Category: Corona Virus

Two new COVID-19 subvariants, collectively nicknamed FLiRT, are increasingly edging out the winters dominant strain ahead of a possible summer uptick in coronavirus infections.

The new FLiRT subvariants, officially known as KP.2 and KP.1.1, are believed to be roughly 20% more transmissible than their parent, JN.1, the winters dominant subvariant, said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious diseases expert at UC San Francisco.

The two FLiRT subvariants combined comprised an estimated 35% of coronavirus infections nationally for the two-week period that began April 28, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. By contrast, JN.1 is now believed to comprise 16% of infections; in mid-winter, it was blamed for more than 80%.

Its been quite a while since weve had a new dominant variant in the U.S., said Dr. David Bronstein, an infectious diseases specialist at Kaiser Permanente Southern California. With each of these variants that takes over from the one before it, we do see increased transmissibility its easier to spread from person to person. So, thats really the concern with FLiRT.

The largest FLiRT subvariant, KP.2, is growing particularly fast as a proportion of existing coronavirus infections. In late March, it comprised just 4% of estimated infections nationally; most recently, its estimated to comprise 28.2%.

The new subvariants have been dubbed FLiRT for the mutations on the evolved COVID-19 virus. So instead of an L, theres an F. And instead of a T, theres an R. And then they put an i in to make it cute, Chin-Hong said.

Despite their increased transmissibility, the new mutations dont appear to result in more severe disease. And the vaccine is expected to continue working well, given the new subvariants are only slightly different from the winter version.

The entry of the subvariants also come as COVID-19 hospitalizations hit record lows. For the week ending April 27, there were 5,098 admissions one-seventh of this winters peak, in which 35,137 admissions were reported for the week that ended Jan. 6.

However, as of May 1, hospitals nationwide are no longer required to report COVID-19 admissions to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; only voluntarily submitted data will now be posted nationally.

In Los Angeles County, COVID-19 levels appear to be in a lull. For the week that ended April 27, coronavirus levels in L.A. County wastewater were at 8% of the winter peak.

Still, some doctors say they wouldnt be surprised if there is a summer uptick in COVID cases as has occurred in prior seasons.

By the summer, we can expect peoples immunity to be a little bit lower, Chin-Hong said. For those who are older or immunocompromised, they are potentially at risk for getting more serious disease.

Plus, people often gather indoors during summer to avoid the heat, which can increase the risk of transmission in crowded public venues.

Chin-Hong said he is seeing COVID-19 patients at UC San Francisco with serious illness, and they were either very old or very immune compromised and they didnt get the most recent shots.

That the FLiRT subvariants are more easily able to spread underscores how important it is for those most at risk to be up to date on vaccinations and stay away from those who are sick, doctors say.

And while the chance of long COVID is likely less than the early days of the pandemic, it still exists.

Many people havent gotten a recent COVID-19 vaccination, data show. For the week that ended Feb. 24, 29% of seniors nationwide had received a dose of the updated vaccine that became available in September. In California, as of April 30, about 36% of seniors had received an updated dose.

We are still seeing those hospitalizations and bad outcomes, and even folks who are passing away from COVID. It hasnt gone away, Bronstein said. The good news is that the ... vaccine still is very good at protecting you against hospitalizations, severe outcomes and death.

Between October and April, more than 42,000 COVID-19 deaths were recorded nationally, according to the CDC. Thats significantly larger than the estimated flu deaths over the same time: 24,000.

Still, the number is smaller than the comparable period for the prior season, when more than 70,000 COVID deaths were reported. And that tally is far smaller than the first two devastating pandemic winters: Between October 2021 and April 2022, more than 272,000 deaths were recorded; and between October 2020 and April 2021, the number was more than 370,000.

The CDC in February recommended that seniors 65 and older get a second dose of the updated vaccine as long as it had been at least four months since an earlier injection. The CDC also says everyone 6 months and older should get a dose of the updated vaccine.

Right now, the most important thing that folks can do is get the vaccine, Bronstein said. He suggested those who are especially vulnerable continue to mask whenever possible, especially in places like crowded airports and planes.

In addition, he said, its important that people who are sick stay at home to avoid spreading germs to others, particularly the elderly. And if sickened people must leave home, they should wear a mask around others.

Even in the summertime, what may feel like a cold can actually be a COVID infection, Bronstein said. We need to make sure that if youre sick, that were testing whenever possible, staying home ... and make sure that your symptoms are more mild before you decide to go back to your regular activities.

California recommends that people with COVID-19 symptoms stay home until symptoms are mild and improving and they havent had a fever for 24 hours without medication.

They should also mask around others while indoors for 10 days after becoming sick or, if they have no symptoms, after testing positive. They can stop wearing a mask sooner, if they have two consecutive negative rapid test results at least a day apart. But they should avoid contact with all higher-risk people for 10 days, according to the state Department of Public Health.

And ahead of travel plans this summer, Chin-Hong suggested that older people speak with their healthcare provider about making sure that, should they come down with COVID-19, that Paxlovid can be prescribed without interfering with other medications. Paxlovid is an antiviral drug that, when taken by people at risk for severe COVID-19 who have mild-to-moderate illness, reduces the risk of hospitalization and death.

Chin-Hong also suggests that it makes sense for healthcare providers to prescribe Paxlovid to higher-risk people planning to travel where the medicine may not be readily available, as a just-in-case prescription. Clinicians have that discretion since Paxlovid has been fully approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which gives healthcare providers greater leeway in deciding when to prescribe the drug.

Earlier this year, another medicine was also made available to help protect the most vulnerable people such as cancer patients and those who have received organ transplants. Its a monoclonal antibody called Pemgarda, which is administered intravenously and can be given once every three months. Authorized by the FDA for emergency use, its given prophylactically and can help recipients prevent COVID-19 if they are later exposed to an infected person.

