against [the] Omicron” variant.

The White House last week criticized the Chinese strategy and response to the protests, insisting that “everyone has the right to peacefully protest” and instead urging a ramp-up in vaccination campaigns.

U.S. and EU politicians, including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, have pushed for agreements to allow Western-manufactured vaccines to be used in China. But so far “we have not received any requests or any interest by China to receive our vaccines,” a White House official said.

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America Hernandez

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November 30, 2022
Young people make up greater proportion of COVID-19 deaths in 2021 compared to 2020

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Newswise — Since March 2020, COVID-19-related deaths claimed over a million lives in the U.S. alone. In the pandemic’s early phases, most deaths were among older adults, but in 2021, deaths in younger persons increased while deaths in older persons decreased. A new study by two investigators from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system, addresses this unexpected shift in COVID-19 mortality to relatively younger Americans and finds an increase in years of life lost due to COVID-19. Looking at this trend more closely brings to light important questions on the COVID-19 pandemic, mortality trends, and public health. Their results are published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

Earlier in the COVID-19 pandemic, age and pre-existing conditions played a major role in developing public health advice. But by early 2021, the COVID-19 landscape had shifted completely; vaccines became available, treatments advanced, and people’s behaviors changed. While 2020 COVID-19 death rates were high among older adults, those older adults exhibited a relatively higher vaccination rate and adhered more strictly to nonpharmaceutical interventions throughout 2021. Such systemic and behavioral changes in response to COVID-19 impacted mortality rates and determined what ages, in what years, were higher risk.

“There were a lot of changes between the first and second years of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said corresponding author Mark Czeisler, PhD, medical student at Harvard Medical School, organizer of The COPE Initiative, and member of the Brigham’s Department of Psychiatry. “Researchers have sought to understand the impacts of advances in COVID-19 treatments, immunity due to vaccinations and infections, and scientific knowledge of the COVID-19 virus and emerging variants. But prior to our study, there was less attention on quantifying premature mortality associated with COVID-19 in 2021 versus 2020.”

Between March 2020 and October 2021, COVID-19 maintained a spot as one of the top-five causes of death for U.S. adults. Its specific rank within that top-five, however, changed based on age, demonstrating a greater proportion of young people prematurely dying from COVID-19 in 2021. Researchers quantified this downward age-shift in COVID-19 deaths, using Years of Life Lost (YLL) rather than mortality. The team collected relevant data on COVID-19 deaths from two time intervals, March to December 2020 and 2021, using the CDC Wide-ranging ONline Data for Epidemiologic Research (WONDER) database. The 2017 World Population Prospects and World Health Organization Global Health Estimate were then used to estimate average lifespan.

Using these resources, the team calculated percent of COVID-19 deaths and YLL per death. Despite 20.8-percent fewer COVID-19 deaths in 2021 versus 2020, YLL due to COVID-19 increased 7.4-percent. As the age distribution of deaths shifted downward, the median age of COVID-19 deaths decreased from 78 years in 2020 to 69 years in 2021. The researchers found that YLL per COVID-19 death increased by 35.7-percent; most of the other 15 other leading causes of death were stable across the time intervals, and YLL per death for these non-COVID-19 causes did not change more than 2.2-percent. Two secondary findings were also noted: Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s deaths and YLL decreased, potentially due to misattribution of COVID-19 illness and reduced medical access in the earlier stages of the pandemic; and the number of deaths and YLL due to unintentional injury increased considerably, which the researchers did not directly explore in this analysis but attribute to the accelerating opioid epidemic and associated drug overdose deaths.

The study was limited by two primary factors: 2021 death records are not finalized until 12-months post-mortem; and individuals were not fully characterized for comorbidities, vaccination status, or any other determinants. The researchers are hopeful their insights will inform a greater story of mortality and loss during the COVID-19 pandemic, while inspiring further research into contributing factors to this trend.

“A shift in COVID-19 mortality to relatively younger people in the second pandemic year contributed to markedly increased premature mortality from this increasingly preventable death,” said Czeisler. “Understanding the factors that contribute to this age shift is critical as we continue developing our knowledge of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Disclosures: A full list of disclosures is published along with the article at the Annals of Internal Medicine. M.É.C. received consultant payments from Nychthemeron LLC and institutional grants paid to Monash University from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and CDC Foundation, with funding provided by BNY Mellon, and from WHOOP, Inc., as well as an institutional gift to Monash University from Hopelab, Inc. C.A.C. reports an institutional grant paid to BWH from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and research/education gifts through BWH from Alexandra Drane. C.A.C.’s interests were reviewed and are managed by the BWH and MGB in accordance with their conflict-of-interest policies. No other disclosures were reported.

