Category: Corona Virus Vaccine

L.L. Bean has just added a third shift at its factory in Brunswick, Maine, in an attempt to keep up with demand for its iconic boot.

Orders have quadrupled in the past few years as the boots have become more popular among a younger, more urban crowd.

The company says it saw the trend coming and tried to prepare, but orders outpaced projections. They expect to sell 450,000 pairs of boots in 2014.

People hoping to have the boots in time for Christmas are likely going to be disappointed. The bootsare back ordered through February and even March.

"I've been told it's a good problem to have but I"m disappointed that customers not getting what they want as quickly as they want," said Senior Manufacturing Manager Royce Haines.

Customers like, Mary Clifford, tried to order boots on line, but they were back ordered until January.

"I was very surprised this is what they are known for and at Christmas time you can't get them when you need them," said Clifford.

People who do have boots are trying to capitalize on the shortage and are selling them on Ebay at a much higher cost.

L.L. Bean says it has hired dozens of new boot makers, but it takes up to six months to train someone to make a boot.

The company has also spent a million dollars on new equipment to try and keep pace with demand.

Some customers are having luck at the retail stores. They have a separate inventory, and while sizes are limited, those stores have boots on the shelves.

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SF public health department to close COVID-19 community testing, vaccination sites - NBC Bay Area

WLRN has partnered with PolitiFact to fact-check Florida politicians. The Pulitzer Prize-winning team seeks to present the true facts, unaffected by agenda or biases.

HAMPTON, N.H. During his presidential campaign, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has emphasized the speed with which he opened his state during the coronavirus pandemic. He argued this move unleashed the economy when many other states were struggling because of pandemic-related shutdowns.

After initially supporting the coronavirus vaccine during its wide rollout in early 2021, DeSantis and his allies have expressed skepticism about them. DeSantis hand-picked state surgeon general, Joseph Ladapo, for example, argued that small DNA fragments in the vaccines could pose a "unique and elevated risk to human health." PolitiFact found the scientific consensus says they dont.

During a visit to this Atlantic Ocean beach town, more than 100 supporters packed into Wallys restaurant to hear DeSantis speak and take questions.

DeSantis urged caution about the coronavirus vaccine that medical officials and most doctors still urge Americans to get. He said people who get the vaccine are likelier to get sick.

"Every booster you take, youre more likely to get COVID as a result of it," DeSantis said.

DeSantis said something similar in January 2023: "Almost every study now has said with these new boosters, you're more likely to get infected with the bivalent booster." We rated that False.

For this article, we checked back with experts to whether any developments changed their assessment during the subsequent year. All disagreed with DeSantis.

Neither the DeSantis campaign nor his gubernatorial office responded to an inquiry for this report.

What vaccines are designed to do

Broadly speaking, COVID-19 vaccines are not designed to prevent infection; they prevent the virus from spreading within the body and causing severe illness.

"COVID-19 vaccines, including boosters, have now been shown to be most effective against severe disease," said Monica Gandhi, a professor of medicine and associate chief in the division of HIV, infectious diseases, and global medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

Gandhi said the most recent boosters were tailored to target one variant, XBB1.5. She said the boosters have been shown to significantly reduce COVID-19 hospitalizations in people older than 65, including in a recent study from Denmark.

DeSantis comments hint that he is holding the vaccine to a standard complete protection against infection that it was never intended to provide.

The Cleveland Clinic study

One study DeSantis office cited for our story a year ago came from the Cleveland Clinic and was discussed in an opinion article in The Wall Street Journal.

But Dr. Nabin Shrestha, an infectious disease physician and one of the study's authors, told PolitiFact at the time that, contrary to DeSantis remark, the data did not find a link between getting the shot and having a higher risk of contracting COVID-19.

What drove coverage in outlets such as The Wall Street Journal was an "unexpected" association researchers found between the number of prior vaccine doses and an increased risk of contracting COVID-19. People with three or more doses of the vaccine had a higher chance of getting infected.

However, experts told PolitiFact that the study population was not reflective of the general public; it consisted of younger, relatively healthy health care workers and included no children and few elderly or immunocompromised people. Therefore, experts said, the study cannot simply be extrapolated to the population at large.

Ren Najera, an epidemiologist and director of the Center for Public Health at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, told PolitiFact last year that the population tested would be "more likely to be exposed and more likely to be vaccinated as well. The findings would only be applicable to health care workers in large settings such as the Cleveland Clinic, not the general public."

