Category Archives: Covid-19

Judge tosses Arizona suit over limits on COVID-19 relief funds

PHOENIX (AP) - A judge has dismissed Arizona Gov. Doug Duceys lawsuit challenging the Biden administrations demands that the state stop sending millions in federal COVID-19 relief money to schools that dont have mask requirements or that close due to outbreaks.

The state filed the lawsuit earlier this year after the U.S. Treasury Department demanded that Ducey either restructure the $163 million program to eliminate restrictions it says undermine public health recommendations or face a repayment demand.

The Treasury Department also wanted changes to a $10 million program Ducey created that gives private school tuition money to parents if their childrens schools have mask mandates.

In a ruling earlier this week, U.S. District Judge Steven Logan concluded it was reasonable for the Biden administration to say that the money couldnt be spent on efforts that would undermine compliance with COVID-19 prevention guidelines. The judge said a program that requires noncompliance with guidelines may worsen the pandemic and create more negative effects, which goes against the purpose of the relief fund.

MORE: Controversy flares as Gov. Ducey denies grant money to districts with mask mandates

While Ducey claimed the American Rescue Plan Act wasnt clear in the conditions it imposed on using the relief money, the judge agreed with the Biden administrations argument that the permissible uses for the funds under the law and its authorization for the Treasury Department to issue appropriate regulations put the state on notice about the conditions associated with accepting the money.

Duceys lawyers have said in court records that the governor is appealing the ruling. Ducey spokesman C.J. Karamargin said on Saturday that the governors office was reviewing the decision.

The lawsuit said the Treasury Department created restrictions on spending the money Arizona receives under the American Rescue Plan Act on its own and without legal authority. It asked a court to declare that the Treasury Departments rules are illegal and permanently block enforcement and any demands that it pay back the money spent on the two programs.

The Treasury Department started demanding that Ducey change the programs in October. It was part of a concerted effort to force Arizona and some other Republican-led states that have opposed mask mandates or were using pandemic funding to advance their own agendas to end those practices.

Ducey rejected Treasurys request the following month, and the Biden administration followed up with a formal demand that it cease using the money for the disputed programs or face either repayment demands or withholding of additional money it is set to receive under Bidens COVID-19 relief bill.

MORE: Arizona is most guilty of COVID-19 'panic buying,' study says

At issue are two state programs the Republican governor created last summer meant to help schools and students.

Arizonas Education Plus-Up Grant Program provides $163 million in funding to schools in higher-income areas that received less than $1,800 per student in federal virus aid. Districts that require face coverings or that have closed due to virus outbreaks are ineligible.

Another called the COVID-19 Educational Recovery Benefit Program provides for up to $7,000 for parents if their childs school requires face coverings or quarantines after exposure. It lets parents use the money for private school tuition or other education costs and its design mirrors the states existing school voucher program.

MORE: Arizona governor's $10M Educational Recovery Fund in question by some parents still waiting for the money

Ducey created the programs in part to up the pressure on school districts that had mask mandates or other COVID-19 restrictions, saying they were hurting children and parents who had endured more than a year of school shutdowns, remote learning and other restrictions.

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Judge tosses Arizona suit over limits on COVID-19 relief funds - FOX 10 News Phoenix

Steve Barnes| Special to the Times Record

Faucis resigning, I said, mistakenly; it wasn't even noonand already it had been a long day.

Not resigning, retiring.

And then corrected myself a second time: Not right away, but when Bidens term is up.

And then another tweak: Well, this term, the one thats up in two years. The ultimate length of the incumbent presidents tenure is unknowable.

To that news: Oh, she replied, the medical pro who is one of my two best frontline sources on COVID-19 in Arkansas, the other being my daughter-in-law. COVID-19, yes, and its variants and, now, its subvariants. Letters and numbers, punctuated with hyphens or decimal points.

The news broke a few minutes before the nurse and I spoke. Anthony Fauci, universally known as the nations leading infectious disease expert, told a Washington-based news site that he would almost certainly step down in 2025 from his post as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Hes been with the agency since 1968 and has been its leader since 84. Since the winter of 2020, the first season of COVID, hes been under fire from both ends of the political spectrum. On occasion, the left accused Fauci of essentially kowtowing to President Donald Trump and thus failing to champion a more vigorous response to the pandemic. But far more oftenthe rounds were fired from the right, and so vitriolic and so threatening did they become, and as they sometimes still are, that Fauci may be the first government doctor to be assigned a security detail.

