Category: Corona Virus

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Coronavirus: Study finds lung abnormalities in long COVID patients with breathlessness – Times of India

February 1, 2022

Researchers from Oxford, Sheffield, Cardiff and Manchester have identified abnormalities in the lungs of long COVID patients who are experiencing breathlessness. These abnormalities can't be detected with routine tests, the researchers have said.The study uses hyperpolarized xenon MRI scans to find possible lung damage in long COVID patients who have not been hospitalised with COVID-19 but who continue to experience breathlessness. The research paper is available in medRxiv, pre-print server.The study, known as EXPLAIN, had 36 participants in its pilot stage in three broad groups: the first group is patients diagnosed with long COVID, who have been seen in long COVID clinics and who have normal CT (computerized tomography) scans; the second group is people who have been in hospital with COVID-19 and discharged more than three months previously, who have normal or nearly normal CT scans and who are not experiencing long COVID, and the third group is an age- and gender-matched control group who do not have long COVID symptoms and who have not been hospitalised with COVID-19.

In this study patients are required to lie in the MRI scanner and breathe in a litre of the inert gas xenon. Xenon behaves in a very similar way like oxygen, which helps radiologists to observe how the gas moves from the lungs into the bloodstream.

The result obtained from the pilot study shows significantly impaired gas transfer from the lungs to the bloodstream in long COVID patients.

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Coronavirus: Study finds lung abnormalities in long COVID patients with breathlessness - Times of India

174,000 people in Utah werent told their coronavirus test results couldve been wrong – fox13now.com

February 1, 2022

OREM, Utah Federal officials worried that more than 174,000 coronavirus patient test results from an Orem lab used by TestUtah were potentially wrong but none of the people who were tested early in the pandemic were told, documents obtained by The Salt Lake Tribune show.

Testing at Timpanogos Regional Hospital may have produced accurateresults.Or its lab may have produced false negatives or false positives, according to documents and interviews with people familiar with the matter.

State health officials knew for months that federal regulators were questioning whether the hospitals lab was following requirements designed to ensure tests are processed accurately, according to interviews and documents. Public officials knew as early as May 2020 about problems at the lab, which did not suspend COVID-19 testing until Aug. 23, 2020.

In the hospitals plan for correcting deficiencies, submitted to regulators the day after it halted its processing of coronavirus tests, it acknowledged:

Once it was determined that verification and validation had not been properly performed, Timpanogos Lab suspended the processing of COVID-19 specimens on the non-validated and non-verified instruments.

Read the full report on The Salt Lake Tribune's website.

The Utah Department of Health sent the following statement to FOX 13 News:

The UDOH was not a party to the CLIA audit. However, our contract with Nomi Health requires that Nomi Health ensure any concerns raised in the audit are resolved. The final audit results from CLIA did not include a requirement or recommendation that any entity notify any patients of potential issues with their test results.

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174,000 people in Utah werent told their coronavirus test results couldve been wrong - fox13now.com

What Will the Next Variant Look Like After Omicron? – The Atlantic

January 29, 2022

To understand how the coronavirus keeps evolving into surprising new variants with new mutations, it helps to have some context: The viruss genome is 30,000 letters long, which means that the number of possible mutation combinations is mind-bogglingly huge. As Jesse Bloom, a virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, told me, that number far, far exceeds the number of atoms in the known universe.

Scientists try to conceptualize these possibilities in a fitness landscapea hyper-dimensional space of peaks and valleys. The higher peaks the coronavirus discovers, the fitter, or better at infecting people, it becomes. The more the virus replicates, the more mutations it tries out, the more ground it explores, and the more peaks it may find. To predict what the coronavirus could do next, we would simply need to know the topography of the entire fitness landscapewhich, maybe youve guessed, we do not. Not at all. Not even close. We dont actually know what peaks are out there. We didnt know the Omicron peak was out there, says Sarah Otto, an evolutionary biologist at the University of British Columbia. We cant really guess what more is possible.

What we can say is that the overwhelming majority of mutations will make a virus less fit (valleys) or have no effect at all (ridges), but a very small proportion will be peaks. We dont know how high those peaks are or exactly how frequently they appear. When Delta took over the world, it seemed like it would sweep all other lineages away. I would have for sure thought the next variant was going to come from Delta, says Katia Koelle, a biologist at Emory University. Then Omicron popped up on a distant peak, in a direction no one had thought to look.