Why good studies of infection are hard to do

Gandhi and other medical professionals told PolitiFact that studies like the Cleveland Clinics are imperfect, because it is hard to conduct real-world experiments that gauge infection rates, especially for vulnerable populations. Studies tend to get participants who are healthy and are likelier to get boosters, Gandhi said.

Therefore, studies of this sort are "subject to massive bias," said Babak Javid, associate director of bench science at the University of California-San Francisco Center for Tuberculosis Medicine.

Javid says theres also significant overlap among the people who get the new booster and those who test themselves frequently. "Since infection status can only be documented if a test is performed, it could easily explain how more vaccinated people are in the 'infected' camp," he said. People who are not getting vaccinated or tested simply wont be counted, skewing attempts at making comparisons.

Another complication in tracking infection rates is that coronavirus vaccines present the same dynamics as any vaccine. That is, by protecting against one strain, or just a few strains, of a given virus, vaccinated people are still liable to get infected by a different strain that the vaccine doesnt cover, said Jill Roberts, an associate professor in the College of Public Health, Global and Planetary Health at the University of South Florida.

Thats why many vaccines, such as flu and COVID-19 shots, need frequent updating, experts said.

Gandhi said that although the boosters have long been known to offer only "modest protection, if at all, against COVID-19 infection ... there is no evidence to suggest that boosters actually increase the risk of COVID-19 infection."

Thus, she said, DeSantis "is incorrect in saying boosters will lead to more frequent infections."

Our ruling

DeSantis said, "Every booster you take, youre more likely to get COVID as a result of it."

Experts say there is no hard evidence that infection is greater in people who have had boosters.

Part of the reason is that determining infection rates among all members of society is difficult. Most studies rely on younger and healthier patients, who are not necessarily typical. Also, people who are not getting vaccinated or tested simply wont be counted, skewing attempts at comparisons, experts said.

We rate the statement False.

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PolitiFact FL: DeSantis is wrong that boosters make COVID-19 infection more likely - WLRN

Overview

Globally, the number of new cases increased by 4% during the 28-day period of 11 December 2023 to 7 January 2024 as compared to the previous 28-day period, with over 1.1 million new cases. The number of new deaths decreased by 26% as compared to the previous 28-day period, with 8700 new fatalities reported. As of 7 January 2024, over 774 million confirmed cases and over seven million deaths have been reported globally.

During the period from 11 December 2023 to 7 January 2024, COVID-19 new hospitalizations and admissions to an intensive care unit (ICU) both recorded an overall increase of 40% and 13% with over 173 000 and 1900 admissions, respectively.

Globally, JN.1 is currently the most circulating VOI and is now reported by 71 countries, accounting for around 66% of the sequences in week 52 compared to around 25% in week 48. Its parent lineage, BA.2.86, is stable and accounted for 7.8% of sequences in week 52 compared to 7.0% in week 48. The initial risk evaluation for JN.1 was published on 19 December 2023, with an overall evaluation of low public health risk at global level based on available evidence.

In this edition, we include:

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COVID-19 epidemiological update 19 January 2024 - World Health Organization

January 19, 2024

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Three or more doses of maternal COVID-19 vaccine significantly enhance antibody concentrations in preterm infants compared with two or fewer doses, according to study results published in JAMA Network Open.

The authors noted that COVID-19 vaccines have been instrumental in decreasing morbidity and mortality from SARS-CoV-2 infection during pregnancy.

COVID-19 vaccines induce anti-spike (anti-S) antibody production in pregnant individuals that, similarly to antibodies against other respiratory infections, such as influenza, are able to cross the placenta via active transplacental antibody transfer, they wrote.

They also noted that although COVID-19 vaccines given to pregnant people may project infants from severe illness through transplacental transfer of the maternal antibody IgG,

Few data exist on maternally derived SARS-CoV-2 antibody in infants born prematurely.

Our objective was to evaluate anti-S antibody among paired maternal samples and cord samples from preterm and full-term deliveries, they wrote.

They conducted a prospective cohort study of 220 pregnancies 36 infants born preterm and 184 born full-term and found that receipt of three or more doses of COVID-19 vaccine before delivery resulted in 10-fold higher cord anti-S antibody levels compared with receipt of two doses.

Before delivery, 121 pregnant people received two vaccine doses and 99 received three or more. The two-dose group had a geometric mean concentration of maternal anti-S antibodies amounting to 674 (95% CI, 577-787), whereas the three-dose group had a concentration of 8,159 (95% CI, 6,636-10,032).

