WASHINGTON:
At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. military launched a secret campaign to counter what it perceived as Chinas growing influence in the Philippines, a nation hit especially hard by the deadly virus.
The clandestine operation has not been previously reported. It aimed to sow doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines and other life-saving aid that was being supplied by China, a Reuters investigation found. Through phony internet accounts meant to impersonate Filipinos, the militarys propaganda efforts morphed into an anti-vax campaign. Social media posts decried the quality of face masks, test kits and the first vaccine that would become available in the Philippines Chinas Sinovac inoculation.
Reuters identified at least 300 accounts on X, formerly Twitter, that matched descriptions shared by former U.S. military officials familiar with the Philippines operation. Almost all were created in the summer of 2020 and centered on the slogan #Chinaangvirus Tagalog for China is the virus.
COVID came from China and the VACCINE also came from China, dont trust China! one typical tweet from July 2020 read in Tagalog. The words were next to a photo of a syringe beside a Chinese flag and a soaring chart of infections. Another post read: From China PPE, Face Mask, Vaccine: FAKE. But the Coronavirus is real.
After Reuters asked X about the accounts, the social media company removed the profiles, determining they were part of a coordinated bot campaign based on activity patterns and internal data.
The U.S. militarys anti-vax effort began in the spring of 2020 and expanded beyond Southeast Asia before it was terminated in mid-2021, Reuters determined. Tailoring the propaganda campaign to local audiences across Central Asia and the Middle East, the Pentagon used a combination of fake social media accounts on multiple platforms to spread fear of Chinas vaccines among Muslims at a time when the virus was killing tens of thousands of people each day. A key part of the strategy: amplify the disputed contention that, because vaccines sometimes contain pork gelatin, Chinas shots could be considered forbidden under Islamic law.
The military program started under former President Donald Trump and continued months into Joe Bidens presidency, Reuters found even after alarmed social media executives warned the new administration that the Pentagon had been trafficking in COVID misinformation. The Biden White House issued an edict in spring 2021 banning the anti-vax effort, which also disparaged vaccines produced by other rivals, and the Pentagon initiated an internal review, Reuters found.
The U.S. military is prohibited from targeting Americans with propaganda, and Reuters found no evidence the Pentagons influence operation did so.
Photo: 123rf.com / Composite Image - RNZ
There have been 8943 new cases of Covid-19 reported in New Zealand over the week to Sunday, and 25 further deaths attributed to the virus.
Of the new cases, 5389 were reinfections.
There were 241 cases in hospital and none in intensive care, as of midnight on Sunday.
The seven-day rolling average of reported new cases was 510, slightly up from last week.
Last week, the ministry reported 4788 new cases of Covid-19 and 34 further deaths.
The following is a transcript of the podcast episode:
Rachael Robertson: Hey everybody! Welcome to MedPod Today, the podcast series where MedPage Today reporters share deeper insight into the week's biggest healthcare stories. I'm your host, Rachael Robertson.
Today, Kristina Fiore will share the results of a survey that MedPage Today conducted among ob/gyns in abortion-restrictive states. Then, I'm going to talk about my reporting on a controversial BMJ paper that got an expression of concern after public outcry. After that, Jennifer Henderson will tell us about a Texas doctor accused of illegally accessing child health records.
First up, though, let's talk about the exclusive MedPage Today survey.
Two years ago, the Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade, upending federal protections for abortion. To understand how that decision has impacted care since then, MedPage Today conducted a survey of ob/gyns in states with abortion bans. Kristina Fiore and I worked on this project together, and today we're going to chat a bit about the results.
First, a little background. We received responses from 50 ob/gyns in 18 states that have either a total abortion ban or gestational limits between 6 and 12 weeks. One of the most interesting findings is that the majority of clinicians have found workarounds to get patients the care they need. Kristina, do you want to go into that a bit?
Kristina Fiore: Yeah, so about 60% said that they've come up with other ways to help patients get access to the full spectrum of reproductive care. This was a multiple choice survey, so we don't have a whole lot of specific details on those workarounds, but Dan Grossman at UCSF, who is also studying the effects of Dobbs, said that even in states with abortion bans, some facilities have taken the lead in terms of caring for patients who have conditions that will put them at risk of serious complications. That includes things like preterm premature rupture of membranes, or PPROM, bleeding in the second trimester, and preterm labor.
