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rinewstoday.com

Forgotten but not gone. Summer means another COVID wave is here. - Nick Landekic - Rhode Island news

Rhode Island news Forgotten but not gone. Summer means another COVID wave is here. - Nick Landekic
rinewstoday.com rinewstoday.com

Forgotten but not gone. Summer means another COVID wave is here. – Nick Landekic​

June 23, 2024/RINewsToday
by Nick Landekic, contributing writer

Summer is here, and along with it the expected increase in COVID infections. While it’s possible to become infected any time of the year, since the start of the pandemic we have experienced surges in the summer and winter, driven by the cycles of variant evolution and larger number of people gathering to socialize. That means taking some precautions if you want to avoid getting sick.
While we all would love to completely forget about COVID the unfortunate reality is that it’s still very much with us and will be for the foreseeable future. Because of imprudent political pressures and a federal CDC that seems to be asleep at the job much of the monitoring and information on COVID has been discontinued this year.
However, in the past two weeks hospitalizations for COVID have increased 25% and deaths up 17%. COVID wastewater monitoring has been scaled way back in a foolhardy seemingly ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ attitude but is increasing in all parts of the country, with much of the west, and Connecticut, at high levels.
The closest COVID WasteWaterScan site to Rhode Island is now Worcester MA, which has shown high levels of virus for the past month and a half.
The SARS-CoV-2 virus continues to evolve and mutate very quickly. The latest variant is called KP.3 and now accounts for about 1/3 of all infections. It also appears about 1.5 -3 times more contagious than previous variants.
Scientific research continues to uncover a great deal of new and concerning information about the virus, including being potentially linked to causing an increase in certain cancers, and Parkinson’s Disease. Long COVID has been shown to cause many other health problems including decreased I.Q. and cognitive functioning. Tens of millions of people have persistent Long COVID problems months and years after infection.
The risks and consequences of COVID infection are not the same for everyone. Talk with your doctor whether you might want to be a little more careful as we enjoy the summer. In general, some groups are at higher risk of becoming infected, and of worse outcomes from infection.
Some things to keep in mind…
  1. Anyone can get infected but older people are generally at higher risk than the younger. If you are over 50 and especially 60, you may want to take precautions.
For anyone wanting more information there are some great resources available:
  • Dr. Michael Fine, former Rhode Island state medical director, has written a number of informative articles.
  • The People’s CDC is an independent group of public health practitioners, scientists, healthcare workers, and others working to reduce the armful impacts of COVID.
Summer in New England is glorious. It’s even more fun if you stay healthy.
Editor’s Note: One local nursing home is beginning to text families with COVID concerns and experiencing an uptick at their facility.
—————-
Nick Landekic of Bristol is a retired scientist and biotechnology entrepreneur who has spent more than 35 years working in the pharmaceutical industry.
 

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Ottawa Public Health seeking ways to continue wastewater testing​

Researchers, public health officials say data from program needed for preventative care​

nathan-fung-headshot-2024.jpg

Nathan Fung · CBC News · Posted: Jun 21, 2024 4:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: June 21
A man in a facemask holds up a jar and a test tube with murky liquids inside them.

Robert Delatolla holds wastewater samples at his lab at the University of Ottawa on Sept. 14, 2022. (Justin Tang/CBC)

