Covid-19 News and Discussions

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Wastewater testing shows COVID-19 at highest levels since January

As health professionals prepare for the release of 2024-25 COVID-19 shots, it appears the U.S. is undergoing a spike in cases.

www.10news.com

Wastewater testing shows COVID-19 at highest levels since January​

New COVID-19 shots are slated to come out in the coming weeks.

Photo by: Lee Jin-man/AP
A woman walks outside of a COVID-19 testing center.

By: Justin Boggs
Posted 1 hour and 13 minutes ago

and last updated 53 minutes ago
Monitoring of wastewater throughout the U.S. shows that COVID-19 levels are likely at their highest levels since early January, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.

Officials have said that wastewater tests can provide officials an idea of how prevalent the spread of the virus is.

The CDC's data shows COVID-19 levels as of last week are about three times higher than this time a year ago. The wastewater data shows that the presence of COVID-19 fell sharply after a spike in December and January. That drop, however, has subsided this summer with cases steadily on the rise.

RELATED STORY | FDA reverses course, calls for vaccines for fall 2024 to target newer COVID-19 strain






Wastewater monitoring indicates COVID-19 levels are highest in the West, and lowest in the Northeast. The South is also experiencing elevated levels.

California has the highest activity level for COVID-19, the data indicates, followed by Utah, North Carolina and Minnesota. New York and Arizona are reporting lower levels of COVID-19 virus in wastewater.


Nearly half of all cases are coming from the KP.3 and the KP.3.1.1 variants.

Updated COVID-19 vaccines are expected to be released in the coming weeks. The vaccines are intended to target the KP.2 variant, which now consists of about 20% of cases, the CDC said. It's too early to tell how effective the new vaccines will perform against the KP.3 variants.

KP.2 and KP.3 are known as FLiRT variants, because of their specific positions in the spike protein.

RELATED STORY | COVID-19 dropped to 10th leading cause of US deaths in 2023

Andy Pekosz, a professor at Johns Hopkins University in molecular microbiology and immunology, said in a Q&A earlier this year that these variants aren't more or less severe than previous variants, but more people have antibodies through vaccines and prior infection to better fight off an infection.

Everyone aged 5 years and older should get an updated COVID-19 vaccine to protect against serious illness, the CDC recommends.


In recent years, updated COVID-19 vaccines have become widely available in early autumn.

 

[Yommie]

COVID linked to 65% of new onset cognitive impairment, dementia

A study found COVID-19 could be linked to onset cognitive impairment in patients 65 and older.

www.newsnationnow.com

COVID linked to 65% of new onset cognitive impairment, dementia​

• Study finds link between COVID-19 and dementia in people 65 and older
• 65% of patients tested had new onset cognitive impairment
• Further research is necessary to identify the exact correlation

Isabelle Charboneau

Updated: Aug 13, 2024 / 12:39 PM CDT

COVID-19 antigen home tests indicating a positive result are photographed in New York, April 5, 2023. (AP Photo/Patrick Sison)

(NewsNation) — A new study says there is a link between COVID-19 and the risk of cognitive decline and dementia in older adults.

A study published by the scientific publisher Elsevier indicates that cognitive impairment may be an important condition that comes as a consequence of being infected with COVID-19. The overall proportion of patients identified as having new onset cognitive impairment was 65%.

The study found that patients aged 65 and up, most of whom were hospitalized for COVID-19, had evidence of cognitive impairment, with new onset impairment accounting for over half.

Mask ban awaits Long Island county executive’s signature
These findings were true even when patients with neurological symptoms in the acute phase of COVID-19 were excluded.

Further research is necessary, according to the study, to clearly identify the exact causes, the role of vaccination in preventing this and potential recovery from it over time. Vaccination against COVID-19 reduces the risk of hospitalization and further complications.

 

[Yommie]

How Can We Boost U.S. COVID Vaccination Rates?

Researchers led by Wharton’s Katy Milkman investigate strategies to increase U.S. COVID vaccination rates.

knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu

How Can We Boost U.S. COVID Vaccination Rates?​

August 13, 2024​

Research led by Wharton’s Katy Milkman investigated what strategies work best to increase vaccination rates in the U.S.

• Health Care Management
• Management

Featured Faculty​

Katherine Milkman

Written By​

Nathi Magubane
The following article was originally published on Penn Today.