The next variant may surprise us again. It could, by chance, become more virulent. It could become more transmissible. It will definitely alight upon new ways to escape the antibodies weve built up. The virus will keep finding those fitness peaks.

To make predictions about viral evolution even harder, the fitness landscape is continuously being remodeled as our mix of immunity shifts through vaccination and infection by new variants. This in effect changes what it means for the virus to be fit. Some mountains will sink; some hills will uplift. Still, the virus is extremely unlikely to mutate so much that our immunity against severe infection is reset to zero. As more and more of the world gains initial immunity from vaccines or infection, that will dampen the most severe outcomes. Whether future variants will still cause huge numbers of infections will depend on how quickly the virus can keep evolving and how well our immunity holds up after repeated exposures. Unlike other pathogens that have been criss-crossing the fitness landscape in humans for a very long time, the coronavirus has only just gotten started.

The coronaviruss variants keep surprising us because its evolutionary leaps look like nothing else weve seen before. Omicron racked up more than 50 mutations, with more than 30 in its spike protein alone. Of the four seasonal coronaviruses that cause common colds, two accumulate only 0.3 or 0.5 adaptive mutations a year in their spike proteins. A third doesnt seem to change much at all. The fourth is a mysterywe dont have enough long-term data on it. Influenza is capable of big jumps through a process called reassortment, which can cause pandemics (as H1N1 did in 2009), but the seasonal flu averages just one or two changes a year in its key protein, Koelle told me.

There are three possible explanations for why the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 looks so different from that of other viruses, and they are not mutually exclusive. First of all, we really havent looked that hard at other respiratory viruses. More than 7.5 million genomes of SARS-CoV-2 have been sequenced; just a few hundred or a few dozen for each of the four seasonal coronaviruses have been. When scientists try to reconstruct the relationship among these sequenced viruses in evolutionary trees, the trees are so sparse, says Sarah Cobey, a biologist at the University of Chicago. A whole suite of other viruses also cause common colds: rhinoviruses, adenoviruses, parainfluenza, respiratory syncytial virus, metapneumovirus, and so on. These, too, are poorly sampled. More than 100 types of rhinoviruses alone infect humans, but we dont have a great understanding of how that diversity came to be or evolved over time.

Second, the coronavirus could indeed be an outlier that is inherently better than other viruses at exploring its fitness landscape. It helps to be an RNA viruswhich acquires mutations more quickly than a DNA virusand then it helps to be moving really fast, Cobey told me. Measles takes, on average, 11 or 12 days between infecting one person and that person infecting another; the coronavirus takes only 1.5 to three. The more people it can infect, the more of the fitness landscape it can explore.

Third, the coronavirus was a novel pathogen. Whatever intrinsic transmissibility it may have had, it was also unimpeded by immunity when it first arrived in the human population. That means SARS-CoV-2 has been able to infect a simply staggering proportion of the world in two yearsfar more people than older viruses are typically capable of infecting. And each time it infects someone, it copies itself billions of times. Some copies created in every infection will harbor random mutations; some mutations will even be beneficial to the virus. But these mutations can have a hard time becoming dominant in the short course of a typical COVID-19 infection. It takes a while typically for a mutation to go from zero to even 5 to 10 percent of viruses in an infected person, says Adam Lauring, a virologist at the University of Michigan. That person then transmits only a tiny number of virus particles to the next person, so most of that diversity gets lost. Across millions of infections, some of those mutations are passed on, and they gradually accumulate into one viral lineage. Delta seems to have evolved this way. The coronaviruss ubiquity could have also seeded an unusual number of chronic infections all at once, which experts think are another big driver of viral evolution. In a chronic infection, over weeks and months, those beneficial viral mutations have time to become dominant and then transmit. This may be how Alpha originated.

Omicrons origins are still unknown. It may have evolved in a piecemeal fashion like Delta, but some experts think that its ancestors would have been found via sequencing if so. Two other possibilities exist: a chronic infection in someone immunocompromised or an animal reservoir that spilled back into humans. In both cases, the selection pressures within one immunocompromised patient or in an animal population are slightly different from those on a virus that is transmitting between humans. That may be what allowed the virus to cross a fitness chasm and discover a new peak in Omicron. Understanding the evolutionary forces that created Omicron can help us understand the realm of what is possibleeven if it cant tell us exactly what the next variant will look like.