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Ottawa Public Health wants to collaborate with local partners to look for ways to continue wastewater monitoring after the province cuts funding to the program next month.
At its meeting this week, the city's board of health passed a motion directing Medical Officer of Health Dr. Vera Etches to write to provincial and federal partners to find ways to continue the wastewater testing work that's being done at the University of Ottawa.
Earlier this month, Ontario announced that by the end of July, it will scrap the program for sampling wastewater to monitor levels of COVID-19 in the population. The program began in 2020 and is funded through the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks.
But researchers in Ottawa have been using wastewater monitoring to check for other infectious diseases including respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), influenza, MPox and measles.
Robert Delatolla, a professor and wastewater researcher at the U of O, said hospitals including CHEO use the data to prepare for surges in infectious diseases and initiate preventative measures.
Delatolla said once the program is transferred to the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), data will only be reported monthly. He said that won't allow hospitals to plan accordingly.
"The frequency of testing seems below a threshold of appropriate quality of data, and the reporting frequency ... seems too long for people like CHEO, for the hospitals, for Ottawa Public Health to really find use in that data," he said.
After this story was published, a PHAC spokesperson emailed CBC to say it hasn't yet confirmed how often data will be reported until it confirms its test sites. They also said samples are currently taken twice a week on average.
PHAC first told CBC that in Ontario, the agency currently performs testing at four wastewater treatment plants in Toronto as part of the federal monitoring program.
The current expansion plans in Ontario aim to establish federal testing in four additional cities. PHAC said it's working with other stakeholders to determine testing locations and implement testing ahead of the next influenza season.

Hospitals rely on data for planning​

Mari Teitelbaum, a vice-president with CHEO, said the Ottawa children's hospital can use the data from wastewater monitoring to better help manage its resources.
"We were upping staffing in the emergency departments, how many isolation beds we needed, things like that. So this data has been incredibly important, and three to five days' lead time can make a big difference," she said.
Etches said the cost of wastewater monitoring can range from $370,000 to maintain the sampling seven days a week and report five days a week, to about $230,000 to sample and report three days a week.
"I think we need to look at all options to maintain this valuable tool if the Public Health Agency of Canada's approach isn't going to meet our needs," she said.
Dr. Vera Etches speaks into a microphone.

Dr. Vera Etches, Ottawa's medical officer of health, provides an update on the first confirmed case of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) in Ottawa on March 11, 2020. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)
In an email to CBC, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks said the federal government is expanding its wastewater program in Ontario. To avoid duplication, the province said it's working to support that expansion while winding down its own wastewater surveillance initiative.
"We will work with the federal government to propose sampling sites that provide quality data for public health across the province," the statement said.
Wastewater researchers in other cities, including at the University of Waterloo, have also voiced their concerns about the provincial program coming to an end.
Delatolla said he's hoping PHAC will step in and continue funding the work that's being done at his lab at the U of O.
"If the Public Health Agency of Canada is willing to invest money, then I think the appropriate route is exactly what they're advocating for, which is to invest the money to continue what's already happening here, as opposed to translating that into their system," he said.
 
www.politicstoday.news

COVID-19 no longer novel coronavirus in Ontario - Politics Today

Ontario is downgrading COVID-19 to a “disease of public health significance,” limiting the kind of data that needs to be reported.
www.politicstoday.news

COVID-19 no longer novel coronavirus in Ontario​

By Katherine DeClerq June 20, 2024

Photo of a negative COVID-19 rapid test.

Under new provincial regulations medical officers of health in Ontario are no longer required to report certain types of COVID-19 data to the Ministry of Health or Public Health Ontario. (Photo: Dennis Sylvester Hurd)

