Category: Corona Virus

(THE CONVERSATION) In April 2020, tigers and lions at the Bronx Zoo made the news whenthey came down with COVID-19. In the months following these surprising diagnoses, researchers and veterinarians found SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, innearly a dozen other species, both in captivity and in the wild.

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

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

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

Which animals have caught the coronavirus?

As of February 2022, researchers and veterinary diagnostic labs have confirmed that31 speciesare susceptible to SARS-CoV-2. In addition to pets and zoo animals, researchers have found that a number ofnonhuman primates,ferrets,deer mice,hyenas,wood rats, striped skunks and red foxare among the animals that are susceptible to infection by SARS-CoV-2.

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

How to look for a virus in animals

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

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

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

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

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

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

Risks of a species-jumping coronavirus

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

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

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

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

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

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Deer, mink and hyenas have caught COVID-19 animal virologists explain how to find the coronavirus in animals and why humans need to worry - KRQE News...

Confirmed cases of COVID-19 have passed 419.9 million globally, according to Johns Hopkins University. The number of confirmed deaths has now passed 5.86 million. More than 10.42 billion vaccination doses have been administered globally, according to Our World in Data.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday that six African countries Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Tunisia would be the first on the continent to receive the technology needed to produce mRNA vaccines. The technology transfer project, launched last year, aims to help low- and middle-income countries manufacture mRNA vaccines at scale and according to international standards.

Western Australia, the mining-heavy state that has held firm on strict border controls for two years, said it will reopen to triple-vaccinated visitors after deciding it can cope with the Omicron outbreak. Announcing a 3 March reopening, state Premier Mark McGowan told reporters: "Our hosts are ready, our workforce is ready, Western Australia is ready."

South Korea's new daily COVID-19 cases topped 100,000 for the first time amid an Omicron outbreak, with authorities saying social distancing measures would ease only slightly ahead of the 9 March presidential election. The authorities announced on Friday that they would move a curfew on restaurants and cafes from 21.00 to 22.00, in a nod to increasing criticism from business owners.

The US state of California's Governor, Gavin Newsom, presented a plan on Thursday to confront COVID-19 beyond its pandemic phase. This involves a focus on readiness, vigilance and vaccines as the nation's most populous state moves from a crisis approach to "living with this virus".

Israel has dropped a "Green Pass" policy requiring proof of vaccination, recovery from COVID-19 or a negative test to enter some public venues, further rolling back restrictions as a wave of infections recedes.

Hong Kong SAR, China, has identified more than 20,000 hotel rooms for quarantine accommodation, leader Carrie Lam said on Friday, with property developers piling in to show support as the global financial hub battles a surge in COVID-19 cases.

Lam said 21 hotels have expressed interest in turning their facilities into isolation venues, exceeding "by a large margin the government's original target of 7,000 to 10,000 rooms".

Quarantine facilities have reached capacity and hospital beds are more than 95% full as cases spiral, with some patients, including the elderly, left on beds outside in chilly, sometimes rainy, weather.

COVID-19 cases are spiking in Hong Kong.

Image: Our World in Data

The moves come as authorities report new cases have multiplied 60 times this month, and after Chinese President Xi Jinping said the city's "overriding mission" is to stabilise and control the outbreak.

Hong Kong SAR reported 3,629 new daily COVID-19 infections on Friday, with an additional 7,600 preliminary positive cases, authorities said.

Meanwhile, parents rushed children as young as 3 years old to vaccination centres this week as the government lowered the age limit for the shots.

Misinformation about science is increasingly prevalent and a significant public health threat that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will focus on fighting, incoming Commissioner Robert Califf said on Thursday.

Califf, who was sworn in on Thursday, did not specify any particular misinformation the FDA should fight, but millions of Americans still refuse COVID-19 vaccines, with many conservative media outlets and Republicans in the US Congress spreading doubt about their effectiveness.

The first global pandemic in more than 100 years, COVID-19 has spread throughout the world at an unprecedented speed. At the time of writing, 4.5 million cases have been confirmed and more than 300,000 people have died due to the virus.

As countries seek to recover, some of the more long-term economic, business, environmental, societal and technological challenges and opportunities are just beginning to become visible.

To help all stakeholders communities, governments, businesses and individuals understand the emerging risks and follow-on effects generated by the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, the World Economic Forum, in collaboration with Marsh and McLennan and Zurich Insurance Group, has launched its COVID-19 Risks Outlook: A Preliminary Mapping and its Implications - a companion for decision-makers, building on the Forums annual Global Risks Report.

