Category: Covid-19

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A new study today in JAMA Network Open shows that pediatric hospitalizations for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) doubled during the 2022-2023 season compared to the prior year.

The population-based cohort study of children aged 5 years and younger in Ontario, Canada, looked at hospitalization and intensive care unit (ICU) admissions for RSV from July 1, 2017, through March 31, 2023.

On average, 700,000 children per study year were included. Though the 2021-2022 season peaked a bit earlier than prepandemic seasons, the number of hospitalizations was similar, at 289.1 per 100,000 children in 2021-2022, compared to 281.4 to 334.6 per 100,000 in 2017 through 2020.

In 2022-2023, however, RSV season peaked a month earlier and resulted in more than twice as many hospitalizations (770.0 per 100000).

The RSV hospitalizations also led to more ICU admissions.

The proportion of children admitted to an ICU in 2022-2023 (13.9%) was slightly higher than prepandemic (9.6%-11.4%); however, the population-based rate was triple the prepandemic levels (106.9 vs 27.6-36.6 per 100000 children in Ontario)," the authors said.

The rate of mechanical ventilation use was also two- to three-fold higher in 2022-2023 compared with prepandemic years, the authors said.

During 2020 and 2021, cases of RSV dropped as COVID-19 mitigation measures, including masking and school closures, halted transmission of RSV. In Ontario, only 11 RSV hospitalizations and seven ICU admissions occurred during the 2020-2021 season. But in 2022-2023, a resurgence was seen as RSV, flu, and COVID-19 all co-circulated with most mitigation efforts removed.

The unexpected and widespread influences on seasonal respiratory viruses that followed the COVID-19 pandemic underscore the need for ongoing research.

"The unexpected and widespread influences on seasonal respiratory viruses that followed the COVID-19 pandemic underscore the need for ongoing research to understand the impact of pandemic mitigation measures and the unique factors of transmission for common pathogens to ensure societies are better prepared to respond to future pandemics," the authors concluded.

Originally posted here:

Having symptoms after getting a COVID vaccine may indicate robust immune response - University of Minnesota Twin Cities

Stuart Malcolm, MD, a primary care physician who practices in Oregon and northern California, started seeing patients with long COVID early in the pandemic. Back then, he was frustrated by the obstacles and lack of standard diagnostic tests and treatments. Four years later, well, he still is.

"Something I learned the last few years is the logistics to get people care is really, really hard," he said. "There's a lot of frustration. It's mostly frustration."

For long COVID doctors and patients, there has been little to no progress addressing the challenges, leaving many discouraged. Researchers and clinicians now have a greater understanding of what health agencies formally call post-COVID condition, but the wide spectrum of symptoms, slow progress in launching pharmacologic clinical trials, and the research toward understanding the underlying causes mean standardized diagnostic tests and definitive treatments remain elusive.

"The frustration is that we aren't able to help everyone with our current knowledge base. And I think the frustration lies not just with us physicians but also with patients because they're at the point where if they tried everything, literally everything and haven't gotten better," said Zijian Chen, MD, director of the Mount Sinai Center for Post-COVID Care in New York City.

Between 10% and 20%of the estimated hundreds of millions of people infected worldwide with SARS-CoV-2 in the first 2 years went on to develop long-term symptoms. While many recover over time, doctors who have treated long COVID since 2020 said they see some patients still wrestling with the condition after 4 years.

The latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Household Pulse Survey, taken between March 5 and April 1, 2024, estimated that nearly 7% of the adult population more than 18 million people currently have long COVID. Data from other countries also suggest that millions have been living with long COVID for years now, and hundreds of thousands have seen their day-to-day activities significantly affected.

There is an urgent need for more funding, long COVID clinicians, multidisciplinary clinics, and education for nonlong COVID physicians and specialists, doctors said. Instead, funding remains limited, clinics are closing, wait times are "horrendously long," patients are left in limbo, and physicians are burning out.

"What's changed in some ways is that there's even less access to COVID rehab, which sounds crazy because there was very little to begin with," said Alexandra Rendely, MD, a physical medicine and rehabilitation physician with the interdisciplinary Toronto Rehab, a part of the University Health Network of teaching hospitals in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

"Patients are still being diagnosed every day, yet the resources available are becoming less and less."

