Category: Corona Virus Vaccine

Youre reading The Checkup With Dr. Wen, a newsletter on how to navigate medical and public health challenges. Click here to get the full newsletter in your inbox, including answers to reader questions and a summary of new scientific research.

President Bidens stunning announcement that he will end his reelection bid has led many to laud his accomplishments. Chief among them should be how his administration handled the coronavirus pandemic and saved millions of American lives.

When Biden took office in January 2021, the United States had endured nearly a year of turmoil. The coronavirus had become the nations third-leading cause of death and was continuing to spread at alarming speed. His predecessors pandemic strategy could most charitably be described as surrender. (Less-charitable descriptions, as I wrote about at the time, include supreme recklessness and knowingly facilitating superspreader events.)

The one saving grace of Donald Trumps administration was the remarkable speed with which it facilitated the development of safe and effective vaccines. But its one thing to promise shots and quite another to get them produced, distributed and administered into the arms of Americans. As the public health aphorism goes, its not vaccines that saves lives; its vaccinations.

This is where the Biden administration excelled. In just weeks, Bidens covid-response czar Jeff Zients, vaccinations coordinator Bechara Choucair and their team turned the slow and disjointed operation inherited from their predecessors into one of the most effective vaccination campaigns in history.

They easily exceeded Bidens campaign promise to administer 100 million doses in the first 100 days; it took just 58 days to deliver that many shots. In the first six months of 2021, nearly half of the U.S. population got shots. By the end of 2022, more than 80 percent of Americans had received at least one vaccination.

A 2022 report from the Commonwealth Fund estimated that in those first two years, these vaccines prevented more than 18.5 million hospitalizations and averted 3.2 million deaths. The vaccination program also saved more than $1 trillion in medical costs.

The Biden administration can be credited with many other covid-related actions, including partnering with drug companies to develop and distribute antiviral treatments, scaling up at-home testing, improving disease surveillance and investing in long-covid research. Their efforts were successful because Biden rightfully elevated the voice of medical professionals such as Anthony S. Fauci and Vivek H. Murthy. But just as crucially, he chose people experienced at implementing complex programs such as Zients and Choucair and empowered them to do their jobs.

There are those who remain critical of the administration for its support of mask and vaccine mandates and for not pushing for schools to reopen sooner. Others wish Biden had kept the public health emergency for covid in place longer. And much work remains to be done, including to increase lackluster booster uptake among vulnerable older adults and to restore trust in scientific institutions.

On balance, though, I believe Bidens legacy will be that he was the president who got the United States out of the pandemic as well as could be hoped for. Lets not forget, too, that he expanded access to health care, embraced harm reduction in treating opioid addiction and reduced the cost of prescription drugs for seniors.

For all his work to advance public health, I thank Joe Biden. Future leaders would do well to learn from his foresight to set ambitious targets, enlist the private sector and positively channel the power of the federal government to help fix urgent problems.

Original post:

Opinion | The Checkup With Dr. Wen: Thank you, President Biden, for leading us through the pandemic - The Washington Post

University Health reports significant increase in COVID-19

by SBG San Antonio

University Health officials have reported a significant increase in COVID-19 cases in San Antonio, reflecting a similar trend observed across Texas. (SBG San Antonio)

SAN ANTONIO - University Health officials have reported a significant increase in COVID-19 cases in San Antonio, reflecting a similar trend observed across Texas.

According to state data from the "Texas Respiratory Virus Surveillance Report," the entire state is experiencing a summer surge in COVID-19 infections.

In the week before last, University Health detected 226 positive COVID-19 tests. Last week, that number surged to 336 positive cases.

"The numbers show that only 22% of adults received the most recent 2023-2024 COVID vaccine and only about 14% of kids, so most people didn't get it. It's really important to get the upcoming COVID vaccine this fall. It's supposed to be out in late August or early September, and it really matches better the strains that are circulating now," said Dr. Jason Bowling, Chief Epidemiologist at University Health.

The CDC recommends that everyone 6 months and older receive an updated 2024-2025 COVID vaccination.

Load more...

Read more here:

University Health reports significant increase in COVID-19 - WOAI

This story originally appeared on WIRED Japan and has been translated from Japanese.

The northern hemisphere is entering yet another Covid wavewhile much of the world acts as if the pandemic were over, cases are surging again. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recorded an uptick in positive Covid tests, emergency department visits, hospitalizations, and deaths in recent weeks, while cases and hospital admissions in the UK are creeping up too.