Companies are invited to join the Forums work to help manage the identified emerging risks of COVID-19 across industries to shape a better future. Read the full COVID-19 Risks Outlook: A Preliminary Mapping and its Implications report here, and our impact story with further information.

Healthcare workers say misinformation is the most important factor influencing people who refuse to get vaccinated. COVID-19 is killing around 2,200 Americans a day, the majority of whom are unvaccinated.

"These kinds of distortions and half-truths that find their way into the public domain do enormous harm, both by leading people to behaviour that is detrimental to their health and by causing them to eschew interventions that would improve their health," said Califf.

"A purely reactive mode is not appropriate, particularly in this new era of social media," he told FDA staff in a public letter outlining his priorities, adding that the agency will be more proactive in providing the public with health information.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

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COVID-19: What you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic on 18 February - World Economic Forum

Two years ago this month, the World Health Organization (WHO) gave a name to the mysterious new disease caused by a novel coronavirus then about to rip through the world: Covid-19.

One year ago, the rollout of the vaccines created to fight Covid-19 was well on its way.

For all the frustrations over vaccine inequity and hesitancy, that one-year gap between the pandemics start and the rollout of the vaccines is nothing short of a historic success.

A new report underscores just how miraculous it was. The study, from the Center for Global Development (CGD), found that the Covid-19 vaccination campaign has been the most rapid in history, outpacing landmark achievements in vaccination for diseases like smallpox, measles, and polio.

The feat is even more impressive because while most global vaccination campaigns to date have targeted children specifically, Covid-19 vaccination efforts are aimed at the entire global population. Charles Kenny, a senior fellow at CGD and one of the co-authors of the report, told Vox that it was unprecedented for a global vaccine campaign to focus on every adult in a single year for the great majority of countries.

Still, there are caveats. The biggest one is that the speed of the Covid-19 vaccine rollout primarily applies to high- and middle-income countries. Our World in Data reports that while 61.9 percent of the globe has received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, only 10.6 percent of people in low-income countries have received at least one dose.

As the CGD report shows, this rate is actually slower than campaigns to vaccinate for diseases like tuberculosis and diphtheria in low-income countries. In other words, we know we can vaccinate at a faster rate in those areas we just havent been able to do it with Covid-19.

Josh Michaud, associate director for Global Health Policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation, said in an email, Our benchmark for success shouldnt necessarily be faster than what we did decades ago. Rather it should be, whats the best we can do right now with existing technology and know-how?

Kenny doesnt disagree, and argues that the report is a sign of optimism with an asterisk. Did we do as well as we could? is a separate question. I think no, not nearly as well as we should have, he said. It is still sort of interesting and important to recognize that we are in a better place than we have been historically with vaccine rollouts.

That progress is indeed encouraging. While the Covid-19 vaccine rollout highlights how inequities continue to leave the most marginalized populations of the world underprotected, the campaigns broader success is promising for both the current pandemic and for pandemics that may arise in the years and decades to come. Humanity now knows how fast it can get a global vaccination program up and running, and that sets a standard for the future.

Each week, we explore unique solutions to some of the world's biggest problems.

One lesson we have absorbed from Covid-19 is that when it comes to infectious disease, speed or the lack of it kills.

The longer a pathogen is able to spread through a population without being checked by a vaccine, the more people it can infect. The CGD study reports that prior to Covid-19, aside from smallpox, the average period between identifying the disease-causing pathogen behind a disease (such as poliovirus for polio) and development of a vaccine was 48 years. After the pathogen had been identified, the average time between vaccine development and vaccine rollout sufficient to reach 20 percent global coverage was 36 years; for 40 percent coverage, 42 years; and for 75 percent coverage, 53 years.

For the Covid-19 vaccines, however, the period between identifying the disease-causing pathogen and developing a vaccine was less than a year. And the time between vaccine development and 20 percent global coverage was just under eight months, while getting to 40 percent coverage took another three months.

The CGD report also put the Covid-19 vaccine development and rollout in the context of three major global vaccine initiatives: smallpox, routine childhood vaccinations (against diseases like pertussis and tetanus), and annual influenza.

There were lessons to be learned from each of them. With smallpox, the improved technology and vaccination strategies (particularly the use of disease surveillance and ring vaccination vaccinating those most likely to be infected) were crucial to its gradual eradication. Routine childhood vaccination against diseases like polio proved the necessity of having good financing and a global infrastructure for universal immunization. Global influenza vaccination efforts revealed the importance of building capacity for recurring vaccination.

Those and other lessons paved the way for the rapid development and distribution of Covid-19 vaccines.

It helped that much of the technology had already been primed and ready to go based upon a foundation of existing research, including the viral vector and mRNA vaccine platforms, Michaud said.