With Omicron, I think we got lucky, says Sergei Pond, an evolutionary biologist at Temple University. The set of mutations that makes the variant so good at infecting even vaccinated people just happens to also make it a little less inherently virulent. Theres no reason this will always be the case. The coronaviruss virulence is a by-product of two other factors under more direct evolutionary pressure: how inherently transmissible it is and how good it is at evading previous immunity. How deadly it is doesnt matter so much, because the coronavirus is usually transmitted early on in an infection, long before it ever kills its host.

Across the immense fitness landscape, the coronavirus has many, many different paths to higher inherent transmissibility or immune escape. Take the example of transmissibility, Otto says. A virus could replicate very, very fast, so that patients shed high levels of it. Delta seems to do this, and it was more virulent. Or the virus could switch to replicating mostly in the nose and throat, where it might be easier to transmit, rather than deep in the lungs. Omicron seems to do this, and it is less virulent. The next variant could go either wayor it might chart an entirely new course. A version of Omicron called BA.2 is now outcompeting the classic Omicron variant in the United Kingdom and Denmark, though its still unclear what advantage it might have.

Omicron doesnt just have a lot of mutations; it has some really unusual ones. Thirteen of the mutations cluster in sites where scientists havent seen many changes before. That suggests mutations there normally make the virus less fit and get weeded out. But according to a preprint from Ponds group, these 13 individually maladaptive changes might be adaptive when present all together. You can imagine, he told me, a virus under pressure to escape from existing antibodies. It acquires a series of mutations that make it less recognizable to antibodies but perhaps worse at entering cells. Under the slightly different selection environment inside an immunocompromised patient or an animal reservoir, the virus still might be able to lingeruntil it finds just the right combination of mutations to compensate for previous changes. In Omicron, this process remodeled key parts of the spike protein so that it both became less recognizable to existing antibodies and found a different strategy for entering cells. The coronavirus normally has two ways of infecting cells, either fusing directly with them or entering through a bubble. Omicron has become a specialist in the latter, which happens to work less well in lung cells than in nose and throat cells, and may explain the variants lower intrinsic severity. To get around the immune system, the virus ended up changing one of its most basic functions.

Do other sets of mutations interact in unknown ways to change key viral functions? Almost certainly. We just dont know what they are yet. Well have to wait and watch SARS-CoV-2 in the years and decades to come. If you look at human influenza or seasonal coronaviruses, theyve been evolving in humans for a long time and they havent stopped evolving, Bloom, the virologist, said.

There are limits to how inherently transmissible the virus can get. Measles, the most transmissible known virus, has an R0 of 12 to 18, compared with Deltas R0 of 5. Omicrons R0 is still unclear, because a lot of its advantage over Delta seems to come from evading existing antibodies rather than inherent transmissibility. As the coronavirus has fewer and fewer nonimmune people to infect, though, immune evasion will become a more and more important constraint on its evolution. And here, the virus will never run out of new strategies, because what is optimal is always shifting. This Omicron wave, for example, is generating a lot of Omicron immunity as it moves through the population, which has in effect made Omicron less fit than when it emerged. The next variant is more likely to be not Omicron, or something as antigenically distinct from Omicron as possible, says Aris Katzourakis, a virologist at the University of Oxford. But exactly what that looks like? Perhaps we know enough now to know we shouldnt try to predict that.

Originally posted here:

What Will the Next Variant Look Like After Omicron? - The Atlantic

Can a pet give you COVID? Is it risky to visit an immunocompromised pal? : Goats and Soda – NPR

January 29, 2022

A Hong Kong hamster that evaded the cull. Bertha Wang/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

A Hong Kong hamster that evaded the cull.

Each week, we answer frequently asked questions about life during the coronavirus crisis. If you have a question you'd like us to consider for a future post, email us at goatsandsoda@npr.org with the subject line: "Weekly Coronavirus Questions." See an archive of our FAQs here.

I read that Hong Kong killed thousands of hamsters after a report that 11 hamsters in a pet store, as well as a human employee, tested positive for COVID. Should I be worried about my hamster ... or cat or dog?

So yes, animals can get COVID. And it can even prove fatal. In November, a snow leopard at the zoo in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, died after reportedly experiencing COVID-like symptoms.

