Category: Corona Virus

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From science to politics: COVID-19 information fatigue on YouTube - BMC Public Health - BMC Public Health

In the middle of last year, the World Health Organization began promoting an ambitious goal, one it said was essential for ending the pandemic: fully vaccinate 70 percent of the population in every country against Covid-19 by June 2022.

Now, it is clear that the world will fall far short of that target by the deadline. And there is a growing sense of resignation among public health experts that high Covid vaccination coverage may never be achieved in most lower-income countries, as badly needed funding from the United States dries up and both governments and donors turn to other priorities.

The reality is that there is a loss of momentum, said Dr. Isaac Adewole, a former health minister of Nigeria who now serves as a consultant for the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Only a few of the worlds 82 poorest countries including Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia and Nepal have reached the 70 percent vaccination threshold. Many are under 20 percent, according to data compiled from government sources by the Our World in Data project at the University of Oxford.

By comparison, about two-thirds of the worlds richest countries have reached 70 percent. (The United States is at 66 percent.)

The consequences of giving up on achieving high vaccination coverage worldwide could prove severe. Public health experts say that abandoning the global effort could lead to the emergence of dangerous new variants that would threaten the worlds precarious efforts to live with the virus.

This pandemic is not over yet far from it and its imperative that countries use the doses available to them to protect as much of their population as possible, said Dr. Seth Berkley, chief executive of Gavi, the nonprofit that runs the global vaccine clearinghouse Covax.

Countries in different parts of the world, including some in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, have seen their vaccination rates stagnate in recent months at a third or less of their populations. But Africas vaccination rate remain the most dismal.

Fewer than 17 percent of Africans have received a primary Covid immunization. Nearly half of the vaccine doses delivered to the continent thus far have gone unused. Last month, the number of doses injected on the continent fell by 35 percent compared to February. W.H.O. officials attributed the drop to mass vaccination pushes being replaced by smaller-scale campaigns in several countries.

Some global health experts say the world missed a prime opportunity last year to provide vaccines to lower-income countries, when the public was more fearful of Covid and motivated to get vaccinated.

There was a time people were very desperate to get vaccinated, but the vaccines were not there. And then they realized that without the vaccination, they didnt die, said Dr. Adewole, who wants to see countries continue to pursue the 70 percent target.

What momentum remains in the global vaccination campaign has been hindered by a shortfall in funding for the equipment, transportation and personnel needed to get shots into arms.

In the United States, a key funder of the vaccination effort, lawmakers stripped $5 billion meant for global pandemic aid from the coronavirus response package that is expected to come up for a vote in the next few weeks. Biden administration officials have said that without the funds, they will be unable to provide support for vaccine delivery to more than 20 under-vaccinated countries.

Some public health experts point to reasons for optimism that the global vaccination campaign still has steam. Despite the drop off from the February peak, the number of Covid vaccinations being administered each day in Africa is still near a pandemic high. And Gavi earlier this month drew a significant new round of funding pledges, securing $4.8 billion in commitments, although it fell short of its $5.2 billion goal.

There is also hope that a global Covid summit the White House plans to co-host next month could be an opportunity to generate momentum and funding.

But the drop in public demand has led some health officials and experts to quietly, and in some cases outright, question whether the 70 percent vaccination target is feasible or even sensible.

Reported fatalities from Covid-19 remain comparatively low in sub-Saharan Africa, although there is debate about how much of this reflects poor data tracking. The perception, however, in many countries in the region is that the disease does not pose a serious threat, certainly not as much as other pervasive health problems that demand attention with scarce health care resources.

Many lower-income governments are turning their focus to their economies and other health issues like H.I.V., said Fifa Rahman, a civil society representative to a W.H.O.-launched group coordinating the global Covid response. Theres a sense of a lot of competing priorities, but thats a symptom of the momentum being gone. Because when the momentum was there, everyone was like, Where are our vaccines?

In rural areas of the Democratic Republic of Congo, for example, where the reported Covid death rate is very low, there is a surge in measles cases threatening 20 million children. Yet the government says it cannot spare the resources to provide supplementary measles vaccinations this year, said Christopher Mambula, medical manager for Doctors Without Border in East Africa. In this kind of context, it makes little sense to continue to divert resources to widespread vaccination against Covid, he said.

