Covid Science: Virus leaves antibodies that may attack healthy tissues

According to well-known Manhattan ER doctor Craig Spencer, the omicron variant can be as mild as a cold - with the right vaccinations

NYC ER Doc Breaks Down How Omicron Affects the Boosted, Vaxxed and Unvaccinated

Russia at 1.04 MILLION excess deaths since March 2020, which is about 240% higher than their reported COVID-19 deaths. This is 1st place worldwide (for countries with data) in absolute excess mortality, 2nd place on per capita terms and 9th on p-score. #poptwitter #epitwitter

Wow. 17 years of T cell immunity guys. Looks like it works as advertised.

Sign of the covid times - front page Scotland edition contrasting with front page London edition

Huge honor to be back @inthebubblepod with @ASlavitt We talked about engaging people with whom we disagree Why disdain for unvaccinated folks is counter-productive And why kindness and understanding (with a side of mandates) will keep our nation in good stead for the long run

.@ASlavitt and @ashishkjha discuss the danger of covering COVID like a political horse race, why he appears on Newsmax so frequently, and how he deals with #COVID skeptics in his own extended family. Listen at http://ow.ly/8jcL50GmwLh

Analysis: experts warn that viral evolution is not a one-way street and a continuing fall in virulence cannot be taken for granted

Will Covid-19 become less dangerous as it evolves?

I agree with pretty much all of this @FT article https://ft.com/content/e200156f-2e5a-4165-8aa2-28c24fe3c036

Exclusive: findings highlight importance of short-range Covid transmission

Covid loses 90% of ability to infect within five minutes in air – study

10.1056/NEJMoa2117995

BackgroundThe increasing incidence of pediatric hospitalizations associated with coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) caused by the B.1.617.2 (delta) variant of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in the United States has offered an opportunity to assess the real-world effectiveness of the BNT162b2 messenger RNA vaccine in adolescents between 12 and 18 years of age. MethodsWe used a case–control, test-negative design to assess vaccine effectiveness against Covid-19 resulting in hospitalization, admission to an intensive care unit (ICU), the use of life-supporting interventions (mechanical ventilation, vasopressors, and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation), or death. Between July 1 and October 25, 2021, we screened admission logs for eligible case patients with laboratory-confirmed Covid-19 at 31 hospitals in 23 states. We estimated vaccine effectiveness by comparing the odds of antecedent full vaccination (two doses of BNT162b2) in case patients as compared with two hospital-based control groups: patients who had Covid-19–like symptoms but negative results on testing for SARS-CoV-2 (test-negative) and patients who did not have Covid-19–like symptoms (syndrome-negative). ResultsA total of 445 case patients and 777 controls were enrolled. Overall, 17 case patients (4%) and 282 controls (36%) had been fully vaccinated. Of the case patients, 180 (40%) were admitted to the ICU, and 127 (29%) required life support; only 2 patients in the ICU had been fully vaccinated. The overall effectiveness of the BNT162b2 vaccine against hospitalization for Covid-19 was 94% (95% confidence interval [CI], 90 to 96); the effectiveness was 95% (95% CI, 91 to 97) among test-negative controls and 94% (95% CI, 89 to 96) among syndrome-negative controls. The effectiveness was 98% against ICU admission and 98% against Covid-19 resulting in the receipt of life support. All 7 deaths occurred in patients who were unvaccinated. ConclusionsAmong hospitalized adolescent patients, two doses of the BNT162b2 vaccine were highly effective against Covid-19–related hospitalization and ICU admission or the receipt of life support. (Funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.)

Effectiveness of BNT162b2 Vaccine against Critical Covid-19 in Adolescents

The covid-19 pandemic is taking a harsh toll on healthcare workers. In the Mirror newspaper on 20 January 2021: “52,000 NHS staff are off sick with covid.” [1] Over 850 UK healthcare workers are thought to have died of covid between March and December 2020; at least 3000 have died in the US. [2-3] Worldwide, the death toll and the impact on the physical and mental health of healthcare workers are staggering. The long term costs are yet to be counted. But, a number of countries, mainly in Asia, have been able to manage covid outbreaks without sustaining any healthcare worker infections at all. [4-6] The means to do so are now widely recognised. They are costly and inconvenient to implement and require an acceptance of the predominance of aerosol transmission of this virus and its application in a rigorous, safety-conscious infection control system. [7] But it can be done. 