But its in Japan where the surge is particularly visible. The countrys National Institute of Infectious Diseases has reported that the average number of infected people per medical institution has been increasing rapidly since June. In particular, Okinawa prefecture has witnessed the highest number of newly hospitalized patients since reporting began, and its possible that the virus is spreading in Japan at a rate that exceeds the countrys last two big waves, in September 2023 and January 2024.

The culprits behind the surge are a new set of variants: KP.3, LB.1, and KP.2.3. Descendants of the Omicron sublineage JN.1 that gained dominance over Christmas, theyve become the driver of new infections around the world, with KP.3 seemingly gaining dominance. As of July 15, the US CDC estimated approximately 37 percent of new Covid cases in the United States were due to KP.3, with KP.2 accounting for 24 percent and LB.1 15 percent. KP.3 has been rising rapidly over the past few months: As of May 11, it accounted for an estimated 9 percent of cases in the US; a month later on June 11, its share was 25 percent.

Together, these viruses are referred to as the FLiRT variants, because they all have a mutation in the spike protein that changes its 456th amino acid from phenylalanine (F) to leucine (L) and its 346th amino acid from arginine (R) to threonine (T). According to a paper by the Institute of Medical Science at the University of Tokyo, published earlier this year in the journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases, these variants are more transmissible than earlier mainstream variants and have a high ability to evade neutralizing antibodies.

Genotype to Phenotype Japan (G2P-Japan), a research consortium at the institute, estimates that the R numbers of the FLiRT variantsthe average number of new cases an infected person causes, and a measure of infectivityare higher for these new forms of the virus compared to JN.1. Furthermore, when the infectivity of these viruses was evaluated in cultured cells, KP.3 needed a lower amount of virus to cause an infection compared to LB.1 and KP.2.3, which both required roughly the same amount of virus as JN.1. These results give a clue as to why KP.3 appears to be heading toward domination.

The FLiRT variants, including KP.3, also surpass the ability of earlier forms of the virus to evade immunity. When the G2P-Japan team examined past infections, breakthrough infections (those that follow being vaccinated), and responses to neutralizing antibodies induced by the updated XBB.1.5 Covid vaccine, they found that in all cases neutralizing activity against the FLiRTs was significantly weaker than that against existing epidemic variants.

View post:

The Highly Infectious FLiRT Variants Behind the Summer Covid Wave - WIRED

COVID-19 is a "two hump camel," whereas the flu has "one hump" four experts talk about what this means for vaccinations.

At the height of summer, theres more for journalists to consider besides soaring temperatures and politics. Current CDC data shows COVID-19 test positivity reaching 12.6%, the highest it has been since the peak of the winter COVID-19 surge in January. On July 24, four experts joined a National Press Foundation online briefing to tackle questions about the summer wave of COVID, how influenza comes into the mix, and what it means for vaccine updates, protocols and more.

COVID is a two-humped camel, says Dr. William Schaffner, spokesperson for the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases. That means COVID doesnt entirely disappear. It has a summer increase in addition to what we see in the fall and the winter.

Despite vaccines not providing immunity from the disease itself, both influenza vaccine and COVID vaccines protect best against the most serious complications, he said. The four panelists explored the science and public health messaging related to COVID and the flu, providing the context and insights that can fuel better coverage.

Watch the video here:

While its known that there are seasonal patterns to certain virus, its unclear why, said Dr. Ariangela Kozik, an assistant professor in the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology at the University of Michigan.

There is some evidence that it has something to do with the environmental conditions But as far as why influenza has a certain pattern and COVID has another pattern, I dont think we know exactly why that is yet.

But she said the public needs to know that even though early on there was a lot of comparative language between COVID being like influenza or its like the flu, thats not the case as far as the biology is concerned, she said.

Kozik said that explaining how vaccination is a solution to a particular problem the problem being the infectious agent that is changing over time is a way to help people understand why its important to continue to get vaccinated.

The emergence of the so-called FLiRT variants is another important theme for journalists to explore. According to Yale University researchers, The FLiRT strains are subvariants ofOmicron, and together they accounted for the majority of COVID cases in the U.S. at the beginning of July. One of them, KP.3, was responsible for 36.9% of COVID infections in the United States, KP.2 made up 24.4%, and KP.1.1 accounted for 9.2% of cases.