In addition, high- and middle-income countries alike had much more of the health financing and infrastructure today to develop, manufacture, acquire, and get shots into the arms of their populations. Before Covid-19, the annual influenza shot was the worlds largest regular vaccination program. Yet as of 2013, it reached only about 7 percent of the global population, with a majority of coverage in richer countries, according to the CGD report.

Meanwhile, the number of Covid-19 vaccinations delivered annually is 9.4 times that of influenza vaccines given in 2019, with much greater coverage in both higher- and lower-middle-income countries. (In this case, annual Covid-19 vaccinations are derived by taking the total Covid-19 doses delivered as of this publication and dividing by two, per the report.)

That doesnt mean there werent hiccups in the distribution of Covid-19 vaccines.

The campaign against smallpox is worth zooming into for one aspect in particular that has been in short supply during the Covid-19 pandemic: global cooperation.

The WHO, then as now, attempted to coordinate a joint global response. And crucially, despite the tensions of the Cold War, the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, engaged in vaccine diplomacy that would prove crucial to the global eradication of smallpox. This collaboration contributed to the vaccination of significant proportions of populations even in some of the worlds poorest countries within 18 months, the CGD study states.

That kind of global cooperation, especially between the US and China, hasnt been in evidence during this pandemic. The US and China certainly ought to have cooperated on vaccinating the world against Covid-19, as they had collaborated previously on crises like the 2014 West African Ebola epidemic.

However, relations between the two have only deteriorated during the Covid-19 pandemic. On top of this, countries with strong vaccine manufacturing capacity including the US engaged in vaccine nationalism, prioritizing their own populations over the global community, and failed to properly fund and support Covax, the primary vehicle for ensuring vaccine equity for both high-income and low-income countries.

In the end, as Kenny told Vox, no government did particularly well when it came to collaborating to make sure the world was equitably vaccinated to everybodys loss.

This leaves us with dueling assessments of the global response to Covid-19 astonishingly fast in the context of human history, but still wanting in the face of what we could have done. That we now know what were capable of, and what we need to work on when the next one rolls around, is one indisputable takeaway from humanitys response to this pandemic.

A version of this story was initially published in the Future Perfect newsletter. Sign up here to subscribe!

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What the world got right during the Covid-19 pandemic - Vox.com

Having Covid-19 puts people at a significantly increased chance of developing new mental health conditions, potentially adding to existing crises of suicide and overdoses, according to new research looking at millions of health records in the US over the course of a year.

The long-term effects of having Covid are still being discovered, and among them is an increased chance of being diagnosed with mental health disorders. They include depression, anxiety, stress and an increased risk of substance use disorders, cognitive decline, and sleep problems a marked difference from others who also endured the stress of the pandemic but werent diagnosed with the virus.

This is basically telling us that millions and millions of people in the US infected with Covid are developing mental health problems, said Ziyad Al-Aly, chief of research and development at the VA St Louis Healthcare System and senior author of the paper. That makes us a nation in distress.

The higher risk of mental health disorders, including suicidal ideation and opioid use, is particularly concerning, he said.

This is really almost a perfect storm that is brewing in front of our eyes for another opioid epidemic two or three years down the road, for another suicide crisis two or three years down the road, Al-Aly added.

These unfolding crises are quite a big concern, said James Jackson, director of behavioral health at Vanderbilt Universitys ICU Recovery Center, who was not involved with this study. He is also seeing patients whose previous conditions, including anxiety, depression and opioid use disorder, worsened during the pandemic.

Research like this shows the clear need to follow patients in the weeks and months after even mild Covid diagnoses and to seek quick treatment for any emerging disorders, the experts said. If we apply attention to it now and nip it in the bud, we could literally save lives, Al-Aly said.

More than 18% of Covid patients developed mental health problems, compared with 12% of those who did not have Covid, according to the study published on Wednesday.

The study followed more than 153,000 patients who tested positive for Covid in the Veterans Affairs health system between March 2020 and January 2021, and compared them with other health records: to 5.8 million people who did not test positive in that time, but lived through the same stresses of the pandemic, and with 5.6 million patients seen before the pandemic.

Among all patients who developed new mental health problems during the pandemic, the Covid patients were significantly more likely to develop cognitive problems (80%), sleep disorders (41%), depression (39%), stress (38%), anxiety (35%) and opioid use disorder (34%), compared with those who didnt have Covid.

The study looked only at patients with no history of mental health diagnoses in the past two years. It compared those hospitalized for Covid versus other illnesses, and compared outcomes to thousands of flu cases. The study also adjusted for factors like demographics, other health conditions and other factors.

The results were all clear: Covid has a marked effect on mental health.

