Overcoming significant challenges, American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) communities enacted a swift, innovative, inclusive, and community-driven approach to rolling out the COVID-19 vaccination, and theres a lot to be learned from their methods. A perspective penned by two University of New Mexico faculty members and recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine explains the effectiveness of Indigenous communities response.
In the vaccination process weve seen what happens when communities are empowered to lead and exert their own perspectives in terms of how they respond to crisis, explained Raymond Foxworth, visiting scholar in the UNM Department of Political Science. Weve seen some great things in terms of vaccination programs in Indigenous communities.
Foxworth teamed up with Gabriel Sanchez (political science faculty and director of the UNM Center for Social Policy) and co-authors from the University of North Dakota, Yale University, Harvard Medical School, and the University of Miami to write the perspective. Foxworth and Sanchez hope their collective scholarship can help Native communities sustain their high vaccination rates during the continued and collective battle against COVID-19.
Thereality is Native communities continued to be resilient, practice their customs and traditions, and see the value of community. Those are great assets that theyve been able to leverage in their response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Raymond Foxworth, UNM visiting scholar
According to the CDC, COVID-19 has had a disproportionate impact on some racial and ethnic minorities, including AI/AN communities. Health disparities are leading to higher rates of COVID-19 related hospitalization and death among Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino, and AI/AN, making it even more important that these communities be prioritized for vaccination. Foxworth lamented that, unfortunately, ignoring health inequities is par for the course when it comes to how Native communities have been historically treated.
The history of colonization has conditioned a response from Native communities and that response has always been about community survival, survival of Indigenous languages, world views sovereignty and land rights, Foxworth reflected.
The COVID-19 pandemic, Foxworth explained, is another iteration of that process of colonialism, another attempt at making make Native communities vulnerable in a systemic and institutional way, through policy and neglect. Much like many states and communities, Indigenous communities received little to no coordinated support from the Federal government at the onset of the pandemic, further deepening this historic divide.
Raymond Foxworth, visiting scholar in the UNM Department of Political Science
But the reality is Native communities continued to be resilient, practice their customs and traditions, and see the value of community, he said. Those are great assets that theyve been able to leverage in their response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
With limited response from the Federal government, especially during the first months of the pandemic, Native communities acted quickly on their own shutting down borders and limiting access to their sovereign lands. They were early adopters of mask wearing and kept mandates in place longer than neighboring non-Native communities. They enacted strict practices and were innovative in thinking about policy response and ways to keep their communities safe.
Then vaccines became available, and by September 2021, vaccination rates among non-Hispanic AI/ANs were about 14 percent higher than rates among non-Hispanic White persons for first-dose vaccination and 8 percent higher for full vaccination.
Higher-than-average vaccination rates in AI/AN populations have been corroborated by state and county data.
What we saw in Native communities in terms of the push for vaccinations was a networked response by various kinds of institutions in communities including health centers, non-profits, and other community-based organizations, Foxworth said. It was a vibrant ecosystem of response, which has always existed in Native communities, from my perspective.
COVID-19 messaging focused on protecting elders, knowledge-holders, and Native linguists was particularly effective. It struck a deep chord in the communities who are built on the importance of caring for and protecting their history passed from generation to generation.
Losing elders, Native language speakers and those holding valuable cultural knowledge was a huge blow. Historically theres been a targeted policy effort to suppress Indigenous knowledge systems, Foxworth explained. And Native communities understood that if we dont take steps to protect elders and perpetuate our knowledge systems, then were going to experience even greater losses from this pandemic.
Indigenous societies consistently value one another and their most vulnerable. Its a perspective and historical pattern that has certainly benefitted them and brought a sturdy foundation during the chaotic COVID-19 pandemic.
Most Native communities always have had structures and practices to keep each other safe and to help one another. So, to me its not surprising that wed see this kind of response from Indian Country because it has been the innate fabric of Indigenous communities and societies. In this context we see it in full display in terms of the level care and compassion taking place in communities while mobilizing those traditional values, Foxworth concluded.
There is not yet enough data to understand if similar trends will be present in booster vaccine messaging. But Foxworth says when he and other researchers are eagerly awaiting those numbers.
Dealing with COVID-19: How to live with the virus
As new variant continue to spread across the U.S., we talk with doctors about how to live with the virus now and in the future.
WASHINGTON - The Biden administration has officially withdrawn a rule that would have required workers at big companies to get vaccinated or face regular COVID testing requirements.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration confirmed the withdrawal Tuesday. But the agency said it still strongly encourages workers to get vaccinated.