Anticipation is also building for a fresh version of the COVID-19 vaccine to be released possibly by September. It could be designed against last winters JN.1 strain, but its also possible officials decide it should be designed against the rising FLiRT subvariants, Chin-Hong said.

Read the rest here:

A new COVID-19 variant FLiRT has emerged. Here's what to know - Los Angeles Times

WhatsApp messages during Covid involving DUP ministers were published yesterday

Former Education Minister Peter Weir after taking questions at the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, sitting in Belfast (Credit: Press Eye)

Only nut jobs and ardent nationalists on Twitter felt schools should close as Covid-19 made its first advance in NI during March 2020, former Education Minister Peter Weir told Executive colleagues at the time.

The comment was included in a transcript of a WhatsApp group involving Mr Weir, along with DUP Executive colleagues Emma Little-Pengelly, Gordon Lyons and Edwin Poots.

The rest is here:

DUP ex-Minister: 'Only nut jobs and ardent nationalists on Twitter' wanted to close schools as Covid advanced - Belfast Telegraph

A new series of COVID variants, nicknamed the "FLiRT" variants, are being tracked by U.S. health officials, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The variants, identified as KP.1.1 and KP.2, collectively make up more than 32% of COVID cases in the U.S., per the CDC's most recent variant tracking data. KP.2, in particular, made up the most cases of any variant at 24.9% of cases, according to forecasting data from the week ending on April 27.

"CDC is tracking SARS-CoV-2 variants KP.2 and KP.1.1, sometimes referred to as 'FLiRT,' and working to better understand their potential impact on public health," the CDC told NBC Chicago in a statement. "Currently, KP.2 is the dominant variant in the United States, but laboratory testing data indicate low levels of SARS-CoV-2 transmission overall at this time. That means that while KP.2 is proportionally the most predominant variant, it is not causing an increase in infections as transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is low."

The variants are subvariants of JN.1, which rose to dominance in December 2023 and was labeled a "variant of concern," though the "FLiRT" variants have two changes in the spike protein compared to JN.1.

"The two changes in spike have been observed in earlier lineages, including XBB.1.5 lineages, which were dominant throughout 2023 and the basis for the 20232024 vaccine formulation," the CDC reported.

Health officials said that while there are no indicators the new strains cause more severe illness than other strains, the "CDC will continue to monitor community transmission of the virus and how vaccines perform against this strain."

Megan L. Ranney, dean of the Yale School of Public Health, told WebMD the spike protein changes are concerning.

While the emergence of the new variants has sparked concerns over a potential summer surge, health experts have stressed that COVID levels remain low compared to the start of the pandemic.

"I think it is something we're keeping our eyes on and like what's happened before, I think we are expecting to have variants every so often as COVID continues around the world and in the U.S.," Dr. Shivanjali Shankaran, an associate professor in infectious diseases at Rush University Medical Center, told NBC Chicago.

Earlier this year, COVID-19 was putting more people in the hospital than flu, but as of late-April the hospitalization rates appeared about the same, CDCdatashowed.

According to the CDC, KP.2 has so far not been associated with increases in test positivity or hospitalizations. But Shankaran noted that with summer gatherings and holidays near, transmission could climb.

"I think we've seen that before with multiple prior variants as well, where it's not like RSV or flu [which] only happens in the winter," she said. "So that's one thing to know about, especially as holidays come again, you know, festivals and things like that. And yes, at this point, we have a very, very small number of people who are hospitalized or ... dying from COVID, but what we need to remember is the non-serious, if you will, or non-acute side effects, such as development of long COVID, or having increased risk of developing diabetes and things like that, which are still quite very serious and still should be taken into account when you sort of move around the world."

The concerns come two months after COVID-19 guidelines were updated by the CDC, with the five-day isolation recommendation being removed. The change marked the first time the U.S. agency has loosened its COVID isolation recommendations in three years.

Vaccination levels associated with the latest version of the vaccine remain low as experts urged precautions.

"Not to say don't do anything, but just things like get the vaccine - even if the vaccine doesn't match 100%, which it hasn't for a while. We know that with prior variants even the unmatched vaccine has provided significant protection against hospitalization," Shankaran said, encouraging those who may be sick to mask where possible.

So far, symptoms associated with the new variants appear to be similar to previous strains. If you do suspect you've contracted COVID, here are some symptoms you might experience:

Last year, a Chicago-area doctorsaid she's noticed shifts in the most common symptomsher patients reported as the JN.1 variant rose to dominance.

Dr. Chantel Tinfang, a family medicine physician with Sengstacke Health Center at Provident Hospital of Cook County,noted at the time that many of the cases she saw reported less of the fever, body aches and chills, and presented more with sore throat, fatigue and coughing.

"We still see some patients experiencing decreased appetite, a loss of taste or smell. So it kind of depends," she said. "One patient was just very, very tired. Like she couldn't really do much. And that's when you know ... it's different. It's not just coughing and shortness of breath. We still see that though."

She suggested consulting with your doctor if your symptoms don't begin to improve outside of the recommended isolation period.

As for timing, symptoms can last for several days, but in some cases, even longer.

"Some people who have been infected with the virus that causes COVID-19 can experience long-term effects from their infection, known as Long COVID or Post-COVID Conditions (PCC)," according to the CDC.

Such symptoms can last for weeks and possibly even years.

Read more:

Symptoms, spread and more: What to know about new COVID FLiRT' variants - NBC Chicago

The sudden outbreak of a pandemic caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2, also known as Covid-19) in December 2019 led to the death of over six million people worldwide. As the Covid-19 virus propagated, a team of scientists began to search for a potential correlation between metal levels in blood and Covid-19 infection. This was primarily performed using samples from donors with various levels of severity to Covid-19 infection. Using logistics regression on laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) spectra of plasma samples collected pre- and post- Covid-19 pandemic from donors known to have developed various levels of antibodies to the SARS-Cov-2 virus, University of Massachusetts physics professor Nourddine Melikechis research team has shown that relying on the levels of sodium (Na), potassium (K), and magnesium (Mg) together is more efficient at differentiating the two types of plasma samples than any single blood metal alone. Melikechi, corresponding author for the paper that resulted from this research, spoke to Spectroscopy magazine about his teams findings.