Those with more severe cases of Covid, especially those who need to be hospitalized, tend to be at higher risk. But even those with mild or asymptomatic cases were more likely to receive mental health diagnoses.

People who were hospitalized had it worse, but the risk in non-hospitalized [patients] is significant and absolutely not trivial and that represents the majority of people in the US and the world, Al-Aly said.

The study did have some limitations: most of those analyzed were older white men. But controlling for race, gender and age found no changes in risk.

The coronavirus can be found in the brain, other studies have shown. We can actually see the virus in the amygdala, in the hippocampus the very centers responsible for regulating our moods, regulating our emotions, Al-Aly said.

The study adds to other research showing that mental health issues are a huge concern after Covid, Jackson said. And the results line up with what he sees among patients.

Were learning that Covid may be even more problematic and more impactful than we thought, Jackson said.

Early treatment of patients facing new or additional mental health challenges after Covid can make a crucial difference, the experts said.

The idea here is to identify patients data early to hopefully reduce this from becoming a much larger problem down the road, Al-Aly said. If you leave a disease unattended, it only gets worse.

But the longer the virus continues circulating, the more long-term problems it may create adding even greater pressure to health systems.

The wave of people with mental health disorders is going to be hitting the clinics in the next year or two or three, as a result of Covid and as a result of the pandemic, Al-Aly said.

And many mental health practitioners dont accept insurance, creating a large stumbling block for patients, while others have long waiting lists.

This is a gigantic problem, and Im not really sure what were going to do about it, Jackson said. The needs are vastly greater than the resources.

Jackson has set up peer support groups to offer counseling to patients dealing with long Covid brain fog, cognitive impairment, memory problems, feelings of inadequacy. The groups are held on Zoom, so patients can join from all over the country.

We need to pay attention to the long-term consequences of Covid, Al-Aly said. If we only pay attention to the short-term consequences, the first 30 days or the first 90 days, we really, really are missing the larger picture.

The pandemic itself caught the US unprepared, and were going to be caught unprepared again for long Covid, Al-Aly said. The reality is that Covid is producing long-term consequences, and we cannot just wish it away or sweep it under the rug or not deal with it.

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Covid infection increases risk of mental health disorders, study finds - The Guardian

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Active coronavirus cases in Wyoming climb by 135 on Friday - Wyoming Tribune

Boston lifted the city's proof of vaccine policy which required patrons and staff of indoor spaces to show proof of vaccination, Mayor Michelle Wu announced Friday.

"As of today, our public health data show that Boston is officially below the 3 critical thresholds for heightened Covid protections, so we are lifting the proof of vaccination requirement," Wu said in a tweet.

"This news highlights the progress we've made in our fight against Covid-19 thanks to vaccines & boosters -- which have always been our most effective weapon against the pandemic. It's a win for every Bostonian doing our part to keep our communities safe, and we have to keep going," Wu said.

Dr. Bisola Ojikutu, commissioner of public health and executive director of the Boston Public Health Commission, said in a statement: "I'm encouraged by our COVID-19 data and optimistic about where our city is headed."

"The City's Covid-19 response has been guided by science throughout the pandemic, and we will continue to make data-driven decisions in our mitigation and response strategies in order to keep everyone safe," the statement continued.

The requirement to wear masks in public indoor spaces remains in place, however, the commission and the city's Board of Health will be reviewing the mandate in the coming days, the city said.

States and cities are lifting indoor restrictions

Boston joins several other cities and states lifting indoor restrictions in recent weeks, including Philadelphia, Nevada, New York and Hawaii's Maui County, citing a notable decline in Covid-19 cases after the Omicron variant wave spread across the US in the last few months.

Many of the states were early adopters of strict Covid-19 safety measures, and vaccination rates in all but one have climbed above the national average. In the United States as a whole, 64.6% of the population is fully vaccinated, as of Saturday.

"Proof of vaccination or testing will no longer be required for indoor service at restaurants, bars and gyms," Maui County announced in a Facebook post.

"With the rapid decline of new COVID-19 cases and related hospitalizations, we can safely eliminate the proof-of-vaccination requirement for bars, restaurants and gyms," Maui Mayor Michael Victorino said.

Maui County officials still advised travelers and residents to continue wearing face masks while indoors in public spaces and to maintain social distancing when "in groups of people from outside your household."

In Michigan, the state's Department of Health and Human Services is no longer urging masks in schools and other indoor settings, citing the state's "post-surge, recovery phase," according to a news release Wednesday.

"This is good news for Michigan," Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said in a statement. "While Michigan hasn't had statewide mask policies since last June, this updated guidance will underscore that we are getting back to normal."