Funding: No direct funding supported this analysis. C.A.C. is the incumbent of an endowed professorship provided to Harvard University by Cephalon, Inc.

Paper cited: Czeisler, M., Czeisler, C. “Shifting Mortality Dynamics in the United States During the COVID-19 Pandemic as Measured by Years of Life Lost” Journal DOI: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M22-2226

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November 29, 2022
IMF head joins chorus calling on China to adapt COVID strategy as officials pledge to boost vaccinations among elderly

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The head of the International Monetary Fund on Tuesday joined the chorus of people urging China to adopt a more targeted approach to the coronavirus pandemic as the country’s zero-COVID policy sparks protests over lockdowns and hobbles the world’s second-biggest economy.

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva urged a “recalibration” of China’s tough “zero-COVID” approach, which is aimed at isolating every case, “exactly because of the impact it has on both people and on the economy,” as the Associated Press reported.

See also: Some markets cheer as China vows to vaccinate more elderly. Analysts see positive movement by officials.

Georgieva made the comments in an interview with the AP on Tuesday, after protests erupted in Chinese cities and in Hong Kong over the weekend, marking the strongest public dissent in decades.

“We see the importance of moving away from massive lockdowns, being very targeted in restrictions,” Georgieva said Tuesday in Berlin. “So that targeting allows [China] to contain the spread of COVID without significant economic costs.”

Georgieva also urged China to look at vaccination policies and focus on vaccinating the “most vulnerable people.”

A low rate of vaccinations among the elderly is a major reason Beijing has had to resort to lockdowns, while the emergence of more-contagious variants has made it increasingly hard to halt the spread of the virus.

In a rare show of defiance, crowds in China gathered for the third night as protests against COVID restrictions spread to Beijing, Shanghai and other cities. People held up blank sheets of paper, symbolizing censorship, and demanded the Chinese president step down. Photo: Kyodo News/Zuma Press

Chinese health officials said Tuesday they are preparing a push to get more older people vaccinated, the Guardian reported. The National Health Commission told reporters it would target more vaccinations at people older than 80 and would reduce to three months the gap between basic vaccination and booster shots for elderly people.

But experts, including President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, Anthony Fauci, have expressed concern that China’s homegrown vaccines are not effective enough. China has not yet approved the vaccines developed by Pfizer
PFE,
-0.39%,
BioNTech
BNTX,
+1.16%
and Moderna
MRNA,
-0.17%
for public use. The shortcomings of China’s vaccines have led Chinese doctors to warn that a lifting of the zero-COVID policy could lead to a massive surge in cases that could overwhelm China’s healthcare system.

Now read: China’s strict zero-COVID policy isn’t worth the damage it does to its economy

Meanwhile, with police out in force, there was little news of protests in Beijing, Shanghai or other cities on Tuesday, the AP reported separately.

In the U.S., known cases of COVID are rising again, with the daily average standing at 41,755 on Monday, according to a New York Times tracker, up 6% from two weeks ago. Cases are rising in 22 states, as well as Guam and Washington, D.C., and are flat in Nebraska. They are rising fastest in Arizona, where they are up 82% from two weeks ago, followed by Michigan, where they are up 77%.

The daily average for hospitalizations is flat at 28,135, while the daily average for deaths is up 6% to 314.

Physicians are reporting high numbers of respiratory illnesses like RSV and the flu earlier than the typical winter peak. WSJ’s Brianna Abbott explains what the early surge means for the winter months. Photo illustration: Kaitlyn Wang

Coronavirus Update: MarketWatch’s daily roundup has been curating and reporting all the latest developments every weekday since the coronavirus pandemic began

Other COVID-19 news you should know about:

• The World Health Organization has issued an emergency-use listing for the Novavax
NVAX,
+6.19%
protein-based COVID vaccine as a primary series for children ages 12-17 and as a booster for those ages 18 and older, Novavax said Tuesday. The WHO previously granted an emergency-use listing for the Nuvaxovid vaccine in adults ages 18 and older in December 2021, the company said. The new listing also paves the way for adults to get a booster shot of the vaccine about six months after completing the primary two-dose series.

• New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, said Monday his administration has launched a promised review of its handling of the pandemic, the AP reported. The administration hired regional law firm Montgomery McCracken Walker & Rhoads — which has offices in the state as well as Delaware, Pennsylvania and New York — along with management consulting firm Boston Consulting Group to conduct the review. The review is expected to end with a report in late 2023, the governor said.

