Category Archives: Corona Virus

Is COVID endemic? Here's what health experts are saying.

How soon could we see COVID-19 go from pandemic to endemic? Here's what we know now.

Just the FAQs, USA TODAY

COVID-19 infections continue to rise, driven by new and more infectious omicron subvariants, waning immunity from both vaccines and previous infections and fewer people masking up, health officials said at a White House briefing Wednesday.

About a third of Americans now live in an area with medium or high COVID-19 rates, withreported cases up26% from last week, said Dr. RochelleWalensky, director of theCenters for Disease Control an Prevention.

On average, about 3,000 Americans are being hospitalized per dayand 275 are dying. Walensky urged people in communities with higher infection and hospitalization rates to protect themselves by masking in indoor public placesand to get a booster shot if vaccinated and to get vaccinated if they're not.

Areas of increased infection and hospitalization include the Northeast and the eastern corridor, as well as parts ofthe upper Midwest.

"We've always said, put your mask aside when infection rates are low and pick it up again when infection rates are higher," she said.

WHAT IS YOUR COMMUNITY'S COVID-19 LEVEL?

A rising tide of omicron subvariantsis in part behind the rise, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical advisertoPresident Joe Biden.

There are now at least four omicron subvariants circulating in the United States. BA.2 is dominant, making up 50.9% of cases but BA.2.12.1 is almost equal to it with 47.5%.The newer strains are even more infectious than previous strains, adding to the increase in cases.

He urged people who test positive for COVID-19 to reach out to their health care providers "as soon as possible" to see if atreatment is appropriate for them, as treatments work better if begun quickly.

The administration's continuingpush for boosters and vaccination comes as a paper published Wednesday in the journal "Nature" showeda case of omicron in unvaccinated people provides very little immunity against other variants of the virus that causes COVID-19.

"Because omicron is so infective, we were really hoping that it would help bring us closer to 'herd immunity,'" said Dr. Melanie Ott, a virologist at the Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco and lead author on the paper.

Instead, thefindings showed people infected with omicron onlyget protection against infections fromomicron subvariants, not infections fromotherstrains of the virus. So far, there have been five main variants, alpha, beta, gamma, delta and omicron.

That's bad news for anyone who expects arecent case of COVID-19 will protect them against future cases of the rapidly mutating virus. But the good news, said Ott, is if they get vaccinated they have a shot at "super immunity."

People who'vehad omicron and also been vaccinated had the ability to neutralize all tested variants, not just omicron subvariants, the research showed.

"If you had omicron, why miss out on the benefit of getting that great enhanced immunity from infection plus vaccination?" she said.

A new generation of COVID-19 vaccines are expected this fall or winter, saidDr. Ashish Jha, the White House's new coronavirus response coordinator. He and others are talking with Congressto ensure funding is available so everyone who wants them can have them.

"We do not have the resources to do that right now," he said.

Jha is on leave from his position as dean of the Brown University School of Public Health and began his newWhite House position in March. He said he was spending "a lot of time up on the Hill" to convince Congress to authorize more emergency aid money for COVID-19, an effort which has thus far failed as Congress wrestles with more funding for Ukraine.

The same goes for promising new treatmentsseveral companies are now working on, he said.

"No one in the United States is in negotiations with these companies for these treatments because we don't have the resources. The companies know that, and therefore we can't ensure that Americans get access to the next generation of therapies," he said.

The COVID-19 briefing was the first the White Househas held in six weeks and also the first led by Jha.

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Why are COVID-19 cases rising and will an omicron infection protect me? - USA TODAY

More than 70 New York City judges descended on a Long Island resort last week to enjoy an annual three-night retreat. In the days after, 20 tested positive for the coronavirus.

Lucian Chalfen, a spokesman for New Yorks courts, confirmed Wednesday that the judges had tested positive. He said that, to his knowledge, none of the judges were seriously ill, and that those who were symptomatic had not reported to work.

Those who were without symptoms, he said, would have to quarantine for five days before they were allowed to return to work, provided that they wear masks, as is required in public areas of the courtroom. He did not have information on how many asymptomatic judges were back on the bench, but said that they were all vaccinated, as protocol required.

Any effect that this would have on cases or operations is negligible or nonexistent, he said. Youre talking about less than 20 people out of hundreds of judges in New York City.

The retreat was at Gurneys Star Island, often referred to as the Montauk Yacht Club, its former name. The getaway involved a number of activities for the criminal court judges association, whose members include appointed criminal court judges and those elevated to serve as acting State Supreme Court justices.

One of those activities, according to a person with knowledge of the event, was a karaoke session, during which several judges were particularly enthusiastic.

(Singing, with its heavy outflow of breath and saliva droplets, has been noted as a potential source of virus spread, with outbreaks among some choirs reported in the pandemics early months.)

New Yorks courts have been slow to recover from the pandemic. In the summer of 2020, the number of pending cases in the citys criminal courts rose to 39,200, and two years later, the backlog is far from cleared, even as cases involving guns have been expedited. It has delayed trials and other proceedings and left many people stranded in jail.

