Gonna hang a KN95 mask on my front door to ward off Republicans.
— Rex Huppke (@RexHuppke) September 8, 2023
Clinicians: CDC recommends that everyone ages 6 months and up get the updated #COVID19 #vaccine to protect against serious illness. It will be available later this week. The new vaccine targets the most common circulating variants.
Full details: https://t.co/jqvxmjrlxI pic.twitter.com/I7eohAAWJ4
— CDC (@CDCgov) September 12, 2023
Just about everyone should get the new #Covid #boosters, @CDCgov says https://t.co/zTS9oIzAzR "Most Americans can still get a COVID-19 vaccine for free. For people with health insurance, most plans will cover COVID-19 vaccine at no cost to you."
— Maggie Fox (@maggiemfox) September 12, 2023
Also a quick note from today's ACIP slides that the application under review at FDA would allow Novavax boosters even after mRNA priming/prior boosters.
FDA approval is now the last step before Novavax becomes broadly accessible.https://t.co/0J0gaYYNBs pic.twitter.com/8wlYVYhr9P— Daniel Park (@Daniel_E_Park) September 12, 2023
Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Moving Forward…
The FDA has approved updated COVID-19 vaccines. The shots replace combination vaccines that mixed protection against the original coronavirus strain and even older omicron variants.
Now, the CDC must sign off. https://t.co/vZbBhSztFp
— The Associated Press (@AP) September 11, 2023
Right on predicted schedule! I’ll include more about this very comprehensive Science article in tomorrow’s update, but here’s the nut graf for many (most?) Balloon Juice commentors:
Should I get a booster if I’m at higher risk of severe disease?
Everyone Science spoke with said yes, if you are elderly, immunocompromised, or have medical conditions that make you particularly susceptible to harm from the virus. “For people who are at high risk of severe disease, I think the answer is pretty simple and largely noncontroversial: A 4- to 6-month period of protection has a meaningful clinical benefit,” Barouch says. “It’s clear that that population benefits from a boost and probably more than one boost for the year.”
======
In case you missed Biden's speech,here it is on CSPAN. About 20mins and well worth watching. #September11
President Biden Delivers Remarks on 9/11 Anniversary From Alaska @CSPAN https://t.co/GTFzQKOeJC
— Victoria Brownworth (@VABVOX) September 11, 2023
(Biden’s speech starts around the 7minute mark)
Calls back home to family and a tennis star. An in-room priest visit for Mass. Briefings on Morocco, hurricanes and strike threats. And also, the G20 and a diplomatic visit to Vietnam. Aides said the president was in constant motion on his whirlwind trip. https://t.co/CoqeyAJrrH
— Katie Rogers (@katierogers) September 11, 2023
Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Moving Forward…Post + Comments (305)
COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: September 6, 2023
KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: "We will be encouraging, as I have said before, Americans to get their updated COVID-19 vaccine" pic.twitter.com/28PqvODu4E
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) September 5, 2023
The predicted seasonal surge of covid infections infections in America seems to be underway — albeit, always remember, from a relatively small baseline. The predictable spokesmorons of Our Failed Major Media find this disturbing, something that raises questions, because they are paid to complain about Democratic administrations (and also because they are gullible idiots). Spare a positive thought for Ms. Jean-Pierre; under the circumstances, I’d have to be physically restrained from beating Peter Doocy around the ears with that binder…
So more promising data from an exceptional team
BA.2.86 really doesn't appear to be a huge hit to neutralization after XBB infection
What does this mean?
New covid vaccine (likely coming soon) should provide good protection against infection even against BA.2.86
This is good https://t.co/pWOwTyvJDn
— Ashish K. Jha, MD, MPH (@ashishkjha) September 5, 2023
Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Putting In the Work
ICYMI:
Following the First Lady’s positive test for COVID-19, President Biden was administered a COVID test this evening. The President tested negative. The President will test at a regular cadence this week and monitor for symptoms.https://t.co/SyGs7w5x7T
— Karine Jean-Pierre (@PressSec) September 5, 2023
======
I traveled to 17 states this summer, and my message was clear: Our fundamental freedoms are under attack, but we will always stand together and fight for what is right. pic.twitter.com/U4xAaqoac3
— Vice President Kamala Harris (@VP) September 3, 2023
No other https://t.co/opdPmWKbyy pic.twitter.com/vI6UZnIlCo
— ??Samantha?? (@ChiTownSam723) August 28, 2023
Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Putting In the WorkPost + Comments (99)
COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: August 30, 2023
(link)
The meeting has been scheduled for Tuesday, September 12, and some observers are guessing the updated vaccine could be released by the weekend of September 15:
China’s unexpected decision to end its strict Covid Zero policy in December 2022 led to nearly 1.9 million excess deaths in just two months, according to one of the first independent studies to estimate the virus’s devastation as it rampaged across the vast country.