In early November, OSHA announced a vaccine-or-test mandate for companies with at least 100 employees. The rule __ which would have impacted more than 80 million U.S. workers __ was originally set to go into effect on Jan. 4.
But numerous states and business groups challenged the rule in court. On Jan. 13, the Supreme Court halted the plan. In a 6-3 ruling, the court's conservative majority concluded that OSHA had overstepped its authority.
"OSHA has never before imposed such a mandate. Nor has Congress," the court's majority wrote. "Indeed, although Congress has enacted significant legislation addressing the COVID-19 pandemic, it has declined to enact any measure similar to what OSHA has promulgated here."
A man poses while attending an event protesting vaccine mandates and other pandemic restrictions in Washington, D.C., Jan. 23, 2022. (Photo by Aaron Schwartz/Xinhua via Getty Images)
The justices left in place a vaccine mandate for health care providers who receive federal Medicare or Medicaid funding. That rule affects 10.4 million workers.
U.S. corporations have been split over whether to mandate employee vaccinations. United Airlines began requiring vaccines in August; the company says 99% of its workers have been vaccinated or have requested medical or religious exemptions. Tyson Foods, which also announced a mandate in August, says 96% of its workers were vaccinated by a Nov. 1 deadline.
But other big businesses, including Starbucks and General Electric, scrapped previously announced vaccine mandates for their employees after the Supreme Court's ruling.
Protesters carry banners as thousands gather near Lincoln Memorial to stage a protest against vaccine mandates on January 23, 2022. (Photo by Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
RELATED: FDA restricts use of certain monoclonal antibody treatments that don't work against omicron
OSHA indicated that the rule could return in some form. While it is no longer an enforceable standard, it remains a proposed rule, OSHA said. For now, the agency said it will prioritize the health care mandate.
David Michaels, an epidemiologist and former OSHA administrator who now teaches at The George Washington University, said the agency could consider a new rule that would include other measures designed to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in workplaces, such as requiring face masks, distancing, and better ventilation systems.
NEW YORK (AP) The COVID-19 booster drive in the U.S. is losing steam, worrying health experts who have pleaded with Americans to get an extra shot to shore up their protection against the highly contagious omicron variant.
Just 40% of fully vaccinated Americans have received a booster dose, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And the average number of booster shots dispensed per day in the U.S. has plummeted from a peak of 1 million in early December to about 490,000 as of last week.
Also, a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that Americans are more likely to see the initial vaccinations rather than a booster as essential.
Its clear that the booster effort is falling short, said Jason Schwartz, a vaccine policy expert at Yale University.
Overall, the U.S. vaccination campaign has been sluggish. More than 13 months after it began, just 63% of Americans, or 210 million people, are fully vaccinated with the initial rounds of shots. Mandates that could raise those numbers have been hobbled by legal challenges.
Vaccination numbers are stagnant in states such as Wyoming, Idaho, Mississippi and Alabama, which have been hovering below 50%.
In Wyoming, 44% are fully vaccinated, up just slightly from 41% in September. To boost numbers, the state has been running TV ads with health care workers giving grim accounts of unvaccinated people struggling with COVID-19.
Certainly we would like to see higher rates. But it would be wrong for anyone to think that the rates we have are due to lack of effort, Wyoming Health Department spokeswoman Kim Deti said Tuesday.
And in neighboring Idaho, which also has one of the countrys lowest vaccination rates, the number of people getting their first vaccine dose has remained under 1,000 almost every day this year and the number getting booster shots is also declining. Still, officials say they wont give up.
I dont like to use the word resigned, said Elke Shaw-Tulloch, administrator of the Idaho Division of Public Health. I think we just need to keep saying it over and over again, how important it is.
At the other end of the spectrum, Vermont is a national leader in the percentage of people who have been fully vaccinated and received a booster shot. About 60% of the population over 18 has gotten a booster. But its not enough, said Vermont Health Commissioner Mark Levine.
Id love to see that percentage much closer to 90%, Levine said.
The U.S. and many other nations have been urging adults to get boosters because the vaccines protection can wane. Also, research has shown that while the vaccines have proved less effective against omicron, boosters can rev up the bodys defenses against the threat.
As for why an estimated 86 million Americans who have been fully vaccinated and are eligible for a booster have not yet gotten one, Schwartz said public confusion is one important reason.
I think the evidence is now overwhelming that the booster is not simply an optional supplement, but it is a foundational part of protection, he said. But clearly that message has been lost.
The need for all Americans to get boosters initially was debated by scientists, and at first the government recommended only that certain groups of people, such as senior citizens, get additional doses. The arrival of omicron, and additional evidence about falling immunity, showed more clearly a widespread need for boosters.
