Category: Covid-19

WASHINGTON Today, the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic released a staff memorandum titled Allegations of Wrongdoing and Illegal Activity by Dr. David Morens, Senior Advisor to National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases former-Director, Dr. Anthony Fauci. This memo presents overwhelming evidence from Dr. Morenss own email that he engaged in serious misconduct and potentially illegal actions while serving as a Senior Advisor to Dr. Fauci during the COVID-19 pandemic. The memo includes previously unreleased email correspondence, obtained by subpoena, that incriminates Dr. Morens in undermining the operations of the U.S. government, unlawfully deleting federal COVID-19 records, using a personal email to avoid the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), and repeatedly acting unbecoming of a federal employee. Further, the memo reveals new emails suggesting Dr. Fauci was aware of Dr. Morenss nefarious behavior and may have even engaged in federal records violations himself.

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New COVID Select Memo Details Allegations of Wrongdoing and Illegal Activity by Dr. Fauci's Senior Scientific Advisor ... - House Committee on...

A doctor collects a swab for Covid-19 testing.

A new Covid-19 variant known as KP.2, or FLiRT, began to emerge in the United States in early March of this year. At that time, KP.2 represented only 0.4% of all SARS-CoV-2 strains being sequenced, but it has skyrocketed in the last two months to become the predominant strain of the virus, making up 28.2% of sequences as of May 11. This dramatic rise signals that KP.2 has properties that promote viral transmission and has experts discussing whether another Covid-19 surge is on the horizon.

Since the Covid-19 pandemic began, the virus has undergone genetic changesor mutationsas the number of human infections has increased. In 2022, the Omicron variant emerged as the dominant strain, leading to dramatic rise in cases worldwide. The KP.2 variant is a descendant of Omicron and has several mutations in the gene encoding for the spike protein, which facilitates binding of the virus to receptors on a host cell. The spike protein is also the target for antibodies generated in response to Covid-19 vaccination.

Several mutations in KP.2 have led to amino acid changes in the spike proteinan F to L mutation and an R to T mutationthus giving the variant family the name FLiRT. These mutations likely allow the virus to evade neutralizing antibodies produced in response to prior infection or vaccination. In some ways, its like the virus has put on a disguise, allowing it to go unrecognized by the immune system.

Although it may be too early to know for sure, it does not appear that KP.2, or other members of the FLiRT variant group, cause unique symptoms or more significant disease. If symptoms do occur, KP.2 infection tends to be associated with a fever, sore throat, cough and body aches. Loss of taste or smell can also occur, as well as brain fog, which has been described for past variants.

Although FLiRT variants do not seem to cause more severe disease, it is important to highlight that as the number of infections increase, the likelihood of a susceptible individual (e.g., an immunocompromised host) becoming infected and developing severe symptoms also increases.

A patient uses a rapid antigen test kit for Covid-19 at home.

Since KP.2 and other FLiRT variants have mutations in the gene encoding the spike protein, existing tests should continue to detect these new viruses. Most at-home antigen tests look for a different viral proteincalled the nucleocapsid proteinso should not be affected by the new variants.

If using an at-home antigen test, it is still recommended to test when symptoms arise, and if negative, repeat the test in two to three days before ruling out Covid-19. Molecular, or PCR, tests should also be able to detect FLiRT variants. Most PCR tests look for at least two genetic regions of the virus, so even if one of the test components is impacted by mutations in the spike gene, the backup gene target should detect the virus.

The KP.2 variant possesses several mutations in the spike gene, which results in a protein being produced that may not be recognized by antibodies from prior infection or vaccination. So if its been greater than six months since your last vaccination or infection, its unlikely youre fully protected. Existing antibodies may prevent severe disease, but they may not prevent infection and subsequent mild- to moderate-illness. An updated vaccine that will be more specific to recent circulating strains is expected this fall and will likely be recommended alongside the annual flu vaccination.

As we have observed since 2020, the virus causing Covid-19 continues to evolve. Although emergency department visits and deaths due to Covid-19 are both down (-5.2% and -14.3%, respectively) in recent weeks, the rise of a new variant could alter the future landscape. Its important to remain vigilant to reduce transmission, including staying home when you are feeling sick, getting tested for Covid-19 and other common respiratory viruses (such as influenza), wearing a mask if you have symptoms and must go out in public and, most importantly, getting an updated Covid-19 vaccine. Taking these steps will reduce the chances of a future Covid-19 surge and help keep you and others safe and healthy.