Up the line to death: covid-19 has revealed a mortal betrayal of the world’s healthcare workers

The United States surpassed its record for covid-19 hospitalizations on Tuesday, with no end in sight to skyrocketing case loads, falling staff levels and the struggles of a medical system trying to provide care amid an unprecedented surge of the coronavirus.Tuesday’s total of 145,982 people in U.S. hospitals with covid-19, which includes 4,462 children, passed the record of 142,273 set on Jan. 14, 2021, during the previous peak of the pandemic in this country.

U.S. breaks record with more than 145,000 covid-19 hospitalizations

The US reported 1.4 million COVID cases yesterday and hospitalizations are the highest ever. We’re sailing into this hurricane with virtually no effort to change course because fancy people believe they have a god-given right to their normal lives, no matter how bad things get.

Digital literacy helps people identify misinformation — but it doesn’t necessarily stop them from spreading it.

Study: Digital literacy doesn’t stop the spread of misinformation

Australians are getting a stark reminder about how value is actually created in an economy, and how supply chains truly work.

Healthy humans drive the economy: we’re now witnessing one of the worst public policy failures in Australia’s history

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

Omicron largely evades immunity from past infection or two vaccine doses

Scientists and politicians have focused on the short-term impact of the virus – but we can no longer leave chronic patients to struggle

I’m leading a long Covid trial – it’s clear Britain has underestimated its impact

What is already known about this topic? The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, currently authorized for persons aged ≥5 years, provides a high level of protection against severe COVID-19 in persons aged 12–18 years. Vaccine effectiveness against multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C), which can occur 2–6 weeks after SARS-CoV-2 infection, has remained uncharacterized. What is added by this report? Estimated effectiveness of 2 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against MIS-C was 91% (95% CI = 78%–97%). Among critically ill MIS-C case-patients requiring life support, all were unvaccinated. What are the implications for public health practice? Receipt of 2 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is highly effective in preventing MIS-C in persons aged 12–18 years. These findings further reinforce the COVID-19 vaccination recommendation for eligible children.

Effectiveness of BNT162b2 (Pfizer-BioNTech) mRNA Vaccination Against Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children Among Persons Aged 12–18 Years — United States, July–December 2021

In a tiny house on the outskirts of Lima, Gabriela Zarate lives with her husband and eight children. Four are her own. The other four, two girls aged seven and 15, and two boys aged nine and 12, are the children of her younger sister, Katherine.

The drama of Peru's Covid orphans

While U.K. daily reported cases fall, COVID deaths (379) up to 28 days after a positive test have sadly hit the highest level since February last year.

Still, the idea of vaccine mandates is no longer taboo, and many government leaders support them, even if some have yet to confront the “refuseniks” head on.“I sense that we are seeing a change in views on vaccine mandates, as more people, and politicians, appreciate the consequences for society of significant numbers remaining unvaccinated,” Martin McKee, a professor of European public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said in an interview. “Of course, there is much more to be done to encourage vaccinations, short of mandates, but there is growing evidence that they do work and those who are determined to hold out are a small minority.”

Support growing among European governments for COVID-19 vaccine mandates as Omicron cases surge

The ’with’ or ‘because of’ Covid hospitalization argument is intentionally politicizing data.

10.1101/2022.01.07.475453

Survivors of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection frequently experience lingering neurological symptoms, including impairment in attention, concentration, speed of information processing and memory. This long-COVID cognitive syndrome shares many features with the syndrome of cancer therapy-related cognitive impairment (CRCI). Neuroinflammation, particularly microglial reactivity and consequent dysregulation of hippocampal neurogenesis and oligodendrocyte lineage cells, is central to CRCI. We hypothesized that similar cellular mechanisms may contribute to the persistent neurological symptoms associated with even mild SARS-CoV-2 respiratory infection. Here, we explored neuroinflammation caused by mild respiratory SARS-CoV-2 infection, without neuroinvasion, and effects on hippocampal neurogenesis and the oligodendroglial lineage. Using a mouse model of mild respiratory SARS-CoV-2 infection induced by intranasal SARS-CoV-2 delivery, we found white matter-selective microglial reactivity, a pattern observed in CRCI. Human brain tissue from 9 individuals with COVID-19 or SARS-CoV-2 infection exhibits the same pattern of prominent white matter-selective microglial reactivity. In mice, pro-inflammatory CSF cytokines/chemokines were elevated for at least 7-weeks post-infection; among the chemokines demonstrating persistent elevation is CCL11, which is associated with impairments in neurogenesis and cognitive function. Humans experiencing long-COVID with cognitive symptoms (48 subjects) similarly demonstrate elevated CCL11 levels compared to those with long-COVID who lack cognitive symptoms (15 subjects). Impaired hippocampal neurogenesis, decreased oligodendrocytes and myelin loss in subcortical white matter were evident at 1 week, and persisted until at least 7 weeks, following mild respiratory SARS-CoV-2 infection in mice. Taken together, the findings presented here illustrate striking similarities between neuropathophysiology after cancer therapy and after SARS-CoV-2 infection, and elucidate cellular deficits that may contribute to lasting neurological symptoms following even mild SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Mild respiratory SARS-CoV-2 infection can cause multi-lineage cellular dysregulation and myelin loss in the brain