But the message has been lost in the sea of changing recommendations and guidance, Schwartz said.
The AP-NORC Center poll found that 59% of Americans think it is essential that they receive a vaccine to fully participate in public life without feeling at risk of COVID-19 infection. Only 47% say the same about a booster shot.
Keller Anne Ruble, 32, of Denver, received her two doses of the Moderna vaccine but hasnt gotten her booster. She said she had a bad reaction to the second dose and was in bed for four days with a fever and flu-like symptoms.
I believe in the power of vaccines, and I know thats going to protect me, said Ruble, the owner of a greeting card sending service. But the vaccine just knocked me out completely and freaked me out about getting the booster.
She said she does plan to get the booster in the next few weeks and in the meantime wears an N95 mask and tries to stay home.
I just dont want to get COVID in general, she said. It does scare me.
Blake Hassler, 26, of Nashville, Tennessee, said he doesnt plan to get the booster. He received Pfizers two doses last year after having a mild case of COVID-19 in 2020. He said he considers himself to be in a low-risk category.
At this point, we need to focus on prevention of serious illness at the onset of symptoms rather than creating a new shot every six weeks and more divisive mandates, he said.
___
AP writers Mead Gruver in Fort Collins, Colorado; Wilson Ring in Montpelier, Vermont; Rebecca Boone in Boise, Idaho, and Mike Stobbe in New York contributed to this report.
The Army's universal vaccine has shown good results in mice, hamsters and primates.
Omicron, the latest variant of COVID-19, has led to a surge in cases and hospitalizations, raising talk offourth booster shots and variant-specific vaccines. But what if there were a universal coronavirus vaccine that protected against omicron and all new COVID-19 variants?
At Wednesday's press briefing, White House Chief Medical Adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci explained the term "pan-coronavirus vaccine."
Said Fauci: "There have been five SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern: alpha, beta, gamma, delta and now the current omicron. And so obviously, innovative approaches are needed to induce broad and durable protection against coronaviruses that are known and some that are even at this point unknown. Hence, the terminology 'pan-coronavirus vaccine.'"
In a surprise twist, it's not Moderna, Pfizer or any pharmaceutical company that is leading the research into pan-coronavirus vaccines -- it's the US Army.
The Army recently announced that its pan-coronavirus vaccine, the spike ferritin nanoparticle COVID-19 vaccine (aka SpFN) had completed Phase 1 of human trials. Publication of the results is expected in January, depending on the completion of the official data analysis.
Dr. Kayvon Modjarrad, director of infectious diseases at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) and co-inventor of SpFN, toldDefense One, "We're testing our vaccine against all the different variants, including omicron," the straincausing breakthrough infectionseven in people who have received booster shots.
We'll share what we know about pan-coronavirus vaccines and the Army's COVID-19 vaccine, including how it works and when it could become available.
For more, learn about free at-home COVID tests, why you shouldn't "just get COVID over with," mixing and matching booster shots, and the difference between N95, KN95, and KF94 masks.
Fauci has touted the importance of a universal vaccine to protect against all COVID variants. At a White House press briefing Wednesday, he stressed the "urgent need" for a universal coronavirus vaccine.
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases committed big to that goal in fall 2021, awarding $36.3 million to three academic organizations -- Duke University, University of Wisconsin, and Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital -- to develop and research pan-coronavirus vaccines. CalTech also has announced good early results for its universal "mosaic nanoparticle" vaccine.
In a Jan. 11 advisory statement on the omicron variant, the World Health Organization declared that, "a vaccination strategy based on repeated booster doses of the original vaccine composition is unlikely to be appropriate or sustainable" and stressed the urgent need for a vaccine that offers long-lasting protection without boosters.
The three COVID-19 vaccines authorized right now for use in the US take two approaches to preventing infection: The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines use mRNA to build up immunity, while the Johnson & Johnson vaccine uses a harmless rhinovirus to train the body's immune system to respond to COVID.
The Spike Ferritin Nanoparticle COVID-19 vaccine, or SpFN, takes a third approach, using a harmless portion of the COVID-19 virus to spur the body's defenses against COVID.
SpFN also has less restrictive storage and handling requirements than the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, allowing it to be used in a wider variety of situations. It can be stored between 36 and 46 degrees Fahrenheit for up to six months and at room temperature for up to one month, according to military scientists. Pfizer's vaccine requires an ultracold freezer (between minus 112 and minus 76 degrees F) for shipment and storage and is onlystable for 31 days when stored in a refrigerator.
