Category Archives: Corona Virus

(The Center Square) A coalition of leading House Republicans is raising the alarm and demanding answers after the Biden administration approved another round of grant funding for research on coronaviruses and bats in Asia.

The lawmakers sent a letter to Anthony Fauci, who leads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and serves as the chief medical advisor to President Joe Biden.

We have grave concerns that one of your last acts at NIAID is to send even more taxpayer dollars to an organization whose prior involvement in the very same subject may have contributed to a global pandemic, the letter to Fauci, who is ending his decades-long role with the federal government in December, said. We write seeking information about your decision, including whether anyone at NIH has a financial or other non-official interest in EcoHealth continuing to receive taxpayer funds.

EcoHealth Alliance is the group that received funding to study bats and coronaviruses via the infamous lab in Wuhan, China. The contract with that lab has been severed, in large part due to international scrutiny and questions about its role in the origin of the pandemic.

Your decision to fund EcoHealth is especially galling because the company continues to stonewall information gathering about the grant-funded work it previously financed at the WIV, the letter said. NIH has requested all U.S. taxpayer-funded laboratory notebooks and experiment results from EcoHealths research conducted at the WIV. As of today, however, EcoHealth has yet to supply the records sought by NIH.

House Republican Whip and Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis Ranking Member Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., House Committee on Oversight and Reform Ranking Member Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., and House Committee on the Judiciary Ranking Member Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, sent the letter to Fauci.

The lawmakers called for more transparency, especially regarding the labs potential role in the COVID-19 pandemic, an issue still in dispute.

It is outrageous that the results of U.S. taxpayer-funded experiments are unavailable to the U.S. government, particularly when those experiments could shed light on the origins of a virus that has killed more than one million Americans, the letter said. It is unconscionable that you would choose to continue to fund a company that has violated its NIH grant terms in a manner that helps to keep this valuable information from the U.S. government and American taxpayers.

Based on the totality of circumstances surrounding EcoHealth and the WIV that have transpired over the past two and a half years, your decision to continue funding this entity is downright shocking, the letter adds.

Fauci announced earlier this year he would resign in December.

It has been the honor of a lifetime to have led the NIAID, an extraordinary institution, for so many years and through so many scientific and public health challenges, Fauci said in the announcement of his resignation. I am very proud of our many accomplishments.

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Shocking: EcoHealth Alliance receives another round of funding for coronavirus bat research in Asia - The Center Square

Introduction

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) represents a new infectious disease caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) that has led to a pandemic and caused a universal concern [1]. The extraordinary condition of the pandemic and the need to adapt to the SARS-CoV-2 challenges resulted in significant costs to physical and mental health around the world [1-2], which increased associated morbidity and mortality in all ages. Furthermore, the unprecedented climate of fear, isolation, minimization of social interactions, and disruption of peoples daily routines changed the way in which all manner of activities were conducted, including education, work, social interaction, and hobbies for most people [3]. As a consequence, a number of health problems arose, including physical, psychological, social, and emotional.

In particular, education was a major field affected by the pandemic. The true extent of the impact on teaching and learning, for students and teachers alike, is yet to be fully determined [4]. During the pandemic, more than 80% of students around the world have been affected by school closures [5]. According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), partial- or full-school closures were still affecting about 70% of the worldwide student population one year into the pandemic, and literacy levels were projected to decrease, with more than 100 million additional children affected. The more pessimistic scenarios refer to a looming "generational catastrophe" [6].

Balancing the above, we believe that there are several take-home messages that need to be recognized in an attempt to revive societys systemic approach. Educators have a responsibility to promote fundamental values and principles, while education is closely linked to health and well-being and is considered one of the most important modifiable social determinants of health [5,7]. Many countries have tried to keep schools open or re-open schools safely in the event of prolonged closures by putting in place locally adapted health and safety policies to protect learners and school staff [7]. The changes in the realm of education, and more specifically, preventive interventions in the context of health education, have drawn attention to difficulties and obstacles, but have also given prominence to new possibilities and opportunities.

In the current manuscript, we analyze five important aspects of the above-described landscape by exploring the lessons learned from the current pandemic while focusing on the opportunities lying ahead in school activities and interventions in order to further develop the important field of health education. We discuss five specific possibilities that have been highlighted and could serve as a symbolic transformation from VIRAL to VITAL in health education, which include: value in health, interventions in health education, transfer and diffusion of health messages, applications of online and distance learning, and life examples: from vague theory to real life. Each opportunity has been aligned with one relevant excerpt from ancient Greek literature.

"Health is best": The great Greek philosopher Plato argues that health is one of the best goods [8].

The threat, danger, and uncertainty of the pandemic have shifted societys focus on the values of life, health, and safety, which are recognized as valuable goods and demand particular attention, as opposed to the prevailing common perception that they are self-evident. In the famous pyramid of the hierarchy of human needs designed by the psychologist Abraham Maslow (1943: A Theory of Human Motivation), the scientist placed security at the base, as a fundamental good along with the main needs of survival [9]. However, the attribution of value to health is not self-evident. A large percentage of people, up to 40%, do not rank health in the top five values, giving priority to others, including the utmost value of freedom [10]. However, the value attributed to health is an important predictor of a person's intentions and behaviors [11-12], with the consequence that people adopt preventive behaviors only when they value health as a major asset. In other words, the more one considers health as a fundamental and primary need, the more one classifies it in its top values, the less one passes it as a given and self-evident, and the more one follows behaviors that protect and promote it [13].

The post-pandemic shift in social interest toward safety and health has consistently placed much higher importance on the strengthening, implementation, and adoption of preventive behaviors. As a consequence, several opportunities have emerged during the current pandemic regarding the value of health, which may be exploited in health education. Briefly, we may point out the reorganization of the human value system leading to the recognition of health as a primary asset and its placement in the center of people's interests; the reconstruction of the common prevailing perception that health is given and self-evident; the focus on safeguarding, defending, and strengthening health; and the need to promote, enforce, and implement preventive behaviors that protect health.

"Best to prevent than treat" The Father of Medicine, Hippocrates, claims that prevention is better than treatment [14].

Interventions in the framework of health education constitute a widely promoted goal in public health. Activities and interventions are a vital component of campaigns to raise awareness and inform not only the students but also the general public. It is of primary importance to raise awareness and inform the student population within the supportive environment of schools, an ideal setting to communicate with a large number of young people [15]. Such actions aim to promote health-positive attitudes among students by improving knowledge, rebuilding perceptions, changing beliefs, modifying misconceptions, prioritizing values, and reinforcing attitudes that value health.

The global health crisis highlighted and reaffirmed the value and usefulness of health education, with particular attention to personal hygiene, fresh air, healthy breathing, a balanced diet, physical activity, and quality of sleep. The children were asked to use their knowledge and skills about proper hand washing, covering their mouths in coughing and sneezing, using clean tissues, and many more hygiene measures in real-life scenarios [16]. This acquired knowledge was applied along with new ones concerning the more frequent washing of hands, the avoidance of finger contact with the face, the eyes, or the mouth, and the observance of social distance. Never before have the goals of preventive interventions in schools been served more effectively and proved to be so relevant and necessary to everyday activities [17]. In addition, the need for additional actions related to the expression of negative emotions, management, and control of anxiety, dysthymia, tension, stress, anxiety, fear, panic, or anger, which strongly manifested during the period of pandemic under the state of global threat, has emerged [18]. As a result of all of the above, emerging opportunities include the necessity of continuing and enhancing preventive interventions; the importance of health promotion as an educational priority; and the enrichment of school interventions by including stress and negative emotion management modules through the cultivation and strengthening of personal and social skills [19-20].

"We believe, the children, are the soul of the state." The wise ancient Greek legislator Solon claimed that children are the soul of each society.