In the first 10 months of availability, COVID-19 vaccines prevented around 235,000 deaths and 1.6 million hospitalizations in the U.S. However, by April 2023, 19% of Americans still hadn’t received their first vaccine dose and 65% hadn’t completed all recommended boosters, leading to tens of thousands of preventable deaths. With annual booster recommendations likely, increasing booster uptake is essential to prevent future hospitalizations and deaths.

In a new paper, research led by Katy Milkman of the University of Pennsylvania looks at the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccination efforts.

“For our megastudy, we teamed up with CVS and we purchased rides from Lyft to see if reducing the friction associated with getting to and from a vaccine appointment could make a difference,” says Milkman, the James G. Dinan Professor at Penn’s Wharton School and co-director of the Behavior Change for Good Initiative at Penn, where this research was conducted. “And to our surprise, there was no added benefit of the free transportation over and above sending a reminder.”

The study, published in the journal Nature, involved a massive field experiment including 3.66 million CVS pharmacy patients who had previously received their primary COVID-19 vaccination series. Participants received different types of text reminders encouraging them to get their recommended COVID-19 booster, with some also being offered free round-trip Lyft rides to their vaccination appointments.

Despite high expectations from both behavioral science experts and lay forecasters, the results showed that providing free transportation to vaccination sites did not boost vaccination rates any more than merely sending well-designed reminder messages. Milkman and her team found that their text reminders increased 30-day COVID-19 booster uptake by 21% on average and had a positive spillover effect, increasing 30-day flu vaccinations by 8%.

“It’s crucial to understand what works and what doesn’t so we can avoid wasting resources and better address the problem.”— Katy Milkman

What Types of Reminder Messages Boost COVID Vaccination Rates?​

The researchers identified three types of reminder messages that were the most useful for boosting vaccination rates: messages encouraging recipients to make a vaccination plan that suggested a specific date, time, and location based on their last vaccination; messages highlighting high local COVID-19 transmission rates; and messages sent on behalf of the patient’s local pharmacy team.

Milkman says that, if someone’s last vaccine was on a Tuesday at 3 p.m. at a specific CVS, for instance, the next reminder would closely match that time and location under the assumption that that is probably a convenient time and place.

“Another message highlighted high infection rates in their county, and the third message was designed to make it feel like it was coming from their local pharmacy team letting them know there’s a vaccine reserved for them,” Milkman says.

The study’s data analysis showed that, while all text reminders increased vaccination rates, the messages offering free round-trip Lyft rides to and from vaccination sites did not produce any measurable benefit over the reminders alone, suggesting that the primary barrier to COVID booster vaccination is not transportation.

“This kind of science is really important because the government invested heavily in free-ride programs,” Milkman says. “It’s crucial to understand what works and what doesn’t so we can avoid wasting resources and better address the problem. Our study contributes to this by showing that reducing transportation barriers is not the key lever we need to pull right now.”

Looking ahead, Milkman and her team at the Behavior Change for Good Initiative feel that future research should explore more varied strategies for boosting vaccination rates. For instance, it could be worth investigating the value of mobile vaccination units that bring vaccines directly to communities, especially in underserved areas. Additionally, studying more personalized communication methods delivered by various trusted sources, alternative incentives, and other behavioral nudges designed to address specific barriers to vaccination could provide valuable new insights.

“There’s always more to learn about what motivates people and how we can effectively encourage health-promoting behaviors,” Milkman says.

 

[Yommie]

Parents look to protect children as there is an uptick in COVID-19 cases | Back to School​

 

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BC Today, Aug. 13: Covid numbers spike but is it still a big concern? | Air-travel etiquette​

 

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Over half of US states report ‘very high’ levels of Covid activity: CDC​

 

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Tuesday's Pandemic Update: It Is Crazy How Many Have Covid Right Now​

 

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Donald Trump On Covid Origin & 'Wuhan Labs' | Donald Trump Blames Xi In Musk Interview​

 

[Yommie]

Healthcare professionals see more COVID-19 patients, but also more immunity​

 

[Yommie]

JAG High School goes to remote classes due to COVID outbreak​

 

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The latest studies on COVID, screen time and alcohol​

 

[Yommie]

Wednesday's Pandemic Update: Back To School Covid Outbreaks Have Begun​

 

[Yommie]

https://www.usnews.com/news/u-s-news-decision-points/articles/2024-08-14/has-covid-19-finally-escaped-political-gravity

Has COVID-19 Finally Escaped Political Gravity?​

Despite a summer surge, the disease that's killed more than 1 million people in the U.S. alone has mutated into a muted point on the campaign trail.


