Category: Corona Virus

More than a year after they started going into arms, coronavirus vaccines are still working remarkably well, credited with saving millions of lives and keeping many more people from getting seriously sick.

But like some other vaccines, COVID-19 shots have a potential weakness. Without frequent boosters, they dont appear to provide long-lasting protection against infection caused by variants like omicron that have strayed far from the virus original genetic composition often called the Wuhan or ancestral strain, which the current vaccines were designed to target.

So, scientists are pushing to do even better. Ultimately, theyd like to develop a vaccine that would work against hundreds of different coronaviruses, including SARS 1 and 2, MERS and the versions that cause the common cold. A pan-coronavirus vaccine is considered a holy grail that many researchers believe may not happen for years or decades, if ever.

That would be absolutely wonderful, said Dr. John Swartzberg, a professor emeritus of vaccinology and infectious diseases at UC Berkeley School of Public Health. Weve been trying to do this for 30 years with influenza, ... But we havent been able to do that yet. I have every confidence in the world we will find it and it will work. I just dont know when.

A more realistic scenario, he said, would be to make second-generation COVID vaccines that cover a few more variants of SARS-CoV-2 than the current versions. Then, build on those to make third-generation vaccines that would cover a few more. And so on.

The idea is if a vaccine works against many relatives of the same genetic family now, itd also work at least in part against future relatives, even if scientists dont know yet what those are.

Much of this research is already under way. Vaccine manufacturers are testing formulations of their products that cover multiple variants, and some of these updated versions could come to fruition in coming months. One major National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases trial started just last week at 24 U.S. sites to test various combinations of the current vaccine with others tailored to beta, delta and omicron. One of the locations is San Francisco General Hospital, which began recruiting volunteers Friday.

Even better, and one step closer to a pan-coronavirus vaccine, would be vaccines that work on many sarbecoviruses, a subset of coronaviruses that includes SARS 1 and 2, as well as others that originate in bats and pangolins.

Do we really need a variant-proof or a pan-coronavirus vaccine? The virus that causes COVID-19 will keep mutating, and we may need shots better tailored to target future variants if the goal is to prevent infections, which many say is secondary to preventing severe illness and deaths. The current vaccines, when followed by a booster, already do the latter quite well.

But looking beyond this pandemic, there is a good chance another coronavirus could transmit from animals to humans and once again cause global calamity. A pan-coronavirus vaccine could help contain that early.

Weve had three coronavirus epidemics in the last 20 years, said Dr. Drew Weissman, a leading vaccine researcher at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, whos working on pan-coronavirus vaccines, referring to SARS, MERS, and COVID-19. That tells us were going to have more. We have no idea when or how severe. We can wait for the next one to appear and rush to make a new vaccine and shut the world down for a year and a half. Or we can make one now so its ready to go.

Weissmans lab is among at least half a dozen U.S. academic research institutions, biotech companies and groups of government scientists who are working on variations of such future-looking vaccines. At least one has begun human clinical trials, and several have found promising early results in monkey or mice studies. Many are focusing on the spike protein, the signature feature of coronaviruses, but some are also examining other parts of the virus that dont mutate as quickly.

Stanford immunologist Bali Pulendran is working with researchers at the University of Washington to develop a vaccine that protects against many variants of SARS-CoV-2. This could help pave the way for pan-sarbecovirus and ultimately pan-coronavirus vaccines.

In a study Pulendran and his Stanford colleague Prabhu Arunachalam conducted last year on monkeys, the vaccine when given with an adjuvant, a chemical that jump-starts the immune system elicited a strong immune response against the Wuhan strain and the alpha and beta variants.

The vaccine tested in that study is now in large phase 3 clinical trials. More recently, Pulendrans work shows that this vaccine elicits a strong and durable immune response against not just the Wuhan strain, beta and delta but also robust protection against omicron for at least six months.

Most researchers in this area are working with one of two vaccine technologies. One is mRNA, the same as that used by Pfizer and Moderna, where the idea is to take hybrid spike proteins from many different viruses and deliver them in a single shot, therefore protecting against all those viruses.

The other technology is a nanoparticle vaccine. The idea is analogous to a soccer ball, where each of the black pentagons can be linked with a spike protein from the virus. When the immune system sees the viral proteins in the nanoparticle, the immune response is really good, said David R. Martinez, an immunologist at the University of North Carolina whos developing an mRNA vaccine that could work against multiple coronaviruses.

Both approaches share the same goal to get the immune system to ramp up against what it thinks is a threat. But they go about it differently. The nanoparticle approach involves injecting patients directly with proteins seen by the immune system. They typically take longer to develop because the proteins must be made and purified in a lab. mRNA vaccines can skip this step because they essentially use the bodys cells to make proteins.