Cord anti-S antibody geometric mean concentration was 1,000 (95% CI, 874-1,144) after two doses and 9,992 (95% CI, 8381-1,1914) after three or more doses. Following adjustment for vaccine timing and number of doses before delivery, the researchers found no association between preterm delivery and cord anti-S antibody levels (=0.44; 95% CI, 0.06 to 0.94).

Maternal antibody concentration appeared more important than delivery gestational age in determining cord anti-spike antibody levels, the authors wrote. The number of doses and timing considerations for COVID-19 vaccine in pregnancy should include individuals at risk for preterm delivery.

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Three or more maternal doses of COVID-19 vaccine enhance newborn protection - Healio

The discovery and rapid implementation of mass vaccination has changed the course of the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, which was caused by the emergence of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2).

To this end, a recentNature Communicationsstudy investigates the need for prioritizing COVID-19 booster vaccination.

Mass global COVID-19 vaccination significantly reduced severe SARS-CoV-2 infection, mortality, and morbidity. Despite being vaccinated with two doses of the vaccine, some people continue to be at a higher risk of death due to COVID-19 .

Many studies have demonstrated that antibody levels decline over time, which has led to booster COVID-19 vaccination in an effort to restore protection against SARS-CoV-2.

In the United Kingdom, the first COVID-19 booster dose was offered to all adults three months after receiving the second vaccine dose. The health officials strategized that more COVID-19 booster doses would be offered to vulnerable groups, such as older adults, people with comorbidities, and healthcare workers who were at a higher risk of contracting severe SARS-CoV-2 infection, hospitalization, or death.

Consistent protection against COVID-19 could reduce the direct and indirect effects of the disease on healthcare services. Therefore, it is imperative to identify specific groups that are more vulnerable to severe outcomes from SARS-CoV-2 infection. These groups should be offered additional COVID-19 booster doses to ensure their protection against SARS-CoV-2.

The current study identified groups of adults who are at a greater risk of SARS-CoV-2-infection-related death, even after receiving a second booster dose of the vaccine. This group received the booster dose during Englands 2022 autumn booster campaign.

Here, individuals present in the 2021 census were included. The census was linked to the Personal Demographics Service (PDS) to obtain National Health Service (NHS) data.

Through the NHS number, individuals were further linked to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) death registrations and other electronic health records. Information about COVID-19 vaccination status was obtained from the National Immunization Management Service (NIMS).

Taken together, the linked dataset provided relevant information on about 52 million residents of England, which comprised about 92% of Englands population, according to the 2021 Census. The study cohort included individuals who received COVID-19 booster vaccine doses in England after September 1, 2022, and were between 50 and 100 years of age.

A total of 14,651,440 adults with a mean age of 67.9 years were included in the analysis. The percentage of women present in this study population was marginally more than males and 90.4% were White British.

Individuals with learning disabilities or Downs syndrome, motor neuron disease, multiple sclerosis, Parkinsons disease, pulmonary hypertension or fibrosis, cancer of blood and bone marrow, dementia or liver cirrhosis, lung or oral cancer, and myasthenia or Huntingtons disease were identified and independently linked to an increased risk of COVID-19 related death.

As compared to non-COVID-19 deaths, a greater number of deaths linked to SARS-CoV-2 infection was observed among individuals with cystic fibrosis, chronic kidney disease (CKD), rheumatoid arthritis, pulmonary hypotension, and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE).

The study findings strongly imply that individuals with these health conditions were at a greater risk of COVID-19 death relative to other causes of death. However, the increased rate of COVID-19 deaths was similar to or lower than the increased risk of deaths from other causes.

Consistent with previous reports, the current study indicated that the first COVID-19 booster vaccine significantly reduced severe infection, hospitalization rates, and deaths among individuals belonging to high-risk groups. Importantly, the risk of infection varies depending on multiple clinical factors, such as being in frequent contact with medical staff and residing in communal establishments.

A key strength of the study is the use of population-level linked data. Clinical risk factors that augmented the risk of death due to SARS-CoV-2 infection were identified. Another strength of the study is the use of non-COVID-19 deaths as a comparator to identify the risk factors.

The current study also has some limitations, including the use of only the 2021 Census, as non-responders were not considered. Furthermore, the rate of hospitalization due to COVID-19 was not considered due to the lack of data.

