Covid-19 News and Discussions

[Yommie]

Mutant variant dominating Kiwi Covid infections

JN.1 variant responsible for nine in 10 infections picked up in wastewater sampling.

www.nzherald.co.nz

Highly mutated JN.1 variant behind 93 per cent of recent Covid-19 infections in NZ​

By

Jamie Morton​

11 Feb, 2024 06:08 PM3 mins to read
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ESR’s latest surveillance showed the JN.1 variant accounted for 93 per cent of coronavirus detected through wastewater sampling, along with three-quarters of sequenced samples from hospitals.

A highly mutated Omicron variant has been responsible for more than nine in 10 New Zealand coronavirus infections – making it easily the most dominant strain in more than a year.

ESR’s latest surveillance showed the JN.1 variant accounted for 93 per cent of coronavirus detected through wastewater sampling, along with three-quarters of sequenced samples from hospitals.


Covid-19 modeller Professor Michael Plank said a single variant hadn’t caused such an impact since the Omicron off-shoot BA.5 caused a mid-winter wave in mid-2022.

First picked up here in October, JN.1 was making up about one in 10 cases by the start of December and at least half by the end of that month, before becoming the driving sub-variant in New Zealand’s summer surge.

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Its rise marked a dramatic shift from local Covid-19 patterns over the last year and a half, in which cases have been caused by a “soup” of Omicron sub-variants circulating together.

“We always knew this was a possibility, but we didn’t know for sure whether it was going to happen or not,” Plank said of JN.1′s dominance.

The sub-variant emerged from a similarly-mutated Omicron strain, BA.2.86 - of which JN.1 was separated by just a single mutation in the spike protein the virus used to enter our cells.

A descendant of JN.1 - JN.1.4 - has since been detected in New Zealand and overseas, but was thought to have only an incremental advantage over its parent.

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“Although this is the first time in 18 months that we’ve had a variant sweep through, it hasn’t had anything like the health impact that BA.5 did,” Plank said.

“It’s clearly got a growth advantage and some degree of immune advantage, but it’s not causing the same level of severe illness that we saw in the past.”

The difference partly owed to more people having been exposed to the virus since 2022, he said.


Otago University evolutionary virologist Dr Jemma Geoghegan said JN.1 was similarly dominant elsewhere in the world, indicating Covid-19 hadn’t settled into a seasonal pattern like other respiratory diseases.

“This shows that we’re still in these pandemic waves, driven by the evolution of the virus.”

While surveillance showed Covid-19 infection rates remained elevated across New Zealand, there were indications the country was past the peak of the wave, with hospitalisations and wastewater detections trending downward nationally.

Te Whatu Ora’s latest update showed 245 Covid-19 cases in hospital at midnight Sunday - around half the number reported in mid-January.

Just as JN.1 helped add momentum to the surge, Plank said it was also possible it could shorten its tail – meaning the wave’s decline might not prove as gradual as its build-up.

The latest Omicron-targeted booster wasn’t yet available in New Zealand, despite being in use elsewhere – but experts say the current shot remained effective in preventing severe disease.

Jamie Morton is a specialist in science and environmental reporting. He joined the Herald in 2011 and writes about everything from conservation and climate change to natural hazards and new technology.

 

[Yommie]

Covid-19 update: 5878 new cases, 15 deaths

Covid-19 cases have risen since last week as New Zealand comes out of the fifth wave of the virus.

www.rnz.co.nz

Covid-19 update: 5878 new cases, 15 deaths​

2:51 pm on 12 February 2024
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Photo: 123rf.com / Composite Image - RNZ
Covid-19 cases have risen since last week as New Zealand comes out of the fifth wave of the virus.
There have been 5878 new cases of Covid-19 reported in New Zealand over the week to Sunday, and 15 further deaths attributed to the virus.
Of the new cases, 1360 were probable cases and 3807 were reinfections.
There were 245 cases in hospital. Latest intensive care figures were not listed on the ministry's website.
The seven-day rolling average of new cases was 838 per day.
A Flourish data visualization
Last week, Te Whatu Ora reported 5555 new cases and 20 deaths.
Last week, a new study published in Vaccine reported that vaccines against Covid-19 saved an estimated 4000-12,000 lives in New Zealand during the Omicron phase of the pandemic.
The authors said New Zealand's elimination strategy meant most people were able to be vaccinated before being exposed to the virus, and there were fewer hospitalisations.
Aotearoa had one of the lowest Covid-19 mortality rates in the world.