As discussed below, children may also serve as vehicles for transferring ideas and information between the family and the greater community. This is important since public health and health education are closely interconnected as public health is considered the broadest bridge between science and society [18,21]. The current health "emergency" has made it clear that the effective transmission of health messages concerning universal measures to protect public health is a necessary precondition. According to the science of communication, extremely important elements are the content of the message, its expression, and the strengthening of its persuasiveness (exercise of persuasion) [22]. While it seems that parents are the ones who usually influence their children, the opposite may also be true, that is, children can be the ones who can influence the knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors of parents, but also their immediate community [23].

In important health-education issues, such as adhering to the no-smoking rule at home, children seem to play an effective role as counselors and facilitators in the transmission of anti-smoking messages to the home environment [24] as well as serving as educators of their peers in peer-to-peer activities [25-26]. Challenges, as well as opportunities, arose regarding the dissemination of health education messages through the active role of students who could act as transport vehicles outside the narrow confines of the classroom. Therefore, students could mobilize their parents, siblings, and other important adults by serving as catalysts, proving that their voice has power and deserves to be heard [24].

In such a way, the dynamics of the school could be expanded to achieve, through students, a new potential to serve as a no-barrier two-way multi-modal institution to promote communication and influence families and the wider community. The pandemic has forced us to make the connection between health education and the learners home as well as the wider society. Highlighted opportunities include the possibility of communication between the school and the students families and the wider community for the diffusion of health messages beyond the school hall and the implementation of a simple and promising practice of transmitting health-education principles via students to home environments and communities alike, serving as a new legacy for the future.

"The need is an invincible strength." The great dramatic poet Aeschylus emphasizes that the power of need is invincible [27].

Over the last decade, digital tools in general and virtual learning environments, in particular, became increasingly prominent in education, but for the most part, they did not replace in-person learning [28]. During the pandemic, the number of online classes skyrocketed on a global scale, with more than 1.5 billion students in 188 countries around the globe being involved [29]. However, little consideration was given to whether online distance learning (ODL) is equivalent and has a similar cost-benefit profile to in-person education [4,29]. As discussed below, the benefits of ODL do not seem to outweigh the costs. It should be noted, though, that ODL is not equivalent to the use of digital technologies in education. Digital technology can be used even during in-person learning, and it is necessary for students to familiarize themselves with digital methods of searching for information and obtaining self-acquired knowledge. The implementation of e-learning educational activities, incorporated under the pressing necessity of the pandemic, offered, in addition to knowledge, a reminder of life and continuity, which we can use, especially when addressing students of the online generation but also at older ages.

Among the advantages of ODL, we may quote that most of the terms (online learning, open learning, web-based learning, computer-mediated learning, blended learning, m-learning, etc.) provide the ability to use a computer connected to a network, which offers the possibility to learn from anywhere, anytime, at any pace, and with any means [30]. Online learning is defined as "learning experiences in synchronous or asynchronous environments using different devices (e.g., mobile phones, laptops, etc.) with internet access" [31]. There is a plethora of programs and applications which function as platforms for ODL, and they may be used in formal as well as informal education. Such technology enhances accessibility, can reach into rural and remote areas, and increases the potential for individualized instruction, while also providing flexibility and comfort [31-35]. As far as flexibility is concerned, learners can learn anytime and anywhere, as they can plan their time for the completion of courses and recorded lectures available online [32-33]. Furthermore, these applications are cheap and easy to use, while students and teachers can also save time and money by avoiding transportation, accommodation, and the overall cost of institution-based learning [31-35]. Finally, ODL contributes to the preservation of cohesion within the class in times when state restrictions do not permit in-person learning. Students have the right to continue their education in the light of potential new states of emergency, as was the case of the coronavirus outbreak [29].

However, several disadvantages of ODL may also apply and need to be considered. ODL requires familiarity with the specific technology being used. It focuses on the cognitive component and the transfer of information while diminishing the role of emotional stimuli and the possibility to convert information into experience. Furthermore, ODL is associated with emotions of isolation and loneliness, and it makes learners attention more susceptible to distractions. There are several indications that it is less effective, but this requires additional long-term evaluation [4,18,32-33,36-37]. Effective teaching does not depend only, or even mainly, on the quality of the information. The way in which information is transferred is as important as the information itself. This depends on the way in which the teacher expresses himself and addresses the students [38-39]. More specifically, the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the education of healthcare professionals, which relies on various sources of learning from teachers, peers, and patients [6]. Variations in eye contact, voice intensity, voice pitch, the pace of speech, body language, the atmosphere within the classroom, and the sense of group cohesion are all significantly damped down with ODL [40-42]. Furthermore, interactive learning opportunities, such as the ability of students to assume active roles, participate in live dialogue and discussions, the expression of doubt and disagreement, and the opportunity to debate, argue, and express thoughts and opinions, are all achieved to a lesser degree with ODL. Students are encouraged to participate more when they are being taught in person [32,43]. Passive listening is not as effective in achieving the desired learning outcomes since learning is influenced by an interaction of personal, behavioral, and environmental factors [44]. As such, the educational process has the teacher-learner relationship at its center [45].

ODL mainly focuses on information as its nature severely limits the ability to learn behaviors and instill values, which, according to Banduras Social Learning theory, are learned through the process of observation and emulation of role models in the environment [46-47]. Thus, online distance learning with social isolation is even more disadvantageous at younger ages. Finally, it limits the ability of the teacher to gain real-time feedback from students, which is a crucial factor in improving effectiveness and promoting motivation [32,44]. We always keep in mind that the center of every educational process is the human relationship between teacher and student [18].

Take-Home Message

The experience of the pandemic can function as a motivator to introduce further preventive interventions in health education, especially via online platforms, since this form of education was imposed in many parts of the world as part of the response to the pandemic. However, the scientific literature and our common experience show that the benefits of traditional in-person learning outweigh the advantages of ODL, which can nevertheless have a complementary role in cases where in-person learning is not physically possible or too costly [48]. Opportunities in this aspect include the possibility of using e-learning as an educational tool and a springboard for the utilization of internet applications in preventive interventions in the context of health education; the recognition of the need for improvements in online distance learning in terms of enhancing the interaction, feedback, and participation of learners while reducing cognitive load; and the exploration of the hybrid learning mode, by combining classical personal learning with e-learning activities, which seems to be more attractive and acceptable to students.

"Deeds and not words." The ancient Greek poet Aeschylus says that deeds are those that have value, not words [27].

What we teach in schools in the context of health education refers to protecting students from future hazards that seem distant, uncertain, vague, and frequently underestimated by children, due to their lack of perception of vulnerability and sense of omnipotence. Young people generally feel strong, healthy, and invulnerable. They avoid thinking about future problems; they are complacent or ignore them based on the phenomenon of optimistic bias. However, the advent of the pandemic also overturned this rule, in light of the fact that the danger from SARS-CoV-2 did not occupy only the press and the media, but took on the dimensions of an individual. The real-life threat was transformed from distant and future into tangible and imminent, giving flesh and blood to the invisible enemy that emerged as a present and immediate danger.

According to the Health Belief Model [49], the degree and likelihood of adopting a health-related behavior (such as the SARS-CoV-2 prevention and control measures) is determined by the perception of the threat, that is, the degree to which the disease is perceived as threatening, and by the perceived susceptibility and severity of the disease. In other words, the children who were taught about the hazard of coronavirus felt and understood that what they learned was not about a theoretical danger or a hypothetical issue, or even an abstract and imaginary danger, but a tangible reality and threat, the consequences of which could affect them and their family as well as the social environment. Even if they did not become sick themselves or members of their immediate family, they experienced significant changes in their daily lives, from the obligation to wear a mask, restrictions on leaving home, to changes in school, and the way they attended classes.

