The official total Covid-19 deaths is now 6 million although the below is much higher (4x higher)...closer to about 24 million Covid deaths. ---------- Vaccination disparity still significant as COVID-19 death toll hits 6 million globally Only 7% in low-income countries fully vaccinated, compared to over 73% in high-income countries The Associated Press · Posted: Mar 07, 2022 9:40 AM ET | Last Updated: March 7 The official global death toll from COVID-19 eclipsed six million on Monday — underscoring that the pandemic, which officially enters its third year at the end of this week, is far from over. The milestone, recorded by Johns Hopkins University, is the latest tragic reminder of the unrelenting nature of the pandemic even as people are shedding masks, travel is resuming and businesses are reopening around the globe. As death rates remain high in Poland, Hungary, Romania and other eastern European countries, the region has seen more than 1.5 million refugees arrive from war-torn Ukraine, a country with poor vaccination coverage and high rates of cases and deaths. Meanwhile, despite its wealth and vaccine availability, the United States will hit one million reported deaths sometime this spring. Both the U.S. and Canada are removing many COVID-19 restrictions as the Omicron coronavirus variant wave subsides. Canada, set to surpass 37,000 coronavirus deaths on Monday, had 5,136 people in hospitals with COVID-19 at the end of February, less than half the total of the hospitalization peak of the Omicron wave, which occurred on Jan. 22. Real total could be much higher Globally, the six millionth death likely occurred some time ago. Poor record-keeping and testing in many parts of the world has led to an undercount in coronavirus deaths, in addition to excess deaths related to the pandemic but not from actual COVID-19 infections, like people who died from preventable causes but could not receive treatment because hospitals were full. Edouard Mathieu, head of data for the Our World in Data portal, said that, when countries' excess mortality figures are studied, as many as nearly four times the reported death toll have likely died because of the pandemic. An analysis of excess deaths by a team at The Economist estimates that the number of COVID-19 deaths is between 14.1 million and 23.8 million. "Confirmed deaths represent a fraction of the true number of deaths due to COVID, mostly because of limited testing, and challenges in the attribution of the cause of death," Mathieu told The Associated Press. "In some, mostly rich, countries that fraction is high and the official tally can be considered to be fairly accurate, but in others it is highly underestimated." Mexico has reported 300,000 deaths, but with little testing, a government analysis of death certificates puts the real number closer to 500,000. In India, where the world was shocked by images of open-air pyres of bodies burned as crematoria were overwhelmed, the scars are fading as the number of new cases and deaths has slowed. India has recorded more than 500,000 deaths, but experts believe its true toll is in the millions, primarily from the Delta variant. With about 250,000 reported deaths, the African continent's smaller death toll is thought to stem from underreporting, as well as a generally younger and less-mobile population. "Africa is a big question mark for me, because it has been relatively spared from the worst so far, but it could just be a time bomb," said Tikki Pang, a visiting professor at the National University of Singapore's medical school and co-chair of the Asia Pacific Immunization Coalition, noting its low vaccination rates. The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is still pressing for more vaccines, though it has been a challenge. Some shipments arrive with little warning for countries' health systems and others near the expiration date — forcing doses to be destroyed. In a good sign, at the end of last month Africa surpassed Europe in the number of doses administered daily, but only about 12.5 per cent of its population has received two shots. Global vaccine disparity continues, with only 6.95 per cent of people in low-income countries fully vaccinated, compared to more than 73 per cent in high-income nations, according to Our World in Data. Pacific islands see Omicron wave Death rates worldwide are still highest among people unvaccinated against the virus, said Pang. "This is a disease of the unvaccinated — look what is happening in Hong Kong right now, the health system is being overwhelmed," said Pang, the former director of research policy and co-operation with the World Health Organization. "The large majority of the deaths and the severe cases are in the unvaccinated, vulnerable segment of the population." The world has seen more than 445 million confirmed COVID-19 cases, and new weekly cases have been declining recently in all regions except for the Western Pacific, which includes China, Japan and South Korea, among others. Hong Kong, which is seeing deaths soar, is testing its entire population of 7.5 million three times this month as it clings to mainland China's "zero-COVID" strategy. Remote Pacific islands, whose isolation had protected them for more than two years, are just now grappling with their first outbreaks and deaths. "Given what we know about COVID ... it's likely to hit them for the next year or so at least," said Katie Greenwood, head of the Red Cross Pacific delegation. CBC Explains People say they want COVID-19 to become 'endemic.' But what does that really mean? Tonga reported its first outbreak after the virus arrived with international aid vessels following the Jan. 15 eruption of a massive volcano. The Solomon Islands also saw the first outbreak in January and now has thousands of cases and more than 100 deaths. It took the world seven months to record its first million deaths from the virus after the pandemic began in early 2020. Four months later another million people had died, and one million have died every three months since, until the death toll hit five million at the end of October. https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/covid-pandemic-6-million-deaths-1.6375281 ---------- wrbtrader