The Army's vaccine has been tested with two shots, 28 days apart, and also with a third shot after six months.
The vaccines from Moderna, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson all target the specific virus -- SARS-CoV-2 -- that causes COVID-19. But Army scientists designed their vaccine to protect against future strains of COVID as well as other coronaviruses.
The Army's SpFN vaccine is shaped like a soccer ball with 24 faces. Scientists can attach the spikes of multiple coronavirus strains to each of the different faces, allowing them to customize the vaccine for any new COVID variants that arise.
"The accelerating emergence of human coronaviruses throughout the past two decades and the rise of SARS-CoV-2 variants, including most recently omicron, underscore the continued need for next-generation preemptive vaccines that confer broad protection against coronavirus diseases," Modjarrad said in a December statement. "Our strategy has been to develop a 'pan-coronavirus' vaccine technology that could potentially offer safe, effective and durable protection against multiple coronavirus strains and species."
Now playing: Watch this: What to do if you lose your vaccination card, and how...
3:00
No date has been set. SpFN successfully completed animal testing and wrapped Phase 1 of human trials in December, but it must still complete Phases 2 and 3 of human testing, when its safety and efficacy is compared to current vaccine options.
Normally, completing all three phases can take up to five years, but the urgency of the COVID-19 pandemic is speeding up the process. The Moderna, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, for example, were tested, reviewed and authorized by the Food and Drug Administration over the course of one year.
Learn smart gadget and internet tips and tricks with our entertaining and ingenious how-tos.
According to a WRAIR spokesperson, "researchers have devoted their full attention to analyzing the Phase 1 data and writing a report of the results." The report could come in the next few weeks or even months.
After data from the Phase 1 human trials is published, Phase 2 and 3 trials will begin. There is very little information so far on when or how those trials will proceed or if the phases will overlap.
To follow the progress of the Army vaccine trials, visit the SpFN COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker provided by the US Army Medical Research and Development Command.
For more on COVID-19, here's what we know about how the CDC defines being fully vaccinated, how to store your vaccine card on your phone, and what we still don't know about the virus after two years.
The information contained in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as health or medical advice. Always consult a physician or other qualified health provider regarding any questions you may have about a medical condition or health objectives.
To understand how the coronavirus keeps evolving into surprising new variants with new mutations, it helps to have some context: The viruss genome is 30,000 letters long, which means that the number of possible mutation combinations is mind-bogglingly huge. As Jesse Bloom, a virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, told me, that number far, far exceeds the number of atoms in the known universe.
Scientists try to conceptualize these possibilities in a fitness landscapea hyper-dimensional space of peaks and valleys. The higher peaks the coronavirus discovers, the fitter, or better at infecting people, it becomes. The more the virus replicates, the more mutations it tries out, the more ground it explores, and the more peaks it may find. To predict what the coronavirus could do next, we would simply need to know the topography of the entire fitness landscapewhich, maybe youve guessed, we do not. Not at all. Not even close. We dont actually know what peaks are out there. We didnt know the Omicron peak was out there, says Sarah Otto, an evolutionary biologist at the University of British Columbia. We cant really guess what more is possible.
What we can say is that the overwhelming majority of mutations will make a virus less fit (valleys) or have no effect at all (ridges), but a very small proportion will be peaks. We dont know how high those peaks are or exactly how frequently they appear. When Delta took over the world, it seemed like it would sweep all other lineages away. I would have for sure thought the next variant was going to come from Delta, says Katia Koelle, a biologist at Emory University. Then Omicron popped up on a distant peak, in a direction no one had thought to look.
The next variant may surprise us again. It could, by chance, become more virulent. It could become more transmissible. It will definitely alight upon new ways to escape the antibodies weve built up. The virus will keep finding those fitness peaks.
To make predictions about viral evolution even harder, the fitness landscape is continuously being remodeled as our mix of immunity shifts through vaccination and infection by new variants. This in effect changes what it means for the virus to be fit. Some mountains will sink; some hills will uplift. Still, the virus is extremely unlikely to mutate so much that our immunity against severe infection is reset to zero. As more and more of the world gains initial immunity from vaccines or infection, that will dampen the most severe outcomes. Whether future variants will still cause huge numbers of infections will depend on how quickly the virus can keep evolving and how well our immunity holds up after repeated exposures. Unlike other pathogens that have been criss-crossing the fitness landscape in humans for a very long time, the coronavirus has only just gotten started.