In your paper (1),you discussed using laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) to search for potential associations between levels of blood metals in plasma samples collected before December 2019in other words pre-pandemic (used as healthy controls)and post-Covid pandemic (known to have been infected with SARS-CoV-2) irrespective of the severity of the Covid-19 disease.What inspired this research?

The emergence of Covid-19 in December 2019 marked a singular global health event that disrupted the lives of millions of people and presented an unexpected challenge worldwide. Initially, the SARS-CoV-2 virus primarily affected the lungs. However soon several distinct complications, extending beyond the respiratory system, were reported by health professionals. These included liver dysfunction, headaches, loss of smell, inflammation of the heart muscle, kidney injury, and blood clotting abnormalities in some cases. In parallel, as the virus was spreading, new studies suggested that changes in levels of sodium in the blood may predict the severity status of Covid-19 patients; others suggested that zinc could hamper the SARSCoV2 virus from multiplying by interfering with its ability to make copies of itself. In some weird way, the sudden emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic and the seemingly relatively strong association of blood metals and the health status Covid-19 patients inspired us to investigate whether certain metals present in the blood have a connection to Covid-19, and if they do, what might it be.

What is the hypothesis regarding levels of metals in plasma as related to SARS-CoV-2 infection?

Based on several published reports that associated various blood metals to Covid-19, we hypothesized that, compared to those acquired pre-pandemic, the levels of blood metals of a donor who tested positive for Covid-19 may have undergone fundamental changes. We expected that levels of some blood metals of donors who have never been exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus to differ from those who have. We designed a spectroscopic study based on measuring the LIBS spectra of blood plasma samples of these two groups of donors. We compared our spectroscopic results to those of two independent diagnostics tools, namely Real-Time Reverse TranscriptasePolymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) in nasal swab samples described in our paper (1) and the IgG antibody values in the blood plasma samples.

Other than the LIBS technique being used,does your work differ from what has been previously done by yourself or others?

LIBS is a multi-elemental analytical technique that requires no or very little sample preparation. Using LIBS, we have measured simultaneously several elements present in the blood plasma of the two types of donors. For each sample, we acquired a rich spectrum that contains information about the levels of blood metals. Other research groups have used other techniques to measure levels of bio-metals in plasmas such as atomic absorption spectrometry, X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, and ICP-MS. Of these, ICP-MS is the technique that can provide rich elemental information. However, it calls for a higher level of experimental complexity while other analytical techniques suffer from limitations such as the lack of the possibility of simultaneously measuring accurately a broad range of elements. In terms of analysis, our study differs from others in that we focused not only on the levels of individual elements but searched also for their potential collective association with the Covid-19 status (positive or negative) of the donors. This was accomplished by comparing the elemental composition of blood collected pre-pandemic to that of donors with Covid-19 using logistic regression. Finally, we tested our approach on blind blood plasma samples.

Briefly state your findings.

We have shown that a combination of multiple elements, principally potassium, sodium, and magnesium, yields higher classification accuracies of the blood plasma samples than any of these elements considered separately. In other words, the combined spectral signatures of these elements better distinguishes the two types of blood plasma samples. The ratio of levels of potassium and sodium and to some extent their association with levels of magnesium yields excellent differentiation of the samples acquired from donors pre-pandemic and those known to have had covid-19. This result was obtained using a multi-element machine learning approach that allows for the emergence of combinations of elements that might get drowned in the variability between individuals. We found that the ratio of the sodium to potassium ratio, controlled by the Na, K-ATPase, to be disturbed in donors who contracted Covid. This result may be in line with the findings of other research groups that show that SARS-CoV-2 virus impacts the Na, K-ATPase in the lungs. In addition, we used logistic regression to identify the features that differentiate the two types of blood plasma samples. This was very useful as it directed us to look at the spectroscopic data in a new light. Without the use of machine learning, it would have been challenging to identify the association of the most relevant spectral elemental features that can differentiate optimally the two types of blood plasma samples.

Do your findings correlate with what you had hypothesized?

To a significant degree, our results supported our initial hypothesis. However, we didn't anticipate the specific type of inter-elemental relationship that would best classify the blood plasma samples. It was also surprising to discover a strong correlation between the sodium-to-potassium ratio and the Covid-19 status of the donors.

Was there anything particularly unexpected that stands out from your perspective?

Yes, there was. In addition to the strong correlation, I just mentioned, we were surprised that more than 80% of the blind samples tested positive for Covid-19. It turned out that these were collected post-pandemic. The prevalence of positive results underscores the widespread nature of the virus during the collection time.

Were there any limitations or challenges you encountered in your work?

Conducting this study posed several challenges. First, we had blood samples from 150 donors, 46 samples were collected prior to the emergence of the pandemic, while 64 samples were confirmed by RT-PCR to be positive to Covid-19, the rest were blind to us during the LIBS measurements. This is a relatively low number of samples to conduct comfortably machine learning tests. The second challenge was to maintain consistency in the handling, transport, and storage of all blood samples both before their arrival at our laboratory and during their processing within our research facility and to reduce measurement uncertainties. Finally, obtaining tnegative blind samples during the pandemic added another layer of complexity to our study design. Despite these challenges, we obtained meaningful insights.

What best practices that can you recommend in this type of analysis for both instrument parameters and data analysis?

Paying attention to details! It is important to carefully design the experiments to reduce potential systematic uncertainties, with one key step being the randomization of samples before acquiring spectra. Equally significant is to understand how uncertainties in the measurements impact machine learning algorithms. This helps to avoid drawing erroneous conclusions.