Walter Reed Army Institute of Research is considered to be one of furthest along in developing a nanoparticle vaccine that works against multiple coronaviruses. Researchers there started phase 1 human clinical trials in April 2021 for a pan-SARS vaccine that in early studies appeared to protect monkeys against SARS 2 and SARS 1. Its not clear when they expect to report results.

Its good to have multiple approaches because ultimately you dont know which one will be the most successful, so its important to have multiple of these things move forward, Martinez said. At the end of day you dont know which one will yield the best result.

Catherine Ho (she/her) is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: cho@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Cat_Ho

See the article here:

Could a single vaccine fend off all versions of COVID? Here's where the science stands - San Francisco Chronicle

Energy conservation

If you experience symptom flares after any kind of exertion, a therapist may recommend that you manage your daily activity levels or keep a diary to help anticipate which activities may be too mentally or physically draining. This self-pacing technique, often used by those with chronic fatigue syndrome (also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis, or ME/CFS), assumes that people have a set quota of energy they can spend each day. So small tasks, like showering or getting dressed, may use up less of their energy, whereas vacuuming or walking to the end of the driveway may drain their energy much faster, leading to something called post-exertional malaise.

April 10, 2022, 9:59 a.m. ET

Conserving energy throughout the day can help reduce post-Covid fatigue while patients recover, Ms. Ridgway said. Its a little bit of a different treatment approach than a lot of other physical therapies, but we really want to make sure were doing everything that we can to empower these patients.

Doctors and therapists agree that people with long Covid need to return to exercising at a very slow pace, often by starting with relearning basic aerobic conditioning and doing recumbent strength training before advancing to more intense, upright movement. This may involve trying to activate your core while in a supine or sideways position, performing balance exercises or doing seated cardio on a recumbent bike or rowing machine. A health care provider will likely monitor your heart rate, blood pressure and oxygen levels while you perform these exercises and ensure that you dont experience a skipping heart beat or any other cardiovascular symptoms, Dr. Titano said.

Eventually, you may feel comfortable trying an elliptical or walking on a treadmill. Your doctor or physical therapist may also ask you to count your steps or attempt to climb the stairs in your home a certain number of times every day. One of the goals that Ms. Fagans cardiologist set was to walk 5,000 steps a day a target the specialist suggested in October 2021. Its March now and I just reached it, she said.

Progress in managing long Covid symptoms can be excruciatingly slow, so it is often encouraging to be able to see your improvements over time. People may track their data using a heart rate monitor in a smartwatch, a blood pressure cuff or pulse oximeter if they have one at home. Health care providers may advise that you enlist a family member or friend to help you use some of these devices, and to ensure that you remain safe while performing any exercises. Its nice to be able to track progress, Ms. Fagan said. It personally helps me because the progress is so incredibly slow. You just dont see it day to day. You do not even see it month to month. Its more yearlong progress.

If you experience really debilitating symptoms that prevent you from doing everyday tasks like the laundry, going to work or taking care of your kids, for example you may need additional help from prescription medication and closer monitoring by a health care professional, Dr. Hayek said. Depending on your individual heart disease risk and current symptoms, certain blood pressure medications like beta blockers or calcium channel blockers can help alleviate extreme dizziness and treat chest pain and abnormal heart rhythms, he said. And these drugs can be tapered off once your cardiovascular symptoms abate.

Adolescents and young children with long Covid, however, are not eligible for many heart drugs. When seeing young patients, Dr. Sindhu Mohandas, an infectious disease expert at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, said she tends to recommend more lifestyle changes that, in addition to physical therapy, may help patients focus in school and rebuild their endurance for sports.

Read more from the original source:

How to Improve Heart Health After Covid - The New York Times

The novel coronavirus can infect immune cells that will trigger a massive inflammatory response and create severe COVID-19 symptoms, according to new research.

Details: Two new studies one published in the journal Nature and another available on a preprint server found that the immune cells infected by the coronavirus can cause severe inflammation.

What they said: The viruses not only get taken up, but once they get taken up, the virus starts replicating, so that was surprising, research leader Dr. Judith Lieberman, a pediatric immunologist at Boston Childrens Hospital, told CNN.

Worth noting: The researchers found that the coronavirus could not produce new viruses as it spread throughout people, according to Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News.

Link:

COVID symptoms: Does COVID cause inflammation in the body? - Deseret News

For months, some American and European leaders have foretold that the coronavirus pandemic would soon become endemic. Covid-19 would resolve into a disease that we learn to live with. According to several governors, it nearly has.

But we are still in the acute phase of the pandemic, and what endemic Covid might look like remains a mystery. Endemic diseases can take many forms, and we do not know yet where this two-year-old disease will fall among them.