Grossman said that about 2 years in, "people have figured out where those places are, and they can funnel patients to those places." But he also warned that even with the workarounds, it's "still challenging and it's different from how it used to be. You still either have to jump through hoops at your own institution, or more commonly, send people to another institution."
Robertson: Right. We saw some of those hoops in the survey, too. About 30% of respondents said that they had to face an abortion panel at their facility. How often were their requests approved?
Fiore: When clinicians faced an abortion panel to get permission to deliver care in certain instances, only 8% said that they always got to deliver the care that they needed. 10% got it three-quarters of the time, and 2% got it only a quarter of the time. But a pretty substantial 12% said they were always denied.
Also, about a third reported that they actually had to turn away a patient seeking an abortion at some point. Now, there's concern that this is all starting to show up in patient outcomes. 42% of our clinicians said that delays in care have put a pregnant patient's life or health at risk, and 50% said that care has gotten worse since bans went into effect.
Robertson: That's sad, but not necessarily surprising. Last year, when we wrote about the first anniversary of Dobbs, doctors told us that they were feeling the impact "every single day." We thought this might push more clinicians to leave ban states, but that's not what we found.
Fiore: Right. So only one in five ob/gyns said that they had seriously considered leaving their state because of an abortion ban. David Hackney, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist in Ohio, said that most ob/gyns can actually remain pretty distant from abortion, and that a surprising number just don't care about what's going on from a legal perspective. He said that most general ob/gyns can refer out if they have a major complication, so they don't have to follow the issues so closely. And indeed, we found only about half were ever given legal guidance on abortion from their hospital or their employer.
Robertson: So in some ways, perhaps state laws are a little less intrusive on everyday ob/gyn practice, even in those ban states. But still, patients are the ones bearing the brunt of this impact. I guess now we start planning our story for the third anniversary, huh?
Fiore: That's it, yeah.
Robertson: Thanks. Kristina.
Fiore: Thanks, Rachael. Let's swap seats for this next segment.
Earlier this month, BMJ Public Health published a paper that concluded that COVID vaccines were linked to excess deaths. Several news outlets reported on that paper, but after an outcry from the research community, the BMJ has placed an expression of concern on it. Rachael will tell us what happened.
So Rachael, what did the expression of concern say?
Robertson: The BMJ said that the paper's messaging gave rise to widespread misreporting and misunderstanding of the work amid claims that it implies a direct causal link between COVID-19 vaccination and mortality, when the researchers "looked only at trends in excess mortality over time, not its causes."
So this notice was posted 2 weeks after the paper was published, which is a really fast turnaround for that kind of thing. I spoke with epidemiologist Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, who analyzed the whole situation in his newsletter, and he told me this:
Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz: I think that they [the BMJ] are misrepresenting the paper, which does explicitly say vaccines caused excess deaths. I don't think it's fair to only blame the reporters in this case.
Fiore: So what's wrong with the paper? Why is it causing so much controversy?
Robertson: One huge issue is that it's based entirely on other research. This BMJ paper copied the methods from an influential paper by Ariel Karlinsky and Dmitry Kobak that was published in eLife back in 2021. That original paper has been cited by the CDC and the UN. And again, here's Meyerowitz-Katz on that:
Meyerowitz-Katz: They just took some of the data from that paper, they reanalyzed it badly, and then they published it as novel work, which is extremely problematic.
Robertson: The researchers of the original paper are calling for a retraction of the BMJ one. They also want a public apology and an investigation into how it was published.
Fiore: How did it get published?
Robertson: I was asking that same question. Meyerowitz-Katz said that bad research occasionally makes it through peer review. Becky Smullin Dawson, another epidemiologist I spoke to, told me that this whole situation was a failure of peer review. She also said that it's a good reminder on why it's so important to read the whole paper. In this case, the intro details the dangers of COVID vaccines, but the methods and the results don't have data to back those claims up. She said "the data did not connect those dots. Heck -- the data do not even exist." This kind of process is slow, so we'll see if further action is taken against the paper in the coming months.
Fiore: Okay, well, keep us posted. Thanks for the story.
Robertson: Thanks. Kristina.
