With the Omicron variant spreading rapidly, the country is averaging more than 500,000 new cases a day, far more than at any previous point in the pandemic. Omicron appears to cause less severe illness than prior forms of the virus, but has contributed to upticks in hospitalizations.

Two new studies, published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), are offering robust evidence of universal mask-wearing practices in schools reducing rates of COVID-19 outbreaks. The research conducted across July and August delivers insights into how the Delta variant can spread in children.

The armed forces are being deployed to help hospitals in London deal with a surge in Covid patients because the Omicron variant is leaving so many staff sick and unable to work.

Queenslanders will be required to start wearing masks indoors from Sunday as the state recorded 2,266 new cases in just 12 hours, Deputy Premier Steven Miles said.

Despite the resistance of Brazilian scientists, science in Brazil has been undermined by measures implemented by the federal government in the past 3 years, such as increasing budget cuts, attacks on the autonomy of universities, and a general policy of denial of science.

The Editor-in-Chief has retracted this article. Following publication, concerns were raised regarding the methodology and the conclusions of this review article. Postpublication review confirmed that while the review article appropriately describes the mechanism of action of ivermectin, the cited sources do not appear to show that there is clear clinical evidence of the effect of ivermectin for the treatment of SARS-CoV-2. The Editor-in-Chief therefore no longer has confidence in the reliability of this review article. None of the authors agree to this retraction. The online version of this article contains the full text of the retracted article as Supplementary Information.

Researchers at Yale School of Medicine have discovered that an RNA molecule that stimulates the body’s early antiviral defense system can protect mice from a range of emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants. The study, published today in the Journal of Experimental Medicine (JEM), could lead to new treatments for COVID-19 in immunocompromised patients, as well as providing an inexpensive therapeutic option for developing countries that currently lack access to vaccines.

BackgroundData on pediatric coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has lagged behind adults throughout the pandemic. An understanding of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) viral dynamics in children would enable data-driven public health guidance.MethodsRespiratory swabs were collected from children with COVID-19. Viral load was quantified by reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR); viral culture was assessed by direct observation of cytopathic effects and semiquantitative viral titers. Correlations with age, symptom duration, and disease severity were analyzed. SARS-CoV-2 whole genome sequences were compared with contemporaneous sequences.ResultsOne hundred ten children with COVID-19 (median age, 10 years [range, 2 weeks–21 years]) were included in this study. Age did not impact SARS-CoV-2 viral load. Children were most infectious within the first 5 days of illness, and severe disease did not correlate with increased viral loads. Pediatric SARS-CoV-2 sequences were representative of those in the community and novel variants were identified.ConclusionsSymptomatic and asymptomatic children can carry high quantities of live, replicating SARS-CoV-2, creating a potential reservoir for transmission and evolution of genetic variants. As guidance around social distancing and masking evolves following vaccine uptake in older populations, a clear understanding of SARS-CoV-2 infection dynamics in children is critical for rational development of public health policies and vaccination strategies to mitigate the impact of COVID-19.

Substance use disorders (SUDs) are heterogenous and complex, making the development of translationally predictive rodent and non-human primate models to uncover their neurobehavioral underpinnings difficult. Neuroscience-focused outcomes have become highly prevalent, and with this, the notion that SUDs are disorders of the brain embraced as a dominant theoretical orientation to understand SUD etiology and treatment. These efforts, however, have led to few efficacious pharmacotherapies, and in some cases (as with cocaine or methamphetamine), no pharmacotherapies have translated from preclinical models for clinical use. In this review and theoretical commentary, we first describe the development of animal models of SUDs from a historical perspective. We then define and discuss three logical fallacies including 1) circular explanation, 2) affirming the consequent, and 3) reification that can apply to developed models. We then provide three case examples in which conceptual or logical issues exist in common methods (i.e., behavioral economic demand, escalation, and reinstatement). Alternative strategies to refocus behavioral models are suggested for the field in an attempt to better bridge the translational divide between animal models and the clinical condition of SUDs.

Political scientists and sociologists have highlighted insecure work as a societal ill underlying individuals’ lack of social solidarity (i.e., concern about the welfare of disadvantaged others) and political disruption. In order to provide the psychological underpinnings connecting perceptions of job insecurity with societally-relevant attitudes and behaviors, we introduce the idea of perceived national job insecurity. Perceived national job insecurity reflects a person’s perception that job insecurity is more or less prevalent in his/her society (i.e., country). Across three countries (US, UK, Belgium), we find that higher perceptions of the prevalence of job insecurity in one’s country is associated with greater perceptions of government psychological contract breach and poorer perceptions of the government’s handling of the COVID-19 crisis, but at the same time is associated with greater social solidarity and compliance with COVID-19 social regulations. These findings are independent of individuals’ perceptions of threats to their own jobs.

The island nation struggles to keep the lights on but has inoculated 90% of population with home-developed vaccines

CDC clarified their protocol on yesterday: https://cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/your-health/quarantine-isolation.html… If you're asymptomatic, you can deisolate 5 days after the date of a positive test. Since we don't test daily, this is going to be >5 days after infectiousness for almost everyone. So far so good.

What is the rationale for fourth vaccinations, and why are countries doing different things? Gareth Iacobucci investigates

To understand how the pandemic is evolving, it’s crucial to know how death rates from COVID-19 are affected by vaccination status.

There is strong evidence for brain-related pathologies in COVID-19, some of which could be a consequence of viral neurotropism, or of neuroinflammation following viral infection. Most brain imaging studies have focused on qualitative, gross pathology in moderate to severe cases, most typically carried out on hospitalised patients. It remains unknown however whether the impact of SARS-CoV-2 infection can be detected in milder cases, in a quantitative and automated manner, and whether this can reveal possible mechanisms for the spread of the disease. UK Biobank scanned over 40,000 participants before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, making it possible in 2021 to invite back hundreds of previously-imaged participants for a second imaging visit. Here, we studied the possible brain changes associated with the coronavirus infection using multimodal MRI data from 785 adult participants (aged 51–81) from the UK Biobank COVID-19 re-imaging study, including 401 adult participants who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 infection between their two scans. We used structural, diffusion and functional brain scans from before and after infection, to compare longitudinal changes between these 401 SARS-CoV-2 cases and 384 controls who had either tested negative to rapid antibody testing or had no COVID-19 medical and public health record, and who were matched to the cases for age, sex, ethnicity and interval between scans. The controls and cases did not differ in blood pressure, body mass index, diabetes diagnosis, smoking, alcohol consumption, or socio-economic status. Using both hypothesis-driven and exploratory approaches, with false discovery rate multiple comparison correction, we identified respectively 68 and 67 significant longitudinal effects associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection in the brain, including, on average: (i) a more pronounced reduction in grey matter thickness and contrast in the lateral orbitofrontal cortex (min P=1.7×10-4, r=-0.14) and parahippocampal gyrus (min P=2.7×10-4, r=-0.13), (ii) a relative increase of diffusion indices, a marker of tissue damage, in the regions of the brain functionally-connected to the piriform cortex, anterior olfactory nucleus and olfactory tubercle (min P=2.2×10-5, r=0.16), and (iii) greater reduction in global measures of brain size and increase in cerebrospinal fluid volume suggesting an additional diffuse atrophy in the infected participants (min P=4.0×10-6, r=-0.17). When looking over the entire cortical surface, these grey matter thickness results covered the parahippocampal gyrus and the lateral orbitofrontal cortex, and extended to the anterior insula and anterior cingulate cortex, supramarginal gyrus and temporal pole. The increase of a diffusion index (mean diffusivity) meanwhile could be seen voxel-wise mainly in the medial and lateral orbitofrontal cortex, the anterior insula, the anterior cingulate cortex and the amygdala. These results were not altered after excluding cases who had been hospitalised. We further compared hospitalised (n=15) and non-hospitalised (n=386) infected participants, resulting in similar findings to the larger cases vs control group comparison, with, in addition, a marked reduction of grey matter thickness in fronto-parietal and temporal regions (all FDR-significant, min P=4.0×10-6). The 401 SARS-CoV-2 infected participants also showed larger cognitive decline between the two timepoints in the Trail Making Test compared with the controls (both FDR-significant, min P=1.0×10-4, r=0.17; and still FDR-significant after excluding the hospitalised patients: min P=1.0×10-4, r=0.17), with the duration taken to complete the alphanumeric trail correlating post hoc with the cognitive and olfactory-related crus II of the cerebellum (FDR-significant, P=2.0×10-3, r=-0.19), which was also found significantly atrophic in the SARS-CoV-2 participants (FDR-significant, P=6.1×10-5, r=-0.14). Our findings thus relate to longitudinal abnormalities in limbic cortical areas with direct neuronal connectivity to the primary olfactory system. Unlike in post hoc cross-sectional studies, the availability of pre- infection imaging data mitigates to some extent the issue of pre-existing risk factors or clinical conditions being misinterpreted as disease effects. We were therefore able to demonstrate that the regions of the brain that showed longitudinal differences post-infection did not already show any difference between (future) cases and controls in their initial, pre-infection scans. These brain imaging results may be the in vivo hallmarks of a degenerative spread of the disease — or of the virus itself — via olfactory pathways (a possible entry point of the virus to the central nervous system being via the olfactory mucosa), or of neuroinflammatory events due to the infection, or of the loss of sensory input due to anosmia. Whether this deleterious impact can be partially reversed, for instance after improvement of the hyposmic symptoms, or whether these are effects that will persist in the long term, remains to be investigated with additional follow up.