Fringe conservative figures on the national scene demanded Faucis head on a pike, and not a few Arkansas politicians zestfully joined in. While the latter pols were at it, they made clear they had no use for the Arkansas medical establishment, especially Dr. Jose Romero, then Gov. Asa Hutchinsons secretary of health.

I offered to email the nurse, a veteran registered nurse, some of the clips regarding Fauci that were starting to flood the Internet.

She laughed. Whos got time to read them?

Was her hospital among those in Arkansas dealing with the resurgence of COVID-19 cases?

Of course, she said immediately, almost snappishly.

She and her colleagues on the floorhad just begun to get a handle on their clinical situation, the staff shortages, which bled over into their personal lives, when up jumped the devil. She, they, had been expecting it. There was no way to avoid a significant uptick in the case count given Arkansascomparatively low vaccination rate.

All it took was another shapeshift of the virus, which every clinician knew was not only inevitable but imminent. So once there was COVID-19, then the delta variant, followed by the omicron variant, with BA.2 and BA.4 close behind, and now BA.5.

The pros say there quite certainly will be subsequent variants, new mutations; and no one who knows his or her stuff is proclaiming victory in sight, light at the end of the tunnel. Each turn of the virus seems more easily transmissible, hence the abrupt rise in the overall case numbers, and the accompanying increase in hospitalizations, and the consequent impact on Arkansaspublic and private treasuries.

I read aloud to my nurse source a quote from a Pennsylvania physician, a ranking virologist and pediatrician named Paul Offit of the Philadelphia Childrens Hospital. COVID-19 and its seemingly endless chain of variants will be here for my lifetime, my childrens lifetimes, and their childrens lifetimes,Offit told The Washington Post.

I waited for my nurse friend to react but she said nothing for a time, as if I was about to give her some additional happy news.

Well, okay, fine, she finally replied. Not so much sarcasm as weariness. In the background I could hear some of those noises that are common at a nurses station.

Hold on, she said, and spoke with someone on the floor,presumably a coworker.

After a few moments she returned to our conversation, but only to end it:I gotta run, okay?

Okay.

I reached out to my daughter-in-law to see if she had to run, too. Yes, she did, although on this day she was dealing with patients with problems other than COVID. But shes due for another rotation in the emergency room, so she expects to see a few more Arkansans stumble in, or be rolled in, blue from lack of oxygen, gasping for breath, confessing assuming they are able to speak that they had postponed vaccination, or didnt believe in it; or were certain their ailment was something else, anything elsethan that COVID stuff, which we all know is overblown.

In other words,she would be sayingwell, okay, fine before the week ends, before Faucis stewardship ends, before the plague ends.

Steve Barnes is the host of "Arkansas Week" on Arkansas PBS.

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The resurgence of COVID-19, the retirement of Fauci | Barnes - SWTImes

EAST GREENSBORO, N.C. (July 22, 2022) North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University has been awarded third place and a $10,000 prize in the Four-Year STEM Undergraduate category of the National Science Foundation (NSF)s Taking Action: COVID-19 Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Challenge.

N.C. A&Ts entry highlights The Student Hangar, a resource hub that connects students with counseling, food, housing, utilities, transportation, health care, social and protective services, and other resources geographically closest to them. The rollout of this new mobile app will help Aggies overcome barriers associated with the digital divide or health equity when working on campus or remotely from home.

A&T, the nations largest historically Black college or university, saw student engagement in classes decrease substantially when COVID-19 forced the transition to online instruction in March 2020. Not only did this put students at risk of dropping out, but when coupled with known psychosocial determinants of health it also raised their threat of exposure to COVID-19, exacerbating their anxieties and stress levels.

This prompted the university to assemble a multidisciplinary research team tasked with promoting the retention of future STEM professionals from racially minoritized communities.

The team consisted of Jeannette Wade, Ph.D., assistant professor of sociology, Stephanie Teixeira-Poit, Ph.D., associate professor of sociology, Anna Lee, Ph.D., John R. and Kathy R. Hairston College of Health and Human Sciences interim associate dean for faculty affairs and psychology professor; Smriti Shrestha, senior lecturer in the School of Nursing; Christopher Doss, Ph.D., associate professor of computer engineering; and Adrienne Aiken-Morgan, Ph.D., clinical assistant professor of geropsychology in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine.