As African governments have received more vaccines donated from wealthy countries and struggled to distribute even those supplies, their interest in ordering more doses has dropped.

The African Union still aims to vaccinate 70 percent of its population by the end of 2022. But with countries slow to use up donated vaccines, the bloc has not exercised its options to order more doses of the shots from Johnson & Johnson and Moderna.

The South African drugmaker Aspen Pharmacare earlier this year finalized a deal to bottle and market the Johnson & Johnson vaccine across Africa, a contract that was billed as an early step toward Africas development of a robust vaccine production industry. Aspen geared up for production, but no buyers, including the African Union and Covax, have placed orders yet, said Stephen Saad, Aspens chief executive.

The Serum Institute of India, the worlds largest vaccine maker, stopped its production of Covid shots in December last year, when its stockpile grew to 200 million doses; Bharat Biotech, another Indian firm that was a major producer, also stopped making vaccines in the face of low demand. The companies say they have no further orders since their contracts with the Indian government ended in March.

After the W.H.O. began promoting the 70 percent vaccination goal, many lower-income governments adopted the target for their own populations. The Biden administration also endorsed it last September, setting a deadline of September 2022.

At the time, two doses of the vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna were understood to offer very strong protection against even mild disease, and there was still hope that achieving high levels of vaccination coverage would tame the virus. But the emergence of new variants and the spread of the virus in Africa changed the calculus.

The vaccine regimens that had been planned for the developing world offered little protection against infection with the Omicron variant. And as sub-Saharan African countries were shut out of vaccine distribution for much of last year, more and more Africans gained protection against the virus from natural infection, which studies have shown works as well as two mRNA doses in preventing infection. New data from the W.H.O. shows that at least two-thirds of Africans had been infected with the virus before the Omicron wave.

Given these factors, some public health experts in Africa say the broad 70 percent goal no longer makes sense. Theres very little value to it. In fact, we will gain much more by getting to more than 90 percent of people above the age of 50, said Shabir Madhi, a professor of vaccinology and the dean of the faculty of health sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. About two-thirds of South Africans above age 50 are currently fully vaccinated.

Dr. Madhi said that South Africa could close down mass vaccination sites and instead redouble its efforts to seek out the most vulnerable at church services and at government offices that pay out monthly pension benefits.

Katherine OBrien, who directs the W.H.O.s work on vaccines and immunizations, said the agency encourages countries to focus on its most vulnerable citizens rather than vaccinating a random set of 70 percent of their populations. The aspiration she said, has always been 100 percent of health workers, 100 percent of older adults, 100 percent of pregnant women, 100 percent of the people who fall into those highest risk groups.

Countries can of course make decisions about what health goal they wish to prioritize, Dr. OBrien said, but finite resources should not be the obstacle to vaccinating against the coronavirus. The world has enough resources to do this, if countries want to do it, she said. And that should be really the North Star.

Some public health experts said that while the 70 percent vaccination threshold is clearly not achievable by its original deadline, it would be unwise and unethical to give up on that target over a longer time horizon. They expressed frustration about the growing gulf between wealthy countries vaccinating young children and offering healthy adults fourth vaccine doses, and the regions where the majority of people still do not have one dose.

Why are we making it one target for high-income countries and one target for low income? said Dr. Ayoade Alakija, a co-chair of the African Unions vaccine delivery program.

She said that even though many people in sub-Saharan Africa have been infected, there is still need for the additional protection that would come from a high level of vaccination coverage.

Modest vaccination coverage, she said, is not considered a good enough level of protection in England, its not a good enough level of protection in America. How is it OK not to be aiming for the very maximum, maximum we can? Aim for the sky and get to the top of the tree.

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The Drive to Vaccinate the World Against Covid Is Losing Steam - The New York Times

Is there a connection between our food system, agriculture and the Coronavirus? How does the Covid-19 pandemic relate to climate change or the rights of children and youth? Should we treat animals better to avoid a future pandemic? Could we have avoided the virus outbreak if we had shifted public funds from military to sustainable development?

