Category: Covid-19

With both COVID-19 and other respiratory virus rates up, nearly all the major hospital groups in Massachusetts are bringing back mask requirements for doctors and staff, and in some cases for patients and visitors as well.

Beth Israel Lahey, Boston Medical Center and Dana Farber have already reimposed requirements. Mass General Brigham and UMass Memorial plan to require masking starting Jan. 2, followed by Tufts Medicine on Jan. 3.

Several of the health institutions said theyve been closely tracking data including wastewater measurements, hospitalizations and emergency room visits ready to make the mask changes.

COVID-19 cases are up, and the states data measuring COVID detected in wastewater used to track trends of the number of people with the illness has shown a spike since Thanksgiving. That measurement is considered a good early warning sign of increases since the virus can show up in wastewater as much as a week before positive test results do.

But while most people associate masking with COVID-19, hospitals say the rise in a range of respiratory viruses, like RSV and various strains of influenza, is also behind the call to mask up. And while using masks to prevent infectious disease transmission is not a new concept, experts consider them a public health lesson from the pandemic.

We have a tool that is not just specific to COVID, and these respiratory viruses do on their own have a significant level of morbidity, mortality, missed days from work, said Dr. Cassandra Pierre, infectious disease specialist at Boston Medical Center. We've had this understanding from COVID that we can protect our health care workers, our patients and our staff by using the same mask mandates that were helpful during the pandemic.

At Mass General Brigham facilities, patients and visitors are strongly encouraged to wear masks, but they are still optional for those groups at most locations.

Boston Medical Center, meanwhile, is already requiring patients and visitors in most settings to wear a mask. Pierre said that decision was especially important given the vulnerable and minority population at Boston Medical Center whove typically borne the brunt of COVID-19 and other respiratory complications.

Dana Farber Cancer Institute reimposed mask mandates for patient-facing staff as well as patients and visitors last week.

Weve seen a steady increase in both the incidents of COVID, influenza and of RSV, said Anne Gross, chief nursing officer at Dana Farber Cancer Institute. Those are very serious illnesses for people at risk, in particular the elderly and people like our cancer patients.

But Gross also said anyone heading into crowded places should consider masking again.

These illnesses are transmitted in the air, said Gross. When you are going to places where there are a lot of people, it just makes sense to minimize your risk.

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Masking returns at many Massachusetts hospitals and not just because of COVID - GBH News

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A group of Minnesotans are suing local hospitals after losing loved ones to COVID-19 - CBS News

COVID wastewater levels are trending steeply upward in the U.S. It may leave you wondering if your winter illness is because of humanitys newest scourge or something different entirely.

As always, its impossible to distinguish COVID from the flu, RSV, and other common winter illnesses like rhinoviruses, enteroviruses, and parainfluenza viruses by symptoms alone. Even with the new, highly mutated COVID variant Pirola JN.1, now globally dominant, this remains true. Whats more, its possible to have two or more infections at the same time.

As always, testingat a health care facility or at home, in the case of COVIDis the only true way to determine the source of your illness. And while you should consult your health care provider, if your symptoms are mild and you dont have other health conditions, the cause may not matter.

Still, with a new COVID variant making a splash, its fair to wonder if coronavirus symptoms have changed or if precautions like masking are again warranted. Heres what you need to know to manage the winter illnesses that are likely headed your way.

The jury is still out. Cases of diarrhea, which may or may not be related, are reportedly on the rise. This comes as speculation swirls that the virus might be taking up residence in the gutversus like the upper respiratory tract, where Omicron tends to hang out, or the lower respiratory tract, where initial strains of COVID wreaked havoc.

Keep an eye out for GI symptoms and realize they could be signs of COVID, not just the stomach flu, experts advise. But as Dr. Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, points out, COVID has always caused GI symptoms in some, including nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea.

Otherwise, keep an eye out for the usual COVID symptoms, which may include:

Once again, the jury is still out. What we do know, however, is that COVID hospitalizations are trending upward in the U.S. and elsewhere, as are cases of JN.1.

In the U.S., COVID hospital admissions had risen 10% week-over-week as of Dec. 16, according to the latest federal health data. And JN.1 was projected to lead U.S. COVID cases, estimated to be behind 44% of them as of Dec. 22.

Globally, reported sequences of JN.1 increased eightfold in a three-week period during late November into early December, according to the World Health Organizations Dec. 22 COVID update. Reported hospitalizations rose 23% globally during that period.