The health department urged school districts to consider local conditions and decide on masking policies for school communities.

New York state lifted its statewide mask-or-vaccine requirement for indoor businesses -- but not for schools -- Thursday, Gov. Kathy Hochul said.

The mask mandate still remains in place for schools, child care settings, hospitals, nursing homes and on public transit. Hochul said the state plans to review student Covid-19 test results and other metrics next month to decide whether to continue requiring masks in schools.

CNN's Jacqueline Howard and Eric Levenson contributed to this story.

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Growing number of states, major cities lift Covid-19 restrictions - CNN

A monkey crosses a wire with its baby.

Here are the top stories of the week.

Like Humans, Monkeys Can Also Choke Under Pressure In Unfamiliar Stressful Situations!

Underperforming in a crucial exam, messing up a key presentation, forgetting your lines during a speech for humans, such instances of succumbing to pressure are common. But now, a study has found that this sensitivity to pressure isnt just restricted to our species, as monkeys performances are notably impacted when put under pressure! Full story here.

Male Song Sparrows Woo Females by Mixing Up Their Musical RepertoireMuch Like Shuffling On a Music App!

Who would've thought we'd ever find the animal kingdom equivalent of wooing women by showing off your music playlist? A recent study has revealed that the male song sparrows also deliberately shuffle and mix up their song repertoire to keep things interesting for their female audience! Continue reading here.

#SpaceTrends: Netizens Amazed by Dindigul Residents Stunning Video of ISROs New Launch (WATCH)

On Monday, ISRO conducted its first launch of 2022 with three satellites onboard the PSLV-C52 rocket from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, SHAR, Sriharikota. After the take-off, even the neighbouring states witnessed glimpses of Indias indigenous powerhouse rocket in the early morning sky. Watch some stunning visuals of the rocket captured from the ground, here.

A zebrafish.

Genetically-Engineered Glowing Zebrafish Are Invading Waterbodies Across Brazil!

Glowing neon-coloured zebrafish have escaped the fish farms in southeastern Brazil, and are currently multiplying in the creeks of the Atlantic Forest! In doing so, they have also become one of the first transgenic species to accidentally escape and thrive in nature! Know all about them here.

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Weekly Digest (February 14-19): Top Weather, Science, Space, Environment and Coronavirus Stories of the Week | The Weather Channel - Articles from The...

In the ongoing struggle of SARS-CoV-2s genes versus our wits, the virus that causes Covid-19 relentlessly probes human defenses with new genetic gambits. New variants of this coronavirus with increasing transmissibility have sprung up every few months, a scenario that is likely to continue.

Some experts believe that the pandemic appears to be on an evolutionary slide toward becoming endemic, a new normal in which humans and the virus co-exist, as we currently do with influenza. But coronaviruses are clever. While an endemic resolution may be in sight, SARS-CoV-2 could still shock the human species with a devastating evolutionary leap.

Here are four possible scenarios, each taken directly from the known evolutionary playbook of coronaviruses.

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Epidemic means upon the people (epi + demos); endemic means within the people (en + demos). The hope is that Covid-19 will morph from the former to the latter.

Humans currently coexist with four known endemic coronaviruses. Their scientific designations sound like technical code: 229E, OC43, NL63, and HKU1. Almost every person on earth becomes infected with all four of these viruses during childhood. These infections tend to be mild, causing only transient upper respiratory infections, hence the convenient shorthand name of common cold coronaviruses (CCC) for this gang of four. Because immunity to these coronaviruses wanes with time, infections can recur throughout the human lifespan.

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When the CCCs emerged and from where are hazy, but genetic analyses suggest they probably originated in various animal species before crossing into humans hundreds of years ago. The likely ancestral origin of OC43 is a bovine coronavirus; the nearest neighbor for 229E is a llama coronavirus; and the others probably arose as inter-species jumps from the vast global reservoir of bat coronaviruses.

If the common cold coronaviruses did originally emerge from cross-species jumps of animal viruses into humans before germ theory and the modern science of microbiology, they would probably have been mistaken for influenza and not recognized as new diseases. As these species-jumping coronaviruses adapted to humans, there would have been selective pressure for more efficient transmission. When a virus adapts to a new host, it accrues no survival advantages by debilitating or killing its host. Just the opposite: a respiratory-borne virus is more easily transmitted by an ambulatory, socially interactive host.

Just as the four common cold coronaviruses likely started out as novel epidemic viruses that evolved toward endemicity, SARS-CoV-2 may well follow the same path and become the fifth CCC.