The coronaviruss variants keep surprising us because its evolutionary leaps look like nothing else weve seen before. Omicron racked up more than 50 mutations, with more than 30 in its spike protein alone. Of the four seasonal coronaviruses that cause common colds, two accumulate only 0.3 or 0.5 adaptive mutations a year in their spike proteins. A third doesnt seem to change much at all. The fourth is a mysterywe dont have enough long-term data on it. Influenza is capable of big jumps through a process called reassortment, which can cause pandemics (as H1N1 did in 2009), but the seasonal flu averages just one or two changes a year in its key protein, Koelle told me.
There are three possible explanations for why the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 looks so different from that of other viruses, and they are not mutually exclusive. First of all, we really havent looked that hard at other respiratory viruses. More than 7.5 million genomes of SARS-CoV-2 have been sequenced; just a few hundred or a few dozen for each of the four seasonal coronaviruses have been. When scientists try to reconstruct the relationship among these sequenced viruses in evolutionary trees, the trees are so sparse, says Sarah Cobey, a biologist at the University of Chicago. A whole suite of other viruses also cause common colds: rhinoviruses, adenoviruses, parainfluenza, respiratory syncytial virus, metapneumovirus, and so on. These, too, are poorly sampled. More than 100 types of rhinoviruses alone infect humans, but we dont have a great understanding of how that diversity came to be or evolved over time.
Second, the coronavirus could indeed be an outlier that is inherently better than other viruses at exploring its fitness landscape. It helps to be an RNA viruswhich acquires mutations more quickly than a DNA virusand then it helps to be moving really fast, Cobey told me. Measles takes, on average, 11 or 12 days between infecting one person and that person infecting another; the coronavirus takes only 1.5 to three. The more people it can infect, the more of the fitness landscape it can explore.
Third, the coronavirus was a novel pathogen. Whatever intrinsic transmissibility it may have had, it was also unimpeded by immunity when it first arrived in the human population. That means SARS-CoV-2 has been able to infect a simply staggering proportion of the world in two yearsfar more people than older viruses are typically capable of infecting. And each time it infects someone, it copies itself billions of times. Some copies created in every infection will harbor random mutations; some mutations will even be beneficial to the virus. But these mutations can have a hard time becoming dominant in the short course of a typical COVID-19 infection. It takes a while typically for a mutation to go from zero to even 5 to 10 percent of viruses in an infected person, says Adam Lauring, a virologist at the University of Michigan. That person then transmits only a tiny number of virus particles to the next person, so most of that diversity gets lost. Across millions of infections, some of those mutations are passed on, and they gradually accumulate into one viral lineage. Delta seems to have evolved this way. The coronaviruss ubiquity could have also seeded an unusual number of chronic infections all at once, which experts think are another big driver of viral evolution. In a chronic infection, over weeks and months, those beneficial viral mutations have time to become dominant and then transmit. This may be how Alpha originated.
Omicrons origins are still unknown. It may have evolved in a piecemeal fashion like Delta, but some experts think that its ancestors would have been found via sequencing if so. Two other possibilities exist: a chronic infection in someone immunocompromised or an animal reservoir that spilled back into humans. In both cases, the selection pressures within one immunocompromised patient or in an animal population are slightly different from those on a virus that is transmitting between humans. That may be what allowed the virus to cross a fitness chasm and discover a new peak in Omicron. Understanding the evolutionary forces that created Omicron can help us understand the realm of what is possibleeven if it cant tell us exactly what the next variant will look like.
With Omicron, I think we got lucky, says Sergei Pond, an evolutionary biologist at Temple University. The set of mutations that makes the variant so good at infecting even vaccinated people just happens to also make it a little less inherently virulent. Theres no reason this will always be the case. The coronaviruss virulence is a by-product of two other factors under more direct evolutionary pressure: how inherently transmissible it is and how good it is at evading previous immunity. How deadly it is doesnt matter so much, because the coronavirus is usually transmitted early on in an infection, long before it ever kills its host.
Across the immense fitness landscape, the coronavirus has many, many different paths to higher inherent transmissibility or immune escape. Take the example of transmissibility, Otto says. A virus could replicate very, very fast, so that patients shed high levels of it. Delta seems to do this, and it was more virulent. Or the virus could switch to replicating mostly in the nose and throat, where it might be easier to transmit, rather than deep in the lungs. Omicron seems to do this, and it is less virulent. The next variant could go either wayor it might chart an entirely new course. A version of Omicron called BA.2 is now outcompeting the classic Omicron variant in the United Kingdom and Denmark, though its still unclear what advantage it might have.