Trust is a key component of social interaction. Older adults, however, often exhibit excessive trust relative to younger adults. One explanation is that older adults may learn to trust differently than younger adults. Here, we examine how younger (N=33) and older adults (N=30) learn to trust over time. Participants completed a classic iterative trust game with three partners. Younger and older adults shared similar amounts but differed in how they shared money. Compared to younger adults, older adults invested more with untrustworthy partners and less with trustworthy partners. As a group, older adults displayed less learning than younger adults. However, computational modeling shows that this is because older adults are more likely to forget what they have learned over time. Model-based fMRI analyses revealed several age-related differences in neural processing. Younger adults showed prediction error signals in social processing areas while older adults showed over-recruitment of several cortical areas. Collectively, these findings suggest that older adults attend to and learn from social cues differently from younger adults.

Misinformation often has a continuing influence on event-related reasoning even when it is clearly and credibly corrected; this is referred to as the continued influence effect. The present work investigated whether a correction’s effectiveness can be improved by explaining how the misinformation originated. Two experiments examined whether a correction that explained misinformation as originating from intentional deception, or an unintentional error were more effective than a correction that only identified the misinformation as false. Experiment 1 found that corrections which explained the misinformation as intentionally or unintentionally misleading were as effective as a correction that was not accompanied by an explanation for how the misinformation originated. We replicated this in Experiment 2 and found substantial attenuation of the continued influence effect in a novel scenario with the same underlying structure. Overall, the results suggest that informing people that the misinformation originated from a deliberate lie or accidental error may not be an effective correction strategy over and above stating that the misinformation is false.

Helpline staffed by volunteers advising those still hesitant about getting jabbed against coronavirus

Science can improve life around the world, but public trust in science is at risk. Understanding presumed motives of scientists and science can inform the social psychological underpinnings of public trust in science. Across five independent datasets, perceiving the motives of science and scientists as prosocial promoted public trust in science. In Studies 1 and 2, perceptions that science was more prosocially oriented was associated with greater trust in science. Studies 3 and 4a-b employed experimental methods to establish that perceiving other-oriented motives, versus self-oriented motives, enhanced public trust in science. Respondents recommend greater funding allocations for science subdomains described as prosocially-oriented vs. power-oriented. Emphasizing the prosocial aspects of science can build stronger foundations of public trust in science.

As information about COVID-19 safety behavior changed, people had to judge how likely others were to protect themselves through mask-wearing and vaccination seeking. In a large, campus-wide survey, we assessed whether University of Kansas students viewed others' protective behaviors as different from their own, how much students assumed others would share their beliefs and behaviors, and which individual differences were associated with those estimations. Participants in our survey (N = 1,704; 81.04% white, 64.08% female) evaluated how likely they and others were to wear masks on the University of Kansas campus, wear masks off-campus, and seek a vaccine. They also completed measures of political preference, numeracy, and preferences for risk in various contexts. We found that participants estimated that others would be less likely to engage in health safety behaviors than themselves, but that their estimations of others were widely shared. In addition, of all the individual differences we assessed, political preference displayed the most consistent associations across health behaviors. Not only was false uniqueness ubiquitous across different forms of COVID-19 safety behavior, it was indeed false - estimates of others' health behavior were lower than their actual rates. Understanding this relationship could allow for more accurate norm-setting and normalization of mask-wearing and vaccination.

Intense physical activity leads to high levels of mental health during the Covid-19 pandemic in physically active persons compared to physically passive persons, both for those who are infected with Covid-19, and those who are not.

NHS staff would be excused a feeling of déjà vu, as 2022 kicks off with hospitals being what Boris Johnson, the UK prime minister, is absolutely, definitively, really, really sure is not “overwhelmed.”Many might not agree given the number of NHS trusts declaring a critical incident, but the prime minister has a cunning plan to prevent the NHS being “overwhelmed.” The plan? You simply never define what an “overwhelmed” NHS is, and then it simply can’t happen. Clever, eh?Unfortunately for Johnson, reality has a chronic habit of intruding on his boosterish, feel good approach to the pandemic, and is in the process of doing exactly this once again.As Johnson told the media at the start of this week at a Downing Street press briefing, “I think we've got to recognise that the pressure on our NHS, on our hospitals, is going to be considerable in the course of the next couple of weeks, and maybe more. No matter how incredibly transmissible omicron is…it is different from previous variants. It does seem pretty conclusively to be less severe than delta or alpha, and it is putting fewer people into ICU.”This is currently true: fewer patients are being put into mechanical ventilation beds compared with January 2021, but omicron is still putting a lot more people into hospital than we’ve seen since last winter.1 The latest data saw a 50% rise in acute admissions between 20 December and 28 December.1 And this extra pressure on an NHS that is already crammed with now urgent cases from the growing NHS backlog is creating some quite predictable chaos.

Supermarkets say they are experiencing delivery delays, not panic buyingUp to half of logistics companies' workers are off on any given dayThe truckers' union wants the federal government to provide rapid tests to road transport workers

A total of 125 passengers flying from Italy to Amritsar have tested Covid positive on arrival at Amritsar airport. The flight had 179 passengers on board.