Dr. Schaffner explained that as these viruses spread, they encounter the immune system and adapt. And so that, if anything, stimulates further mutation and were getting a succession of these variants. You can think of them as children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the Omicrons. So far, knock wood, we have not seen a new dominant, more serious variant evolve anywhere in the world in recent months. Very, very good. Not one that is more serious and that can evade the protection that we have currently provided ourselves through vaccines and previous experience.

New York Times science and global health reporter Apoorva Mandavilli has reported on COVID since the beginning of the pandemic. She said the challenge is that people like to think in binaries. There will always be people think that the vaccine completely prevents long COVID despite her writing about the vaccination lowering the risk of long COVID.

People are notoriously bad at figuring out what personal risk is for anything. And so I try not to use too many numbers because the second you start using numbers, some peoples brains literally shut down And so I try to explain more that you can really protect yourself in this way if you can get the vaccine, but you should still just try to avoid the virus also by protecting yourself in other ways.

While Mandavilli continues to report on the summer wave, she recently wrote the article Thousands Believe Covid Vaccines Harmed Them. Is Anyone Listening?, which focused on vaccine side effects. That is not a story Ive seen media really cover, and I think people have stayed very far from it. And I understand partly why. Its really hard to do because what you dont want is to fuel anti-vax messaging.

But I would encourage my fellow journalists to actually go there and to just do a very nuanced take on the topic, but to address the very real concerns that people have, whether its about the fact that they dont want it or they dont need it or theyre worried about it or whatever it is. you have to meet people where they are.

Whether its the flu or COVID, Dr. Bertha Hidalgo, an associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology at UAB said that she frequently gets asked about when people should get vaccines. Public health departments are a good place to start, as well as journalists and the news.

And Hidalgo urges journalists to remind the public that using masks is still a very important tool against infection. I would say that as far back as when my youngest son was diagnosed with influenza at the age of seven, we were sent home with a mask from urgent care so that while the oral antiviral medicine took effect, we would all wear masks in the home. And this was before COVID. So I think there is a precedent for mask wearing when infected, but also for prevention.

Access the full transcript here.

This webinar was sponsored by the Champions for Vaccine Education, Equity + Progress. NPF is solely responsible for its content.

Read more from the original source:

How to Cover the "Summer Wave" of COVID-19 - National Press Foundation

From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? Let us know!

Philadelphia is currently experiencing a rise in COVID-19 cases. The virus continues to mutate, posing ongoing public health challenges as vaccine makers race to fight new strains.

Despite the increase, the overall numbers tracked by the city are still low right now, says Gayle Mendoza, a clinician in the citys COVID Containment Division.

While we are seeing an increase, were starting at a really low number right before that. Our baseline was incredibly low, Mendoza said. For example, just this past month, the rates for emergency department visits related to COVID are only at 1% of total visits. Thankfully, we havent seen an increase in deaths due to COVID, which is great.

Preliminary data from the citys Department of Public Health and local hospitals reveal that only one person was newly hospitalized for COVID-19 in Philadelphia last week, mirroring the number of new hospitalizations from exactly one year ago.

The city no longer keeps track of the number of people who test positive for COVID-19. Instead, the Department of Public Health monitors the monthly concentration of the virus in Philadelphias three wastewater treatment plants. Only the Northeast Water Treatment plant reported an increased concentration at the start of the month. The Southeast and Southwest plants reported declines.

Mendoza emphasizes that staying up-to-date with vaccinations remains the best defense against severe illness, long COVID and death from COVID-19. For most children and adults, this means receiving a new shot every September. The national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, however, is preparing to end its program providing free COVID-19 vaccines to uninsured individuals next month.

So there may have to be other ways that people need to access those vaccines if theyre looking to get it and it might not be covered under their current insurance plan, says Mendoza.

See the original post:

COVID cases are rising in Philadelphia. Heres what to know - WHYY

A Long Island hospital is one of three national sites running clinical trials on an experimental nasal COVID-19 vaccine that could help reduce transmission and infections of the disease, experts said.

NYU Langone Hospital-Long Island in Mineola has started signing up eligible adults between the ages of 18 and 64 for the trial, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health.

If the nasal vaccine gains approval, it could provide an alternative to people who have been hesitant to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

We get infected with COVID through our respiratory system, said Dr. Martn Bcker,associatedirector of the vaccine center at NYU Langone Hospital-Long Island. Having our immune system activated at the site of infection might lead to more sterilizing immunity, which might help prevent milder infections or [prevent]transmissions better than the currently available vaccines.