 

[Yommie]

This midwife is double COVID-vaxxed – but she’s still banned from returning to work

Strict vaccination rules require hospital workers to have at least one booster shot, but easing the lingering mandate would bring Victoria in line with other states, and has been backed by vaccine experts.

www.theage.com.au

 

[Yommie]

Exclusive: Reform UK commits to COVID vaccine INQUIRY, after Sunak confronted by furious voter​

 

[Yommie]

The latest long COVID news, rising flu cases and funding for gun violence prevention research​

 

[Yommie]

COVID pandemic highlighted battle between politics and public health​

 

[Yommie]

CDC to release new COVID-19 isolation guidelines​

 

[Yommie]

interesting take from Tucker Carlson

10,492 views 13 Feb 2024
Tucker Carlson 2/13/24:Could foreign DNA enter your cells through the mRNA COVID vax and change your DNA — and humanity itself — forever? Sounds nutty. It's not. "Absolutely that could happen," says Dr. Joseph Ladapo, the surgeon general of Florida. A shocking conversation.

Tucker Carlson 2/13/24 | Tucker Carlson February 13, 2024​

 

[Yommie]

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UPDATED Friday, February 9, 2024 @11 AM
COVID-19 data for all of Québec:
*1,249 hospitalizations

Week of Jan 21, 2024: 41 weekly deaths
Week of Jan 28, 2024: 42 weekly deaths
Week of Jan 21, 2024: positivity rate 9.8%
Week of Jan 28, 2024: positivity rate 8.5%

Source for hospitalizations UPDATED daily at 11:00 AM: https://www.donneesquebec.ca/.../2d8bd4f8-4715-4f33-8cb4...
Source for positivity rates and weekly deaths UPDATED weekly on Wednesdays at 11:00 AM https://www.inspq.qc.ca/covid-19/donnees
*Since Dec 6, 2023, a new methodology to compile the hospitalizations associated with COVID-19 has been deployed. It is not possible to follow the hospitalizations in the ICU.

 

[Yommie]

Ontario's COVID-19 wastewater data shows infection rate headed in 'the right direction'

A snapshot of Ontario’s COVID-19 wastewater data shows the rate of infection in the province is dropping after a holiday spike. According to Ontario Public Health’s last update on Feb. 8, the province’s so-called wastewater signal stands at about 0.7 at the end of January. In late December...

www.cp24.com

Ontario's COVID-19 wastewater data shows infection rate headed in 'the right direction'​

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


Phil Tsekouras, CTVNewsToronto.ca Journalist
Published Monday, February 12, 2024 2:21PM EST
Last Updated Monday, February 12, 2024 3:03PM EST

A snapshot of Ontario’s COVID-19 wastewater data shows the rate of infection in the province is dropping after a holiday spike.
According to Ontario Public Health’s last update, the province’s so-called wastewater signal was 0.71 as of Feb. 2 -- the lowest level since Sept. 14. In the second half of December, during what some public health experts described as a wave of infection, the marker reached 2.29.
“We had a spike in wastewater detection of COVID, throughout December, and in January, and then it started to decline after the holiday season and certainly continues to head in the right direction,” University Health Network Infectious Disease Specialist Dr. Isaac Bogoch told CTV News Toronto on Monday.