By Olivier Knox
|
Aug. 14, 2024, at 4:41 p.m.
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Has COVID-19 Escaped Political Gravity?
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Braulio Jatar|SOPA Images|LightRocket|Getty Images

A discarded face mask in the sand on Coney Island beach, in New York City.
There’s a rule on the internet that the answer to a headline that ends in a question mark is always “no.” We’re not breaking that rule today, but we’re bending it: The answer here is: “no, but.”
The United States is in the grips of a COVID-19 summer surge. It’s not as bad as past winter surges, and it’s nothing like the crisis four years ago, when a vaccine had not yet rolled out and the weekly pandemic death toll in America ran in the thousands.
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But the surge doesn’t seem to be factoring into any national political rhetoric. That’s obviously partly due to the much lower mortality: The disease was the third-leading cause of death in the United States in 2020 and 2021, fell to fourth in 2022, and in 2023 has slipped to 10th.
Another reason? President Joe Biden’s White House and former President Donald Trump both seem content to take a victory lap … in inevitably different ways.
“I never got the credit that we really deserved on what we did with COVID,” Trump said Monday night in a conversation with Elon Musk, streamed on Musk’s X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. “Many more people died during [Biden’s] administration of COVID than during my administration.” (This isn’t inaccurate, based on federal tallies of deaths among U.S. residents, though it’s fair to note Biden has been in office for a longer COVID-era period than Trump.)


White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre offered her version Monday.
“When [Biden] stepped in as president, this country was paralyzed because the economy was falling and because of COVID,” she said. “We are in a different place with this pandemic. It is behind us. And that’s because of this president and what he was able to do.”

COVID-19 and 2024​

That doesn’t mean the presidential campaigns aren’t trying to score points related to COVID-19. They are.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic pick for vice president, regularly alludes to Trump’s record on the pandemic in his stump speech.
“He froze in the face of COVID, and our neighbors died because of it,” Walz said in Las Vegas on Aug. 10, in one typical example. “By not addressing COVID, he drove our economy into the ground.”
Decision Points isn’t taking a partisan position when we say that whatever else Trump did, he facilitated the development of COVID-19 vaccines at unprecedented speed. (Disclosure: The scientist who led that operation, Moncef Slaoui, is a friend.)

• It’s politically tricky for Trump in that his base doesn’t think highly of the vaccine – and some even booed him in late 2021 when he said he’d received a booster. Biden also had to figure out a plan to overcome Republican wariness about getting vaccinated.

On the Republican side, the Trump campaign sent an email last week that highlighted Walz’s record on COVID-19, including the establishment of a hotline where people could report others for not abiding by social distancing guidelines, along with additional efforts to mitigate the spread of the virus. Another potential line of attack: school closures, which harmed student learning.
https://www.usnews.com/news/healthiest-communities/slideshows/top-10-causes-of-death-in-america
We’re Not ‘Post-Pandemic’
You get a lot of, um, “interesting” emails and social media feedback if you use the term “post-pandemic.” Or so I hear.
But let’s be clear:

• For many immunocompromised people, there is no true “post-pandemic” reality.
• Ditto for those suffering from long COVID – marked by lasting symptoms, sometimes debilitating and sometimes for years, after an initial COVID infection.

That’s even without taking into account the surge. Or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention characterizing COVID-19 as endemic, meaning it’s going to be around indefinitely.

A Link to Terrorism (No, Really, Hear Me Out)​

In some ways, as I predicted in 2021, the pandemic looks a bit like terrorism. After 9/11, fears of terrorism were rampant and politicians constantly invoked extremist violence. Today, there is obviously still terrorism, but it generally affects specific groups – there’s no final “victory” over it, there never was going to be, but it doesn’t fuel widespread fears.

In August 2024, COVID-19 is obviously very much still with us. But it, too, severely affects a far narrower proportion of the population than it did in 2020.
That’s not to play down either phenomenon.
It’s just to say that the pandemic is still with us. But pandemic politics have understandably changed.

 

[Yommie]

COVID cases surge nationwide | Here's when health experts say to get vaccinated​

 

[Yommie]

Get COVID booster before updated boosters arrive, Oregon health experts say​