A Texas physician has been accused of illegally obtaining children's health records. Now that case has been unsealed, according to federal prosecutors. Jennifer Henderson is here with more information.
Jennifer, what can you tell us about the details of this case?
Jennifer Henderson: We now know that Eithan Haim, the doctor in question, recently had a four-count indictment filed against him. He's been charged with allegedly violating HIPAA when he reportedly leaked information about Texas Children's Hospital continuing its gender-affirming care program after it said it had been halted.
Robertson: Okay, so what does the indictment against Haim allege?
Henderson: Basically, the indictment alleges that Haim obtained personal information, such as patient names, treatment codes, and the attending physician from the hospital's electronic health record system without authorization. It also alleges that he obtained the data under false pretenses, with intent to cause malicious harm to the hospital.
Haim was previously a resident at Baylor College of Medicine and had rotations at Texas Children's that had ended in 2021, according to the indictment. But 2 years later, in April 2023, Haim allegedly requested to reactivate his login at the hospital to access data for pediatric patients who were not under his care.
Robertson: Oof, so have other people weighed in on this unsealed indictment?
Henderson: Haim's legal counsel, Ryan Patrick of Haynes Boone, said in a statement that, "Dr. Haim maintains that he has done nothing wrong. The government's facts are wrong, and their timeline is wrong. Eithan looks forward to having his day in court."
A Baylor College of Medicine spokesperson confirmed via email that Haim had completed his residency there and referred any questions to Texas Children's Hospital, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment. If convicted, Haim faces up to 10 years in federal prison and a $250,000 maximum possible fine, according to federal prosecutors.
Robertson: Thanks for this update, Jennifer.
Henderson: Sure thing, Rachael.
Robertson: And that's it for today. If you like what you heard, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts, and hit subscribe if you haven't already, we'll see you again soon.
This episode was hosted and produced by me, Rachael Robertson. Sound engineering by Greg Laub. Our guests were MedPage Today reporters Kristina Fiore, Rachael Robertson, and Jennifer Henderson. Links to their stories are in the show notes.
MedPod Today is a production of MedPage Today. For more information about the show, check out medpagetoday.com/podcasts.
Rachael Robertson is a writer on the MedPage Today enterprise and investigative team, also covering OB/GYN news. Her print, data, and audio stories have appeared in Everyday Health, Gizmodo, the Bronx Times, and multiple podcasts. Follow
It is the summer of 2024 but COVID-19 is still lingering around. There are new variants, new vaccines and a summer uptick in infections that has been reported across the US. The Centre for Disease Control and Prevention has noted that cases are on the rise across 39 states. The good news is that the hospitalization rate due to the new variant is low. The US too is focusing on a treating particularly vulnerable groups rather than the entire population. It is important to remain vigilant and take basic precautions. Here are all the details of this emerging threat.
ADVERTISEMENT
There is another variant known to be LB.1 which is responsible for 18% of all the cases in the US. It is rapidly growing and could soon become the dominant variant causing a major uptick in COVID cases in the US. All these variants are related and are descendants of Omicron which was first detected in 2021. The FLiRT variant is not known to cause any serious illness.
Also Read: US Presidential Debate: Trump claims that Biden would be pumped up on drugs to hide his cognitive decline
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
What is vaccine hesitancy?This was particularly notice during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many people refused to take the vaccines due to rumors that were spread and their own belief systems. This is known to be vaccine hesitancy.
ADVERTISEMENT
(You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel)
The largest federal emergency school aid in history boosted learning recovery from the pandemic, two new studies findbut the benefits have been uneven and nowhere near enough to get students fully back on track.
In March 2020, shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered schools nationwide, Congress passed the first of three massive rounds of K-12 aid that would ultimately total more than $190 billion. At the time, no one knew how long communities would be in lockdown, how long students would attend classes remotely, or the long-term effects of academic disruption, health problems, social isolation, and trauma on students learning progress.
With several years of hindsight, we now know children have paid a brutal cost for that disruption: reading and math performance at historic lows , student mental health problems at historic highs , and chronic absenteeism still topping 1 in 4 students nationwide.
As school districts approach the end of spending ESSER funds, two new studiesconducted separately but jointly released Wednesday morninganalyzed the effect of the grants on math and language arts test scores of more than 5,000 districts in grades 3-8 across about 30 states, during the 2022-23 school year.