Level increased regardless of health but virus ‘picks on’ those already at risk of illness or death

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic might affect mental health. Data from population-representative panel surveys with multiple waves including pre-COVID data investigating risk and protective factors are still rare. Methods: In a stratified random sample of the German household population (n=6,684), we conducted survey-weighted multiple linear regressions to determine the association of various psychological risk and protective factors with changes in psychological distress (PD; measured via PHQ-4) from pre-pandemic (average of 2016 and 2019) to peri-pandemic (both 2020 and 2021) time points. Control analyses on PD change between two pre-pandemic time points (2016 and 2019) were conducted. Regularized regressions were computed to inform on which factors were statistically most influential in the multicollinear setting. Results: PHQ-4 in 2020 (M=2.45) and 2021 (M=2.21) was elevated compared to 2019 (M=1.79). Several risk factors (catastrophizing, neuroticism, asking for instrumental support) and protective factors (perceived stress recovery, positive reappraisal, optimism) were identified for the peri-pandemic outcomes. Control analyses revealed that in pre-pandemic times, neuroticism and optimism were predominantly related to PD changes. Regularized regression mostly confirmed the results and highlighted perceived stress recovery as most consistent influential protective factor across peri-pandemic outcomes. Conclusions: We identified several psychological risk and protective factors related to PD outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic. Comparison to pre-pandemic data stress the relevance of longitudinal assessments to potentially reconcile contradictory findings. Implications and suggestions for targeted prevention and intervention programs during highly stressful times such as pandemics are discussed.

Science communication is changing. It is increasingly directed not only at peers but at the public in general. Accordingly, understanding the circumstances under which audience members engage with scientific content is crucial to improving science communication. In this article, we investigate the role of affect on audience engagement with a modern form of science communication: TED talks. We examined how affect valence---a net positive or negative affect---and density---the proportion of affective words---are associated with a talk's popularity---reflecting views and likes---and polarity---reflecting dislikes and comments. We found that the valence of TED talks was associated with both popularity and polarity, with positive valence being linked to higher talk popularity and lower talk polarity. Density, on the other hand, was only associated with popularity, with higher affective density being linked to higher popularity---even more so than valence---but not polarity. Moreover, we observed that the association between affect and engagement was partially moderated by talk topic. Specifically, whereas higher density was related to higher popularity across most topics, valence seemed to particularly impact the popularity and polarity of TED talks on social topics, which regularly discuss polarizing issues such as race or political conflicts. We discuss implications of our findings for increasing the effectiveness of science communication.

For computationally limited agents such as humans, perfectly rational decision-making is almost always out of reach. Instead, people may rely on computationally frugal heuristics that usually yield good outcomes. Although previous research has identified many such heuristics, discovering good heuristics and predicting when they will be used remains challenging. Here, we present a machine learning method that identifies the best heuristics to use in any given situation. To demonstrate the generalizability and accuracy of our method, we compare the strategies it discovers against those used by people across a wide range of multi-alternative risky choice environments in a behavioral experiment that is an order of magnitude larger than any previous experiments of its type. Our method rediscovered known heuristics, identifying them as rational strategies for specific environments, and discovered novel heuristics that had been previously overlooked. Our results show that people adapt their decision strategies to the structure of the environment and generally make good use of their limited cognitive resources, although they tend to collect too little information and their strategy choices do not always fully exploit the structure of the environment.

Cities are typical dynamic complex systems that connect people and facilitate interactions. Revealing universal collective patterns behind spatio-temporal interactions between residents is crucial for various urban studies, of which we are still lacking a comprehensive understanding. Massive cellphone data enable us to construct interaction networks based on spatio-temporal co-occurrence of individuals. The rank-size distributions of hourly dynamic population of locations are stable, although people are almost constantly moving in cities and hotspots that attract people are changing over time in a day. A larger city is of a stronger heterogeneity as indicated by a larger scaling exponent. After aggregating spatio-temporal interaction networks over consecutive time windows, we reveal a switching behavior of cities between two states. During the "active" state, the whole city is concentrated in fewer larger communities; while in the "sleeping" state, people are scattered in more smaller communities. Above discoveries are universal over diversified cities across continents. In addition, a city sleeps less, when its population grows larger. And spatio-temporal interaction segregation can be well approximated by residential segregation in smaller cities, but not in larger ones. We propose a temporal-population-weighted-opportunity model by integrating time-dependent departure probability to make dynamic predictions on human mobility, which can reasonably well explain observed patterns of spatio-temporal interactions in cities.

WE HAVE been watching evolution in action as one coronavirus variant after another emerges and triggers further waves of infections around the world. There is every reason to think this will continue during 2022 – and there is no guarantee that future variants will be any less dangerous.

Children aged five to 11 can now be registered for a Covid-19 vaccine in the Republic of Ireland, the Health Service Executive (HSE) has said.

Africa urgently needs to guarantee its own health security.

Public could reduce mixing in January in the face of rising infections and hospital admissions, which could lead to the peak lasting longer than initially thought

It’s deadly, malicious and there’s no vaccine. The infodemic is here. But it's not unstoppable.

Dec. 24. 2021 -- The first confirmed death from the Omicron variant in the U.S. was a reinfection.

ith emergency use authorization for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID vaccine newly approved for children 5-11, many parents are asking the question—should we vaccinate our kids? To be fair, many parents may have already made up their mind on this topic with the majority not rushing to get their kids vaccinated.

Top scientist ‘cautiously optimistic’ but warns cases may be an underestimate due to lack of tests

The Omicron (B.1.1.529) variant of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was initially identified in November of 2021 in South Africa and Botswana as well as in a sample from a traveler from South Africa in Hong Kong1,2. Since then, B.1.1.529 has been detected globally. This variant seems to be at least equally infectious than B.1.617.2 (Delta), has already caused super spreader events3 and has outcompeted Delta within weeks in several countries and metropolitan areas. B.1.1.529 hosts an unprecedented number of mutations in its spike gene and early reports have provided evidence for extensive immune escape and reduced vaccine effectiveness2,4-6. Here, we investigated the neutralizing and binding activity of sera from convalescent, mRNA double vaccinated, mRNA boosted, convalescent double vaccinated, and convalescent boosted individuals against wild type, B.1.351 and B.1.1.529 SARS-CoV-2 isolates. Neutralizing activity of sera from convalescent and double vaccinated participants was undetectable to very low against B.1.1.529 while neutralizing activity of sera from individuals who had been exposed to spike three or four times was maintained, albeit at significantly reduced levels. Binding to the B.1.1.529 receptor binding domain (RBD) and N-terminal domain (NTD) was reduced in convalescent not vaccinated individuals, but was mostly retained in vaccinated individuals.

Scientists are working at speed to assess transmission rates, vaccine effectiveness and severity of cases

SARS-CoV-2 variants have become a major virological, epidemiological and clinical 35 concern, particularly with regard to the risk of escape from vaccine-induced immunity. Here 36 we describe the emergence of a new variant. For twelve SARS-CoV-positive patients living in 37 the same geographical area of southeastern France, qPCR testing that screen for variant-38 associated mutations showed an atypical combination. The index case returned from a travel 39 in Cameroon. The genomes were obtained by next-generation sequencing with Oxford 40 Nanopore Technologies on GridION instruments within 8 h. Their analysis revealed 46 41 mutations and 37 deletions resulting in 30 amino acid substitutions and 12 deletions. Fourteen 42 amino acid substitutions, including N501Y and E484K, and 9 deletions are located in the 43 spike protein. This genotype pattern led to create a new Pangolin lineage named B.1.640.2, 44 which is a phylogenetic sister group to the old B.1.640 lineage renamed B.1.640.1. Both 45 lineages differ by 25 nucleotide substitutions and 33 deletions. The mutation set and 46 phylogenetic position of the genomes obtained here indicate based on our previous definition 47 a new variant we named “IHU”. These data are another example of the unpredictability of the 48 emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants, and of their introduction in a given geographical area 49 from abroad.

