Category: Corona Virus

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Coronavirus: Government seeking to extend powers behind COVID restrictions until 2025 – Newshub

October 17, 2022

Newshub can reveal that the Government is seeking to extend COVID-19 restriction powers for another two years.

Newshub has just been leaked a proposal. It's documentation in which the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet proposes that the legislation which underpins COVID-19 restrictions stay in place until 2025.

It wants the Act extended from its expiry date of May next year to May 2025.

It says this will ensure that the powers required to respond to COVID-19 - including new variants - remain available to the Government.

This comes as most countries are winding back their COVID-19 responses and it's likely going to cause upset among the business community.

Newshub asked the Prime Minister about when restrictions would end.

"I've always been cautious about making too many predictions about COVID," she said.

"What I can tell you is we are in a very different place than where we were a year ago. Highly vaccinated, anti-virals and we know so much more. You won't see things like some of those more necessary but harsh measures, they are off the table, but we do still ask people who are sick to stay home."

A spokesperson for the Prime Minister later said"we intend to announce the next steps shortly".

"Ministers have been reviewing the COVID-19 Act to ensure it is fit for purpose now that we're through the emergency response," they told Newshub.

"The Government's plan is to remove powers from the Act that are no longer required for the response, while still ensuring we can practically manage the ongoing impact of COVID."

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Coronavirus: Government seeking to extend powers behind COVID restrictions until 2025 - Newshub

These two new COVID variants could drive the next surge. Here’s why they’re causing surprise and concern – San Francisco Chronicle

October 17, 2022

Concern is rapidly growing over emerging omicron coronavirus variant BQ.1 and its sibling BQ.1.1, which experts say appear to be strong candidates for a winter surge in the U.S. and could knock the BA.5 variant out of its dominant spot.

The BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 variants, descendants of BA.5, were first identified in mid-July, according to UC Berkeley infectious disease expert John Swartzberg. They were first detected in the U.S. just a month ago and each rose quickly to account for 5.7% of cases sequenced nationwide for the week ending Oct. 15, according to updated estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions variant tracker.

Meanwhile, BA.5, which has dominated the U.S. coronavirus picture since the summer, has been on the decline, dropping from its Aug. 20 height of 86.5% of sequenced cases to 67.9% on Oct. 15

BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 are worrisome because they both appear to be more transmissible, and could possibly be more immune evasive than earlier variants.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Bidens chief medical adviser, expressed concern over the two new variants last week. When you get variants like that, you look at what their rate of increase is as a relative proportion of the variants, and this has a pretty troublesome doubling time, he said in an interview Friday with CBS News.

Infections from BQ.1.1 have been doubling weekly since mid-September in the United Kingdom, leading to a significant increase in hospitalizations.

BQ.1.1 has an estimated growth advantage of 15% compared to BA.5, according to UCSF infectious disease expert Peter Chin-Hong. In a recent Chronicle story about emerging variants that could cause a winter surge, Stacia Wyman, senior genomics scientist at the Innovative Genomics Institute at UC Berkeley, noted that BQ.1.1 has a growth advantage of 14% over BA.5.

The BQ.1.1 variant, which is increasing in New York and Germany as well as other European countries, is perhaps the most immune evasive subvariant circulating, Swartzberg said. This makes it the leading contender to overtake BA.5 in the next few weeks."

Chin-Hong said some BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 mutations in the receptor binding domain (where the spike protein attaches to the body) may be associated with antibody evasion, and some lab studies support that finding. In addition, BQ.1 is the first variant to prove resistant to the two available antibody therapies Evusheld and bebtelovimab, he said.

However, I must emphasize that (the therapies) will still be protective and that we dont know if it is truly immune evasive until we see what happens in real life, not just the laboratory, he added. We also need more studies about BQ.1 specifically.

That BQ.1 is a grandchild of omicron and a child of BA.5 bodes well for the effectiveness of vaccines, especially the new bivalent booster shots, both Chin-Hong and Swartzberg said.

It is highly likely that an omicron-updated booster which target BA.5 will provide excellent protection against infection, and continue to provide spectacular protection against serious disease and death, Chin-Hong said.

Against infection from these new variants, the boosters will possibly provide protection for only two to three months, but protection against serious disease will continue for many, many months if not years, Chin-Hong said.

He added that antivirals such as Paxlovid and remdesivir work without regard to the spike protein appearance so they will continue to work very well.

The BQ.1 sublineage was first reported in Nigeria in July, and has since been found in a number of European countries and Japan, but is not yet dominant anywhere, Chin-Hong said.

He explained that some variants stay off the global radar until multiple countries report them, they get mentioned on social media, or they show up on global COVID variant tracking site GISAID.

Thats why BQ.1 seemed to suddenly burst on the scene, to the surprise of many virus watchers, he said.

It likely came out of nowhere because they were all classified as BA.5 previously, because that is the parent sub-lineage, he said. With these sub-sub-variants (or grandchildren) you cant often find them until you actually sequence for, and look for them.

Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding, head of the COVID Risk Task Force at the New England Complex Systems Institute, tweeted Thursday about the BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 variants and suggested the CDC might have been holding onto the BQ variant data, as they only just showed up on the agencys tracker.

Chin-Hong said that while the CDC gets data only once a week and says it doesnt include any variants with a proportion under 1%, it appears that (BQ.1 and BQ.1.1) were surprisingly retroactively added, and he personally was shocked when CDC site was updated.

I kept reading and re-reading the figures, adding up the percentages, and pinching myself to make sure I wasnt dreaming, he said.

Omicron subvariants with similar mutations to the spike protein are proliferating because of convergent evolution, Swartzberg said.

Its like all these different Omicron viruses are settling on the same strategy, he said. They have found something they like.

The high transmissibility and growth advantage of the BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 variants make it seem increasingly likely that they will eventually become dominant in the U.S., and lead to a surge in cases and hospitalizations later this fall and winter, Chin-Hong said.