But correlation does not equal causation. Its important to note that sequencing of COVID samples and reporting of various metrics like hospitalizations and deaths have declined greatly since the height of the pandemic, meaning statistics could appear misleading. For example: Hospitalizations may be rising quicker than we realize. Or perhaps JN.1 is responsible for a smaller share of sequences than we know.

Its also important to note that while COVID hospitalizations are on the rise globally, JN.1 may not be to blamenot entirely, at least. Population immunityor the collective resistance to a virus in a group of people due to vaccination and/or prior infectionwanes after three to six months, on average. With COVID vaccine and booster uptake at low levelsonly 18% of U.S. adults have received the latest booster, released in Septemberthe disease will spread more widely, and severe outcomes like hospitalizations and deaths could become more common, regardless of variant.

At-home COVID tests remain as accurate as theyve ever been, experts say. But they caution that many infected people test too early or too late, when viral loads are low and unlikely to turn a test positive. If you have symptoms but test negative, wait another couple of days and test again, experts recommend.

In short: the usual suspects. Around 12% of all tests for COVID, flu, and RSV performed in the U.S. were returning positive mid-December, according to the latest available data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For some perspective, a long-ago abandoned goal from the World Health Organization and other public health agencies was a test-positivity rate of below 5%, for communities that wanted to cast aside pandemic precautions.

Experts are increasingly recommending it, and not just because of COVID. Some hospitals, like those in New York and Illinois, are again requiring masks because of high levels of respiratory pathogen circulation in their area. And Yolo County in Northern California is recommending masking in public spaces due to surging levels of COVID and RSV.

Dr. Stuart Ray, vice chair of medicine for data integrity and analytics at Johns Hopkins Department of Medicine, recommends wearing an effective respirator in public spaces, especially indoors, when it doesnt interfere with essential tasks.

Not a bad way to keep your face warm, too, he adds.

Read more from the original source:

COVID-19 variant JN.1 symptoms: Is Pirola different from other Omicron spawn? - Fortune

As the holiday season winds down and Covid-19 cases start to pick up, a variant called JN.1 has now become the most common strain of the virus spreading across the United States.

JN.1, which emerged from the variant BA.2.86 and was first detected in the United States in September, accounted for 44 percent of Covid cases nationwide by mid-December, up from about 7 percent in late November, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

To some extent, this jump is to be expected. Variants take some time to get going, said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Then they speed up, they spread widely, and just when theyre doing that, after several months, a new variant crops up.

JN.1s momentum this month suggests that it may be more transmissible or better at evading our immune systems than other variants currently circulating, according to a C.D.C. report published Dec. 22. The agency said that Covid remains a serious public health threat, especially for those who have always been at high risk of severe disease, such as older adults, infants, people with compromised immune systems or chronic medical conditions and those who are pregnant.

As far as experts can tell, JN.1 does not seem to be causing severe illness in most other people, though even a mild case can still make you feel quite miserable for three or four days, Dr. Schaffner said. The symptoms of a JN.1 infection are similar to those caused by previous Covid variants, including a cough, fever, body aches and fatigue.

To protect yourself against infection and severe disease, experts continue to recommend wearing masks, improving ventilation indoors when possible, staying home when sick and getting the latest Covid vaccine.

Preliminary research shows that the updated Covid vaccines released in September produce antibodies effective against JN.1, which is distantly related to the XBB.1.5 variant that the vaccines were designed to target. People may not build up as many antibodies to JN.1 as they would to XBB.1.5, but the levels should still decrease the risk.

For those who were recently infected or boosted, the cross-protection against JN.1 should be decent, based on our laboratory studies, said Dr. David Ho, a virologist at Columbia University who led the research on JN.1 and Covid vaccines, which was released as a preprint paper in early December. Rapid tests also continue to be a valuable tool, and the C.D.C. has said tests already on the market work well at detecting JN.1.

There are signs that Covid cases are once again creeping up. There were just under 26,000 hospitalizations due to Covid the week of Dec. 10, a 10 percent increase from about 23,000 hospitalizations the week prior. But Covid hospitalizations are still far lower than they were during the peak of the first Omicron wave in January 2022, and so far only about half as high as they were during the peak of the tripledemic last winter, when Covid-19, flu and R.S.V. cases all surged at the same time.

It is too early to know whether JN.1 is responsible for the rise in hospitalizations or whether cases are picking up partly because of an increase in travel and large get-togethers for Thanksgiving and the winter holidays.