Given that being misinformed can have negative ramifications, finding optimal corrective techniques has become a key focus of research. In recent years, several divergent correction formats have been proposed as superior based on distinct theoretical frameworks. However, these correction formats have not been compared in controlled settings, so the suggested superiority of each format remains speculative. Across four experiments, the current paper investigated how altering the format of corrections influences people’s subsequent reliance on misinformation. We examined whether myth-first, fact-first, fact-only, or myth-only correction formats were most effective, using a range of different materials and participant pools. Experiments 1 and 2 focused on climate change misconceptions; participants were Qualtrics online panel members and students taking part in a massive open online course, respectively. Experiments 3 and 4 used misconceptions from a diverse set of topics, with Amazon Mechanical Turk crowdworkers and university student participants. We found that the impact of a correction on beliefs and inferential reasoning was largely independent of the specific format used. The clearest evidence for any potential relative superiority emerged in Experiment 4, which found that the myth-first format was more effective at myth correction than the fact-first format after a delayed retention interval. However, in general it appeared that as long as the key ingredients of a correction were presented, format did not make a considerable difference. This suggests that simply providing corrective information, regardless of format, is far more important than how the correction is presented.

There is nothing in the current Covid data to suggest new curbs are needed in England at this stage, ministers say.

They went into hospitals with heart attacks, kidney failure or in a psychiatric crisis. This story also ran on USA Today. It can be republished for free. They left with covid-19 — if they left at all.

President Biden’s emergency covid-19 mandates have faced an avalanche of legal challenges. Two of those mandates — the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s rule that businesses with 100 or more employees must require workers to be fully vaccinated or regularly tested and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ regulation requiring vaccinations for staff at health-care facilities — will soon face scrutiny from the Supreme Court.

Covid cases in England reached a new high of 113,628 on Christmas Day and 1,281 people were admitted to hospital – the highest daily figure since mid-February.Official data on new Covid cases, which was delayed over the festive period, also showed 98,515 new confirmed cases reported in England on Monday. Data for Boxing Day from England and Wales combined revealed 108,893 daily cases reported.

Throughout 2021, two leading lights of the Royal Statistical Society Covid-19 Task Force drew on data for a weekly Observer column, and found themselves in the middle of Covid culture wars

England could fit an air purifier to every classroom for half the price of the new royal yacht, a move which scientists and campaigners say would significantly reduce the spread of Covid in schools.The move would cost about £140m, according to calculations by the Liberal Democrats. Government sources have said there will be no delay to the start of the school term, despite surging Omicron cases, and that any additional restrictions will not include classroom closures.

I mean, who wants to say “living with COVID” amirite? The connotation is that it’s just a necessary thing we have to do. But really, at some point, it kind

Hospitals could see as many as one in six doctors and nurses off sick throughout 2022, according to modelling, as the Omicron wave of Covid fuels burnout, stress and anxiety among NHS staff.

A new book outlines the mistakes and missteps that made UK pandemic worse

The neurological deficits caused by COVID-19, which were first reported in the early months of 2020, continue to intrigue neurologists and health-care professionals worldwide. As two new studies highlight, these manifestations are frequent and are expected to increase the burden of morbidity and mortality in the acute and chronic phases of COVID-19.

A looming shortage of doses for low- and moderate-income countries puts increased pressure on Novavax to obtain regulatory approvals for global manufacturing.

What to KnowNY smashed its all-time daily COVID case record for the eighth time in little more than a week on Sunday as new state data clearly shows vaccine efficacy declines vs. infection but not hospitalization More than 49K NYers tested positive, Gov. Kathy Hochul said, an increase of nearly 5,000 over Friday; most of them were in NYC; hospitalizations statewide topped 4,800 SundayStill, officials say there is no reason to panic; yes, the sheer infection increases alone are astonishing, they say, but vaccines are holding up vs severe omicron infection and state and city hospitals are prepared

Temporary suspensions in summer came after she falsely claimed that the coronavirus was ‘not dangerous’ for some people

Kickboxer Frédéric Sinistra (40), according to a colleague the 'strongest man in Belgium' among the heavyweights, has died. Walloon media reports that he died from the consequences of the corona virus. Sinistra was a convinced corona denier. He refused to be vaccinated and even refused to utter the word 'Covid-19'. His wife denies the reports.

Firm cites ‘isolation and sickness’ as it says it will run no services to or from station until 10 January

Throughout the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the worldwide transmission and replication of SARS- COV-2, the causative agent of COVID-19 disease, has resulted in the opportunity for multiple mutations to occur that may alter the virus transmission characteristics, the effectiveness of vaccines and the severity of disease upon infection. The Omicron variant (B.1.1.529) was first reported to the WHO by South Africa on 24 November 2021 and was declared a variant of concern by the WHO on 26 November 2021. The variant was first detected in the UK on 27 November 2021 and has since been reported in a number of countries globally where it is frequently associated with rapid increase in cases. Here we present analyses of UK data showing the earliest signatures of the Omicron variant and mathematical modelling that uses the UK data to simulate the potential impact of this variant in the UK. In order to account for the uncertainty in transmission advantage, vaccine escape and severity at the time of writing, we carry out a sensitivity analysis to assess the impact of these variant characteristics on future risk.

Marisa Fotieo says she was supplied with food and drinks in cubicle after throat began to hurt during flight from US to Iceland

Recently, Altay et al (2020) showed that five minutes of interaction with a chatbot led to increases in Covid-19 vaccination attitudes and intentions in a randomly sampled French population, compared to a brief control condition. Here we replicate and qualify this effect, whilst attempting to isolate what made the chatbot condition so effective. We reduce the chatbot information to several fact-checked and updated dialogues, and introduce strict controls to isolate the effect of choice of information. We control the amount of information provided, the time spent with the information, the trustworthiness of the information, and the level of interactivity. Like Altay et al, our experiment allowed participants to navigate a branching dialogue by choosing questions of interest, eliciting set answers on aspects of the Covid-19 vaccine. Our control condition used the same questions and answers but removed all elements of participant choice. In this way, our experiment isolated the effect of participant choice of information. We also specifically targeted those who were either against or neutral towards Covid-19 vaccinations, screening-out those with already positive attitudes. Replicating Altay et al, we found a similar size increase in positive attitudes towards vaccination, as well as a similar sized increase in intention to get vaccinated, after engaging with vaccine information. Unlike Altay et al, we found no difference between our conditions: choosing the questions did not increase vaccine attitudes or intentions anymore than our control condition. In common with Altay et al, we also found an effect of time spent with the information, across both conditions, in that those who spent between 4 and 16 minutes (above the median) reading the information were more likely to increase their vaccination attitudes (but not their intentions). These results suggest that the attitudes of the vaccine hesitant are modifiable with exposure to in-depth, trustworthy and engaging dialogues.

The World Health Organization established that the risk of suffering severe symptoms from COVID-19 is higher for some groups, but this does not mean their chances of infection are higher. However, public health messages often highlight the “increased risk” for these groups such that the risk could be interpreted as being about contracting an infection rather than suffering severe symptoms from the illness (as intended). Stressing the risk for vulnerable groups may also prompt inferences that individuals not highlighted in the message have lower risk than previously believed. In five studies, we investigated how UK residents interpreted such risk messages about COVID-19 (n = 396, n = 399, n = 432, n = 474) and a hypothetical new virus (n = 454). Participants recognised that the risk was about experiencing severe symptoms, but over half also believed that the risk was about infection, and had a corresponding heightened perception that vulnerable people were more likely to be infected. Risk messages that clarified the risk event reduced misinterpretations for a hypothetical new virus, but existing misinterpretations of coronavirus risks were resistant to correction. We discuss the need for greater clarity in public health messaging by distinguishing between the two risk events.