Both studiesone released by the National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER) at the American Institutes of Research and the other by Harvard Universitys Center for Education Policy Research and the Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford University found the grants did accelerate academic recovery in mathabout six days worth of learning progress for every additional $1,000 their districts received from federal aid.
Both studies found minimal benefit for reading from ESSER but an increase of about 0.008 of a standard deviationroughly 3 percent of a school yearon students math performance for every additional $1,000 districts received in federal recovery money.
That means federal aid accounts for about 35 percent of the total learning progress students regained from the end of 2022 to the end of 2023, according to Dan Goldhaber, the CALDER director and a co-author of one of the studies.
ESSER funding did actually move the needle of student achievement, Goldhaber said, but then you get into, did it move it enough? Well, it certainly did not bring student achievement back to the 2019 levelsit wasnt even close to that. A very strong effect for some and not much for everybody else ... I think that is a little bit what we are seeing.
While $1,000 of aid provided roughly the same bang for your buck in districts of all income levels, Stanford University professor Sean Reardon, the co-author of one of the studies, said the net effect of the investment was much, much larger in the high-poverty districts than the low-poverty districts, not because they got more per dollar but because they got a lot more dollars which has somewhat reduced the economic achievement gap among districts.
However, in districts of similar poverty levels, Goldhaber noted the ones serving fewer Black or Hispanic students and those located in towns (as defined by the Census Bureau) had slightly bigger learning increases from the aid. Its not clear why, though communities of color were disproportionately harmed during the pandemic.
The two studies findings are in line with the return on investment from district spending generally before the pandemic, based on a 2023 research analysis.
Schools would have to spend another $9,000 to $13,000 per student to bring students fully back on track academically from the remaining learning gaps in language arts and math as of 2023, Goldhaber estimated.
ESSERs effectiveness was limited, researchers say, by competing priorities for the grants and inequities in how the money was distributed.
When the American Rescue plan passed, nobody even knew the magnitude of the achievement loss, said Harvard economist and study co-author Thomas Kane. The money at the time was primarily about trying to get schools reopened.
Hermiston, Ore., public schools, for example, were among the first to close when COVID-19 reached American shores, and the district remained in remote instruction through most of the 2020-21 school year. Recouping lost academic progress came second to just getting more than 5,600 kids back on campus, according to Superintendent Tricia Mooney.
When ESSER I came out [in 2020], we were all very much drinking from a fire hose, trying to figure out how we were going to get students through the pandemic, Mooney said. We really looked at what investments we could make that werent going to create long-term financial responsibilities.
Because they knew ESSER would be limited-time aid, Mooney said her district dedicated the money first to capital projects like a new HVAC system and later to mental health services and a comprehensive summer school program for students who need extra support.
Those nonacademic benefits should be kept in mind although they couldnt be included in the two current studies, Reardon said. Even though [3 percent of a school year effect per $1,000] doesnt sound like a lot, when you calculate the social returns and the economic returns to improved academic performance, that much improvement is worth slightly more than $1,000 in lifetime earnings, and there are other social benefits like lower crime, Reardon said. Its still a net positive from a cost-benefit analysis in terms of social returns.
After three years and with nearly 300 fewer students, Mooney said her community has vowed to sustain the summer enrichment past the federal funding cliff.
Mooney said the money helped the district reopen quicker, and the summer program has been critically important to bolster language skills in the heavily Hispanic district. But Hermiston still struggles to reengage the 40 percent of students who dont attend regularly, and the academic outlook remains grim, with less than a third of students proficient in reading and only 14 percent proficient in math in 2022.
ESSER was distributed to states and districts based on the standard funding formula for Title I grants to schools serving low-income students.
We were pushing through $175 billion in federal aid through pipes that were meant to carry $16 billion in aid, Kane said, and so whatever quirks there were [in the normal Title I funding formula] got multiplied by 10 or more.
For example, a high-poverty district in New Hampshireone of the small rural states that receives a set minimum Title I grantmight under normal conditions receive $500 more per student than a district with similar poverty in neighboring Massachusetts. But for the recovery aid, this difference was closer to $5,000 per student, Kane said.