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Could FLiRT Variants Cause Another Covid-19 Surge? - Forbes

Between January and April of 2024, there have been more COVID-19-related deaths in Allen County than homicides and traffic deaths combined.

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WFFT) -- The CDC warns of a potential surge in COVID-19 cases this summer.

Between January and April of 2024, there have been more COVID-19-related deaths in Allen County than homicides and traffic deaths combined.

26 people have died from COVID-19 in Allen County, according to the Allen County Department of Health, compared to 14 homicides and 10 traffic deaths.

However, officials say that number is far less than it was at this point last year.

The CDC says the new variants, known as FLiRT strands, are more contagious than those before them. They fall under the Omicron variant umbrella.

Super Shot Clinical Manager Staci Kaczmarek says this is the time to get the most recent vaccine for anyone who has not done so.

"We've said it from the beginning of the pandemic, but we're getting vaccinated not just for ourselves, but for the people around us as well, and so even if you feel like maybe COVID-19's not a big deal to you, you've done other things, remember that you're also helping to protect your community around you," Kaczmarek said.

The most recent vaccine was released in September, and anyone who has not gotten it can schedule an appointment with Super Shot to do so.

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CDC anticipates summer surge in COVID-19 cases | Health | wfft.com - WFFT FOX 55 Fort Wayne | Indiana News & Weather

A new study from University of Missouri-Columbia researchers has determined that the virus which causes COVID-19 can enter the blood-retinal-barrier through systemic infection following inhalation rather than ocular transmission.

Writing in PLOS Pathogens, scientists highlighted that due to the presence of viral RNA in corneal and conjunctival tissue, there has previously been speculation that the eye may act as a transmission route for COVID-19 infection.

However, experiments in mice found that ocular exposure to the virus that causes COVID-19 did not result in a lung infection or severe illness.

In contrast, exposure through nasal tissue resulted in the presence of the virus in ocular tissues as well as a hyperinflammatory response within the retina.

Researchers found that the extended presence of the virus that causes COVID-19 in the retina can cause retinal microaneurysm, retinal artery and vein occlusion, and vascular leakage.

Dr Pawan Kumar Singh, an assistant professor of ophthalmology at the University of Missouri School of Medicine, recommended that those who have been diagnosed with COVID-19 ask their eye care professional to check for signs of pathological change in the retina.

Even those who were asymptomatic could suffer from damage in the eyes over time because of COVID-19 associated complications, he said.

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Researchers find COVID-19 virus can breach blood-retinal-barrier - Association of Optometrists (AOP)

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WHO pandemic agreement could save us from next COVID-19 disaster - USA TODAY

In this section, the proposed framework has been explained. First, the used chest X-ray dataset has been described. Then, the developed framework, which includes pre-processing phase and the Classification using CNN models based on transfer learning phase, has been illustrated. Two different approaches have been used to train pre-trained CNN models using transfer learning. The first approach uses whole chest X-ray images, while the other approach uses lung-segmented images.

In this research, the data obtained from the COVID-19 Radiography Database has been used to apply the proposed framework. The database contains thousands of publicly available benchmark X-ray images and corresponding lung masks. The X-ray images are provided in Portable Network Graphics (PNG) format with a resolution of 299299 pixels. The database includes 10,192 Normal cases, 3616 positive COVID-19 cases, 1345 Viral Pneumonia cases, and 6012 Lung Opacity images as shown in Table1. This database was developed by a team from Qatar University, Dhaka University, Bangladesh with cooperators from Malaysia and Pakistan and cooperators of medical doctors26. Figure1 illustrates samples from different classes in the COVID-19 Radiography Database.

Samples from COVID-19 radiography chest database representing different classes.

The purpose of the pre-processing phase is to prepare the X-ray images for classification using CNN pre-trained models. In this phase, different pre-processing steps are applied to improve the performance of the classification. The pre-processing steps can be summarized as follows:

Enhancing images is a significant step for the correct classification. It increases image contrast in order to improve classification performance. Different techniques can be applied to enhance the images. In this research, some of these techniques have been applied to the original X-ray images before introducing them to the classification models, they are as follows:

Histogram Equalization (HE): The purpose of histogram equalization (HE) is to spread the gray levels inside the image. It modifies the brightness and contrast of the images to improve the image quality27. The original X-ray images intensity has been enhanced using histogram equalization (HE).

Contrast Limited Adaptive Histogram Equalization (CLAHE): It originated from Global Histogram Equalization (GHE), it is based on dividing the image into non-overlapping blocks, and after that, the histogram of each block is gotten using a pre-specified value28. In this research, CLAHE has been used to enhance the contrast of original X-ray images.