The Coronavirus pandemic is more than a health crisis. It is rooted in how we treat our planet, how we prioritise our public spendings. And it will impact our lives for much longer than we expect. Find be below a compilation of interesting content by the WFC and inspiring thoughts of our Councillors and Honorary Councillors on the Covid-19 outbreak.

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Thoughts on the Covid-19 pandemic and sustainable development

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officially launched on Tuesday a new Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics, which has been in the works since August 2021, with initial funding of $200 million from the American Rescue Plan.

The center seeks to enhance the nations ability to use data, models and analytics to enable timely, effective decision-making in response to public health threats for CDC and its public health partners, said a press release. Additionally, to better inform our partners, [the center] is hiring expert communicators to regularly share insights with federal, state and local partners and the public. Here are some of the other recent headlines you might have missed.

There were pitfalls in how Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Endeavors (a nonprofit, faith-based organization it contracted with for beds and hotel services from March 2021 to September) tested migrants for COVID-19 as well as how healthcare protocols were followed in facilities, said a new report from the Homeland Security Department inspector general. Overall, the lapse in compliance with the new healthcare protocols demonstrates that migrant families at Endeavors facilities may not have received timely COVID-19 testing to prevent the spread of COVID-19, and medical staff may not have provided the level of medical care intended by the protocols, said the report.

The Federal Emergency Management Agencys COVID funeral assistance program operates in a way that is inconsistent from its long-standing regulations, said a recent management alert from the DHS inspector general. FEMA did not agree with the IGs recommendation to modify procedures after reviewing a draft alert.

The Justice Department announced on Wednesday criminal charges against 21 defendants in nine federal districts for alleged participation in several COVID health care related fraud schemes. These cases allegedly resulted in over $149 million in COVID-19-related false billings to federal programs and theft from federally-funded pandemic assistance programs, said the department. In connection with the enforcement action, the department seized over $8 million in cash and other fraud proceeds. In addition to Justice officials, federal law enforcement partners, inspectors general offices and others worked on these cases.

DHS is extending its requirements for non-U.S. citizens traveling through land ports of entry and ferry terminals at the borders with Mexico and Canada to be fully vaccinated and show proof of vaccination if asked. DHS will closely monitor all relevant circumstances, including the effect of these requirements, and may amend or rescind the requirements at any time, said a press release from the agency on Thursday. In determining whether and when to rescind this order, DHS anticipates that it will take account of whether the vaccination requirement for non-U.S. air travelers remains in place.

After a 41% decline in consular fee revenue in fiscal 2020 due to the pandemic, the State Departments Bureau of Consular Affairs, which issues passports and visas and provides overseas citizens services, could face serious financial issues. Consular fee revenues fully covered the costs of States consular operations for seven fiscal years prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the use of supplemental and annual appropriations and temporary flexibilities in fee expenditure authorities helped State address the decline in consular fee revenue during the pandemic, said a GAO report published on Monday. However, the department continues to face a structural imbalance in how funds are handled that was exacerbated by the pandemic. Also, our analysis projects that [the Consular and Border Security Program] account carryover balances will decline and are unlikely to meet the targeted threshold if revenues do not return to pre-pandemic levels in fiscal year 2022.

In preparation for the lifting of Title 42, a public health measure to restrict border access during the pandemic, in late May, the Homeland Security Department is implementing a comprehensive strategy to address a potential increase in the number of border encounters, said Karine Jean Pierre, White House principal deputy press secretary, during a press gaggle on Thursday. Their strategy includes acquiring and deploying resources to address increased volumes; that involves moving officers, agents, DHS Volunteer Force personnel to rapidly decompress points along the border and more efficiently process migrants, she continued. It also entails the deployment of COVID-19 mitigation efforts, including the continued use of [personal protective equipment] and providing the COVID-19 vaccines to non-citizens in ICE custody since summer of 2021.