10.1101/2022.01.07.22268919

Background The recently emerged SARS-CoV-2 omicron variant raised concerns around potential escape from vaccine-elicited immunity. Limited data are available on real-world vaccine effectiveness (VE) of mRNA-1273 against omicron. Here, we report VE of 2 or 3 mRNA-1273 doses against infection and hospitalization with omicron and delta, including among immunocompromised individuals. Methods This test negative study was conducted at Kaiser Permanente Southern California. Cases were individuals aged ≥18 years testing positive by RT-PCR with specimens collected between 12/6/2021 and 12/23/2021 with variant determined by spike gene status. Randomly sampled test negative controls were 5:1 matched to cases by age, sex, race/ethnicity, and specimen collection date. Conditional logistic regression models were used to evaluate adjusted odds ratio (aOR) of vaccination with mRNA-1273 doses between cases and controls. VE(%) was calculated as (1-aOR)x100. Results 6657 test positive cases (44% delta, 56% omicron) were included. The 2-dose VE against omicron infection was 30.4% (95% CI, 5.0%-49.0%) at 14-90 days after vaccination and declined quickly thereafter. The 3-dose VE was 95.2% (93.4%-96.4%) against delta infection and 62.5% (56.2%-67.9%) against omicron infection. The 3-dose VE against omicron infection was low among immunocompromised individuals (11.5%; 0.0%-66.5%). None of the cases (delta or omicron) vaccinated with 3 doses were hospitalized compared to 53 delta and 2 omicron unvaccinated cases. Conclusions VE of 3 mRNA-1273 doses against infection with delta was high and durable, but VE against omicron infection was lower. VE against omicron infection was particularly low among immunocompromised individuals. No 3-dose recipients were hospitalized for COVID-19.

Effectiveness of mRNA-1273 against SARS-CoV-2 omicron and delta variants

10.31235/osf.io/ekyu5

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated efforts to engage critically with forest-adjacent, rural, communities who rely on wildlife. In this study, we interviewed 109 hunters of wildlife across Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos regarding the effect the COVID-19 pandemic has had on them individually, as well as more generally within their communities. We found that negative economic impacts such as loss of employment and constrained finances due to rising prices was an especially prevalent theme due to city-wide lockdowns, factory closures, and border closures. In Vietnam, hunting was stated to have increased as young men were forced to return to their villages to work; however, trade in wildlife was believed to have decreased due to the inability of middlemen traders to easily leave urban spaces or cross-country lines. This theme of barriers to trade was found in Cambodia and Laos as well. Our results show the importance of establishing sustainable, non-wildlife-dependent livelihoods within rural communities, to mitigate hunting and mitigate the potential for emerging infectious disease transmission. Overall, our results show the value in engaging with hunters to understand locally and spatially-specific trends, and provide direction for future avenues of research.

The impact of COVID-19 on hunters in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos: a qualitative analysis