When people are gathered inside close to each other, having parties and traveling and the like, those are the kind of circumstances where all respiratory viruses, including JN.1, have opportunities to spread, Dr. Schaffner said. Covid generally also has some seasonality, he added; countries in the Northern Hemisphere tend to see a lull in cases in the fall before infections and hospitalizations rise again in the winter.

JN.1 will most likely remain the dominant version of the coronavirus through spring, Dr. Schaffner said. He and other experts noted that while vaccines offer protection against it and other variants, uptake remains low, with only 18 percent of adults having received the latest shots. Experts said everyone should consider getting vaccinated, especially those who are over age 65, are immunocompromised, have health conditions that put them at higher risk of severe illness or are traveling to visit loved ones who may be vulnerable.

Give yourself a New Years present by getting this vaccine if you havent done it yet, Dr. Schaffner said.

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JN.1 Now Accounts for Nearly Half of U.S. Covid Cases - The New York Times

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Erie hospitals flooded with COVID-19, flu patients over the holidays - GoErie.com

India has recorded more than 160 cases of the new Covid variant as per the data by the INSACOG, a forum set up under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. The INSACOG's data showed 145 Covid cases recorded in the country in December had the presence of JN.1, while 17 such cases were detected in November.

Besides, 743 fresh infections were also reported, the highest single-day rise in 225 days. Additionally, seven deaths were also reported on Saturday as per the data by the Union Health Ministry.

Seven new fatalities -- three from Kerala, two from Karnataka, and one each from Chhattisgarh and Tamil Nadu -- were reported in a span of 24 hours, according to the ministry's data updated at 8 am.

The number of daily cases was in double digits till December 5 but it began to rise again amid cold weather conditions and after the emergence of a new Covid-19 variant.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has classified JN.1 as a separate "variant of interest" given its rapidly increasing spread. However the UN body said that it poses a "low" health risk.

India records over 4,000 active Covid cases, 5 deaths today | 10 updates

The Centre has asked the states and Union territories to maintain a constant vigil amid an uptick in the number of Covid cases and the detection of the JN.1 sub-variant in the country.

New Year 2024: Top 7 precautions to take while partying amid rising Covid cases

Covid update: 109 JN.1 cases in India to K'taka's home isolation. 10 points

JN.1 Covid variant 'more transmissible, infectious': Expert warns of more cases

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Covid-19 in India: Over 740 Covid cases, seven deaths reported in 24 hours | 10 updates | Mint - Mint

Only 4.5% of a cohort of pediatric COVID-19 patients admitted to US hospitals during the period of Omicron predominance had completed their primary COVID-19 vaccine series, and 7.0% had started but didn't finish the series, The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal reports.

The study team, led by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) researchers, enrolled 597 vaccine-eligible COVID-19 inpatients aged 8 months to 4 years at 28 hospitals participating in the Overcoming COVID-19 network from September 2022 to May 2023. A total of 62.1% of patients were aged 8 months to 1 year, and 37.9% were aged 2 to 4 years.

A complete vaccination series was defined as at least two Moderna or three Pfizer/BioNTech mRNA COVID-19 doses received at least 14 days before hospitalization.

The vast majority of patients (88.4%) were unvaccinated. Most children (74.1%) who completed the primary COVID-19 vaccine series were White. Completion of the vaccine series was low in all regions but highest in the Northeast (12.2%) and lowest in the South (1.5%).

In total, 4.5% of the children had completed their primary COVID-19 vaccination series, and 7.0% started but did not complete their primary series. Of the 528 unvaccinated patients, 48.0% were previously healthy, 3 needed extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), and 1 died.

Most critically ill children were unvaccinated or hadn't completed their primary series, including 94.3% of children admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU), 88.2% who received invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV), and 92.0% with life-threatening infections. This included all three patients who required ECMO and the 29 who required vasopressors to maintain their blood pressure.

All six critically ill patients who completed their vaccine series and were hospitalized had one or more chronic respiratory or neurologic conditions, including four who had both.

Among children younger than 2 years, 44.7% had at least one underlying illness, compared with 69.9% of those aged 2 to 4. The most common underlying conditions were respiratory or neurologic/neuromuscular. A small proportion (1.2%) of children also had influenza, and 11.4% also had respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).

Of the 597 children, 29.1% were admitted to an ICU, and 12.6% had a life-threatening illness, including 8.5% needing IMV. Children with chronic respiratory and neurologic/neuromuscular illnesses were most likely to need high levels of respiratory support.

