The dregs of the 2019 pandemic have been firmly relegated to ‘just another chronic complaint, now’ status. There will be ongoing research, not least concerning those unfortunates who are living with Long Covid, but barring more flare-ups, looks like we’ll be seeing fewer news reports going forward.
US Covid hospitalizations are on the rise, now >20,000 new admits/week, and this wave is just getting started as the JN.1 variant becomes dominant and wastewater levels surging in the Midwest with other regions to follow.
The booster protects vs JN.1! pic.twitter.com/IvxASAY23s— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) December 5, 2023
After months of declining or roughly flat figures following late summer's COVID-19 wave@CDCgov is now assessing this week that
"COVID-19 activity is increasing again especially in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic regions"https://t.co/y3HztrK2Gs pic.twitter.com/nQ99itM7II
— Alexander Tin (@Alexander_Tin) December 1, 2023
Nationwide, we remain far from previous winter peaks of COVID-19
Only around 1 in 10 are in areas with enough COVID-19 hospitalizations to be deemed at "medium" levels by @CDCgov
Less than 2M are in "high" counties where agency urges maskinghttps://t.co/IpTLB1JkcN pic.twitter.com/Ytalofuydk
— Alexander Tin (@Alexander_Tin) December 1, 2023
December 4th Update:
As predicted, a huge jump in numbers this week. 40% ⬆️ over last week. Pirola ⬆️⬆️.
🔸850,000 new infections/day
🔸1 in every 390 new people were infected today
🔸1 in every 39 people currently infected pic.twitter.com/E87e2PiCRW— JWeiland (@JPWeiland) December 4, 2023
Weekly U.S. COVID update:
– New cases: 203,268 est.
– Average: 186,058 (+10,849)
– States reporting: 50/50
– In hospital: 15,290 (1,352)
– In ICU: 1,741 (+58)
– New deaths: 1,288
– Average: 1,273 (-11)1/6
— BNO News (@BNOFeed) December 4, 2023
Last night's update: More than 200,000 new cases https://t.co/4QgMGQJuaU
— BNO News (@BNOFeed) December 4, 2023
Deaths remain elevated from the wave in September with more than 1,000 new deaths for the 12th week in a row, or more than 17,000 deaths during the same period.
— BNO News (@BNOFeed) December 4, 2023
CDC has been monitoring increases in respiratory illness recently reported around the world. Here is the latest information on pediatric pneumonia in the United States: https://t.co/tAMxdxBJNL pic.twitter.com/kMJTDFYe26
— CDC (@CDCgov) December 2, 2023
… The Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR), an agency within HHS, has a stockpile of hundreds of millions of COVID tests. It is teaming up with the Department of Education to allow school districts to order tests directly to distribute to families.
HHS officials said schools could order tests at a rate they could expect to distribute them, but they did not specify a limit.
“I could imagine a situation where perhaps a fifth grade classroom, it has a COVID-positive student and then they send everyone home with a COVID test in the backpack from that fifth grade class,” O’Connell said…
It has also been sending free tests to long-term care facilities, food banks and other organizations working with vulnerable populations. A small number of schools that serve socially vulnerable students were previously able to order tests from the federal stockpile…
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#COVID19 cases are on the rise in many parts of the world.
Make sure you’re fully protected. #VaccinesWork to keep you safe. Check your vaccination status and consult your local health worker.https://t.co/J24IdagZVY pic.twitter.com/L7JnM9g5YJ
— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) December 5, 2023
(link)
UK: Earlier lockdown in 2020 could have prevented about 90% of the death toll in the first Covid wave, or more than 30,000 lives – Matt Hancock. https://t.co/Lyo5Cswuq3
— CoronaHeadsUp (@CoronaHeadsUp) November 30, 2023
Covid inquiry: Eight uncomfortable questions facing Boris Johnson https://t.co/75ZuWblmcF
— BBC Health News (@bbchealth) December 2, 2023
Canada: Very high levels of Covid in Ottawa and increasing since last week
https://t.co/ptWC6nfHiD pic.twitter.com/aQXfnjpEPr
— CoronaHeadsUp (@CoronaHeadsUp) November 30, 2023
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The article below is paywalled, though the included illustrations & graphs are excellent. If anyone has an accessible copy, I’d be glad to share it:
Looking for a thorough, accessible summary of the scientific evidence in the search for the origin of SARS-CoV-2?
Look no further than @KenyonWallace's excellent new piece in the @TorontoStar. Kenyon did a great job distinguishing the science from the speculation 👇🏼 https://t.co/MqXFzP2thX
— Dr. Angela Rasmussen (@angie_rasmussen) December 4, 2023
Unfortunately, those are all reasons why collaborations aren’t happening any time soon.
— Dr. Angela Rasmussen (@angie_rasmussen) December 5, 2023
Getting fully vaccinated dramatically reduces the risk of Long COVID. Rates of Long COVID are finally going down & here's what we know so far: https://t.co/FfOSbPtWCC on @sciam
— Laura Helmuth (@laurahelmuth) December 1, 2023
… Widespread microstructural alterations were seen in people with long COVID neurologic symptoms and in people who had COVID but recovered, reported Alexander Rau, MD, of the University Hospital Freiburg in Germany, at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America.
“We did see a signature in the brain microstructure that is associated with COVID-19 infection, but the pattern is different among those people with long COVID-19 and those who do not have long COVID-19,” Rau said.