Title 42 has been a controversial matter since it was implemented under President Trump. Now an increasing number of Democrats want it to stay in place and several Republican-led states are suing the Biden administration to prevent it from being terminated. Also, Senate Republicans, and some Democratic ones, have tried to use the COVID-19 funding negotiations as a way to keep Title 42 in effect.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, CDC director, said in a video that last week she welcomed CDC employees back to the workplace. Over the past several years CDC has shown a tremendous amount of resilience responding to the greatest public health challenge in our agencys history while simultaneously living through the pandemic themselves, she said. As CDC returns to the workplace, we are also taking a critical look at CDC, our response to the COVID-19 pandemic and how we move forward and do better to protect the health of the American people.

For the Justice Department workforce, the number of in-person work days will vary based on positions, Bloomberg Law reported on Thursday. The department seeks to complete its return to office plans by May 1.

Help us understand the situation better. Are you a federal employee, contractor or military member with information, concerns, etc. about how your agency is handling the coronavirus? Email us at newstips@govexec.com.

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Coronavirus Roundup: A New CDC Center Is Focused on Disease Forecasting - GovExec.com

Coronavirus - MDHHS reminds Michigan residents to test, get vaccinated and boosted as COVID-19 cases expected to rise through May  Michigan (.gov)

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Coronavirus - MDHHS reminds Michigan residents to test, get vaccinated and boosted as COVID-19 cases expected to rise through May - Michigan (.gov)

CNN

When Delta Air Lines referred to Covid-19 as an ordinary seasonal virus after a federal judge struck down the Biden administrations mask mandate for public transportation, they were partly right: there is some evidence that it is seasonal. But it is far from ordinary, and its still not the same as the flu.

The lifting of the transportation mask mandate marks another turning point in the Covid-19 pandemic in the United States, and there are many ways to describe the situation at this inflection point.

While not ordinary, Covid-19 certainly is common.

Over the past two years, official case counts suggest nearly a quarter of the country has been infected with coronavirus, and the number of actual infections is estimated to be many times higher than what has been reported.

Despite a drastic drop in cases over the past couple of months, more than 35,000 people in the US are infected daily, according to data from Johns Hopkins University enough to fill Madison Square Garden nearly two times over every day.

States in the Northeast are seeing cases tick up faster than others, leading what may turn out to be a broader national wave, just as the region has over the past two springs.

This year, Covid-19 is also fightable.

Vaccines have proven to be remarkably effective. In February, fully vaccinated people were five times less likely to be hospitalized with Covid-19 and 10 times less likely to die, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The risk was even lower for those who also had a booster shot.

Some treatments have held up against Omicron, too, and the federal government is shipping out hundreds of thousands of antivirals each week.

But Covid-19 is still not normal.

Even as measures of severe Covid-19 drastically improve, they remain much worse than even the most severe flu.

The 2017-18 flu season was one of the worst in decades. An estimated 710,000 people were hospitalized and 52,000 died.

Daily Covid-19 deaths are nearing their lowest point in a year now but even with a relatively low rate of 400 deaths a day, the virus has still killed more people in two months than flu did over a full year at its worst. At the height of the Omicron surge just a few months ago, more people died of Covid-19 in just a few weeks than a full year of flu.

Covid-19 hospitalizations have recently hit the lowest point on record and new admissions over the past week were still three times higher than the latest weekly admissions for the flu, CDC data shows.

And Covid-19 is still unpredictable.

Covid-19 has some similarities to the flu, but its not the same, said Dr. Arnold Monto, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan and acting chair of the US Food and Drug Administrations Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee.

Were in uncharted territory, he said. With flu, we know what to expect pretty much, but with Covid were learning every day.

Two preprint papers published last year describe the seasonal patterns of the pandemics waves so far and suggest that these patterns may repeat in subsequent years.

These seasonal patterns can help leaders anticipate surges and places like health care facilities prepare appropriately, but theyre not always dominant, said Dr. Donald Burke, an infectious disease expert and former dean of the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health who co-authored the papers with Dr. Hawre Jalal. They have not yet been peer-reviewed.

If something like a particularly transmissible strain comes into play like Omicron then that can overwhelm and change the patterns, Burke said. Omicron really disrupted things.