Infectious diseases have been an impending threat to the survival of individuals and groups throughout our evolutionary history. As a result, humans have developed psychological pathogen-avoidance mechanisms and groups have developed societal norms that respond to the presence of disease-causing microorganisms in the environment. In this work, we demonstrate that morality plays a central role in the cultural and psychological architectures that help humans avoid pathogens. We present a collection of studies which together provide an integrated understanding of the socio-ecological and psychological impacts of pathogens on human morality. Specifically, in Studies 1 (2,834 U.S. counties) and 2 (67 nations), we show that regional variation in pathogen prevalence is consistently related to aggregate moral Purity. In Study 3, we use computational linguistic methods to show that pathogen-related words co-occur with Purity words across multiple languages. In Studies 4 (n = 513) and 5 (n = 334), we used surveys and social psychological experimentation to show that pathogen-avoidance attitudes are correlated with Purity. Finally, in Study 6, we found that historical prevalence of pathogens is linked to Care, Loyalty, and Purity. We argue that particular adaptive moral systems are developed and maintained in response to the threat of pathogen occurrence in the environment. We draw on multiple methods to establish connections between pathogens and moral codes in multiple languages, experimentally induced situations, individual differences, U.S. counties, 67 countries, and historical periods over the last century.

We estimate the willingness to taking the booster dose in a representative sample of Danes. We estimate an overall willingness in the adult Danish population of 85.5 percent and a willingness of 94.7 percent among primary vaccine takers. We, moreover, show that these percentages will be significantly lower among younger populations as well as among groups who do not see COVID-19 as a threat towards society and who do not perceive the advice of the health authorities as effective against disease spread.

While the World has been busy mitigating the disastrous health and economic effects of the novel coronavirus, a less direct, but not less concerning peril has largely remained unexplored: the COVID-19 crisis may disrupt some of the most fundamental social and political relationships in democratic societies. We interviewed samples resembling the national population of Denmark, Hungary, Italy and the US three times: in April, June and December of 2020 (14K observations). We employed a broad set of survey questions tapping into perceptions about the two major relationships structuring society: Horizontal relationships between citizens, and vertical relationships between citizens and the state. We benchmarked these data against pre-COVID levels measured in the World Values Survey and the European Values Survey. We present strikingly similar findings across the four diverse countries. We show that support for the political system has markedly decreased already by April and fell further till December. Exploiting the panel setup, we demonstrate that within-respondent increases in indicators of pandemic fatigue (specifically, the perceived subjective burden of the pandemic and feelings of anomie) correspond to decreases in system support and increases in extreme anti-systemic attitudes. Meanwhile, we find much smaller changes in social solidarity and trust compared to pre-pandemic levels, and we find that these attitudes are largely unaffected by pandemic burden. Our results imply that the pandemic is not only a health-crisis, but poses a substantial challenge to the relationship between citizens and the state.

During the past decade the idea that expertise is dead, or at best moribund, has become commonplace. Knowledge resistance appears to be growing more politicized and is increasing across a wide range of science-based topics, such as agriculture, evolution and genetics, vaccination, and climate change; even flat-earth beliefs are undergoing a renaissance. But in many of these areas, denying expert authority is cost-free in everyday behavior, making it more rational for people to prize identity and group affiliation over realism. To probe the health of expertise in a domain with everyday consequences for knowledge resistance, we conducted three incentive-compatible studies of laypeople’s preferences for sources of information they would read about specific medical conditions (e.g., heart disease, cancer, COVID-19). We found quite rational preference patterns, by which people preferred sources based on experts (physicians and scientists) over non-experts (celebrities and politicians) and group consensus (professional societies, polls) over individual opinions. These findings held most strongly for issues of personal medical concern, but were robust for less concerning health conditions, and for the highly politicized topic of COVID-19. Individuals who scored higher in intellectual humility and preferences for rational over experiential thinking were more likely to prefer the most expert sources. Expertise retains broad respect in the medical domain, at least when one’s own health is at stake.

The COVID-19 Pandemic has had a significant impact on society. Due to the large lose of life, scientists have attempted to develop various rapid testing methods. Several methods have been developed among them, an inexpensive paper test. The researcher has endeavored to determine what factors will influence a person’s willing to take a daily covid-19 test. Via a survey instrument that was disseminated we received a response of N=546 participants. We performed many standard statistical tests, t-tests, and one way ANOVA’s as well as Chi Squared tests and Linear by linear associations. Via this analysis were able to determine that there is a statistical significance between willingness to take daily rapid covid-19 test (p <0.05 and, washing your hand (p <0.001), being cautious of your actions (p <0.001), being concerned about covid-19 (p <0.001) and preventing things before they happen (p <0.001). Risk averse people more likely to take preventative measures to take actions to protect themselves and others around them. The lack of basic knowledge regarding the replication of SAR-CoV-2, has led people to underestimate the rapid spread of the virus. Thus, people are coming in contact with others during the most virulent state of the virus.

Objectives: Qualitative study exploring public attitudes to COVID-19 18 months into the pandemic, specifically focused on adherence to infection-reducing behaviours and policy measures during a period of the emergence of a new variant (Omicron) Study design: Qualitative online focus group study Methods: Focus groups were conducted with a diverse sample of 22 adults in the United Kingdom to explore their views. Data were analysed using a framework approach. Findings: Analysis revealed two main groups based on participants’ perceived concern over Omicron: variant fatigue (n=16 (73%)) and deja vu (n=6 (27%)). Those exhibiting variant fatigue reported not adopting any additional caution or infection-reducing behaviours as a result of the new variant. They tended to describe Omicron as ‘just another variant’ and expressed a need to ‘get on’ and ‘live with’ the virus. Those exhibiting deja vu suggested that Omicron was of additional concern to them and for some posed a threat not seen since ‘last year’ (second wave). No demographic patterns emerged, although there was a high amount of variant fatigue (absence of additional caution) (n=5 (83%)) amongst the unvaccinated participants. Those who were concerned about Omicron tended to report reducing social contacts. Few participants reported taking lateral flow tests regularly, except for those required to by their employers. Stated compliance with facemask rules was high. Nearly all participants stated an intention to comply with any future potential policy measures to reduce transmission of COVID-19, including more stringent measures such as lockdowns. Implications: 18 months into the pandemic, there may be habituation to the risk posed by COVID-19, despite the increased risk posed by the new variant Omicron. Due to this risk habituation (‘variant fatigue’) and due to a general decline in engagement with news related to COVID-19, many people may not be, or might be reluctant to, voluntarily adopt additional caution and infection-reducing behaviours. This poses a challenge for public health communication, since a sense of being ‘relaxed’ about, or ‘living with’ COVID-19 may undermine efforts to encourage voluntary adherence to infection-reducing behaviours. However, findings suggest that most people intend to comply (albeit reluctantly) with policy measures (as opposed to ‘advice’)- including stringent measures such as lockdown - if they were required in future.

Faced with the SARS-CoV-2pandemic, we decided to investigate if recovery from this large exogenous global shock depended on both emotional and economic recovery. We piloted a survey from May 2020 – August 2020 to examine how exposure to this global pandemic shaped economic outlook, and we documented the innate emotional styles of respondents. We then sought to answer two questions. Do the emotional style dimensions have anything to do with economic recovery? And are wages and emotional dimensions associated with economic outlook? With these questions in mind, we estimated two structural equation models. We jointly estimated all six emotional dimensions for the first question and assessed their impact on economic outlook. We estimated a structural model with a Mincer-wage equation and emotional outlook, resilience, and attention equations for the second question. We found that emotional outlook was positively and significantly correlated with economic outlook. We also found that wages, emotional- outlook, resilience, and attention were correlated with returning to behavior-normal, meaning once the public health crisis abates, fear will cease to restrict mobility in all sectors. We found pessimism over returning to business-normal, patronizing businesses that are significantly affected by the pandemic could have a dampening effect on economic recovery. However, this could be offset by the positive correlations between emotional outlook on economic outlook and returning to behavior-normal, both of which could boost economic recovery. From a public policy standpoint fostering a positive emotional outlook and encouraging emotional resilience could be the mojo needed for faster economic recovery.

