Tag: COVID

More than 300 million COVID vaccine shots administered in U.S.

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.axios.com/us-300-million-covid-vaccine-shots-administered-a05f7677-cdd7-41ec-99c9-95d28a2ecabc.html?mc_cid=dd765ae547&mc_eid=983bcf5922

Excerpt:

More than 300 million COVID-19 vaccines doses have now been administered in the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed Sunday.

Why it matters: The latest CDC figures show that 41.9% of the U.S. population has been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus and 51.5% has received at least one dose.

The vaccination milestone comes as the U.S. has seen new infections fall to the lowest level since March 2020, when the pandemic began.

Author(s): Rebecca Falconer

Publication Date: 7 June 2021

Publication Site: Axios

Unlocking: India states start reopening amid dip in Covid cases

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-57380665

Excerpt:

Major Indian states that have been virus hotpots are easing restrictions as Covid case numbers continue to fall.

National capital Delhi and financial hub, Mumbai, are among the cities that are opening partially.

This comes in the wake of a crushing second wave that saw hospital beds, medicines and even oxygen run short as cases spiked and deaths rose.

But experts continue to advice precaution amid a lagging vaccine drive and the threat posed by new variants.

Publication Date: 7 June 2021

Publication Site: BBC

Which US vaccine plans actually helped hard-hit communities?

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/06/07/1025824/us-vaccine-equity-success-story/

Excerpt:

One success story took place in Philadelphia, thanks to an effective collaboration between two health systems and Black community leaders. Recognizing that the largely online signup process was hard for older people or those without internet access, Penn Medicine and Mercy Catholic Medical Center created a text-message-based signup system as well as a 24/7 interactive voice recording option that could be used from a land line, with doctors answering patients’ questions before appointments. Working with community leaders, the program held its first clinic at a church and vaccinated 550 people.

….

In Alabama, for example, National Guard mobile vaccination units were set up with the ultra-cold freezers needed to transport and store mRNA-based covid-19 vaccines. “Why not, when this particular push is over, leave those freezer units with the federally qualified health centers that are already in those communities?” McClure says. “You’re starting to build the infrastructure for being able to deliver vaccination on a consistent basis.”

Author(s): Mia Sato

Publication Date: 7 June 2021

Publication Site: MIT Technology Review

The Lab-Leak Theory: Inside the Fight to Uncover COVID-19’s Origins

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/the-lab-leak-theory-inside-the-fight-to-uncover-covid-19s-origins

Excerpt:

Wuhan is also home to China’s foremost coronavirus research laboratory, housing one of the world’s largest collections of bat samples and bat-virus strains. The Wuhan Institute of Virology’s lead coronavirus researcher, Shi Zhengli, was among the first to identify horseshoe bats as the natural reservoirs for SARS-CoV, the virus that sparked an outbreak in 2002, killing 774 people and sickening more than 8,000 globally. After SARS, bats became a major subject of study for virologists around the world, and Shi became known in China as “Bat Woman” for her fearless exploration of their caves to collect samples. More recently, Shi and her colleagues at the WIV have performed high-profile experiments that made pathogens more infectious. Such research, known as “gain-of-function,” has generated heated controversy among virologists.

…..

By spring of 2021, the debate over COVID-19’s origins had become so noxious that death threats were flying in both directions.

In a CNN interview on March 26, Dr. Redfield, the former CDC director under Trump, made a candid admission: “I am of the point of view that I still think the most likely etiology of this pathogen in Wuhan was from a laboratory, you know, escaped.” Redfield added that he believed the release was an accident, not an intentional act. In his view, nothing that happened since his first calls with Dr. Gao changed a simple fact: The WIV needed to be ruled out as a source, and it hadn’t been.

Author(s): Katherine Eban

Publication Date: 3 June 2021

Publication Site: Vanity Fair

Alameda County Updates COVID-19 Death Calculation to Align with State Definitions

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://covid-19.acgov.org/covid19-assets/docs/press/press-release-2021.06.04.pdf

Excerpt:

Today, June 4, Alameda County’s COVID-19 dashboard will be updated to reflect
the total number of COVID-19 deaths using the State’s death reporting definition. Alameda County previously included any person who died while infected with the virus in the total COVID-19 deaths for the County. Aligning with the State’s definition will require Alameda County to report as COVID-19 deaths only those people who died as a direct result of COVID-19, with COVID-19 as a contributing cause of death, or in whom death caused by COVID-19 could not be ruled out. Based on data available as of May 23, 2021, this update will decrease the overall number of deaths from 1,634 to 1,223.