During the pandemic, the students practically recognized their personal involvement with the problem of COVID-19 disease, realized the danger on a personal level, and clarified the meaning of preventive practices, thus mobilizing themselves by willingly applying personal hygiene and protective measures, aiming to protect their own health and defend the safety of their own loved ones, transferring the principles of theory to real life. Opportunities arising from the above observations, which may promote health promotion and disease prevention programs, are supported by the transformation of theoretical knowledge into practice, hypothetical problems into experience, and general instructions into rescue tools; the application of theoretical principles of health education into real-life scenarios, students recognition of their personal relationship with the problem of COVID-19 and the development of awareness of the problem on a personal level of risk, which led them to understand the value and meaning of preventive practices; students mobilization to willingly implement measures for the protection of their own health and their loved ones; and understanding of preventive interventions in the context of health education, concerning not only the future but also the current risks that are prevented through the adoption of positive health behaviors.

The great historian, Thucydides, characterized the war as a "violent teacher," which creates "stressful" needs and takes away the comfort of life while changing people's behaviors by bringing to the surface features that were left well hidden under the convenience of everyday life during times of peace. This process leads to scraping the glaze of comfort and serenity, setting aside pretexts, and letting the forces of survival emerge. Similarly, we could view the current crisis of the pandemic, which in the field of education put us in front of many obstacles and challenges, but also unfolded hidden possibilities, prospects, and opportunities, acting as a "violent teacher" worth recognizing and exploring. As time passes and the pandemic seems to be fading, we could forget the difficulties we faced, but it is worth keeping and further exploring what they taught us.

Continued here:

Opportunities in Health Education in the Post-COVID-19 Era: Transforming Viral to Vital - Cureus

(The Hill) Chief White House medical adviser AnthonyFauci on Sunday said COVID-19 was politicized by a triple whammy as the pandemic hit an already divided nation during a contentious election year.

It got political very, very quickly because we had the misfortune of an outbreak, and a double misfortune of an outbreak in a divided society, and the triple misfortune of a divided society in an election year, Fauci said in an interview airedon ABCs This Week.

I mean, you couldnt get more cards stacked against you, than right there. It was a triple whammy.

Fauci has served as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984, working under seven administrations, but surged into the spotlight as the lead voice of the Trump White House response to COVID-19.

He became a lightning rod for criticism and conspiracy theories throughout the pandemic, with some on the right insisting that Fauci was a Democratic puppet. The doctor also faced death threats for his public health guidance.

To say that I, who have been an advisor to seven presidents, and have never ever veered one way or the other from an ideological standpoint, for somebody to say that Im political, I mean thats completely crazy, Fauci said Sunday.

Fauci announced earlier this summer that he plans to step down from his position by the end of President Bidens time in office.

He later made it clear that his move away from his government position isnt a retirement, and that he plans to pursue other professional goals away from the White House.

Excerpt from:

Fauci says COVID-19 was politicized by triple whammy of outbreak, division and 2020 election - WJTV

Dear Advice Team: Do medical experts have any idea yet how long immunity from the bivalent COVID booster will last? I know that previous boosters showed waning immunity over time, and Im wondering what this means for vulnerability around the holidays. Also, are there any rumblings about if/when the next round of boosters will be available?

Welcome to Pandemic Problems, an advice column that aims to help Bay Area residents solve their pandemic and post-pandemic conundrums personal, practical or professional. As COVID evolves into an endemic disease, we know readers are trying to navigate the new normal. Send your questions and issues to pandemicproblems@sfchronicle.com.

Todays question is fielded by The Chronicles Anna Buchmann.

Dear Reader: Your questions about the new COVID-19 vaccine boosters are very timely. We are just six weeks into the rollout of the bivalent shots so-called because they target two coronavirus strains, the ancestral version plus the BA.4 and BA.5 omicron subvariants currently circulating and as you note, many of us are making holiday plans that involve travel and gathering with others.

Meanwhile, bivalent booster eligibility has already expanded to include younger children as of Wednesday, everyone ages 5 and up may receive one dose of Pfizers bivalent mRNA booster (for the Moderna version, its 6 and up) at least two months after completing their primary vaccine series or at least two months after their last dose of the original monovalent booster.

Health officials are urging people to get the new boosters to help head off a potential winter COVID-19 surge, with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data showing less than 6% of eligible people had gotten the bivalent shot as of Monday. The CDC now says you are up to date on COVID vaccination after receiving a primary series and the most recent booster dose recommended.

With that context, your first question was about the immunity we get from the bivalent booster and how long it lasts.

Compared with the original booster, the bivalent boosters nearly double the levels of antibodies that can prevent omicron from infecting cells, according to Dr. Nadia Roan, a UCSF immunologist and investigator at the Gladstone Institutes. But in the real world, its not currently clear how much more protective the bivalent booster is, she said via email.

As for immunity duration, if BA.4 and BA.5 stay dominant, the new booster could give excellent protection against even a mild infection for four to six months, UCSF infectious disease expert Dr. Peter Chin-Hong said in an email. However, if more immune-evasive variants gain a greater foothold, the booster could grant maximum protection for about two to four months, decent protection for about four to six months, and less protection after six months, he said.

Both Roan and Chin-Hong agreed that those up to date on their vaccinations will have long-lived protection against serious disease and death from COVID perhaps more than a year without further boosters, Chin-Hong said.

You asked specifically about the holiday season. By that time, those who received the bivalent booster at the start of the rollout can expect full protection against serious disease and death for sure and likely substantial protection against even a mild infection for that time period provided the variant mix (all flavors of omicron) stays similar, Chin-Hong said.

If you have not had COVID or received one of the original boosters in the past few months, I would suggest getting the bivalent soon, Roan said. Thats because after boosting, antibody levels spike in about a week and stay elevated before declining steadily, she said. Those antibodies decrease your chances of infection.

So if you wanted (to) maximize protection for the holiday season, it could be timed 2-3 weeks before then, she said.

Chin-Hongs advice was to get the bivalent booster by Halloween.

Not only will it make you more confident about trick-or-treating, you will optimize your protection against infection for when we expect cases to increase, he said.

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Full protection will kick in within two weeks, he said. This will increase your chances of not missing Thanksgiving dinner, that family reunion or long-awaited vacation trip.

Your final question was about a possible next round of boosters. Both Roan and Chin-Hong said they had not yet heard any discussion on that front, though Chin-Hong said its possible we may get updated COVID boosters annually, like the flu vaccine.

Any reformulation of the boosters for next winter, possibly by September 2023, would depend on what happens with variants, Chin-Hong said. If omicron continues to dominate, the formula might not change.

But it is very likely that COVID will continue to mutate, he said.

Pandemic Problems is written by Chronicle Advice Team members Annie Vainshtein, Kellie Hwang and Anna Buchmann, combining thorough reporting and guidance from Bay Area experts to help get answers and find a way forward.

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How long does immunity from the new COVID bivalent boosters last 'in the real world'? - San Francisco Chronicle

In recent weeks many children have returned to in-person learning and resumed after-school activities and sports. Some public health measures used to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 such as masks and social distancing, which are also effective against other respiratory viruses, have been lifted in many schools across the United States. While all of this has brought back a much-needed sense of normalcy for children and their families, it has also come with some challenges, including a significant increase in respiratory illnesses among kids.

Childrens hospitals in major U.S. cities have been reporting unusually high numbers of sick patients with respiratory illnesses caused by viruses other than the coronavirus. These include respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), enteroviruses(EV) and rhinovirus(RV), which mostly cause coldlike symptoms such as a runny nose, coughing, sneezing and fever.

Normally, these viruses emerge in the winter months. During this time, also known as respiratory viral season, pediatricians and hospitals are prepared to deal with an influx of patients sick with these viruses. However, this year the season started sooner than expected, and the number of children needing hospitalizations has been so high that in some areas hospital systems are already overwhelmed.

In general, pediatric hospitals operate relatively close to their capacity, Dr. Michael Chang, a pediatric infectious diseases specialist at UTHealth Houston and Childrens Memorial Hermann Hospital, told Yahoo News. So when you see patients needing hospitalization for respiratory viruses at unusual times of the year, then it's easy to kind of reach capacity for hospitals.