With the support of the NSF under RAPID Award No. 2033926, the team conducted a survey and follow-up interviews with undergraduate students to explore psychosocial barriers such as housing insecurity, food insecurity and stress that were affecting their physical and mental health and academic persistence during the pandemic. The team then identified resources on campus and in the community that address these psychosocial barriers.

The newly developed mobile app aims to increase student awareness about available resources and help connect students to those that can help them overcome psychosocial barriers, subsequently promoting student well-being, retention, and graduation.

Our project is well-positioned to highlight the extent to which psychosocial risk factors, including poor access to technology resources related to the current extenuating circumstances, are having an impact on student learning outcomes, the A&T team wrote. This, in turn, allows future scholars and practitioners to take steps in mitigating barriers to our efforts to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in STEM.

The NSF Taking Action: COVID-19 Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Challenge aimed to encourage institutes of higher education to think deeply about the long-term, potentially negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on diversity, equity, and inclusion in STEM and develop systemic solutions and actions to mitigate the impacts on STEM students, postdoctoral researchers, and faculty.

Through the challenge, the NSF distributed a total of $200,000 in cash prizes among the winners and hosted a virtual showcase for their projects. In addition, the NSF established an open access repository of winning entries and honorable mentions to highlight the importance of these efforts and allow other institutes of higher education to adapt them.

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N.C. A&T Earns Third Place in COVID-19 Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Challenge - North Carolina A&T

Clubs across Europe fear that UEFA, the sports governing body in the region, is set to renege on a proposed multi-billion pound recovery fund intended to stimulate transfer market growth following the economic hardship suffered during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In December 2021, UEFAs website announced the UEFA Executive Committee had heard a detailed update on plans for the European Club Football Recovery Plan.

Sports teams were impacted to varying degrees by COVID-19, through the loss of match-day and ticketing revenue, downgraded commercial partnerships and rebates paid to broadcasters when the sporting product was unable to continue or fundamentally altered in the case of matches played behind closed doors.

UEFAs Football Landscape Report, released in February 2022, revealed projected losses for European top-flight clubs in 2021 of 4billion (3.4billion, $4.09billion). It also demonstrated a growing polarisation between the English Premier League and its rival domestic leagues across the continent as the division was responsible for 34 per cent of global transfer spending.

The European Club Association, a lobbying organisation tasked with representing the interest of clubs that compete in European club competitions, was supportive of the recovery plan and sources indicated to The Athletic that clubs in France, Turkey, Greece, Cyprus, Poland, Croatia and Portugal have all expressed concerns about UEFAs failure thus far to deliver on the initiative.

Executives from leading clubs in Turkey, for example, say they are finding it extremely difficult to secure loans from Western lenders owing to the weak accounts of their major clubs and a calamitous financial situation for the local currency in Turkey.

The Athletic has spoken to multiple club executives in a cross-section of European leagues over the past week and several said they felt that UEFA were now unlikely to push through the rescue plan. The club executives wished not to be named owing to sensitive relations with UEFA but two said a failure to deliver the fund could push clubs towards riskier approaches to raising money. This could include selling a percentage of future broadcast revenue or commercial income to private equity funds, as Barcelona have done, or venturing further into the space of fan tokens and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

UEFA acknowledged the fund has not yet materialised but attributed the delay to a completely new economic environment as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, after which they say market conditions dramatically and unexpectedly changed. UEFAs finance committee, chaired by former Manchester United chief executive David Gill, has also expressed reservations about the plan.

A UEFA spokesperson told The Athletic: The unforeseen conflict between Russia and Ukraine triggered severe policy actions across economies. It continues to disrupt several industries and drives global financial market volatility to historically high levels. Notably, there has been a considerable widening in credit spread, starting from a few weeks after the invasion of Ukraine, signalling tighter financing conditions. These factors have driven a sharp rise in borrowing costs over the past few months and increased the risk profile of the initiative for the clubs.

The plan had been to use the competition revenues of UEFA club competitions as security in order to allow European clubs to gain access to greater liquidity, which in turn would drive investment and growth in the transfer market.

The hope was that the UEFA brand and competition revenue streams would provide sufficient credibility and allow clubs to borrow money at lower interest rates than would ordinarily be possible.