In one example of the impact of the pandemic on the backlog, Steve J. Martin, a federal monitor who oversees the operations at the Rikers Island jail complex, said in a letter filed with a federal court on Tuesday that 28 percent of the population at Rikers had been in custody for longer than a year and that close to 300 people had been in custody for longer than three years. He implored the Office of Court Administration, along with other criminal justice stakeholders, to work toward easing the backlog.

Within state courthouses, masks are required. But compliance with that rule is sporadic, and judges, court officers and other court employees can often be seen with masks on their chins, around their necks or absent entirely.

Last month, the state court system announced that it planned to fire more than 100 nonjudicial employees who had not complied with a vaccine mandate policy. Four judges had also chosen not to comply, two in New York City and two outside it. Any judge who refused to comply with the mandate would be barred from entering a court facility, and compelled to work from home, Mr. Chalfen said at the time.

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70 N.Y. Judges Went on a Montauk Retreat. 20 Came Down With the Virus. - The New York Times

Fifty-four virus-related deaths and 2,038 coronavirus cases have been added to the states count since May 12, according to weekly numbers released by the Oklahoma State Department of Health.

A total of 1,045,574 COVID-19 cases have been reported since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020.

The provisional death count rose to 16,050, the state health department said Thursday.

The rolling seven-day average of new cases is 198.

Currently, 2,621 Oklahomans are considered active cases in the state, OSDH said.

As of May 17, 5,958,986 total vaccine doses have been administered with 2,821,243 Oklahomans receiving at least one dose. More than 2,274,000 Oklahomans have completed both inoculations or are fully vaccinated, making 57.5% of the eligible Oklahoma population is fully vaccinated.

About 79 Oklahomans are currently in acute care OSDH-licensed facilities with 15 in the ICU and zero are currently in other types of facilities due to COVID-19. Out of the 79 hospitalizations, 25 are pediatric hospitalizations, OSDH said.

Previous Week: OSDH: 2,142 More COVID-19 Cases Reported Statewide, 56 Virus-Related Deaths Added To Provisional Death Count

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The Oklahoma State Department of Health announced March 7, 2022 that it is transitioning away from daily updates on COVID-19 and will instead provide weekly updates each Thursday.

Related: OSDH Discontinues Daily COVID-19 Updates

Stitt released a statement on Nov. 7, 2020 andasked Oklahomans "to do the right thing"and to follow CDC guidelines -- practice social distancing, wear a face mask and wash your hands regularly -- to help slow the spread.

On Sept. 8, 2020, the state health department said it has begun the transitionto include antigen test resultsin the state's data collection and reporting system. A positive antigen test result is considered a "probable" case, while a positive molecular test result is considered a "confirmed" case.

Antigen testing is a rapid test that can be completed in less than an hour. Molecular tests usually take days before results are made available.

On July 15,2020,Stitt said he had tested positive for COVID-19, making him the first governor in the country to test positive for the virus. He has sinceposted video updates of concerning his health and quarantine.

Oklahoma reported its first child death related to the virus on July 12, 2020.The child was a 13-year-old daughter of a soldier stationed at Fort Sill.

Shortly after the report of the girl's death, stateSuperintendent Joy Hofmeister recommended for all Oklahomans to wear face masksto allow the safely reopening of schools in the fall.

On June 30, 2020, Stitt wore a face mask and "strongly encouraged" Oklahomans to follow CDC guidelines pertaining to face masks.

More:Gov. Stitt Recommends Wearing Face Masks During Update Concerning COVID-19 In State

Stitt said April 28, 2020, that anyone who wished to take a COVID-19 test could do so even if they are not presenting symptoms.

Related:Gov. Stitt Presents State's Coronavirus Figures To Show Oklahoma Is Ready To Reopen

The state health department advises anyone with COVID-19 symptoms such as shortness of breath, fever, or coughing to stay home and limit person-to-person engagement.

The state coronavirus hotline is877-215-8336or 211.For a list of coronavirus (COVID-19) links and resources,click here.

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News On 6 - News On 6

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- A bill moving forward at the Ohio Statehouse would give $422 million from the massive federal coronavirus relief bill to the states smaller towns and township governments.

The Republican-controlled Ohio House voted Wednesday to approve House Bill 377, which formally allocates some of the $10 billion Ohio got from the American Rescue Plan Act signed in 2021 by Democratic President Joe Biden. The bill will go on to the Republican-controlled Ohio Senate for consideration and also would require Republican Gov. Mike DeWines signature to become law.

The money would get split by population among Ohios non-entitlement government units -- a term that covers cities of 50,000 people or less, village and township governments -- with the requirement that it is spent to directly reimburse costs associated with responding to the coronavirus pandemic and its associated economic effects. The money would be returned if not spent by the end of the states 2023 fiscal year.

The same group of local governments got $422 million last June from the previous round of ARPA funding, which is split into two years.

The Republican-controlled Ohio House approved the bill 75-9 on Wednesday, with all the no votes coming from some of the chambers most conservative Republicans.