Its impossible to say at this point what academic interventions drove learning recovery, because neither of the studies looked at exactly how districts spent their ESSER money. In part, thats because besides requiring that districts spend at least 20 percent of their grants on learning recovery, states differed widely in how they asked districts to report their spending. Moreover, districts still have until Sept. 30 to commit their grant spending and through the end of January 2025 to finish spending the money.
Based on what we saw between 22 and 23, we would predict that therell be an awful lot of districts that are still behind when 24 [test results] come back, Kane said. We ought to be asking ourselves, what more is it going to take? ... Because the recovery is unlikely to be over.
Test for COVID-19 if you were exposed to COVID-19 or if you have COVID-19 symptoms.
While you wait for your COVID-19 test results, stay home and monitor your symptoms to protect yourself and others.
For more information about COVID-19 testing, visit: COVID-19 Testing: You Need to Know | CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
There are many ways test for COVID-19 in Wisconsin:
If your COVID-19 test is positive, it means the virus was detected and you have or recently had an infection. If you have symptoms, stay home and away from others (including people you live with who are not sick). Take steps to prevent spreading COVID-19. You can go back to your normal activities when, for at least 24 hours:
If your COVID-19 test is negative, it means the test did not detect the virus and you likely do not have COVID-19.
For more information about what your COVID-19 test result means, visit: COVID-19 Testing: What You Need to Know | CDC
The authors reporting experiments on the use of human and/or human tissue samples were all experiments conducted in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations. Informed consent was obtained from all subjects and/or legal guardians. The study was conducted in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations for all methods.
In our hospital, we performed a prospective cohort study from June 21, 2020, to September 30, 2023, with patients who possibly had COVID-19 using a preformed case record form. We enrolled 119 patients with confirmed COVID-19 who gave consent for comprehensive use of specimens, admitted from June 21, 2020 to October 22, 2021 at Chosun University Hospital, South Korea. Our aim was to examine the clinical association of antigenemia and RNAemia. All selected patients were clinically confirmed to be SARS-CoV-2 positive using more than one diagnostic methods, including real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) with the confirmation of more than two target genes, cell culture, or afourfold increase or seroconversion in terms of SARS-CoV-2 antibody titer (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay [ELISA] or indirect immunofluorescence antibody assay). Moreover, 81 serum/plasma samples of healthy individuals without clinical symptoms, no history of COVID-19, and negative nasopharyngeal qRT-PCR results were used as control samples for the sensitivity assay.
Peripheral blood was collected from all patients and 200 L serum/plasma samples from fresh blood were used for ribonucleic acid (RNA) extraction. Concurrently self-collected sputum samples collected from the patients were diluted in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS), mixed by vortexing and pulse-centrifuged for 1min, and 200 L supernatant was subjected to RNA extraction. Nasopharynx swabs were directly collected into the commercial UTM kits containing 1mL of a viral transport medium (NobleBio, Oldenzaal, The Netherlands) by a physician, and 200 L were employed for RNA extraction. The viral RNA was extracted by Real-prep Viral DNA/RNA Kit (Biosewoom, Seoul, South Korea) using a fully automated instrument (Real-Prep system, Biosewoom).
For the qRT-PCR assay of the nucleocapsid protein (NP) gene, primers and probes were designed in-house, nCov-NP_572F (5-GCAACAGTTCAAGAAATTC-3), nCov-NP_687R (5-CTGGTTCAATCTGTCAAG-3), and nCov-NP_661P (5-FAM-AAGCAAGAGCAGCATCACCG-BHQ1-3). Thermal cycling was performed as follows: 50C for 10min for reverse transcription, one cycle of 95C for 30s for preincubation, 95C for 5s at 57C for amplification, and 45 cycles for data detection. For the target genes E (encoding envelope protein) and RdRp (encoding RNA-dependent RNA polymerase), the Kogene Kit (Kogene Biotech Co., Ltd., Seoul, South Korea) and SD Kit (SD Biotechnologies Co., Ltd., Seoul, South Korea) were used, and amplification was performed according to the manufacturers instructions. For the NP target, qRT-PCR was performed in an Exicycler 96 Real-Time Quantitative Thermal Block (Bioneer, Smiths Parish, Bermuda), and for Kogene and SD kits, the CFX96 Touch Real-Time PCR Detection System (Biorad, Hercules, CA, USA) was used. Cycle threshold (Ct) values were set to40 for the reference gene and were assumed to denote a positive result.