A healthy diet and lifestyle may protect against adverse mental health outcomes, which is especially crucial during stressful times, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. This preregistered longitudinal online study explored whether diet and lifestyle (physical activity, sleep, and social interactions) could predict wellbeing and mood during a light lockdown in Germany. Participants (N = 117, 72 males; 28  9 years old) answered mental health and lifestyle questionnaires (social connections, sleep, activity) followed by submitting one week of food and mood-lifestyle diary (food intake, positive and negative mood, mental wellbeing, sleep quality, physical activity level, quantity and quality of social interactions) via a smartphone app. We used multivariate linear and mixed-effects models to predict mood and wellbeing by using dietary components and lifestyle factors. Inter-individual analyses revealed that sleep and social interaction significantly impacted mood and wellbeing. Interestingly, fruit and vegetable intake predicted wellbeing, even when controlling for all lifestyle factors. Fruit and vegetable intake also significantly predicted daily fluctuations in wellbeing within individuals next to sleep, physical activity, and social interactions. We observed gender differences in fruit and vegetable intake and anxiety levels. Our results emphasize the importance of diet contributing to individual wellbeing, even in the challenging times of a pandemic.

With the widespread adoption of masks, there is a need for understanding how facial obstruction affects emotion recognition. We asked 120 participants to identify emotions from faces with and without masks. We also examined if recognition performance was related to autistic traits and personality. Masks impacted recognition of expressions with diagnostic lower face features the most and those with diagnostic upper face features the least. Persons with higher autistic traits were worse at identifying unmasked expressions, while persons with lower extraversion and higher agreeableness were better at recognizing masked expressions. These results show that different features play different roles in emotion recognition and suggest that obscuring features affects social communication differently as a function of autistic traits and personality.

A WOMAN has contracted Covid after going to a pub where a barmaid claims she was told to work with coronavirus symptoms.

On the afternoon of New Year’s Eve, just hours from when 2019 was going to segue into 2020, I read an email about some unusual pneumonia cases in China’s Hubei province. Over the past couple of decades, China has been a wellspring of dangerous zoonotic diseases — SARS, H5N1 bird flu, and H7N9 bird flu. Better keep an eye on this, I thought to myself. Fast-forward two years. We’re entering the third year of the Covid-19 pandemic. So much has happened in the intervening months. Some things have gone surprisingly well, notably the rapid development of Covid vaccines and some therapeutics. But far more things have gone horribly wrong.Multiple commissions and panels have been set up to learn the lessons of this pandemic so that we don’t repeat the same mistakes next time. (Yes, sadly, there will be a next time.) More commissions and panels are likely to follow. But already, some things have become abundantly clear. Here are 10 lessons I’ve learned in the past two years.

About 800 kids have been admitted nearly every day this week, with those in Ohio, Texas, Pennsylvania and New York hit particularly hard by the juggernaut variant.

According to Biological E. Limited, the CORBEVAX COVID-19 vaccine will be effective both in scale and affordability, providing sustainable access to low-and middle-income countries.

Sir John Bell says disease ‘appears less severe’ as other scientists criticise lack of new restrictions in England

COVID-19 is known to cause multi-organ dysfunction1-3 in acute infection, with prolonged symptoms experienced by some patients, termed Post-Acute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 (PASC)4-5. However, the burden of infection outside the respiratory tract and time to viral clearance is not well characterized, particularly in the brain3,6-14. We performed complete autopsies on 44 patients with COVID-19 to map and quantify SARS-CoV-2 distribution, replication, and cell-type specificity across the human body, including brain, from acute infection through over seven months following symptom onset. We show that SARS-CoV-2 is widely distributed, even among patients who died with asymptomatic to mild COVID-19, and that virus replication is present in multiple extrapulmonary tissues early in infection. Further, we detected SARS-CoV-2 RNA in multiple anatomic sites, including regions throughout the brain, for up to 230 days following symptom onset. Despite extensive distribution of SARS-CoV-2 in the body, we observed a paucity of inflammation or direct viral cytopathology outside of the lungs. Our data prove that SARS-CoV-2 causes systemic infection and can persist in the body for months.

After two years of an exhausting global pandemic, people are naturally a bit fed up. As time has progressed, we’ve all generally gone from willing engagement and reasonable debate to shouting matches where the real question is who can get their point across with more vigor.Nowhere is this more true than in debates about vaccinations. On the one hand, there is strong scientific evidence that vaccines are safe, effective, and can largely prevent the severe disease that has caused COVID-19 to be such a scourge. On the other, there are sometimes reasonable concerns and misunderstandings about immunization, which are amplified by a group of anti-vaccination advocates into a storm of scientific misinformation. This, understandably, leads to some quite fractious debates.Pictured: Civil vaccine discussion. They don’t even have knives out. Source: PexelsAmid these discussions, a common theme has been cropping up again and again — the idea that people who are unvaccinated are immoral, and thus they do not deserve healthcare if they get sick. The idea is that being unvaccinated is, at this point, an ignorant personal choice, and thus we should leave these people to fend for themselves if they do get sick from COVID-19.This is, in a word, ridiculous. Unvaccinated people are still people, and we should always provide them with the medical care they require.

Barely a month after it was discovered, there’s still quite a bit we don’t know about omicron. The three key areas to focus on are transmissibility, disease severity and immune evasion.

Alongside this there has been a steady tide of coverage and commentary suggesting that omicron causes mostly mild disease — the implication being that it’s not much to worry about, that if we only stay the course we can ride this one out, too.Story continues below advertisementBut that’s premature. Let me be clear: I’m not stating definitively that omicron has some grim future in store for us. I’m saying that there are red flashing warning signs, that we underestimate this virus at our peril and that even the best-case scenario is still bad.

As the Omicron variant sprints to dominance across the United States, the country’s ability to track the resulting infections is about to evaporate. There are multiple reasons for this.

A surge in Covid-19 cases driven by the Omicron variant is causing disruption to sporting events around the world.There have been postponements in the Premier League, English Football League (EFL) and Women's Super League (WSL).European and domestic rugby has been hit, while NFL and NBA games have also been postponed after Covid outbreaks in the United States.

The Bollingers and others were already in the business of selling vaccine disinformation before the coronavirus began its inexorable march across the globe. But the pandemic presented the couple and others a huge opportunity to expand their reach.

The Netherlands has announced a strict lockdown over Christmas amid concerns over the Omicron coronavirus variant. Non-essential shops, bars, gyms hairdressers and other public venues will be closed until at least mid-January. Two guests per household will be allowed - four over the holidays.

Confirmed Omicron cases are a sample of an already incomplete figureThe UK reported an average of 88,000 Covid cases each day in the past week (to 21 December). However, only a subset of those cases are being picked up through PCR tests – the type carried out in an NHS walk-in centre – and it is only PCR tests that allow labs to check what kind of variant a person has.What is more, not all UK laboratories have the capability to carry out these checks. Just four provide the UKHSA with data on variant types.

MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – State sponsored commercials promoting COVID-19 vaccinations have been pulled from Florida’s airwaves.

Many of the world's richest countries have spent the past year hoarding coronavirus vaccines, buying up enough doses to vaccinate their populations several times over and consistently failing to deliver on their promises to share doses with the developing world. The World Health Organization said the approach was "self-defeating" and "immoral."