Back in December, Sen Pei, an assistant professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia Universitys Mailman School of Public Health, told CNN that we were still far away from an endemic stage of the pandemic.

A large majority of the population would need to have immunity from the virus from either infection or vaccination before reaching that point, he said then.

The Omicron surge raised the level of immunity in the US population dramatically and brought us closer to that point, but the future of Covid-19 is still unclear.

Long term, I think it largely depends on whether there will be new variants coming out, which is highly unpredictable at this point, he said Tuesday.

Its not clear what the endemic pattern will look like and whether we have entered that phase right now.

After pushback from the White House, Delta Air Lines adjusted the way it characterized Covid-19, lauding the lifting of the transportation mask mandate as Covid-19 transitions to a more manageable respiratory virus.

But the CDC still recommends wearing masks on planes.

Conflicting opinions about next steps in the Covid-19 pandemic exist within the public health community and sometimes, even within individuals themselves.

Monto says dropping the mask mandate now, at what he hopes is the tail end of the rise of the BA.2 variant, may not be all that bad but it may also be a few weeks too early because were not sure where were going.

In any case, continued vigilance remains critical.

We have to be watchful and respond to what is going on, he said. Weve never seen a coronavirus pandemic before.

Originally posted here:

Covid-19 still isn't like the flu - CNN

More than seven in 10 people in England have been infected with Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic, according to the Office for National Statistics.

The estimate, the most detailed analysis to date, suggests 71% of people in England had caught Covid between 27 April 2020 and 11 February 2022. The proportion is likely to have risen further in the most recent Omicron wave, during which there was the highest prevalence at any time in the pandemic, including in older age groups that had previously had relatively low rates of infection.

Prof James Naismith, the director of the Rosalind Franklin Institute at the University of Oxford, said: The total number of infected people was rising rapidly when the data stopped. The bottom line is the majority of people in the UK have had Covid-19.

The analysis used a sample of 535,116 people who completed one or more tests as part of the UK coronavirus infection survey (CIS), which covers people over the age of two years living in private households.

Slightly lower proportions of the population were estimated to have been infected in Wales (56%) and Scotland (52%), but the figures are not directly comparable as the data covered a shorter time period, with Welsh data starting in June 2020 and Scotland in September 2020. In Northern Ireland, 72% of the population were estimated to have been infected.

Duncan Cook, the deputy director for the Covid-19 infection survey, said: Todays release is a valuable piece of the puzzle for understanding the impact of the pandemic across the UK.

The analysis suggested that by October 2021, about one in three people in England had been infected and the proportion remained lower than a half until the emergence of the Omicron variant, which triggered a rapid rise in cases.

The proportions infected are likely to be even higher than the ONS estimates as in the most recent Covid wave, which coincided with the lifting of restrictions, there was a surge in the number of cases in the oldest age groups.

In some regions of England today I would predict the portion of those who have had Covid-19 will easily exceed 80%, said Naismith.

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The findings come as the latest ONS survey shows Covid rates are continuing to fall across the UK, with about 3,218,700 people in England one in 17 having Covid in the week ending 16 April, down from about one in 15 the week before. Decreases were also seen in Wales (one in 15), Northern Ireland (one in 30) and Scotland (one in 19) and across all age groups.

We continue to see a welcome decrease in infections across England, Northern Ireland and Scotland in todays data. For the first time in several weeks, we are also seeing a decrease in Wales too, said Cook.

Its encouraging to see that infections have decreased in all age groups across England. Despite the decrease in infections, its important to note that levels remain high. We continue to monitor these going forward.

According to the latest government figures, the number of Covid patients in hospital and the number of weekly deaths linked to Covid is also falling in the UK.

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Seven in 10 people in England have had Covid, research shows - The Guardian

Total vaccine doses distributed: 720,813,845

Patients whove received the first dose: 257,058,180

Patients whove received the second dose: 219,160,055

% of population fully vaccinated: 66%

% of infections tied to the Omicron Variant: 100%

See more here:

Coronavirus Omicron variant, vaccine, and case numbers in the United States: April 22, 2022 - Medical Economics

washington

Most Americans support a flexible approach to the lingering COVID-19 pandemic, with cities reimposing mask mandates when cases surge, even as a growing number are eager to get on with their lives, a Reuters/Ipsos poll completed Friday found.