40 cases per day

per 100,000

March 2020

W.H.O. declares

Covid-19 a pandemic

40 cases per day

per 100,000

March 2020

W.H.O. declares Covid-19

a pandemic

Sources: Local governments; Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University; National Health Commission of the Peoples Republic of China; World Health Organization Note: Data is as of April 5. Chart shows seven-day average.

At its most basic, an endemic disease is one with a constant, predictable or expected presence. Its a disease that persists. Beyond that, there is no fixed definition.

Endemic diseases infect millions of people around the world each year, and some endemic diseases kill hundreds of thousands. Some we can treat and vaccinate against. Yet they can also cause unexpected outbreaks and significant suffering.

Interviews with two dozen scientists, public health experts and medical historians suggest the rush to recast Covid as endemic may be missing the point.

Theres been a political reframing of the idea of endemic as something that is harmless or normal, said Lukas Engelmann, a historian of medicine and epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh. But epidemiologists use endemic to mean something we should watch carefully, he said, because an endemic disease can become epidemic again.

Endemic diseases can be mild or deadly

When people think of endemic disease, they often think of the common cold. Upper respiratory infections, including colds, are estimated to infect billions of people worldwide every year but kill several thousand. Other endemic diseases can be much more lethal. Malaria killed more than 600,000 people globally in 2019, and flu killed more than 200,000, though estimates suggest these tolls could be much higher.

New global cases per 100,000 in 2019

New global deaths per 100,000 in 2019

New global cases per 100,000 in 2019

New global deaths per 100,000 in 2019

Many scientists predict that endemic Covid may have a similar burden to other respiratory viruses.

It will be no more deadly than seasonal flu, or may be mild like one of the cold-causing coronaviruses, said Lone Simonsen, the director of the PandemiX Center at Roskilde University in Denmark.

The reason for this is that we have a lot of immunity and we keep getting boosted from the infections that we run into, she said.

Some scientists warn that immune protection from vaccination and infection may wane over time, and future variants might sidestep those defenses. And mutations are random, so there is always a chance a variant that causes more severe disease could arise in the future.

Endemic diseases can have epidemic periods

The common cold and the flu are widespread endemic diseases that persist year round, but their levels are not constant. Instead they cause seasonal epidemics, where infections rise beyond baseline endemic levels, often in the winter when people gather indoors.

2020

Covid-19

policies

disrupt spread

2020

Covid-19

policies

disrupt

spread

These patterns are predictable, but people can change them: The control measures used to blunt the Covid pandemic dampened flu and cold waves in recent years, too.

Scientists say that endemic Covid could be seasonal, but it could also have irregular and significant epidemic waves.

Covid is much, much more transmissible than the flu, said Jeffrey Shaman, an infectious-disease modeler at Columbia University. Only a small portion of the population needs to be susceptible for an outbreak to foment, and that can happen at any time of year.

The burden of endemic disease is unequal

One communitys experience with endemic disease can be vastly different from anothers, often depending on who is getting sick and whether they have access to tests, treatments and health care.

H.I.V., which has persisted across the globe for more than 40 years, is one example, though scientists and public health workers use both epidemic and endemic to describe the virus.

One definition of endemic is defined by geographic location, said Dr. Diane Havlir, an infectious disease specialist and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. Through that lens, H.I.V. is endemic in the United States, where approximately 1.2 million persons are living with H.I.V.

But H.I.V. is epidemic in subpopulations in the U.S., she added.

Changes in data methodology

Changes in data methodology

Infectious diseases often remain in communities where poverty or discriminatory systems prevent access to health care, Dr. Havlir said.

Disease disparities increase over time unless they are addressed at the outset, she said. And that raises the question: Are we addressing those disparities with Covid or are we on that same trajectory?

With one-third of the global population unvaccinated against Covid and life-saving treatments not available to all, the viruss burden will likely continue to be unequal, experts say, even as parts of the world decide their levels are endemic.

Endemic disease is all about control

Among the many forms endemic disease can take, one thing is clear: Endemic does not mean the end of the disease.

Instead, it means living with, and often managing, a disease that has not been, or cannot be, stamped out. Health experts say that countries must use control measures, like testing, treatments and vaccinations, to keep endemic diseases in check.

Countries with endemic malaria aspire to eradicate the mosquito-borne disease and rely on interventions like insecticides and preventative treatments to reduce its incidence. These control measures can drastically alter the course of endemic malaria, as they have in South Africa.

2000 epidemic

DDT use resumes

2001

New treatment

introduced

2000 epidemic

DDT use resumes

2001

New treatment

introduced

In addition to environmental controls, vaccination programs can reduce cases and deaths. But when communities do not adhere to vaccination recommendations, outbreaks can happen.