But human-to-animal transmission is "rare, very rare," says Charlotte Baker, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Virginia Tech. The same goes for pet-to-human transmission (although, keep in mind that the virus did almost certainly cross from animals to humans to start this pandemic). One study shows that infected cats can transmit virus for up to 5 days, but did not find evidence of transmission from dogs.

So Hong Kong's massive hamster cull, says transmission experts, was ... overkill.

If you do have COVID and are an extremely cautious person, you might not cuddle as much with your pooch or feline or ... pet rodent. Of course, a hamster won't be jumping in your lap and begging for a hug.

And if you're worried that your pet does have COVID? "I wouldn't suggest testing your dog," says Dr. Preeti Malani, an infectious disease doctor at University of Michigan Health in Ann Arbor. "That's not a good use of test kits since they're in low supply." If your canine seems under the weather, call the vet!

A relative who's on dialysis caught COVID, was hospitalized and now is back home in her assisted living apartment building. Is it safe for me to visit her? Would I pose any risk to her?

Good questions.

When someone who is immunocompromised catches the virus, they typically take longer to clear the virus out of their body. That's because their immune system isn't super strong.

So "they'll shed virus for a longer period," says Dr. Abraar Karan, an infectious disease physician at Stanford University. That's why the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests a 20-day waiting period from either the date of the first positive COVID test or the onset of symptoms in an immunocompromised individual.

Obviously, the patient should be free of symptoms at that 20-day marker and test negative if they're able to get access to a test before a visit can be considered.

But that doesn't mean you should just pop in.

After all, 20 days is just a number set by the CDC based on data to establish a reasonable waiting period for an immunocompromised person to recover from COVID. Viruses (as far as we know) do not understand and abide by numbers.

And there are different degrees of being immunocompromised a category that includes those on dialysis, chemotherapy patients and individuals with autoimmune diseases. An individual might be considered moderately or severely immunocompromised. That's why our medical experts say to check with your friend or family member to see if their physician can offer guidance about visits.

Also, the visitor should take precautions to protect the immunocompromised individual and anyone you'd be in contact with during a visit. Wear a mask in the highly protective N95 family as the CDC recommends. Even though it's unlikely that you'd reinfect a newly recovered patient, it's not impossible. What if your friend had the delta version and you have a budding case of omicron but don't yet know it, says Karan (although these days, he says, it's pretty much all omicron).

Meanwhile, it's not just COVID you need to worry about. You could be coming down with a cold or the flu, for example, and sure don't want to pass such pathogens on to the immunocompromised person you're visiting.

Let your acquaintance know you'll be careful. Baker, the epidemiology professor, is herself immunocompromised. When friends come to visit, "they stay masked as much as possible and I really appreciate that someone else is considering that they don't want to give me anything."

For those reasons, you should build in other precautions: visiting outside or with open windows since airflow disperses pathogens keeping six feet of distance during the visit and practicing good hand hygiene.

"By layering these strategies you take the risk to minimal," says Malani. Visits are important, she says. "It's important to try and take care of people's social needs during all this being isolated isn't good."

Of course "some people are perfectly happy never seeing anyone," Malani says. "But for individuals whose health is poor, those visits can be something they look forward to.

"If for any reason you have to delay [a visit], find other ways to express your love and support." Maybe that'll mean a virtual schmooze via Zoom or a video call.

If it's not yet advisable to drop by, "send them some food!" says Baker. And if your friend has a sweet tooth, remember the wise words from an episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show: "Chocolate solves everything."

Continue reading here:

Can a pet give you COVID? Is it risky to visit an immunocompromised pal? : Goats and Soda - NPR

COVID live updates: Get up to speed on all the coronavirus news from across Australia – ABC News

January 29, 2022

How to prepare kids for the return to school

Associate Professor MargieDanchin from the Murdoch Children'sResearch Institute joined the Weekend Breakfast team on the News Channel to talk through some common questions and concerns parents have upon the return to school this year.

Q: What happens if a child does contract COVID? What are the implications for the child? How does it play out within the body?

A: So if a child gets COVID, and particularly with Omicron variant, we have seen on an individual basis that it presents pretty much like many other respiratory infections andprimary school-aged children are at the lowest risk of severe disease.

So what we see particularly is they may have a runny nose, a cough, a fever, chills and sweats, some experience very, very mild symptoms and some may be in bed for a couple of days and take a week or so to recover. And about one-in-five children have no symptoms at all. But we do know that between 1 to 2 per centof children who test positive with symptoms will need admission to hospital and it's those kids that we want to prevent being admitted to hospital and also make sure that these kids are vaccinated now and we have seen a fantastic response to vaccination as well.