Meanwhile, the summer COVID-19 wave continues with cases, emergency room visits and hospitalizations on the rise, according to the national statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

OnLong Island, there were 217 people hospitalized for COVID-19 on Monday, the highest since February. That's an increase from 192 people hospitalized on the Islanda week earlier.

Most of the current COVID-19 cases appear to be mild infections, which would be the target of the experimental nasal vaccine.

While first-generation COVID-19 vaccines continue to be effective at preventing severe illness, hospitalizations, and death, they are less successful at preventing infection and milder forms of disease, Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, director of the NIHs National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in a statement. With the continual emergence of new virus variants, there is a critical need to develop next-generation COVID-19 vaccines, including nasal vaccinesthat could reduce SARS-CoV-2 infections and transmission.

In animal tests, the vaccine produced robust systemic immune responses, according to the NIH. This is the first time it will be tested on people.

About 60 people across all three sites will be enrolled in the study. The other locations are Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and The Hope Clinic of Emory University in Georgia. In order to be eligible, people need to have received at least three prior doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Dr. Martn Bcker, associatedirector of the vaccine center at NYU Langone Hospital-Long Island. We are mainly trying to learn if this is safe and how it activates the immune system, he said. Credit: Debbie Egan-Chin

Bcker, who is overseeing the Phase 1 clinical trial on Long Island, said the first group of volunteers will receive one low dose of the vaccine nasal spray.

If the vaccine is well tolerated and there are no safety concerns, the next group will receive a higher dose and the third group an even higher dose.

Over the next year, subjects will be evaluated numerous timesto see what kind of immune response can be measured in their blood and in their nose.

We are mainly trying to learn if this is safe and how it activates the immune system, Bcker said.

He said giving the public another option may help eventually boost the number of people who get vaccinated. Between Sept. 14, 2023, and May 11,2024, only 22.5% of adults in the United States reported receiving the updated COVID-19 vaccine, according to the CDC.

Dr. Andrea Cox, an infectious disease specialist and professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, likened the protection of a vaccine to the protection of an army sitting on the border.

What we want is a vaccine that doesnt even let the invader in, said Cox, who is not involved in the study but specializes in viral vaccines. The virus comes in through the nose and it sets up infection there and then spreads down into the lungs and causes all sorts of problems.

The nasal vaccine uses a pneumonia virus to deliver the spike protein, which may be more effective in delivering the vaccine to where the infections begin, according to the NIH.

That virus has been honed to grab onto cells in your nose, Cox said. It sticks to the cells in the nose, which is what the virus has evolved to do.

Becker said people interested in participating in the study can call 516-663-3890or email NYULongIslandvaccine@nyulangone.org for more information.

Those who volunteer are true heroes, Bcker said. We try to remind people that no medication, no vaccine, nothing we use in medicine could be advanced to the point of approval without the participation of volunteers.

Lisa joined Newsday as a staff writer in 2019. She previously worked at amNewYork, the New York Daily News and the Asbury Park Press covering politics, government and general assignment.

See the article here:

Long Island hospital 1 of 3 in U.S. running nasal COVID vaccine trials - Newsday

Loading Video

This browser does not support the Video element.

Across the country, health officials are reporting a rise in COVID-19 cases that rival numbers typically seen in the winter months.

TACOMA, Wash. - Beautiful weather is here, but the COVID-19 virus isn't taking a summer break.

Across the country, health officials are reporting a rise in cases that rival numbers typically seen in the winter months.

The data in Pierce County mirrors what health officials are reporting nationally. In Pierce County, waste water tests show a summer surge of the virus and hospitalizations have also jumped since the spring.

"Right now about 2% of emergency room visits in Pierce County are due to COVID," said Dr. Jay Miller, Health Officer for the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department.

Wastewater tests and hospitalizations in Pierce County are revealing more about COVID's summer resurgence.

"We are seeing similar levels of COVID in wastewater as to what we saw back in the winter during the respiratory virus season," said Dr. Miller.

After a decline in the spring, scientists are seeing a community-level surge.

"Last year we saw a similar pattern where we had a spike in COVID in the summer," said Dr. Miller.

He says about 2% of emergency room visits in Pierce County are due to COVID, compared to about 0.5% in the spring, which amounts to a four-fold increase.

Hospitalizations show a similar pattern. Currently, 1.8% are for COVID compared to about 0.5% earlier in the spring.