Can you please summarize the feedback that you have received from others regarding this work?

This study was published only recently. The only feedback we have received this far is from a small group of researchers, typically pursuing disease diagnostics using lasers. Their feedback has been encouraging in terms of the potential impact on the development of disease screening tests. Time will tell how this work will be received and whether it will catalyze further studies in the area of the relationship between elemental composition and diseases and possibly in the development of liquid biopsy techniques.

Do you imagine these techniques to be adaptable for other disease states, or perhaps work with different biological tissues other than blood? Or other blood components (red or white cells, platelets)?

The spectroscopic approach we employed for this study can be extended to a wide array of applications and diseases. Our previous work on Alzheimer's disease and various cancers has demonstrated the versatility and applicability of our method. Moreover, other research groups have also successfully implemented similar approaches as well as imaging techniques, as detailed in a book (2). Regarding specimen types, we worked on biomedical fluids because our focus is to develop liquid biopsy techniques. I see no reason why other blood components cannot be investigated.

What are the next steps in this research?

In addition to the results published, we have observed a relatively strong correlation between the levels of the IgG antibodies and ratios of the levels of elements, particularly that of sodium to potassium. The next step is to finalize the analysis and submit our findings for publication. Ideally, we would like to conduct a study with a larger sample size that was available to us for this first one. In addition, I suspect that we can learn quite a lot from a longitudinal study. LIBS analysis of blood plasma of donors who have tested positive for Covid-19 over a period of few months will yield additional insights into the onset of Covid-19 and its remission. A longitudinal study performed with a larger blood plasma sample size may provideindications as to whether the collective association of two or more elements can not only offer a high degree of differentiation between the two types of blood samples but also insights into the underlying biomedical processes that takes place when an individual becomes positive to Covid-19.

1. Melikechi N.; Adler H. G.; Safi A.; Landis J.E.; Pourkamali-Anaraki F.; Eseller K. E.; Berlo K.; Bonito D.; Chiklis G. R.; Xia W. Blood Metal Analysis of Plasmas from Donors with and without SARS-CoV-2 using Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy and Logistic Regression. Biomed. Opt. Express 2023, 15 (1), 446-459. DOI: 10.1364/BOE.513558

2. N. Melikechi, Editor,Optical Spectroscopy and Imaging: Fundamentals, Progress and Challenges, World Scientific Publishing Inc., 2023.

Noureddine Melikechi is a Professor of Physics and the Dean of the Kennedy College of Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.Professor Melikechi worked onwide-range of scientific issues related to multi-photon-matter interactions including precise pulsed laser spectroscopy, non-linear optics, and laser spectroscopy of complex systems. As a member of NASAs Mars missions, he contributed to the analysis of laser-induced spectroscopy data collected by the ChemCam and the SuperCam instruments on board the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers. In recent years, Professor Melikechis has been working on the development of minimally invasive laser-based approaches for the early detection of cancers and Alzheimers. Professor Melikechi is a Fellow of theAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science,Fellow of theAmerican Physical Society, and Fellow of theOptica. He received his Diplme d'tudes Suprieures in Physics from the University of Sciences and Technology Houari Boumediene, Algeria, and his D.Phil., in Physics, from the University of Sussex.

More here:

Blood Metal Analysis of Plasmas from Donors with and without SARS-CoV-2 using Laser-Induced Breakdown ... - Spectroscopy Online

A closer look at the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) by researchers has found that more than one in nine eligible children nationally did not get any dose of the measles vaccine in the 2019-21 period, and that nearly 30 per cent received just a single dose, ToI reported on May 9.

ADVERTISEMENT

The researchers involved in the relook were from health ministry's immunisation division, Banaras Hindu University and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

In some Uttar Pradesh districts, characterised by a high number of births, the proportion of children who did not receive any doses of the measles vaccine was notably elevated, reaching 34.2% in Prayagraj and 32.2% in Hapur. Similarly, in nearly all northeastern states, the prevalence of zero-dose children was approximately 25%.

The study highlighted a significant proportion of children who received zero doses, indicating a troubling gap in immunization coverage. Analysis revealed substantial variations in zero-dose prevalence between states and districts, with significant disparities even within the same state. For example, in Arunachal Pradesh, West Siang district had the highest prevalence of zero-dose children at 49.6%, whereas Lower Dibang Valley district had only 2.8%. Similarly, in Uttar Pradesh, Prayagraj and Banda districts reported 34.2% and 32.2% zero-dose prevalence respectively, while Hapur and Etawah had much lower percentages at 2.6% and 2.1% respectively.

ADVERTISEMENT

According to the paper, "Measles outbreak is considered an early warning sign for immunisation programmes and can be effectively used as a signal for tracing missed and dropout children and overall systems strengthening. It is an ideal tracer as measles outbreaks visibly signal clusters with suboptimal immunisation service delivery and can drive prioritisation of targeted interventions to improve programme performance and advocacy."

ADVERTISEMENT

Since humans are the sole reservoir for the measles virus and there is no documented evidence of asymptomatic carriers, there is a belief that measles can be eradicated. In 2017, India implemented the 'National Strategic Plan for Achieving and Sustaining Measles and Rubella Elimination'. Subsequently, in September 2022, India adopted a roadmap for eliminating measles and rubella. There is an urgency to reach at least 95 per cent coverage for both doses of measles vaccine as unvaccinated (zero-dose) children "pose an immediate health risk, amplify disease transmission, and act as a barrier to the measles elimination goal", ToI's report observed.

ADVERTISEMENT

(You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel)

Follow this link:

Worrying vaccination gaps come to notice after post-Covid measles spurt forces a data relook - The Economic Times

Getty Images

Theres been a rise in people dealing with anxiety over the past few years. But new research finds one of the big recent events which caused lots of people to feel anxious did not have that effect on patients already getting treatment for anxiety.