The relief fund was initially set to be made available to clubs who compete in European club competitions, such as the Champions League, Europa League and Conference League. The repayment of the borrowed money would be hooked to future payments owed to clubs by UEFA for their participation, which can be worth tens of millions each year.

UEFAs website said last December: Starting with an estimated initial amount of 2billion, the financing programme is expected to grow over time.

UEFA also said that Citigroup had been appointed as the sole global coordinator bank for the programme and added: If approved, it could be operational as early as Spring 2022.

The fund was further marketed to clubs at the General Assembly of the European Club Association in the Austrian capital of Vienna in March, leaving many hopeful of receiving funds ahead of this summers transfer window. Yet this did not materialise. In May, Bloomberg reported UEFA had paused plans for the rescue fund due to concerns about how money would be distributed to the clubs and how UEFA would balance its role as a competition organiser, a regulator and also a facilitator for lending (although UEFA itself would not have been the lender).

Now, however, UEFA is publicly attributing the delay to the war in Ukraine, which is one of the concerns outlined by UEFAs finance committee.

The committee is chaired by Gill, who is also UEFAs treasurer, and has three further members: the Hungarian banker Sandor Csanyi, the French Football Federations director general Florence Hardouin and the Finnish Football Association president Ari Lahti.

When asked to outline the finance committees concerns, the UEFA spokesperson said: The UEFA Finance Committee has been consulted on the initiative several times since its inception. Its members pointed out these new risks that have unexpectedly hit the broader world economy after more than 10 years of stable, low-interest-rate conditions.

UEFA, though, marketed the proposal to clubs at the ECA General Assembly in late March over a month after the Russian invasion of Ukraine began.

European footballs governing body is still to communicate a change to the plan in correspondence to clubs, while senior ECA sources also indicated they remain in the dark as to the reasons for the fund not going ahead. This is despite repeated attempts by senior ECA personnel, as well as Paris Saint-Germain president Nasser Al-Khelaifi who is also the ECA chairman and a member of the UEFA Executive Committee to raise the issue with UEFA officials in meetings.

A UEFA spokesperson said clubs would be updated on the status of the project at an ECA board meeting in late August and at the UEFA Executive Committee in September. The spokesperson added there was a need to carefully assess the ongoing volatile market situation and evaluate several alternatives before entering into its execution. UEFA added it is wary of triggering unintended consequences by executing the rescue plan.

Not all club executives spoken to by The Athletic felt the fund was as necessary as some suggest, with one executive arguing it could be used to benefit clubs who had been poorly managed even before the pandemic, while adding that European football had proved itself to be more resilient than first feared when the pandemic came along. There had been apocalyptic predictions that clubs would go under.

Many domestic leagues, however, have seen a vast reduction of transfer market spending, with the Premier League proving to be a notable exception. Clubs in Turkey, for example, had theorised that loans to leading European clubs such as Fenerbahce, Besiktas and Galatasaray would have a waterfall effect for middling and smaller clubs in the country as the larger clubs would invest the money received in the transfer market. Sceptics, however, would caution that a waterfall or trickle-down approach sometimes simply further entrenches the power and privileges of those at the very top of an industry.

There is, however, widespread agreement among many club executives that UEFA erred in announcing and marketing the fund before securing approval from its own finance committee, as some clubs had already started to budget their plans around the loans. Indeed, some argued UEFA, conscious of the ongoing threat posed by the proposed European Super League, had been keen to make bold pledges to safeguard European footballs finances to ensure the ongoing loyalty of clubs across Europe. UEFA rejects this suggestion.

A UEFA spokesperson insisted the organisation would finance any consultancy fees associated with the thus far unsuccessful project, rather than transfer the burden to clubs.

UEFA further countered: ItwasUEFAs duty to presentandexplain the programme in detailto the clubsinorder togaugetheir interestinthe initiativeand get theirpreliminaryapproval.In effect, clubs were presented with numerous updates on the plan, including a final update on the fund during ECAs General Assembly in Vienna. In every presentation made to ECA, it is explained that the programmes implementation remains subject to UEFAs Executive Committee approval, following Finance Committee decision.

Citibank did not respond to a request for comment.