Omicron doesnt just have a lot of mutations; it has some really unusual ones. Thirteen of the mutations cluster in sites where scientists havent seen many changes before. That suggests mutations there normally make the virus less fit and get weeded out. But according to a preprint from Ponds group, these 13 individually maladaptive changes might be adaptive when present all together. You can imagine, he told me, a virus under pressure to escape from existing antibodies. It acquires a series of mutations that make it less recognizable to antibodies but perhaps worse at entering cells. Under the slightly different selection environment inside an immunocompromised patient or an animal reservoir, the virus still might be able to lingeruntil it finds just the right combination of mutations to compensate for previous changes. In Omicron, this process remodeled key parts of the spike protein so that it both became less recognizable to existing antibodies and found a different strategy for entering cells. The coronavirus normally has two ways of infecting cells, either fusing directly with them or entering through a bubble. Omicron has become a specialist in the latter, which happens to work less well in lung cells than in nose and throat cells, and may explain the variants lower intrinsic severity. To get around the immune system, the virus ended up changing one of its most basic functions.
Do other sets of mutations interact in unknown ways to change key viral functions? Almost certainly. We just dont know what they are yet. Well have to wait and watch SARS-CoV-2 in the years and decades to come. If you look at human influenza or seasonal coronaviruses, theyve been evolving in humans for a long time and they havent stopped evolving, Bloom, the virologist, said.
There are limits to how inherently transmissible the virus can get. Measles, the most transmissible known virus, has an R0 of 12 to 18, compared with Deltas R0 of 5. Omicrons R0 is still unclear, because a lot of its advantage over Delta seems to come from evading existing antibodies rather than inherent transmissibility. As the coronavirus has fewer and fewer nonimmune people to infect, though, immune evasion will become a more and more important constraint on its evolution. And here, the virus will never run out of new strategies, because what is optimal is always shifting. This Omicron wave, for example, is generating a lot of Omicron immunity as it moves through the population, which has in effect made Omicron less fit than when it emerged. The next variant is more likely to be not Omicron, or something as antigenically distinct from Omicron as possible, says Aris Katzourakis, a virologist at the University of Oxford. But exactly what that looks like? Perhaps we know enough now to know we shouldnt try to predict that.
A Hong Kong hamster that evaded the cull. Bertha Wang/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
A Hong Kong hamster that evaded the cull.
Each week, we answer frequently asked questions about life during the coronavirus crisis. If you have a question you'd like us to consider for a future post, email us at goatsandsoda@npr.org with the subject line: "Weekly Coronavirus Questions." See an archive of our FAQs here.
I read that Hong Kong killed thousands of hamsters after a report that 11 hamsters in a pet store, as well as a human employee, tested positive for COVID. Should I be worried about my hamster ... or cat or dog?
So yes, animals can get COVID. And it can even prove fatal. In November, a snow leopard at the zoo in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, died after reportedly experiencing COVID-like symptoms.
But human-to-animal transmission is "rare, very rare," says Charlotte Baker, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Virginia Tech. The same goes for pet-to-human transmission (although, keep in mind that the virus did almost certainly cross from animals to humans to start this pandemic). One study shows that infected cats can transmit virus for up to 5 days, but did not find evidence of transmission from dogs.
So Hong Kong's massive hamster cull, says transmission experts, was ... overkill.
If you do have COVID and are an extremely cautious person, you might not cuddle as much with your pooch or feline or ... pet rodent. Of course, a hamster won't be jumping in your lap and begging for a hug.
And if you're worried that your pet does have COVID? "I wouldn't suggest testing your dog," says Dr. Preeti Malani, an infectious disease doctor at University of Michigan Health in Ann Arbor. "That's not a good use of test kits since they're in low supply." If your canine seems under the weather, call the vet!
A relative who's on dialysis caught COVID, was hospitalized and now is back home in her assisted living apartment building. Is it safe for me to visit her? Would I pose any risk to her?
Good questions.
When someone who is immunocompromised catches the virus, they typically take longer to clear the virus out of their body. That's because their immune system isn't super strong.
So "they'll shed virus for a longer period," says Dr. Abraar Karan, an infectious disease physician at Stanford University. That's why the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests a 20-day waiting period from either the date of the first positive COVID test or the onset of symptoms in an immunocompromised individual.
Obviously, the patient should be free of symptoms at that 20-day marker and test negative if they're able to get access to a test before a visit can be considered.
But that doesn't mean you should just pop in.
After all, 20 days is just a number set by the CDC based on data to establish a reasonable waiting period for an immunocompromised person to recover from COVID. Viruses (as far as we know) do not understand and abide by numbers.