Around the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, David Rosmarin noticed patients in his offices didnt seem to be suffering from worsening symptoms.

Rosmarin is a clinical psychologist, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School and the founder of Center for Anxiety which has about a thousand patients at offices across three east coast states. What he was seeing surprised him, and he wanted to find out if his observations were backed up by data.

Rosmarin joined The Show to talk about what he found.

MARK BRODIE: David, Id like to take us back to the very early stages of the pandemic, because it sounds like this is where the idea for this research came about, because youre pretty concerned with how people who are being treated for anxiety would handle COVID. And what you found, at least anecdotally, seemed a little counterintuitive to you.

DAVID ROSMARIN: Yeah. I wouldnt say I was concerned. I would say I freaked out. We had 500 patients at that time at Center for Anxiety, and here we were going to this pandemic. We had to shift everyone to telehealth in two weeks. There are these early reports coming out about anxiety and depression and suicide increasing.

And I was terrified. Whats going to be with all these patients under the care of my staff? How are we going to do this, and whats going to be the fallout?

And what was really incredible was in the in the months following, we didnt have a lot of fallout. In fact, our patients I observed anecdotally, as you mentioned were doing very well. I even noticed that they were doing better than some of my friends and colleagues who had never had significant anxiety before and had received treatment for it.

And that made me wonder, like what happened? What was that about? It took a couple of years to dig ourselves out from the pandemic, and we actually had to expand our services quite significantly. But at some point I had the opportunity and the data to look and say, Hey, whats whats going on here? And was there a trend? And when we looked, it was just incredible what we found.

BRODIE: So why do you think it is then that patients who were already being treated for anxiety before COVID, it seems like that treatment almost had like a protective effect.

ROSMARIN: Yeah, I might even call it an inoculation, of sorts of. A behavioral health inoculation, if you can say such a thing. The way that we approach our anxiety, our relationship with our anxiety is the primary determining factor in whether we thrive with it, whether we actually use it in a constructive way or whether it gets the better of us.

And one thing that our patients learn and we practice primarily cognitive and dialectical behavior therapy is that anxiety is not a disease. Its not going to kill you. Something else will kill you. It feels like death, but weve never had a patient die from high anxiety alone. And thats not the reality.

It is an emotion. It is a distressing emotion. But in of itself, its not a problem to have high levels of anxiety as long as we can know what to do in order to keep it in check, in order to move forward. And part of what moving forward means is accepting it and learning not to fight against it.

BRODIE: So do you think its possible to extrapolate this out and suggest that people who take part in this kind of therapy can also be protected from higher levels of anxiety for other types of events, things that are not specifically the COVID-19 pandemic?

ROSMARIN: I do, and I would go a step further. I think that elements of cognitive and dialectical behavior therapy should be incorporated into the education system. I think this is the kind of thing that we could be teaching university students, or even high school students or younger, and certainly parents and certainly individuals in corporate settings: how to manage their anxiety and how to how to change our relationship with it at the outset to inoculate us as a society against what were seeing, which is unprecedented levels of emotional distress.

BRODIE: I dont want to make it sound as though doing this kind of work is easy, because Im sure that it is not. But it sounds like this is a seemingly very easy solution to what is a growing as you pointed out a growing problem, especially among young people. Is it fair to say that if we just got some majority of high school and college students in this kind of therapy, that the overall rates of anxiety in this country would go down?

ROSMARIN: Well, I think theres a difference between easy and simple. I do think the solution is fairly simple. We need to change our relationship with anxiety. The way that we approach this symptom, where we call it a symptom. We approach it as a disease. We approach it as a problem as opposed to approaching it as an emotion, as a part of human life.

Let me ask you a question. Have you met anybody whos never experienced anxiety before?

BRODIE: I cant imagine I have, no.

ROSMARIN: Exactly! So at what point do we distinguish between a disease, which is the model that were currently using, as opposed to an emotion and something that we have to learn to deal with, even at high levels. And just to get back to what I was saying before, theres a difference between whats easy and whats simple.

The solution here is, I think, somewhat simple, but its not easy. It entails facing emotional distress heading towards our anxiety, allowing us to experience that, not trying to squelch it or reduce it, and really allowing ourselves, giving ourselves permission and the opportunity to have a range of emotions. Thats very countercultural.

So its not easy, but it is simple.

BRODIE: Im curious about the role of medication here, in terms of either the patients with whom you are working or observing or sort of the population in general. Because obviously for some patients, medication is, if not the way, a way that they help treat anxiety as well.

ROSMARIN: Certainly. Firstly, more than 50% of the patients who come to my offices are on some form of medication, and I support it. Im not against that.

However, when medication is used as an only or a primary way of dealing with anxiety, I think it reinforces our perspectives that this is a disease, that this is something we need to get rid of.

What I see medication as doing primarily, in a positive sense, is it reduces anxiety to a level that people can tolerate. Now its not going to be comfortable. Its still going to be uncomfortable, but its tolerable. So if it takes us down from a nine, an eight or a seven on a, lets say, a 10 point scale down to a four or a five, its not going to be fun, but its something we can learn to increase our stamina, our capacity, our emotional fortitude over time.

But if the goal is to take it down to a zero or a one or a two, what youre going to end up with and this is what happens breakthrough anxiety, breakthrough, stress, people having those symptoms. And then theyre upset about the fact that theyre anxious. And then that ironically increases their flow of adrenaline into their system and actually makes them more anxious. So its a cascade of effects.

BRODIE: So I want to go back to something you mentioned about possibly getting this kind of therapy into schools. Are there places that are doing that?

ROSMARIN: There are few and far between. Ive definitely done consulting for educational institutions, for curriculum development and for faculty. But its its not being done en masse. You dont have a required course at every university, which is mandated by college boards, about your mental health with certain aspects and elements of self-care and these kinds of messages which are embedded.