The behavior of independent individuals, particularly those in compliance with social distancing recommendations, plays a crucial role in a diseased state. However, this information was not considered for the analysis.

Despite these limitations, the current study identified the most vulnerable individuals who require subsequent COVID-19 boosters to protect them from severe outcomes. Thus, these individuals must be prioritized for subsequent booster vaccinations.

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The crucial need for ongoing COVID-19 booster vaccination in vulnerable populations - News-Medical.Net

This national investigation has identified adults who remained at increased risk of COVID-19 death after receiving a second dose booster vaccination in England in Autumn 2022. Our results indicate that having learning disabilities or Downs syndrome, pulmonary hypertension or fibrosis, motor neuron disease, multiple sclerosis, myasthenia or Huntingtons disease, cancer of blood and bone marrow, Parkinsons disease, lung or oral cancer, dementia or liver cirrhosis were independently associated with a higher risk of COVID-19 related death. For cancer of blood or bone marrow, CKD, cystic fibrosis, pulmonary hypotension or fibrosis or rheumatoid arthritis or SLE the increase in the relative risk was greater for COVID-19 death than non-COVID-19 death. Our findings suggest individuals in those groups were particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 death relative to other causes of death. For instance, for people with rheumatoid arthritis or SLE, the risk of dying from non-COVID-19 causes was not significantly different from people without these diagnoses; however, the risk was higher for COVID-19 death. Importantly, this group was not identified as one of the listed health comorbidities with the highest overall risk of COVID-19 death, but our analysis highlights the importance of relative risk with individuals being more likely to die from COVID-19 in this group relative to other causes.

For many health conditions the increase in risk of COVID-19 death was similar to, or lower than, the increase in risk of non-COVID-19 deaths, suggesting that the increase in the risk of COVID-19 death was not different to the increase in the risk of death from other causes. Whilst we find that patients with asthma were at elevated risk of COVID-19 death after accounting for age, sex, ethnic group and region, we found that having asthma was not associated with the risk of COVID-19 death after adjusting for other comorbidities, suggesting that asthma was not directly increasing the risk of COVID-19 death.

Our findings support previous research which has assessed mortality outcomes following first dose COVID-19 booster vaccinations8. Overall, in the UK first dose booster vaccinations have been found to reduce severe outcomes (hospitalisation and death), with particular groups remaining at elevated risk2. Older adults (over 80 years of age), those with health comorbidities and specific conditions such as CKD were found to be at elevated risk. A study conducted in the United States reported that in patients who were immunocomproised, diabetic, had CKD or chronic lung disease there was a graded increase in risk of breakthrough COVID-19 infections positively associated with the number of comorbidities following two primary doses9. It is important to consider the results presented in our study may not reflect the differences in risk of COVID-19 death following infection. Our study looks at the risk of death since the time of having received a second booster dose, not since infection. It is possible that the risk of infection also differs by clinical risk factors, as patients who are the most vulnerable may maintain social isolation to protect themselves. It is also possible that some vulnerable patients may be at greater risk of infection because they live in communal establishments or have frequent contacts with carers or medical staff.

Critically, our work assesses the impact of the autumn 2022 booster vaccination on COVID-19, but additionally non-COVID-19 outcomes in adults in England. Our results provide strong evidence to inform JCVI about which groups should be prioritised for subsequent boosters and possibly subsequent boosters. It is critical to highlight the fact that some groups who do not have the overall highest risk of COVID-19 death, have an increased risk relative to non-COVID-19 causes and thus should remain a key priority.

Our study has several strengths. Firstly, we used population level data for England based on a unique linkage of the 2021 Census to electronic health records. Sociodemographic characteristics, including ethnic group, were derived from the 2021 Census, and were accurate and had low missingness, unlike in some electronic health records, where ethnic group is often missing and not always self-reported10. Second, we identified the clinical risk factors using primary care data. Third, we used information on the cause of death to define COVID-19 death and were also able to examine non-COVID-19 death as a comparator and identify which conditions were associated with a relative increased risk of larger for COVID-19 death than for non-COVID-19 death.