Another reason to avoid Covid infection and get vaccinated... Brain changes after COVID-19 Even mild COVID-19 infection can lead to “significant, deleterious” damage to the brain. https://cosmosmagazine.com/health/covid/brain-changes-after-covid-19/ In one of the most extensive COVID-19 brain imaging studies – published today in Nature – researchers from the University of Oxford have observed changes in parts of the brain that control memory and smell, and more significant cognitive decline in people who recovered from a COVID-19 infection. While medical research has made a lot of progress in treating severe acute respiratory infection caused by SARS-CoV-2, with new drugs being approved in the past few months, the research focus has increasingly shifted to the effects of mild-to-moderate COVID-19 in the longer term. Previous studies have demonstrated that brain-related pathologies can result from COVID-19. Some of these pathologies could be a consequence of viral neurotropism – infection of nerve tissue – or virus-induced neuroinflammation. One study showed that in more than 80% of severe cases patients experienced neurological symptoms. Radiological and post mortem tissue analyses have demonstrated the impact of COVID-19 on the brain and the possible presence of the virus in the central nervous system. Most studies have focused on hospitalised patients with severe disease and have been limited to post-infection imaging data. The Oxford research team conducted the first longitudinal imaging study where participants were scanned before and after being infected. This is a unique aspect of the study, says Dr Maithili Sashindranath, a senior research fellow and lead scientist in the Vascular Biology Group, Australian Centre for Blood Diseases, at Monash University. She explains that comparing brain images of the same individuals before and after the infection eliminates the possibility that any findings could be due to pre-existing brain changes. The Oxford team compared brain scans from almost 800 people aged 51 to 81 in the UK taken on average 38 months apart. Participants also underwent cognitive tests. Of all participants, about 400 people did not catch the infection during the study and were used as a control group. A total of 401 participants tested positive for COVID-19 between their two scans. Of these, 15 people required hospitalisation. Those infected showed a 1.3–1.8% reduction in grey matter thickness in the orbitofrontal cortex and parahippocampal gyrus – regions associated with smell and memory of events – compared to an estimated loss of about 0.2% of brain volume per year in middle-aged people. They also displayed tissue damage in regions associated with the olfactory cortex – an area linked to smell – and brain size reduction. On average, the participants who have had COVID-19 also took longer to answer questions in standard cognitive tests. The authors confirmed that the changes were specific to COVID-19 and not due to generic effects of contracting a respiratory illness. To check this, they performed a control analysis on people who developed pneumonia not related to COVID-19. They also excluded the 15 people whose symptoms were bad enough to require hospitalisation, yet the brain changes observed in those with mild infection were still relevant. “This suggests that any episode of SARS-CoV-2 infection, whether resulting in severe disease requiring hospitalisation or not, can cause brain damage,” Sashindranath says. “The results from this article are unfortunately what we expected,” says Professor James St John, head of the Clem Jones Centre for Neurobiology and Stem Cell Research at Griffith University, Queensland. “Numerous pathogens are now known to be able to enter the brain using the olfactory nerve within the nasal cavity, and they can contribute to a range of neurological and neurodegenerative conditions including stroke and Alzheimer’s disease. “It is still not certain whether SARS-CoV-2 can enter the brain, but at a minimum, it certainly can destroy the nerve cells responsible for the sense of smell which may then set off a cascade of events that lead to pathologies further in the brain.” Professor Trichur Vidyasagar, head of the Visual and Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Melbourne, says the loss of grey matter extends across many critical brain regions responsible for several functions, such as decision making, attention, emotions and empathy. What remains little understood is whether the most recent variants, Delta and Omicron, might have a similar effect on the brain and whether these changes are permanent. “We don’t yet know whether the functional effects of the observed anatomical changes will get worse and how much the brain’s capacity for plasticity will help in the recovery,” Vidyasagar says. St John says results from the study may explain the long-COVID brain fog that many people report even after a mild infection. “What we still don’t know are the long-term effects such as whether there will be ongoing deficits that lead to chronic illnesses or neurodegeneration – I hope not, but I suspect there will be.”