Measles, for example, remained endemic in the United States for 40 years after the introduction of vaccines. During that period, unvaccinated people remained vulnerable, fueling occasional outbreaks. In 2019, two decades after the disease was declared eliminated in the United States, several outbreaks, many associated with unvaccinated travelers, infected more than a thousand people.

1963

Measles vaccine

licensed in U.S.

1989

Many measles

outbreaks

2000

Measles declared

eliminated in U.S.

1963

Measles vaccine

licensed in U.S.

2000

Measles declared

eliminated in U.S.

1989

Many measles

outbreaks

Unlike malaria or measles, public health experts say that Covid cannot be eradicated, so control measures will help determine the size and course of future waves. (We have eradicated just one human disease: smallpox, which behaved quite differently from Covid.)

Keeping up with Covid means staying focused on vaccinating, treating and updating vaccines, said Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease specialist and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. Its going to take constant vigilance to keep it not to eradicate it, which would be what humans want but to keep it under control.

When will we know what Covids endemic phase looks like?

Probably not for a while. Scientists usually determine a diseases endemic pattern after observing it for many years.

Pandemics can take years to settle, and the consequences of widespread illness can last long after new infections fade.

Much of what we know about the transition out of pandemics comes from flu humans have witnessed four influenza pandemics in the last 100 years. The 1918-19 pandemic, which killed more than 50 million people globally, dwarfs them all.

195758

and 1968

pandemics

Change in data methodology

Change in data methodology

195758

and 1968

pandemics

Change in data

Read the rest here:

What It Means for a Pandemic Like Covid to Become 'Endemic' - The New York Times

5 lessons I learned after testing positive for coronavirus abroad

Advertiser Disclosure

Many of the credit card offers that appear on the website are from credit card companies from which ThePointsGuy.com receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site (including, for example, the order in which they appear). This site does not include all credit card companies or all available credit card offers. Please view our advertising policy page for more information.

Editorial Note: Opinions expressed here are the authors alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, airlines or hotel chain, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.

Read the original here:

5 things I learned after testing positive for COVID-19 abroad - The Points Guy

A checkpoint in Ningbo, China. A growing number of Chinese cities are requiring truck drivers to take daily Covid P.C.R. tests.Credit...Agence France-Presse Getty Images

BEIJING Chinas mounting Covid-19 restrictions are creating further disruptions to global supply chains for consumer electronics, car parts and other goods.

A growing number of Chinese cities are requiring truck drivers to take daily Covid P.C.R. tests before allowing them to cross municipal borders or are quarantining drivers deemed to be at risk of infection. The measures have limited how quickly drivers can move components among factories and goods from plants to ports.

Shanghai and other major Chinese cities have imposed lengthy, stringent lockdowns to try to control Covid outbreaks. Previous interruptions in the supply of goods from Chinese factories to buyers around the world mainly involved the temporary closure of shipping ports, including in Shenzhen in southeastern China in May and June last year and then near Shanghai last summer.

The problem is not ships its that theres no cargo coming because there are no trucks, said Jarrod Ward, the chief East Asia business development officer in the Shanghai office of Yusen Logistics, a large Japanese supply chain management company.

The testing of truck drivers has been held up because some cities are doing mass testing of residents. Shanghai tested essentially all 25 million people within its borders in a single day on Monday and detected another 21,000 cases on Thursday.

Now, there is an acute shortage of truck drivers in Shanghai and in nearby cities like Kunshan, a center of electronics production. Many electronics components manufacturers are shutting down in Kunshan.

The key electronics suppliers to Apple, to Tesla, theyre all based there, said Julie Gerdeman, the chief executive of Everstream, a supply chain risk management affiliate of DHL that is based in San Marcos, Calif.

Apple declined to comment, and Tesla had no immediate reply to questions.

Many factories have tried to stay open by having workers stay on site instead of going home. Employees have been sleeping on mats on the floor for as long as four weeks in some cities in northeastern China. Companies have been storing goods in nearby warehouses while waiting for normal truck traffic to resume.

But as lockdowns stretch on in cities like Shanghai, Changchun and Shenyang, factories are starting to run out of materials to assemble. Some are sending their workers home until further notice.

Making car seats, for example, requires different springs, bolts and other materials. Mr. Ward said car seat producers had run out of components. Volkswagen said it had closed a factory outside Shanghai.

While Shanghais cases increase, its main rival in electronics manufacturing, Shenzhen, has emerged from lockdown. That is freeing workers and factories there to resume full-speed production.

Retailers and manufacturers in the West tried to adapt to previous supply chain difficulties in China by switching from ships to airfreight, but airfreight rates have more than doubled from last year.