An important limitation of our study is the use of 2021 Census for our population means that people who did not respond to the Census were excluded. In addition, it also excluded Census respondents who could not be linked to the Personal Demographics Service (PDS). However, the data we used covered 96.0% of those who received a booster dose in England the autumn of 2022. One of the limitations of our work was the lack of data on COVID-19 hospital admissions11. In order to effectively manage resource and understand which groups are at the highest risk of hospitalisation, subsequent work with access to timely data should account for hospital admittance. Additionally, we are unable to account for behaviours which would be classified as health protective such as minimising social contact in the present study. Therefore, it is important to consider for some patients whose risk of hospitalisation or death was most pertinent following SARS-CoV-2 infection, they may be maintaining social isolation to protect themselves. Hence for groups of individuals where the risk was not higher for COVID-19 outcomes, but overall was greater for all-cause death we must maintain prioritisation of vaccination to these individuals. Subsequent research should explore common conditions (e.g., asthma) to understand if the interaction between having a common diagnosis in addition to another specific condition results in a particular susceptibility to adverse COVID-19 outcomes.

Our work investigates the risk of cause-specific COVID-19 death, as well as non-COVID-19 death in a cohort of adults who received a booster dose in the autumn of 2022. In order to effectively manage the COVID-19 risk, it is imperative that the most vulnerable groups of individuals are prioritised for COVID-19 booster vaccinations. We highlight that the risk of COVID-19 death, compared to all other cause death, remains particularly high in adults with learning disabilities or Down syndrome, pulmonary hypertension or fibrosis, motor neuron disease, multiple sclerosis, myasthenia or Huntingtons disease, cancer of blood and bone marrow, Parkinsons disease, lung or oral cancer, dementia, or liver cirrhosis. These groups of patients should be a key priority for subsequent vaccinations, therapeutics, and novel treatment. In addition, we highlight the risk associated with a range of health conditions and sociodemographic characteristics which should inform policy makers and researchers with key demographics of interest for subsequent research and vaccination.

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Risk of COVID-19 death in adults who received booster COVID-19 vaccinations in England - Nature.com

But the virus is still infecting people.

With changes in the nature of the pandemic and the response, KFF Health News spoke with doctors and researchers about how to best handle COVID, influenza, and other respiratory ailments spreading this season.

A holiday wave of sickness has ensued as expected. COVID infections have escalated nationwide in the past few weeks, with analyses of virus traces in wastewater suggesting infection rates as high as last years. More than 73,000 people died of COVID in the U.S. in 2023, meaning the virus remains deadlier than car accidents and influenza. Still, compared with last years seasonal surge, this winters wave of COVID hospitalizations has been lower and death rates less than half.

Were seeing outbreaks in homeless shelters and in nursing homes, but hospitals arent overwhelmed like they have been in the past, said Salvador Sandoval, a doctor and health officer at the Merced County public health department in California. He attributes that welcome fact to vaccination, COVID treatments like Paxlovid, and a degree of immunity from prior infections.

While a new coronavirus variant, JN.1, has spread around the world, the current vaccines and COVID tests remain effective.

Other seasonal illnesses are surging, too, but rates are consistent with those of previous years. Between 9,400 and 28,000 people died from influenza from Oct. 1 to Jan. 6, estimates the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and millions felt so ill from the flu that they sought medical care.

Cases of pneumonia a serious condition marked by inflamed lungs that can be triggered by the flu, COVID, or other infections also predictably rose as winter set in. Researchers are now less concerned about flare-ups of pneumonia in China, Denmark, and France in November and December, because they fit cyclical patterns of the pneumonia-causing bacteria Mycoplasma pneumoniae rather than outbreaks of a dangerous new bug.

Public health researchers recommend following the CDC guidance on getting the latest COVID and influenza vaccines to ward off hospitalization and death from the diseases and reduce chances of getting sick. A recent review of studies that included 614,000 people found that those who received two COVID vaccines were also less likely to develop long COVID; often involving fatigue, cognitive dysfunction, and joint pain, the condition is marked by the development or continuation of symptoms a few months after an infection and has been debilitating for millions of people. Another analysis found that people who had three doses of COVID vaccines were much less likely to have long COVID than those who were unvaccinated.

Its not too late for an influenza vaccine, either, said Helen Chu, a doctor and epidemiologist at the University of Washington in Seattle. Influenza continues to rise into the new year, especially in Southern states and California. Last seasons shot appeared to reduce adults risk of visits to the emergency room and urgent care by almost half and hospitalization by more than a third. Meanwhile, another seasonal illness with a fresh set of vaccines released last year, respiratory syncytial virus, appears to be waning this month.

Another powerful way to prevent COVID, influenza, common colds, and other airborne infections is by wearing an N95 mask. Many researchers say theyve returned to socializing without one but opt for the masks in crowded, indoor places when wearing one would not be particularly burdensome. Karan, for example, wears his favorite N95 masks on airplanes. And dont forget good, old-fashioned hand-washing, which helps prevent infections as well.