COVID-19 money earmarked during the pandemic was mostly limited to temporary emergency measures. As those funds dwindled, governments and institutions have decreased financial support. The Long COVID Moonshot campaign, organized by patients with long COVID, is pushing Congress to support $1 billion in annual research funding to close the financial chasm.

While long COVID clinics have come a long way in helping patients, gaps remain. Doctors may be unwilling to prescribe off-label treatments without proper clinical trials due to the potential risks and liabilities involved or due to the controversial or unconventional nature of the therapies, said Malcolm, who left his primary care practice more than 2 years ago to focus on long COVID.

In the absence of standard treatments, Malcolm and other doctors said they must take a trial-and-error approach in treating patients with long COVID that centers on addressing symptoms and not the underlying condition.

"There are actually a lot of treatments and a lot of them are not curative, but they can help people," he said.

Malcolm, who is a medical director at Real Time Health Monitoring, a private clinic in the San Francisco Bay Area that specializes in long COVID and myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), said it was important for him to be with a clinical team that understood and was supportive of his treatment decisions and was able to offer clinical support for those treatments if needed.

For physicians looking for clinical data before prescribing certain medications, the wait may be long. More than $1.5 billion in US federal funding has been earmarked to study long COVID, but the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has faced criticism from patients and scientists alike for its slow progress and emphasis on observational studies instead of research that could unravel the biological roots of long COVID. Among the clinical trials announced by the NIH's RECOVER initiative, only a handful involve studying pharmaceutical treatments.

A 2023 editorial published in The Lancet called out the "dismal state of clinical research relative to the substantial burden of [long COVID]" and said, "we are clearly lacking tested pharmacological interventions that treat the underlying pathophysiology." At the time of publication, it noted that of the 386 long COVID trials listed on ClinicalTrials.gov, only 12 were actually testing pharmacologic interventions.

There are also diagnostic and insurance barriers. The specialized tests that can detect long COVID anomalies are neither commonly known by primary care practitioners nor easily requested at the local lab, can be expensive, and are typically not covered by insurance, Malcolm explained.

Patients with long COVID also have the added barrier of being unable to advocate as easily because of their energy limitations, doctors said. Patients may appear outwardly fine, but fatigue and brain fog are among the many problems that cannot be measured in appearances. The condition has upended lives, some losing jobs, even homes, and the mental toll is why there is a "not insignificant" suicide rate.

Charlie McCone, 34, used to be a tennis player and an active musician. But he's spent the past 4 years mostly housebound, grappling with the aftermath of a SARS-CoV-2 infection he contracted in March 2020. He went from biking daily to work 10 miles and back to having at most 2 hours of energy per day.

In the first year alone, McCone saw more than two dozen doctors and specialists. The conditions now associated with long COVID, like ME/CFS, mast cell activation syndrome (a condition in which a patient experiences episodes of allergic symptoms such as hives, swelling, low blood pressure, and difficulty breathing), or dysautonomia (conditions that affect the autonomic nervous system, which controls automatic processes in the body) were not on physicians' radars.

Then in 2021, he became bedbound for more than half a year after a Delta variant reinfection. He developed neurologic symptoms, including incapacitating fatigue, post-exertional malaise (where symptoms worsened after minimal physical or mental activity), left-sided weakness, and cognitive impairment. He stopped working altogether. But the worst was the shortness of breath he felt 24/7, even at rest. A battery of lab tests revealed nothing abnormal. He tried numerous drugs and the classic respiratory treatments.

McCone eventually connected with Malcolm over X and developed what he describes as an effective patient-doctor collaboration. When studies came out suggesting microclots were a common issue with patients with long COVID and positive outcomes were reported from anticoagulant therapy, they knew it could be one of the answers.

"After 3 weeks on [the antiplatelet drug], I was like, oh my god, my lungs are finally opening up," said McCone. He has taken the medication for more than a year and a half, and some days he doesn't even think about his respiratory symptoms.

"That trial-and-error process is just really long and hard and costly," said Malcolm.

Today, fatigue and cognitive stamina are McCone's main challenges, and he is far from recovered.

"[I had a] very fulfilling, happy life and now, it's hard to think about. I've come a long way with my mental health and all this, but I've lost 4 years," McCone said. "The prospect of me being here when I'm 40 seems very realso it's pretty devastating."