The near-total suspension of passenger flights in and out of Shanghai has roughly halved the airfreight capacity there, said Zvi Schreiber, the chief executive of Freightos, a freight booking platform. The war in Ukraine has forced many airlines to schedule longer flights around Russia and Ukraine, which means each plane can make fewer trips in a week and often can carry less weight on each flight.

The war in Ukraine is also starting to hurt the availability of Soviet-era Antonov freighters, Mr. Schreiber said. These workhorses of the airfreight industry have been kept going in recent years almost entirely by Ukrainian maintenance bases that are now closed.

For companies, any additional disruptions to the global supply chain would come at a particularly fraught moment, on top of rising prices for raw materials and shipping, along with extended delivery times and worker shortages.

Read more:

Covid Cases, Vaccine Boosters and BA.2 News: Live Updates - The New York Times

Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.

Two years after the coronavirus became the focus of all of my coverage as a science reporter for The Times (and all of my thoughts every waking hour), it happened: I tested positive for the virus.

My case was mostly mild, as the virus generally is for any healthy 40-something individual. But the experience nevertheless gave me perspective I would not have gained from reading scientific papers or interviewing experts.

Over the past two years, I have written hundreds of articles about the coronavirus about asymptomatic infections, tests, our bodys immune defenses, breakthrough infections and boosters. I was interviewed myself dozens of times to answer questions about the disease, the pandemic and the U.S. response to the virus.

But all along, my relationship with the virus stayed academic, impersonal. Even when the Delta variant swept through India and I lay sleepless, worrying about my parents, it was still not quite at my door.

To be honest, Im surprised it took as long as it did for me to catch Covid. As someone who covers infectious diseases, Im not squeamish about pathogens, and my family and I have taken some risks during the pandemic. My husband teaches squash indoors, often without a mask, my children have been attending school in person albeit masked since the fall of 2020 and Ive traveled on airplanes, including on a 20-hour journey to India in the thick of the Omicron surge.

But we are all vaccinated and boosted (except for my 10-year-old daughter, who doesnt yet qualify for a booster) and relatively healthy, so we knew that while we might develop some symptoms if we were to get Covid, we would most likely recover quickly. We were careful, especially around vulnerable people, such as my mother-in-law and friends who have young children.

Over an (indoor) dinner in early March, a friend and I marveled at how our families had escaped Covid. The virus seemed to be in retreat and cases in New York City were lower than they had been for months. We thought we were in the clear.

April 8, 2022, 3:25 p.m. ET

I should have known I was tempting fate.

Three days later, I found an email in my spam folder from the citys school testing program alerting me that my son had tested positive for the virus. I immediately informed the school. That evening, a friendly man working for the city called to give me some information. He began with Covid is a disease caused by a virus called the coronavirus. It was nearly dinnertime, and I was still finishing up my story on the science of the coronavirus, of course so I asked if we could skip ahead. But he was required to go through every bit of detail about the disease, the symptoms and the quarantine protocol.

After 16 minutes of this one-sided discourse, he asked me if I had any questions. I didnt, and I am fortunate enough not to need the citys quarantine accommodation or free supplies.

That was Thursday, March 10. Looking back, my husband felt under the weather earlier that week, but a rapid test said he was virus free. My son, too, had had a scratchy throat, but had chalked it up to seasonal allergies. Just like the experts I have interviewed have said, the symptoms were indistinguishable.

Though my rapid test turned up negative, I decided to act as if I had Covid. I alerted my co-workers. I bailed on an outing with friends. My children canceled all their activities. I eventually did test positive.

On Friday night, my daughter developed a low-grade fever but was full of bounce again by the next morning. As expected, we adults were the most affected. I was taken over by a heavy cold and an unrelenting malaise. By the following Wednesday, I was too sick to work. I learned that even those with a mild case can experience serious symptoms.

I am privileged to have the luxury to work from home when I feel able and to take time off when I dont. And I am lucky, too, that my children are old enough not to need constant care and that they attend a school that accommodates remote learning. I knew even before I had Covid that the disease has a hugely disproportionate impact on underserved communities, but as I said on the Times podcast The Daily, becoming sick with the virus put that knowledge into sharp perspective.

Ive written about many diseases H.I.V., tuberculosis, malaria, leprosy, polio that Ive never had. I could have done without this experience of getting Covid. Im not worried about these symptoms persisting for too long vaccination significantly cuts the risk of so-called long Covid but Im still inordinately fond of naps.

Im thankful to have gained a richer, broader immune defense to the virus. But mostly, I am glad to have a deeper understanding of what our readers have been experiencing.

See original here:

I Reported on Covid for Two Years. Then I Got It. - The New York Times

Gov. Ned Lamont of Connecticut, a Democrat, has tested positive for the coronavirus, his office announced on Thursday.