In September, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention alerted public health departments and doctors treating pediatric patients about some of these respiratory viruses. The agency issued a health advisory warning about an increase in the number of pediatric hospitalizations for severe respiratory illness where patients were testing positive for rhinovirus and/or enterovirus, including enterovirus D68 (EV-D68) which has been linked to a rare but serious condition called acute flaccid myelitis, or AFM. The main purpose of the advisory, the CDC said, was for doctors to keep this information top of mind when diagnosing and treating respiratory illnesses in children, as some of these viruses can have clinically similar presentations and be indistinguishable from one another.

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Chang said his home state of Texas is in the middle of a big RSV surge right now, which started a couple of weeks ago and wasnt expected until at least late October. We have something like 20% of our tests for RSV are positive, which is well above the 10% threshold that we consider kind of the epidemic level of RSV, he said.

Cases of enterovirus D68 have also gone up and are at a higher rate than baseline, according to Chang. He noted that the numbers for enterovirus are not as high as those seen in previous surges. However, he said doctors are not exactly sure how far into the surge they are because this is happening at an unusual time.

In addition, doctors in the state have started to see a number of flu cases again, earlier than expected. COVID-19 cases, however, are going down, Chang said.

Why are these respiratory viruses surging right now?

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted not only peoples lives but also historical seasonal patterns for other common respiratory viruses. Chang said these patterns have completely changed, and while its unclear why, it likely has a lot to do with human behavior.

We were really focused on those infection prevention techniques, which again, not only do they work for SARS-CoV-2, but they really work for most of the respiratory viruses, he said. We knew that those infection prevention techniques could work for the flu and RSV. It's just that we never executed them on such a global scale, right? Like we never did it in such a widespread fashion where so many people were wearing masks, so many people were isolating, so many people were physical distancing. So we never got to see the impact that those types of preventions on such a large scale could have for RSV and flu, but were obviously very effective.

Chang explained that the past two winters were among the mildest influenza seasons on record. Similarly, doctors didnt see much RSV in the winter of 2020-21, when the country was facing a COVID-19 surge and there were tight public health restrictions in place. However, as some of these pandemic restrictions were loosened last summer, there was a major surge of RSV. He said two things were unusual about it: how early it happened well before winter and how severe some of the cases were.

This year, RSV is once again surging earlier than usual, and flu cases have also started to increase in some parts of the country, particularly the Southeast and South Central U.S. According to health experts, we could face a severe flu season that coincides with a winter surge of COVID-19.

Another explanation for why these winter respiratory viruses are affecting us more now, experts say, is not necessarily because theyve changed but because we have less immunity against them.

Basically for two years, two winters where kids and adults would have been infected by RSV or by the flu, they didnt have it, and so some of that immunity that we would have had from infection before, we don't have now, Chang explained.

Which symptoms should parents be on the lookout for?

For most parents, all these viruses are pretty much going to be indistinguishable, Chang told Yahoo News. Common symptoms are a runny nose, sore throat and coughing. These, the pediatrician said, can last three to five days, sometimes peaking on day five, just before they start to subside.

Most children, he said, recover fully from these viruses with no long-term complications. However, parents of children with asthma or reactive airway disease (when asthma is suspected but not confirmed)need to be more cautious about these viruses, particularly enterovirus D68, which can cause more severe disease.

Certainly any time that you notice that theyre having difficulty, like with shortness of breath at rest, or if theyre having trouble completing their sentences, if theyre wheezing a lot, coughing is more severe, any type of shortness of breath and then any type of chest pain, you are going want to ... seek medical attention, Chang said.

Infants and younger children, particularly if they were born premature or have a history of underlying congenital heart disease, are at increased risk of severe illness from RSV, he explained.

The main things you want to look out for are difficulty with feeding, difficulty with catching their breath if they're taking a bottle or breastfeeding. Certainly decreased feeding, decreased appetite, he said.

How can parents best protect children right now?

There are currently no vaccines available for RSV, enterovirus D68 or rhinovirus. But Chang said the best way to protect children this winter is to make sure parents and children are vaccinated against those viruses that we do have vaccines for, such as flu and COVID-19.

Everybody who qualifies for [a] flu shot, which is pretty much everyone from 6 months to adult, should go and get their seasonal flu vaccine as soon as possible, Chang said.

He also urged those who have not been vaccinated against COVID-19 to get their shots.

The best way to minimize the risk of severe illness and hospitalization, whatever your age, whatever your underlying conditions, is to get vaccinated and be fully up to date on your SARS-CoV-2 immunizations, including the new bivalent boosters.

Cover thumbnail photo: Peter Cade via Getty Images

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Respiratory illnesses have spiked among children. Here's what parents need to know. - Yahoo News

Good evening. Im Karen Kaplan, and its Tuesday, Sept. 20. Heres the latest on whats happening with the coronavirus in California and beyond.

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People arent dying of COVID anymore.

It may seem that way, especially when President Biden disses masks on 60 Minutes and tells a national TV audience that the pandemic is over.

But when a friend made that observation to Erick Morales recently, he begged to differ.

Morales own mother, Alejandra Gutirrez, died of COVID-19 in June at the age of 59.

Gutirrez was vaccinated and boosted. She was careful, and so were her adult children, who wore masks when they were with her and avoided social situations that might result in a coronavirus exposure.

But Gutirrez was unlucky. She came down with ovarian cancer during the first pandemic winter, and despite multiple treatments, it spread to her brain in January.

The cancer weakened her, but it wasnt what killed her. She caught COVID-19 in late May and struggled to breathe. In her final days, she lost the ability to speak.

Gutirrez was one of the more than 400 people who died of COVID-19 each day in the U.S. during June, July and August, according to data from the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. Even now, with the second Omicron wave ebbing, COVID-19 is still killing an average of 425 Americans per day, the center reports.

In January 2021, when the first COVID-19 vaccines were being rolled out, the countrys daily death toll exceeded 3,300. A number like 425 is a definite improvement. But its a lot higher than the handful of cases many of us presume it to be.

For the record:

10:41 p.m. Sept. 21, 2022A previous version of this newsletter said that in January 2021, the countrys daily COVID-19 death toll exceeded 23,000. That was the weekly death toll, which averaged out to more than 3,300 deaths per day.

In fact, COVID-19 is still one of the countrys leading causes of death. As of Tuesday, it would rank fifth, between strokes (439 deaths per day) and chronic lower respiratory diseases (418 deaths per day).

If that seems hard to believe, how about this: In Los Angeles County alone, nearly 800 people died of COVID-19 between May and July. Thats roughly 60% higher than during the same three months last year, when the county recorded nearly 500 deaths.

At a time when vaccines, boosters, medications and antibody treatments are plentiful, when hospitals have the bandwidth to care for patients who are seriously ill, and when, as White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha said, most COVID-19 deaths are preventable, youve got to wonder: Who is dying of COVID-19 now?

My colleagues Emily Alpert Reyes and Aida Ylanan have the answer.

It turns out that Gutirrez was a something of an anomaly. Recent COVID-19 deaths have been heavily concentrated among senior citizens.

Alejandra Morales-Gutirrez and brother Erick Morales lost their mother, Alejandra Gutirrez, to COVID-19 in June.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

In California, about half of those who died this summer were at least 80 years old. Another third were people between the ages of 65 and 79.

Throughout California, Black residents had the highest COVID-19 death rate, pretty much regardless of age. And in L.A. County, men have been more likely to die than women.

Gutirrez was a typical COVID-19 victim in one respect: She already had a health problem that made her vulnerable to a serious case of COVID-19. For people like her, an encounter with the coronavirus can be like dry brush encountering a lit match, said Michael T. Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

It doesnt cause the high temperatures, or the winds, or the low humidity, he said. But nothing happens until you throw that SARS-CoV-2 virus into the mix.