Despite the daunting obstacle, doctors said the science has come a long way for a new disease. We now know long COVID is likely caused by a combination of triggers, including viral reservoir in the tissue, inflammation, autoimmunity, and microclots; severity of infection is not necessarily an accurate risk factor predictor long COVID can strike even those who had a mild infection; upward of 200 symptoms have been identified; and we know more about potential biomarkers that could lead to better diagnostic tools.

Unlike many other diseases and conditions with standard treatment protocols, long COVID treatments are typically aimed at addressing individual symptoms.

"It is very detailed and individualized to the patient's specific symptoms and to the patient's specific needs," Rendely said. Symptoms can also fluctuate, relapse, or wax and wane, for example, so what ails a patient at their first doctor's appointment could be completely different at the next appointment 2 months later.

Doctors are still hopeful the RECOVER research, which includes trials that look at autonomic and cognitive dysfunctions, will pave the way for more effective long COVID therapies. In Canada, Rendely is also eying the RECLAIM trial that is currently testing the effectiveness of pentoxifylline, which helps blood flow, and ibudilast, an anti-inflammatory drug.

Doctors are also hopeful when they see patients who have made "tremendous gains" or even full recoveries through their clinics. "It's a new diagnosis, so I always tell my patients to think of this as a journey because I'm learning along with you," said Jai Marathe, MD, an infectious disease physician at Boston Medical Center and an assistant professor of infectious diseases at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine.

"Now we have 4 years of experience, but at the same time, no two long COVID patients are alike."

Long COVID has also changed the way physicians view healthcare and how they practice medicine.

"I am a completely different person than I used to be because of this illness, and I don't even have it. That is how profoundly it has affected how I view the universe," said Malcolm. "I've been doing this for 4 years, and I'm very hopeful. But I don't think about this in terms of months anymore. I think about this in terms of years."

Here is the original post:

MDs' One-Word Summary of Long COVID Progress: 'Frustration' - Medscape

A sweeping new definition of long COVID could help affected people get recognition of their condition and improve diagnosis and treatment.

The U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine announced the definition for long COVID June 11.

Previous definitions of long COVID have been all over the map, each with its own set of accepted symptoms, timelines and requirements for proof of infection (SN: 7/29/22).

That lack of standardization left many patients in the lurch without clear ability to be recognized for the condition that they had, with difficulty explaining to family and even to their caregivers, says Harvey Fineberg, a public health expert who chaired the committee that drafted the definition. We heard from literally hundreds of people experiencing long COVID about the challenges that they had in being heard, in gaining access to care and obtaining the care they needed.

More than 1,300 people contributed to the definition. The committee decided to adopt the patients own term long COVID instead of more medical terms such as post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 that have also been used to describe the long-term condition.

Adoption of the name the patients advocated for gives validation to everyone with the condition who has been struggling, sometimes for years, to have their experience acknowledged, says Daria Oller, a physical therapist in New Jersey who developed long COVID in 2020. Now, people are trying to not use the term long COVID, and all of us, patients from the first wave, are fighting. We were ignored. Thats ours. We named it.

The committee chose to go with the name because its simple, familiar and easy to communicate, Fineberg said during a webinar introducing the definition.

No one knows exactly how many people have long COVID, but a recent survey found that more than 17 percent of adults in the United States have experienced the condition. While the National Academies dont have regulatory or legal power to enforce adoption of the definition, the respected body of scientific experts recommendations are often used in making regulatory decisions, determining medical and scientific policies and crafting laws.

Heres what to know about the long COVID definition.

Its a medical condition that belongs to a family of chronic conditions that kick in after infections with viruses, bacteria, fungi or parasites. That includes chronic health problems such as myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) and Lyme-associated chronic illnesses.

According to the National Academies definition, long COVID is a medical condition that persists for at least three months after an infection with SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. Long COVID can affect any organ or system in the body. People may have any of more than 200 symptoms, which may include difficulty breathing, brain fog, blood clots, dizziness, extreme fatigue after exercising, loss of taste or smell, fast heart rate, diarrhea, constipation, diabetes and autoimmune diseases such as lupus (SN: 2/2/22; SN: 8/21/23; SN: 1/4/22). Those symptoms can appear alone or in multiple combinations, can be continuous, get progressively worse or have bouts in which the patient gets better and then worse again.