The shocking figure — even more so considering fewer than 7 million deaths worldwide have been formally attributed to Covid — applies only to adults over the age of 30 who died between December 2022 and January 2023, according to the paper published in the journal JAMA Network Open. The Chinese government had previously disclosed about 60,000 Covid-related deaths in health facilities from early December to the middle of January…
“Despite being the first place to be hit by Covid-19, China was able to quickly suppress the disease through stringent measures over an extended period,” said Joseph Unger, the senior author of the paper and a biostatistician and health services researcher at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle. “Because the Chinese population had been largely shielded from infection with limited natural immunity and was not fully or well vaccinated, the sudden introduction of widespread Covid-19 infection had a devastating impact.”
The Fred Hutchinson researchers used a unique approach that they deemed quasi-experimental to come up with the figure.
They combined information gleaned from published obituaries for employees at three of the country’s most prestigious universities and data collected about queries for terms like funeral parlor, cremation and burial on Baidu, a search engine that accounts for almost all internet queries in China.
The result was a calculation of “excess deaths” among adults in China during the two months after Covid Zero ended. A higher-than-expected mortality rate was found in every province except Tibet, and older people were particularly vulnerable, the study found…
Estimating the number of deaths from Covid has been difficult the world over for a myriad of reasons, including the challenges of diagnosing infections early on in the outbreak and tracking everyone affected during the massive waves that followed. Experts agree the figures are almost certainly an underestimate in every nation and that it may take years to calculate the true toll.
The US has the highest number of confirmed number of deaths cumulatively throughout the pandemic, according to Johns Hopkins University, followed by Brazil and India. The estimated number of excess deaths, another way of calculating mortality that compares death rates among the same groups during different periods of time, puts India at the top with 6.2 million deaths, followed by China at 1.9 million, Russia at 1.5 million and the US at 1.3 million…
True counts were made even more difficult in China because the government narrowed the definition of Covid death shortly after three years of stringent Covid Zero controls were suddenly abondoned in December 2022. That spurred calls for data transparency from the World Health Organization and experts outside the country…
Japan: Weekly COVID-19 cases per hospital up by 26%.
Gifu prefecture had the highest average, at 31.03, followed by 30.42 in Iwate, 28.48 in Akita and 27.42 in Ibaraki.https://t.co/7oRvnOneo7 https://t.co/ompOOu6Oho
— CoronaHeadsUp (@CoronaHeadsUp) August 26, 2023
(link)
(link)
Swedish newspaper asks if anyone has LongCovid. Forced to close down comments after only 4 hours because there is so much Swedish LongCovid.
PUBLISHED YESTERDAY 20:30
Today02:34 – reporter closes it.
Today02:33 – comment. https://t.co/pUXVmuGWWJ pic.twitter.com/1o9N910sC3— Lazarus Long (@LazarusLong13) August 28, 2023
(link)
Scotland: 237 covid-related ward closures vs. 93 closures from other infections (e.g. flu/norovirus) in 🏴 in 1st 7 months of 2023https://t.co/NxHTiC5HF4
— CoronaHeadsUp (@CoronaHeadsUp) August 27, 2023
(link)
Canada has detected its first case of COVID-19 from the BA.2.86 variant of Omicron in a person in British Columbia who had not traveled outside the Pacific province, health officials said on Tuesday. https://t.co/xbwCALgH2v
— Reuters Health (@Reuters_Health) August 30, 2023
======
Getting Covid from being in the hospital (nosocomial infections): Features of nearly 7,700 of such infections in 288 US hospitals that should be preventedhttps://t.co/RXOEw48NJr pic.twitter.com/NBGRndkOKg
— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) August 28, 2023
Age-standardised mortality on only deaths that involved COVID as a factor (according to the judgment of the certifying physician).
You can't read vaccine efficacy directly from these figures (there are important confounders) but the difference pre- and post-Omicron is striking. pic.twitter.com/YFmrrvDTwn— Paul Mainwood (@PaulMainwood) August 29, 2023
Now 11 studies for #LongCovid at 2 years
A new prospective one from Germany https://t.co/A0SB4qHg2N @eClinicalMed
Summary Table below
Reviewed https://t.co/kPD76eH2rE pic.twitter.com/V54OEwZRh4— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) August 29, 2023
(link)
Heart damage is a long-term consequence of #Covid: The #coronavirus has taken a toll on heart health around the world & even in the U.S. doctors are still grappling with how to help https://t.co/1wwiRHYfF1
& https://t.co/WHf4q8AUk6— delthia ricks 🔬 (@DelthiaRicks) August 28, 2023
— Prof Peter Hotez MD PhD (@PeterHotez) August 22, 2023
Retrospective study of COVID-19 experiences in elite multinational aquatic athletes – “Reinfection occurred in 13%, and 10% of initial infections led to long COVID, with fatigue (65%) and shortness of breath (48%) being the most common long-term symptoms.” https://t.co/T1w9yFufuy
— Dr. Sean Mullen (@drseanmullen) August 28, 2023
… Questions posed over SARS-2’s lack of seasonality aren’t purely academic. Knowing when to expect a disease is critical for health care labor force planning. The tsunami of RSV-infected babies struggling to breathe in the late summer and early fall of 2022 was made worse by the fact that hospitals weren’t as prepared as they could have been; they normally see RSV peaks in the winter months. Likewise, knowing when to expect SARS-2 surges helps the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention time the rollout of Covid booster shots. The protection against infection generated by the vaccines wanes quickly, so giving them too soon or too late would undermine the efficacy of this countermeasure.