Conventional MRI showed no brain volume loss in these patients. “While comparing their structural or conventional brain scans, we did not find any lesion or alteration that could explain the severe symptoms in patients with post-COVID syndrome,” Rau pointed out…
The researchers found distinct brain networks that correlated with long COVID symptoms, after adjusting for age and sex. Altered brain microstructure in the mesiotemporal cortex was associated with cognitive dysfunction. Patients who had problems with their sense of smell had microstructural changes in the olfactory cortex, while those with fatigue had altered microstructure in the brain stem, including the ascending arousal network.
“We can see there is an altered microstructure that is associated with COVID-19 infection, and when we take our findings along with data from other sources, we see that this is compatible with accelerated aging, rather than with neurodegeneration,” Rau said. “However, this is most speculative. To make this conclusive, we need a lot more research.”…
Rau said the next step is to perform longitudinal scans to see whether alterations persist and uncover prognostic factors that may identify who will recover from long COVID.
“We also need to corroborate the information from the scans with other bio data, such as obtained from blood draws, to gain a more profound insight in being able to predict which patients will have a post COVID-19 condition,” he added.
Fully agree with @PeterHotez
During Covid-19 pandemic, we have seen vaccine inequity and vaccine hesitancy and the combination is lethalhttps://t.co/nRTO21wZ9l pic.twitter.com/Gq6V1mRcSh
— Madhu Pai, MD, PhD (@paimadhu) December 5, 2023
New research shows that being overweight hampers the body's immune response to #SARSCoV2 https://t.co/atVBWyvVae via @medical_xpress
— delthia ricks 🔬 (@DelthiaRicks) December 3, 2023
Bad news / good news:
University of Queensland-led research shows being overweight can impair the body’s antibody response to SARS-CoV-2 infection but not to the protection offered by vaccination.
Research lead, School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences Ph.D. candidate Marcus Tong, said the finding built on the team’s existing research on how COVID-19 affects people who are overweight. The research is published in Clinical & Translational Immunology.
“We’ve previously shown that being overweight—not just being obese—increases the severity of SARS-CoV-2,” Mr. Tong said.
“But this work shows that being overweight creates an impaired antibody response to SARS-CoV-2 infection but not to vaccination.”…
Dr. Short said from a public health perspective, this data draws into question policies around boosters and lockdowns.
“We’d suggest that more personalized recommendations are needed for overweight people, both for ongoing COVID-19 management and future pandemics,” she said.
“Finally, the data provides an added impetus to improve SARS-CoV-2 vaccination in low-income countries, where there’s a high percentage of people who are overweight and are dependent on infection-induced immunity.”
New study — the first quantification of infectivity of #SARSCoV2 in aerosols sampled from 16 individuals, directly from exhaled air. "The highest infectivity was found for samples collected close to symptom onset and during singing…calculating the time needed for a… pic.twitter.com/s0Hp8rDekU
— Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) December 5, 2023
Prevalence of cardiac manifestations of #LongCovid from a meta-analysis of 150 reports with partitioning by quality https://t.co/KxTf9bodWJ pic.twitter.com/exnI7yAyqZ
— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) December 2, 2023
The JN.1 variant’s rise here is helping to fuel a significant wave, reflected by wastewater data and case modeling by @JPWeiland 👇
We’re lucky that the booster provides protection against it, but too few (-16% of eligible) have taken advantage to date https://t.co/moo9fp8XLA— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) December 5, 2023
(link)
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Dr Fauci to appear before ?@COVIDSelect? committee next year >>> pic.twitter.com/x9PmnfCKYs
— Max Cohen (@maxpcohen) November 30, 2023
"San Francisco Bay Area's COVID death rate was among the lowest in the nation. Here's why
– nation’s first regional stay-at-home order
– long-lasting mask mandate.. for nearly two years
– residents ..largely agreeable with the health ordershttps://t.co/uyQlBE2vST— Yaneer Bar-Yam (@yaneerbaryam) November 30, 2023
Deaths in prisons across the United States increased by 77% during the first year of the #COVID19 pandemic—3.4 times the increase experienced in the general population—according to a new @ScienceAdvances analysis. https://t.co/7lnZSiYOyi pic.twitter.com/Opx69mBk1C
— Science Magazine (@ScienceMagazine) December 5, 2023
The looney state of Texas is suing Pfizer over claims about the mRNA vax. The state's atty gen'l Ken Paxton (who has been charged w/ crimes over the years), contends Pfizer violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act w/ unsupported claims https://t.co/BoQjLQyizB pic.twitter.com/cUdBsy0ngh
— delthia ricks 🔬 (@DelthiaRicks) December 4, 2023
Quite remarkable that Ken Paxton is suing Pfizer for claiming that its vaccine was 95% effective against "infection" when Pfizer never made any such claims. And the rest of the press release is of course filled with antivax nonsense. https://t.co/5KqGvrM3rN
— James Surowiecki (@JamesSurowiecki) December 1, 2023
No surprise, though. Ken Paxton's entire shtick is announcing lawsuits or investigations that he knows will amount to nothing, but that will play well on right-wing media. It's faux law enforcement via press release.
— James Surowiecki (@JamesSurowiecki) December 1, 2023
COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: December 6, 2023Post + Comments (28)