Half of the $10 billion the state got from the ARPA will go to the state government, with the other half going to local governments.

Republicans, including DeWine, criticized ARPA before congressional Democrats and Biden passed it.

But since the coronavirus aid bill passed in 2021, the governor, whos running for re-election this year, has touted his plans to spend Ohios share of the money, which also include spending $1.5 billion to repay a federal loan to cover unemployment benefits paid during the pandemic; $756 million for local economic recovery initiatives, water and sewer grants, and pediatric behavioral healthcare facilities; $500 million to invest in Appalachian Ohio; $250 million in police grants; and $10.5 million to buy machines that can help solve gun crimes.

State Rep. Thomas Hall, a Butler County Republican who is one of HB377s sponsors, said during committee testimony the bill is about making sure Ohios 1,300-plus townships and other smaller local governments get their fair share of the federal relief money.

Whether or not you agree with the overall funding outlined in the American Rescue Plan, it is essential that all of Ohios local governments and their communities are treated equally under the bill, he said.

Reporter Jeremy Pelzer contributed to this story

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Ohio House approves sending hundreds of millions in federal coronavirus aid to small towns, townships - cleveland.com

More than three-quarters of Americans diagnosed with long Covid were not sick enough to be hospitalized for their initial infection, a new analysis of tens of thousands of private insurance claims reported on Wednesday.

The researchers analyzed data from the first few months after doctors began using a special diagnostic code for the condition that was created last year. The results paint a sobering picture of long Covids serious and ongoing impact on peoples health and the American health care system.

Long Covid, a complex constellation of lingering or new post-infection symptoms that can last for months or longer, has become one of the most daunting legacies of the pandemic. Estimates of how many people may ultimately be affected have ranged from 10 percent to 30 percent of infected adults; a recent report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office said that between 7.7 million and 23 million people in the United States could have developed long Covid. But much remains unclear about the prevalence, causes, treatment and consequences of the condition.

The new study adds to a growing body of evidence that, while patients who have been hospitalized are at greater risk for long Covid, people with mild or moderate initial coronavirus infections who make up the vast majority of coronavirus patients can still experience debilitating post-Covid symptoms including breathing problems, extreme fatigue and cognitive and memory issues.

Its generating a pandemic of people who were not hospitalized, but who ended up with this increased disability, said Dr. Paddy Ssentongo, an assistant professor of infectious disease epidemiology at Penn State, who was not involved in the new study.

The analysis, based on what the report calls the largest database of private health insurance claims in the United States, found 78,252 patients who were diagnosed with the new code from the International Classification of Diseases diagnostic code U09.9 for Post COVID-19 condition, unspecified between Oct. 1, 2021, and Jan. 31, 2022.

Dr. Claire Steves, a clinical academic and physician at Kings College London, who was not involved in the new research, said the overall number of people who received the diagnosis was huge, given that the study covered only the first four months after the diagnostic code was introduced and did not include people covered by government health programs like Medicaid or Medicare (though it did include people in private Medicare Advantage plans). Thats probably a drop in the ocean compared to what the real number is, Dr. Steves said.

The study, conducted by FAIR Health, a nonprofit organization that focuses on health care costs and insurance issues, found that 76 percent of the long Covid patients did not require hospitalization for their initial coronavirus infection.

Another striking finding was that while two-thirds of the patients had pre-existing health conditions in their medical records, nearly a third did not, a much larger percentage than Dr. Ssentongo said he would have expected. These are people who have been healthy and theyre like, Guys, something is not right with me, he said.

The researchers plan to continue to track the patients to see how long their symptoms last, but Robin Gelburd, the president of FAIR Health, said that the organization decided to publish data from the first four months now, given the urgency of the issue.

She said researchers were working to try to answer some of the questions that are not addressed in the report, including providing detail on some patients previous health conditions to try to identify whether certain medical problems put people at higher risk of long Covid.

The organization also plans to analyze how many patients in the study were vaccinated and when, Ms. Gelburd said. More than three-quarters of the patients in the study were infected in 2021, most of those in the last half of the year. On average, patients were still experiencing long Covid symptoms that qualified for the diagnosis four and a half months after their infection.

The findings suggest a potentially staggering impact of long Covid on people in the prime of their lives, and on society at large. Nearly 35 percent of the patients were between the ages of 36 to 50, while nearly one-third were ages 51 to 64, and 17 percent were ages 23 to 35. Children were also diagnosed with post-Covid conditions: Nearly 4 percent of the patients were 12 or younger, while nearly 7 percent were between ages 13 and 22.

Six percent of the patients were 65 and older, a proportion that most likely reflects the fact that patients covered by the regular Medicare program werent included in the study. They were much more likely than the younger groups with long Covid to have had pre-existing chronic medical conditions.

The insurance data analyzed did not include information about the race or ethnicity of patients, researchers said.