Here in L.A. County, nearly half of the people who died of COVID-19 between May and July were contending with at least three health conditions before the coronavirus came along, and almost all had at least one. Those conditions werent necessarily as serious as ovarian cancer; typical examples include obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease.

In addition, residents of poorer neighborhoods were more likely to die of COVID-19 than residents of wealthier ones.

But COVID-19 can kill anyone. In recent months, hundreds of young and middle-aged adults have died of the disease, as have four minors. And so have 412 Californians over the age of 12 who were vaccinated (including 260 who were also boosted), although they represent less than 0.01% of state residents whove gotten the shots.

The Omicron variant especially the BA.5 subvariant has been infecting so many people that youve surely encountered tons of people whove recently recovered from a bout with COVID-19. More than in years past, it probably feels like COVID-19 survivors are everywhere. And they are.

But the number of infections is so high that even with a low mortality rate, the death count is still substantial. Its just that in a country eager to move on from the pandemic and stop thinking about things such as masks and booster shots, these deaths arent getting the attention they deserve.

The elderly, the immunocompromised, and the unvaccinated or under-vaccinated they are the ones that account for the vast majority of deaths due to COVID-19, said Dr. Thomas Yadegar, medical director of the intensive care unit at Providence Cedars-Sinai Tarzana Medical Center.

Weve sacrificed the lives of our most vulnerable for our own convenience, he said.

California cases and deaths as of 4:55 p.m. on Tuesday:

Track Californias coronavirus spread and vaccination efforts including the latest numbers and how they break down with our graphics.

Its no secret that the United States had a less-than-textbook response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It turns out we had plenty of company, even among wealthy nations that were expected to be more prepared.

So says a group of experts convened by the medical journal Lancet. In a report released last week, they made it abundantly clear that they were not impressed with the worlds efforts to rise to the occasion.

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation estimates the pandemics global death toll at around 17.2 million, a staggering figure that is both a profound tragedy and a massive global failure at multiple levels, the members of the Lancet COVID-19 Commission wrote.

And theres plenty of blame to go around, they added: Too many governments have failed to adhere to basic norms of institutional rationality and transparency, too many people often influenced by misinformation have disrespected and protested against basic public health precautions, and the worlds major powers have failed to collaborate to control the pandemic.

That failure to collaborate came in many forms, the commission members wrote. It started with Chinas delay in notifying the world about the patients in Wuhan who had come down with a mysterious type of pneumonia that wasnt caused by any known virus. It continued with multiple countries failure to coordinate their efforts to contain and suppress the novel virus, or to figure out what those efforts ought to entail.

Wealthy countries didnt do enough to ensure that low- and middle-income countries had the money they needed to procure personal protective equipment, ventilators, test kits and other necessary supplies. And when there were limited supplies of medicines and vaccines, rich nations did not share equally with poor ones, the report says.

Countries did not gather timely, accurate, and systematic data on infections, deaths, viral variants and other factors that would be important to know if you wanted to get a pandemic under control, the experts wrote.

The World Health Organization didnt want to get ahead of the science with good reason but it took too long to acknowledge that people with asymptomatic infections could spread the coronavirus without realizing it, and that the virus spreads mainly through the air. As a result, the WHO was slow to advocate policy responses commensurate with the actual dangers of the virus, the report says.

And no one at any level has had much success combating the extensive misinformation and disinformation campaigns on social media, the report adds.

Thats not even a complete list of the problems the Lancet commission identified.

The commission was established in July 2020 with the aim of finding ways to help countries work together more effectively. Its 28 members are experts in disciplines such as epidemiology, vaccinology, economics and public policy.

Right off the bat, the report explains that you cant suppress an infectious disease without prosociality, which means prioritizing the good of society as a whole over the interests of individuals. Unfortunately, the growing gap between the haves and have-nots in many countries has undermined any sense of collective purpose.

In the U.S. and other countries, an unwillingness to put the interests of society as a whole ahead of the interests of individuals has undermined efforts to get the pandemic under control, experts say.

(Cedar Attanasio / Associated Press)

In the United States and elsewhere, false claims about COVID-19 vaccines and debunked treatments such as ivermectin, among other things, were spread by politicians and cable television personalities for the sake of partisanship, not public health. In the U.S. alone, unfounded anti-vaccine sentiment has led to as many as 200,000 preventable deaths, and this anti-science movement has globalised with tragic consequences, the commission wrote.

We cant go back in time and do everything over. But the commission offered advice on where to go from here.

For starters, it said its not too late for countries to get serious about the basics, including mass vaccination, accessible testing, and treatment. They should be accompanied by policies that support people who need to isolate, as well as common-sense preventive measures such as mask mandates in certain settings. Most importantly, the commission wrote, these efforts should be implemented on a sustainable basis, rather than as a reactive policy that is abruptly turned on and off.

To make sure the pandemic ends as quickly as possible, countries should work together to track new coronavirus variants and quickly assess the risks they pose.

To be better prepared for the next pandemic threat, the commission advised countries to strengthen their own health systems and make sure everyone has access to medical care. In addition, they should shore up their disease surveillance and reporting systems, emphasize the importance of preventive health and emergency preparedness, improve their public health communication strategies, and more aggressively fight health disinformation, according to the report.

Countries should invest a lot more in the World Health Organization and come up with better ways to cooperate and coordinate and they should do it now so theyll be ready when the next infectious disease threat inevitably arises.

That said, countries need to work harder to prevent that next outbreak from happening, the commission said. That means they should come up with more uniform rules about the trade of both domestic and wild animals, and make sure theyre enforced. They should also give the WHO more authority to keep tabs on research programs involving dangerous pathogens to make sure that biosafety rules are followed.

Whether anyone will follow this advice remains to be seen. The commission didnt exactly strike an optimistic tone as it wrapped up its report:

The lack of ambition in the global response to COVID-19 is like that of other pressing global challenges, such as the climate emergency; the loss of global biodiversity; the pollution of air, land, and water; the persistence of extreme poverty in the midst of plenty; and the large-scale displacement of people as a result of conflicts, poverty, and environmental stress.

See the latest on Californias vaccination progress with our tracker.

Another pandemic precaution has bit the dust: As of Saturday, California no longer requires unvaccinated workers at healthcare facilities, schools and other congregate settings to get tested for coronavirus infections once a week.

Those weekly surveillance tests used to be an important part of the states pandemic response. But considering where we are in the outbreak, the tests arent nearly as useful as they once were.

Most state residents now have some immunity through vaccination or a past infection or both so they face less risk of becoming seriously ill. Plus, the Omicron subvariants spread so quickly that weekly testing isnt enough to slow it down, said Dr. Toms Aragn, director of the California Department of Public Health.

Los Angeles County may drop one of its rules by the end of the month if coronavirus case rates continue to decline. If the county sees fewer than 100 cases a week per 100,000 residents roughly 1,400 cases per day masks will no longer be required on public transportation or in hubs such as airports and train stations.

As of Tuesday, the county was averaging 1,735 cases per day over the last week, according to The Times tracker. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said we could hit the lower threshold by the end of the month.

Should that happen, the county would also stop recommending that everyone wear a mask indoors in public settings such as grocery stores and offices. Face coverings would still be strongly recommended in high-risk settings for people who are older, unvaccinated, live in high-poverty areas or have health conditions that make them more susceptible to a severe case of COVID-19. Otherwise, the decision about covering up would be a matter of personal preference.

Masks will continue to be required in healthcare settings, correctional facilities, cooling centers and a handful of other places.

California isnt the only place seeing pandemic improvements. The World Health Organization says the number of new infections is dropping in every part of the globe.

The WHOs latest weekly report counted 3.1 million new cases, a 28% drop from the previous week. Deaths also fell by 22%, to just over 11,000 the lowest worldwide death toll since March 2020.

We are not there yet, but the end is in sight, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Wednesday.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top infectious disease expert in the U.S., agreed Monday that were heading in that direction. But unlike Biden, he walked back Bidens assessment that the pandemic phase of the outbreak was already behind us.