….

This update does not disproportionally impact reported deaths for any specific race or ethnic group or zip code.

Close observers of Alameda County’s dashboard may have noticed a substantial increase in the COVID-19 death totals prior to this update, during the week of May 17. This increase was due to a separate quality assurance process intended to correct previously incomplete data; adjustments were made based on additional information that became available regarding date of death and county of residence. These corrections are unrelated to the current alignment with the State’s definition of death due to COVID-19, and some of the deaths will be removed from the updated totals because COVID-19 was not a contributing cause.

Author(s): Neetu Balram

Publication Date: 4 June 2021

Publication Site: Alameda County Health Care Services Agency

California county cuts COVID-19 death toll by 25% after finding some deaths ‘clearly not’ caused by virus

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://news.yahoo.com/california-county-cuts-covid-19-151921394.html

Excerpt:

A California county cut its COVID-19 death toll by around 25% after determining that some deaths were not a “direct result” of the virus.

Alameda County revised the total number of deaths caused by the coronavirus to 1,223, down from 1,634.

County officials decided to revise the numbers to align with the California Department of Public Health’s guidance on how to classify deaths. The county previously included deaths of anyone infected with the virus, regardless of whether COVID-19 was a direct or contributing cause of death.

Author(s): Peter Aitken

Publication Date: 6 June 2021

Publication Site: Yahoo News

‘There’s a dividing line’ — Vaccination rates trace socioeconomic boundaries in CT

Mary Pat Campbell
‘There’s a dividing line’ — Vaccination rates trace socioeconomic boundaries in CT

Graphic:

Excerpt:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s “social vulnerability index” has formed the basis for the state’s prioritization system and has been a reliable indicator of low vaccine uptake. Generally speaking, the higher a community’s SVI score, the lower its vaccination rate, a CT Mirror analysis found.

An estimated 32% of the state’s eligible population lives in the state’s priority ZIP codes, and the state aims to administer the same percentage of vaccines within those communities. While the state inches closer to that goal each week, the statewide slowdown in the number of shots administered means that it has a lot of ground to make up. Of all the vaccines administered so far, just 25% of all vaccines distributed as of last week have gone to residents of those ZIP codes.

“Progress is slower now,” said Josh Geballe, the state’s chief operating officer, at a recent press conference.

Of the 15 different variables that determine a Census tract’s vulnerability score, a CT Mirror analysis found that socioeconomic factors considered by the index — namely income, employment status, poverty level and education — were found to be most predictive of vaccination rates. This is consistent with a national study on the county level that the CDC released in March.

Author(s): KASTURI PANANJADY, DAVE ALTIMARI

Publication Date: 3 June 2021

Publication Site: CT Mirror

COVID’s Unlikely Offspring: The Rise of Smartwatch as Illness Detector

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/consumer-electronics/gadgets/covid-byproduct-smartwatch-increasingly-illness-detector

Excerpt:

Research is still in its early stage, but the last several months have seen a number of research efforts to increase the smartwatch’s illness detection capabilities. And it now looks like these tools will likely outlast the present pandemic.

Scripps Research has introduced an app called MyDataHelps as part of a study that tracks changes to a person’s sleep, activity level or resting heart rate. Fitbit is also building an algorithm that can detect COVID-19 before a person experiences symptoms. Meanwhile, Stanford Medicine researchers have developed a smartwatch alert system that can work on any wearable device, including Fitbit, Apple Watch and Garmin watches.

Michael Snyder, professor and chair of the Department of Genetics and director of Stanford Center for Genomics and Personalized Medicine at Stanford University, says watches can pick up signals of respiratory illnesses, even with asymptomatic cases. As COVID-19 hit, Snyder’s research increased “full blast,” he said. 