The analysis, which Ms. Gelburd said was evaluated by an independent academic reviewer but not formally peer-reviewed, also calculated a risk score for the patients, a way of estimating how likely people are to use health care resources. Comparing all the insurance claims the patients had up until 90 days before they contracted Covid with their claims 30 days or more after they were infected, the study found that average risk scores went up for patients in every age group.

Ms. Gelburd and other experts said the scores suggested that the repercussions of long Covid are not simply confined to increased medical spending. They signal how many people are leaving their jobs, how many are being given disability status, how much absenteeism is there in school, Ms. Gelburd said. Its like a pebble thrown into the lake, and these ripples circling that pebble are concentric circles of impact.

Because the study captured only a privately insured population, Dr. Ssentongo said, it almost certainly understates the scope and burden of long Covid, especially since low-income communities have been disproportionately affected by the virus and often have less access to health care. I think it may even be worse if we added in the Medicaid population and all these other people that would have been missed in the studys data, he said.

Sixty percent of the patients with the post-Covid diagnosis were female, the study reported, compared with 54 percent of Covid patients overall in the FAIR Health database. In the oldest and youngest age groups, however, there were roughly as many males as females.

I think there is a female preponderance in terms of this condition, Dr. Steves said, adding that the reasons could include differences in biological factors that make women more prone to autoimmune conditions.

The insurance claims showed that nearly one-quarter of the post-Covid patients had respiratory symptoms, nearly one-fifth had coughs and 17 percent had been diagnosed with malaise and fatigue, a far-reaching category that could include issues like brain fog and exhaustion that gets worse after physical or mental activity. Other common issues included abnormal heartbeats and sleep disorders.

Generalized anxiety disorder was more common for 23- to 35-year-olds than for other age groups, the study reported, while hypertension was more common in the oldest patients.

Last year, FAIR Health published a study tracking insurance records of nearly two million people who had contracted Covid, which found that one month or more after their infection, almost one-quarter of them 23 percent sought medical treatment for new conditions.

The new study tried to determine how common certain symptoms were before the patients got infected compared with the period when those same patients were diagnosed with post-Covid conditions. It found that some typically uncommon health issues were much more likely to emerge during long Covid. For example, muscle problems occurred 11 times more often in the patients with long Covid, pulmonary embolisms occurred 2.6 times more often and certain types of brain-related disorders occurred two times more often, the study said.

Like previous studies, the report found that if patients did need hospitalization for their initial infection, they were at higher risk of long-term symptoms than patients who were not hospitalized. The report came to that conclusion because about 24 percent of the patients diagnosed with a post-Covid condition had been hospitalized more of them male than female while only about 8 percent of all coronavirus patients needed hospitalization.

Still, because the vast majority of people do not need to be hospitalized for their infection, medical experts said that this and other studies indicate that many people with mild or moderate initial illness will end up with lingering symptoms or new post-Covid health problems.

Ms. Gelburd and medical experts said that as doctors become more acquainted with the U09.9 code, they might use it in different circumstances than they did in the first four months. One recent analysis found that doctors use of the code has been inconsistent so far.

Given the likely scale of long Covid, Dr. Ssentongo said he expects that in the future doctors will ask patients if they have ever been diagnosed with post-Covid conditions, just as doctors ask about other previous medical problems so they can treat patients appropriately.

Post-Covid syndrome is going to become perhaps one of the most common pre-existing comorbidities going forward, he said.

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Over 75 Percent of Long Covid Patients Were Not Hospitalized for Initial Illness, Study Finds - The New York Times

Last updated 16 April 2020

On 31 December 2019, WHO was informed of a cluster of cases of pneumonia of unknown cause detected in Wuhan City, Hubei Province of China. Chinese authorities identified the SARS-CoV-2 as the causative virus on 7 January 2020, and the disease was named coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) by WHO on 11 February 2020. As part of WHOs response to the outbreak, a Research and Development (R&D) Blueprint has been activated to accelerate the development of diagnostics, vaccines and therapeutics for this novel coronavirus.

Under WHOs coordination, a group of experts with diverse backgrounds is working towards the development of vaccines against COVID-19.

The group makes a call to everyone to follow recommendations to prevent the transmission of the COVID-19 virus and protect the health of individuals. The group also thanks everyone for putting their trust in the scientific community.

We are scientists, physicians, funders and manufacturers who have come together as part of an international collaboration, coordinated by the World Health Organization (WHO), to help speed the availability of a vaccine against COVID-19.While a vaccine for general use takes time to develop, a vaccine may ultimately be instrumental in controlling this worldwide pandemic.In the interim, we applaud the implementation of community intervention measures that reduce spread of the virus and protect people, including vulnerable populations, and pledge to use the time gained by the widespread adoption of such measures to develop a vaccine as rapidly as possible. We will continue efforts to strengthen the unprecedented worldwide collaboration, cooperation and sharing of data already underway. We believe these efforts will help reduce inefficiencies and duplication of effort, and we will work tenaciously to increase the likelihood that one or more safe and effective vaccines will soon be made available to all.