Chronic symptoms can affect people who originally had mild to severe COVID and can even strike people who didnt have any symptoms at all from their original infection. For that reason, the committee that crafted the Academies definition says that people dont need to have had a positive COVID test to be diagnosed with long COVID.

The condition can strike adults and children and can start weeks or months after seeming recovery from the initial infection. The committee didnt put an upper limit on how long after getting the original illness that long COVID could start.

There are no blood tests or biomarkers that doctors can use to reliably diagnose long COVID right now. The report calls for continued research to find such diagnostic tools.

This definition follows a June 5 report that the Social Security Administration asked the National Academies to prepare. That report similarly found that long COVID can have debilitating symptoms that can affect peoples physical function, quality of life and their ability to work or perform in school for years.

The definition is intentionally inclusive, the committee says.

We wanted to be sure that long COVID was not regarded as a diagnosis of exclusion, says Fineberg, who is president of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, based in Palo Alto, Calif. Everyone with lingering effects from a coronavirus infection should fall under the broad umbrella erected by the new definition. That means some people who have long-term health problems caused by a different infectious disease or other cause might be mistakenly diagnosed with long COVID, Fineberg admits.

That big-tent approach is essential for health equity, says committee member Monica Verduzco-Gutierrez, a physical medicine and rehabilitation physician at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. The committee wanted to make sure that people who dont have access to testing because tests werent available early on and free testing has ended now or who got a false negative test or had asymptomatic infections could still be included in the definition.

I think they got it right in the sense that they didnt leave anybody out, says Ziyad Al-Aly, head of research at the VA Saint Louis Health Care System. Al-Aly was one of the independent experts who reviewed the report.

Yes. The report calls for revision of the definition in no more than three years and possibly sooner if new science warrants it.

Were very mindful that the definition is only good as far as science can take us at this time, Fineberg says.

Having the gravitas of the National Academy of Medicine behind the definition will be seen by patients and patients advocates as legitimizing the illness which they have been complaining about, says Al-Aly. Theres a lot of gaslighting by physicians and by providers, and by the community [and] our society at large.

Some people have dismissed the condition as being a mental health disorder, but plenty of research has established that there are widespread biological changes, Verduzco-Gutierrez says. The definition makes it clear that long COVID is a physical health condition.

Not requiring a positive test to be diagnosed with long COVID is huge for Oller, who has no proof that she was infected with SARS-CoV-2 in early 2020. We couldnt get tested. There were long lines, and you needed symptoms that I didnt have.

Before COVID, Oller was a runner and dancer. After, she had difficulty breathing and pains in her chest, which she now thinks may have been caused by microclots in her lungs. Shes had a battery of health problems that have persisted. Though many symptoms have improved, they havent all gone away, and Oller has accepted that she may be dealing some unwanted aftereffects of COVID-19 for life. Early on, she had no name for what she was experiencing and encountered much skepticism that anything was actually wrong with her, even from other medical professionals.

Oller is a founding member of long COVID Physio, an international peer group of people with long COVID and their allies. She was not involved in the National Academies report but welcomes the broad definition.

It will be something patients can take to their doctors to bolster their claims, Oller says. She understands some of the difficulties clinicians have with diagnosing long COVID. Its hard because it challenges a lot of our biases, she says. Exercise makes us worse, trying harder makes us worse. Its easier to blame the patient and be like, Oh, youre not trying. Youre lazy. You just want to get on disability. Its in your head. Its easier to just send them on that route than to read through all the literature.

Over time, Oller says, the definition may be refined to include subtypes of long COVID, much the way cancer is an overarching definition of runaway cell growth but is divided by where the cancer occurs and the mutations that cause it. But for now, she says, starting out broad will allow people whose symptoms dont fit into a nice little package to have their condition recognized and acknowledged.