Image Complement: The complement or inverse of X-ray images transforms the dark positions to lighter and the light positions to darker. As this is a standard process, which is similar to that used by radiologists, it may aid a deep learning model for improving classification performance. The complement of the binary image can be obtained by changing the zeros to ones and ones to zeros. Whereas for a grayscale image, each pixel is subtracted from 255.

Figure2 shows an original X-ray image and its enhanced versions after applying HE, CLAHE and image complement on the original image with the corresponding histogram plots for each version.

An X-ray image and its enhanced versions after applying HE, CLAHE and complement to the original image and the corresponding histogram plots.

In the segmentation step, the regions of interest (ROI), which are the lungs region in our case, are cropped from the associated image. In this research, the ground truth lungs masks which are provided by the database have been used. A modified U-Net model was applied by the authors of the database on the X-ray images to get the lung masks associated with the full X-ray images. In this research, multiplication between each original image and the associated lung mask has been applied to get the segmented lungs. The same process of multiplication between different enhanced image versions and the associated masks has been applied to get different versions of segmented datasets with different enhancements. All these versions are introduced to CNN models as segmented versions of data. Figure3 shows the segmented images of the original image and of the different enhanced images for one of the COVID samples.

X-ray original image and its enhanced versions and the segmented lung region of each version.

Resizing the images is an essential process to satisfy the requirement of CNN of equally sized input images. In this research, the process of resizing X-ray images has been done to fit all X-ray images to the input size of the used pre-trained CNN models which are VGG19 and EfficientNetB0. Therefore, all images versions either full or segmented versions were resized to fit the CNNs input image size which is 224224 pixels. To expedite the training process, it was found that the size of 112112 pixels expedited the training without affecting the performance metrics.

In this research, different versions of either full or segmented chest X-ray images have been introduced to CNN models to train the classifiers. Different experiments have been carried out on the original and segmented lung X-ray images both with their different enhanced versions. The classification has been done using VGG1914 and EfficientNetB016 pre-trained CNN models. After the calculation of different performance metrics, the best model has been selected as the adopted model. The next subsections give a brief description of the used pre-trained models.

VGG19 is a variant of the VGG CNN model which was created by Visual Geometry Group (VGG) at Oxford University. VGG19 was one of the winners of the Image Net Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge (ILSVRC) in 2014. The size of the input image to VGG19 is (224 224). VGG19 contains 16 convolution layers, 5 max-pooling layers and 3 fully connected layers. The convolution layers are with (3 3) filters' size, stride of 1 pixel and padding of 1 pixel. The max-pooling layers are with a size of 2 2 and a stride of 2. The rectification (ReLU) activation function is utilized for all hidden layers. Then, the first 2 fully connected layers with 4096 channels each are uitilized followed by the last layer of 1000 channels to represent the different 1000 classes of the ImageNet with soft-max activation function15.

Google research group designed a family of models, called EfficientNets using a scaling method and achieved better efficiency and accuracy than previous ConvNets. EfficientNet is based on scaling CNNs and reaching better performance by balancing network width, depth, and resolution. Therefore, the focus is to present a scaling method to uniformly scale the 3 dimensions with a simple highly effective compound coefficient. Thus, it can be considered as an optimization problem to find the best coefficients for depth, width, and resolution that maximizes the accuracy of the network given the constraints of the available resources. The primary building block of the EfficientNet models is MBConv. The network's dimension equation was used to get the family of neural networks EfficientNet-B0 to B716. In this research, EfficientNetB0 was used for the classification of the chest X-ray images. Figure4 sums up the framework of the adopted methodology in this research.

The framework of the used methodology for Chest X-ray images classification.

This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by the author.

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COVID19 detection from chest X-ray images using transfer learning | Scientific Reports - Nature.com

The New York Yankees have placed a player on the COVID-19 injured list.

On Monday, the Yankees announced a series of roster moves that included placing right-handed pitcher Ian Hamilton on the 7-day COVID-19 injured list, retroactive to May 19. They also selected left-handed pitcher Clayton Andrews to the active roster and designated right-handed pitcher Colby White for assignment.

This is the first time the Yankees have used the COVID-19 IL since 2022. The COVID-19 IL was implemented in 2020, when the Coronavirus was rampant and MLB needed a way for players to be placed on an injured list that followed the timeline of the CDC guidelines. Players were forced to be out for a minimum of seven days, and that still stands today.