I think its definitely not at the scale that it needs to be. But I suppose there are some glimmers of hope.

BRODIE: Would it take the same kind of sort of perspective change to make that happen as what you were talking about earlier in terms of looking at anxiety not as a disease but as an emotion and something that we need to work to regulate?

ROSMARIN: I do think thats the core issue here, is that when we turn our emotions into something that we need to get rid of, we actually are using our body against itself. Emotions are neither healthy nor unhealthy. They just are. And they can be used in positive and negative ways. And how we choose to interface with those aspects of who we are really has a massive impact on our mental health.

KJZZ's The Show transcripts are created on deadline. This text may not be in its final form. The authoritative record of KJZZ's programming is the audio record.

Read the original:

Anxiety patients handled COVID-19 stress better than most. It could help everyone in the future - KJZZ

Michael Osterholm is a world-renowned epidemiologist. He has served on President Joe Bidens COVID-19 transition advisory board, as science envoy for health security on behalf of the U.S. Department of State from 2018 to 2019, and as Minnesotas state epidemiologist from 1984 to 1999. Hes also a Lutheran.

A member of Edina (Minn.) Community Lutheran Church, Osterholm serves on the board of regents for Luther College, Decorah, Iowa. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, people around the world relied on his ability to distill complex and daunting public health concerns into helpful and understandable communications through podcasts, books and interviews, such as his May 2020 video conversation for the Minneapolis Area Synod.

Osterholm, who serves as director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, was presented with the Outstanding Government Service Award from the American Medical Association (AMA) in February. Living Lutheran spoke with him about receiving the award, his thoughts on current political divisions, and how his public health career began at Luther College.

Living Lutheran: What did it mean to you to receive the Outstanding Government Service Award from the AMA? Osterholm: Ive been fortunate to have an almost 50-year career here in Minnesota in public health. And throughout that time, Ive always been part of a team of individuals, professionals, that have been as much a part of anything that Ive done as I, myself, have been. I noted that night when I received the award that I really received it on behalf of the number of people who played critical roles in what Ive done. I still work with people at CIDRAP that Ive been working with for the last 40 years. Weve hung together as a team, and thats all the more reason why that award really is about a team, not about me.

An identifying mark of your public health role is how your appearances during the pandemic were clarifying and stabilizing for people during a dark time. Do you see that as an important aspect of your vocation? I dont know if I see it as a role; I see it as just who I am. I come from a small, rural town in Iowa. And I always believed that if you were going to sell anything, whether it was a good or a public policy or a certain action, if it didnt play at the 10 oclock coffee club at the S&D Cafe in my hometown, it wasnt going to play. Ive always come to my work with that approach, that its about not making it more complicated, [its about] making it less complicated. Its not really a role or something Ive acquired or trained for. Its just who I am.

Do you see that work as being more complicated today than it was even four years ago, given the state of our political discourse? Not really. Throughout the pandemic my whole approach was the need to have a healthy dose of humility because there were so many things that were unanswered, that we couldnt at that moment provide a clear definition of what was going to happen. Now, I made a number of predictions through the pandemic in advance, given that Ive been studying and addressing pandemics for the last 30 years and preparedness for that.

Throughout the pandemic my whole approach was the need to have a healthy dose of humility.

In fact there was a piece that just came out from the editor of Foreign Affairs over the weekend basically highlighting a 2005 article I had published in Foreign Affairs saying we were unprepared for the next pandemic. And he went through it and listed out all the things I had said in 2005, and they were absolutely relevant in 2020. So I [did] have that experience to be out there [speaking]. But at the same time it was really important that we share with the public what we know and dont know in a way that they can understand.

How so? I think we wouldve done a lot better with people accepting what we were suggesting. [For example, answering the question,] how well will the vaccines work? Well, they were good vaccines, but they werent great. And we needed to clarify that so people understood these were vaccines that protected you for a relatively short period of time, four to six months, but then there was going to be a need for additional doses. If we had come out at the very beginning, which I did try to do, and say, OK, these vaccines are working really well in the first two months after you get the vaccinebut the real test will be, what will they look like at six months, and 12 months and 18 months?

Thats just one example of what Im talking about. Because some people went out and very clearly made it seem as if the pandemic was over with these vaccines, take your mask off, etc. I think that that was one of our mistakes because we didnt have the humility to say, Well, this is what we know as of now. But things could change. And as the virus changed, we had to change. And that was important.

I wrote a piece in March of 2020 in the Washington Post saying lockdowns were not the way to go. Because whatever were going to do is going to have to sustain itself for at least several years, and theres no way were going to lock down for several years. So, what is it we can do? Well, theres the concept called flattening the curve, where, for temporary time periods, in order to reduce the number of cases coming into our grossly overcrowded hospitals, we will say schools should take a two- or three-week vacation but not close them down. What do we do in the workforce?

I think we took a major hit on this concept of lockdowns, when in fact, of the 42 states that put them in place in March [2020], by the middle of June, none of them were in place. And yet people talk about the pandemic as if we were in lockdown for four years. We were in it for two months. Even in a state like Minnesota, the governor had a stay-at-home order, but essential workers were exempt from that, and 82% of our workforce was considered essential. Thats not a lockdown. We shouldve been better at describing what was going on. So, from that standpoint, what Ive tried to do is provide that kind of context, of what do we know and not know, and what does that mean?

The politicization of public health and epidemic preparedness has only increased since the outbreak of COVID-19. Do you see a way that we, particularly in the U.S., can respond to that challenge? First of all, I dont know. Everything you just described is accurate. Yknow, I served a formal role in every presidential administration dating back to Ronald Reagan. It didnt matter if it was a Democrat or a Republican, my job was to be there to be a source of informed support. Ive always approached my career that way. I worked for two Republican governors, two Democratic governors, I affectionally say one independent rassler (independent Minnesota governor and former wrestler Jesse Ventura) when I was at the health department. And I never once had a sense of partisan politics with that; public health was always first and foremost.