Read the rest here:

Long COVID finally gets a universal definition - Science News Magazine

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The Future Circular Collider would occupy a 91-kilometre tunnel (artists impression).Credit: PIXELRISE/CERN

Plans for a US$17 billion European particle accelerator are facing a serious challenge after the German government said that the project was unaffordable. The Future Circular Collider (FCC) would be more than three times larger than the Large Hadron Collider and would focus on mass-producing the mysterious Higgs boson. The financing plan for the FCC is extremely vague and requires a high level of commitment from external partners, which is neither assured nor even in prospect at the present time, said a spokesperson for the countrys Federal Ministry of Education and Research. The questions and concerns raised are not new to us and they are all being addressed in the FCC feasibility study, says CERNs research director Joachim Mnich.

Nature | 6 min read

In a rare public meeting, members of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) assured researchers of Asian descent that their concerns over discrimination are being heard. Under the China Initiative, a now-defunct anti-espionage programme, the FBI arrested several scientists of Chinese descent. And scrutiny seems to continue: China says that at least 70 Chinese students have been deported since July 2021. Some participants lauded the FBI meeting as an important step in building trust; others say that much more work remains to be done.

Nature | 6 min read

Researchers have discovered a genetic driver for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), ankylosing spondylitis and other immune disorders: a section of DNA in a gene desert a stretch of the genome that does not code for proteins. This stretch of DNA appears to enhance the action of a gene called ETS2, ultimately boosting the level of inflammation-causing chemicals released by macrophages, a type of white blood cell implicated in IBD. This is undoubtedly one of the central pathways that goes wrong for people to get inflammatory bowel disease, says gastroenterologist and study co-author James Lee. Drugs called MEK inhibitors, which are already approved for other conditions, reduced inflammation in tissue samples from people with IBD.

BBC | 4 min read

Reference: Nature paper

Vaccine-developer Moderna says that its combined jab against COVID-19 and influenza has produced positive results in a phase III trial. The vaccine uses the same pioneering mRNA technology as the companys breakthrough COVID-19 vaccine. In the trial in adults 50 years and older, the one-and-done shot elicited immune responses on par or better than those triggered by separate vaccines currently in use, reported Moderna in a press release.

BBC | 3 min read

Reference: Moderna press release

In the latest Nature Careers advice column, a developmental biologist writes to say that they were blindsided when, after eight years building their laboratory, they were denied tenure. Three professors who have experienced tenure denial offer some advice.

Nature | 6 min read

Do you have a work dilemma youd like some help with? E-mail naturecareerseditor@nature.com

In her new book Systemic, science journalist (and former Nature reporter) Layal Liverpool presents harrowing differences in health outcomes for people of racially and ethnically marginalized groups, amply supported by evidence from a wide range of global sources. For example, a long-standing measure of kidney function was calculated based on the racist assumption that waste-production levels in the kidney differ by race. Liverpool makes available a plethora of resources and advocacy groups that should help everyone to get involved in anti-racism efforts, notes health-services researcher and reviewer Sirry Alang.

Nature | 8 min read

Pick a card, any card or in this case, a worm. Researchers are using magic tricks to reveal how animals such as Eurasian jays (Garrulus glandarius) think. For example, a sleight-of-hand called the fast pass, in which an object is tossed so quickly between two fists that the observer cant see it, revealed that the trick also works on jays giving new insight into their visual system. Magic effects can reveal blind spots in seeing and roadblocks in thinking, says cognitive scientist Nicky Clayton.

Knowable | 11 min read

Reference: Annual Review of Psychology review

Robyn Elman is an entrepreneur and citizen scientist in Queens, New York.Credit: Karine Aigner/naturepl.com

Entrepreneur and community scientist Robyn Elman has raised thousands of monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) from eggs that would otherwise be destroyed by lawnmowers cutting down roadside weeds. From July through to September, that still takes me around six hours a day, seven days a week, she explains. Elman tags some of the butterflies with stickers to monitor them on their migration to Mexico. Shes also working with New Yorks Department of Transportation, which is responsible for roadside mowing, to better protect the animals habitats. (Nature | 3 min read)

Last week, rockhopper penguin Leif Penguinson was living up to the name by rock-hopping in Germanys Bavarian Forest National Park. Did you find the penguin? When youre ready, heres the answer.

Thanks for reading,

Flora Graham, senior editor, Nature Briefing

With contributions by Katrina Krmer

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Daily briefing: Good news for Moderna's two-in-one COVID and flu vaccine - Nature.com

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New KP.3 variant of COVID-19 is in Arizona. Here's what that means - The Arizona Republic

Some Swifties in Europe have more than Taylor Swift in common they have COVID-19 too.