Van Kerkhove thinks waning immunity in the population is the reason for the periodic swells of transmission. Protection against severe disease — whether induced by infection, vaccination, or the two combined — appears to hold up reasonably well. But when it comes to SARS-2, protection against basic infection is short-lived. That’s not a surprise given what’s known about the four human coronaviruses that predate the arrival of SARS-2. A study in the Netherlands that followed healthy volunteers for more than 35 years found that people can be reinfected with human coronaviruses within about a year after infection, and sometimes after a mere six months. With SARS-2, there are reports of intervals that are shorter still…
A break from seasonal transmission of respiratory pathogens can be a sign something is amiss, with off-season spread having been observed during flu pandemics going back to the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918. The first observed cases in that pandemic occurred in the spring, at a time when flu season would normally have concluded. The 1957 pandemic began in Asia in February of that year, but the virus arrived in, and started spreading through, the United States, during the summer. The 1968 pandemic began in July. The 2009 H1N1 pandemic was first detected in April and the pandemic’s major wave ran through the summer, peaked in September and trailed off in October.
“Pandemic influenza doesn’t follow a seasonal pattern in any way, shape or form,” said Osterholm.
It remains to be seen when it will be apparent that SARS-2 has lost its override capabilities, when we’ll feel confident that we know when to expect — plus or minus a month or two — Covid’s annual onslaught…
======
(link)
I’m far from a COVID contrarian or minimizer. I’m immune compromised so I barely socialize indoors, I wear an N-95 or something close when I shop, & when one of the kids gets a sniffle we test
I take it seriously
But, I gotta ask, is Deborah Birx unaware of wastewater testing? https://t.co/kRVOAnaZ9N
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) August 30, 2023
*Taps Mic*
We are 3.5years into this pandemic. Let’s drop the “if you are old or have preexisting conditions” narrative when we KNOW COVID has literally killed babies.Moment of silence
Everyone, hear me: wear N95 mask & get booster. https://t.co/gi7EPdpD6y
— Ebony Jade Hilton, MD (@EbonyJHilton_MD) August 25, 2023
These charts show the percentage increase in obituaries using the words "suddenly" or "unexpectedly" is far greater, on average, in red states with low vax rates than in blue states with high vax rates. But Kirsch ignores that and says "it's only happening to the vaccinated." https://t.co/hVBNOAv0Zc
— James Surowiecki (@JamesSurowiecki) August 28, 2023
(link)
— Bad Vaccine Takes (@BadVaccineTakes) August 23, 2023
COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: August 30, 2023Post + Comments (57)
COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: August 23, 2023
The Biden administration plans to urge all Americans to get a booster shot for the coronavirus this autumn to counter a new wave of infections, a White House official said https://t.co/D8NY90tTa7
— Reuters (@Reuters) August 21, 2023
… The official said that while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are reporting an increase in infections and hospital admissions from the virus, overall levels remain low.
On Thursday, Moderna (MRNA.O) said initial data showed its updated COVID-19 vaccine is effective against the “Eris” and “Fornax” subvariants in humans.
Moderna and other COVID-19 vaccine makers Novavax (NVAX.O), Pfizer (PFE.N) and German partner BioNTech SE (22UAy.DE) have created versions of their shots aimed at the XBB.1.5 subvariant.
Pending approval from health regulators in the United States and Europe, the companies expect the updated shots to be available in the coming weeks for the autumn vaccination season.
The NYTimes tends to be *very* cavalier about pandemic risks, but still:
COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: August 16, 2023
A new COVID vaccine is due out next month, but health experts and analysts say it is likely to be coolly received even as hospitalizations from "Eris", a variant of the Omicron form of the coronavirus, rise around the country. https://t.co/YCgj6imLYC
— Reuters Health (@Reuters_Health) August 14, 2023
… As of Friday, another new player is more officially in the mix: “Fornax,” or FL.1.5.1, an Eris relative named after a constellation in the southern hemisphere. That’s according to Ryan Gregory, a biology professor at the University of Guelph in Ontario, who has been assigning “street names” like Kraken to high-flying variants.
FL.1.5.1 is the top variant currently reported in New York, considered a bellwether state by variant trackers. There, wastewater levels and hospitalizations are rising, notes Raj Rajnarayanan—assistant dean of research and associate professor at the New York Institute of Technology campus in Jonesboro, Ark.—and a top COVID-variant tracker…
Regardless, cases will likely peak in late November, shortly after the Thanksgiving holiday, Rajnarayanan says.
A post-Thanksgiving peak is typical for the virus, owing to holiday gatherings. Gregory agrees with the forecast. But in many ways, the landscape of the pandemic has changed from earlier days, he says.
COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: August 16, 2023Post + Comments (20)