Dr. Jay Miller says if you have a runny nose or respiratory problems that resemble an allergy, you may want to consider testing.

"If you have the ability to do so, get yourself tested and, regardless of that, take steps to prevent other people from getting sick," said Dr. Miller.

He says getting a vaccine is another way to protect yourself.

"That doesnt alwaysprotect you from getting COVID, but it will protect you from getting very sick from COVID. It could also provide some protection from getting long COVID," said Miller.

For high-risk groups, wearing a mask and avoiding large indoor crowds is something to consider.

"Outdoor events are generally quite safe, so people generally dont need to worry about outdoor events, but the biggest thing to think about is indoor spaces where there a lot of people," said Dr. Miller.

Since the fall, Miller says they've seen about 90 deaths from COVID in Pierce County. That's compared to less than 10 influenza deaths during that same time period.

Toxic algae warning issued for Ocean Shores waterways

Pioneer Fire burns nearly 32,000 acres near Chelan, evacuations underway

Geno Smith still striving to improve entering third year as Seattle Seahawks starter

Top things to do in Seattle this weekend July 26-28

To get the best local news, weather and sports in Seattle for free, sign up for the daily FOX 13 Seattle newsletter.

Original post:

Summer surge of COVID-19 causing spike in hospitalizations - FOX 13 Seattle

The United States is in the midst of a summer wave of COVID-19 fueled by highly contagious, new variants sweeping the country from coast to coast. As summer travel peaks, experts are warning people to take precautions to stop the spread, no matter the COVID rates in your state.

Currently, levels of COVID found in wastewater are considered high nationally, for the first time since last winter. What's more, 36 states have "high" or "very high" levels individually, according to the latest data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The West and Southeast are being hit especially hard.

"This years summer COVID-19 wave is coming earlier than last year, which occurred in late August and early September," a CDC spokesperson tells TODAY.com.

Cases may keep rising through the rest of the year, according to Michael Hoerger, Ph.D., assistant professor at Tulane University School of Medicine who leads thePandemic Mitigation Collaboratives data tracker. His models show the current wave is likely to peak on Sept. 11 at around 1.2 million new cases a day. (He uses wastewater data from Biobot Analytics, which used to provide the CDC its data.)

"We're probably somewhere between a quarter of the way through the wave to 40%, 50%, if we're lucky," he tells TODAY.com, adding that this is the ninth COVID wave in the U.S.

The CDC no longer tracks the total number of new COVID-19 cases. Instead, the agency estimates the level of transmission using indicators such as test positivity, emergency department visits and wastewater surveillance. These show a clear surge in COVID-19 across the nation.

Currently, test positivity is at 12.6%, the highest it has been since the peak of the winter COVID-19 surge in January, per CDC data. COVID-related emergency room visits and hospitalizations are also climbing, but the rate of deaths remains stable nationally.

Levels are lower than the peak from this past winter and are at similar levels to the early fall peak in 2023," the CDC spokesperson says.

The current COVID-19 trends in the U.S. appear to be the start of an expected summer "bump," Dr. William Schaffner, professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, tells TODAY.com. "Unlike influenza, which essentially disappears during the summertime, COVID-19 never goes away."

COVID-19 has caused previous summer waves. People are traveling more and attending more social gatherings, which creates ample opportunities for highly contagious variants to spread, says Schaffner.

These include the fast-growing FLiRT variants KP.3, KP.2, and KP.1.1 and LB.1, which have spike protein mutations that make them better able to escape immunity compared to previous strains.

These mutated new variants, along with waning population immunity and poor uptake of the latest booster, are likely contributing to the rise in cases, TODAY.com previously reported.

COVID is increasing all over the country, says Schaffner.

According to wastewater data, states with the highest COVID rates are in the West, but it's also spiking in the Southeast and parts of the Mid-Atlantic and New England regions, per the latest CDC data.

(COVID) is up everywhere. Its not as though you could go to a state and avoid this increase. Its just that the increase is more prominent in some parts of the country than others, Schaffner notes.

Hoerger similarly stresses that the wave is national and discourages getting too focused on local COVID trends. "I think people should just be increasing precautions in general. ... I find it a bit trickier to know precisely what's happening locally," he adds.

Wastewater surveillance is used to measure COVID-19 trends and predict a rise in cases in a community. People infected with COVID can shed the virus in their stool even if they are asymptomatic or before they show symptoms which ends up in sewage. This method can help capture COVID levels without relying on testing or data from doctors offices and hospitals, according to the CDC.