Randy A. Albrecht, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, USA

Mohamad Assoum, Mercy Global Health

Luigi Aurisicchio, on behalf of Takis Biotech, Italy

Dan Barouch, Center for Virology and Vaccine Research, USA

Trevor Brasel, The University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB), USA

Jennifer L Bath, ImmunoPrecise Antibodies, Canada

Sina Bavari, Edge BioInnovation Consulting and Management, USA

Maria Elena Bottazzi, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, USA

Gerhard Beck,Austrian Medicines and Medical Devices, Austria

Tom Brady, Flow Pharma Inc, USA

Kate Broderick, Inovio, USA

Will Brown, Altimmune Inc, USA

Dirk Busch, Maura Dandri, Dirk Heinz and Hans-Georg Kraeusslich, on behalf of the German Center for Infection Research - DZIF, Germany

Scot Bryson, Orbital Farm, Canada

Ricardo Carrin, Texas Biomedical Research Institute, USA

Miles Carroll, Public Health England, UK

Keith Chappell, University of Queensland, Australia

Daniel S. Chertow, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, USA

Sandra Cordo, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina

Wian de Jongh, on behalf of the Prevent n-CoV consortium (AdaptVac, ExpreS2ion, Copenhagen University, Leiden University Medical Centre, Wageningen University and Tubingen University)

Natalie Dean, University of Florida, USA

Rafael Delgado, Hospital Universitario 12 de Octubre, Spain

Dimiter Dimitrov

David A. Dodd, GeoVax, Inc., USA

Paul Duprex, Center for Vaccine Research, University of Pittsburgh, USA

Luis Enjuanes; Centro Nacional Biotecnologa, Spain

Jeremy Farrar, Josie Golding, Charlie Weller, on behalf of Wellcome Trust, UK

Mark Feinberg, Swati Gupta and Ripley Ballou, on behalf of IAVI, USA

Antonella Folgori, on behalf of ReiThera, Italy

Thomas Friedrich, University of Wisconsin, School of Veterinary Medicine, USA

Simon Funnel, Public Health England, UK

Luc Gagnon, Nexelis, Canada

Adolfo Garcia-Sastre, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, USA

Vipin Garg, Altimmune Inc., USA

Volker Gerdts, on behalf of VIDO-Intervac, University of Saskatchewan, Canada

Nora Gerhards, Wageningen Bioveterinary Research, The Netherlands

Christiane Gerke, Head of Vaccine Programs/Head of Vaccine Innovation Development, Institut Pasteur, France

Carlo Giaquinto, Department of Women and Child Health, University of Padova, Italy

Prakash Ghimire, Tribhuvan University, Nepal

Nikolaj Gilbert, Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH), USA

Sarah Gilbert, University of Oxford, UK

Marion F. Gruber, Food and Drug Administration, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, USA

Farshad Guirakhoo, GeoVax Inc, USA

Bart L Haagmans, Erasmus Medical Center, The Netherlands

M. Elizabeth Halloran, Center for Inference and Dynamics of Infectious Diseases, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and University of Washington, USA

Scott Harris, Altimmune Inc, USA

Hideki Hasegawa, National Institute of Infectious Diseases, Japan

Richard Hatchett, on behalf of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), Norway

James Hayward, Applied DNA Sciences, USA

Sheri Ann Hild

Peter Hotez, Baylor College of Medicine, USA

Youngmee Jee, Seoul National University, College of Medicine, Republic of Korea

Charu Kaushic, Institute of Infection and Immunity, Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Government of Canada

Alyson A. Kelvin, Dalhousie University, Canada

Larry D. Kerr, Office of Global Affairs, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, USA

Bernard Kerscher, PEI, Germany

Jae-Ouk Kim, International Vaccine Institute, Republic of Korea

Seungtaek Kim, Institut Pasteur Korea, Republic of Korea

Jason Kindrachuk, University of Manitoba, Canada

Otfried Kistner, Senior Consultant and Independent Vaccine Expert, Austria

Gary Kobinger, Universit Laval, Canada

Marion Koopmans, Viroscience Department, Erasmus Medical Centre, The Netherlands

Jeroen Kortekaas, Wageningen Bioveterinary Research, the Netherlands

Philip R. Krause, Food and Drug Administration, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, USA

Greg Kulnis, Nexelis, Canada

Paul Henri Lambert, Centre of Vaccinology, University of Geneva, Switzerland

Nathalie Landry, Medicago Inc., Canada

Roger Le Grand, Inserm-CEA-Universit Paris Saclay, France

Robin Levis, Food and Drug Administration, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, USA

Mark G Lewis, Bioqual Inc, USA

Joshua Liang, Clover Biopharmaceuticals, China

Jinzhong Lin, on behalf of Fudan University, China

Ira Longini, University of Florida, USA

Shabir Madhi, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

Jessica E. Manning, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, USA

Peter Marks, Director, on behalf of Food and Drug Administration/Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research

Hilary D. Marston, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, USA

Federico Martinn-Torres, Hospital Clnico Universitario de Santiago de Compostela, Spain