The results of the two-day poll illustrate the balancing act facing U.S. officials as they navigate a health crisis that will not go away.

Sixty-four percent of U.S. adults including 83% of Democrats and 46% of Republicans said cities and states should impose mask mandates for indoor public places if there is a resurgence of COVID-19 in their area, the poll found.

At the same time, 44% of respondents said that Americans need to get back to normal and get on with their lives, up from 36% in a poll completed in early February.

The tension between the two sentiments was apparent this week in Philadelphia, which on Monday became the first major U.S. city to reimpose a mask mandate in settings including restaurants, schools and businesses following a rise in local COVID-19 cases, only to reverse course days later.

City officials in Philadelphia, which like most big American cities is run by Democrats and overwhelmingly voted for Biden in the 2020 presidential election, on Thursday said decreasing hospitalizations and a leveling of case counts warranted a recommendation that residents wear masks in indoor public spaces, rather than a mandate.

The city is the largest in the state of Pennsylvania, which will be a key battleground in November 8 midterm elections when Democrats will wage an uphill battle to preserve slim majorities in Congress.

More than two years into a public health crisis that has killed nearly 1 million Americans, most U.S. states and localities have eased mask and vaccination requirements.

Mixed results

A bipartisan majority of poll respondents, including 53% of Democrats and 78% of Republicans, said the coronavirus pandemic has reached the point at which decisions to wear masks or vaccinate should be left to individuals rather than the government.

At the same time, just over half of respondents in the poll said they were more likely to support candidates in November that support continued rules, including mask requirements, to combat the pandemic.

Sixty-five percent of respondents supported mask requirements on airplanes, trains and public transport, even after a federal court on Monday struck down a federal mask mandate on public transportation and airplanes.

The Biden administration is appealing the court ruling, however, after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the measure was still needed.

Only 44% of respondents said Biden has delivered on his 2020 election campaign pledge to try to control the pandemic, and just 35% said he had delivered on his promises to restart the economy hit by the health crisis.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted online, in English, throughout the United States, gathering responses from 1,005 adults. It has a credibility interval, a measure of precision, of about 4 percentage points.

Read more:

Poll: Americans Back Flexibility on Masks, Want to Move on From COVID-19 - Voice of America - VOA News

There was one new death attributed to COVID-19 in Hardin County, the sole death reported in the five-county region over the past week.

The number of cases per 100,000 population remains low for most of the region but has increased in Hardin County, which claimed the 24th highest per capita rate in Ohio with 67 new cases per 100,000 people over the last two weeks.

Allen County ranked 58th with 43 cases per 100,000 people, while Auglaize County ranked 63rd at 39.4 cases, Putnam ranked 70th at 32.5 and Van Wert ranked 72nd at 31.8 cases per 100,000 people.

Allen County

Cases ` 27,471 ` +22

Deaths ` 477 ` 0

Recovered ` 26,866 ` +11

Auglaize County

Cases ` 11,590 ` +13

Deaths ` 189 ` 0

Recovered ` 11,311 ` 0

Hardin County

Cases ` 7,087 ` +8

Deaths ` 158 ` +1

Recovered ` 6,902 ` +6

Putnam County

Cases ` 8,462 ` +5

Deaths ` 156 ` 0

Recovered ` 8,271 ` +8

Van Wert County

Cases ` 6,713 ` +5

Deaths ` 145 ` 0

Recovered ` 6,561 ` +4

Ohio

Cases ` 2,688,327 ` +6,890

Deaths ` 38,360 ` +94

Recovered ` 2,632,226 ` +3,197

Recovered defined as symptom onset more than 21 days prior, not deceased. Only verified deaths included now.

Source: coronavirus.ohio.gov

Updated 2 p.m. 4/21/22

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This week's updates on the coronavirus pandemic - LimaOhio.com