His office said on Thursday afternoon that a rapid test Mr. Lamont took showed a positive diagnosis, which was later confirmed with a second rapid self-test. Mr. Lamont was waiting for the results of a P.C.R. test.

The governor, 68, received a second booster shot on March 31, after federal health officials cleared the extra boosters earlier in the week for those 50 or older, among other groups. It takes about a week for the immune system to ramp up, and it is difficult to know exactly how someone was exposed to and infected with the virus.

I see some noise going over there in Britain, why not err on the side of caution and do this again? Mr. Lamont said then, referring to the surge of new cases in Britain, while getting the additional booster. I feel really good. Ill be safe at least for the next six months.

On Thursday, he said on Twitter that he felt good and was not experiencing any symptoms.

Weve done contact tracing to let people know, he said. Thankfully Im double boosted and I encourage everyone to get your vaccine and boosters if eligible.

Mr. Lamont said that he will isolate at home for the next five days and not attend any in-person events or meetings.

The highly transmissible Omicron subvariant known as BA.2 has become the dominant version among new U.S. cases, four months after it was first detected in the country. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated on Tuesday that BA.2 accounted for about 72 percent of new U.S. cases in the week that ended April 2.

As of Wednesday, an average of 489 new virus cases per day were reported in Connecticut in the previous week. New cases have increased by 56 percent over the last two weeks, according to a New York Times database.

Last month, Mr. Lamont urged Connecticut residents to order rapid tests at covidtests.gov. With the BA.2 Covid variant spreading across the nation, Connecticut is ready, Lamont wrote in a tweet. Families have layers of protection available vaccines + boosters, quality masks, and at-home rapid testing.

Here is the original post:

Ned Lamont, Connecticut Governor, Tests Positive for the Coronavirus - The New York Times

Rosy, 6, gives COVID tests and vaccines to her stuffed animals. She herself has been exposed to SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, multiple times and never tested positive. What's her secret? Michaeleen Doucleff/NPR hide caption

Rosy, 6, gives COVID tests and vaccines to her stuffed animals. She herself has been exposed to SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, multiple times and never tested positive. What's her secret?

The first time my daughter, Rosy, was exposed to SARS-CoV-2, I panicked.

It was November 2020, before vaccines were available. Someone in Rosy's class had tested positive and been contagious in the classroom for two days. So we all quarantined at home and braced ourselves for a horrible few weeks of sickness.

But after 10 days, nothing had happened. Rosy never showed signs of an infection and never tested positive. She had dodged the coronavirus.

Then about 10 months later, the same thing happened. And again two weeks later. And four months later. After each exposure, we did the same routine: Quarantine. Wait. And test repeatedly.

Over the course of the pandemic, my daughter has been exposed to SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes the disease COVID-19, at least four times. Mostly at school. Once at a party. Every time, somehow, she seems to have escaped an infection.

So my question is, why?

Of course, the simplest answer is that she has been infected and we just didn't know it. Despite all our testing, we missed it. An analysis from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that at least 58% of children under age 18 that's about 42 million children had been infected with SARS-CoV-2 as of Jan. 22, according to antibody testing. Yet the U.S. has recorded only about 13 million pediatric cases. So many coronavirus cases among kids have gone unnoticed, unreported or undetected. And Rosy could fall into that category.

But she's also just as likely to fall into another category kids who have been exposed to the coronavirus but who haven't caught it.

So how has Rosy done it? How has she seemingly pulled this rabbit from the hat or, in this case, pulled the coronavirus from her nose?

Over the past year, several studies have offered a tantalizing hint: Some people, even before being vaccinated, are really good at clearing the coronavirus from their respiratory tract and do it so quickly that the virus never reaches detectable levels. And the immune system accomplishes this coup with two key tools: immune cells originally made to fight another coronavirus four key ones are out there and an arm of the immune system that gets little attention in the media but is doing a huge amount of work to protect us all from SARS-CoV-2.

Back in November, immunologists at University College London published a study in the journal Nature that left many other scientists a bit surprised. The study presented striking evidence that prior exposure to another coronavirus can prepare the immune system to fight off SARS-CoV-2. "Before we published the full data, there were some people who said, 'Oh, how is it possible?' " says Mala Maini, who led the research.

In the study, Maini and her colleagues analyzed the blood of about 60 health care workers at a hospital over and over again. It was during the first wave of the pandemic, when vaccines weren't available. The workers repeatedly tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 despite being heavily exposed.

Maini started to wonder whether these health workers had, inside their blood, some type of protective element against SARS-CoV-2. Perhaps their previous encounters with other coronaviruses before the COVID-19 pandemic began had generated immune cells that could fight off a SARS-CoV-2 infection.