In this scenario, SARS-CoV-2 evolves to infect new cell types in the human body, changing from predominantly infecting and affecting the respiratory system to infecting and affecting other organ systems. This scenario could lead to a better outcome or a worse one, depending on the organs damaged and the extent of it.

Most animal coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-2, infect cells that line the gastrointestinal tract as well as those in the respiratory tract. Mutations can switch the ability of viruses to grow in the cells of one organ system to the cells of another. Among swine, a major shift occurred in 1984 when the transmissible gastroenteritis virus mutated to become the porcine respiratory virus. Among chickens, all strains of the infectious bronchitis virus affect the trachea, but some mutant strains have emerged that damage the kidneys.

In humans, SARS-CoV-2 has been found in the intestine, kidney, and central nervous system. A new SARS-CoV-2 variant with redirected preference for new organs (organ tropism) could produce new Covid-19 signs and symptoms.

Viruses like influenza, HIV, and coronaviruses routinely swap genetic material between strains. If the genetic material of the human SARS-CoV-2 were to be combined with the genetic material of an existing animal coronavirus such as a virus endemic in fowl, swine, rodents, or even dogs and cats it could create a hybrid that spawns a new pandemic, just as the occasional hybridization of human and bird influenza viruses is known to give rise to human influenza pandemics. When an animal cell happens to be co-infected with two different coronaviruses, recombination between two parental strands can occur, giving rise to a novel hybrid genome that just might be better at replication than its parents.

There is already evidence that SARS-CoV-2 strains are recombining with other SARS-CoV-2 strains. Fowl coronaviruses and swine coronaviruses are widespread problems in commercial animal husbandry, and mouse hepatitis virus has been a common nuisance infection in laboratory mouse colonies. SARS-CoV-2-infected individuals who have close contact with coronavirus-infected animals could easily serve as hosts for the generation of recombinant viruses.

Given the huge number of SARS-CoV-2 infected humans, the chances are good that someone somewhere on earth might be simultaneously infected with SARS-CoV-2 and an animal coronavirus and some of their cells infected with both giving rise to novel hybrid virus recombinants.

And given the high counts of SARS-CoV-2 genomes in human sewage systems, it is possible that a coronavirus-infected rodent or bird could encounter human SARS-CoV-2 through contact with human waste.

Regardless of where and how novel recombinant descendants of SARS-CoV-2 might arise, the new virus could evade SARS-CoV-2 immunity and could even have different disease manifestations than what has been seen with Covid-19.

In this worrisome scenario, SARS-CoV-2 evolves to not only evade its human hosts immune response but to actively exploit it. The successive major variants of SARS-CoV-2 so far Alpha through Omicron show that the relentless evolution of the virus helps evade the immune system. But some coronaviruses, like the feline infectious peritonitis virus, take evasion to the next level: exploitation.

When a person or in this case a cat encounters a virus or receives a vaccine, immune cells begin making antibodies. These proteins bind to the virus and disable it. Paradoxically, antibodies against feline infectious peritonitis virus that are infused into non-immune cats render the animals more susceptible to peritonitis and severe disease than cats that have not been infused with anti-feline infectious peritonitis virus antibodies.

A similar perverse exploitation of the immune system can occur when humans are infected with dengue virus, which is not a coronavirus. A first infection with a dengue-type virus typically produces a self-limited, week-long illness with high fever and muscle and joint pain. The antibody immune response to that first infection renders a person immune to future exposures with that same type of dengue virus. But if the individual later becomes exposed to a dengue virus of a different type, the first infection increases the risk of severe disease instead of providing protection against it. How? In the human body, some cells have receptors for dengue viruses on their surface, while other cells have receptors for antibodies. Antibodies that bind to viruses normally prevent the virus from attaching to cells with dengue receptors. But these antibody-coated viruses can instead bind to, enter, and grow in the cells with antibody receptors on their surfaces. This process is called antibody dependent enhancement of virus growth.

Other coronaviruses that infect humans, such as SARS-CoV-1 and MERS-CoV, have been shown in laboratory studies to be able to exploit bound antibodies as a way to attach to cells and begin to replicate in them. SARS-CoV-2 viruses can also use antibody dependent enhancement to bind to cells with antibody receptors, with the virus having been shown to enter cells and begin to replicate. But in experiments so far, the full viral replication cycle wasnt completed in test cells.

The worry here is that if SARS-CoV-2 evolves to use antibody dependent enhancement to increase virus growth and transmission, the new variant could explosively retrace its spread through immune populations.

Im not confident about how the pandemic endgame will play out. While I do think the most likely future scenario for SARS-CoV-2 is that it will become endemic, the other more worrisome scenarios I describe here are within the realm of possibility: a mutant that produces a different disease, a new recombinant virus, or a variant that exploits immunity. And these scenarios are not mutually exclusive. A new SARS-CoV-2 recombinant virus containing animal coronavirus genes might well cause altered disease.