Now that Omicron has receded only a small number of U.S. counties are at a high level as defined by the CDC. Only 2% of Americans now live in counties with high Covid-19 levels https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/10/health/covid-community-levels-cdc
Hey... anyone remember Covid-19. Well cases are actually rising rather than falling in the U.K., parts of Europe and the U.S. Now that nearly everywhere has stopped Covid restrictions... what did people think the expected results would be. Especially with the very infectious Omicron BA.2 variant quickly spreading. What rising Covid-19 infections in the UK and Europe could mean for the US https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/15/health/covid-rising-uk-us/index.html U.S. Sewer Data Warns of a New Bump in Covid Cases After Lull Data from wastewater can spot a rise in infections before it shows up through positive tests https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...oing-back-up-sewer-data-has-potential-warning
GOP loves the DeSantisLand approach -- there is no Covid if we refuse to fund the collection and reporting of Covid data. *** See, it magically disappeared. No more, Covid. *** The CDC could lose access to key data to track COVID-19 https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-19-pandemic-cdc-could-lose-data-access/ The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention could lose access to key metrics to track COVID-19, the agency warned Monday, a casualty of the looming end to a wide swath of emergency powers the federal government has wielded to respond to the years-long pandemic. "Data related to COVID-19 test results and hospitalizations are currently available because of the public health emergency declaration. When that declaration lapses, so does CDC's access to this important information," the CDC said in a statement to CBS News. "We are the compiler of the data, but we do not have the authority to collect it. And so we rely on states being willing to share it with us and the data use authorization, data use agreements, in order to do so," CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told CBS News chief medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook in an interview for "60 Minutes." CDC's current guidance for COVID-19 relies largely on data on cases and hospitalizations from around the country, which it analyzes to come up with county-by-county "COVID-19 Community Levels." Federal data from hospitals has also allowed the Biden administration to track the strain on the health care system, as well as warning signs around the danger posed by the virus. "The nation can no longer continue with the current, fractured approach of collecting public health data to be better prepared for future pandemics," said the CDC statement. Under the public health emergency first declared by the Trump administration in 2020, the federal government is able to access an array of funds and authorities to curb outbreaks. The declaration, which must be renewed every 90 days, was last extended in mid-January. That includes power Congress gave the federal government in the CARES Act to compel laboratories to report COVID-19 test results "until the end of the Secretary's Public Health Emergency declaration with respect to COVID-19 or any extension of such declaration." The CDC has touted efforts to modernize its data systems, pouring money and manpower into updating its programs to gather and analyze data on the disease nationwide. However, the American pandemic response has also been faulted for an at times laggard pace at tracking and analyzing the spread of the virus compared to its counterparts abroad. For example, the Biden administration relied in part on data from Israel to reach key decisions about COVID-19 vaccine booster shots last year. "They have a singular health system that speaks freely with their public health system. Their data speak freely to one another, and so they can report incredible kinds of science that we can't," said Walensky. The White House is mulling a proposal that could expand the CDC's access to key COVID data from hospitals even after the end of the emergency, Reuters reported on Monday, under regulations imposed on health care facilities by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The federal government currently collects data from more than 90% of hospitals in most states through a platform dubbed "HHS Protect" that the Trump administration first stood up in April 2020. A White House spokesperson did not comment on the report, deferring comment to the CDC. A CDC spokesperson said the agency could not comment. Officials at the time described the move to bypass the CDC's own data collection system as part of "streamlining" data collection efforts, allowing the agency's National Health Safety Network to focus on gathering nursing home data. That network would once again be tasked to be the clearinghouse for hospital data under the new proposal, Bloomberg reported. "We can't return to the world as it was before the pandemic, but there are concrete, measurable ways we can forge ahead and begin to understand this disease as just another seasonal virus," Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, vice provost for global initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania, said in a statement earlier this month. Emanuel coordinated the 136 page "A Roadmap for Living with COVID" report earlier this month, which was co-authored by several health experts who had served as top outside COVID-19 advisers to Biden's team. Among the report's recommendations, the authors urged policymakers to build "a secure, standardized, and real-time national data platform for SARS-CoV-2 and other health threats" and mandate state reporting. "The Covid pandemic has highlighted data problems researchers and public health officials have been complaining about for decades," the report's authors wrote.