It didnt matter if it was a Democrat or a Republican, my job was to be there to be a source of informed support.

I still believe in that approach. I think that public health should be something that is not a partisan issue, and we should be able to come to agreement on what is and isnt necessary to protect the publics health. So, that is a challenge. The other thing, though, that [we in] public health must do a much better job of doing is involving many different groups or issues from the community. Its not just about public health and saving lives; its about economics, its about social justice, its about dealing with disabilities and health equityits a lot of different things that come into play.

We can make all the recommendations we want about people staying home when theyve been exposed to an infectious disease. However, if they have no sick leave and if they miss one day of work, theyre not going to make rent payment this month. Thats very different than someone who can afford to stay at home for weeks on end working from their computer. We need to really engage much more of that kind of understanding, because thats what makes a big difference as to how people can and will respond and, at the same time, what difference can we make.

How did your experience at Luther College shape you and your vocation? Luther, and several of the people at Luther, are literally the foundation of my life in many ways. David Roslien, who was a professor there and went on to serve in the [college] administration twice as acting president, was like a second father to me. I came from a very, unfortunately, violent family, and I had real challenges. And in fact it was Doc, as [Roslien is] affectionately known, who convinced me [I could go to college]. My guidance counselor told me I wasnt college material and that I was probably best suited for a job at the tire store in Wakuon, my hometown. And Doc literally said, No, youre coming to Luther. And within three days I was admitted and had a financial package that made it possible for me to do that. To this day Im forever in debt to Dave Roslien and the group at Luther.

Luther gave me many, many opportunitiesones I didnt even anticipate. I can remember with clarity in the fall of my senior year, [I heard] from the head of the political science department, who wanted me to see him right away. [He] said, Why have you not filled out your paperwork for your senior paper? Its way overdue. And I said, Well, I have. Im a biology major, and I did. He said, No, you have enough credits to be a political science major. So, I had a double-major without even knowing it. But it was that kind of experience that allowed me to spread my wings.

I spent a semester in Washington, D.C., in the [Lutheran College] Washington Semester. It gave me opportunities to see public policy up close. So I owe Luther everything. The institution instilled in me a set of values that I still carry to this day.

The rest is here:

A calling to public health and clarity - Living Lutheran

Updated 8 hours ago

NI's chief medical officer (CMO) has said he accepts that the Department of Health should have used more direct language about triggering pandemic preparation plans in correspondence with The Executive Office.

He said Northern Ireland was on high alert from the end of January 2020.

He was asked when alarm bells started ringing within the department about the emerging threat.

Lead counsel to the inquiry Clair Dobbin KC put a letter from Liz Redmond, director of population health at Northern Ireland's Department of Health (DoH), to Prof McBride.

The letter stated that the "DoH is responding to the rapidly evolving situation regarding the novel coronavirus as lead government department".

It continued: "I do not consider it necessary to activate NICCMA [NI Central Crisis Management Arrangements] at this time, unless or until the infection appears in NI and impacts are experienced here."

The CMO said "what it wasn't saying was 'don't do anything'".

He said he thought the letter was signalling that the DoH's assessment at the time was "not just yet - but you need to get ready. You need to prepare".

The first deaths from the new coronavirus were confirmed in January 2020 in China; the first nationwide lockdown was imposed in the UK in March that year.

Prof McBride told the inquiry he thought the department was "clearly signalling there's a problem coming our way and we need to prepare for it - not just health but other departments need to prepare for this".

Ms Dobbin put it to Prof McBride that the suggestion, contained in the letter, that "'it would be helpful if you would consider convening a multi-agency meeting' hardly sounds alarm bells".

Prof McBride said the department was clearly signalling that there was a potential problem and they needed to be assured of their preparedness, of readiness across government and of resilience throughout Northern Ireland's health sector.

He said the wording and its meaning would be "clearly understood by those who needed to understand" it.

Baroness Hallett, who is chairing the inquiry, asked if, in hindsight, it would have been better if the letter had said "we urge you, as a matter of urgency, to convene a multi-agency meeting" as opposed to "it would be helpful if".

Prof McBride accepted that the letter "could have been more direct" or "more action oriented" but said that was the sort of language used within government.

Baroness Hallett said: "In an emergency you don't do things in a normal way, you get on with it and I'm afraid that language doesn't give any sense of urgency."

Prof McBride said he wasn't the author of the letter but accepted the point.

Ms Dobbin put excerpts of a DoH letter to the CMO outlining key public health advice and action to be taken by public authorities in Northern Ireland.

The advice given was that "those public authorities that already have continency plans for responding to infectious diseases, such as pandemic influenza, should ensure that all relevant staff are acquainted with those plans".

It added that "no other action is recommended at this time to public authorities in general".

Ms Dobbin said this was "hardly sounding alarm bells" for either NI government departments or public authorities.

The CMO said all that the letter was doing was "scene-setting" for a subsequent briefing meeting. He said that at that meeting "assurances should be sought around contingency planning across the public sector and other organisations".

He said this letter was not "meant or intended to explain or set out the level of risk or the level of concern"; rather, it was "an enabler" to facilitate the meeting at which there would be an update provided.

Giving evidence earlier on Friday Prof McBride told the inquiry the scale of the response to the pandemic had never been planned for.

He said Northern Ireland had "never before performed contact tracing at the scale that we were contact tracing."

"We had similarly never tested to the extent we were ultimately testing in this pandemic," he added. "It had never been envisaged."

Prof McBride said there was initially a "precautionary approach" but that "sitting and waiting was not an option".

He also said he was surprised to hear there was a perception that his role during the pandemic was more than just an advisory one.

"I was very clear at every stage that ultimately the decisions were decisions for ministers and I have to say I'm somewhat surprised if there was any perception to the contrary," he told the inquiry.