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The presence of COVID-19 in wastewater appears to be shrinking in every region surveyed by Ontario Public Health, with the exception of northwest Ontario where the signal is actually trending upward to 1.28.
While promising, wastewater data only shows a part of the province’s COVID-19 picture, Bogoch warns.
“If the question is: how are we doing with COVID? The answer is: you've got to look at multiple metrics, right? Because no one metric is perfect, including wastewater,” he explained, adding that factors like hospitalizations, test positivity and number of tests completed help to add context.
Although Ontario no longer tests for or reports on COVID-19 infections as it did during 2020 and 2021, the publicly available data shows other key indicators are trending down as well.

As of Feb. 3, there were 81 people in hospital with the virus compared to 396 hospitalization at the beginning of December. Meanwhile, test positivity is dropping from a recent high of 43.1 per cent in late November to 21.5 per cent in the last week of January.
Even though the data is “far from perfect,” Bogoch says piecing it all together does help show how prevalent COVID-19 is in the province, especially at a time when testing and reporting is not nearly as widespread as it once was.
“But when you put all the pieces together, even though the imperfect bits of data, it paints a picture, and that picture is COVID is still here. COVID is still a problem. But we're seeing much less COVID circulating now than what we were during the holiday season,” he said.

 

[Yommie]

https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/12/health/long-covid-pregnancy-children/index.html

Millions of people have long Covid, including children and pregnant people, studies show​

By Jen Christensen, CNN
5 minute read
Updated 6:18 PM EST, Mon February 12, 2024

CNN —
Millions of people deal with Covid-19 symptoms long after their initial infections. Two new studies – one looking at pregnant people and the other on children – give a better look at the burden from this health problem that doctors say often goes under the radar.
The first study says that 1 in 10 people who had Covid when they were pregnant will develop long-term symptoms. The results were shared Monday at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine’s annual meeting in National Harbor, Maryland.


The researchers used data from the National Institutes of Health’s Recover Initiative, a project created to determine the long-term effects of Covid in adults and children. Of the 1,503 people who were pregnant in the dataset, 9.3% reported having symptoms six months or more after they were infected. The most common symptom was a feeling of being tired after light physical or mental activity. Some also reported dizziness.

The percentage of pregnant people with long Covid is on the low side compared with the proportion of the general US population, some research says. Estimates of adults who develop long Covid range from 2.5% to 25%, although different studies have different definitions of how “long” Covid is defined. This study doesn’t get at why the numbers may be different, but co-author Dr. Torri Metz, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology and vice chair of research of obstetrics and gynecology at University of Utah Health, has a few ideas.
“That could be because they have less baseline medical complications, overall. They are younger. It could also be that they have a different immune response,” Metz said.
A pregnant person’s immune system is generally more tolerant of “things that shouldn’t be there,” she said, so the mother’s body can host and nurture a fetus with different genetics.


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Often, people who are pregnant tend to get sicker when exposed to a virus because their immune system doesn’t have the some robust response it typically would. This could mean the pregnant body develops less inflammation, the immune system’s natural response to an infection. Other studies have linked prolonged inflammation after Covid to impacts to the brain and to damage to the lungs and kidneys.
“So maybe they don’t have as much of the surrounding organ damage and the downstream complex consequences,” Metz said.
Pregnant people who developed long Covid also shared some common factors. Those who had obesity, who had a diagnosis of chronic anxiety or depression or who required supplemental oxygen when they were sick had a higher risk of long Covid.
It didn’t seem to matter what trimester someone got sick with Covid, and vaccination status wasn’t a statistically significant factor. More than half of those with long Covid had been fully vaccinated. But many studies have found that vaccination lowers the risk of severe disease, which can make long Covid more likely.
Metz said the research did find that socioeconomic factors affected long Covid numbers.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/08/health/aging-discrimation-kff-partner-wellness
“It’s concerning that we had a very high proportion of patients who reported that they were having difficulties paying their bills,” she said. “That raises red flags about what sort of access are people getting to the care that they need.”
The study paints a clearer picture about who might be more likely to get long Covid, says Dr. Amy Edwards, associate medical director of pediatric infection control at UH Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital, who manages the hospital’s long Covid clinic.
“Chronic stress is well known to mess up your immune system. Stress tends to stimulate a particularly maladaptive inflammatory response, and there’s a well-known association with chronic stress,” said Edwards, who was not involved with the new research.
It will be helpful for doctors to know that if someone who had Covid during pregnancy is still fatigued eight weeks after birth, it could be long Covid rather than the usual fatigue that comes with a newborn, she said.
An important next step – and one that is already in progress, researchers say – is to look at the outcomes of the infants of pregnant people who developed long Covid.
The other new research, published last week in the journal Pediatrics, looked at a variety of studies on children and found that up to 6 million have developed long Covid.
Most young people who had long Covid recovered eventually, the studies suggest, but a third had symptoms even a year after their initial infection.
Long Covid symptoms in children included breathing problems like a cough, shortness of breath and chest tightness, along with fatigue.
Edwards said it’s important not to minimize the impact of long Covid on kids just because the symptoms often resolve.
“Imagine, as a teenager, missing two years of formative experience due to long Covid. I don’t even want to think about what the long-term impacts of that are,” she said.