It is likely that we will see another variant emerge in the late fall or winter, Fauci said Monday during a talk at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Dr. Eric Topol, a professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research in La Jolla, schooled the president as well.

We all wish that were true, Topol wrote in an an op-ed. But unfortunately, that is a fantasy right now. All the data tell us the virus is not contained. Far too many people are dying and suffering. And new, worrisome variants are on the horizon.

An experimental vaccine may help us stay ahead of those new variants. Instead of focusing solely on the spike protein, which has proved adept at mutating in ways that reduce vaccine effectiveness, the new shots also target a far more stable nucleocapsid protein.

Although the vaccines design was based on an early coronavirus strain first seen in Wuhan, it was effective against both the Delta and Omicron variants and when tested in mice and hamsters. Its still several steps away from being tested in humans, but scientists are optimistic that it could lead the way to a one-size-fits-all vaccine that provides lasting protection without needing to be tweaked on a regular basis like the flu shot.

Its a great idea, said Dr. Paul Offit, a virologist and immunologist at the University of Pennsylvania who wasnt involved in the research. You could have argued that we should have done this at the beginning.

And finally, the Chinese government is facing more complaints about its zero-COVID strategy. Earlier this month it was a magnitude 6.8 earthquake in Sichuan province that triggered protests because millions of residents in lockdown were prevented from fleeing their seriously damaged homes.

This week it was a fatal bus crash in the middle of the night in Guizhou province. Forty-seven passengers were being transported to a quarantine facility outside the capital city, Guiyang; 27 of them died.

Critics went online and accused the government of moving the passengers for political purposes, not public health ones. They speculated that residents were being taken outside the city limits so Guiyang wouldnt have to report any new illnesses.

Will this ever end? one commenter asked. Is there scientific validity to hauling people to quarantine, one car after another?

In addition, residents in some neighborhoods complained of hunger after food deliveries were missed, a mistake local officials attributed to their lack of experience and inappropriate methods. The local zoo worried it would run out of food for its animals and appealed to the public for donations of pork, chicken, apples, watermelons, carrots and other produce.

Food shortages are also a problem in Ghulja, a city in Chinas far western Xinjiang region where the Uyghur population is used to harsh treatment from the government.

After more than 40 days of lockdown, hungry and frustrated residents went online to share videos of empty refrigerators and feverish children. In some cases, people who have ingredients to make bread havent been able to bake their dough because authorities wont let them go outside to use their backyard ovens.

Nyrola Elima, Uyghur from Ghulja who no longer lives there, told the Associated Press that her father was sharing one tomato each day with his 93-year-old mother, and that her aunt was desperate for milk for her toddler grandson. Her account could not be independently verified, but her descriptions were in line with videos posted by others.

Chinese censors worked to remove those posts from social media, though some reappeared. Six people were arrested for spreading rumors about the lockdown.

Todays question comes from readers who want to know: Whats the difference between being fully vaccinated and being up to date?

The CDC considers someone to be fully vaccinated if theyve finished their primary series of COVID-19 shots. For Comirnaty (the vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech), Spikevax (the one from Moderna) and the (relatively) new offering from Novavax, that means two shots given between three and eight weeks apart. Only a single dose is required for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

But immunity wanes and new variants spark fresh COVID-19 surges. That means being fully vaccinated is just the beginning.

The immune system needs a refresher course from time to time, and a booster shot provides one. But rather than change the definition of fully vaccinated, the CDC instead said people who got the boosters recommended for them were up to date with their vaccinations.

If youre at least 12 years old, that means getting a new bivalent booster shot to (hopefully) bolster your protection against BA.4 and BA.5. To be eligible, you must be fully vaccinated and not have had a COVID-19 vaccine in at least two months or a coronavirus infection in at least three months. Once you get a bivalent booster, youll be considered up to date regardless of how many booster shots youve had (or missed) in the past.

We want to hear from you. Email us your coronavirus questions, and well do our best to answer them. Wondering if your questions already been answered? Check out our archive here.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

The woman at Hermosa Beach in the picture above is Sandhya Kambhampati, a colleague of mine on the Data Desk. She caught COVID-19 very early in the pandemic, then became one of the first long COVID patients her doctors had encountered. Last year, she wrote a first-person account of what it took to convince them her symptoms were real.

They finally came around, but Kambhampati still struggled. Eventually, at her doctors insistence, she took a leave from work so she could focus on healing. Painting became an integral part of that process.

At first, it offered an escape on my worst days, but over the last few months, it has developed into much more, she writes in a new essay. Painting sunsets at the beach is simultaneously calming and energizing, allowing her to recharge her batteries and help others who are just starting their journeys with long COVID.

Painting gives me a place to release the medical trauma that people share with me and keep going, she writes.

You may not be dealing with long COVID, but you can follow Kambhampatis lead and shift your mind-set for the better.

Visit link:

Coronavirus Today: Who's dying of COVID-19 now? - Los Angeles Times

Whether a new coronavirus variant takes hold in the coming weeks could determine if Michigan will undergo another seasonal COVID surge or enjoy its first quiet winter in three years.

Modeling from The COVID-19 Scenario Modeling Hub offer projections for the next six months, with a handful of different scenarios based on vaccine uptake and the emergence of hypothetical new variants. Health officials have looked to these models throughout the pandemic to help estimate upcoming trends.

The latest models suggest Michigan could see COVID cases and hospitalizations continue to plateau or even decline this fall if there are no new immune-escaping variants of coronavirus that gain traction through the end of the year.

On the other hand, a new variant with the ability to evade existing immunity could open the door to another rise in infections, hospitalizations and deaths this winter, much like omicron caused in 2021.

Its the kind of situation where I would love it if we got a pleasant surprise and we ended up not having a winter spike, but I think we probably should prepare for one, said Marisa Eisenberg, an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan who assists the state with infectious disease modeling. History has shown that usually we do get one.

The difference between Scenario Hubs most pessimistic scenario (new variant, low booster uptake), and its most optimistic scenario (no new variant, high booster uptake early on), is about 600,000 hospitalizations and 70,000 deaths nationwide.

The group estimates early booster availability and uptake would avert 6-12% of cases, 10-16% of hospitalizations, and 12-15% of deaths.

Related: COVID questions: Are the new vaccine boosters still free? Whos eligible?

Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 continue to make up more than 95% of sequenced samples in the U.S. Another omicron subvariant known as BA.2.75, originally identified in India, made up 1.3% of sequenced U.S. cases last week and is being monitored by the World Health Organization.

Predicting what the actual new variant is going to be and when it might emerge is a really tough problem, Eisenberg said. It depends so much on transmission happening not just in Michigan but all around the world, and other variables.

There are a lot of different variants that (the World Health Organization) and others are keeping track of. Whether any one of those is likely to kind of emerge and become the next dominant variant is tough to say.

Michigans COVID-19 trends have been consistent from week to week throughout the summer, with steady increases over the last three months. During the last week, the state reported an average of 1,849 cases and 17 deaths per day -- up from 1,588 cases and eight deaths per day three months ago.

Similarly, hospitals were treating 1,174 COVID patients as of Tuesday, Sept. 20, compared to 777 such patients on June 21.

The latest numbers arent far off from mid-September 2021, when the state was reporting about 2,772 cases and 21 deaths per day. Case counts were likely more accurate then, due to less availability of at-home testing.

In the months that followed, a more infectious variant known as omicron took over delta as the dominant strain in the U.S., resulting in spikes in case, death and hospitalization rates. By mid-January, there were more than 17,500 cases being reported per day in Michigan, and hospitalizations neared 5,000 COVID patients as health systems begged for residents to exercise caution.

The models from Scenario Hub show potential for another spike near the end of the year. They also leave the door open for rates to continue plateauing even despite a hypothetical new variant, as its difficult to predict the infectiousness of a hypothetical new variant.