Two weaker doses of Pfizer jab to be given, with some scientists calling for all in age group to be vaccinated

Nearly two years into the pandemic, people like me are still out of action. We need better support and more funding

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an infectious disease that can present as an uncontrolled, hyperactive immune response, causing severe immunological injury. Existing rodent models do not recapitulate the sustained immunopathology of patients with severe disease. Here we describe a humanized mouse model of COVID-19 that uses adeno-associated virus to deliver human ACE2 to the lungs of humanized MISTRG6 mice. This model recapitulates innate and adaptive human immune responses to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection up to 28 days after infection, with key features of chronic COVID-19, including weight loss, persistent viral RNA, lung pathology with fibrosis, a human inflammatory macrophage response, a persistent interferon-stimulated gene signature and T cell lymphopenia. We used this model to study two therapeutics on immunopathology, patient-derived antibodies and steroids and found that the same inflammatory macrophages crucial to containing early infection later drove immunopathology. This model will enable evaluation of COVID-19 disease mechanisms and treatments.

The Omicron variant largely evades immunity from past infection or two vaccine doses according to the latest Imperial modelling.

Decision reverses previous ruling but Republican officials say they will appeal measure to supreme court

Far-right groups on Telegram have been using COVID-19 conspiracy theories to recruit new members.This finding comes from a study by the Institute of Strategic Dialogue, based in London.Far-right groups have mobilized emotions around COVID-19 restrictions and vaccinations.

Court of Queen's Bench Justice Johnna Kubik noted that until the pandemic both parents had ensured their children received all childhood immunizations and annual flu vaccinations

Dr Ed Patrick said that for those who don't want the vaccine put in their body, they will need a "cocktail of drugs" when they come into hospital with all kinds of side effects.

A new model shows that the more polarized and hyperconnected a social network is, the more likely misinformation will spread.

Many people still lack essential (and enduring) protection from primary vaccination

Pharmaceuticals firm says third dose of its Covid vaccine increases antibodies against variant by 37-fold

As of early December, more than 2.3 million children aged 5 to 11 years had developed COVID-19 and 209 had died. Although a vaccine that’s 90.7% effective in preventing the illness was authorized for younger kids in late October, these figures apparently aren’t convincing enough to persuade many parents to vaccinate their children.

The brother of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has denounced politicians who have voted for Covid restrictions.

Deaths could hit 6,000 a day and delaying restrictions until New Year will cut effectiveness, say Sage experts

City project that used lateral flow tests to monitor population took pressure off NHS at critical time

Predicting future COVID waves and hospital surges is always fraught with challenges, but there are early indications from Texas, Minnesota, Britain and South Africa that the U.S. health system will experience yet another great challenge

AbstractBackground Vaccine mandates and vaccine passports (VMVP) for SARS-CoV-2 are thought to be a path out of the pandemic by increasing vaccination through coercion and excluding unvaccinated people from different settings because they are viewed as being at significant risk of transmitting SARS-CoV-2. While variants and waning efficacy are relevant, SARS-CoV-2 vaccines reduce the risk of infection, transmission, and severe illness/hospitalization in adults. Thus, higher vaccination levels are beneficial by reducing healthcare system pressures and societal fear. However, the benefits of excluding unvaccinated people are unknown.Methods A method to evaluate the benefits of excluding unvaccinated people to reduce transmissions is described, called the number needed to exclude (NNE). The NNE is analogous to the number needed to treat (NNT=1/ARR), except the absolute risk reduction (ARR) is the baseline transmission risk in the population for a setting (e.g., healthcare). The rationale for the NNE is that exclusion removes all unvaccinated people from a setting, such that the ARR is the baseline transmission risk for that type of setting, which depends on the secondary attack rate (SAR) typically observed in that type of setting and the baseline infection risk in the population. The NNE is the number of unvaccinated people who need to be excluded from a setting to prevent one transmission event from unvaccinated people in that type of setting. The NNE accounts for the transmissibility of the currently dominant Delta (B.1.617.2) variant to estimate the minimum NNE in six types of settings: households, social gatherings, casual close contacts, work/study places, healthcare, and travel/transportation. The NNE can account for future potentially dominant variants (e.g., Omicron, B.1.1.529). To assist societies and policymakers in their decision-making about VMVP, the NNEs were calculated using the current (mid-to-end November 2021) baseline infection risk in many countries.Findings The NNEs suggest that at least 1,000 unvaccinated people likely need to be excluded to prevent one SARS-CoV-2 transmission event in most types of settings for many jurisdictions, notably Australia, California, Canada, China, France, Israel, and others. The NNEs of almost every jurisdiction examined are well within the range of the NNTs of acetylsalicylic acid (ASA) in primary prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD) (≥ 250 to 333). This is important since ASA is not recommended for primary prevention of CVD because the harms outweigh the benefits. Similarly, the harms of exclusion may outweigh the benefits. These findings depend on the accuracy of the model assumptions and the baseline infection risk estimates.Conclusions Vaccines are beneficial, but the high NNEs suggest that excluding unvaccinated people has negligible benefits for reducing transmissions in many jurisdictions across the globe. This is because unvaccinated people are likely not at significant risk – in absolute terms – of transmitting SARS-CoV-2 to others in most types of settings since current baseline transmission risks are negligible. Consideration of the harms of exclusion is urgently needed, including staffing shortages from losing unvaccinated healthcare workers, unemployment/unemployability, financial hardship for unvaccinated people, and the creation of a class of citizens who are not allowed to fully participate in many areas of society.

When the history of this pandemic is written, contrarian doctors divorced from patient care won’t be seen as its principal victims because YouTube removed their video, because someone called them “fringe,” or because someone put up posters reminding them of words they said.

Summary 1. SPI-M-O groups now estimate a growth rate of around 0.4 per day for the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, which is consistent with a doubling time of around 2 days. Areas with higher incidence of Omicron cases, for example London and Greater Manchester, are starting to see increases in hospital admissions, however, much of this will still be associated with Delta. The hospital impact of Omicron cases is yet to be seen. 2. SPI-M-O has considered an updated range of scenarios from 2 academic groups who have modelled the impact of Omicron transmission on trajectories of infections, hospitalisations, and deaths. These groups suggest it is almost certain that there will be a very substantial peak of infections (much larger than occurred during January 2021). There are highly likely to be between 1,000 and 2,000 hospital admissions per day in England by the end of the year. Many of these hospitalisations are already ‘in the system’ due to the lags between infection, symptom onset, and the subsequent need for health care. The recently announced expanded and expedited booster vaccination programme will not affect transmission and severe and mild disease in time to mitigate these hospitalisations for the rest of 2021. 3. Scenarios that assume no further restrictions beyond Plan B generally lead to trajectories in daily hospital admissions in England that have a minimum of 3,000 hospital admissions per day at their peaks, with some scenarios having significantly worse outcomes during the first few months of 2022. To prevent such a wave of hospitalisations, more stringent measures would need to be implemented before 2022. 4. Behaviour change (spontaneous, recommended, or mandated) could significantly affect the peak of infections and hospitalisations. Current modelling assumes no change in behaviours beyond those previously seen on imposition of equivalent measures in the past. Non-mandated behaviour change, however, has the potential to make a big difference in either direction – changes in mixing over the festive period, between generations and within different networks, could increase transmission, but rapidly doubling cases may lead to a spontaneous precautionary reduction in mixing patterns. As Omicron is doubling so quickly, it is highly likely that, if behaviour changed or measures were implemented only after noticeable increases in hospital admissions, it would be too late to materially decrease peak hospitalisations. 5. It is not only hospitalisations that will increase substantially, but the number of infections and cases will likely lead to significant levels of milder disease that may have implications for workforce and school absences. 6. As with previous large waves of infection, different settings, such as hospitals, care homes, and prisons, will experience Omicron outbreaks. Healthcare setting-associated (nosocomial) infections, in particular, have already been seen and are widely expected, with the subsequent impacts of high staff absence. 7. Extensive uncertainties in these scenarios remain. The current estimated growth rate of Omicron, the speed and coverage of the booster roll out, and level of protection through vaccine effectiveness estimates (particularly against severe disease) and cross-protection due to previous infection will all impact these trajectories. There currently remains no strong evidence that Omicron infections are either more or less severe than Delta infections.