The research also showed that children had a higher risk of some autoimmune conditions like type 1 diabetes after Covid infection, even if the illness had been mild or asymptomatic. One US study the authors reviewed found a 72% increased risk of developing diabetes within six months of an initial infection.
Studies haven’t fully explained what factors kids with long Covid have in common. Those who have housing and food insecurity and who have disrupted access to health care in general have “an exacerbation of illness via decreased immunologic functioning,” the new research said.
Edwards said she and some other doctors who run pediatric long Covid clinics across the country have recently noticed that the full-on rush of patients they saw earlier in the pandemic has been slowing down, “which is fantastic.”
But there are still so many young people with long Covid that fewer patients just means a shorter waiting list, she said: Instead of an eight-month wait to get into her clinic, patients are now waiting about five months.

 

[Yommie]

https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/these-are-the-top-covid-hot-spots-in-the-u-s

The Top COVID-19 Hot Spots in the U.S.​

These are the counties with the highest recent rates of new COVID-19 hospital admissions per capita.

By Christopher Wolf and Julia Haines
|
Feb. 12, 2024, at 1:02 p.m.
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Top COVID Hot Spots in the U.S.
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BRANDON BELL|GETTY IMAGES
Medical assistants administer COVID-19 sampling tests to laboratory technicians at Foxconn Assembly on Aug. 13, 2021, in Houston.
COVID-19 hospitalizations in the U.S. have fallen for a fourth straight week, continuing to signal the country is past a winter peak.
READ:
COVID-19 Hospitalizations Decline

The U.S. tallied approximately 20,800 new hospitalizations of people with COVID-19 over the seven days ending Feb. 3, according to the latest provisional figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s about 2,300 less than the total for the previous week and a decline of 10%. For comparison, the lowest weekly count was around 6,300 during the week ending June 24, according to the CDC.
The continued drop comes after a stretch that saw the U.S. hit nearly 35,000 new hospitalizations during the week ending Jan. 6 – its highest weekly total of new COVID-19 hospitalizations since roughly a year ago. Data for this most recent seasonal peak points to a decline of more than 20% from the previous winter, when hospitalizations climbed to about 44,500.
The country’s recent COVID-19 illnesses have been fueled by the omicron subvariant JN.1, which CDC estimates indicate was tied to more than 90% of cases in recent weeks.



READ:
JN.1 Deepens Hold on the U.S.

Relative to population, data points to 6.26 new COVID-19 hospital admissions per 100,000 people for the week ending Feb. 3 – a rate characterized by the CDC as “low.” All states saw a “low” level of new COVID-19 hospitalizations that same week.