Q: If a child was to contract COVID,how soon and, of course, recovers,how soon before they can then gettheir booster shot, their secondshot, or their firstvaccine?

A: At the moment we're recommending if the child has had COVID infection that they wait about four weeks. Now, of course, that will potentially vary on an individual basis. If a parent has an early appointment, it would be fine to get them vaccinated at two or three weeks. The key point is that they need to have fully recovered and we do know that the severer presentation of COVID infection called MISCin children which happens in about one-in-3,000 kids, that happens about two to six weeks after the acute illness. So in general, we'd like to at least wait a month, make sure the child has recovered. And also that initial COVID infection does stimulate the immune system, the child will have antibodies on board and then having a pause and then giving the vaccine will give a really strong immuneboost to the child.

Q: What happens to the rest of the family if a child contracts COVID?

A: So if the child tests positive, they need to go home and isolate for seven days and the family members who are close contacts also need to test and isolate. But what is different now, so particularly in New South Wales, Victoria, ACT,if childrentest negative, they can go back to school as long as they don't have symptoms. So that is a bit of a difference now COVID is starting to be treated a bit like other infections in children, parents are notified, if the children around them have symptoms they need to test.

And thenwe have also seen the introduction of the asymptomatic surveillance of twice weekly rapid antigen testing for most kids in schools and of course that's five times a week for children who are at higher risk in special school settings. So testing, unfortunately, is going the become at least for the first month quite common for a lot of children in the school environment, you know, testing at home before they come to school, so I think we need to do a lot of reassurance around that as well.

Q: How do you talk to children about the pandemic, about COVID, without, you know, raising their anxiety levels?

A: Yeah, this has been a challenge for the last two years, hasn't it, with children and it's quite amazing to think now that we are entering the third year of the pandemic.The most important thing is to understandwhere the child is developmentally and then pitch the conversation appropriately depending on their age. But the key is to just sit down with the child, have an honest conversation, ask what the questions they have are (we know all kids will have questions),what they might be concerned about, and then really start the conversation from there.

We need to let them know, a bit like last term, school is going to look different. We know that kids are going to be asked to wear masks. I mean, here in Victoria, they are mandatory for grade 3 and above and prep to grade 2 obviously it's recommended. So children will be wearing masks. They'll be aware of the changes to the air filters in the classroom. They may even be having some outdoor learning lessons,we have seen the shade cloths and the sales installed in many schools here in Victoria. The school environment will look different so preparing kids for that is really important.

And also again talking them through the rapid antigen testing to demystify that, helping them practice with cotton buds, showing what it might be like to do it on another adult or themselves before to do the test. It's all about giving them a sense of control and you do that by explaining to them what to expect so that they're not frightened or caught off-guard.

See the rest here:

COVID live updates: Get up to speed on all the coronavirus news from across Australia - ABC News

NeoCov: What WHO says on this new coronavirus variant possibly deadlier than previous strains – Mint

January 29, 2022

With scientists from China's Wuhan flagging a concern regarding a more contagious and possibly deadlier strain of coronavirus NeoCov, World Health Organization (WHO) asserted that it still needs to be studied whether it poses threats for humans.

The scientists have clarified, NeoCov is related to the Middle East respiratory syndrome or MERS-coronavirus. The virus is discovered in a bat population in South Africa and is currently spreading only among animals," the scientists said and further warned, Just one mutation is enough for the virus to be able to infiltrate human cells."

"Whether the virus detected in the study will pose a risk for humans will require further study," WHO told Russian news agency Tass.

"Animals, particularly wild animals are the source of more than 75% of all emerging infectious diseases in humans, many of which are caused by novel viruses. Coronaviruses are often found in animals, including in bats which have been identified as a natural reservoir of many of these viruses," WHO said.

WHO is aware of the new finding of Wuhan scientists and is in touch with the World Organization for Animal Health, the Food and Agriculture Organization to respond to this.

NeoCoV was found in a population of bats in South Africa and to date has spread exclusively among these animals. However, the study, not yet peer-reviewed and released on the bioRxiv website, found, NeoCoV and its close relative, PDF-2180-CoV, can use some types of bat Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) and human ACE2 for entry.