For the identification of SARS-CoV-2 in culture, monolayers of Vero E6 cells were cultured in Dulbeccos modified Eagles medium supplemented with 10% of fetal bovine serum and a 1penicillinstreptomycin antibiotic solution (Gibco, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Waltham, MA, USA) in an atmosphere containing 5% of CO2 at 37C. Then, 200 L of an unfrozen swab sample in viral transport medium (UTM kit, NobleBio) diluted with 1mL of Dulbeccos phosphate-buffered saline (Welgene, Taipei, Fujian, China) was inoculated to the monolayer of cultured Vero cells. After two passages, viral proliferation was confirmed by qRT-PCR with a confirmatory Ct value<20 or an indirect immunofluorescence assay using in-house SARS-CoV-2 antigen slides. Meanwhile, inoculated cells were examined daily for cytopathic effects, as described for SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV in other studies16,17.
The nucleocapsid protein (N) antigenemia assay of patients with and without COVID-19 was carried out using single molecule array (SIMOA) technology with paramagnetic microbeadsbased sandwich ELISA. The SIMOA SARS-CoV-2 N Protein Advantage kit assay (Quanterix Corp, Boston, MA, USA, PN/103806) is a digital immunoassay that quantitatively measures the SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid protein in human serum and plasma. Plasma or serum obtained from fresh blood was frozen after aliquoting to minimize protein degradation due to freezethaw cycles and thawed at room temperature before use for antigenemia assay. Briefly, each well of 96-well ELISA microplates (Quanterix plates) was loaded with 4dilution of plasma or serum and assayed in Simoa HD-X instrument (Quanterix) using a twostep immunoassay. For detection, incubation was performed with the target antibody coated with paramagnetic beads, sample, and biotinylated antibody (SIMOA Guide Quanterix). The nucleocapsid protein present in the sample was captured using antibody-coated beads bound to the biotinylated antibody, and detected simultaneously as described previously18,19.
Indirect ELISA for SARS-CoV-2 was performed using a recombinant nucleocapsid protein (Bioapp. Inc., Pohang, South Korea) to determine serological titers of immunoglobulin G (IgG), immunoglobulin M (IgM), and total antibodies. Frozen serum samples were thawed at room temperature and used for indirect ELISA. In brief, 100 L of 2g/mL recombinant SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid protein (Bioapp. Inc.) was coated in a 96-well ELISA microplate (Thermo Fisher Scientific) with carbonate-bicarbonate buffer, with overnight incubation at 4C. The ELISA plates were washed with PBS containing 0.05% Tween 20, followed by 2-h blocking at 37C with 5% skim milk in blocking buffer. The plates were further washed incubated for another 2h at 37C with the serum samples diluted 100-fold in blocking buffer. After washing, a secondary antibody (horseradish peroxidase-conjugated goat anti-human IgG antibody [1:6000, Invitrogen, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Cat A18805], anti-human IgM antibody [1:3000, Invitrogen, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Cat 31415], or anti-human total-antibody antibody [1:40,000; Thermo Fisher Scientific, Cat 31418]) was added, and incubated again for another 1h at 37C. The plates were further washed and 50 L of the 3,35,5-tetramethylbenzidine substrate (Sigma-Aldrich, St. Louis, MO, USA) was added and incubated at room temperature (2030C) for 30min in dark. Moreover, 25 L of 1M H2SO4 was added for arresting the reaction and the optical density was measured using an Epoch two microplate spectrophotometer (Kitchener, ON, Canada) at 450nm (OD450). The cutoff values and positivity for SARS-CoV-2 were set as described previously20.
Statistical analyses were performed using MedCalc 20013 software (Ostend, Belgium), and IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, version 26.0. (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA), and GraphPad Prism 9 (San Diego, CA, USA). The sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of the test were evaluated using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. Confidence intervals for sensitivity, specificity and accuracy are exact ClopperPearson confidence intervals21. To determine the 40-day survival rate, KaplanMeier survival analysis was conducted based on the antigenemia concentration. Quantitative variables are presented as meanstandard deviation and n (%) for normally distributed variables. Mean values were compared using t-tests for continuous variables and were found to be normally distributed. P-values comparing patients with COVID-19 with evidence of antigenemia and RNAemia to those without antigenemia and RNAemia were calculated using the MannWhitney U or Fishers exact test, as appropriate.