And there are different degrees of being immunocompromised a category that includes those on dialysis, chemotherapy patients and individuals with autoimmune diseases. An individual might be considered moderately or severely immunocompromised. That's why our medical experts say to check with your friend or family member to see if their physician can offer guidance about visits.
Also, the visitor should take precautions to protect the immunocompromised individual and anyone you'd be in contact with during a visit. Wear a mask in the highly protective N95 family as the CDC recommends. Even though it's unlikely that you'd reinfect a newly recovered patient, it's not impossible. What if your friend had the delta version and you have a budding case of omicron but don't yet know it, says Karan (although these days, he says, it's pretty much all omicron).
Meanwhile, it's not just COVID you need to worry about. You could be coming down with a cold or the flu, for example, and sure don't want to pass such pathogens on to the immunocompromised person you're visiting.
Let your acquaintance know you'll be careful. Baker, the epidemiology professor, is herself immunocompromised. When friends come to visit, "they stay masked as much as possible and I really appreciate that someone else is considering that they don't want to give me anything."
For those reasons, you should build in other precautions: visiting outside or with open windows since airflow disperses pathogens keeping six feet of distance during the visit and practicing good hand hygiene.
"By layering these strategies you take the risk to minimal," says Malani. Visits are important, she says. "It's important to try and take care of people's social needs during all this being isolated isn't good."
Of course "some people are perfectly happy never seeing anyone," Malani says. "But for individuals whose health is poor, those visits can be something they look forward to.
"If for any reason you have to delay [a visit], find other ways to express your love and support." Maybe that'll mean a virtual schmooze via Zoom or a video call.
If it's not yet advisable to drop by, "send them some food!" says Baker. And if your friend has a sweet tooth, remember the wise words from an episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show: "Chocolate solves everything."
With scientists from China's Wuhan flagging a concern regarding a more contagious and possibly deadlier strain of coronavirus NeoCov, World Health Organization (WHO) asserted that it still needs to be studied whether it poses threats for humans.
The scientists have clarified, NeoCov is related to the Middle East respiratory syndrome or MERS-coronavirus. The virus is discovered in a bat population in South Africa and is currently spreading only among animals," the scientists said and further warned, Just one mutation is enough for the virus to be able to infiltrate human cells."
"Whether the virus detected in the study will pose a risk for humans will require further study," WHO told Russian news agency Tass.
"Animals, particularly wild animals are the source of more than 75% of all emerging infectious diseases in humans, many of which are caused by novel viruses. Coronaviruses are often found in animals, including in bats which have been identified as a natural reservoir of many of these viruses," WHO said.
WHO is aware of the new finding of Wuhan scientists and is in touch with the World Organization for Animal Health, the Food and Agriculture Organization to respond to this.
NeoCoV was found in a population of bats in South Africa and to date has spread exclusively among these animals. However, the study, not yet peer-reviewed and released on the bioRxiv website, found, NeoCoV and its close relative, PDF-2180-CoV, can use some types of bat Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) and human ACE2 for entry.
Just one mutation is enough for the virus to be able to infiltrate human cells, claim scientists.
According to Chinese researchers, NeoCoV carries the potential combination of MERS-high CoVs mortality rate (one in every three infected person dies) and the current SARS-CoV-2 coronaviruss high transmission rate.
The MERS-CoV virus is similar to SARS-CoV-2 in terms of symptoms like fever, cough and shortness of breath. The disease was first identified in Saudi Arabia in 2012 and was prevalent in the middle-eastern countries in 2012 and 2015.
Most of the human cases of MERS-CoV infections spread through human-to-human infections. Many people have lost their lives due to MERS-CoV.
The researchers further noted that infection with NeoCov could not be cross-neutralised by antibodies targeting SARS-CoV-2 or MERS-CoV.
"Considering the extensive mutations in the RBD regions of the SARS-CoV-2 variants, especially the heavily mutated Omicron variant, these viruses may hold a latent potential to infect humans through further adaptation," the authors of the study added.
(With inputs from agencies)
Subscribe to Mint Newsletters
* Enter a valid email
* Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter.
Never miss a story! Stay connected and informed with Mint. Download our App Now!!
How to prepare kids for the return to school
Associate Professor MargieDanchin from the Murdoch Children'sResearch Institute joined the Weekend Breakfast team on the News Channel to talk through some common questions and concerns parents have upon the return to school this year.
Q: What happens if a child does contract COVID? What are the implications for the child? How does it play out within the body?
A: So if a child gets COVID, and particularly with Omicron variant, we have seen on an individual basis that it presents pretty much like many other respiratory infections andprimary school-aged children are at the lowest risk of severe disease.