Sebastian Maurer-Stroh, on behalf of the GISAID Initiative

John W. Mellors, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, USA

Ali Mirazimi, Department of Laboratory medicin, Karolinska institutet, Sweden

Kayvon Modjarrad, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, USA

Stefan O. Mueller, CureVac, Germany

Vincent J. Munster, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, USA

Csar Muoz-Fontela, Bernhard-Nocht-Institute for Tropical Medicine, Germany

Aysegul Nalca, U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), USA

Jos Manuel Ochoa, Altimmune Inc., USA

Dave O'Connor, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA

Lidia Oostvogels, CureVac, Germany

Nisreen M. A. Okba, Erasmus Medical Center, The Netherlands

L. Jean Patterson, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, USA

Joe Payne, on behalf of Arcturus Therapeutics

Jonathan Pearce, on behalf of the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and the Medical Research Council (MRC), UK

Stanley Perlman, University of Iowa, USA

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Public statement for collaboration on COVID-19 vaccine ...

Provisional name given to any recently discovered coronavirus of medical significance

Novel coronavirus (nCoV) is a provisional name given to coronaviruses of medical significance before a permanent name is decided upon. Although coronaviruses are endemic in humans and infections normally mild, such as the common cold (caused by human coronaviruses in ~15% of cases), cross-species transmission has produced some unusually virulent strains which can cause viral pneumonia and in serious cases even acute respiratory distress syndrome and death.[1][2][3]

The following viruses could initially be referred to as "novel coronavirus", before being formally named:

All four viruses are part of the Betacoronavirus genus within the coronavirus family.

The word "novel" indicates a "new pathogen of a previously known type" (i.e. known family) of virus. Use of the word conforms to best practices for naming new infectious diseases published by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2015. Historically, pathogens have sometimes been named after locations, individuals, or specific species.[citation needed] However, this practice is now explicitly discouraged by the WHO.[12]

The official permanent names for viruses and for diseases are determined by the ICTV and the WHO's ICD, respectively.

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei a 2020 study from the University of Alabama at Birmingham found a more than ten-fold increase in use of expressions such as "Chinese virus" or "Wu flu virus" on Twitter compared to before the outbreak. The researchers voiced concerns whether such terminology could hinder public health efforts or be stigmatizing. No such effects were observed in the wake of the MERS outbreaks being referred to as "Camel flu virus" or "Middle East virus".[13]

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Novel coronavirus - Wikipedia

Nearly 15 million more people died during the pandemic than would have in normal times, the World Health Organization said on Thursday, a staggering measure of Covids true toll that laid bare how vastly country after country has undercounted victims.

In Mexico, the excess death toll during the first two years of the pandemic was twice as high as the governments official tally of Covid deaths, the W.H.O. found.

In Egypt, excess deaths were roughly 12 times as great as the official Covid toll.

In Pakistan, the figure was eight times as high.

Those estimates, calculated by a global panel of experts assembled by the W.H.O., represent what many scientists see as the most reliable gauge of the total impact of the pandemic. Faced with large gaps in global death data, the expert team set out to calculate excess mortality: the difference between the number of people who died in 2020 and 2021 and the number who would have been expected to die during that time if the pandemic had not happened.

Their calculations combined national data on reported deaths with new information from localities and household surveys, and with statistical models that aimed to account for deaths that were missed.

Most of the excess deaths were victims of Covid itself, the experts said, but some died because the pandemic made it more difficult to get medical care for ailments such as heart attacks. The previous toll, based solely on death counts reported by countries, was six million.

Much of the loss of life from the pandemic was concentrated in 2021, when more contagious variants tore through even countries that had fended off earlier outbreaks. Overall deaths that year were roughly 18 percent higher an extra 10 million people than they would have been without the pandemic, the W.H.O.-assembled experts estimated.

Developing nations bore the brunt of the devastation, with nearly eight million more people than expected dying in lower-middle-income nations during the pandemic.

Its absolutely staggering what has happened with this pandemic, including our inability to accurately monitor it, said Dr. Prabhat Jha, an epidemiologist at St. Michaels Hospital and the University of Toronto, who was a member of the expert working group that made the calculations. It shouldnt happen in the 21st century.

The figures had been ready since January, but their release was stalled by objections from India, which disputes the methodology for calculating how many of its citizens died.

Nearly a third of the excess deaths globally 4.7 million took place in India, according to the W.H.O. estimates. The Indian governments own figure through the end of 2021 is 481,080 deaths.

But India was far from the only country where deaths were substantially underreported. Where excess deaths far outstripped the number of reported Covid fatalities, experts said the gap could reflect countries struggles to collect mortality data or their efforts to intentionally obscure the toll of the pandemic.

In some countries, flaws in government reports were widely known. Russia, for example, had reported roughly 310,000 Covid deaths by the end of 2021, but the W.H.O. experts indicated that the excess death toll was nearly 1.1 million. That mirrored earlier estimates from a Russian national statistics agency that is fairly independent of the government.

Aleksei Raksha, an independent demographer who quit the Russian state statistics service after complaining of the failure to count Covid deaths properly, said that informal orders had been given to local authorities to ensure that in many cases, Covid was not registered as the primary cause of death.