• A Connecticut program that offered “hero pay” to essential workers at the peak of the pandemic got so many applicants that state lawmakers had to go back into session Monday to provide extra funding and put new limits on who could get the biggest bonuses, the AP reported. Initially, the state had expected to award about $30 million in bonuses to people who had to go to work, in person, in jobs in healthcare, food distribution, public safety and other essential services. But after getting 155,730 applications from eligible people, lawmakers realized they would have to either put more money in or slash benefits.

Here’s what the numbers say:

The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 641.8 million on Monday, while the death toll rose above 6.63 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.

The U.S. leads the world with 98.6 million cases and 1,079,477 fatalities.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 228.4 million people living in the U.S., equal to 68.8% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots.

So far, just 37.6 million Americans have had the updated COVID booster that targets the original virus and the omicron variants, equal to 12.1% of the overall population.

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November 29, 2022
China’s zero-COVID strategy makes no sense and its homegrown vaccines are not ‘particularly effective,’ says Fauci

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Widespread protests across China over the government’s zero-COVID policy dominated pandemic headlines Monday, with Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, weighing in with the view that the strategy does not make public-health sense.

China’s biggest challenge is low vaccination rates — and a vaccine that has not been “particularly effective at all” compared with the ones being used in the West that are made by Pfizer
PFE,
+0.50%
and its German partner BioNTech
BNTX,
+5.68%
and by Moderna
MRNA,
+1.08%,
said Fauci, who is retiring next month.

Fauci recalled that when New York hospitals were overwhelmed by COVID cases three years ago, the decision was made to introduce restrictions, such as social distancing and shutdowns, to help flatten the curve of infections. But he noted that it was a temporary move aimed at buying time to get more people vaccinated and move personal protective equipment to where it was needed.

The first vaccine was distributed in the U.S. in December 2020.

Read: U.S. stock futures fall as Chinese protests rattle markets, oil hits 2022 low

“It seems that in China, it was just a very, very strict, extraordinary lockdown where you lock people in the house, but without, seemingly, any endgame to it,” said Fauci, who is also head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Fauci said one mistake the Chinese government has made is to refuse outside vaccines. “But also, interestingly, they did not, for reasons that I don’t fully appreciate, protect the elderly by making sure the elderly got vaccinated,” he said. “So if you look at the prevalence of vaccinations among the elderly, that was almost counterproductive. The people you really needed to protect were not getting protected.”

The protests have roiled financial markets and caused oil prices to erase their entire year-to-date gain. In a highly unusual move, protesters in Shanghai called for China’s powerful leader Xi Jinping to resign, an unprecedented rebuke as authorities in at least eight cities struggled Sunday to suppress demonstrations that represent a rare direct challenge to the ruling Communist Party, as the Associated Press reported.

The BBC said reporter Ed Lawrence, who was arrested while covering protests, was beaten and kicked by police while in custody.

“We have had no explanation or apology from the Chinese authorities, beyond a claim by the officials who later released him that they had arrested him for his own good in case he caught COVID from the crowd,” the broadcaster said in a statement. “We do not consider this a credible explanation.”

For more, see: BBC says official explanation for journalist arrest in China is that he was detained to prevent contraction of COVID

See also: China protests are biggest threat to Communist Party rule since Tiananmen Square, Kyle Bass says

In a rare show of defiance, crowds in China gathered for a third night as protests against COVID restrictions spread to Beijing, Shanghai and other cities. People held blank sheets of paper, symbolizing censorship, and demanded that the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, step down. Photo: Noel Celis/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

In the U.S., known cases of COVID are rising again with the daily average standing at 41,997 on Sunday, according to a New York Times tracker, up 6% from two weeks ago.

Cases are currently rising in 22 states, plus Washington, D.C., and Guam, but are falling elsewhere.

The daily average for hospitalizations is up 4% to 29,053. Hospitalizations are rising in 23 states, the tracker shows.

The daily average for deaths is up 4% to 330.

Coronavirus Update: MarketWatch’s daily roundup has been curating and reporting all the latest developments every weekday since the coronavirus pandemic began

Other COVID-19 news you should know about:

• The World Health Organization said Monday it is recommending the term “mpox” as a new name for monkeypox disease and that it would use both names for a year while “monkeypox” is phased out. “When the outbreak of monkeypox expanded earlier this year, racist and stigmatizing language online, in other settings and in some communities was observed and reported to WHO,” the agency said in a statement. “In several meetings, public and private, a number of individuals and countries raised concerns and asked WHO to propose a way forward to change the name.” The WHO has responsibility for assigning names to new — and exceptionally, to existing — diseases, under the International Classification of Diseases and the WHO Family of International Health Related Classifications through a consultative process that includes WHO member states, it explained. The new name was decided upon following consultations with global experts, it said.