During the singer's EuropeanEras Tourstops, Swift performed in Madrid onMay 29 and 30. According to Spanish news site El Nacional, not long after the concert that amassed about 130,000 attendees over two days, thousands online have said they contracted COVID-19. Such gatherings are widely known for being possiblesuperspreader events, as people from many different areas sometimes even flying in from different countries are in such close proximity.

One specific X account, known for being a hub for Spanish Swifties, took a poll of their followers, asking if they had become sick with COVID-19 after one of Swift's concerts in Madrid. Of the 10,796 people who answered the poll online, 35%, or 3,780 of the concertgoers said they had.

One concertgoer described their symptoms as, "Cough, sore throat, body discomfort and I can hardly speak." Another said that a few days after both concerts, "On Saturday my neck hurt, and I spent the night from Sunday to Monday with a fever of 39C,one of the worst nights of my life." Another person said, "During the weekend, I noticed that I felt different because I was feeling very uncomfortable, and felt dizzy. Yesterday I was coughing non-stop. I took the test today and it came back positive."

It's not just some of the largest European cities facing superspreader events in the coming summer. In the United States, scientists are warning of what they have been calling a "summer wave"of COVID-19 cases. The potential rise in COVID-19 cases stems from new Omicron subvariants like the KP.3 variant, JN.1 virus, or other strains known as theFlirt strains. The Centers for Disease Control said that these new strains of COVID now account for more than 50% of the cases in the U.S. According to the CDC, infection rates and hospitalization have been lower or "minimal" levels of"respiratory illness activity." However, the government agency's data suggests that infections are projected to increase in several states across the country likeCalifornia, Washington D.C., Florida, New Jersey and Texas.

Despite the growing concerns about new variants causing an increase in infections, there has been an unexpected outcome to thousands of Swifties testing positive. Some have shared how the COVID experience and symptoms have been difficult to deal with but others have treated it as just another Taylor Swift Eras Tour bonus. "COVID, infected by Taylor Swift, I'll sell myantigen test for 5000 euros!" one person wrote, as if the test was a Swiftie keepsake. Another said,"Taylor Swift is so cute she included the new COVID variant as a surprise in the Eras Tour Madrid."

Even though some Swifties may wear their positive COVID tests as a badge of honor, Spanish Swifties aren't the only ones who have contracted COVID at the Eras Tour. The Nacional also reported that some French Swifties are experiencing similar symptoms to COVID-19 after the singer's two-day stint in Paris on June 9 and 10. There were also some concerns that some concertgoers contracted COVID-19 last year during the U.S. leg of the tour. However, the Los Angeles Times said it wasn't clear if those cases contributed to a larger spread of the virus.

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Thousands of Taylor Swift concertgoers in Madrid have come down with COVID-19 after Eras Tour - Salon

Former NY Governor Andrew Cuomo is facing the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic to answer questions about nursing home guidance during the pandemic.

WASHINGTON Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo isset to appear before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic to explain why he issued a "must admit" COVID-19 nursing home guidance at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo implemented nursing home policies that had deadly consequences for New Yorks most vulnerable population. Not only did the former Governor put the elderly in harms way, but he also attempted to cover-up his failures by hiding the true nursing home death rate. It appears that politics, not medicine, was responsible for these decisions. Former Governor Cuomo owes answers to the 15,000 families who lost loved ones in New York nursing homes during the COVID-19 pandemic. His testimony is crucial to uncover the circumstances that led to his misguided policies and for ensuring that fatal mistakes never happen again. It is well past time for Cuomo to stop dodging accountability to Congress and start answering honestly to the American people, said Chairman Wenstrup.

The meeting will be held behind closed doors. The Select Subcommittee has already interviewed several other officials that were part of Cuomo's administration, including:

Melissa DeRosa, the former Secretary to Governor Cuomo will be interviewed at a later date.

When news that Cuomo would be interviewed in April, his spokesman dismissed the Congressional appearance as being a purely political move with no news value and nothing turned up in previous investigations.