Excess deaths have established the true picture, Mr. Raksha said. Russia demonstrated a dismal performance in fighting the pandemic.

In other nations, W.H.O. experts used what limited data was available to arrive at estimates jarringly at odds with previous counts, though they cautioned that some of those calculations remained highly uncertain. In Indonesia, for example, the experts leaned heavily on monthly death data from Jakarta, the capital, to estimate that the country had experienced over a million more deaths than normal. That figure would be seven times as high as the reported Covid death toll.

Siti Nadia Tarmizi, a spokeswoman for the governments Covid-19 vaccination program, acknowledged that Indonesia had suffered more deaths than the government had reported. She said the problem stemmed in part from people not reporting relatives deaths to avoid complying with government rules for Covid victims funerals. But she said that the W.H.O. estimates were far too high.

In Pakistan, Dr. Faisal Sultan, a former health minister, defended the governments death reports, saying that studies of the number of graveyard burials in major cities did not reveal large numbers of uncounted victims of the pandemic.

For still other countries that suffered grievously during the pandemic, the W.H.O. estimates illuminated even more startling figures hiding inside already devastating death counts. In Peru, for instance, the expert estimate of 290,000 excess deaths by the end of 2021 was only 1.4 times as high as the reported Covid death toll. But the W.H.O. estimate of 437 excess deaths for every 100,000 Peruvians left the country with among the worlds highest per capita tolls.

When a health care system isnt prepared to receive patients who are seriously ill with pneumonia, when it cant provide the oxygen they need to live, or even provide beds for them to lay in so they can have some peace, you get what youve gotten, said Dr. Elmer Huerta, an oncologist and public health specialist who hosts a popular radio show in Peru.

In the United States, the W.H.O. estimated that roughly 930,000 more people than expected had died by the end of 2021, compared with the 820,000 Covid deaths that had been officially recorded over the same period.

In Mexico, the government has itself kept a tally of excess deaths during the pandemic that appears roughly in line with the W.H.O.s. Those estimates about double the countrys reported Covid death toll reflected what analysts there described as difficulties counting the dead.

We responded badly, we reacted slowly. But I think the most serious of all was to not communicate the urgency, the wanting to minimize, minimize, said Xavier Tello, a public health analyst based in Mexico City. Because Mexico wasnt or isnt testing for Covid, a lot of people died and we dont know if they had Covid.

The W.H.O.s calculations include people who died directly from Covid, from medical conditions complicated by Covid, or because they had ailments other than Covid but could not get needed treatment because of the pandemic. The excess death estimates also take into account expected deaths that did not occur because of Covid restrictions, such as reductions in traffic accidents or isolation that prevented deaths from the flu and other infectious diseases.

Calculating excess deaths is complex, the W.H.O. experts said. About half of countries globally do not regularly report the number of deaths from all causes. Others supply only partial data. In the W.H.O.s African region, the experts said that they had data from only six of 47 countries.

Scientists also noted that excess death rates were not necessarily indicative of a countrys pandemic response: Older and younger populations will fare differently in a pandemic, regardless of the response. And the W.H.O. experts said that they did not account for the effects of heat waves or conflicts.

Where death figures were missing, the statisticians had to rely on modeling. In those cases, they made predictions based on country-specific information like containment measures, historical rates of disease, temperature and demographics to assemble national figures and, from there, regional and global estimates.

W.H.O. officials used the release of their calculations to plead for greater investment in death reporting.

When we underestimate, we may underinvest, said Dr. Samira Asma, the W.H.O.s assistant director general for data, analytics and delivery for impact. And when we undercount, we may miss targeting the interventions where they are needed most.

W.H.O. officials cited Britain as an example of a country that had accurately recorded Covid deaths: Their analysis found that about 149,000 more people than normal had died during the pandemic, nearly identical to the number of Covid deaths Britain reported.

The disagreement over Indias Covid deaths spilled into public this week when the Indian government on Tuesday abruptly released mortality data from 2020, reporting an 11 percent increase in registered deaths in 2020 compared with average annual deaths registered over the two prior years.

Analysts saw the release as an attempt to force the W.H.O. to reconsider its calculations on the eve of publication. Indian health officials said their figures showed that the country had lost fewer people to Covid than outside estimates suggested.

But scientists believe that most of the countrys excess mortality occurred in 2021, during a grievous wave caused by the Delta variant. And even Indias 2020 figures gave additional credence to the W.H.O. estimates, said Dr. Jha, who has also studied excess deaths in India.

The Indian government wanted to deflect the news, he said, but theyre confirming, at least for 2020, the W.H.O. numbers.

Other experts said that Indias refusal to cooperate with the W.H.O. analysis was rooted in the countrys history of ignoring how data can inform policymaking.

Its natural to miss some of the Covid deaths, said Dr. Bhramar Mukherjee, a professor of biostatistics at the University of Michigan School of Public Health who has been working with the W.H.O. to review the data. But, she added, Nobodys been this resistant.