If you do all that and still feel sick? Researchers say they reach for rapid COVID tests. While theyve never been perfect, theyre often quite helpful in guiding a persons next steps.

When President Joe Biden declared the end of the public health emergency last year, many federally funded testing sites that sent samples to laboratories shut their doors. As a result, people now mainly turn to home COVID tests that signal an infection within 15 minutes and cost around $6 to $8 each at many pharmacies. The trick is to use these tests correctly by taking more than one when theres reason for concern. They miss early infections more often than tests processed in a lab, because higher levels of the coronavirus are required for detection and the virus takes time to multiply in the body. For this reason, Karan considers other information. If I ran into someone who turned out to be sick, and then I get symptoms a few days later, he said, the chance is high that I have whatever they had, even if a test is negative.

A negative result with a rapid test might mean simply that an infection hasnt progressed enough to be detected, that the test had expired, or that it was conducted wrong. To be sure the culprit behind symptoms like a sore throat isnt COVID, researchers suggest testing again in a day or two. It often takes about three days after symptoms start for a test to register as positive, said Karan, adding that such time estimates are based on averages and that individuals may deviate from the norm.

If a person feels healthy and wants to know their status because they were around someone with COVID, Karan recommends testing two to four days after the exposure. To protect others during those uncertain days, the person can wear an N95 mask that blocks the spread of the virus. If tests remain negative five days after an exposure and the person still feels fine, Chu said, theyre unlikely to be infected and, if they are, viral levels would be so low that they would be unlikely to pass the disease to others.

Positive tests, on the other hand, reliably flag an infection. In this case, people can ask a doctor whether they qualify for the antiviral drug Paxlovid. The pills work best when taken immediately after symptoms begin so that they slash levels of the virus before it damages the body. Some studies suggest the medicine reduces a persons risk of long COVID, too, but the evidence is mixed. Another note on tests: Dont worry if they continue to turn out positive for longer than symptoms last; the virus may linger even if its no longer replicating. After roughly a week since a positive test or symptoms, studies suggest, a person is unlikely to pass the virus to others.

If COVID is ruled out, Karan recommends tests for influenza because they can guide doctors on whether to prescribe an antiviral to fight it or if instead its a bacterial infection, in which case antibiotics may be in order. One new home test diagnoses COVID and influenza at the same time.

Whereas antivirals and antibiotics target the source of the ailment, over-the-counter medications may soothe congestion, coughs, fevers, and other symptoms. That said, the FDA recently determined that a main ingredient in versions of Sudafed, NyQuil, and other decongestants, called phenylephrine, is ineffective.

Jobs complicate a personal approach to staying healthy. Emergency-era business closures have ended, and mandates on vaccination and wearing masks have receded across the country. Some managers take precautions to protect their staff. Chu, for example, keeps air-purifying devices around her lab, and she asks researchers to stay home when they feel sick and to test themselves for COVID before returning to work after a trip.

However, occupational safety experts note that many employees face risks they cannot control because decisions on if and how to protect against outbreaks, such as through ventilation, testing, and masking, are left to employers. Notably, people with low-wage and part-time jobs occupations disproportionately held by people of color are often least able to control their workplace environments.

Jessica Martinez, co-executive director of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, said the lack of national occupational standards around airborne disease protection represents a fatal flaw in the Biden administrations decision to relinquish its control of the pandemic.

Every workplace needs to have a plan for reducing the threat of infectious disease, she said. If you only focus on the individual, you fail workers.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFFan independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

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'Emergency' or not, COVID-19 is still killing people. Here's what doctors say - The Atlanta Journal Constitution

Energy and Commerce Republicans are exposing how the Chinese Communist Party withheld critical information from the world in the early days of the COVID-19 outbreak. The Committees investigation revealed that China had a SARS-CoV-2 sequence for weeks before sharing with the global community.

WASHINGTON Chinese researchers isolated and mapped the virus that causes Covid-19 in late December 2019, at least two weeks before Beijing revealed details of the deadly virus to the world, congressional investigators said, raising questions anew about what China knew in the pandemics crucial early days.

When Beijing shared the SARS-CoV-2 sequence with the World Health Organization on January 11, 2020, two full weeks had elapsed since the virus was sequenced by a researcher at the Institute of Pathogen Biology in Beijing, an arm of the state-affiliated Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences which has ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Peoples Liberation Army.