Of the 42 patients but didn't complete their primary vaccination series before hospital admission, 33 were overdue for a dose, and 9 were hospitalized between doses but weren't overdue for the next dose. Overdue doses were more common among those who started the Pfizer vaccine series (81.8%) than among Moderna initiators (18.2%).

The longer timeframe required to complete the 3-dose Pfizer-BioNTech primary series may also allow for more opportunities for infection during inter-dose intervals.

The authors said that low vaccine uptake in this age-group may be due to logistical challenges, including problems with vaccine distribution, reliance on pediatricians and hospitals rather than pharmacies to give doses to very young or medically complex patients, and the relative complexity of the Pfizer vaccine series (three doses given at different intervals).

"The longer timeframe required to complete the 3-dose Pfizer-BioNTech primary series may also allow for more opportunities for infection during inter-dose intervals," they wrote.

The findings underscore the importance of improving COVID-19 vaccine uptake and awareness of disease severity in young children, the researchers said. "Despite an observed decrease in the proportion of hospitalized children <5 years of age requiring ICU admission during the period of Omicron predominance, similar proportions are still requiring IMV," they wrote.

See the rest here:

Less than 5% of US preschool cohort hospitalized for COVID were fully vaccinated, study finds - University of Minnesota Twin Cities

A new study by researchers at the University of Oxford found that the duration of an encounter with a person sick with COVID-19 was as important as the distance kept from them.

How likely is it to get COVID-19 after being exposed to someone infected? Its been a question on many peoples minds during the pandemic, and one that a group of researchers in the UK has finally found an answer to.

Researchers from the Nuffield Department for Medicine at the University of Oxford analysed data from 7 million people in England and Wales who, during the health emergency, were notified by the countrys NHS COVID-19 app that they had been in contact with someone who was infected. The goal was to find out how many of those alerted actually contracted the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

The NHS COVID-19 app, which was closed down in April 2023, allowed people who had downloaded it to let others know that they had been infected. At the same time, the app would send users an alert if they had come in the proximity of someone who was infected, (based on non-mandatory reporting to the app). People would then have to either self-isolate or get tested.

The job of Luca Ferretti, the lead researcher of the University of Oxford study that was published in the journal Nature this month, and his colleagues was to understand if the app had worked correctly. Did it notify people when there was a reasonable risk? The short answer is yes. But the researchers found out much more than that.

The app was sending back to our servers anonymous information about which people were getting notified of the risk, which people were getting tested, who was getting a positive result, and information about the specific contact: the duration, the proximity, Ferretti tells Euronews Next.

We looked at what the app computed as a risk to the individual, in terms of distance and duration, and the two things came up to be really closely correlated, he says.

The researchers took advantage of this treasure trove of information to study the relation between distance and duration of an encounter with an infected person to see how this would influence the risk of someone being infected. And it turns out that duration is as important as distance, if not more.

Everybody was focussed on the distance. There was this 1-metre or 2-metre distance rule in shops, at stations. But distance should have never been the focus of it because as we know now, the truth is more nuanced than that, Ferretti says.

Once youre a short distance from someone, it's the duration that matters. If youre exposed for 10 seconds, you must be very unlucky for the particles from the mouth of the infected person to get to your mouth or your nose. But if you stay there one hour, of course you will try your luck 60 times with respect to one minute.

The researchers found that longer exposures at greater distances had a similar risk to shorter exposures at closer distances.

Theres no golden rule about how much time you can spend with an infected person before getting COVID-19 yourself, as this can change according to what the infected person is doing. For example, if they were coughing a lot, the other person would have more chances of getting infected.

But the longer someone spent with another person who was sick, the more likely they were to get sick themselves, even if they kept a 2-metre distance at all times.

Actually, what we see is that a lot of people who were getting sick were people who we assumed were households because they were staying together more than 8 hours, Ferretti says. And those were something like 6 per cent of the contacts and 40 per cent of transmissions.

For Ferretti, the lesson we can draw from this study is that duration is going to be important to fight the next pandemic or epidemic.

Of course, distance is still important, he says, but once we have that established, we need to talk about duration.

Ferretti says that the duration of contact with an infected person is something that honestly has not been counted that much in the pandemic response, and should have been taken into account. In the age of Big Data, the researcher says, we should be able to use the newest technology to develop an epidemiological tool that would help us fight the spread of a new pathogen.