In Aug. 2023, the Boston Red Sox placed left-handed pitcher Brennan Bernardino on the COVID-19 IL. Hamilton is the first player placed on the COVID-19 IL by any MLB team since then.

Hamilton, 28, has been one of the Yankees' better relievers this season, sporting a 3.18 ERA in 22.2 innings pitched. He's picking up where he left off in 2023, when he had a 2.64 ERA in 58 innings pitched.

Hamilton has been struggling as of late, though, as he has a 5.06 ERA over the last two weeks of play. He will now be out for a minimum of seven days, meaning his first potential return date is May 26.

Hamilton was drafted in the 11th round of the 2016 MLB Draft by the Chicago White Sox. He bounced around a handful of teams before signing as a free agent with the Yankees in Jan. 2023.

In his place, the left-handed Andrews will get an opportunity. Andrews has a career 27.00 ERA in four appearances at the MLB level with the Milwaukee Brewers. He has a 6.60 ERA in 12 appearances at Triple-A this season.

Hamilton has been one of the many reasons the Yankees enter Monday with the tied-for-best bullpen ERA in baseball at 2.49. The Yankees have enjoyed incredible success from a handful of relievers, including the best closer in baseball up to this point.

Right-handed pitcher Clay Holmes, the team's closer, has yet to allow an earned run in 20 innings, and has 13 saves. Alongside him have been some standout performances such as right-handed pitcher Nick Burdi (1.04 ERA in 8.2 innings), right-handed pitcher Luke Weaver (2.25 ERA in 28 innings), and left-handed pitcher Victor Gonzlez (2.63 ERA in 13.2 innings).

The Yankees enter Monday's series opener against the Seattle Mariners with the best record in the American League at 33-15. They'll look to continue this success without Hamilton for at least the next week.

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New York Yankees Place First MLB Player on COVID-19 IL in 2024 - Newsweek

May 20, 2024, 02:14 PM ET

The New York Yankees placed reliever Ian Hamilton on the seven-day COVID-19 injured list on Monday.

The move is retroactive to Sunday for the right-hander, who is tied for second on the team with 19 appearances.

Hamilton, 28, has no decisions and a 3.18 ERA with six holds and 19 strikeouts in 22 innings.

The Yankees added left-hander Clayton Andrews to the active roster and designated right-hander Colby White for assignment in corresponding moves.

Andrews, 27, made his major league debut last season with the Milwaukee Brewers. He is 0-2 with a 6.60 ERA in 12 relief appearances at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.

White, 25, was claimed off waivers from the Tampa Bay Rays on May 9 and has yet to make his MLB debut. He is 0-2 with an 18.36 ERA in 11 games (one start) this season between Triple-A Durham and Double-A Somerset.

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Yankees put reliever Ian Hamilton on 7-day COVID injured list - ESPN

Gerrit Cole will take another significant step in his recovery from elbow inflammation on Tuesday.

The reigning Cy Young winner is scheduled to face live hitters for the first time since being shut down midway through spring training. Aaron Boone wasnt sure who would hit against Cole or what his exact plans were, but the manager called the development an important one after the Yankees ace threw a two-up bullpen over the weekend.

We just want to continue to progress and continue to stack good days, Boone said Monday before the Yankees series opener against the Mariners, and thats another step along the way of getting out there on the bump and facing hitters.

Boone added that Cole recovered well after his two-up, 40-pitch bullpen on Saturday. The right-hander had trouble recovering after outings early in spring training, but that hasnt been an issue since Cole began throwing on April 8.

Cole, on the 60-day injured list, is eligible to return at the end of this month, but that is not going to happen given where hes at in his recovery. The Yankees have said that he will need a full spring training-type routine, which typically consists of five starts.

The Yankees lost a member of their bullpen on Monday when they placed Ian Hamilton on the seven-day COVID-19 injured list.

The move is retroactive to May 19. Its also the first time the Yankees have used the COVID-19 IL since 2022.

Boone said that he first learned Hamilton wasnt feeling well before Sundays game against the White Sox. The Yankees sent him home before first pitch.

With the right-handed Hamilton on the shelf, the Yankees added left-hander Clayton Andrews to the active roster. The team also designated Colby White, a righty, for assignment.

A key component in the Yankees bullpen, Hamilton has a 3.18 ERA over 22.2 innings in his second season with the team. He had been a bit off lately, allowing three earned runs in his last five games.

A multi-inning weapon, Hamilton has logged more than three outs in eight of his 19 appearances.