New restrictions go into effect on Sunday night * One case of Omicron confirmed, seven under investigation

A long thread on @NYTimes/@washingtonpost/@TheAtlantic's favorite prediction-making expert, Monica Gandhi. Feb 22, 2021: "I need to say variants, shmariants, okay? I'm sorry, I don't know what kind of trouble that's going to get me in..."

First EUL granted by WHO for a protein-based COVID-19 vaccine EUL vaccine manufactured and marketed by SII as COVOVAX™ WHO EUL for Nuvaxovid™ currently under assessment; will be completed following European Medicines Agency (EMA) review

Following decreasing vaccination rates over the last two decades, understanding the roots of vaccine hesitancy has become a public health priority. Vaccine hesitancy is linked to scientifically unfounded fears around the MMR vaccine and autism which are often fuelled by misinformation spread on social media. To counteract the effects of misinformation about vaccines and in particular the falling vaccination rates, much research has focused on identifying the antecedents of vaccine hesitancy. As antecedents of vaccine hesitancy are contextually dependent, a one-size-fits-all approach is unlikely to be successful in non-WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, and Democratic) populations, and even in certain (non-typical) WEIRD sub-populations. Successful interventions to reduce vaccine hesitancy must be based on understanding of the specific context. To identify potential contextual differences in the antecedents of vaccine hesitancy, we review research from three non-WEIRD populations in East Asia, and three WEIRD sub-populations. We find that regardless of the context, mistrust seems to be the key factor leading to vaccine hesitancy. However, the object of mistrust varies across WEIRD and non-WEIRD populations, and across WEIRD subgroups suggesting that effective science communication must be mindful of these differences.

Some in Mackenzie County continue to resist public health guidance, while others try to keep virus at bay

The first articles alerting the world to a new variant, later designated Omicron, appeared only three weeks ago. It is now on course to become the world’s dominant variant. Omicron cases have been doubling in England about every 2 days. We are starting to see the consequences in daily case numbers (with record new cases reported today). Unfortunately, very few measures are in place to prevent its further spread and we are still just at the beginning of the Omicron wave as it becomes dominant in England this week.

The past 20 years have witnessed four fatal coronavirus outbreaks: SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome, 2002 and 2003), MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome, since 2012), and now Covid-19 (since 2019). Scientific evidence and ecologic reality suggest that coronaviruses will emerge again in the future, potentially posing an existential threat.1 The betacoronaviruses that caused these epidemics are globally distributed in numerous species of bats. The full virologic and geographic extent of this enzootic reservoir is unknown; however, it has been increasingly spilling over into humans and other mammals.2 Because of genetic and structural receptor conservation among mammalian species, many of these animal betacoronaviruses are “preadapted” for infecting humans by binding to angiotensin-converting–enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptors, which facilitates viral spillovers and ongoing transmission.3 Some animal coronaviruses that may have pandemic potential have already been identified, and many more remain to be detected.

Move by UK’s vaccines watchdog follows research showing pregnant women are vulnerable to more serious illness

Keith Smith, whose wife had gone to court to have his COVID-19 infection treated with ivermectin, died Sunday evening, a week after he received his first dose of the controversial drug.

About 15 per cent of the province’s 1,389 chiropractors are warning they will sue regulatory college directors personally if they back a provincial COVID-9 vaccination mandate.

For hospitalized patients with COVID-19 receiving noninvasive supplemental oxygen, COVID-19 convalescent plasma (CCP) is not efficacious compared with placebo, according to a study published online Dec. 13 in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Due to numerous mutations in the spike protein, the SARS-CoV-2 variant of concern Omicron (B.1.1.529) raises serious concerns since it may significantly limit the antibody-mediated neutralization and increase the risk of reinfections. While a rapid increase in the number of cases is being reported worldwide, until now there has been uncertainty about the efficacy of vaccinations and monoclonal antibodies. Our in vitro findings using authentic SARS-CoV-2 variants indicate that in contrast to the currently circulating Delta variant, the neutralization efficacy of vaccine-elicited sera against Omicron was severely reduced highlighting T-cell mediated immunity as essential barrier to prevent severe COVID-19. Since SARS-CoV-2 Omicron was resistant to casirivimab and imdevimab, genotyping of SARS-CoV-2 may be needed before initiating mAb treatment. Variant-specific vaccines and mAb agents may be required to treat COVID-19 due to Omicron and other emerging variants of concern.

As Paula Zimmerman queued at her gate in Cape Town, a news alert flashed up on her phone, warning about a new variant of COVID-19 that had just been discovered in South Africa.

Coronavirus latest as the UK reports its highest daily caseload ever at 78,610; Study finds Omicron variant multiplies 70 times faster than Delta in human lungs, SAGE expert says it is possible that a million people could be isolating with COVID on Christmas Day.

Despite data showing the safety and effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccine for pregnant women and numerous recommendations from health organizations around the world, uptake is still lagging.

In the last few days a number of genomes have been uploaded by South Africa, Australia and Canada that whilst having many of the defining mutations of B.1.1.529 (Omicron) do not have the full set and also have a number of their own unique mutations. This was first described in Issue #359

As some intensive care units fill up once again, the patients with covid-19 feel almost familiar. Not all, but many, of them are overweight; similarly, many have diabetes or high blood pressure. The difference this time, however, is that another common factor has been added to our lists: patients who are unvaccinated. Certainly not all, but many. How does it feel to care for someone at the edge of life when you know that it didn’t necessarily have to be this way?Some health professionals may feel angry at having to care for patients who have made unwise decisions. But we all make poor choices at some points in our lives. You may eat too much, you may have texted while driving, or perhaps you drank too much at the office party. And perhaps you got away with it. Through luck rather than judgment, you didn’t crash your car or break your ankle. We are so much more than our worst decisions, and so are the patients who made poor choices and were less fortunate.Many of the people who turned down having the vaccine are thoughtful and intelligent. Yet the world is full of bad ideas and bad incentives, and people are often influenced by them. Untangling the net of influence is difficult, and often the harder other people try to help, the tighter the knots become. Even exposing bad science to help explain the faulty logic behind it can reinforce those very same false beliefs, through quirks of human psychology that are hard to understand.And so, what should we do? How should we feel about it all? For one thing, we should continue to explain how the vaccine is safe. We should say that, even if you accept the vaccine’s potential risks—which may have been inflated through bad science—the vaccine is still far safer than actually having covid.We should also say that choosing a disease filled with risks and uncertainties over a vaccine with far fewer risks and far less uncertainty is still an individual choice, but it’s a choice I find impossible to understand when viewed in this way. However, we should resist continually poking fun or shaming bad science or bad ideas, even if we do so only to expose them. In this increasingly polarised world, repeated exposure only serves to strengthen beliefs, even after they’re dismantled through logic.And yet, I still feel angry and cheated. But not at the patients; rather, at the people promoting, fuelling, and exploiting the bad ideas and bad incentives that influence so many people. I am angry with the liars, not those who have been lied to.

The first potent anti-Covid pill will be a big help