But the researcher is concerned that not enough is being done to channel the knowledge acquired during the pandemic towards fighting the next one.

Im not going to condemn any or anyone who wants to forget about COVID, he says. Im more concerned with the fact that policymakers are deciding to forget it at the institutional level because that brings us to the point where all the knowledge and skills we have acquired are fading.

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Avoiding COVID-19 was about more than just keeping 2 metres apart, study finds - Euronews

Coronavirus By IANS 7 hours ago TWC India

In view of the rising COVID-19 sub-variant JN.1 active cases across the country, Gurugram administration has directed all hospitals to be on alert.

A total of 12 such cases have been reported so far in Gurugram, while two people have recovered from the infection.

Deputy Commissioner Gurugram Nishant Kumar Yadav has directed all hospitals in Gurugram to establish separate isolation wards exclusively for patients with COVID-19 symptoms.

"Adequate ventilators, monitoring equipment, and skilled medical staff should be allocated to dedicated ICU ward, according to the orders.

A distinct area within the Out Patient Department of every hospital is to be designated for individuals presenting with symptoms indicative of COVID-19.

Hospitals are expressly prohibited from denying admission or treatment to any individual displaying symptoms of COVID-19 sub-variant JN.1, the orders said.

**

The above article has been published from a wire agency with minimal modifications to the headline and text.

The Weather Companys primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.

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Gurugram Takes Proactive Measures in Response to Surge in COVID-19 Sub-Variant JN.1 | Weather.com - The Weather Channel

Our end-of-year retrospective on COVID-19 activity in Minnesota reveals a fourth year where thousands of Minnesotans ended up hospitalized and hundreds died due to the disease. As tragic as those numbers are, it is worth noting that both hospitalizations and deaths are down by more than 55 percent from the year prior.

Since the pandemic really did not start in Minnesota until March 2020, it is perhaps worth noting that the monthly average number of COVID-19 hospital admissions is just under 1,000 so far this year, down 60 percent from the states peak monthly average of 2,464 in 2021. The monthly average number of deaths so far this year is 116, down even more dramatically by 80 percent from the peak monthly average of 592 in 2020 (March-December).

Unfortunately, the number of both hospitalizations and deaths in Minnesota are trending up at the years end, with department of health data showing 800 COVID-19 hospital admissions during the first half of December and 169 COVID-19 deaths in November (complete data is not yet available for December).

The recent uptick in COVID-19 hospitalizations both in intensive care units and regular non-ICU beds are far below the peaks we have seen in previous years of the pandemic. But the recent number of COVID-related ICU admissions are the highest the state has seen all year. (Note that the most recent data point shown on the graph below may be subject to upward revision as the health department firms up its recent data.)

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Even with the downtick in the preliminary data for the most recent week, the health department's data show that the number of COVID-related admissions to Minnesota's intensive care units have just recently reached the year's high point.

David H. Montgomery

Wastewater data analysis, which can detect increases in COVID-19 circulation before either hospitalizations or deaths, shows a decrease in COVID-19 levels after increasing steadily since early November. As of the week ending Dec. 20, the University of Minnesotas Wastewater Surveillance Study shows COVID-19 levels in the states wastewater are down 12 percent from the week prior. The one caveat is that the most recent data points in the study have sometimes been revised upward in later updates.

Even with this recent downturn, COVID-19 levels in wastewater are still up statewide by more than 50 percent since late November, including increases of more than 100 percent in the studys Central region and nearly 300 percent in the South West. Fortunately, COVID-19 levels are down in the most recent measurements in both of these regions after recent high readings were notched on Dec. 13.

The latest data from the states health department show that both Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) and influenza hospitalization rates remain up. Preliminary data for the week of Dec. 10 suggests that RSV may have leveled off, but that number may be revised upward as the health department receives more data over the next week.

Young children are most susceptible to RSV. According to the Minnesota Department of Health, the latest weekly hospitalization rate for newborn children through age four is right around 20 per 100,000. This is far below last years peak of 37 per 100,000, but rates are not falling just yet this year.

Older adults are the group most susceptible to influenza. The latest weekly flu hospitalization rate for Minnesotans aged 65 and older is 11 per 100,000, far below last years peak rate for that group of 41 per 100,000. Flu activity has yet to taper off this season and may continue to grow over the next few weeks.

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Minnesota's COVID-19 hospitalizations, deaths in 2023 less than half those in 2022 - MPR News