Residents in Shanghai received the world’s first inhaled COVID-19 vaccine by taking sips from a cup. WSJ’s Dan Strumpf explains how the new type of vaccine works and what it means for China’s reopening. Photo: Associated Press/Shanghai Media Group

• Unrest at one of China’s biggest manufacturing centers may cause a production shortfall this year of possibly 6 million Apple iPhone Pros, according to a source cited by Bloomberg. The Foxconn Technology 2354 facility in Zhengzhou, which makes the majority of Apple’s premium phones, has been struggling for weeks as workers rebel against COVID lockdown policies. Apple
AAPL,
-2.13%
recently lowered its overall production target from 90 million units to 87 million units. However, Foxconn believes it can make up any shortfall from Zhengzhou in 2023.

• A blood-thinning drug called Apixaban, which has been used for patients recovering from COVID, does not work and can cause major bleeding, according to new research reported by the Guardian. The anticoagulant, given to patients when they are discharged from a hospital after being treated for moderate or severe COVID, is widely used by hospitals across the U.K.’s National Health Service. However, the government-funded Heal-Covid trial has found that the drug does not work. Charlotte Summers, the chief investigator of the trial, said: “These first findings from Heal-Covid show us that a blood-thinning drug, commonly thought to be a useful intervention in the post-hospital phase, is actually ineffective at stopping people dying or being readmitted to hospital.”

Here’s what the numbers say:

The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 641.6 million on Monday, while the death toll rose above 6.63 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.

The U.S. leads the world with 98.6 million cases and 1,079,199 fatalities.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 228.4 million people living in the U.S., equal to 68.8% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots.

So far, just 37.6 million Americans have had the updated COVID booster that targets the original virus and the omicron variants, equal to 12.1% of the overall population.

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November 28, 2022
Threat of

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Threat of “tripledemic” looms over holidays – CBS News

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Health officials are growing concerned that holiday gatherings could accelerate a “tripledemic” — a convergence of COVID-19, flu and RSV cases. Manuel Bojorquez takes a look.

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November 25, 2022
Pocket feature shared by deadly coronaviruses could lead to pan-coronavirus antiviral treatment

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Newswise — Scientists have discovered why some coronaviruses are more likely to cause severe disease, which has remained a mystery, until now. Researchers of the University of Bristol-led study, published in Science Advances today [23 November], say their findings could lead to the development of a pan-coronavirus treatment to defeat all coronaviruses—from the 2002 SARS-CoV outbreak to Omicron, the current variant of SARS-CoV-2, as well as dangerous variants that may emerge in future.

In this new study, an international team, led by Bristol’s Professor Christiane Schaffitzel, scrutinised the spike glycoproteins decorating all coronaviruses. They reveal that a tailor-made pocket feature in the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, first discovered in 2020, is present in all deadly coronaviruses, including MERS and Omicron. In striking contrast, the pocket feature is not present in coronaviruses which cause mild infection with cold-like symptoms.

The team say their findings suggest that the pocket, which binds a small molecule, linoleic acid—an essential fatty acid indispensable for many cellular functions including inflammation and maintaining cell membranes in the lungs so that we can breathe properly—could now be exploited to treat all deadly coronaviruses, at the same time rendering them vulnerable to a linoleic acid-based treatment targeting this pocket.

COVID-19, caused by SARS-CoV-2, is the third deadliest coronavirus outbreak following SARS-CoV in 2002 and MERS-CoV in 2012. The much more infectious SARS-CoV-2 continues to infect people and damage communities and economies worldwide, with new variants of concern emerging successively, and Omicron evading vaccination and immune response.

Professor Schaffitzel from Bristol’s School of Biochemistry, explained: “In our earlier work we identified the presence of a small molecule, linoleic acid, buried in a tailor-made pocket within the SARS-Cov-2 glycoprotein, known as the ‘Spike protein’, which binds to the human cell surface, allowing the virus to penetrate the cells and start replicating, causing widespread damage.

“We showed that binding linoleic acid in the pocket could stop virus infectivity, suggesting an anti-viral treatment. This was in the original Wuhan strain that started the pandemic. Since then, a whole range of dangerous SARS-CoV-2 variants have emerged, including Omicron, the currently dominating variant of concern. We scrutinised every new variant of concern and asked whether the pocket function is still present.”