"That's what it looked like in this small subset of people," Maini says.

Inside the blood of 20 health care workers, she and her team found a special group of T cells that could do just that: recognize and stop SARS-CoV-2.

These special cells are called cross-reactive T cells. In general, T cells are thought to be second-line defenders in the immune system's hierarchy, Maini says. "First, antibodies come in and protect you against infection, and then T cells mop up the infected cells."

But in her study, the T cells appear at a very early stage of the infection, before the body can make antibodies. "There's increasing amount of data in SARS-CoV-2 that the T cells are having an unexpectedly early effect." And they seem to stop the infection in its tracks because the virus never reached detectable levels in the health care workers' respiratory tracts. (The cells are called cross-reactive because they recognize several types of coronaviruses. So just like cross-training involves several sports, cross-reactive cells work on several different viruses.)

As the pandemic surged, 19 of these 60 health workers eventually showed signs of a nascent infection. At the same time, these cross-reactive T cells rapidly replicated inside the health care workers' blood, and right away the infection stopped. The appearance of the T cells coincided with the cessation of the infection. They appeared to stymy the infection, Maini and her colleagues theorize. "It looks as if the T cells were able to protect them from a full-blown overt infection," she says.

In contrast, in blood samples taken from health care workers who did test positive for SARS-CoV-2, these cross-reactive T cells were missing or present at much lower levels. "People who had higher levels of these cross-reactive T cells at the baseline didn't get infected, versus the group who didn't," she adds.

And here's the kicker: These special T cells likely arose in the health care workers before the pandemic began. Their immune systems likely generated them when the workers were infected with another of the several coronaviruses that can strike humans.

"We don't know that for sure, but the most likely candidate would be the common cold coronaviruses that we're all exposed to," Maini says.

About 30% of colds are caused by four other coronaviruses known as seasonal coronaviruses (because they typically come around in winter and cause winter colds). These viruses circulate around the world and have been making people sick for decades, perhaps even centuries. Basically, every kid catches all four of them before age 5 or 6.

Even though these seasonal coronaviruses typically don't cause more than a runny nose and cough, your body still has to clear out the virus to prevent it from turning into a more serious problem. To do that, the immune system makes antibodies and T cells that recognize these coronaviruses. Some of these T cells stick around and watch out for the virus or a similar one to return again. The others die; the body can't afford to keep a whole T cell arsenal at the ready.

If you're lucky and have the right genes some of these T cells will also be able to recognize and help stop SARS-CoV-2. Maini estimates these cross-reactive T cells occur in only 10% to 15% of people.

Those previous coronaviruses that "have infected you can influence whether you have a response from cross-reactive T cells," says Brianne Barker, who's an immunologist at Drew University in New Jersey. In other words, all the colds Rosy (and I) endured before the pandemic could be helping her fight off SARS-CoV-2 via cross-reactive T cells.

Now, there are many caveats to this study. For starters, Maini says, the experiment occurred during the first wave of the pandemic, when the coronavirus was quite different from what it is now. She doesn't know if these cross-reactive T cells would be able to stop the omicron variant of the coronavirus. "So in the first wave, the virus wasn't as infectious as, for example, omicron," Maini says.

Also, the study finds only a correlation between the cross-reactive T cells and protection against infection. "It's an association," says immunologist Donna Farber of Columbia University. "I think it's difficult to say what actually prevented the infection. There are a variety of mechanisms that can just stop the virus in its tracks." (We'll get to a few of those in the next section of this story.)

That said, another study, published in Nature Communications in January, supports a role for cross-reactive T cells in fighting a SARS-CoV-2 infection. That study analyzed immune responses in people living with an infected household member. Again, the presence of cross-reactive T cells correlated with protection against infection.

On top of all that, T cells aren't the only immune component that can do this cross-reacting. Antibodies made to fight off seasonal coronavirus can also recognize SARS-CoV-2, says Raiees Andrabi, who's a vaccine immunologist at Scripps Research Institute. He and his team have evidence that the immune system brings these seasonal coronavirus antibodies back into action when you're exposed to SARS-CoV-2. "You can see a spike in the antibody levels when you're infected or immunized," Andrabi says.

But, he says, researchers don't know yet how much protection these cross-reactive antibodies offer in terms of fighting the infection. "There's not any concrete evidence from the literature that these antibodies can protect against severe disease."

Even if Rosy's immune system doesn't have cross-reactive antibodies or cross-reactive T cells to protect her from SARS-CoV-2, there's a 100% guarantee she has another protective device. And it's a powerful one.

SARS-CoV-2 is crafty. It has figured out how to sneak inside the cells of the respiratory tract quite easily. But once inside, the cells have their own trick up their sleeve.