Here is his statement:"Theres no news here, we agreed to do this months ago. This is pure politics and simple fact remains that this issue has been reviewed three times by the Department of Justice under Trump and Biden, as well as Congress and the Manhattan District Attorney who found no there there. Any real review would focus on the 10 other states with similar policies, red and blue alike.

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Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to be interviewed on nursing home guidance during COVID-19 - WGRZ.com

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Michigan restaurants that received grants during COVID-19 - Detroit Free Press

Politics

By Josh Christenson

Published June 11, 2024

Updated June 11, 2024, 11:48 a.m. ET

Former New York Gov.Andrew Cuomo arrived on Capitol Hill Tuesday to answer questionsabout his leadership during the COVID-19 pandemicincluding an infamous order that put infected patients in senior care facilities alongside vulnerable elderly people.

Cuomo entered the ONeill House Office Building a little before 10 a.m., accompanied by his attorneys and addressed reporters outside before sitting downwith members of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.

You know, four years ago, the Republican administration accused New York and other Democratic states of mismanaging the COVID situation, specifically mismanaging in nursing homesand they called for a Department of Justice investigation against just four Democratic states, Cuomo said.

Its ironic today that you hear complaints about the weaponization of the justice system, when they nuclearized the justice system against Democratic states, he added, pointing to federal investigations that found no wrongdoing and claiming hisnotorious March 25, 2020, nursing home order had followed the federal guidance.

It defies logic for anyone that you would mandate nursing homes, who were not capable of taking these COVID-positive patients because they didnt have the space to separate them, or they didnt have the PPE to care for them, or the staffing to care for them at that moment, House COVID subcommittee member Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY) said before the hearing.

What Im seeking, really, is the answers to what led to it: Was there some type of monetary incentive for hospitals versus nursing homes versus the COVID facilities that were later set up? she asked. And we want to know who was responsible for making that decision. And what was the information that they had that led them to that decision?

Even when you had US Navy[USNS]Comfort [hospital] ship and you had South Beach Psychiatric Center on Staten Island, a makeshift hospital that was set up for COVID patients, even when you had the Javits Center set up, they still continued this deadly mandate, Malliotakis stressed.

I think that well have a lot more clarity as to what led to that deadly mandate that thousands of seniors died, she concluded. The difference is that CDC guidance had made a recommendation that certainly was not a mandate.

The Justice Department did not recommend Cuomo for prosecution based on the March 25, 2020, must admit order after looking into the decisionbut reports from the New York Bar Association and Empire Center for PublicPolicydeterminedthatit led to hundreds of additional deaths.

New York Attorney General Letitia James also revealed in January 2021 at the end of an investigation that the Cuomo administration undercountedby more than 50% the number of nursing home deaths.

The Department of Health had initially recorded 8,711 deaths, which was later pushed up to more than 13,000, according to Jamesreport.

The 76-page report surveyed 62 nursing homes that found the state undercounted the fatalities there by an average of 56%.

The following month, his top aideapologized to Democratic lawmakerson a private phone call for withholding the data, saying the administration froze in the face of federal prosecutors who could use it against us.

The aide, Melissa DeRosa, accused the Trump administration ofusing the data asa giant political football beforegoing onto attackotherDemocratic governors like Phil Murphy of New Jersey, Gavin Newsom of California and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan.

Then-President Donald Trump ordered the Department of Justice to do an investigation into us, DeRosa told the lawmakers. And basically, we froze.

Because then we were in a position where we werent sure if what we were going to give to the Department of Justice, or what we give to you guys, what we start saying, was going to be used against us while we werent sure if there was going to be an investigation, she added. That played a very large role into this.

DeRosa will appear in the coming weeks for a separate transcribed interview with the House COVID subcommittee, a spokeswoman for the panel told The Post.

Another committee spokesperson previously revealed that the former Commissioner of the New York State Department of Health, Howard Zucker, testified to the panel that DeRosa exercised a critical role in preparing and carrying out the states must-admit order.

Her attorney, Gregory Morvillo, has previously denied her involvement.

Melissa played no role in the drafting or implementation of the March 25 guidance, Morvillo said in a December statement following Zuckers testimony.

What we understand Dr. Zucker did say is that Melissa, as secretary to the governor, played a critical role in COVID response, which is true.

More than 80,000 New Yorkers died of COVID-19 from the beginning of the pandemic to May 2023,US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data show.

