Many young COVID-19 survivors can get reinfection, study warns https://knowridge.com/2021/02/many-young-covid-19-survivors-can-get-reinfection-study-warns/ In a new study, researchers found that being infected with the virus that causes COVID-19 is not a foolproof shield against reinfection. They tracked nearly 3,250 young U.S. Marine recruits between May and October. Among them, 189 had previously tested positive for the SAR-CoV-2 virus. During the six-week study itself, 10% of those who had tested positive got reinfected. The research was conducted by a team at Mount Sinai in New York City and elsewhere. In the study, all the Marines were beginning basic training and were initially held in Navy quarantine for two weeks, after two weeks of at-home quarantine. Once the training began, recruits were tested for COVID-19 every two weeks over a six-week period. The team found 19 of the 189 recruits who already had COVID tested positive for a second infection during the study. Moreover, the first- and second- infections involved the same strain of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and none involved the new, more transmissible U.K., South African or Brazilian strains. In addition, two-thirds of the 19 Marines who were reinfected didn’t have measurable neutralizing antibodies. The team also found among 2,247 recruits who had not previously had COVID, 1,079 (48%) became infected during the study. All those who tested positive had “mild” symptoms. None were hospitalized. But symptom risk and length of infection were the same, regardless of prior COVID history. The team says having antibodies after infection does protect people against reinfection. The bad news is even if you’ve had COVID, there remains a risk you’ll get it again. One author of the study is Dr. Stuart Sealfon, a professor of neurology at Icahn School of Medicine. The study is published in the preprint server medRXiv.
CDC study: Mask mandates reduce COVID-19 hospitalizations https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/537545-cdc-mask-mandates-reduce-covid-19-hospitalizations States and counties that implemented mask mandates saw a substantial decline in the number of people admitted to the hospital to treat COVID-19 symptoms in the weeks after the mandates took effect, according to a new study published Friday. The study, published in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, found hospitalization growth rates begin to drop slightly in the first three weeks after implementation. More than three weeks after a mask mandate took effect, hospitalization rates declined by almost 5 percent. The study “demonstrates that statewide mask mandates were associated with a reduction in Covid-19-associated hospitalization growth rates,” the researchers wrote. The study monitored hospitalization rates in 10 states — California, Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Ohio and Oregon — that implemented mask mandates between mid-April and mid-July. Thirty-one states and the District of Columbia have implemented mask mandates. Hospitalization rates dropped most significantly among those between the ages of 18 and 64. Hospitalization rates declined the least among those over 65, who are most susceptible to the worst outcomes of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. Drops in hospitalization rates are likely an indicator of fewer infections in the population as a whole. Only a small percentage of coronavirus infections lead to symptoms severe enough to require hospitalization. “At the individual level, the prevention benefit of using a mask increases as more persons use masks consistently and correctly,” the study says. The CDC researchers speculated that the decline may have been lowest among older people in part because those over the age of 65 are the most likely to have been wearing masks already, so a mandate would have had the least impact on them. Studies conducted as early as May — before many states implemented mask mandates — found about 70 percent of those over the age of 65 were already using face coverings, compared to fewer than half of those under the age of 25. A separate report published Friday showed the number of young people using face masks has increased dramatically. The report found that more than 90 percent of people at six universities across the country, observed between September and November, were wearing face masks correctly.
Why the U.S. Is Underestimating Covid Reinfection https://khn.org/news/article/why-the-u-s-is-underestimating-covid-reinfection/ Kaitlyn Romoser first caught covid-19 in March, likely on a trip to Denmark and Sweden, just as the scope of the pandemic was becoming clear. Romoser, who is 23 and a laboratory researcher in College Station, Texas, tested positive and had a few days of mild, coldlike symptoms. In the weeks that followed, she bounced back to what felt like a full recovery. She even got another test, which was negative, in order to join a study as one of the earliest donors of convalescent blood plasma in a bid to help others. Six months later, in September, Romoser got sick again, after a trip to Florida with her dad. This second bout was much worse. She lost her sense of taste and smell and suffered lingering headaches and fatigue. She tested positive for covid once more — along with her cat. Romoser believes it was a clear case of reinfection, rather than some mysterious reemergence of the original infection gone dormant. Because the coronavirus, like other viruses, regularly mutates as it multiplies and spreads through a community, a new infection would bear a different genetic fingerprint. But because neither lab had saved her testing samples for genetic sequencing, there was no way to confirm her suspicion. “It would be nice to have proof,” said Romoser. “I’ve literally been straight up called a liar, because people don’t want to believe that it’s possible to be reinfected. Why would I lie about being sick?” As millions of Americans struggle to recover from covid and millions more scramble for the protection offered by vaccines, U.S. health officials may be overlooking an unsettling subgroup of survivors: those who get infected more than once. Identifying how common reinfection is among people who contracted covid — as well as how quickly they become vulnerable and why — carries important implications for our understanding of immunity and the nation’s efforts to devise an effective vaccination program. Scientists have confirmed that reinfections after initial illness caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus are possible, but so far have characterized them as rare. Fewer than 50 cases have been substantiated worldwide, according to a global reinfection tracker. Just five have been