The Coronavirus Funding Collapse Is a Disaster All epidemics trigger the same Sisyphean cycle of panic and neglect. Even so, that cycle isn’t meant to spin this quickly. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/03/congress-covid-spending-bill/627090/
For those who have not been paying attention... the Covid cases are rising nearly everywhere around the world since many countries have ended restrictions. The rates in many places are now above the 1/3 level of the Omicron peak. Some countries have re-imposed some restrictions in the past few days, it is likely we will see the same. Europe’s Covid spike has Biden officials concerned, could lead to return of masks Over the past two years, the U.S. has experienced Covid waves similar to those in Europe — only several weeks later. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/...cerned-could-lead-to-return-of-masks-00018159
COVID-19 pandemic is 'far from over' -WHO official https://www.reuters.com/world/covid-19-pandemic-is-far-over-who-official-2022-03-18/
The Covid pandemic has left open the perplexing issue of how to determine if someone has immunity. What is the proper level of anti-bodies that are required? What other factors might need to be considered (T-cells)? "Natural immunity" versus "vaccinated immunity" versus 'hybrid immunity". What about variants -- seeing that having a previous variant nearly provides no immunity against Omicron? This article explores the puzzling issues involving Covid-19 immunity. How protected are we against Covid-19? Scientists search for a test to measure immunity https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/22/health/measuring-immunity-correlates-of-protection/index.html In 2010, doctors told Ben Sobieck, now 37, that his kidneys were inexplicably failing. Shortly after, he had a kidney transplant and started on the lifelong medications that weaken his immune system to keep his body from rejecting the donor organ. They never figured out what caused Sobieck’s kidney failure. But a decade later, he confronted another threat to his health: the Covid-19 pandemic. “I am on immunosuppressants that make me more vulnerable for serious Covid complications,” said Sobieck, 37, who lives in Minnesota. “If you’re immunocompromised, you may not have a very good response to the [Covid-19] vaccine.” Seeking evidence that his immune system was working the way it should, Sobieck made an unusual request: He asked his nephrologist to do a blood test that gives a rough measure of antibodies, a type of protein the body creates in response to an infection or vaccine. Antibody titers reveal the concentration of a specific antibody found in someone’s blood. Millions of Americans – not just those with weakened immune systems – are wondering about their protection after a winter of booster shots and Omicron infections. As mask mandates are lifted and restrictions removed in a step toward normalcy, a test to measure immunity would be a powerful tool to measure individual risk. “The biggest reason I wanted to get my antibody titer checked is because I don’t know how to assess risk,” Sobieck said. “Anyone who is immunocompromised, from the beginning of this pandemic right through today, has very few tools to assess risk: if they’re going to leave the house, when they’re going to leave the house, how to interact with other people, which situations are OK.” Sobieck had his antibody levels checked after his second, third and fourth doses of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine. Each result showed that he had more than the maximum number of antibodies the test could detect, indicating a robust immune response. Although there is no specific guidance on how to interpret these results to figure out the level of protection against infection or disease, Sobieck felt reassured that his immune system was doing its job. “More than 50% of transplant patients don’t have enough immune response to be protected, even if they get not two but three doses of the vaccine that we use in the general population,” said Dr. Dorry Segev, professor of surgery at New York University Langone Health. “For them, [an antibody titer] is a particularly poignant indicator of whether they have any protection at all.” Segev, a transplant surgeon, advocates using tests that measure antibodies as a way to check immune protection in people who are immunocompromised. Sobieck says the test results allowed him to make decisions for himself and his family. “Knowing that I had the antibody response that I had meant that my son could go to in-person school. That’s huge,” hesaid. Correlates of protection About 95% of Americans 16 and older have antibodies against Covid-19 as of December, the most recent date that data is available, according to US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that use information from blood donors. But it’s one thing to measure antibody levels. It’s another to measure how much they protect you against Covid-19. The US Federal Drug Administration recommends against checking antibody levels at all because there’s no agreed-upon way to calculate how any given antibody level protects you from infection or severe disease. It may also give a false sense of security, the agency says. “There aren’t good correlates of protection – something that says that this is the measurement that one needs to know how well they are protected,” Emory University virologist Mehul Suthar said. Scientists are trying to fill the knowledge gap. Studies measure average antibody levels across a population to check vaccine efficacy, often using antibody levels months after vaccination to determine the need for a booster. One study in people who got the Moderna vaccine found that higher antibody levels after vaccination were associated with lower risk of Covid-19 infection. But not all antibodies are created the same. Of all the antibodies that the body may make after infection or vaccination, only a fraction are considered “neutralizing antibodies,” meaning