Omicron has undergone many mutations, enabling it to escape immune protection offered by vaccination or antibody treatments that lag behind this rapidly evolving virus. Intriguingly, while everything else may have changed, the researchers found that the pocket remained virtually unaltered, also in Omicron.

Christine Toelzer, Research Associate in the School of Biochemistry and lead author of the study, added: “When we realised that the pocket we had discovered remained unchanged, we looked back and asked whether SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV, two other deadly coronaviruses causing previous outbreaks years ago, also contained this linoleic acid binding pocket feature.”

The team applied high-resolution electron cryo-microscopy, cutting-edge computational approaches and cloud computing. Their results showed that SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV also had the pocket, and could bind the ligand, linoleic acid, by a virtually identical mechanism.

Professor Schaffitzel concluded: “In our current study, we provide evidence that the pocket remained the same in all deadly coronaviruses, from the first SARS-CoV outbreak 20 years ago to Omicron today. We have shown previously that linoleic acid binding to this pocket induces a locked spike, abrogating viral infectivity. We also show now that linoleic acid supplementation suppresses virus replication inside cells. We anticipate that future variants will also contain the pocket, which we can exploit to defeat the virus.”

Halo Therapeutics, a recent University of Bristol spin-out Professor Schaffitzel co-founded, is using these findings to develop pocket-binding pan-coronavirus antivirals.

The team included experts from the Bristol UNCOVER Group, Max Planck Bristol Centre for Minimal Biology, Bristol University spin-out Halo Therapeutics Ltd, and collaborators in Sweden and France. The studies have been supported by funds from Max Planck Gesellschaft, Wellcome Trust and European Research Council, with additional support from Oracle for Research for high-performance cloud computing resources.

Paper

“The free fatty acid-binding pocket is a conserved hallmark in pathogenic b-coronavirus spike proteins from SARS-CoV to Omicron” by C Toelzer et al. in Science Advances

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November 23, 2022
U.S. unlikely to see another late-year omicron wave, but Fauci urges people to get new COVID booster

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The U.S. is unlikely to suffer the same surge of COVID-19 infections this winter as it did last year, when the omicron variant first emerged and swept across the country, senior health officials said Tuesday.

On Tuesday, Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, addressed reporters for the last time ahead of his retirement, saying that the current combination of infections and vaccinations means there’s “enough community protection that we’re not going to see a repeat of last year at this time.”

But Fauci urged those Americans who have not yet gotten their updated booster to do so quickly, telling them it’s the best one so far. Only 35 million Americans have received the bivalent booster since it was rolled out in September.

“[What] may be the final message I give you from this podium is that please, for your own safety, for that of your family, get your updated COVID-19 shot as soon as you’re eligible,” Fauci said.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated that the new boosters, which target the original virus as well as the latest omicron variants, provide an additional 30% to 56% protection against symptomatic infection, depending on a person’s age, how many prior vaccine shots they have had and when they had them, as the Associated Press reported.

The people who get the greatest benefit from the new booster are those who got two doses of the original COVID-19 vaccine at least eight months earlier and never got a prior booster, said the CDC’s Ruth Link-Gelles, who led the study.

The original shots have offered strong protection against severe disease and death no matter the variant, but their protection against mild infection wanes. The CDC’s analysis has tracked only the first few months of the new boosters’ use, so it’s too early to know how long the added protection against symptomatic infection will last.

But “certainly as we enter the holiday season, personally I would want the most possible protection if I’m seeing my parents and grandparents,” Link-Gelles said. “Protection against infection there is going to be really helpful, because you potentially would stop yourself from getting a grandparent or other loved one sick.”

The Biden administration announced a six-week campaign urging people — especially older people — to get the boosters, saying the shots could save lives as Americans gather for the holidays.

Physicians are reporting high numbers of respiratory illnesses like RSV and the flu earlier than the typical winter peak. WSJ’s Brianna Abbott explains what the early surge means for the winter months. Photo illustration: Kaitlyn Wang

Don’t miss: Confused about COVID boosters? Here’s what the science and the experts say about the new generation of shots.

In the U.S., known cases of COVID are rising again, with the daily average standing at 42,220 on Tuesday, according to a New York Times tracker, up 7% from two weeks ago. Cases are rising in 25 states, led by Washington state, where they are up 279% from two weeks ago.

The daily average for hospitalizations is flat at 27,923, while the daily average for deaths is up 3% to 319.