Some other scenarios I havent discussed are also worth thinking about, like ongoing back-and-forth spillover from humans to animals and back to humans, or increased transmissibility from chronically infected people with long Covid.

None of these epidemic scenarios is a fantasy. All are variations of the known evolution of real-world coronaviruses. A new viral variant can emerge anywhere on Earth to cover the globe in a matter of weeks, as SAR-CoV-2 did. Indeed, somewhere on Earth SARS-CoV-2 strains may have already evolved in one of more of the directions I describe here but have not yet been detected.

The world cannot afford to be blindsided again. Pandemic planners from the U.S., the World Health Organization, and other countries and organizations need to develop formal risk assessments and contingency plans for a wide range of possible pandemic futures.

Viral evolution requires ongoing viral transmission and replication. The more new viral particles generated, the greater the chance that new viral mutants and recombinants could emerge. Preventing disease and death is, of course, the main goal around the world. But countering the evolution of new variant viruses is another important mission. Doing this requires controlling SARS-CoV-2 replication by quenching person-to-person virus transmission. And this must happen everywhere on the planet, not just in the U.S.

Technical and financial assistance for bringing transmission-blocking vaccines to low- and middle-income countries is not just an act of charity; it is an expression of enlightened national self-interest. The national security of the U.S. and every other country depends on winning this global viral war.

Donald S. Burke is a professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the Graduate School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh, where he previously served as dean.

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4 evolutionary scenarios for the coronavirus that causes Covid-19 - STAT - STAT

With the omicron surge in descent, some government officials and health experts have begun talking about the potential for the coronavirus to become endemic and lifting restrictions like mask mandates. Although we still dont have a clear sense for what endemicity could look like for this disease, or when we could get there, there are some emerging ideas for what signs to look for. These include stability and predictability.

The simplest understanding of what makes a disease endemic is that it is one that is not going away. Endemic diseases can have large ranges for prevalence depending on the characteristics of how its persisting in the population. In contrast, there have been pathogens that emerge and then disappear, such as the original SARS coronavirus that caused outbreaks in 2003, never establishing itself in the human population in the long term.

The larger question is how to differentiate endemic from pandemic. Experts say there are a few signs to keep an eye out for.

When asked what to look for, one key sign is stability,said Tara Smith,a professor at the College of Public Health at Kent State University, in an email to Changing America. Fewer cycles of surge-and-decline and less of the epidemic stage that has overwhelmed hospitalsand not only here, but around the globe.

As weve seen with the omicron variant, relative stability achieved in one country is not sustainable if there isnt enough stability worldwide to prevent a new variant from emerging.

Another sign a pathogen is becoming endemic is predictability. An endemic disease typically has predictable patterns across time and space. Its about looking both backward and forward,said Delivette Castor, of the Department of Medicine at Columbia University, to Changing America. That means looking at the history of coronavirus and using that data to be able to project forward in a reliable way. Currently, researchers creating models for projecting scenarios of coronavirus may only be able to do so for a few weeks or months out, let alone for entire year-long cycles.

But this also excludes the potential for new variants that are different from what weve seen previously, and researchers cant predict those. Many infectious diseases researchers have focused their careers on trying to predict when or what new pathogens will emerge, and its a tough job. For example, scientists are not always able to predict how influenza will change and which strains will be dominant every year. It might take many years to understand how the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus mutates and changes, and even then we may not be able to predict which versions will take off in humans.

But if it can be achieved even on a small level, predictability should be able to inform preparation and response strategies.

What does it mean in terms of preparation of ICUs, the ability of the emergency department to respond, the ability to deploy testing early enough to be able to catch signals, the ability to sustain random testing centers for good surveillance, Castor said.

Part of the task of defining what endemic means for coronavirus could be establishing what threshold level of cases is tolerable. If the coronavirus settles into seasonal patterns, then wed have to figure out the expected ranges for case rates for different times of the year.

Our country is in a historic fight against the coronavirus. Add Changing America to your Facebook or Twitter feed to stay on top of the news.

In 2020, New York City public schools were closed when an overall 3 percent positivity rate for coronavirus testing was reached in the city. Whether this was the right move at the time is up for question, but it may not be ideal to have rigid thresholds for all age groups and situations. In addition, reliance on rapid testing has risen as availability has increased. In some school districts, rapid tests have become crucial for protocols for deciding when to keep students in school. If fewer people follow up with PCR lab tests and especially if fewer asymptomatic cases are detected, that could mean those results are not as indicative of the populations COVID status as it once was.