Swartzberg said BQ.1.1 was likely to come out on top. It is perhaps the most immune evasive subvariant circulating, he said. This makes it the leading contender to overtake BA.5 in the next few weeks.

Unvaccinated, elderly and immunocompromised individuals would likely have the worst outcome of the surge, Chin-Hong said.

I dont think hospitalizations and deaths will approach what we have seen in the last two winters, because the overall population is very immunologically experienced at this time, he said. However, Many people may become infected, or re-infected, and this could be disruptive to the community even though many of these will be mild clinically.

Kellie Hwang is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kellie.hwang@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @KellieHwang

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These two new COVID variants could drive the next surge. Here's why they're causing surprise and concern - San Francisco Chronicle

Circulation of Public Warning Alert on COVID-19 vaccines fraudulently using PAHO’s name and logo – World – ReliefWeb

October 17, 2022

Washington, D.C. (PAHO) A social media video from an unidentified source unlawfully using the logo and name of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) is circulating in English-speaking Caribbean countries as a Public Warning Alert on COVID-19 vaccination in children.

PAHO would like to inform the public that the message does not reflect the position of the Organization, and that it contains false and defamatory information regarding PAHOs activities, projects, and funding.

Furthermore, the misinformation contained in the video that COVID-19 vaccines are dangerous to children, cause infections and can lead them to become sterile is not based on scientific evidence. If this misinformation is followed by parents and guardians, childrens health will be put at serious risk.

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus and can lead to severe disease in people at any age, especially those with underlying medical conditions. The virus has caused over 17,500 deaths in English-, Dutch- and French-speaking Caribbean countries and territories since 2020.

COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective, and provide strong protection against serious illness, hospitalization, and death from COVID-19.

PAHOs COVID-19 vaccination strategy follows the advice of World Health Organization (WHO) Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) on Immunization and PAHOs Technical Advisory Group (TAG) for Vaccines and Immunization in the Americas.

SAGE and TAG comprise independently appointed experts who review the clinical evidence on vaccine safety and effectiveness before making a recommendation.

Both currently recommend that people get vaccinated against COVID-19 to prevent severe disease and death, with vaccines approved under WHO Emergency Use Listing (EUL).

SAGE and TAG recommend that countries must achieve at least 70% coverage with a primary vaccination series among the general population and 100% in high-risk priority groups.

PAHO reiterates the importance of implementing comprehensive COVID-19 vaccination strategies to reach these targets.

The Organization is working with Caribbean Governments and other partners to inform the population of the Caribbean and to encourage mothers to protect their children with the COVID-19 vaccine.

PAHO condemns the unauthorized and fraudulent use of its name and logo to spread any misinformation.

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Circulation of Public Warning Alert on COVID-19 vaccines fraudulently using PAHO's name and logo - World - ReliefWeb

Deer and mink can harbor Covid-19: Why animal virologists say we need to worry – Inverse

October 17, 2022

In April 2020, tigers and lions at the Bronx Zoo made the news when they came down with Covid-19. In the months following these surprising diagnoses, researchers and veterinarians found SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, in nearly a dozen other species, both in captivity and in the wild.

How are so many animals catching the coronavirus? And what does this mean for human and animal health?

We are veterinary researchers who investigate animal diseases, including zoonotic diseases that can infect both humans and animals. It is important, for both human and animal health, to know what species are susceptible to infection by the coronavirus. Our labs and others across the world have tested domestic, captive, and wild animals for the virus, in addition to conducting experiments to determine which species are susceptible.

The list of infected animals so far includes more than a dozen species. But in reality, infections may be much more widespread, as very few species and individual animals have been tested. This has real implications for human health. Animals can not only spread pathogens like the coronavirus but also can be a source of new mutations.

White-tailed deer and mink are the only two species of animals that have been found harboring the virus in the wild. sandra standbridge/Moment/Getty Images

As of February 2022, researchers and veterinary diagnostic labs have confirmed that 31 species are susceptible to SARS-CoV-2. In addition to pets and zoo animals, researchers have found that a number of nonhuman primates, ferrets, deer mice, hyenas, wood rats, striped skunks and red fox are among the animals that are susceptible to infection by SARS-CoV-2.

White-tailed deer and mink are the only two species of animals that have been found harboring the virus in the wild. Fortunately, most animals dont appear to experience clinical disease like humans do, with the exception of mink. However, even animals that dont appear sick may be able to transmit the virus to each other and, potentially, back to people. Still unanswered are many questions about which animals can contract the virus and what, if anything, that means for people.

There are three ways to study zoonotic diseases: by looking at pets or captive species like animals in zoos, testing wild animals for the coronavirus, or by exposing animals to the virus in a lab.

During the early stages of the pandemic, when a few pet owners or zoo caretakers observed animals with breathing problems or coughing, they arranged with veterinarians to get them tested for the coronavirus. The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention coordinate Covid-19 testing and management in animals. The same process of taking a sample and running it through a PCR machine to test for the coronavirus works just as well for animals as it does for people, though swabbing the nose of a lion or even a pet cat requires a bit more training and finesse. Veterinary diagnostic laboratories like our own run hundreds of thousands of tests for animal diseases each year, so we were able to easily begin testing for SARS-CoV-2.

Relying on previous research, scientists have been able to make some guesses as to which animals are susceptible and have been testing these hypotheses. Cats, hamsters, and ferrets were all infected during the first SARS outbreak in 2002, so researchers suspected they would be susceptible to the new coronavirus. Sure enough, research showed that SARS-CoV-2 readily infected these species in laboratory experiments. Mink are closely related to ferrets, and during the summer and fall of 2020, mink farms across the U.S. became sites of huge outbreaks after people passed the coronavirus to the animals.

Using computer models, scientists were also able to predict that the coronavirus could easily infect some species of deer using key proteins on their cells. Based on these predictions, researchers began testing white-tailed deer for the coronavirus and first reported positives in August 2021.