Hamiltons absence comes with Tommy Kahnle nearing his return. The right-hander, who had his throwing program delayed in spring training, is expected back on Wednesday.

In the meantime, Andrews will get a chance despite recording a 6.60 ERA over 15 innings at Triple-A. The 5-6, 160-pound reliever was acquired from the Brewers in February.

Good stuff, Boone said of Andrews. Obviously, its a different slot down there. But life on the fastball, and then he can spin it, too. But really, its the fastball with ride with a really good changeup. So well use him where we see fit. Hopefully he gets in there and he can do the job.

Andrews appeared in four games for Milwaukee last season. The 27-year-old allowed 10 earned runs.

Boone said that he expects DJ LeMahieu (nondisplaced foot fracture) to get the bulk of playing time at third base when he returns, though the Yankees will ease him in a little bit. Oswaldo Cabrera and Jon Berti have been manning the hot corner with LeMahieu out.

LeMahieu could also give Anthony Rizzo some rest by playing first base.

First base is always in the mix for DJ, but well see how it plays out, Boone said. I dont expect to rest Rizz that much, but therell be some matchups where it makes some sense.

With the minor leagues off on Monday, LeMahieu was getting work in at Yankee Stadium before the opener against Seattle. The plan is for him to play in back-to-back games on Tuesday and Wednesday before potentially playing in three straight over the weekend. From there, its possible he joins the Yankees on their West Coast road trip.

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Yankees Notebook: Gerrit Cole to face hitters, Ian Hamilton heads to rare COVID-19 list - Hartford Courant

SHOULD WE BE WORRIED ABOUT KP.1 AND KP.2?

Globally there has not been a large number of hospitalisations. The mortality rate has also remained low.

Dr Leong said that there will be a minor uptick in cases in Singapore over the next few weeks due to the KP.1 and KP.2 variants.

He added, however, that this increase will be relatively minor compared to JN.1", as prior infection from JN.1 will confer significant protective benefit to KP.1 and KP.2.

The danger is that repeat infections could raise the risk of developing long-COVID, said Dr Fikadu Tafesse, a virologist at Oregon Health & Science University.

And there is no cure for long-COVID, Dr Leong noted. "It is a black hole of unknowns," he said, adding that people should get vaccinated to avoid the risk of long-term illness.

According to Dr Tambyah, MOH data suggests that COVID-19 numbers are already plateauing. "Things might change with the school holiday travel but I doubt it would change much," he said.

Against JN.1, the current vaccines designed around Omicron XBB.1.5 do generate some cross-reactive antibodies, said Professor Pekosz.

Studies have not been done with some of the newer variants, he noted, adding thatthose are likely to be "a little less cross-reactive".

Dr Leong provided a similar view.

We know that the XBB1.5 vaccine was about 50 per cent effective against the JN.1. We suspect that the current vaccine will be less effective in preventing infections with KP.1 and KP.2, he told CNA.

"The chief reason is the presence of the FLiRT mutations. The F amino acid became L and the R became a T. This allowed the virus to evade the existing immunity against COVID."

It has also been several months since many people received their last dose of the vaccine, and that immunity wanes over time.

Scientists say vaccination remains the best bet, especially against severe illness.

We firmly believe that it (the vaccine) is still effective against preventing severe disease such as hospitalisation and death, Dr Leong said.

Singapore's Health Ministry said that during the peak month of the previous JN.1 wave in December 2023, the incidence rate of COVID-19 hospitalisations and intensive care admissions among seniors aged 60 and above was 25 per cent higher in those who had not kept their vaccination updated compared to those who had.

The US CDC said the agency was continuing to monitor how vaccines perform against KP.2.

Governing bodies like the WHO and the US Food and Drug Administration are also expected to recommend a formulation for updated COVID-19 vaccines that will roll out in early fall.

New COVID-19 variants are likely to crop up after a decision is made, but Professor Pekosz said the goal remains to select a formulation that will match the circulating variants as closely as possible.

Dr Leong saidCOVID-19 test kits are able to detect the KP.1 and KP.2 variants.

"The COVID-19 test kit tests against the N protein. But the mutation of KP variants is mainly due to the spike protein," he explained.

"In fact, the N protein has been consistently stable with only minor mutations since the beginning."

Professor Pekosz said testing - whether at home or in a health care setting - will make sure people know what they are infected with, which can better guide a treatment plan.

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CNA Explains: The FLiRT family of COVID-19 variants and what we know about the KP.2 strain - CNA