Another big factor at play will be how much of the population will get the new bivalent vaccines. The updated booster shots, which became available to Michiganders earlier this month, were made to offer protection against the original coronavirus strain from the start of the pandemic, as well as omicron BA.4 and BA.5.

Absent of a new variant, the models project early boosters could prevent 2.4 million cases, 137,000 hospitalizations, and 9,700 deaths from COVID.

The bivalent booster will help fight the omicron subvariants, including BA.4 and 5, said Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian, Michigans chief medical executive, in a prepared statement. COVID-19 vaccines remain our best defense against the virus, and we recommend all Michiganders stay up to date.

About 63% of Michiganders got an initial dose of the original vaccines. Of them, about 59% got an initial booster dose. The state hadnt published any data on bivalent booster uptake as of Wednesday, Sept. 21.

Scenario Hub notes that even the best models of emerging infections struggle to give accurate forecasts greater than a few weeks out due to unpredictable variables like changing policy environment, behavior change, development of new control measures, and random events.

Eisenberg said its getting harder to make these models, because the picture of existing immunity and re-infection is getting increasingly complicated with the evolving coronavirus variants. Still, they remain useful.

Theyre not trying to project whats going to happen, she said. Theyre saying if we get a new variant, heres what it might look like. If we dont, heres what it might look like.

To find a vaccine near you, visit the online vaccine finder tool and enter your ZIP code. If youre looking for a bivalent booster, select one or both of the bivalent shots from Pfizer and Moderna.

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Originally posted here:

Will Michigan see a quiet winter or another COVID-19 surge? - MLive.com

Her gloved fingers working quickly yet carefully, Garima Dwivedi filled row after row of little wells on a plastic laboratory plate, pushing a button to squirt drops of clear fluid she had extracted from the blood of mice.

The mice had been vaccinated against a coronavirus infection. Like so many other scientists throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Dwivedi wanted to see if the animals had responded by making antibodies.

But not just for this coronavirus. This new vaccine, in the University of Pennsylvania lab of Drew Weissman, is designed to protect the world against multiple coronaviruses including those we dont know about yet.

Weissmans research on messenger RNA helped pave the way for the original COVID vaccines, as well as the new boosters tailored to the omicron variant. Yet even before the FDA cleared the initial shots from Pfizer and Moderna, in late 2020, the Penn scientist was worrying about the next pandemic.

In less than 20 years, at least three dangerous coronaviruses have jumped from animals to humans. Before the COVID virus emerged in late 2019, there were SARS and MERS, each of which sickened thousands of people worldwide. A fourth new coronavirus, little known outside China, has so far been found only in pigs. But its a grim one, having killed thousands of animals since 2016.

More than a dozen teams of scientists worldwide are now racing to stay ahead of the next one by developing whats known as pan-coronavirus vaccines. Weissman, 63, is involved with four of them.

Some are designed to guard against all future variants of the COVID virus, as well as the older SARS and MERS. Others might also protect against less closely related coronaviruses that so far have been found only in bats. Some might even work against ones that cause the common cold.

For years, other scientists have tried to make a similarly broad, one-and-done vaccine against the flu, with limited success. But early evidence from Weissmans lab and others suggests that with coronaviruses, the challenge may be more surmountable. He says we cant afford not to try.

Coronaviruses have caused three epidemics in the past 20 years, he said. We have to assume there will be more.

The first COVID vaccines taught the immune system to recognize, and make antibodies against, the coronavirus spikes the dozens of little proteins that stick out from the surface of each virus particle.

That made sense. The virus uses these spikes like a lock pick, breaking through the membranes of cells in humans and other animals. But in someone whos been vaccinated, antibodies latch onto this lock pick so that it no longer fits a certain receptor on the cells exterior the equivalent of a keyhole.

In the early rush to develop a vaccine, scientists reasoned that was enough. No need to teach the immune system about the rest of the virus if the spike cant get through the front door.

Then came the delta variant, followed by omicron. The spike picked up a series of shape-shifting mutations that somehow allowed it pull off a double stunt: avoiding recognition by the antibodies, yet still fitting the lock well enough to open the door.

Thats where the next-generation vaccines come in.

In Weissmans lab at Penn, Dwivedi was testing mice for their response to one of them: a virus-like particle that contains both the spike and other structural proteins.

The idea is that while the spike can change its shape and retain the ability to penetrate a cell, the other proteins appear to be similar across multiple COVID variants and even across multiple types of coronaviruses. Teach the immune system to recognize these shared proteins, or so the theory goes, and it will be prepared to ward off a variety of threats.

But first, it has to work in mice.

Its important to see the response in the animals before you even think about injecting the vaccine in humans, Dwivedi said.

Nearby, colleague Benjamin Davis was analyzing the virus-like particles to make sure they contained the correct proteins. Magnified many thousands of times on an electron microscope, each particle looked like a childs drawing of the sun a blank circle with little rays all around the edge.

Basically, its a coronavirus with nothing inside festooned with enough different proteins to give the immune system a chance to develop an array of defenses, yet lacking the internal machinery it would need to cause a real infection.

Its like an empty shell, Davis said.

But how real is the threat?

Using a combination of demographic and antibody data, one recent study suggests that coronaviruses are jumping from bats to humans far more often than is commonly appreciated likely thousands of times a year.

In most cases, these spillovers appear to fizzle out, says Ken Field, a Bucknell University biologist who studies the immune system of bats. The virus may have picked up the ability to jump from animal to human, but not the ability to make copies of itself inside the person nor the ability to be transmitted from that person to the next.

Still, if viruses jump from animals to humans thousands of times a year, every so often its going to be a bad one.

Weissman, the Penn scientist, likens it to rolling the dice.

In most cases, they just burn out, he said. But every so often, you get a bad roll.

Not that bats have a lock on transmitting viruses to humans. The flu originally came from birds. Other viruses come from rodents, foxes, or raccoons. The key is to exercise caution when interacting with wild animals of all kinds, Field said.

But with continued clearing of forests, industrial farming, and air and rail service connecting formerly isolated areas, risky exposures may be on the rise.

Were making further and further incursions into what used to be wild areas, he said. The animals leave those areas and come out.

Scientists have tried to make universal vaccines in the past, primarily against the flu. But so far, the goal has been elusive.

Thats partly because the flus genome has eight segments, including those H and N portions that lend their name to such strains as H1N1 or H3N2. If a person is infected by more than one flu virus at once, these segments can be swapped, recombining into new virus varieties against which vaccines are less potent.

Coronaviruses are more stable. Yes, they mutate, as the world was reminded with delta and omicron, but scientists hope to train the immune system to focus on the parts that remain relatively unchanged.

Yet much remains unknown about how well these broad-based vaccines will protect humans. A key concern is that the immune system forms an indelible memory of the first time it encounters a virus or a vaccine based on that virus, said Mohamad-Gabriel Alameh, a biomedical engineer who is overseeing the virus-like particle project in Weissmans lab.

This initial memory is so strong that in future encounters, if a person is vaccinated against a slightly different version of that virus, the immune system may respond with antibodies that are more closely matched to the original exposure.

Are these vaccines broadening the protection? Alameh said. If not, we need to change the strategy.

So far, in tests of the virus-like particles, the mice have generated antibodies that match both the original COVID as well as its omicron variant a good sign. Tests with other virus strains lie ahead.

If all goes well, an early-stage trial in humans could happen by early next year, funded in part by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), a nonprofit foundation based in Oslo.

Weissman is involved in three other broad-spectrum coronavirus vaccines with different strategies, including collaborations with scientists at Duke University, the University of North Carolina, and Los Alamos National Laboratory.

All are showing early signs of promise. All consist of genetic instructions in the form of messenger RNA, the technology he developed with partner Katalin Karik two decades ago. One involves an artificial spike made with pieces from multiple coronaviruses. Another features an array of virus fragments attached to a molecule called ferritin a version of the protein that carries iron in the blood.