Most recently, on Feb. 7, 2022, researchers published a preprint paper showing that deer on Staten Island, New York, are infected with the omicron variant. Since this is the virus infecting most New Yorkers, this provides strong evidence that humans somehow transmitted the virus to deer. How deer in at least six states and Canada initially came in contact with SARS-CoV-2 remains a mystery.

Finally, to understand how the coronavirus affects animals, researchers have been conducting carefully controlled exposure experiments. These studies evaluate how infected animals shed the virus, whether they have clinical symptoms, and whether and how much the virus mutates in different species.

The risk of contracting SARS-CoV-2 from an animal is, for most people, far lower than being exposed to it by another human. But if the coronavirus is living and spreading among animals and occasionally jumping back to humans, this process known as spillover and spillback poses its own threats to public health.

First, infection of animals simply increases the concentration of SARS-CoV-2 in an environment. Second, large populations of animals that can sustain the infection can act as a reservoir for the virus, maintaining it even if the number of infections in humans decreases. This is particularly concerning with deer that live in high numbers in suburban areas and could transmit the virus back to people.

Finally, when SARS-CoV-2 spreads from humans to animals, our laboratorys own work indicates that the virus very rapidly accumulates mutations. Viruses adapt to the unique characteristics body temperature, diet and immune composition of whatever animal they are living in by mutating. The more species infected, the more mutations occur. Its possible that the new variants emerging in people could infect new animal species. Or its possible that new variants could initially arise from animals and infect humans.

The story of SARS-CoV-2 in animals isnt over yet. According to the CDC, six of every 10 human infectious diseases can be spread from animals to people, and around three-quarters of new or emerging infectious diseases in people come from animals. Research has shown that investing in the study of zoonotic diseases could vastly reduce the costs of future pandemics, and this type of complex research has historically been underfunded. Yet despite this, in 2021, the CDC allocated only $193 million toward the study of emerging zoonotic infectious diseases less than a quarter of 1 percent of the CDCs total budget.

There are still many unknowns about how viruses transfer between humans and animals, how they live and mutate in animal populations, and the risks of species-jumping viruses. The more researchers know, the better health officials, governments, and scientists can prepare and prevent the next pandemic.

This article was originally published on The Conversation by Sue VandeWoude, Angela Bosco-Lauth and Christie Mayo at Colorado State University. Read the original article here.

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Deer and mink can harbor Covid-19: Why animal virologists say we need to worry - Inverse

COVID update for Cape & Islands: Here’s the latest on cases, hospitalizations, deaths – Cape Cod Times

October 17, 2022

Stonewalk Covid Memorial Procession

Volunteers push the 5000-pound Stonewalk Global Pandemic memorial stone through Hyannis from Cape Cod Hospital to Barnstable Town Hall

Steve Heaslip, Cape Cod Times

Massachusetts had 7,865newly confirmed cases of COVID-19, increasing the total number of cases to 1,894,995 since the pandemic began, the state Department of Public Health reported on Thursday.

In their weekly report, state officials also noted 1,099 new probable cases of coronavirus for a statewide total of 174,853.

As of Oct. 12,293 patients were primarily hospitalized with COVID-19-related illnesses and 856total patients hospitalized with COVID-19, the state agency reported.

Seventy patients were in intensive care units, or ICUs, and 27 patients were intubated.

More: 314 new COVID-19 cases, no deaths reported on Cape and Islands

Closer to home, in Thursday's weekly report, state health officials said Barnstable County posted 335new coronavirus cases, for a total of 44,826 since the pandemic started. Dukes County (Martha's Vineyard) reported 19new coronavirus cases, for a to-date total of 4,171. Nantucket County reported threenew cases, for a total of 3,750.

Case numbers are higherthan last weeks report, which showed 314 new cases on the Cape and Islands.

The states 14-day positivity rate was 7.87%. The 14-day positivity rate for Barnstable County came in at 10.75%, and 5.86% for Dukes and Nantucket counties.

More: Unable to respond: Adam Howe's death raises questions about prisoner, mental health facilities

Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis was treating 17 patients with coronavirus, none of whomwere in the ICU. Falmouth Hospital reported eightpatients, with none in the ICU. Marthas Vineyard Hospital and Nantucket Cottage Hospital had no patients being treated for coronavirus.

State health officials said Thursday there were 60new deaths statewide among people with confirmed cases of COVID-19, increasing the total deaths to 20,401 since the pandemic began.

There were 10 deaths statewide from probable cases of COVID-19. The number of deaths from probable cases is 1,440 in Massachusetts.

More: Health equity, vaccines, food insecurity among goals for Cape's human rights coordinator

Barnstable County posted no new deaths, the state agency reported. The total probable and confirmed deaths from COVID-19 is 660 in Barnstable County. There were no new deaths in Dukes and Nantucket counties combined, for a total fatality count of 22 since the pandemic began in March 2020.

The two-week COVID-19 case count, total case count and 14-day testing positivity rate for Cape Cod towns follows:

Gain access to premium Cape Cod Times content by subscribing.

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COVID update for Cape & Islands: Here's the latest on cases, hospitalizations, deaths - Cape Cod Times

Study finds Paxlovid can interact badly with some heart medications, and White House renews COVID emergency through Jan. 11 – MarketWatch

October 17, 2022

A new study has found that the COVID antiviral Paxlovid can interact badly with certain heart medications, raising concerns for patients with cardiovascular risk who test positive.

The study was published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology and found the reaction involved such medications as blood thinners and statins. As patients who are hospitalized with COVID are at elevated risk of heart problems, they are likely to be described Paxlovid, which was developed by Pfizer PFE, -0.28%.

Co-administration of NMVr (Paxlovid) with medications commonly used to manage cardiovascular conditions can potentially cause significant drug-drug interactions and may lead to severe adverse effects, the authors wrote. It is crucial to be aware of such interactions and take appropriate measures to avoid them.

The news comes just days after the White House made a renewed push to encourage Americans above the age of 50 to take Paxlovid or use monoclonal antibodies if they test positive and are at risk of developing severe disease.