Prof McBride said that not having membership of the UK government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) was a "disadvantage in the early days" of the pandemic.

On testing older people from hospital into care homes, Prof McBride said one of the learnings should be around the testing of care homes.

He said evidence will show that the contribution of discharge from hospital to care homes would show made a very small contribution.

He said undoubtedly it made a "contribution but it wasn't the major factor. "

Prof McBride said the impact on older people and those with underlying health conditions did not become clear until they experienced cases in the UK .

While they could see what was happening in other countries and that there was an awareness of risk, when asked in his role when did he direct there should be special consideration to priority groups, the CMO said guidance was issued around the 17 March.

Prof McBride said he did not contribute to the strategy nor provide professional advice around the discharge of older people from hospital to care homes not because it was not an important issue rather he had other commitments.

He also rejected a suggestion that by removing the RQIA role on inspecting care homes he was not removing the "eyes and ears" of those going in and out of care homes.

See original here:

Covid Inquiry: DoH should have been more direct about preparation - BBC.com

What is 'FLiRT' COVID? Scientists predict spike of new coronavirus variants

by JACKSON WALKER | The National Desk

Dr. Terri Tiersky poses for a portrait in full personal protective equipment, double mask, face shield, gown and gloves, at her dentist office in Skokie, Ill., on Friday, June 12, 2020. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

WASHINGTON (TND)

Scientists are forecasting a rise in coronavirus cases throughout May as a new set of variants emerge, according to disease researcher Eric Topol.

The variants, known as FLiRT, are distinguished by mutations in the diseases spike proteins. These proteins help viruses attach to surfaces and are one of the factors behind the infectious nature of COVID-19.

FliRT variants have mutations in areas designated F for L and R for T, Topol wrote via Substack. While these variants could lead to a rise in cases of COVID-19, Topol, who is a professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research, explained the public has little to fear.

Continuing, Topol noted high-risk individuals should remain aware of , but not worried about, the new variants.

Covids not going away, but I dont think there is a significant short-term threat of the emerging FLiRT variants, he wrote. High-risk people should continue to take precautions, keeping up with boosters, and all forms of protection. Even if FLiRT doesnt kick in, theres plenty more ways that SARS-CoV2 can reinvent itself and find new ways or better ways to evade our immune response.

The CDC did not respond to a request for comment from The National Desk Friday.

How the government responded to the initial outbreak of COVID-19 remains a hot-button issue on Capitol Hill. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., suggested in April Dr. Anthony Fauci conspired with an organization researching coronaviruses to hide its loss of government funding.

"To a lot of us looking at it, it looks like a cover-up," Sen. Paul reportedly said.

Follow Jackson Walker on X at @_jlwalker_ for the latest trending national news. Have a news tip? Send it to jacwalker@sbgtv.com.

See original here:

What is 'FLiRT' COVID? Scientists predict spike of new coronavirus variants - The National Desk

This is a new approach to vaccine development called proactive vaccinology, where scientists build a vaccine before the disease-causing pathogen even emerges.

The new vaccine works by training the bodys immune system to recognise specific regions of eight different coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-1, SARS-CoV-2, and several that are currently circulating in bats and have potential to jump to humans and cause a pandemic.

Key to its effectiveness is that the specific virus regions the vaccine targets also appear in many related coronaviruses. By training the immune system to attack these regions, it gives protection against other coronaviruses not represented in the vaccine including ones that havent even been identified yet.

For example, the new vaccine does not include the SARS-CoV-1 coronavirus, which caused the 2003 SARS outbreak, yet it still induces an immune response to that virus.

Our focus is to create a vaccine that will protect us against the next coronavirus pandemic, and have it ready before the pandemic has even started, said Rory Hills, a graduate researcher in the University of Cambridges Department of Pharmacology and first author of the report.

He added: Weve created a vaccine that provides protection against a broad range of different coronaviruses including ones we dont even know about yet.

The results are published today in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

We dont have to wait for new coronaviruses to emerge. We know enough about coronaviruses, and different immune responses to them, that we can get going with building protective vaccines against unknown coronaviruses now, said Professor Mark Howarth in the University of Cambridges Department of Pharmacology, senior author of the report.

He added: Scientists did a great job in quickly producing an extremely effective COVID vaccine during the last pandemic, but the world still had a massive crisis with a huge number of deaths. We need to work out how we can do even better than that in the future, and a powerful component of that is starting to build the vaccines in advance.

The new Quartet Nanocage vaccine is based on a structure called a nanoparticle a ball of proteins held together by incredibly strong interactions. Chains of different viral antigens are attached to this nanoparticle using a novel protein superglue. Multiple antigens are included in these chains, which trains the immune system to target specific regions shared across a broad range of coronaviruses.

This study demonstrated that the new vaccine raises a broad immune response, even in mice that were pre-immunised with SARS-CoV-2.

The new vaccine is much simpler in design than other broadly protective vaccines currently in development, which the researchers say should accelerate its route into clinical trials.

The underlying technology they have developed also has potential for use in vaccine development to protect against many other health challenges.

The work involved a collaboration between scientists at the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford, and Caltech. It improves on previous work, by the Oxford and Caltech groups, to develop a novel all-in-one vaccine against coronavirus threats. The vaccine developed by Oxford and Caltech should enter Phase 1 clinical trials in early 2025, but its complex nature makes it challenging to manufacture which could limit large-scale production.

Conventional vaccines include a single antigen to train the immune system to target a single specific virus. This may not protect against a diverse range of existing coronaviruses, or against pathogens that are newly emerging.

The research was funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.

Reference: Hills, R A et al: Proactive vaccination using multiviral Quartet Nanocages to elicit broad anti-coronavirus responses. Nature Nanotechnology, May 2024. DOI: 10.1038/s41565-024-01655-9

Read the rest here:

New vaccine effective against coronaviruses that haven't even emerged yet - University of Cambridge news