Cautious by nature, Weissman is unwilling to say which one he thinks will offer the broadest protection. Perhaps several of the strategies will prove successful, and they could be used in a combination vaccine.

In science, you like to have as many different options as possible, he said. We just have to test them all, and see which works best.

The only thing hes sure about is that more epidemics lie ahead.

See the original post here:

COVID boosters take aim just at omicron. This Penn lab is going after coronaviruses the world hasnt seen yet. - The Philadelphia Inquirer

I am guilty of letting my guard down. Thats partly the result of peer pressure. What do you do when you walk into a room full of people and find that you are the only one with a face mask? This is what I did: I settled down into my station and discreetly removed my mask. That allowed me to blend in: a risky manoeuvre if coronavirus is around.

With cases dwindling worldwide, masks have fallen off most peoples faces. I have been largely wearing one indoors and in closed environments like a plane or a bus. But that diligence slipped somewhere down the line, mostly in places where most people are unmasked. I certainly didnt want to stick out like a sore thumb.

Where did I catch the virus? That was the question from most of my friends. Frankly, theres no way of knowing. The obvious ones are gatherings, but then I could have caught it from an acquaintance I dropped at his hotel; I still dont know whether he had an infection. It didnt matter.

Infection and reinfection: the symptoms

There was a silver lining in the reinfection: the symptoms were mild. So mild that I underwent an RT-PCR test only on the third day; that too only after my wife fell ill. In a way, her illness helped. Or else, I would have returned to work on the fifth day and passed the virus to my colleagues.

How mild were the symptoms? For comparison, let me tell you what happened in April 2020. I had a continuous high-grade fever, which broke only on the tenth day. Pains wracked my body, and there were headaches too. But there wasnt much cough. I suffered, to put it mildly.

This time, body pains were milder, and I initially attributed them to the resumption of my yoga sessions. My nasal infection on the first day was followed by a sore throat the next day. It felt more like the flu or viral fever. Yes, a viral fever. Yet, I wasnt thinking it was coronavirus. My scratchy throat led to full-blown coughing, which lasted two days. But by the fifth day, I was on the mend.

Experts say COVID-19 manifests differently in different people. Two people under the same roof can have varied experiences. While I was largely unscathed, my wife reeled from violent bouts of coughing. So severe that she would end up throwing up food and medicines. Four days later, it began to subside.

My medicines and therapy

The contrast between the infections is stark. In two years, our immune systems have been primed by a previous infection and vaccines: two doses each of Sinopharm and Pfizer-BioNTech. And that really helped because we didnt have a high-grade fever; my temperatures were normal, and my wife had a slight fever for a day. Barring the cough, we were generally fine.

The bigger worry was passing the infections to our children. But we isolated well, and all of us were masked when we occasionally entered the common areas. That seems to have worked.

Over the past few years, most people I know have suffered from a coronavirus infection. And each of them coped differently. So when they wished me a speedy recovery, they also dispensed some medical advice. Mostly home remedies. Drink lots of hot water infused with lemon and ginger, one said. Have ginger and honey, was the advice from another.

Although I acknowledged the care and concern behind those words, I chose to ignore them. More because I had survived a COVID attack, and my children were also sickened by the virus in separate episodes. I now have a fair idea of how to handle the infection.

I spoke to a doctor, and my therapy mainly included paracetamols and plenty of sleep. I slept after breakfast and again after lunch. Of course, I continued the tried, tested and trusted steam inhalation and saline gargle.

My wife required more medications since her chest was congested. Teleconsultations and medicine deliveries helped. We are now limping back to normality. After a COVID negative test, I should be back in the office soon.

One question crops up: Do I mask up? I guess you know the answer.

Shyam A. Krishna

@ShyamKris_

Shyam A. Krishna is Senior Associate Editor at Gulf News. He writes on health and sport.

Here is the original post:

COVID-19: How I battled a second coronavirus infection in two years - Gulf News

Our understanding of how to treat COVID-19 has come a very long way since the start of the pandemic. Although many of these treatments are still new and need to be studied further, initial results have been extremely promising.

Monoclonal antibody treatments are a great example of this.

Monoclonal antibodies work like the bodys own immune system to help fight COVID-19. Since they were first approved for emergency use in November 2020, monoclonal antibodies have been successfully used to help reduce hospitalization and emergency room visits.

In this article, we take a look at what monoclonal antibodies are and how they can be harnessed to treat COVID-19.

Monoclonal antibodies act like your bodys own antibodies to help stop the symptoms of COVID-19. They can prevent hospitalization and reduce the severity of your illness.

An antibody is a protein your immune system makes in response to a specific infection. Antibodies are what help your body fight off those infections.

Monoclonal antibodies for COVID-19 can fight COVID-19 because they act like antibodies produced by your immune system.

However, its important to note that monoclonal antibodies do not replace a COVID-19 vaccine. They are intended as a treatment for COVID-19, not as a preventive measure.

Monoclonal antibodies enter the body and attach to the spike proteins that stick out of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

The coronavirus cannot enter cells with a monoclonal antibody on its protein spikes. This slows down the infection. It can help other treatments work more effectively and reduce the total time someone is sick with COVID-19.

Monoclonal antibodies are a newer treatment for COVID-19. Its not yet known how long these treatments will last or whether they will protect against future coronavirus infections. But initial research has shown that monoclonal antibodies can reduce hospitalizations and visits to the emergency room.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has authorized a monoclonal antibody called remdesivir as a treatment for COVID-19. The agency also authorized clinical trials of additional monoclonal antibody treatments. These include:

These treatments are only authorized for investigational, or trial, use. They have not been fully approved as COVID-19 treatments.

However, they are available as emergency treatments during the COVID-19 pandemic. The exact monoclonal antibody treatment available can vary depending on your location.

The FDA recommends monoclonal antibody treatment for people who have tested positive for COVID-19 and who have a high risk of severe illness. Its also best to get monoclonal antibody therapy as early in the course of COVID-19 as possible.

Complete qualifications for monoclonal antibody treatment generally include:

Specific healthcare facilities might have additional requirements, such as age, for administering monoclonal antibody therapy.

Monoclonal antibody treatments are given intravenously. Youll receive treatment at an outpatient clinic.

The infusion itself will only take about 30 seconds, but youll stay in the outpatient clinic for about an hour. This allows medical staff to observe you for any side effects or reactions.

Before you leave, medical staff will give you information on what to do if you experience any side effects at home.

Once you return home, its still important to follow quarantine guidelines and any instructions youve received from a doctor. The monoclonal antibodies can help your body fight COVID-19, but they wont be an instant cure.

There are a few possible side effects of monoclonal antibody therapy. Most side effects are mild and will resolve on their own after a few hours. Rarely, more serious side effects have been reported.

Side effects of monoclonal therapy might include:

Yes. You can receive monoclonal therapy if youve been vaccinated against COVID-19.

It doesnt matter how recent your COVID-19 vaccine was, or whether youve had boosters. Youre still eligible to receive monoclonal antibodies as long as you meet the other eligibility criteria.

Yes. Its extremely important to continue isolating according to current local and federal guidelines after receiving monoclonal antibody therapy.

Monoclonal antibodies can help your body fight COVID-19 faster and more effectively, but you will still have COVID-19 after your treatment is complete. Isolating can help prevent getting other people sick.

Its best to continue following all instructions from your doctor and attend any follow-up appointments.

Monoclonal antibody treatment can help your body fight COVID-19.

Monoclonal antibodies work like antibodies made by your own immune system. They attach to the spike proteins on the coronavirus and prevent it from entering your cells. This slows the spread of the virus and can make your case less severe.

Currently, monoclonal antibodies are being used to treat COVID-19 in people who test positive for COVID-19 and have a high risk of severe illness. Monoclonal antibody therapy has been shown to help reduce symptoms and hospitalizations.

Originally posted here:

What Is Monoclonal Antibody Treatment and How Is It Used for COVID-19? - Healthline