substantiated in the U.S., including two detected in California in late January. That sounds like a rather insignificant number. But scientists’ understanding of reinfection has been constrained by the limited number of U.S. labs that retain covid testing samples or perform genetic sequencing. A KHN review of surveillance efforts finds that many U.S. states aren’t rigorously tracking or investigating suspected cases of reinfection. KHN sent queries about reinfection surveillance to all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Of 24 responses, fewer than half provided details about suspected or confirmed reinfection cases. Where officials said they’re actively monitoring for reinfection, they have found far more potential cases than previously anticipated. In Washington state, for instance, health officials are investigating nearly 700 cases that meet the criteria for possible reinfection, with three dozen awaiting genetic sequencing and just one case confirmed. In Colorado, officials estimate that possible reinfections make up just 0.1% of positive coronavirus cases. But with more than 396,000 cases reported, that means nearly 400 people may have been infected more than once. In Minnesota, officials have investigated more than 150 cases of suspected reinfection, but they lack the genetic material to confirm a diagnosis, a spokesperson said. In Nevada, where the first U.S. case of covid reinfection was identified last summer, Mark Pandori, director of the state public health lab, said there’s no doubt cases are going undetected. “I predict that we are missing cases of reinfection,” he said. “They are very difficult to ascertain, so you need specialized teams to do that work, or a core lab.” Such cases are different from instances of so-called long-haul covid, in which the original infection triggers debilitating symptoms that linger for months and viral particles can continue to be detected. Reinfection occurs when a person is infected with covid, clears that strain and is infected again with a different strain, raising concerns about sustained immunity from the disease. Such reinfections occur regularly with four other coronaviruses that circulate among humans, causing common colds. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines call for investigating for possible reinfection when someone tests positive for covid at least 90 days after an original infection (or at least 45 days for “highly suspicious” cases). Confirmation of reinfection requires genetic sequencing of paired samples from each episode to tell whether the genomes involved are different. But the U.S. lacks the capacity for robust genetic sequencing, the process that identifies the fingerprint of a specific virus so it can be compared with other strains. Jeff Zients, head of the federal covid task force, noted late last month that the U.S. ranks 43rd in the world in genomic sequencing. To date, only a fraction of positive coronavirus samples has been sequenced, though the Biden administration is working to rapidly expand the effort. On Feb. 1, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told reporters that sequencing has “increased tenfold” in recent weeks, from 251 sequences the week of Jan. 10 to 2,238 the week of Jan. 24. The agency is working with private companies, states and academic labs to ramp up to 6,000 sequences per week by mid-February. Washington’s state epidemiologist for communicable diseases, Dr. Scott Lindquist, said officials have prioritized genetic sequencing at the state laboratory, with plans to begin genotyping 5% of all samples collected. That will allow officials to sort through those nearly 700 potential reinfections, Lindquist said. More important, the effort will also help signal the presence of significantly mutated forms of the coronavirus, known as variants, that could affect how easily the virus spreads and, perhaps, how sick covid makes people. “Those two areas, reinfection and variants, may cross paths,” he said. “We wanted to be in front of it, not behind it.” The specter of reinfections complicates one of the central questions of the covid threat: How long after natural infection or vaccination will people remain immune? Early studies suggested immunity would be short-lived, only a few months, while more recent research finds that certain antibodies and memory cells may persist in covid-infected patients longer than eight months. “We actually don’t know” the marker that would signal immunity, said Dr. Jason Goldman, an infectious diseases expert at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle. “We don’t have the test you could perform to say yes or no, you could be infected.” Goldman and colleagues confirmed a case of reinfection in a Seattle man last fall, and since then have identified six or seven probable cases. “This is a much more common scenario than is being recognized,” he said. The possibility of reinfection means that even patients who’ve had covid need to remain vigilant about curbing re-exposure, said Dr. Edgar Sanchez, an infectious diseases physician at Orlando Health in Florida. “A lot of patients ask, ‘How long do I have to worry about getting covid again?’” he said. “I literally tell them this: ‘You are probably safe for a few weeks, maybe even up to a couple of months, but beyond that, it’s really unclear.’” The message is similar for the wider society, said Dr. Bill Messer, an expert in viral genetics at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, who has been pondering the cultural psychology of the covid response. Evidence suggests there may not be a clear-cut return to normal. “The idea that we will end this pandemic by beating this coronavirus, I don’t think that’s actually the way it’s going to happen,” he said. “I think that it’s more likely that we’re going to learn how to be comfortable living with this new virus circulating among us.”
No. But, people are saying there is advanced work at the Huwan lab, pushing virus technology forward in combination with Dominion space laser research.
https://www.newsweek.com/controvers...may-have-started-coronavirus-pandemic-1500503 What's more, Wuhan Institute of Virology scientists have for the past five years been engaged in so-called "gain of function" (GOF) research, which is designed to enhance certain properties of viruses for the purpose of anticipating future pandemics. Gain-of-function techniques have been used to turn viruses into human pathogens capable of causing a global pandemic.
42% of Republicans are actively trying to kill their neighbors.... 42 percent of Republicans say they have already returned to normal levels of in-person gatherings, according to a new poll https://www.businessinsider.com/42-...normal-in-person-gatherings-axios-poll-2021-2