The Ministry of Health in New Delhi did not respond to requests for comment. W.H.O. officials said that Indias 2020 death figures were released too late to be incorporated into their calculations but that they would carefully review the data.

Nations that report Covid deaths more accurately have also been at the center of disputes over the reliability of excess death estimates. In Germany, for example, the W.H.O. experts estimated that 195,000 more people than normal had died during the pandemic, a significantly higher toll than the 112,000 Covid deaths recorded there.

But Giacomo De Nicola, a statistician at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, who has studied excess deaths in Germany, said that the countrys rapidly aging population meant that the W.H.O. analysis might have underestimated the number of people who would have been expected to die in a normal year. That, in turn, could have produced overestimates of excess deaths.

He said that the W.H.O.-assembled experts had accounted for trends in mortality, but not directly for changes in the age structure of the population. While Germany experienced excess deaths, he said, the W.H.O. estimate for the country seems very high.

Overall, the W.H.O. calculations were more conservative than separate analyses released earlier by The Economist and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.

Some experts said that the W.H.O. analysis benefited from relying more heavily than other estimates on actual data, even where it was incomplete, as opposed to statistical modeling.

Oscar Lopez, Karan Deep Singh, Sofa Villamil, Christopher F. Schuetze, Ivan Nechepurenko, Richard C. Paddock, Muktita Suhartono, Mitra Taj, Julie Turkewitz, Merna Thomas and Salman Masood contributed reporting.

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George Cheeks, the president of CBS, tests positive for coronavirus after attending the White House Correspondents' Dinner. - The New York Times

Im positive! Do I need to self-isolate or quarantine?

If you test positive, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends you should isolate and delay travel for 10 days, regardless of symptoms or a negative test taken within the isolation period. The country where you are staying may have its own rules for quarantine and isolation. The rules differ from country to country and isolation periods may be longer than the 10 days recommended by the C.D.C. Across Europe, many countries follow guidance from the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, which recommends that fully vaccinated people should self-isolate after testing positive. If their symptoms improve and they feel better for at least 24 hours and they test negative for the virus twice within a 24-hour period, they can stop isolating. Or, if after six days they test negative once, they can stop isolating. Unvaccinated people are advised to self-isolate for 10 days, but can leave isolation if they meet the same requirements for negative tests.

Some other destinations, particularly in Asia, may require mandatory quarantine or isolation in a government facility or designated hotel for 14 days or more.

This will depend on the regulations in the country you are visiting, so be sure to check what they say on local health ministry websites. In most places, tourists are not required to officially report a positive test result to the government, although if you took your test in person at a local health facility, the results are often sent to the regional or national health authority.

Most countries, including popular European destinations like Greece, Italy and France, allow visitors testing positive to choose their own accommodation for the recommended period of self-isolation. You can find this information on U.S. embassy websites. If you have booked a hotel or Airbnb for your trip, it is worth calling ahead of time and seeing what their policy is for isolation and whether they have availability should you need to extend your stay.

Some lodging facilities will require you to isolate alone in a separate room, even if your family members or travel companions test negative. You should also ask about access to food and medical facilities, particularly if you are staying in a remote area.

Its useful to have a plan B in place in case your hotel or rental cannot accommodate you, or to have a cheaper option available if you do have to self-isolate for 10 days. Many countries have designated quarantine hotels or apartments and some resorts in popular tourist destinations like Spain, Portugal and Mexico allow guests to quarantine at a discounted rate.

While most people are likely to test negative within 10 days of a positive coronavirus test, for some it can take weeks or even months, according to the global health partnership Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. If you find yourself in that position, and feel well enough to travel, you can return to the United States but will need to obtain documentation of recovery.

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Testing Positive for the Coronavirus Overseas: What You Need to Know - The New York Times

People wearing face masks walk down a street before the start of a mandatory total isolation decreed by the mayor's office, amidst an outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Bogota, Colombia January 7, 2021. REUTERS/Luisa Gonzalez

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BOGOTA, May 6 (Reuters) - Colombia will offer a second coronavirus booster shot to people aged 50 and over, the government said on Friday.

Colombia has reported just under 6.1 million confirmed coronavirus infections and 139,809 deaths, according to the Health Ministry.

The decision on a second booster comes after the Andean country of around 50 million people hit its target of fully vaccinating 70% of its population, the government said.

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A second booster shot "will be important to keep protecting ourselves, saving lives, and giving confidence to the population," President Ivan Duque said in a statement.

Second boosters will consist of either a half dose of the Moderna (MRNA.O) vaccine or a full dose of the Pfizer (PFE.N) vaccine, he added.

Those eligible for the second booster can get it four months after receiving their first, the government said.

The government in March had started to offer second boosters to those with autoimmune conditions and those who had received organ transplants.

Almost 11.9 million people have received a first booster shot, according to Health Ministry figures, while just over 19,000 have had a second booster.

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Reporting by Oliver Griffin; Editing by Leslie Adler

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Colombia to offer second coronavirus booster shots to over 50s, others - Reuters