White House coordinator Dr. Ashish Jhatold the New York Timesthat greater use of the medicine could reduce the average daily death count to about 50 a day from close to 400 currently.

I think almost everybody benefits from Paxlovid, Jha said. For some people, the benefit is tiny. For others, the benefit is massive.

Yet a smaller share of 80-year-olds with COVID in the U.S. is taking it than 45-year-olds, Jha said, citing data said he has seen.

On Thursday, the White House extended its COVID pubic health emergency through Jan. 11 as it prepares for an expected rise in cases in the colder months, the Associated Press reported.

The public health emergency, first declared in January 2020 and renewed every 90 days since, has dramatically changed how health services are delivered.

The declaration enabled the emergency authorization of COVID vaccines, as well as freetestingand treatments. It expanded Medicaid coverage to millions of people, many of whom will risk losing that coverage once the emergency ends. It temporarily opened up telehealth access for Medicare recipients, enabling doctors to collect the same rates for those visits and encouraging health networks to adopt telehealth technology.

Since the beginning of this year, Republicans have pressed the administration to end the public health emergency.

President Joe Biden, meanwhile, has urged Congress to provide billions more in aid to pay for vaccines and testing. Amid Republican opposition to that request, the federal government ceased sending free COVID tests in the mail last month, saying it had run out of funds for that effort.

Separately, the head of the World Health Organization urged countries to continue to surveil, monitor and track COVID and to ensure poorer countries get access to vaccines, diagnostics and treatments, reiterating that the pandemic is not yet over.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said most countries no longer have measures in place to limit the spread of the virus, even though cases are rising again in places including Europe.

Most countries have reduced surveillance drastically, while testing and sequencing rates are also much lower, Tedros said in opening remarks at the IHR Emergency Committee on COVID-19 Pandemic on Thursday.

This, said the WHO leader, is blinding us to the evolution of the virus and the impact of current and future variants.

U.S. known cases of COVID are continuing to ease and now stand at their lowest level since late April, although the true tally is likely higher given how many people overall are testing at home, where the data are not being collected.

The daily average for new cases stood at 38,530 on Thursday, according toa New York Times tracker, down 19% from two weeks ago. Cases are rising in six states, namely Nevada, New Mexico, Kansas, Maine, Wisconsin and Vermont, and are flat in Wyoming. They are falling everywhere else.

The daily average for hospitalizations was down 7% at 26,665, while the daily average for deaths is down 7% to 377.

Coronavirus Update:MarketWatchs daily roundup has been curating and reporting all the latest developments every weekday since the coronavirus pandemic began

Other COVID-19 news you should know about:

Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach has urged German states to reintroduce face-mask requirements for indoor spaces due to high COVID cases numbers, the Local.de reported. Lauterbach was launching his ministrys new COVID campaign on Friday. The direction we are heading in is not a good one, he said at a press conference in Berlin, adding its better to take smaller measures now than be forced into drastic ones later.

Health officials in Washington and Oregon said Thursday that a fall and winter COVID surge is likely headed to the Pacific Northwest after months of relatively low case levels, the AP reported. King County (Wash.) Health Officer Dr. Jeff Duchin said during a news briefing that virus trends in Europe show a concerning picture of what the U.S. could soon see, the Seattle Timesreported.

Kevin Spaceys trial on sexual-misconduct allegations will continue without a lawyer who tested positive for COVID on Thursday, Yahoo News reported. The American Beauty and House of Cards star is on trial in Manhattan federal court facing allegations in a $40 million civil lawsuit that he preyed upon actor Anthony Rapp in 1986 when Rapp was 14 and Spacey was 26. Jennifer Kellers diagnosis comes after she spent about five hours cross-examining Rapp on the witness stand over two days a few feet away from the jury box without wearing a mask.

A man who presents himself as an Orthodox Christian monk and an attorney with whom he lived fraudulently obtained $3.5 million in federal pandemic relief funds for nonprofit religious organizations and related businesses they controlled, and spent some of it to fund a lavish lifestyle, federal prosecutors said Thursday. Brian Andrew Bushell, 47, and Tracey M.A. Stockton, 64, are charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and unlawful monetary transactions, the U.S. attorneys office in Boston said in a statement, as reported by the AP.

Heres what the numbers say:

The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 623.9 million on Monday, while the death toll rose above 6.56 million,according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.

The U.S. leads the world with 96.9 million cases and 1,064,821 fatalities.

TheCenters for Disease Control and Preventions trackershows that 226.2 million people living in the U.S., equal to 68.1% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots. Just 110.8 million have had a booster, equal to 49% of the vaccinated population, and 25.6 million of those who are eligible for a second booster have had one, equal to 39% of those who received a first booster.

Some 14.8 million people have had a shot of the new bivalent booster that targets the new omicron subvariants.

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Study finds Paxlovid can interact badly with some heart medications, and White House renews COVID emergency through Jan. 11 - MarketWatch

How long does immunity from the new COVID bivalent boosters last ‘in the real world’? – San Francisco Chronicle

October 17, 2022

Dear Advice Team: Do medical experts have any idea yet how long immunity from the bivalent COVID booster will last? I know that previous boosters showed waning immunity over time, and Im wondering what this means for vulnerability around the holidays. Also, are there any rumblings about if/when the next round of boosters will be available?

Welcome to Pandemic Problems, an advice column that aims to help Bay Area residents solve their pandemic and post-pandemic conundrums personal, practical or professional. As COVID evolves into an endemic disease, we know readers are trying to navigate the new normal. Send your questions and issues to pandemicproblems@sfchronicle.com.

Todays question is fielded by The Chronicles Anna Buchmann.

Dear Reader: Your questions about the new COVID-19 vaccine boosters are very timely. We are just six weeks into the rollout of the bivalent shots so-called because they target two coronavirus strains, the ancestral version plus the BA.4 and BA.5 omicron subvariants currently circulating and as you note, many of us are making holiday plans that involve travel and gathering with others.