Coronavirus Update: MarketWatch’s daily roundup has been curating and reporting all the latest developments every weekday since the coronavirus pandemic began

Other COVID-19 news you should know about:

• Employees at the world’s biggest Apple
AAPL,
+0.59%
iPhone factory were beaten and detained in protests over contract disputes amid antivirus controls, according to witnesses and videos posted on social media Wednesday, as tensions mount over Beijing’s severe zero-COVID strategy, the AP reported. Videos reportedly filmed at the factory in the central city of Zhengzhou showed thousands of people in masks facing rows of police in white protective suits with plastic riot shields. Police kicked and hit one protester with clubs after he grabbed a metal pole that had been used to strike him. Frustrations have boiled over into protests in some parts of China where shops and offices have been closed and millions of people confined to their homes for weeks at a time with little warning. Videos on social media show residents in some areas tearing down barricades set up to enforce neighborhood closures.

Footage shows police in protective suits beating workers at the Foxconn facility in Zhengzhou, China. The world’s biggest Apple iPhone factory had been under COVID-19 lockdowns in recent weeks. Screenshot: Associated Press

• The Ohio Supreme Court has dismissed a lawsuit challenging Gov. Mike DeWine’s authority to end Ohio’s participation in a federal pandemic unemployment aid program ahead of the federal government’s 2021 deadline for stopping the payments, the AP reported. The court’s unanimous decision on Tuesday called the case “moot” without any additional explanation. At issue before the court was a weekly $300 federal payment for Ohioans to offset the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic. The federal government ended that in September of last year, but DeWine stopped the payments two months earlier, saying the need was over.

• Infections from antibiotic-resistant pathogens known as superbugs have more than doubled in healthcare facilities in Europe, an EU agency said on Thursday, providing further evidence of the wider impact of the COVID pandemic, Reuters reported. The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control said reported cases of two highly drug-resistant pathogens increased in 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, then sharply jumped in 2021.

• The National Institutes of Health has set up a website for people to anonymously self-report the results of at-home COVID-19 tests, whether positive or negative. The site, MakeMyTestCount.org, will gather the data and then share the information, stripped of personal identifiers, with the public-health systems that track COVID-19 test results provided by healthcare providers and laboratories. The widespread use of at-home COVID tests in 2022 meant the U.S. had a more limited understanding of COVID surges than in the past.

Here’s what the numbers say:

The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 639.1 million on Wednesday, while the death toll rose above 6.62 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.

The U.S. leads the world with 98.4 million cases and 1,077,800 fatalities.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 228.2 million people living in the U.S., equal to 68.7% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots.

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November 23, 2022
Fauci Urges Americans ‘One Last Time’ to Get COVID Shots

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Nov. 22, 2022 – White House officials on Friday urged Americans – again – to get their COVID-19 vaccines and boosters, as the latest booster shot has a better immune response to the evolving COVID-19 variants BA.4 and BA.5.

“Recent data that has come out indicate that, in fact, if you are vaccinated and boosted, compared to an unvaccinated person, there is a 14 times lower risk of dying in the most recent BA.4-5 era, compared to unvaccinated, and at least a three times lower risk of testing positive, compared to unvaccinated individuals,” said Anthony Fauci, MD, who stood at the White House press briefing podium “one last time” as he bid farewell to reporters on Tuesday.

The physician-scientist will be stepping down from his position as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden next month.

Fauci has made it clear that he is not retiring, but rather,   pursuing “the next chapter” of his career.    During his more than 5   decades of service to the federal government, he    has spearheaded the fights   against HIV and AIDS, Ebola, and COVID-19, among other health crises.

White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Ashish Jha, MD, joined Fauci on the podium and highlighted the latest developments in COVID-19 vaccinations and disease prevention.

On Monday, 12 of America’s top medical and clinical societies, including the American Medical Association and the American College of Physicians, released a statement with a clear message: Go get your updated COVID-19 vaccine and annual flu shot, which is the best way to save lives this holiday season – particularly the lives of older Americans.

Other announcements included a “6-week sprint” to help Americans get their updated COVID shot by the end of December. Three hundred and fifty million dollars in funding will go toward   community health centers, mobile vaccine clinics, and religious organizations to assist in vaccine education and distribution. There will also be $125 million   in funding for   aging and disability networks to get more vulnerable and   disabled Americans vaccinated.

Jha also said that most Americans will need one shot each year to stay safe, similar to the flu shot.

“We need to make protecting our loved ones an important part of the conversation we have around the   Thanksgiving table and an important part of the conversation that we have in the days and weeks ahead,” he said.

“If folks get their updated vaccines, and they get treated if they have a breakthrough infection, we can prevent essentially every COVID death in America.”

For more information on COVID-19 vaccines, click here.