NEW YORK (AP) With fresh COVID-19 cases bubbling up in some parts of the country, health officials are setting course for a fall vaccination campaign.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday recommended new shots for all Americans this fall.
Officials acknowledged the need for shots is not as dire as it was only a few years ago. Most Americans have some degree of immunity from being infected, from past vaccinations or both. COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations last month were at about their lowest point since the pandemic first hit the United States in 2020.
But immunity wanes, new coronavirus variants keep emerging and there are still hundreds of COVID-19-associated deaths and thousands of hospitalizations reported each week.
Whats more, health officials have reported upticks this month in COVID-19-associated emergency room visits and hospitalizations, and a pronounced increase in positive test results in the southwestern U.S.
Its not clear whether thats a sign of a coming summer wave which has happened before or just a blip, said Lauren Ancel Meyers of the University of Texas, who leads a research team that tracks COVID-19.
Well have to see what happens in the coming weeks, she said.
Earlier this month, the Food and Drug Administration following the guidance of its own panel of expert advisers told vaccine manufacturers to target the JN.1 version of the virus. But a week later, the FDA told manufacturers that if they could still switch, a better target might be an offshoot subtype called KP.2.
At a Thursday meeting at the CDC in Atlanta, infectious disease experts unanimously recommended the updated vaccines for Americans age 6 months and older. The CDC director signed off on the recommendation later in the day. The shots are expected to become available in August and September.
Health officials have told Americans to expect a yearly update to COVID-19 vaccines, just like they are recommended to get a new shot each fall to protect against the latest flu strains.
But many Americans arent heeding the CDCs advice.
As of last month, less than one-quarter of U.S. adults and 14% of children were up to date in their COVID shots. Surveys show shrinking percentages of Americans think COVID-19 is a major health threat to the U.S. population, and indicate that fewer doctors are urging patients to get updated vaccines.
CDC officials on Thursday presented recent survey information in which about 23% of respondents said they would definitely get an updated COVID-19 shot this fall, but 33% said they definitely would not.
Meanwhile, the CDCs Bridge Access Program which has been paying for shots for uninsured U.S. adults is expected to shut down in August because of discontinued funding. The program paid for nearly 1.5 million doses from September to last month.
It is a challenge with this program going away, said the CDCs Shannon Stokley.
About 1.2 million U.S. COVID-associated deaths have been reported since early 2020, according to the CDC. The toll was most intense in the winter of 2020-2021, when weekly deaths surpassed 20,000. About 1 out of every 100 Americans ages 75 and older were hospitalized with COVID in the last four years, CDC officials said Thursday.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Figure1 shows the modelled epidemic around the time of the start of the war in early 2022 fitted to observed data to estimate the reduction in population contacts. In the base case scenario where masks are 60% effective, the best fit to data shows a reduction in contacts of 33% in the first period and 47% to 70% in the second period (Fig.1). Otherwise, in the case of masks being effective at 40%, the best fit resulted in a reduction in contacts of 40% in the first period and 53% to 73% in the second period.
Model fit to clinical case notification data (COVID-19 incidence notification data) between 6 January 2022 and 25 February 2022, with masks 60% effective. The vertical lines represent the dates of policy changes. 6 January is the start of the Omicron wave; 617 January is the first pre-war period with the implemented restrictions policy17,18; 1825 January is the second pre-war period where the reduction in contacts increases with the additional policy of closure of public transports and enforced mask use in all public spaces17,18; 25 February represent the start of the war, where vaccine rollout and contact tracing stops.
The modelled incidence of deaths in the same period, using reported rates from European and US studies, of 0.3%, 0.08%, and 0.07% in unvaccinated, vaccinated with two and three doses respectively (Fig.2 green line), is much lower than rates reported in Ukraine (Fig.2 blue line). Multiplying those numbers by 5 times, produces a much better fit (Fig.2 red line), suggesting an under report of case numbers or higher death rates for Ukraine compared to the ones estimated in EU and the US used.
Modelled deaths (green line), multiplied by 5 (red line), and death notification data (blue line) between 6 January 2022 and 25 February 2022.