(Top photo: OZAN KOSE/AFP via Getty Images)

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Exclusive: Clubs fear UEFA will withdraw 2bn COVID-19 relief fund - The Athletic

Several highly effective vaccines were developed at an unprecedented speed to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. During the phase 3 clinical trials, mRNA vaccines had vaccine efficacy of 9495% in preventing symptomatic infections. After the rollout, real-world evidence showed that the mRNA vaccines provided ~90% effectiveness against infection. Then came the variants. The wave after wave of new variants, with ever-increasing transmissibility and capacity to escape existing immunity, challenge the ability of vaccines to prevent infection and transmission. The effectiveness of a primary series of mRNA vaccines (two doses) to prevent hospitalization and death is also being chipped away by these highly immune-evasive variants. Vaccine-mediated protection became shorter-lived, especially with the emergence of Omicron variants. People look at these data and wonder, what is the point of getting the vaccines if they will not prevent symptomatic infections, and the protection does not last? Well, to expect robust protection from just the primary series of any vaccines is unreasonableand was always likely to bebut somehow society has placed too high a bar on what is considered an acceptable number of doses for COVID-19 vaccines. Instead, we need to understand that were going to be getting boosters in the foreseeable future, and to appreciate their benefits.

Vaccines against other infectious diseases are given in multiple doses. Many of our childhood vaccines require multiple doses5 doses for (diphtheria/tetanus/pertussis), 4 doses (Haemophilus influenza type b, pneumococcal conjugate, inactivated poliovirus), or 3 doses (hepatitis B) are all commonly given before the age of 18 years. These doses are required and not considered optional to achieve immunity. In adulthood, many of these vaccines need periodic booster doses to maintain immunity. The influenza virus requires annual vaccination doses for all ages. Yet, people dont complain about having to get their 60th dose of the influenza vaccine. We should think of COVID-19 vaccines the same way.

Why do we need booster doses? The primary series of vaccines kick-starts the immune response by engaging lymphocytes, white blood cells that detect specific features of the pathogen to expand in numbers and become instructed to eliminate the pathogen. Most of these cells disappear over time, except for a small subset of cells that are kept by the body for future use. These memory cells are responsible for long-lasting immunity against a given pathogen. What boosters do is stimulate these memory lymphocytes to quickly expand in numbers and to produce even more effective defenders. The booster also selects for B cells that can secrete antibodies that are even better at binding and blocking virus infection and spread.

The primary series can be thought of as the high school for lymphocytes, where nave cells receive basic instructions to learn about the pathogen. Boosters are like a college where lymphocytes are further educated to become more skilled and mature, to fight off future infections. Periodically, these college graduates need refreshers by more booster doses given later in life. This is the case for all vaccines. Booster doses provide the immune system the education it needs to prevent severe diseases from infections.

COVID-19 vaccines also need booster doses for the same reasons. We need to educate, maintain, and improve T and B cell responses to prevent severe disease. Boosters provide significant benefits to people who received the primary series in preventing hospitalization and death. In the U.S. in April 2022, people older than 50 years of age who received no vaccine, primary series only (no booster dose), or one booster dose had 38 x, 6 x, or a 4 x higher risk, respectively, of dying from COVID-19 compared to those with two or more booster doses. During the Omicron-predominant period, the booster dose provided protection from hospitalization even in previously infected people, whether older (>65 years of age) or younger (<65 years of age). Among children and adolescents, a primary series (two doses) of vaccination was less effective in preventing COVID-19-associated emergency department and urgent care encounters during the Omicron wave compared to the Delta period. Immunity also decreases with time since primary vaccination. No significant protection was detected more than five months after a 2nd vaccine dose among adolescents aged 1617 years. However, a third booster dose restored vaccine effectiveness to 81% in this age group. There is thus a clear benefit of a booster dose across a broad range of age groups studied to date.

Can booster vaccination be improved in the future? Absolutely. We need improved boosters that can provide more durable protection, are effective against variants we encounter moving forward, and do a better job of preventing infection and blocking transmission. For example, booster-induced immune protection wanes within 4-6 months during the current Omicron period. We need vaccine strategies that provide more durable protection. Boosters are now being developed to match the circulating Omicron variant BA.5, which should provide better protection than boosters based on the original strain. However, because of the rapidly mutating nature of SARS-CoV-2, going forward, we will need boosters that can provide coverage against not just the existing but future variants of concern.