The documents, obtained from the US Department of Health and Human Services by House Republicans and first reported by the Wall Street Journal, show virologist Dr. Lili Ren uploaded nearly the entire sequence of COVID-19s structure to a US government-run database on Dec. 28, 2019.

Her work was nearly identical to what Beijing eventually presented to the World Health Organization on January 11, 2020, when the virus had already spread across the world, according to the documents obtained by Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

The committee noted that Ren is a subgrantee of the EcoHealth Alliance nonprofit, the organization that previously awarded NIH grants to the Wuhan Institute of Virology and came under scrutiny during the pandemic.

The earlier posting doesn't change the virus' origin story - whether it was sparked by a live animal market or leaked from a scientific laboratory.

But it does renew questions about how much China knew about the virus and when. It suggests that vaccine development could have started sooner. And it raises new questions about how much the U.S. government knew or should have known about the virus in those early days.

Public health experts who reviewed the documents said the episode illustrated a missed opportunity to learn more about the virus at the beginning of the global health emergency.

The failure to publish the genetic sequence submitted by Ren is "retroactively painful," said Jesse Bloom, a virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle. Bloom noted that researchers were depending on genetic sequences to begin developing medical interventions to combat the coronavirus and argued that earlier access to the information would have expedited new test and vaccines.

"That two weeks would have made a tangible difference in quite a few people's lives," Bloom said.

China has been widely criticized for its initial response to the emergence of COVID in Wuhan in late 2019. Western officials have also called on Beijing to be more cooperative in the search for the virus's origins.

It "underscores how cautious we have to be about the accuracy of the information that the Chinese government has released," Jesse Bloom, a virologist at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center who has seen the documents and the gene sequence, told the WSJ. "It's important to keep in mind how little we know."

HHS withheld the sequencing information from the committee for seven months, only releasing the documents after threats of subpoena.

The Energy and Commerce Committee press release said that the process for "monitoring GenBank submissions is insufficient as the United States had an early SARS-CoV-2 sequence in our possession and apparently had no idea.

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"This significant discovery further underscores why we cannot trust any of the so-called facts or data provided by the CCP and calls into serious question the legitimacy of any scientific theories based on such information. The American people deserve to know the truth about the origins of SARS-CoV-2, and our investigation has uncovered numerous causes for concern, including how taxpayers dollars are spent, how our governments public health agencies operate, and the need for more oversight into research grants to foreign scientists. In addition to equipping us to better prepare for the next pandemic, this investigations findings will help us as policymakers as we work to strengthen Americas biosafety practices and bolster oversight of research grants, said Chairs Rodgers, Guthrie, and Griffith.

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E&C Investigation Reveals China's Lack of COVID-19 Transparency - Energy and Commerce Committee

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It's easy to be complacent about COVID-19. Most people experience only mild issues fever and coughing, maybe congestion and shortness of breath.

But the coronavirus is capable of causing much more than a simple respiratory illness, affecting organs throughout the body, experts say.

"We see people have symptoms from almost head to toe in terms of how they feel, how they function and what they can do," said Dr. Adrian Hernandez, a cardiologist who is director of the Duke Clinical Research Institute in Durham, North Carolina.

The new year started with an increase in COVID-19 hospitalizations in the U.S., prompting Hernandez and other experts to advise caution, especially for those at high risk.

While the short-term effects of COVID-19 can be flu-like, even mild cases can lead to long COVID a constellation of problems that can persist for weeks or months. More than 200 symptoms have been linked to long COVID, said Hernandez, who has overseen many COVID-19 studies.

Because COVID-19 typically affects breathing and can lead to problems such as pneumonia, many people may think it's primarily a lung disease. It's not that simple, said Dr. Nisha Viswanathan, director of the long COVID program at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles.

"I would argue that COVID-19 is not a disease of the lungs at all," she said. "It seems most likely that it is what we call a vascular and neurologic infection, affecting both nerve endings and our cardiovascular system."

It's no surprise that experts say SARS-CoV-2 the name of the virus that causes COVID-19 is complex, with many of its pathways just beginning to be understood. But some things are becoming clear. One of the best reviews of long COVID symptoms, Viswanathan said, appeared last January in Nature Reviews Microbiology. It detailed the disease's effects throughout the body, including the pancreas, blood vessels and reproductive system.