Wastewater surveillance can serve as a more precise early warning sign than other measurements that COVID-19 is spiking or going down in a community, Hoerger says.

"If you see increased COVID-19 wastewater viral activity levels in your area, it might indicate that there is a higher risk of infection," the CDC spokesperson adds.

The CDC categorizes COVID-19 viral activity in wastewater into five levels: very high, high, moderate, low and minimal.

Wastewater activity levels are considered "very high" in the following states, including the District of Columbia, according to the latest data from the CDC as of July 25:

Wastewater viral activity levels are currently considered "high" in the following 14 states, as of July 25:

Another CDC map of test positivity by region shows that during the week ending on July 13, rates were highest in California, Nevada and Arizona. During the same week, COVID-related emergency room visits were highest in Florida and Hawaii, per CDC data.

The CDC also tracks where cases are growing and declining. The most recent data available show cases growing in 42 states, declining in zero and stable or uncertain in six.

"There are places that are rising earlier, and there are places that will pick up later, but that's what you would expect," Hoerger adds.

The symptoms of the COVID-19 variants driving the summer wave, including FLiRT strains and LB.1, are similar to those caused by earlier omicron subvariants.

Possible signs and symptoms of COVID-19, per the CDC, include:

The latest variants are highly contagious but do not appear to be producing more severe disease, experts say.

"These variants are spreading very, very widely (and) largely producing milder disease," says Schaffner. However, some people may still develop severe symptoms or require hospitalization.

"Since (the variants) are spreading so widely, they're also finding vulnerable people who are in the high-risk groups," says Schaffner. These include people ages 65 and older, individuals with underlying medical conditions, and those who are immune-compromised.

High-risk individuals, as well as people who are not up to date on their vaccinations, "are the people at the moment who are being hospitalized,"says Schaffner.

If COVID-19 levels are very high, you should take steps to protect yourself and your family from illness, the CDC spokesperson says. However, anyone anywhere can take steps to protect themselves and others from COVID-19. According to the CDC, these include:

These actions are especially important for high-risk groups or people who are in close contact with high-risk individuals, says Schaffner.

"Every day of 2024 remaining is likely to have more transmission than today," Hoerger says. "So people should really be taking the rest of the year very seriously."

Caroline Kee is a health reporter at TODAY based in New York City.

Link:

Map of States With The Highest COVID Rates 2024 And What to Expect Rest of Summer - TODAY

COVID is making its rounds again in Minnesota with another wave of sickness.

Health officials are monitoring our sewage, looking for any indicators of the spread of COVID.

Recent wastewater monitoring shows the viral activity level "very high" in Minnesota and the cases of COVID-19 on the upswing.

Data from the St. Cloud area shows the virus levels category in our area is in the 60%-79% range of the highest levels ever detected at our wastewater sites.

Even so, COVID-19 cases are flat in Stearns and Benton Counties while they're increasing in Sherburne County.

Currently, the most cases of COVID nationwide are in The West and Southeast.

For the latest week of national data ending July 13th, Test Positivity -- an early indicator -- was at 12.6% up from 11.4% the week before.

Likewise, emergency room visits where COVID-19 was diagnosed were up from 1.6% from 1.4% the week before.

And Hospitalizations per 100,000 people were up from 2.1 to 2.5.

All this means is your chances of getting COVID are increasing again.

The Centers for Disease Control recommends its Core Prevention Strategies:

-- Stay current with your vaccines. -- Practice good hygiene. -- Take steps for cleaner air.

If you're sick:

-- Take precautions to prevent spreading it. -- Know when to isolate and when to go back to your normal activities. -- Seek health care for testing and treatment.

More strategies:

-- Mask up. -- Put some distance between you and others. -- Test for COVID-19.

Vaccinations for COVID-19 began being administered in the U.S. on Dec. 14, 2020. The quick rollout came a little more than a year after the virus was first identified in November 2019. The impressive speed with which vaccines were developed has also left a lot of people with a lot of questions. The questions range from the practicalhow will I get vaccinated?to the scientifichow do these vaccines even work?

Keep reading to discover answers to 25 common COVID-19 vaccine questions.