The results of sensitivity analysis on mask use, based on the last reported vaccination rates (39.3% of the 15+age group with two doses and 6.3% of the 60+with 3 doses), are shown in Figs.3 and 4. The epidemic forecast is shown in Fig.3, with hospitalization and ICU daily bed requirements in Fig.4. In each scenario, the epidemic peak was expected to be at the start of April 2022.
Number of daily new cases (incidence), cumulative cases, and cumulative deaths in the scenario with 39.3% of the 15+age group with two doses and 6.3% of the 60+with 3 doses, varying mask use coverage (0%, 50%, 80%) with 60% effectiveness, from 6 January to 14 April 2022.
Hospitalization (H) and ICU beds used over time, keeping the last vaccination coverage notified (39.3% of the 15+age group with two doses and 6.3% of the 60+with 3 doses) and varying mask use coverage (0%, 50%, 80%), from 6 January to 5 June 2022.
The outbreak peaks at about 3.7, 2.3, and 1.4 million cases, with a total of almost 90%, 80%, and 70% of the population being infected at the end of the outbreak, with 0%, 50%, and 80% of the population using masks, respectively (Fig.3). Figure4 shows that the maximum number of daily hospital beds required at the peak is estimated to be about 140, 103, and 69 thousand in scenarios of varying mask use, with a total of almost 300,000 beds available in Ukraine before the war started. The number of daily ICU beds required at the peak is estimated to be about 21, 15, and 10 thousand with 0%, 50%, and 80% mask use.
The results of the sensitivity analysis on vaccination coverage are shown in Figs.5 and 6. Figure5 shows the epidemic forecast and Fig.6, the hospitalization and ICU daily bed requirement with mask use at 50% and vaccination rates increased from 39.3% to 60% and 80%.
Case incidence, cumulative cases, and deaths in the scenario with 50% of the population using masks and varying the vaccination coverage, for 2 doses (v2) and three doses (v3), from 6 January to 16 April 2022.
Hospitalization (H) and ICU beds used over time, with 50% of the population using masks and varying the vaccination coverage for two (v2) and three doses (v3), from 6 January to 5 June 2022.
The outbreak peaks at about 2.3, 2.1, and 1.8 million cases, with a total of about 80%, 76%, and 74% of the population being infected at the end of the outbreak, at the three different vaccination scenarios (Fig.5). The maximum number of hospital beds required at the peak is estimated to be about 103, 80, and 56 thousand in each scenario, while requirements for ICU beds have been estimated to be about 15, 11, and 7 thousand (Fig.6).
From the base case scenario, the model shows increasing mask-wearing from 50% (base-case) to 80% could result in a 17% reduction in cases (from a total of 33,432,800 at 50% to 28,006,300 at 80%) and a 30% reduction in deaths (from 56,028 to 39,241). If vaccine coverage is increased from 39.3% and 6.3% with two and three doses respectively (base-case) to 60% of people aged 15+with two doses and 9.6% of people aged 60+with three doses, the reduction in cases and deaths could have been 3% (from 33,432,800 to 32,365,700) and 28% (from 56,028 to 39,867) respectively. However, when comparing the results of increasing mask use at 80% with the scenario where 80% and 12.8% of the population are vaccinated with two and three doses respectively, we found that high mask use results in a lower cumulative total number of cases (about 28 million) compared with high two doses vaccination coverage (about 31 million), but a higher number of total death (about 38,000 against 23,000). When testing if results were consistent in the case of only poor-quality masks (40% instead of 60% effectiveness) being available, we found that increasing mask use from 50% to 80% could have reduced cases and deaths by 6.1% (from 35,246,400 at 50% to 33,070,800 at 80% mask use) and 11.3% respectively (from 65,758 to 58,335). If vaccine coverage was increased to 60% with two doses and 9.6% of people aged 60+with three doses, the reduction in cases and deaths could have been respectively 2.3% (from 35,246,400 to 34,443,600) and 25.6% (from 65,758 to 48,781).
courier-journal.com wants to ensure the best experience for all of our readers, so we built our site to take advantage of the latest technology, making it faster and easier to use.
Unfortunately, your browser is not supported. Please download one of these browsers for the best experience on courier-journal.com