In preparing strategies for the pandemic to recede into endemicity, the global aspect is key, experts say.

If we focus solely on the US, we are missing an enormous part of the picture. A pandemic is global by definition,said Smith.

Just as each state in the U.S. is intricately linked to those around it and even those that are far away, weve also learned that countries on all continents are linked. An emergence of a new variant on one continent has inevitably led to spread to most others. It may be possible to independently start behaving like it is no longer a pandemic, but that may not be the reality on the whole.

This means we will have to see if there is stability and predictability globally. Its hard enough within the U.S. with waves starting and cresting at different times across the country, but we need to also consider what is happening in other countries, experts say.

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Excerpt from:

Signs the coronavirus is becoming endemic | TheHill - The Hill

Almost three-quarters of Americans are now estimated to have some level of immunity to the Omicron Covid variant that created havoc after it emerged late last year just as people hoped the pandemic was finally waning.

The subsequent Omicron wave that assaulted the US this winter has, however, bolstered its defenses, leaving enough protection against the coronavirus that future surges will probably require much less if any dramatic disruption to society, experts reckon.

Millions of individual Americans immune systems now recognize the virus and are primed to fight it off if they encounter Omicron, or even another variant.

About half of eligible Americans have received booster shots, there have been nearly 80m confirmed infections overall and many more infections have never been reported.

One influential model uses those factors and others to estimate that 73% of Americans are, for now, enjoying protection from Omicron, the dominant variant, and that could rise to 80% by mid-March, experts say.

This will prevent or shorten new illnesses in protected people and reduce the amount of virus circulating overall, probably tamping down new waves. Hospitals will get a break from overwhelmed ICUs, experts agree.

We have changed, said Ali Mokdad, a professor of health metrics sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle. We have been exposed to this virus and we know how to deal with it.

The coronavirus the current variant or future ones that are sure to pop up remains a dangerous germ. It is still infecting more than 130,000 Americans and killing more than 2,000 every day. Tens of millions of people remain vulnerable.

And there will be future outbreaks. The notion of a herd immunity that could stop the virus has slipped away under the harsh reality of new variants, waning immunity and the rejection of vaccination by some Americans.

But the White House coronavirus team on Wednesday said that the nation was moving closer to the point that Covid-19 is no longer a constant crisis, as infections drop steeply.

And knowledge is building now that the coronavirus is no longer new. Two years ago it arrived in a nation where nobodys immune system had seen it before. The entire population 330 million people were immunologically naive, that is, susceptible to infection.

I am optimistic even if we have a surge in summer, cases will go up, but hospitalizations and deaths will not, said Mokdad, who works on the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation model, which calculated the 73% figure for the Associated Press.

With varying degrees of relief and caution, many Americans are starting to return to their pre-pandemic lifestyles.

Sarah Rixen, 41, of Bismarck, North Dakota, started singing again with a civic chorus after taking a year off. Now, with Omicron winding down, she said she feels more confident than at any time since the crisis began.

But I am still a little leery that there could be another variant around the corner, said Rixen, noting that her family and most of her relatives are fully vaccinated. I am still going to wear a mask.

As mask mandates ease, workers return to offices and flights fill up, experts are trying to understand whether this return to normal can last, or if another setback is looming.

To address that, researchers are using health data from other countries such as Britain, Denmark, South Africa and Qatar to project what could be in store.

Scientists at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health estimate that about three out of four people in the US will have been infected by Omicron by the end of the surge.

We know its a huge proportion of the population, said Shaun Truelove, an epidemiologist and disease modeler at Johns Hopkins. This varies a lot by location, and in some areas we expect the number infected to be closer to one in two.

That means different regions or groups of people have different level of protection and risk. In Virginia, disease modelers are thinking about their population in terms of groups with different levels of immunity.

They estimate about 45% of Virginians have the highest level of immunity through boosted vaccination or through vaccination plus a recent infection with Omicron.

Another 47% have immunity that has waned somewhat; and 7% are the most vulnerable because they were never vaccinated and never infected.

In all, the vast majority of Virginians have at least some immunity, said Bryan Lewis, a computational epidemiologist who leads University of Virginias Covid-19 modeling team.

Thats going to be a nice shield of armor for our population as a whole, Lewis said.

Still, while the population is better protected, many individuals are not. Even by the most optimistic estimates for population immunity, 80 million or so Americans are still vulnerable. Thats about the same as the total number of confirmed infections in the US during the pandemic.

The 26% who could still get Omicron right now have to be very careful, Mokdad said.

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Nearly three-quarters of Americans have some Covid immunity, experts say - The Guardian