House COVID subcommittee chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) pledged in a statement that former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo will be held to account in front of Congress for the deadly pandemic-era nursing home policies issued under his watch.

This transcribed interview before the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic will delve deeper into the March 25th order than any investigation has before and hopefully provide the answers that so many devastated New Yorkers have been desperately seeking since 2020, Wenstrup said.

The victims families deserve accountability not only for the disastrous must-admit policies, but for thecover up that ensued, he added.

Wenstrup also said the transcribed interview would delve intoa $5 million book dealthat Cuomo inked during the pandemic.

The COVID panel hadthreatened to subpoena Cuomolast year for testimony and latermade good on the threatbefore negotiating a time and place for him to answer lawmakers questions.

It was inappropriate to be worried about a book deal, Malliotakis told The Post. And the other thing was the numbers the numbers that the attorney general found were low-balled to make him continuetolook like he was doing a great job in New York when the death count showed otherwise.

Cuomoresigned in August 2021after a probe by New York State Attorney General Letitia James concluded he had sexually harassed or mistreated 11 women during his time in office.

Since leaving office, the former governor has reportedly been eyeing a political comeback, with insiders telling The Postrecently that he may challenge Eric Adamsfor New York City mayor in 2025.

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Former NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo attacks 'nuclearized' probe of COVID response ahead of interview on Capitol Hill - New York Post

(NEXSTAR) It took just a few weeks for a new COVID variant to rank as the most prominent in the U.S., unseating its fellow FLiRT spin-off of the once-dominant Omicron variant.

The latest projections from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show KP.3, a sublineage of the JN.1 lineage of the Omicron variant, may comprise 25% of the COVID tests sequenced in the country. Close behind is KP.2, which may make up about 22% of COVID cases.

CDC estimates for late May, the most recent available, show KP.3 may be most prevalent across states in the West and South. KP.2 is most common across the Midwest and Northeast.

This comes after the CDC reported last week that COVID infections are believed to be growing or likely growing in 30 states and territories. In 18 others, cases are estimated to be stable or uncertain, while only one state Oklahoma is believed to be seeing a decline in cases.

Michigan is clocking about 76 cases daily as of June 1, the latest state data shows, and there were no COVID-19-related deaths that week.

While previous FLiRT variants KP.1.1 and KP.2 appear relatively similar to JN.1, experts have warned KP.3 may be better at evading immunity. However, KP.2 and KP.3 are still relatively similar, Dr. Natalie Thornburg, the chief lab official for the CDCs Coronavirus and Other Respiratory Viruses Division explained last week.

When it comes to the symptoms the variants are sparking, officials say its too soon to tell if theyre causing anything unusual, like the increase in pink eye symptoms associated with XBB.1.16 reported last spring.

Speaking with TODAY, Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of infectious disease at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, said these FLiRT variants will likely not cause very distinctive symptoms. He added that these variants also dont seem to cause severe cases.

The CDC lists the main symptoms of COVID as:

However, the CDC notes these are not all of the possible symptoms of COVID as they can vary based on the person and the variant.

A spokesperson for the agency tells USA Today that brain fog, or feeling less wakeful and aware, and upset stomach may also occur in patients with KP.3.

If you experience any COVID symptoms that arent better explained by another cause, the CDC recommends staying home and away from others. If you have risk factors for severe illness, experts recommend seeking medical care for testing and/or treatment.

Ultimately, it depends on when you got your last dose.

Previously, health officials have said the COVID vaccines would provide protection from the virus for several months. In a February update on the newest vaccine booster made available in September, the CDC said that while it had (from September to January) been effective, they expected that protection would decline over time as had been seen with previous doses.

However, because the FLiRT variants are relatively new, there isnt enough data to show whether the vaccine or immunity from a recent case of COVID will provide effective protection against them.

Schaffner previously explained that lab studies have suggested that the vaccines will at least provide partial protection.

The newest COVID vaccine, expected to be released in fall, is set to target JN.1, an FDA panel determined last week. While it is not the most dominant variant in the U.S. anymore, annual vaccines are typically created based on a strain that closely relates to the most common variant at the time doses are being given.

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Theres a new dominant COVID variant but are the symptoms any different? - WOODTV.com