The Ontario government is downgrading COVID-19 from a novel coronavirus to a “disease of public health significance,” limiting the kind of data that needs to be reported to, and by, medical officers of health.
The change is being proposed through a regulation, which was publicly open for comment for a week earlier this month.
Under the new designation, medical officers of health will not need to pass on COVID-19 data unrelated to deaths and outbreaks to the Ministry of Health or Public Health Ontario.
Individuals who perform point of care testing will also no longer need to report every positive result to the medical officer of health.
The ministry said the change brings data collection for COVID-19 into alignment with the other 24 diseases public health units track. Data will still be funneled to Public Health Ontario (PHO) directly from labs, which according to PHO have been enhanced to include public health unit and age breakdowns “for a larger proportion of the tests.”
“When COVID-19 first emerged, the need for detailed information was necessary, as the disease was novel, and little was known about the potential impact to public health,” Health Minister Sylvia Jones’ spokesperson Hannah Jensen told Queen’s Park Today.
“COVID-19 will continue to be monitored using existing administrative data streams (e.g., percent positivity, hospital reported daily bed census, ICU data, COVID-19 outbreak data),” Jensen said in a statement.
According to a disclaimer on the PHO website, this means public reporting of case counts and rates “will pause,” although other “longer term integrative data solutions for COVID-19” will be explored.
Public health experts say the regulation will reduce administrative burdens on employees. Toronto Public Health, for example, said it will create “operational efficiencies” that will allow staff to focus its resources on outbreak management.
However, Dr. Andrew Pinto, associate professor at the University of Toronto and director of Upstream Lab — a not-for-profit research lab focused on social determinants of health — told Queen’s Park Today he has concerns about the changes occurring in conjunction with the cutting of funding for the COVID-19 wastewater surveillance program.
“It’s that balance of, while we’re reducing data in one area, do we have it in another source? And I would say that wastewater surveillance was both fairly cheap for the amount of information we got and also provided us a system that could be quickly scaled up in a new pandemic,” he said.
Pinto agreed that COVID-19 is no longer “novel” but that it will never be eradicated.
“My bigger worry is more the future,” he said, noting there are strains of other illnesses gaining speed that may require more intensive data collection.
NDP Health critic France Gélinas has similar concerns, noting that variants of COVID-19 are still making people “really sick.”
“They are telling us it’s not important anymore,” Gélinas said. “To bury your head in the sand, by not collecting information that should be collected, is against the basic nature of public health.”
 
www.independent.co.uk

UK Covid hospitalisations increase following emergence of new variant

The rise is thought to be due to waning immunity and a new group of Covid variants collectively referred to as FLiRT
www.independent.co.uk www.independent.co.uk

UK Covid hospitalisations increase following emergence of new variant​

The rise is thought to be due to waning immunity and a new group of Covid variants collectively referred to as FLiRT​

Matt Mathers
9 hours ago

Experts have warned that Covid “hasn’t gone away” after an uptick in infections and hospitalisations that is thought to have been caused by new variants of the virus.

A group of Covid mutations has recently emerged and is collectively referred to as FLiRT.
According to the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), Covid hospital admissions increased by 24 per cent in the week to Sunday, with a rate of 3.31 per 100,000 people compared with 2.67 per 100,000 in the previous week.

Professor Lawrence Young, a virologist at Warwick University, said the figures should serve as a “wake-up call” to those who think the virus has gone away.
“The virus hasn’t gone away and is certainly not a seasonal infection,” he told the i newspaper. “A combination of new, more infectious virus variants and waning immunity is very likely contributing to these increased levels of infection. The hope is that this will not result in a big wave of infection, but we need to keep a close watch.”

Experts have warned that Covid ‘hasn’t gone away’ after an uptick in infections

Experts have warned that Covid ‘hasn’t gone away’ after an uptick in infections (PA)

Separate figures from the UKHSA show that 2,053 cases of Covid were recorded in the week to 12 June. This was an increase of 148 cases, or 7 per cent, on the previous seven-day period.
Hospitalisations were highest in those aged 85 years and over. Covid ICU admissions were “very low” but increased slightly to 0.12 per 100,000.
The agency said the term FLiRT was inspired by the names of the mutations in the genetic code of the variants, which descend from JN.1 with variant BA.2.86 as a parent.

According to the UKHSA, three strings of the FLiRT variant called KP.1.1, KP.2 and KP.3 were responsible for 40 per cent of all Covid cases in the UK in April this year.
KP.2 drove a spike in cases over the spring, and KP.3 appears to be fuelling the beginning of a summer surge.

A spokesperson said: “UKHSA continues to monitor data relating to new variants both in the UK and internationally, assessing their severity and the ongoing effectiveness of vaccines. There is no change to the wider public health advice at this time.”
 

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