It's called the RIG-I pathway. In a nutshell, it's an early-warning system for viruses that not only destroys the virus inside the cell but also prevents the virus from spreading to surrounding cells.

Inside your respiratory cells, tiny molecules, called RIG-I receptors, recognize and bind to a virus's genome (specifically its RNA). Once a RIG-I receptor sticks to a piece of viral RNA, it launches a massive immune response. "It tries to limit the viral infection as well as warn its neighbors so other cells can also go into an antiviral response" and not get infected too, says Drew University's Barker. Eventually, this response kills the infected cell, protects surrounding cells from infection and possibly brings in immune cells (like T cells) to help control the infection.

There's evidence the RIG-I pathway can clear out a SARS-CoV-2 infection before viral loads reach detectable levels or the immune system even has a chance to make antibodies, Barker says. "That's the idea."

Just as with cross-reactive T cells, some people are better able to detect SARS-CoV-2 inside their cells and stomp out the infection more quickly.

"Yes, there's evidence that some people are making a stronger RIG-I response and that's helping them clear the virus," Barker says. "A lot of people hypothesize that's what's going on with children."

For example, one study, published in Nature Biotechnology, found that compared with adults, children have more RIG-I receptors inside their nasal cells. And this higher concentration helps them respond more quickly to an infection.

"Yes, there's emerging data that this immune response in children is a little bit more sensitive and may react a bit stronger to different viral infections," Barker adds.

But at the end of the day, she says, Rosy's response to a SARS-CoV-2 exposure, in many ways, boils down to luck. It depends on her previous encounters with other coronaviruses as well as her genes. The latter determine how many RIG-I receptors she has inside her cells and how strongly they react to SARS-CoV-2, Barker says.

Finally, children are really, really good at stopping infections of any new virus, says Farber of Columbia University, because to them, essentially all viruses are "new" (except the ones they encountered through vaccines).

"For adults, a new pathogen is a really rare event. We hardly ever see new ones, right? But children are adapted to respond to new pathogens," she says. "They're ready to respond, and they do it more efficiently than we do."

Read more here:

Millions have been exposed to COVID and never caught it. What's protecting them? : Goats and Soda - NPR

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Just because your at-home coronavirus (COVID-19) test is past its expiration date, doesnt necessarily mean its actually expired, according to a new report.

Earlier this week, a New York Times article explained that the regulatory process associated with at-home coronavirus tests has resulted in various tests being listed with earlier expiration dates, despite the fact that they may still be effective past that date.

Its true that home Covid-19 tests are marked with expiration dates, but the actual expiration for a box of tests can be a moving target. Before throwing away a home test because you think it may have expired, do a little homework first, according to the article.

The Times spoke with Dr. Michael Mina, the chief science officer for eMed and an expert in at-home tests, who explained that the Food and Drug Administrations (FDA) process in determining the shelf life of coronavirus tests has resulted in many tests effectiveness being extended past the expiration date labeled on the box.

For some products, the FDA allows manufacturers to conduct whats known as accelerated dating, where researchers quickly simulate aging conditions to determine a products shelf life. This process may only take a few weeks, but can determine whether a product will be good for months, or even years, in the future.

However, in the case of at-home coronavirus tests, the FDA is requiring real-time data, meaning manufacturers must actually wait for the months to pass to determine a products shelf life.

As a result, many at-home coronavirus tests were initially made available with expiration dates six months in the future, as manufacturers only had six months of real-time data to prove their long-term viability.

But as more months pass and manufacturers continue their studies, they may find that the tests remain effective and seek an extension of the original expiration date that is posted on the test.

When the test is new, it has a six-month expiration, Mina told The New York Times. But once you get to six months, the FDA. may extend it. Thats been happening a lot, which is exceedingly confusing.

So how can you check to see if the expiration date for your at-home test has been extended?

At-home test users can visit the FDA website and view all documents related to extending a tests shelf life, including antigen tests and molecular tests.

From there, search for the brand of at-home test you have, see if there has been any extension and then do some simple math.

Hypothetically, if a tests shelf life has been extended from six months to 12 months, simply add six months to the listed expiration date to determine the updated date.

Experts said they believe that the actual shelf life of these at-home tests are much longer than the six months that they were originally listed with, meaning users should make sure they check for expiration date extensions before tossing out what may be a perfectly good test.

The reality is that these tests are very, very stable, Mina told The Times. My expectation is that most of them, if not all of them, eventually will have a two-year expiration date at least. If the control line is showing up and its within 18 to 24 months of the manufacture date, you should assume the test is working.

Read the original here:

Despite a date listed on the box, do at-home coronavirus tests really expire? - SILive.com