Boosters that work against a wide range of SARS-CoV-2 variants, now or in the future, as well as against other coronaviruses that may cause future pandemics need to be pursued. Coronaviruses have made the jump from animals to humans multiple times in history which resulted in pandemics. Vaccines that can broadly protect against a wide range of coronaviruses will also prevent future pandemics. In addition, future boosters should be given as nasal spray vaccines to provide local mucosal immune protection, capable of reducing infection and transmission at the portal of entry for the virus, and reducing long COVID risk. Ultimately, we need booster strategies that can be more easily implemented worldwide and have higher acceptance and uptake rates to provide much-needed immune protection for everyone. An over-the-counter nasal spray booster can bring us closer to that goal.

Researchers and industry are furiously working on developing next-generation vaccines as they did with our current vaccines, which have saved more than 14 million lives during the pandemic. But for now, take the booster doses you are eligible to keep your immune system educated and up to date so it has the best chance of protecting you from COVID-19 in the upcoming winter season and so we can prevent the enormous loss of life we experienced last winter with more than 300,000 people dying in the U.S. from a disease that can be prevented by current boosters.

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Why You'll Need to Get COVID-19 Boosters Again and Again - TIME

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Bacterial and fungal isolation from face masks under the COVID-19 pandemic | Scientific Reports - Nature.com

A Coral Princess cruise ship with more than 2,000 passengers onboard is stranded at sea.

Strong winds and 20-foot waves are preventing the ship from safely docking in Australia, per reports.

This isn't the ship's only challenge in recent days. Last week, it reported 120 cases of COVID-19 onboard.

Passengers on the Coral Princess cruise ship, now stuck off Australia's coast, can't seem to catch a break.

Last week, the ship reported 120 cases of COVID-19. Now, its 2,000-plus passengers are stranded at sea.

Strong winds and 20-foot waves are preventing the vessel from safely docking, according to news reports from The Daily Mail and Sky News Australia. The ship was supposed to dock in Brisbane at 7am local time Friday, the last day of its weeklong voyage, with stops along the Queensland and New South Wales coasts, but bad weather has made that impossible.

It's unclear when the ship will be able to dock.

"The Port of Brisbane is closed ... " a Princess Cruises spokesman told The Daily Mail Australia, citing "adverse weather conditions associated with the East Coast Low off Queensland."

The ship's arrival and reopening of the port will depend on when conditions improve, the spokesman said.

The ship has been hit with waves measuring roughly 20 feet, according to passenger footage cited by The Daily Mail. Australia's Bureau of Meteorology issued a warning for winds with gusts up to roughly 55 miles per hour, for parts of the southern Queensland coast Friday.

Princess Cruises did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Cursed cruise ship where 120 passengers tested positive for COVID-19, now is facing 20-foot waves and brutal wind, stranding it off Australia - Yahoo!...

Coronavirus cases and deaths among nursing home residents rose statewide for the second straight month after a long period of decline, according to data from AARP Virginia, the state chapter of the national advocacy group for Americans aged 50 and older.

Rates are still far lower than in the early days of the pandemic, when the virus swept through long-term care facilities largely unchecked. From late April to mid-June, resident case rates in Virginia increased from 2.74 per 100 to 4.14, while death rates increased from .04 per 100 to .06, according to a Thursday news release.

Data from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services indicates that just over 84 percent of nursing home residents in Virginia are fully vaccinated and boosted, and the states continued low death rate among those vulnerable patients speaks to the strong protection vaccines convey against severe disease and death. But the rise is still concerning, advocates say, amid the continued spread of highly infectious subvariants. Until the most recent increase over the last two months, both cases and deaths had been steadily declining in nursing homes following the states historic winter surge.

Rising deaths and cases of COVID-19 among nursing home residents and staff nationally show that for their sakes, we must remain vigilant, David DeBiasi, the advocacy director of AARP Virginia, said in a statement. And we must hold nursing homes accountable for providing high quality care and safe environments.

For much of the pandemic, cases and deaths in nursing homes have been a bellwether for spread in the broader community. When transmission is high, it increases the risk of staff members catching and spreading the virus to elderly patients.

Eighteen counties and localities in Virginia are currently seeing a high level of transmission, including the city of Richmond, according to data from the U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention. And statewide, case numbers are still on the rise, driven largely by the highly infectious omicron subvariant BA.5, which shows signs of being able to evade immunity from previous vaccines and infections.