Author(s): Brian T. Horowitz

Publication Date: 6 March 2021

Publication Site: IEEE Spectrum

Deaths of despair and the incidence of excess mortality in 2020

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://voxeu.org/article/deaths-despair-and-incidence-excess-mortality-2020

Graphic:

Excerpt:

Mortality in 2020 significantly exceeds what would have occurred if official COVID-19 deaths were combined with a normal number of deaths from other causes. The demographic and time patterns of the non-COVID-19 excess deaths (NCEDs) point to deaths of despair rather than an undercount of COVID-19 deaths. The flow of NCEDs increased steadily from March to June and then plateaued. They were disproportionately experienced by working-age men, including men as young as 15 to 24. The chart below, reproduced from Mulligan (2020b), shows these results for men aged 15–54. To compare the weekly timing of their excess deaths to a weekly measure of economic conditions, Figure 1 also includes continued state unemployment claims scaled by a factor of 25,000, shown together with deaths.

Author(s): Casey Mulligan

Publication Date: 28 January 2021

Publication Site: Vox EU

Covid: Peru more than doubles death toll after review

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-57307861

Graphic:

Excerpt:

Peru has more than doubled its Covid death toll following a review, making it the country with the world’s highest death rate per capita, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

The official death toll is now more than 180,000, up from 69,342, in a country of about 33 million people.

Prime Minister Violeta Bermudez said the number was increased on the advice of Peruvian and international experts.

This was in line with so-called excess deaths figures.

Publication Date: 1 June 2021

Publication Site: BBC News

Intelligence on Sick Staff at Wuhan Lab Fuels Debate on Covid-19 Origin

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/intelligence-on-sick-staff-at-wuhan-lab-fuels-debate-on-covid-19-origin-11621796228?mod=djemalertNEWS

Excerpt:

Three researchers from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick enough in November 2019 that they sought hospital care, according to a previously undisclosed U.S. intelligence report that could add weight to growing calls for a fuller probe of whether the Covid-19 virus may have escaped from the laboratory.

The details of the reporting go beyond a State Department fact sheet, issued during the final days of the Trump administration, which said that several researchers at the lab, a center for the study of coronaviruses and other pathogens, became sick in autumn 2019 “with symptoms consistent with both Covid-19 and common seasonal illness.”

….

China’s National Health Commission and the WIV didn’t respond to requests for comment. Shi Zhengli, the top bat coronavirus expert at WIV, has said the virus didn’t leak from her laboratories. She told the WHO-led team that traveled to Wuhan earlier this year to investigate the origins of the virus that all staff had tested negative for Covid-19 antibodies and there had been no turnover of staff on the coronavirus team.

Marion Koopmans, a Dutch virologist on that team told NBC News in March that some WIV staff did fall sick in the autumn of 2019, but she attributed that to regular, seasonal sickness.

…..

It isn’t unusual for people in China to go straight to the hospital when they fall sick, either because they get better care there or lack access to a general practitioner. Covid-19 and the flu, while very different illnesses, share some of the same symptoms, such as fever, aches and a cough. Still, it could be significant if members of the same team working with coronaviruses went to hospital with similar symptoms shortly before the pandemic was first identified.

Author(s): Michael R. Gordon, Warren P. Strobel, Drew Hinshaw

Publication Date: 23 May 2021

Publication Site: WSJ

Wuhan researchers sought hospital care in late 2019: US intel

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://thehill.com/policy/international/china/555013-three-wuhan-researchers-were-sick-enough-to-be-hospitalized-in

Excerpt:

Three researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology became ill enough with symptoms similar to COVID-19 that they sought hospital care in November of 2019, according to a U.S. intelligence report obtained by The Wall Street Journal.

According to the Journal, the intelligence report, issued in the last days of the Trump administration, said researchers at the lab became sick “with symptoms consistent with both Covid-19 and common seasonal illness.”

….

The Wuhan Institute of Virology has reportedly not provided raw data, safety logs or lab records on its work looking into coronaviruses in bats. Many consider the virus to have originated in bats before jumping to humans.

Author(s): Joseph Choi

Publication Date: 24 May 2021

Publication Site: The Hill