Meanwhile, bivalent booster eligibility has already expanded to include younger children as of Wednesday, everyone ages 5 and up may receive one dose of Pfizers bivalent mRNA booster (for the Moderna version, its 6 and up) at least two months after completing their primary vaccine series or at least two months after their last dose of the original monovalent booster.

Health officials are urging people to get the new boosters to help head off a potential winter COVID-19 surge, with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data showing less than 6% of eligible people had gotten the bivalent shot as of Monday. The CDC now says you are up to date on COVID vaccination after receiving a primary series and the most recent booster dose recommended.

With that context, your first question was about the immunity we get from the bivalent booster and how long it lasts.

Compared with the original booster, the bivalent boosters nearly double the levels of antibodies that can prevent omicron from infecting cells, according to Dr. Nadia Roan, a UCSF immunologist and investigator at the Gladstone Institutes. But in the real world, its not currently clear how much more protective the bivalent booster is, she said via email.

As for immunity duration, if BA.4 and BA.5 stay dominant, the new booster could give excellent protection against even a mild infection for four to six months, UCSF infectious disease expert Dr. Peter Chin-Hong said in an email. However, if more immune-evasive variants gain a greater foothold, the booster could grant maximum protection for about two to four months, decent protection for about four to six months, and less protection after six months, he said.

Both Roan and Chin-Hong agreed that those up to date on their vaccinations will have long-lived protection against serious disease and death from COVID perhaps more than a year without further boosters, Chin-Hong said.

You asked specifically about the holiday season. By that time, those who received the bivalent booster at the start of the rollout can expect full protection against serious disease and death for sure and likely substantial protection against even a mild infection for that time period provided the variant mix (all flavors of omicron) stays similar, Chin-Hong said.

If you have not had COVID or received one of the original boosters in the past few months, I would suggest getting the bivalent soon, Roan said. Thats because after boosting, antibody levels spike in about a week and stay elevated before declining steadily, she said. Those antibodies decrease your chances of infection.

So if you wanted (to) maximize protection for the holiday season, it could be timed 2-3 weeks before then, she said.

Chin-Hongs advice was to get the bivalent booster by Halloween.

Not only will it make you more confident about trick-or-treating, you will optimize your protection against infection for when we expect cases to increase, he said.

Send your questions and issues to pandemicproblems@sfchronicle.com.

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Full protection will kick in within two weeks, he said. This will increase your chances of not missing Thanksgiving dinner, that family reunion or long-awaited vacation trip.

Your final question was about a possible next round of boosters. Both Roan and Chin-Hong said they had not yet heard any discussion on that front, though Chin-Hong said its possible we may get updated COVID boosters annually, like the flu vaccine.

Any reformulation of the boosters for next winter, possibly by September 2023, would depend on what happens with variants, Chin-Hong said. If omicron continues to dominate, the formula might not change.

But it is very likely that COVID will continue to mutate, he said.

Pandemic Problems is written by Chronicle Advice Team members Annie Vainshtein, Kellie Hwang and Anna Buchmann, combining thorough reporting and guidance from Bay Area experts to help get answers and find a way forward.

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How long does immunity from the new COVID bivalent boosters last 'in the real world'? - San Francisco Chronicle

Respiratory illnesses have spiked among children. Here’s what parents need to know. – Yahoo News

October 17, 2022

In recent weeks many children have returned to in-person learning and resumed after-school activities and sports. Some public health measures used to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 such as masks and social distancing, which are also effective against other respiratory viruses, have been lifted in many schools across the United States. While all of this has brought back a much-needed sense of normalcy for children and their families, it has also come with some challenges, including a significant increase in respiratory illnesses among kids.

Childrens hospitals in major U.S. cities have been reporting unusually high numbers of sick patients with respiratory illnesses caused by viruses other than the coronavirus. These include respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), enteroviruses(EV) and rhinovirus(RV), which mostly cause coldlike symptoms such as a runny nose, coughing, sneezing and fever.

Normally, these viruses emerge in the winter months. During this time, also known as respiratory viral season, pediatricians and hospitals are prepared to deal with an influx of patients sick with these viruses. However, this year the season started sooner than expected, and the number of children needing hospitalizations has been so high that in some areas hospital systems are already overwhelmed.

In general, pediatric hospitals operate relatively close to their capacity, Dr. Michael Chang, a pediatric infectious diseases specialist at UTHealth Houston and Childrens Memorial Hermann Hospital, told Yahoo News. So when you see patients needing hospitalization for respiratory viruses at unusual times of the year, then it's easy to kind of reach capacity for hospitals.

In September, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention alerted public health departments and doctors treating pediatric patients about some of these respiratory viruses. The agency issued a health advisory warning about an increase in the number of pediatric hospitalizations for severe respiratory illness where patients were testing positive for rhinovirus and/or enterovirus, including enterovirus D68 (EV-D68) which has been linked to a rare but serious condition called acute flaccid myelitis, or AFM. The main purpose of the advisory, the CDC said, was for doctors to keep this information top of mind when diagnosing and treating respiratory illnesses in children, as some of these viruses can have clinically similar presentations and be indistinguishable from one another.

Story continues

Chang said his home state of Texas is in the middle of a big RSV surge right now, which started a couple of weeks ago and wasnt expected until at least late October. We have something like 20% of our tests for RSV are positive, which is well above the 10% threshold that we consider kind of the epidemic level of RSV, he said.

Cases of enterovirus D68 have also gone up and are at a higher rate than baseline, according to Chang. He noted that the numbers for enterovirus are not as high as those seen in previous surges. However, he said doctors are not exactly sure how far into the surge they are because this is happening at an unusual time.

In addition, doctors in the state have started to see a number of flu cases again, earlier than expected. COVID-19 cases, however, are going down, Chang said.

Why are these respiratory viruses surging right now?

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted not only peoples lives but also historical seasonal patterns for other common respiratory viruses. Chang said these patterns have completely changed, and while its unclear why, it likely has a lot to do with human behavior.