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November 22, 2022
Myocarditis After COVID Vaccine Still Rare, But Risks Remain

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Nov. 22, 2022 – The overall risk of myocarditis after a COVID-19 vaccination remains rare, according to a new study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

At the same time, developing inflammation of the heart muscle appears to be more common in men ages 18-29 who receive the Moderna shot. The researchers recommended the Pfizer shot for this group.

“Although observed rates of myocarditis were higher than expected, the benefits of the vaccine in reducing the severity of COVID-19, hospital admission, and deaths far outweigh the risk of developing myocarditis,” says Naveed Janjua, MBBS, the senior study author and executive director of data and analytic services at the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control.

Still, the number of people who developed myocarditis after vaccination is “somewhere between three to six times less than what we see after COVID disease,” says C. Buddy Creech, MD, director of the Vanderbilt Vaccine Research Program. Creech, who wasn’t involved with this study, has led COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials throughout the pandemic.

Janjua and colleagues looked at data from the people in British Columbia who were vaccinated for COVID-19 from December 2020 to March 2022. They looked for hospital admissions or emergency department visits for myocarditis or myopericarditis (inflammation of the sac-like tissue layer that surrounds the heart) within 7-21 days after vaccination. The research team also compared the number of observed cases to the cases expected if there were no link between a COVID-19 vaccine and myocarditis.

Overall, more than 10.2 million doses of Pfizer or Moderna vaccines were given to people ages 12 and older in British Columbia during that time, including nearly 7 million Pfizer doses and 3.2 million Moderna doses. Nearly 4 million were first doses, about 3.9 million were second doses, and 2.3 million were third doses.

The researchers found 99 cases of myocarditis within 7 days after vaccination, as compared with seven expected cases. The rate of myocarditis was 0.97 cases per 100,000 vaccine doses, as compared with an expected rate of 0.23 per 100,000 population. The observed rate was about 15 times higher than expected.

Also, they found 141 cases within 21 days, as compared with 20 expected cases. The rate of myocarditis was 1.37 cases per 100,000 vaccine doses, as compared to an expected rate of 0.39 per 100,000 population. The observed rate was about 7 times higher than expected.

Analyzing by age, myocarditis cases were highest among ages 12-17 and 18-29, and lowest among ages 70-79. By sex, myocarditis cases were higher for men than women.

“The numbers are small [for Moderna versus Pfizer], and therefore may not be entirely precise, but this has been a common theme,” Creech says. “This may be due to the slightly higher amount of antigen in the Moderna vaccine compared to Pfizer.”

The study confirmed what other researchers are seeing in the U.S. and around the world, Creech says.

“At the end of the day, the absolute number of myocarditis cases after vaccination are very low, though higher than we would expect. Both Pfizer and Moderna, as well as NIH, CDC, and others, have launched large-scale studies in order to understand why this is happening,” he says.

Finally, Creech says, the cases of myocarditis after vaccination have been mild.

“This should provide parents a measure of confidence as they seek to protect their families from COVID disease, including the often not mild cases of myocarditis following COVID disease,” he says.

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November 22, 2022
Association of NFL fan attendance with county-level COVID-19 incidence in 2020-2021 season

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Newswise — About The Study: In this cross-sectional study of the presence of fans at National Football League (NFL) home games during the 2020-2021 season, results indicated that fan attendance was associated with increased levels of COVID-19 in the counties in which the venues are nested within, as well as in surrounding counties. The spikes in COVID-19 for crowds of over 20,000 people suggest that large events should be handled with extreme caution during public health event(s) where vaccines, on-site testing, and various countermeasures are not readily available to the public.

Authors: Wanda E. Leal, Ph.D., of Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas, is the corresponding author.

Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

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About JAMA Network Open: JAMA Network Open is the new online-only open access general medical journal from the JAMA Network. On weekdays, the journal publishes peer-reviewed clinical research and commentary in more than 40 medical and health subject areas. Every article is free online from the day of publication.

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JAMA – Journal of the American Medical Association

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November 18, 2022
Pfizer and BioNTech updated booster shows strong results against new omicron sublineages in fresh analysis of data

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A fresh analysis of data on the immune response generated by the bivalent COVID-19 booster showed strong results against the newer omicron sublineages, Pfizer and German partner BioNTech said Friday.

The bivalent booster targets the BA.4 and BA.5 omicron variants as well as the original virus, and it also appears to be effective against the sublineages dubbed BA.4.6, BA.2.75.2, BQ.1.1 and XBB.1.

The data, which have been posted on the preprint server bioRxiv, show that the booster induces a greater increase in neutralizing-antibody titers than the companies’ original COVID vaccine.