The New York Times reported that the subvariant is driving a new wave of cases, reinfections and hospitalizations across the country, and theres also been a rise in COVID admissions statewide, according to data from the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association. Deaths currently remain at their lowest level since the start of the pandemic, based on reporting from the Virginia Department of Health.

But on average, case rates across Virginia are roughly four times higher than they were last summer, according to the most recent report from UVAs Biocomplexity Institute, which provides modeling and projections to state health officials. Hospitalization numbers are also rising more quickly than cases, which thanks to the proliferation of at-home testing are going unreported to a much larger degree than earlier in the pandemic.

AARP Virginia said the increase of cases and deaths among some of the most vulnerable Virginians heightened concerns that a new surge is upon us. But health experts continue to emphasize that COVID-19 vaccines are still highly protective against severe disease and death, even with immune-evading subvariants.

In late June, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration directed vaccine manufacturers to develop booster doses that targeted newer omicron variants. Those shots are expected to be released in the fall, and UVA researchers urged anyone already eligible for a fourth dose to get one as soon as possible.

BA.4 and BA.5 are both capable of causing reinfections among those with natural and vaccine-induced immunity, they wrote. Models suggest these two subvariants may cause a small case surge in the coming months.

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COVID-19 cases and deaths in Virginia nursing homes rise for the second consecutive month - Virginia Mercury

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Thursday, July 14, 2022

Researchers from the National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, and their collaborators have discovered that people of European and African ancestries who were hospitalized for COVID-19 are more likely to carry a particular combination of genetic variants in a gene known as OAS1 than patients with mild disease who were not hospitalized. People with this combination of genetic variants also remain positive for SARS-CoV-2 infection longer. However, interferon treatment may reduce the severity of COVID-19 in people with these genetic factors. Interferons are a type of protein that can help the bodys immune system fight infection and other diseases, such as cancer.

The study appears July 14 in Nature Genetics.

These findings build on previous studies that have suggested that genetic factors, such as genetic variants affecting OAS antiviral proteins that facilitate the detection and breakdown of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, may influence the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection.

The NCI researchers and their collaborators found that treatment of cells with an interferon decreased the viral load of SARS-CoV-2. The researchers also analyzed data from a clinical trial in which patients with COVID-19 who were not hospitalized were treated with the recombinant interferon pegIFN-1 and found that treatment improved viral clearance in all patients; those with the OAS1 risk variants benefitted the most. The results suggest that interferon treatment may improve COVID-19 outcomes and specifically in patients with certain OAS1 genetic variants who have impaired ability to clear infection.

Ludmila Prokunina-Olsson, Ph.D., and Oscar Florez-Vargas, Ph.D., Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute

Genetic regulation of OAS1 nonsense-mediated decay underlies association with COVID-19 hospitalization in patients of European and African ancestries appears July 14 in Nature Genetics.

About the National Cancer Institute (NCI): NCI leads the National Cancer Program and NIHs efforts to dramatically reduce the prevalence of cancer and improve the lives of people with cancer. NCI supports a wide range of cancer research and training extramurally through grants and contracts. NCIs intramural research program conducts innovative, transdisciplinary basic, translational, clinical, and epidemiological research on the causes of cancer, avenues for prevention, risk prediction, early detection, and treatment, including research at the NIH Clinical Centerthe worlds largest research hospital. Learn more about NCIs intramural research from the Center for Cancer Research and the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics. For more information about cancer, please visit the NCI website at cancer.gov or call NCIs contact center at 1-800-4-CANCER (1-800-422-6237).

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH):NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.

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Interferon treatment may reduce severity of COVID-19 in people with certain genetic factors - National Institutes of Health (.gov)

The number of COVID-19 cases continues to rise in the United States and the world. To slow down the spread of the virus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends testing often, especially if youve recently been in contact with people who have symptoms or test positive.

When it comes to at-home testing, the BinaxNOW COVID-19 test is one of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-authorized at-home COVID-19 tests under emergency use authorization (EUA).

You can use this test whether you have symptoms. If you dont have symptoms, the manufacturers advise you to take the test twice in 3 days.

Heres what you need to know about this test kit, safety precautions, price, and more.