We were really focused on those infection prevention techniques, which again, not only do they work for SARS-CoV-2, but they really work for most of the respiratory viruses, he said. We knew that those infection prevention techniques could work for the flu and RSV. It's just that we never executed them on such a global scale, right? Like we never did it in such a widespread fashion where so many people were wearing masks, so many people were isolating, so many people were physical distancing. So we never got to see the impact that those types of preventions on such a large scale could have for RSV and flu, but were obviously very effective.

Chang explained that the past two winters were among the mildest influenza seasons on record. Similarly, doctors didnt see much RSV in the winter of 2020-21, when the country was facing a COVID-19 surge and there were tight public health restrictions in place. However, as some of these pandemic restrictions were loosened last summer, there was a major surge of RSV. He said two things were unusual about it: how early it happened well before winter and how severe some of the cases were.

This year, RSV is once again surging earlier than usual, and flu cases have also started to increase in some parts of the country, particularly the Southeast and South Central U.S. According to health experts, we could face a severe flu season that coincides with a winter surge of COVID-19.

Another explanation for why these winter respiratory viruses are affecting us more now, experts say, is not necessarily because theyve changed but because we have less immunity against them.

Basically for two years, two winters where kids and adults would have been infected by RSV or by the flu, they didnt have it, and so some of that immunity that we would have had from infection before, we don't have now, Chang explained.

Which symptoms should parents be on the lookout for?

For most parents, all these viruses are pretty much going to be indistinguishable, Chang told Yahoo News. Common symptoms are a runny nose, sore throat and coughing. These, the pediatrician said, can last three to five days, sometimes peaking on day five, just before they start to subside.

Most children, he said, recover fully from these viruses with no long-term complications. However, parents of children with asthma or reactive airway disease (when asthma is suspected but not confirmed)need to be more cautious about these viruses, particularly enterovirus D68, which can cause more severe disease.

Certainly any time that you notice that theyre having difficulty, like with shortness of breath at rest, or if theyre having trouble completing their sentences, if theyre wheezing a lot, coughing is more severe, any type of shortness of breath and then any type of chest pain, you are going want to ... seek medical attention, Chang said.

Infants and younger children, particularly if they were born premature or have a history of underlying congenital heart disease, are at increased risk of severe illness from RSV, he explained.

The main things you want to look out for are difficulty with feeding, difficulty with catching their breath if they're taking a bottle or breastfeeding. Certainly decreased feeding, decreased appetite, he said.

How can parents best protect children right now?

There are currently no vaccines available for RSV, enterovirus D68 or rhinovirus. But Chang said the best way to protect children this winter is to make sure parents and children are vaccinated against those viruses that we do have vaccines for, such as flu and COVID-19.

Everybody who qualifies for [a] flu shot, which is pretty much everyone from 6 months to adult, should go and get their seasonal flu vaccine as soon as possible, Chang said.

He also urged those who have not been vaccinated against COVID-19 to get their shots.

The best way to minimize the risk of severe illness and hospitalization, whatever your age, whatever your underlying conditions, is to get vaccinated and be fully up to date on your SARS-CoV-2 immunizations, including the new bivalent boosters.

Cover thumbnail photo: Peter Cade via Getty Images

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Respiratory illnesses have spiked among children. Here's what parents need to know. - Yahoo News

Test Kits Market for Corona Virus Testing Market will Decelerate at a CAGR of -4.57% through 2021-2026, Increasing the Spread Of COVID-19 Globally to…

October 11, 2022

NEW YORK, Oct. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Technavio has been monitoring the test kits market for coronavirus testing market and it is expected to decrease by USD -13.39 bn during 2021-2026, decelerating at a CAGR of -4.57% during the forecast period.

The increasing spread of COVID-19 globally, increasing screening of passengers in airports, and government regulations for healthcare service providers will offer immense growth opportunities. However, poor healthcare settings in developing countries, inaccuracy associated with rapid diagnostic tests, and threats associated with counterfeit testing kits will challenge the growth of the market participants.

To make the most of the opportunities, market vendors should focus more on the growth prospects in the fast-growing segments, while maintaining their positions in the slow-growing segments. Request Free Sample Report.

Test Kits Market for Corona Virus Testing Market Segmentation

Test Kits Market for Corona Virus Testing Market Scope

Technavio presents a detailed picture of the market by the way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources. Our test kits market for coronavirus testing market report covers the following areas:

This study identifies Increasing initiatives from start-ups as one of the prime reasons driving the test kits market for coronavirus testing market growth during the next few years. Buy Sample Report.

Test Kits Market for Corona Virus Testing Market Vendor Analysis

The growing competition in the market is compelling vendors to adopt various growth strategies such as promotional activities and spending on advertisements to improve the visibility of their services. Some vendors are also adopting inorganic growth strategies such as M&As to remain competitive in the market.

The report analyzes the market's competitive landscape and offers information on several market vendors, including:

To find additional highlights on the growth strategies adopted by vendors and their product offerings, Download Free Sample Report.

Test Kits Market for Corona Virus Testing Market Key Highlights

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Test Kits Market For Corona Virus Testing Market Scope

Report Coverage

Details

Page number

120

Base year

2021

Forecast period

2022-2026

Growth momentum & CAGR

Decelerate at a CAGR of -4.57%

Market growth 2022-2026

$-13.39 billion

Market structure

Fragmented

YoY growth (%)

25.0

Regional analysis

Europe, Asia, North America, and Rest of World (ROW)

Performing market contribution

Rest of World (ROW) at 10%

Key consumer countries

US, UK, Spain, Russia, and India

Competitive landscape

Leading companies, competitive strategies, consumer engagement scope

Companies profiled

Abbott Laboratories, Advaite Inc., Beijing Innotec Biotechnology Co. Ltd., BGI Group, Bio Rad Laboratories Inc., Biomedomics Inc., bioMerieux SA, Cellex Inc., Chembio Diagnostics Inc., Danaher Corp., Dynamiker Biotechnology Tianjin Co. Ltd., F. Hoffmann La Roche Ltd., Henry Schein Inc., Mayo Medical Laboratories, Mylab Discovery Solutions Pvt Ltd., Ortho Clinical Diagnostics plc, QIAGEN NV, Robert Bosch GmbH, Safecare Biotech Hangzhou Co. Ltd, Siemens AG, and Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc.