Just one mutation is enough for the virus to be able to infiltrate human cells, claim scientists.

According to Chinese researchers, NeoCoV carries the potential combination of MERS-high CoVs mortality rate (one in every three infected person dies) and the current SARS-CoV-2 coronaviruss high transmission rate.

The MERS-CoV virus is similar to SARS-CoV-2 in terms of symptoms like fever, cough and shortness of breath. The disease was first identified in Saudi Arabia in 2012 and was prevalent in the middle-eastern countries in 2012 and 2015.

Most of the human cases of MERS-CoV infections spread through human-to-human infections. Many people have lost their lives due to MERS-CoV.

The researchers further noted that infection with NeoCov could not be cross-neutralised by antibodies targeting SARS-CoV-2 or MERS-CoV.

"Considering the extensive mutations in the RBD regions of the SARS-CoV-2 variants, especially the heavily mutated Omicron variant, these viruses may hold a latent potential to infect humans through further adaptation," the authors of the study added.

(With inputs from agencies)

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NeoCov: What WHO says on this new coronavirus variant possibly deadlier than previous strains - Mint

5 more Mainers have died and another 1,273 coronavirus cases reported across the state – Bangor Daily News

January 29, 2022

Five more Mainers have died and another 1,273 coronavirus cases reported across the state, Maine health officials said Saturday.

Saturdays report brings the total number of coronavirus cases in Maine to 174,225, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Thats up from 172,952 on Friday.

Of those, 128,136have been confirmed positive, while 46,089were classified as probable cases, the Maine CDC reported.

Three men and two women have succumbed to the virus, bringing the statewide death toll to 1,738.

Two were from Androscoggin County, one from Franklin County, one from Kennebec County and one from York County.

Of those, one was 80 or older and four were in their 70s.

The number of coronavirus cases diagnosed in the past 14 days statewide is 13,368. This is an estimation of the current number of active cases in the state, as the Maine CDC is no longer tracking recoveries for all patients. Thats down from 13,454 on Friday.

The new case rate statewide Saturday was 9.51 cases per 10,000 residents, and the total case rate statewide was 1,301.74.

Maines seven-day average for new coronavirus cases is 1,048.4, up from 1,045.6 the day before, up from 881.7 a week ago and up from 730.3 a month ago.

The most cases have been detected in Mainers younger than 20, while Mainers over 80 years old account for the largest portion of deaths. More cases have been recorded in women and more deaths in men.

So far, 3,904 Mainers have been hospitalized at some point with COVID-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus. Of those, 352 are currently hospitalized, with 86 in critical care and 38 on a ventilator. Overall, 57 out of 377 critical care beds and 220 out of 321 ventilators are available.

The total statewide hospitalization rate on Saturday was 29.17 patients per 10,000 residents.

Cases have been reported in Androscoggin (17,596), Aroostook (8,364), Cumberland (35,577), Franklin (4,373), Hancock (5,124), Kennebec (16,813), Knox (4,148), Lincoln (3,679), Oxford (8,709), Penobscot (19,669), Piscataquis (2,219), Sagadahoc (3,650), Somerset (7,367), Waldo (4,341), Washington (3,091) and York (29,504) counties. Information about where an additional case was reported wasnt immediately available.

An additional 1,774 vaccine doses were administered in the previous 24 hours. As of Saturday, 975,557 Mainers are fully vaccinated, or about 76.2 percent of eligible Mainers, according to the Maine CDC.

As of Saturday afternoon, the coronavirus had sickened 74,106,549 people in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as caused 883,225 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.

Correction: An earlier version of this report misstated the number of new coronavirus cases reported Saturday morning.

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5 more Mainers have died and another 1,273 coronavirus cases reported across the state - Bangor Daily News

What is the next COVID variant? Experts already have predictions – Deseret News

January 29, 2022

The next coronavirus variant could be more contagious than the omicron variant, experts said Tuesday. The main question, though, is whether or not it will be more deadly.

The news: World Health Organization officials said Tuesday that the new major COVID-19 variant will have the ability to spread quickly because it will work to overtake omicron, according to CNBC.

Why it matters: With omicron cases on the downturn, theres been an ongoing theory that the pandemic might have reached its endgame. But this isnt the case, according to experts.

Warnings: Kerkhove warned against the ongoing theory that the coronavirus will morph into more mild variants.