The BinaxNOW COVID-19 Antigen Self-Test is an FDA-authorized at-home test kit for detecting active infections with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in people with and without symptoms.

According to the company, this test kit can screen for many SARS-CoV-2 strains, including the Delta and Omicron variants.

The BinaxNOW COVID-19 Antigen Self-Test is a rapid test that uses a shallow nasal swab sample to check for the presence or absence of proteins from the virus that causes COVID-19.

Heres how it works:

Healthline senior associate Sydney Hanan tested out the BinaxNOW COVID-19 kit and found it to be fairly similar to other at-home testing kits that are available.

It came with pretty much everything I needed to take the two tests, including two test cards, two dropper bottles, two swabs, and an instruction sheet, she said. The only thing I needed to provide myself was a time, which was easy enough to do on my phone.

Sydney noted that shes taken different types of at-home COVID-19 tests and that BinaxNOW was straightforward and easy.

[It] takes about 20 minutes in total (5 to perform the test, and 15 to get the results), she said.

According to the CDC, if your results are positive, you can trust the accuracy of an at-home COVID-19 test kit. This includes the BinaxNOW COVID-19 test.

However, you may not be able to rely on this test kit (or similar at-home options) if your results show negative. You might still have COVID-19, especially if youre showing COVID-19 symptoms.

The manufacturers recommend testing again after 24 to 48 hours to confirm your results. If it still shows negative despite your symptoms, its best to consult your doctor.

If you see an invalid result, the test didnt work, and youll need to take another test.

The FDA highlighted a study that found that the BinaxNOW COVID-19 test kit was 91.7% accurate at detecting positive cases and 100% reliable at finding negative cases.

That being said, the FDA also stated that because the study was small, it estimates that the kit can correctly identify 73% to 98.9% of positive cases.

Another study that tested people who had been showing COVID-19 symptoms for at least 7 days saw that the kit was 84.6% accurate at correctly identifying a person with COVID-19. It was also 98.5% accurate at detecting a person without COVID-19.

Other studies suggest that you can rely on the kit to detect the Omicron and Delta variants, and other variants of concern (VOC).

BinaxNOW COVID-19 Antigen Self-Test is a product of Abbott Laboratories, an internationally recognized healthcare technology company.

However, Abbott Laboratories is not accredited by the Better Business Bureau and currently has a rating o 1.06 out of 5 stars. In the past year, the company has closed 65 complaints. Most complaints are about products other than the BinaxNOW COVID-19 test, but some note that the companys customer service is poor.

The test kit is rated 4.7 out of 5 stars from 10,540 global ratings on Amazon. Most of the reviews were positive, noting that the kit was easy to use and worked well for detecting COVID-19.

A few complained about the boxs contents. Some said that the box came with only one kit instead of two. Another mentioned that the boxs seal had already broken on arrival.

You can get the BinaxNOW COVID-19 test at retailers like:

According to the FDA, you can get a negative result even when you have COVID-19 (this is called a false negative). Still, the company doesnt mention the possibility of getting a false-positive result. Although there arent any reported false-positive cases with this test kit, its still something that you should be aware of.

A 2021 study observed that rapid COVID-19 tests detected infection with SARS-CoV-2 in 72% of people with symptoms and 58% without symptoms.

As of early 2022, people with a health plan or health insurance can get any FDA-authorized at-home test for free or be reimbursed for paying for the at-home test. You can contact your provider for more information.

People 15 years and older, vaccinated or unvaccinated, with or without COVID-19 symptoms, can take this test. But if youre without symptoms and your results show negative, take another test in 24 to 48 hours.

An adult can administer the test for children 2 years or older.

At-home rapid COVID-19 test kits are quick, cost-effective ways of testing to see whether you have COVID-19. You can also take these tests wherever you are and get your results in minutes.

The BinaxNOW COVID-19 test is an FDA-authorized COVID-19 test kit under a EUA that can detect whether you have the virus. Your results will be available within 15 to 30 minutes.

While this test kit is FDA-authorized, it isnt 100% accurate and can still reflect false or inconclusive results. You can consult your doctor or take an in-person PCR test for more accurate results.

Frances Gatta is a freelance healthcare writer with experience writing on general health, womens health, healthcare technology, mental health, and personalized nutrition. You can connect with her on Twitter and LinkedIn.

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BinaxNOW COVID-19 Test Reviews: What You Should Know - Healthline