Market Dynamics

Parent market analysis, Market growth inducers and obstacles, Fast-growing and slow-growing segment analysis, COVID-19 impact and future consumer dynamics, and market condition analysis for the forecast period.

Customization purview

If our report has not included the data that you are looking for, you can reach out to our analysts and get segments customized.

Table Of Contents :

1 Executive Summary

2 Market Landscape

3 Market Sizing

4 Five Forces Analysis

5 Market Segmentation by End-user

6 Customer Landscape

7 Geographic Landscape

8 Drivers, Challenges, and Trends

9 Vendor Landscape

10 Vendor Analysis

11 Appendix

About Us

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focuses on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

Contact

Technavio ResearchJesse MaidaMedia & Marketing ExecutiveUS: +1 844 364 1100UK: +44 203 893 3200Email: [emailprotected]Website: http://www.technavio.com/

SOURCE Technavio

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Test Kits Market for Corona Virus Testing Market will Decelerate at a CAGR of -4.57% through 2021-2026, Increasing the Spread Of COVID-19 Globally to...

How Many Times Will You Get COVID? – The New Yorker

October 11, 2022

In March, 2020, Chelsea Kay, a twentysomething music lover who lives in New York, went to see the Australian band Rfs Du Sol play a packed show at the Orpheum Theatre in the heart of New Orleans. At some point, a murmur rippled through the crowd: Tom Hanks had tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Kay thought little of it until she learned, a few days later, that states were shutting down to slow the spread of the virus. After travelling to her parents home in Chicago, fatigue set in. Her mother pulled a batch of chocolate-chip cookies from the oven, and she thought, Uh, I cant smell anything. A few weeks later, when the loss of smell became well-known as a symptom of COVID-19, she realized that shed contracted the virus. And that, she told me, was the first time I got it.

Two years later, on a cold Monday in March, Kay woke up feeling exhaustedher breathing labored, her head pounding. Wow, she thought, I feel like shit. Though a COVID test came back negative, she developed fevers, chills, night sweats, and brain fog, and a second test returned positive. Kay was young, healthy, vaccinated, and boosted, yet she grew so short of breath that she had trouble climbing stairs. Id never experienced anything like it, she told me. Her brain fog lasted weeks.

With that hard-won immunity, Kay assumed shed earned a reprieve. You deserve at least six months, right? she told me. I was, like, Im good for a while now. But, by the end of June, she again felt unwell, and her symptoms were much the same as in March. It was shocking, she said. Like, COVID can happen againanywhere, anytime. One wonders whether the cycle could continue foreverwhether many of us will eventually get COVID for a fourth time, or a fifth, or even a tenth.

During the first year of the pandemic, when reports of coronavirus reinfections started to trickle in, the phenomenon was considered exceedingly rarea microliter-sized drop in the bucket, as one virologist put it. As of October, 2020, the world had recorded thirty-eight million coronavirus cases and fewer than five confirmed reinfections. Two years later, the bucket is overflowing. Its now clear that not only will just about everyone contract the coronavirus, but were all likely to be infected multiple times. The virus evolves too efficiently, our immunity wanes too quickly, and, although COVID vaccines have proved remarkably durable against serious illness, they havent managed to break the chain of transmission.

As more of us experience repeat infections, we may sense that the virus remains a constant menace even when it is ignored, perhaps below the threshold of full-blown crisis but far more destructive than what we might have accepted in the Before Times. In the U.S., COVID is still on pace to kill more than a hundred thousand people per year; many of us share the reasonable worry that some future reinfection will be the one that causes longer-term harm to our health and quality of life. Has our battle with COVID-19 come to such a standstill that a slow burn of disruption, debility, and death will continue for years to come?

The specialists I consulted for this story shared a conviction that, despite the relentlessness of reinfections, our COVID woes are slowly starting to recede. They said that, although coronavirus infections will always carry risks, and we may still suffer periodic surges and new variants, infections should get less serious and less frequent as our immunity grows. Vaccines and therapeutics will also continue to improve, helping to lessen the worst effects of reinfection. But the duration and severity of this transitional period matters, too. How many times will we have to sit through quarantines and ride out symptoms, worrying how bad this one might be? How many more surprises could the coronavirus have in store?

The reinfection era began in earnest last winter, when the Omicron variant first spread around the globe. A recent study conducted in Serbia found that for people who were infected in the first twenty months of the pandemic, the risk of reinfection rose steadily but slowly: at six months, around one in a hundred had been reinfected; at twelve months, one in twenty; and at eighteen months, one in five. But Omicron sent reinfections skyrocketing. Nearly ninety per cent of all reinfections occurred in the studys final month, January, 2022. (The researchers found that one in a hundred reinfections led to hospitalization, and one in a thousand resulted in death.) By some estimates, the initial Omicron outbreak caused ten times as many reinfections as the earlier Delta variant. And Omicron now circulates in the form of even more contagious subvariants, such as BA.4 and BA.5.

How often is the coronavirus reinfecting us now? Were probably all getting reinfected all the time, Marcel Curlin, an infectious-disease physician at Oregon Health & Science University, told me. If you put me in a room with someone with COVID, and a little virus lands in my nose and infects one cell and makes new viruses, but then my immune system immediately wipes it outwell, Ive been infected. Its just that its not clinically recognized as an infection. Seen in this way, infections could be considered less of a binary than a spectrum: the virus can replicate inside our bodies even if it doesnt cause symptoms or show up on less-sensitive tests. I bet if we did a PCR test on every person every four days, wed see a sky-high rate of reinfection, Curlin said.