they can actively prevent infection. Tests to measure antibodies can be either quantitative or qualitative. Quantitative tests provide a specific number, up to a certain point, of antibodies in the blood. Qualitative tests will indicate only whether certain antibodies were detected. Results of qualitative tests are either positive, negative or indeterminate for neutralizing antibodies. When it comes to measuring neutralizing antibodies specifically, there is only one type of test that has been given emergency FDA authorization to detect them, and it is qualitative. Several studies have demonstrated that neutralizing antibodies are a strong correlate for protection against symptomatic infection with Covid-19 and its variants, with boosters enhancing neutralization. Peter Gilbert, professor of vaccine and infectious diseases at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and lead author of the Moderna study, says these correlates are useful to apply to large groups. For example, scientists can use data from larger studies about the correlation between antibody levels and vaccine efficacy in adults to make a prediction about vaccine efficacy in children. However, reaching conclusions based on one person’s antibody levels is far more limited. Gilbert compares individual antibody titers with a dipstick for oil in a car. “Is the oil in a particular car low? Therefore, you need to go out and get some new oil,” or in this case, “get another shot of the vaccine,” he said. “For that purpose, the markers aren’t as good.” This is largely due to how antibody levels vary from person to person. That correlate of protection also changes over time and with different coronavirus variants, which makes it hard to define a cutoff for antibody levels above which scientists can confidently say that someone is protected against Covid-19. Natural vs. vaccine-acquired immunity There’s a key difference in how antibody levels compare in people who have been vaccinated against Covid-19 versus those who have been infected with the coronavirus. “Whereas a vaccine response, you may have all individuals that got the vaccine have high antibodies and sort of wane over time. … With infection, it’s remarkably heterogeneous. You’ll have lots of individuals that have very low and individuals that have very high antibody responses,” Suthar said. According to Marion Pepper, an associate professor of immunology at the University of Washington, location matters, especially for the immune system. “There are different immunological environments that make up your body. … When you see an immune response in your arm, it’s going to be a different cast of characters than if you see an immune response in your lungs,” Pepper said. The immune system “is like lots of different neighborhoods, and each one has a different flavor,” depending on how an individual gets exposed to the coronavirus, whether it’s through a vaccine injected into the upper arm or through an infection to the respiratory system. The CDC cites one study, which is in preprint and has not been peer-reviewed, that foundantibody titers waned more quickly in vaccinated people than in people who had been infected. This may help explain the growing evidence of stronger and more durable vaccine efficacy in people who have immunity through both illness and vaccination, called hybrid immunity. Although they may not provide the best way to tell how protected someone is, antibodies are useful to understanding how we compare people with natural immunity with those with vaccine-acquired immunity. “We know that people who have this hybrid immunity are better protected. … So it also really begs the question, ‘which of these parameters is associated with that protection?’ ” said Pepper, who leads a lab that is studying hybrid immunity. Observing levels of immune cells and antibodies as they change over time in different groups of people can help scientists learn how to create vaccines and time vaccinations to replicate the strength of hybrid immunity without the actual infections. Just one piece of the immunity puzzle Antibody levels are only one part of the immunity story. There are also T cells, a type of white blood cell that helps fight infection by killing cells that have been infected with a virus or by helping another type of white blood cell, the B cell, create antibodies. So why do we focus so much on antibodies? “One aspect is that antibodies are probably one of the easiest to measure in the laboratory,” Suthar said. “I think when you go to the T-cell-based assays, they’re much more challenging,” he explained. “Each individual has different what are called H.L.A. types that make it a bit more challenging to understand how well one’s T-cell responses are against this virus.” Unlike antibodies, which are responsible for preventing an infection, T cells are responsible for destroying cells that are already infected. T cells may play a big role in vaccine efficacy against serious disease from more transmissible coronavirus variants, such as Omicron. One study showed that while the highly mutated Omicron could evade previously neutralizing antibodies, T cells preserved a strong response. “A memory B cell is a B cell that can get reactivated to make antibodies. It generally doesn’t do that unless a T cell tells it to go, so studying the T cells is going to be really important for understanding this immune protection,” Pepper said. However, she said that the complexity of measuring T cells means there isn’t going to be a rapid test to measure them any time soon. The Omicron surge has demonstrated that infection rates can still be high even after a vaccine or a prior infection. With the possibility of more variants forming, Covid-19 has become a moving target requiring a constantly evolving understanding of these correlates of protection. “The biggest question I have and I think everyone else has is: What level of antibody equals protection from serious complications from Covid?” Sobieck said.