These are the states with the highest rates of new COVID-19 hospital admissions:

1. Florida (8.97)
2. New Jersey (8.59)
3. South Dakota (8.14)
4. New York (7.99)
5. Massachusetts (7.75)

Compared with the week prior, Wyoming had the highest percentage increase among states in its rate of new COVID-19 hospitalizations, at nearly 29%, while neighboring Montana saw the largest decrease at minus 38%.
READ:
Flu Activity Slows Down, but Season Far From Over

Among patients visiting a subset of emergency departments, data indicates about 2% of visits nationally involved a COVID-19 diagnosis – a rate down 11% from the week before. Rates in Alaska (3.4%) and South Carolina (3.0%) were the highest above the national mark.


Among U.S. counties – inclusive of areas like the District of Columbia, Guam and municipios in Puerto Rico – just seven were described by the CDC as having a “high” level of new COVID-19 hospital admissions in the week ending Feb. 3, with rates of 20 per 100,000 or higher. The Kansas counties of Wichita and Greeley were reported to have the highest rate, at 59.7 per 100,000 people – triple the CDC’s “high” threshold baseline. Another 280 counties were said to have a “medium” level of COVID-19 hospital admissions, with rates between 10.0 and 19.9 per 100,000 people. More than 2,900 counties had a “low” level of new admissions.
READ:
7% of Adults Got New COVID-19 Vaccine


Notably, the CDC’s county hospital admission figures are calculated at the Health Service Area level, which can span multiple counties. This means counties within the same HSA will share the same admission rates in the data. Areas also may be listed as having insufficient data.
The counties with the highest rates of new COVID-19 hospital admissions are:

• Greeley County, Kansas (59.7)
• Wichita County, Kansas (59.7)
• Big Stone County, Minnesota (26.8)
• Traverse County, Minnesota (26.8)
• Roberts County, South Dakota (26.8)
• Greene County, Iowa (20.4)
• Guthrie County, Iowa (20.4)

Because hospitalization rates are calculated per 100,000 people, it’s worth noting that even a small number of hospitalizations can lead to a relatively high hospitalization rate for small communities.
Other measures also can give a sense of the current state of COVID-19. For example, participating health departments submit data from sampling and testing of wastewater for the virus to the CDC via the National Wastewater Surveillance System. The CDC considered 16 states to have a “very high” activity level in its most recent summary of wastewater data by state, although for two of those states – Kentucky and South Dakota – the classification was based on one wastewater site alone. Five states did not receive a classification by the CDC, due to a lack of data.
MORE
U.S. Coronavirus Deaths Hit 1 Million

Since the U.S. passed 1 million cumulative deaths tied to COVID-19 in the spring of 2022, more than 176,000 additional people have died in connection with the disease, according to provisional data from the CDC. And while the latest tallies are well below the peak of around 26,000 deaths in a week in early 2021, data indicates more than 1,000 people each week have been dying in connection with COVID-19 as of late.
Mississippi saw 6.4% of its total deaths attributed to COVID-19 during the week ending Feb. 3, according to provisional data, followed by Kentucky (5.8%) and Maryland (4.9%). Nine additional states saw shares higher than the national percentage of 3.1%.
Updated on Feb. 12, 2024: This article has been updated with new data.

 

[Yommie]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/covid-19-new-brunswick-killed-hospitalized-cases-feb-3-respiratory-watch-1.7113520

COVID-19 and flu each kill 2 more in N.B., 4 youths among 34 people hospitalized​

COVID activity remains moderate, flu activity remains stable, Tuesday's Respiratory Watch report says​

Bobbi-Jean MacKinnon · CBC News · Posted: Feb 13, 2024 12:38 PM EST | Last Updated: 4 hours ago

A total of 1,248 New Brunswickers have now been hospitalized for or with COVID-19 since the start of the respiratory season on Aug. 27, and 84 of them were admitted to intensive care. (Shutterstock)

COVID-19 and the flu have each killed two more New Brunswickers and hospitalized a combined total of 34 people, including four youths, updated figures from the province show.
COVID activity remains moderate and flu activity remains stable, according to Tuesday's Respiratory Watch report, which covers Jan. 28 to Feb. 3.
All four people who died were aged 65 or older.
The latest COVID deaths raise the pandemic death toll to at least 1,009. The actual total is unclear because the province has counted only people who die in hospital as COVID deaths since September.
Twenty-two people were hospitalized for or with COVID during the reporting week, down from 36 in the previous report.
Five required intensive care, up from one.
A child under four is among those hospitalized. The others include one person aged 20 to 44, four aged 45 to 64, and 16 aged 65 or older.
The person aged 20 to 44 is the youngest of the five admitted to ICU.