Fundamentally, our risk of reinfections depends on three main factors: how much our immunity has waned, how much the virus has changed, and how much of it we encounter. Our collective immunity increases with infections, reinfections, and vaccines. Booster shots are meant to slow the drawdowns in our immunity, and the recently approved bivalent vaccines, which target the Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5, may be particularly helpful. But the immune system must be judicious: it encounters countless threats and cant maintain enormous standing armies for each one. Over time, our bodies pare back their defenses, and whether were reinfected depends partly on how quickly and intensely they remobilize during the next encounter.

Our immune protections also exert pressure on the virus to evolve around them. Viruses can change so much that the body has trouble recognizing and subduing them. The original Omicron variant had at least thirty-two mutations on its spike proteintwice as many as Deltaand, in recent months, its subvariants have accumulated many more. SARS-CoV-2 is mutating faster than any of its cousin coronavirusesfaster, even, than the worlds dominant flu strain.

Finally, the chance youre reinfected is a function of viral dose. Its more than just a numbers game: our immune cells have to be stationed in the right places. Its like real estate in Manhattan, Florian Krammer, a virologist at Mount Sinais Medical School, told me. Location really matters. COVID vaccines injected into muscle produce relatively high levels of antibodies in the blood and lungs, but not in the nose, mouth, and upper airways, where the coronavirus usually enters. (Natural infection seems to produce a longer-lasting immune response in the nasal cavity.) Thats why scientists are so interested in mucosal vaccines, which are administered in the nose or mouth. India and China recently authorized such vaccines, but its still not clear how effective theyll be.

These three factors exist in a kind of equilibrium, but the balance can change, sometimes dramatically. Because Omicron is a more skilled infector of humans than prior variants, we need vastly higher levels of circulating antibodies to block it from infecting us. The intrinsic transmissibility of Omicron has changed the rules of the game, Dan Barouch, an immunologist at Harvard, told meprobably in a way that makes it impossible for us to win, if by winning we mean avoiding reinfection altogether. Are we chasing our tails trying to continuously raise antibody titers against SARS-CoV-2 to levels that would fully block infection? Barouch asked. At this point, is preventing infection even a realistic goal?

Aubree Gordon, an epidemiologist at the University of Michigan, has been following hundreds of households in Nicaragua to understand COVID risks over time. Gordons work has shown that, on average, a first infection lowers the severity of a second, and a second of a third. But, for some, COVID continues to present meaningful health risks. Id hoped that one or two reinfections would get us to a place where COVID was something like other coronaviruses, Gordon told me. It looks like it will take longer. But I expect well still get there.

Gordon believes that one day, SARS-CoV-2 will infect us far less frequently than it does now. She pointed to a paper published in Nature Medicine that examined how often people were infected by other coronaviruses. (Virtually everyone has antibodies against the four other coronaviruses that afflict humans, and they generally cause only mild cold symptoms.) The researchers followed ten healthy individuals for decades and found that, although reinfections can occur as soon as six months after a prior infection, the median time to reinfection was around three years. And thats for any infection, not symptomatic infection, Gordon said. My best guess would beand this is just a guessthat symptomatic COVID infections will eventually occur every five years or so. We could achieve this equilibrium within five years, and possibly sooner, she said. But that would still mean that many of us could get COVID ten times or more in our lifetimes.

Claudia, a special-education teacher with an easy smile and short, curly brown hair, was pregnant when the pandemic began. (She asked me to omit her last name to protect her privacy.) She and her husband stayed holed up in their Brooklyn apartment even after their daughter was born, in October, 2020. Essentially the only time I left the house was for my postpartum visit, she told me. But the couple decided to take PCR tests and spend Christmas, 2020, visiting her parents. Her results didnt arrive until Christmas Eve, at which point Claudia and her mother were already cooing over the baby. My mom was oh-my-God freaking out, Claudia said. We all had a moment of spinning our wheels. I felt totally fine, but somehow I had COVID?

Her second positive test came a year later, when Omicron became the dominant variant and a wave of infections affected the school where she teaches. She had no symptoms and was surprised when a precautionary test came back positive. Shed been in close contact with many students and teachers, and the school closed early for winter break. I inadvertently gave everyone that little Christmas gift, she said.

Claudias third coronavirus infection, in September, was her worsta reminder that infections and immunity do not always follow predictable patterns. Her daughter, now nearly two, developed a fever; Claudia soon experienced muscle pains, headaches, congestion, and fatigue, and then lost her sense of smell. When we spoke a few weeks later, it had mostly returned, but, she told me, Im constantly going around sniffing cinnamon, just to make sure. Claudia feels grateful to have escaped these infections relatively unscathed, but shes wary about long-term consequences. Im nervous about all these studies coming out saying, Oh, you could get dementia, depression, any number of things after even mild COVID, she told me. Im, like, Well, shit, theres nothing I can do about it now.

People who are reinfected by the virus are much more likely to suffer a range of medical problems in subsequent months, including heart attacks, strokes, breathing problems, mental-health problems, and kidney disorders, according to a major new analysis of U.S. veterans. Compared with those who werent reinfected, they are twice as likely to die. We did this paper because, for most people in the U.S., a first infection is now in the past, Ziyad Al-Aly, the studys lead author and chief of research and development at the V.A. St. Louis Health Care System, told me. Theyre thinking, Ive had it once, Im vaccinated, Im boosted. Should I still go the extra mile to protect myself? Does reinfection really matter? The short answer is: yes, it absolutely does.

There are some caveats. The study has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal, and many veterans are older men with multiple medical conditions, so they have a higher level of risk than the general population. Its also possible that people who get reinfected are somehow dissimilar from those who dont. Al-Aly was careful to note that a second infection isnt necessarily worse than a first onerather, that its worse than not getting reinfected at all. But I think the idea that theres some elevated risk that comes with reinfection is generalizable, Al-Aly told me. Even when the health risks of any one infection go down, the cumulative risks of many infections should worry us.

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How Many Times Will You Get COVID? - The New Yorker

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