"SARS-CoV-2 is excellent at triggering your immune system to go from zero to 100," said Dr. Lindsay McAlpine, a neurologist who is director of the Yale NeuroCovid Clinic in New Haven, Connecticut. That revving of the immune response leads to both a "wide swath of inflammation" and excessive blood clotting, she said.

"Perhaps the viral replication is going on in the lungs and nasopharynx (the area at the top of the throat that connects the nose to the respiratory system). But the inflammation that the virus triggers is systemic," McAlpine said.

Here are some parts of the body significantly affected by COVID-19.

The brain and nervous system

"The virus and the immune response can have several different effects on the brain," said McAlpine, lead author of a 2021 study looking at strokes in people with COVID-19, published in the journal Stroke. She is researching issues related to COVID-19 and brain fog, which she called "a very common symptom."

The exact causes of brain-related issues are not clear, but she said it does not appear that the virus is directly attacking brain tissue. Rather, it seems that the ramped-up immune response leads to clots that could cause brain problems.

"A lot of patients have described it as feeling like they have a concussion," McAlpine said. "And it can persist for several months after COVID," even if the initial case was mild.

"In addition to the cognitive impairment, we see worsening or new-onset migraines," she said. "We see new neuropathy in the legs and the arms numbness, tingling, difficulty walking because of the neuropathy."

COVID-19 might also be unmasking other neurodegenerative conditions, such as Parkinson's disease, she said. McAlpine has diagnosed new cases of Alzheimer's disease in people who, before COVID-19, were functioning fine, then developed symptoms. "We don't know why," she said.

The heart and blood vessels

Research shows COVID-19 infection can increase the risk for heart-related problems such as myocarditis, a rare inflammation of the heart, and an irregular heartbeat known as atrial fibrillation.

The risk of dangerous clotting including deep vein thrombosis (clots in large veins) and pulmonary embolisms (clots in the lungs) is small but stays elevated for up to a year after the infection, according to research done before vaccines were available.

Many factors might be playing into COVID-related heart problems, Viswanathan said, including microclots tiny blood clots or an autoimmune response targeting heart muscle cells. A recent study in Nature Cardiovascular Research shows the virus may infect coronary arteries, causing plaque buildup to become inflamed and break off, which can lead to a heart attack.

Gastrointestinal system

"Interestingly, the GI system's mechanism may be a little different than what impacts the heart," Viswanathan said. One theory suggests that the virus finds a hiding place while the rest of the body fights it off. "And we have found now in multiple studies that COVID can remain in our GI tract for weeks and months after it has resolved in the rest of the body."

The exact place where the virus might hide is up for debate, Viswanathan said. But Hernandez said gastrointestinal symptoms are clear: "People can have nausea, vomiting, diarrhea."

A large study of veterans published last year in Nature Communications found people with COVID-19 had a higher risk of gastroesophageal reflux disease, irritable bowel syndrome and other gastrointestinal problems more than 30 days after infection compared to people without COVID-19. The risk was elevated even among people who had mild cases of the disease.

Kidneys

Kidney problems were common in a 2023 study published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine that looked at organ damage after COVID-19 infection.

Researchers don't necessarily know whether kidney problems stem from people getting sick with high fevers and taking in less fluid or because "with a virus that can go anywhere and cause inflammation anywhere, you can have all sorts of problems," Hernandez said.

What to do

Not everyone who gets COVID-19 will have these problems, Viswanathan said. But people experiencing symptoms can reach out to their primary care physician or a long COVID clinic.

What everyone can do, she said, is take steps to protect themselves and those around them.

The first step is to be cautious if COVID-19 is surging in your area. Consider wearing a mask in crowded public places. "A lot of people have COVID now, and it may take a while for them to test positive," Viswanathan said.

"The second thing is get vaccinated," she said. "It really does seem to be highly protective." The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends everyone ages 5 and older get the updated COVID-19 vaccine to avoid getting seriously ill from the virus.

"The third thing is controlling your cardiovascular risk factors," she said. That means getting high blood pressure, diabetes or other chronic medical conditions under control. "It will all decrease your risk."

McAlpine added that if you have COVID-19 symptoms, stay away from other people to avoid putting them at risk.

Hernandez emphasized the importance of vaccinations in general for people with heart or lung disease, cancer or suppressed immune systems. "For people who have other health conditions, you don't need another one," he said. "And if you could avoid an illness like COVID or the flu why wouldn't you?"

See original here:

Beyond breathing: How COVID-19 affects your heart, brain and other organs - American Heart Association News

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