8 outbreaks, 3 at nursing homes​

There were eight lab-confirmed COVID outbreaks, down from 10, including three in nursing homes and five in "other facilities." These raise the total number of outbreaks since the respiratory season began on Aug. 27 to 306.
Eighty-six new cases of COVID have been confirmed through PCR (polymerase chain reaction) lab tests, up from 83.

The Moncton region saw the majority of the 86 COVID-19 and 102 flu cases between Jan. 28 and Feb. 3, with 44 and 33 cases, respectively, the Respiratory Watch report shows. (CBC)
The actual number of cases is likely higher because only people with a referral from a health-care provider, and for whom the result will directly influence their treatment or care, have been able to get a PCR test since April, and the province stopped reporting positive rapid test results in September.
The positivity rate — the percentage of PCR lab tests performed that produced a positive result — remains unchanged again at seven per cent
Nearly 1,600 more New Brunswickers received the updated COVID XBB.1.5 vaccine in the past week, according to figures from the Department of Health. A total of 141,824 shots have now been administered since Oct. 4.

50% jump in confirmed flu cases​

Flu sent 12 people to hospital during the reporting week, none of whom required intensive care — identical numbers to the previous week.
Three youths aged five to 19 are among those admitted to hospital. There are also three people aged 45 to 64, and six aged 65 or older.
Two outbreaks have been confirmed through lab tests. There were no outbreaks reported the previous week.

The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 and flu in New Brunswick by week, between the start of the respiratory season on Aug. 27, 2023, and Feb. 3, 2024, compared to the historical cases. (Government of New Brunswick)
The number of "influenza-like illness" outbreaks at schools climbed to six, from five. No information about the schools affected or the extent of the outbreaks has been released.
School outbreaks are based on 10 per cent absenteeism in a school because of influenza-like illness symptoms, the report says.
New lab-confirmed flu cases jumped to 102 from 68 in a week — a 50 per cent increase.
The positivity rate increased to nine per cent, from seven.
The breakdown of the new cases includes 83 influenza A and 19 influenza B.
The respiratory seasonal total now stands at 2,321 cases.
More than 3,000 flu shots were administered in the past week, figures from the Department of Health show. A total of 215,571 New Brunswickers have been vaccinated against the flu this season.
CBC has requested an interview with Dr. Yves Léger, the province's acting chief medical officer of health.

15 Horizon health-care workers infected​

Horizon Health Network has 15 health-care workers off the job as of Saturday, after they tested positive for COVID-19 with either a PCR or rapid test, according to its weekly COVID-19 report.
That's the same number of infected staff who were absent a week ago.
Horizon has 26 active COVID-19 hospitalizations, two of whom are in intensive care. That's down from 30 hospitalizations and three ICU admissions in the previous report.

• N.B. keeps watch for measles, urges vaccines, as European cases surge

The number of Horizon hospital units with COVID outbreaks has dropped to one, as of Tuesday. The Moncton Hospital has an outbreak on the family practice unit.
Vitalité Health Network is still updating its COVID-19 report only monthly, typically on the last Tuesday of each month.
Its hospital outbreaks page is updated more frequently, but as of Tuesday afternoon, it hasn't been updated since Feb. 7, when the Restigouche Hospital Centre had an outbreak on the forensic psychiatry unit.

 

[Yommie]

CDC expected to end 5-day COVID isolation period​

CDC expected to ease COVID-19 isolation guidance this spring​

CDC may lift Covid-19 isolation guidelines​

CDC could remove 5-day isolation recommendation for COVID: Report​

 

[Yommie]

Will plans to ease COVID-19 isolation period make its way to Utah?​