Gallery Credit: Stephanie Parker

Go here to read the rest:

Resurgence Of COVID-19 In Minnesota: Latest Updates And Precautions - WJON News

Whether or not a person becomes seriously ill with COVID-19 depends, among other things, on genetic factors. With this in mind, researchers from the University Hospital Bonn (UKB) and the University of Bonn, in cooperation with other research teams from Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Italy, investigated a particularly large group of affected individuals. They confirmed the central and already known role of the TLR7 gene in severe courses of the disease in men, but were also able to find evidence for a contribution of the gene in women. In addition, they were able to show that genetic changes in three other genes of the innate immune system contribute to severe COVID-19. The results have now been published in the journal "Human Genetics and Genomics Advances".

Even though the number of severe cases following infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus has decreased, there is still great interest in understanding why, at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, the infection was severe in some people but not in others.

This is important because it gives us information about the function and reaction of the immune system when it first comes into contact with a pathogen. If we have a better understanding of how severe courses of the disease develop, we can identify people at risk and protect them better or develop targeted therapies. We assume that the findings can be transferred at least in part to future pandemics."

Kerstin Ludwig, Professor,Institute of Human Genetics,University Hospital Bonn

Kerstin Ludwig is also a member of the Cluster of Excellence ImmunoSenstation2 and the Transdisciplinary Research Area (TRA) "Life and Health" at the University of Bonn.

In addition to many possible reasons such as increased age or pre-existing conditions, some people's own genetic make-up can cause a severe course of the disease. Early work in the pandemic had already identified affected genes, most of which are involved in the innate immune response. The gene with the strongest evidence to date is the TLR7 gene, which was identified as the cause of the disease in two pairs of Dutch brothers with severe cases back in summer 2020. However, it was not yet known to what extent the effect of genetic changes in TLR7 is independent of other non-genetic risk factors, such as increased age or previous illnesses, and whether there are other genes in which so-called mutations significantly increase the risk of severe COVID.

In the recently published study, an international research group led by Prof. Ludwig looked at the gene sequences of 52 candidate genes, including TLR7, in a comparatively large patient sample. Through collaborations with various European groups, the Bonn researchers gained access to DNA material from 1,772 people with severe COVID-19 and 5,347 control individuals with unknown SARS-CoV-2 status from Spain and Italy - i.e. from regions where a very high incidence and high mortality rate was observed, especially at the beginning of the pandemic. All those affected were infected at a time when vaccinations were not yet available - these people therefore had no immune protection and were exposed to the virus virtually "unprepared".

In this large group of people, mutations that render the TLR7 gene non-functional were actually observed significantly more frequently in severely affected COVID-19 patients than in the control group. "This 'enrichment' was even stronger when only those affected people were considered who, due to their age and state of health, would not actually have had a high risk of a severe course. This means that certain mutations in this gene significantly increase the risk of severe progression," says first author and doctoral student at the Bonn Institute of Human Genetics Jannik Boos, who was in charge of the project. In addition to TLR7, the Bonn researchers were also able to identify mutations in the three other genes TBK1, INFAR1 and IFIH1 in the group of severely affected individuals.

The Bonn researchers then took a closer look at TLR7 and found something interesting: the TLR7 gene is located on the X chromosome, of which men only have one copy, but women have two. "So if there is a loss of function of TLR7 on one copy, men no longer have a functioning gene - women, on the other hand, still have a healthy copy, so at least a little bit of functioning TLR7. It was therefore surprising for us that we also found TLR7 mutations more frequently in women with severe COVID-19 courses," says Dr. Axel Schmidt, who is a resident at the Institute of Human Genetics and in the Department of Neuropaediatrics at the UKB and led the study with Prof. Ludwig. Together with Prof. Alexander Hoischen's team from Radboudumc University Hospital in the Netherlands, the Bonn researchers found initial indications that the type of genetic changes is different in women: while in men the mutations lead to the absence of TLR7, in women the "broken" TLR7 versions appear to interact with the "healthy" copies and thus also influence their function. "We assume that TLR7 can also be impaired in women with severe COVID, but presumably via a different biological mechanism," says Ludwig, who is now working with groups from the Immunosensation2 cluster to clarify whether this hypothesis is correct and, if so, what the effects of this mechanism are on the immune system.

Source:

Journal reference:

Boos, J., et al. (2024). Stratified analyses refine association between TLR7 rare variants and severe COVID-19. Human Genetics and Genomics Advances. doi.org/10.1016/j.xhgg.2024.100323.

Original post:

Study identifies genes increasing risk of severe COVID-19 - News-Medical.Net