The bigger picture: For Dr. Anthony Fauci, a variant that evades the COVID-19 vaccine would be the worst-case scenario for what happens next in the pandemic, as I reported for the Deseret News.

See the rest here:

What is the next COVID variant? Experts already have predictions - Deseret News

New research hints at 4 factors that may increase the chances of Long COVID-19 – WXYZ

January 29, 2022

(WXYZ) There was no way to predict who would suffer from lingering symptoms after recovering from COVID-19. But new research has discovered four biological factors linked to Long COVID-19.

Long COVID-19 can be pretty debilitating. People can suffer from lasting symptoms like fatigue, brain fog, memory loss, and shortness of breath. These symptoms can last weeks to months.

Why is it that only some people suffer from lingering symptoms while others dont? Hoping to answer that question is a group of 50 scientists led by the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle. These researchers followed 309 patients after they were diagnosed with COVID-19. These patients were between the ages of 18 and 89. Some were hospitalized, and some were outpatients with mild disease.

Heres what the researchers did. They took blood samples and nasal swabs right after infection and then again two to three months later. They also analyzed the patient's symptoms. Thats how they found four critical biological factors that could raise a persons risk of Long COVID-19.

Here are the factors:

Of all these four factors, the most influential one is autoantibodies. They were linked to two-thirds of the cases during the study. Now, there is no cure for Long COVID-19, but the researchers suggest that people who develop high viral loads might benefit from antivirals right after getting diagnosed. The quicker the virus is eliminated, the less likely a person might develop Long COVID-19.

We're possibly a step closer to figuring out why Long COVID-19 happens in the first place - once that's understood, then treatment can follow.

Additional Coronavirus information and resources:

View a global coronavirus tracker with data from Johns Hopkins University.

See complete coverage on our Coronavirus Continuing Coverage page.

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New research hints at 4 factors that may increase the chances of Long COVID-19 - WXYZ

Coronavirus: Lung abnormalities discovered in long COVID patients suffering from breathlessness – Sky News

January 29, 2022

Lung abnormalities have been discovered in long COVID patients suffering from breathlessness.

Researchers used the colourless, odourless, tasteless and chemically non-reactive gas xenon to investigate possible lung damage in patients who have not been admitted to hospital but still experience the symptom.

Initial results of the Explain study suggest there is significantly impaired gas transfer in the lungs to the bloodstream in long COVID patients - despite other tests including CT scans coming back normal.

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MRI scans detect abnormalities in long COVID patients

Fergus Gleeson, the study's chief investigator, as well as professor of radiology at the University of Oxford and consultant radiologist at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: "We knew from our post-hospital COVID study that xenon could detect abnormalities when the CT scan and other lung function tests are normal.

"What we've found now is that, even though their CT scans are normal, the xenon MRI scans have detected similar abnormalities in patients with long COVID.

"These patients have never been in hospital and did not have an acute severe illness when they had their COVID-19 infection.

"Some of them have been experiencing their symptoms for a year after contracting COVID-19.

"There are now important questions to answer. Such as, how many patients with long COVID will have abnormal scans, the significance of the abnormality we've detected, the cause of the abnormality, and its longer-term consequences.

"Once we understand the mechanisms driving these symptoms, we will be better placed to develop more effective treatments."

Radiologists observe how xenon moves from lungs into bloodstream

Patients lay in an MRI scanner and breathed one litre of xenon, which had been altered so it could be seen using MRI.

The gas, which is safe to inhale, behaves similarly to oxygen, allowing radiologists to observe how it moves from the lungs and into the bloodstream.

The pilot study had 36 participants split into three groups. The full Explain study will recruit around 400 participants.

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The groups included patients diagnosed with long COVID who had been to long COVID studies and had normal CT scans, people who had been in hospital with coronavirus and discharged more than three weeks ago and who had normal or nearly normal CT scans and who were not experiencing long COVID.

The third group was an age and gender-matched control group who had no long COVID symptoms and had not been admitted to hospital with the virus.

Dr Emily Fraser, respiratory consultant who leads the Oxford Post-COVID Assessment Clinic, said people should not give up on the current exercises and rehab work they are doing.

The study received government funding and is being supported by the NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre. Its findings, which have not been peer-reviewed, were posted on the bioRxiv pre-print server.

Read more:

Coronavirus: Lung abnormalities discovered in long COVID patients suffering from breathlessness - Sky News

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