10.31235/osf.io/6umqs

This report presents the outcomes of a project aimed at developing and testing a prototype tool that supports and speeds-up the work of fact-checkers and de-bunkers by surfacing and ranking potentially problematic information circulated on social media with a content-agnostic approach. The tool itself is the result of a multi-year research activity carried on within the Mapping Italian News Research Program of the University of Urbino Carlo Bo to study the strategies, tactics and goals of influence operations aimed at manipulating the Italian public opinion by exploiting the vulnerabilities of the contemporary media ecosystem. This research activity led to developing original studies, public reports, new methods, maps and tools employed to study the activity of Italian nefarious social media actors aimed at amplifying the reach and impact of problematic information by coordinating their efforts. Tracking these actors proved instrumental to observe the “infodemic” unraveling during the early days of COVID-19 outbreak in Italy. Combining this existing knowledge with a range of original tools and data sources provided by Meta’s Facebook Open Research Initiative (Fort) and by The International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) at Poynter, the report: documents those early days by highlighting a list of widely viewed and interacted links circulated on Facebook; traces the establishment, growth and evolution of Italian covid-skeptic coordinated networks on Facebook; presents a comprehensive and updated map of the activities performed by these networks of nefarious social media actors; unveils a set of original tactics and strategies employed by these actors to adjust their operations to the mitigation efforts adopted by social media platforms to reduce the spread of problematic information; describes the circulation of three specific piece of problematic information; provides an overview of the outcomes of the testing phase (carried out in collaboration with Facta.news) of a prototype tool that surfaces and ranks potentially problematic information circulated on social media with a content-agnostic approach.

Mapping Nefarious Social Media Actors to Speed-up Covid-19 Fact-checking

10.1038/d41586-022-00004-x

Laboratory studies hint that a longer interval between vaccination and infection is better than a shorter one.

Immunity against Omicron from breakthrough infection could be a matter of timing

Clive Dix believes British population will be protected from virus and all its known variants by the summer

Outgoing vaccine chief claims Covid will not be circulating in UK by August

mobility-aus

This daily-updated portal aggregates mobility and case data from various sources to give a general picture of how Australians are responding to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. It is a free and public resource meant for journalists, citizens, academics, and colleagues from across the COVID-19 volunteer analysis community. Feedback, queries, and requests may be directed to Rohan Byrne at rohan.byrne@unimelb.edu.au

2201.02230

The ability to rewire ties in communication networks is vital for large-scale human cooperation and the spread of new ideas. Especially important for knowledge dissemination is the ability to form new weak ties -- ties which act as bridges between distant parts of the social system and enable the flow of novel information. Here we show that lack of researcher co-location during the COVID-19 lockdown caused the loss of more than 4800 weak ties over 18 months in the email network of a large North American university -- the MIT campus. Furthermore, we find that the re-introduction of partial co-location through a hybrid work mode starting in September 2021 led to a partial regeneration of weak ties, especially between researchers who work in close proximity. We quantify the effect of co-location in renewing ties -- a process that we have termed nexogenesis -- through a novel model based on physical proximity, which is able to reproduce all empirical observations. Results highlight that employees who are not co-located are less likely to form ties, weakening the spread of information in the workplace. Such findings could contribute to a better understanding of the spatio-temporal dynamics of human communication networks -- and help organizations that are moving towards the implementation of hybrid work policies to evaluate the minimum amount of in-person interaction necessary for a healthy work life.

The effect of co-location of human communication networks

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.

Mask mandate expanded as Queensland records 2,266 new cases of COVID-19

10.1016/S0140-6736(21)02727-6

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.

Brazilian science under continuous attack

Increases in hospitalizations routinely lag behind cases by a week (sometimes more). Deaths have an even longer lag. On 12/30, we had seen a 56% increase in 7-day hospitalization counts, and today we are seeing an 81% increase week-to-week. We have already passed the Sept peak.

If schools are not a source of transmission for COVID-19, why were school board per capita rates of infection 1.77x HIGHER than their surrounding community? SOURCE: Ministry of Education data; Compiled on December 17th, 2021; Calculations are mine.

Glad I never minimized covid for kids or fear mongered about the vaccine.

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

Cuba’s vaccine success story sails past mark set by rich world’s Covid efforts

Good lord! The percent positivity rate in #Ottawa LTC's PCR tests was 83.72% yesterday (while Ottawa large was 50%)!

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.

Teachers on these islands will get FFP2(rightly so).Healthcare workers on other parts of these islands..nah!..Surgical masks/spit guards/not PPE,for working with COVID-positive patients risking other patient’s, our own & our family’s health.”Protect the NHS”⁦@CMO_England

London peak IN PATIENT in Jan 2021 was 7917. So currently about one doubling from that peak.

10.1136/bmj.o30

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

Covid-19: Fourth vaccine doses—who needs them and why?

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

How do death rates from COVID-19 differ between people who are vaccinated and those who are not?

Seasonality, huh?

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

Covid ‘vaccination doubt line’ receiving up to 1,000 calls a day in Netherlands