“Based on these findings, the Omicron BA.4/BA.5-adapted bivalent booster may help to provide improved protection against COVID-19 due to Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 sublineages as well as new sublineages that continue to increase in prevalence,” the companies said in a joint statement.

Specifically, one month after a booster dose of the bivalent COVID-19 vaccine, neutralizing-antibody titers against the sublineages increased 3.2-fold to 4.8-fold compared with the original COVID vaccine.

Neutralizing-antibody titers against BA.4.6, BA.2.75.2, BQ.1.1 and XBB.1 increased 4.8-fold to 11.1-fold from prebooster levels following a booster dose of the bivalent vaccine.

The companies
PFE,
-0.72%
BNTX,
+0.08%
said BA.5 is still the most prevalent sublineage in the U.S., accounting for nearly 30% of cases at time of publication, while the emerging BA.1.1 sublineage accounts for nearly 25% of cases and is spreading globally.

But data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention later Friday showed BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 now account for a combined 49.7% of new cases in the week through Nov. 19, while BA.5 accounted for just 24%.64.8%

In the New York region, BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 accounted for 64.8% of new cases, while BA.5 accounted for 14.0%.

The bivalent booster has been granted emergency-use authorization by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for people ages 5 and older and has also been allowed in the European Union for that group.

The news comes as U.S. COVID cases have been rising again, although the daily average edged lower on Thursday to 39,562, according to a New York Times tracker, down 1% from two weeks ago.

Cases are rising in roughly half the states and falling in the rest, but there are wide discrepancies between individual states. In Nebraska, cases are up 540% from two weeks ago, the tracker shows, followed by Arizona, where they are up 110%; California, where they have climbed 53%; and Colorado, where they are up 50%.

Meanwhile, Kentucky is seeing a 54% decline in cases from two weeks ago, and Michigan cases are down 48%.

The daily U.S. average for hospitalizations is up 2% to 27,818, while the daily average for deaths is down 4% to 325.

Physicians are reporting high numbers of respiratory illnesses like RSV and the flu earlier than the typical winter peak. WSJ’s Brianna Abbott explains what the early surge means for the winter months. Photo illustration: Kaitlyn Wang

Coronavirus Update: MarketWatch’s daily roundup has been curating and reporting all the latest developments every weekday since the coronavirus pandemic began

Other COVID-19 news you should know about:

• China’s southern manufacturing hub of Guangzhou is planning to build quarantine facilities for nearly 250,000 people to fight surging COVID outbreaks, even as the national government tries to reduce the impact of zero-COVID controls that have confined millions of people to their homes, the Associated Press reported. Guangzhou, a city of 13 million and the biggest of a series of hotspots across China with outbreaks since early October, reported 9,680 new cases in the past 24 hours. That was about 40% of the 23,276 cases reported nationwide.

• Racial disparities in COVID cases and deaths have widened and narrowed over the course of the pandemic, but age-adjusted data still show that Black, Hispanic and American Indian/Alaska Native people have been at higher risk for cases, hospitalizations and deaths, according to a new report from the Kaiser Family Foundation. “While disparities in COVID-19 vaccinations have narrowed over time and have been reversed for Hispanic people, they persist for Black people,” the report found. The pattern is also evident in uptake of the new bivalent booster, with Black and Hispanic people about half as likely as white people to have had one. Black people are also less likely to have access to antivirals, antibody treatments and other therapies.

• The Indian Health Service announced Thursday that all tribal members covered by the federal agency will be offered a vaccine at every appointment when appropriate under a new vaccine strategy, the AP reported. Throughout the pandemic, American Indians and Alaska Natives have had some of the highest COVID vaccination rates across the country. But Indigenous people are especially vulnerable to vaccine-preventable illness, and IHS officials recently noted that fewer patients have been getting vaccines for COVID-19. Monkeypox is now an additional health concern.

• Novavax
NVAX,
-6.11%
said its COVID vaccine has received expanded authorization in Canada as a booster for adults aged 18 and older who had it as their primary shot. The protein-based vaccine has already been approved as a booster in the U.S., European Union and U.K., among other countries, Novavax said.

Here’s what the numbers say:

The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 637.1 million on Friday, while the death toll rose above 6.61 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.

The U.S. leads the world with 98.3 million cases and 1,076,683 fatalities.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 228.2 million people living in the U.S., equal to 68.7% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots.

So far, just 35.3 million Americans have had the updated COVID booster that targets the original virus and the omicron variants, equal to 11.3% of the overall population.

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November 18, 2022