So what we see particularly is they may have a runny nose, a cough, a fever, chills and sweats, some experience very, very mild symptoms and some may be in bed for a couple of days and take a week or so to recover. And about one-in-five children have no symptoms at all. But we do know that between 1 to 2 per centof children who test positive with symptoms will need admission to hospital and it's those kids that we want to prevent being admitted to hospital and also make sure that these kids are vaccinated now and we have seen a fantastic response to vaccination as well.
Q: If a child was to contract COVID,how soon and, of course, recovers,how soon before they can then gettheir booster shot, their secondshot, or their firstvaccine?
A: At the moment we're recommending if the child has had COVID infection that they wait about four weeks. Now, of course, that will potentially vary on an individual basis. If a parent has an early appointment, it would be fine to get them vaccinated at two or three weeks. The key point is that they need to have fully recovered and we do know that the severer presentation of COVID infection called MISCin children which happens in about one-in-3,000 kids, that happens about two to six weeks after the acute illness. So in general, we'd like to at least wait a month, make sure the child has recovered. And also that initial COVID infection does stimulate the immune system, the child will have antibodies on board and then having a pause and then giving the vaccine will give a really strong immuneboost to the child.
Q: What happens to the rest of the family if a child contracts COVID?
A: So if the child tests positive, they need to go home and isolate for seven days and the family members who are close contacts also need to test and isolate. But what is different now, so particularly in New South Wales, Victoria, ACT,if childrentest negative, they can go back to school as long as they don't have symptoms. So that is a bit of a difference now COVID is starting to be treated a bit like other infections in children, parents are notified, if the children around them have symptoms they need to test.
And thenwe have also seen the introduction of the asymptomatic surveillance of twice weekly rapid antigen testing for most kids in schools and of course that's five times a week for children who are at higher risk in special school settings. So testing, unfortunately, is going the become at least for the first month quite common for a lot of children in the school environment, you know, testing at home before they come to school, so I think we need to do a lot of reassurance around that as well.
Q: How do you talk to children about the pandemic, about COVID, without, you know, raising their anxiety levels?
A: Yeah, this has been a challenge for the last two years, hasn't it, with children and it's quite amazing to think now that we are entering the third year of the pandemic.The most important thing is to understandwhere the child is developmentally and then pitch the conversation appropriately depending on their age. But the key is to just sit down with the child, have an honest conversation, ask what the questions they have are (we know all kids will have questions),what they might be concerned about, and then really start the conversation from there.
We need to let them know, a bit like last term, school is going to look different. We know that kids are going to be asked to wear masks. I mean, here in Victoria, they are mandatory for grade 3 and above and prep to grade 2 obviously it's recommended. So children will be wearing masks. They'll be aware of the changes to the air filters in the classroom. They may even be having some outdoor learning lessons,we have seen the shade cloths and the sales installed in many schools here in Victoria. The school environment will look different so preparing kids for that is really important.
And also again talking them through the rapid antigen testing to demystify that, helping them practice with cotton buds, showing what it might be like to do it on another adult or themselves before to do the test. It's all about giving them a sense of control and you do that by explaining to them what to expect so that they're not frightened or caught off-guard.
Five more Mainers have died and another 1,273 coronavirus cases reported across the state, Maine health officials said Saturday.
Saturdays report brings the total number of coronavirus cases in Maine to 174,225, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Thats up from 172,952 on Friday.
Of those, 128,136have been confirmed positive, while 46,089were classified as probable cases, the Maine CDC reported.
Three men and two women have succumbed to the virus, bringing the statewide death toll to 1,738.
Two were from Androscoggin County, one from Franklin County, one from Kennebec County and one from York County.
Of those, one was 80 or older and four were in their 70s.
The number of coronavirus cases diagnosed in the past 14 days statewide is 13,368. This is an estimation of the current number of active cases in the state, as the Maine CDC is no longer tracking recoveries for all patients. Thats down from 13,454 on Friday.
The new case rate statewide Saturday was 9.51 cases per 10,000 residents, and the total case rate statewide was 1,301.74.
Maines seven-day average for new coronavirus cases is 1,048.4, up from 1,045.6 the day before, up from 881.7 a week ago and up from 730.3 a month ago.
The most cases have been detected in Mainers younger than 20, while Mainers over 80 years old account for the largest portion of deaths. More cases have been recorded in women and more deaths in men.
So far, 3,904 Mainers have been hospitalized at some point with COVID-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus. Of those, 352 are currently hospitalized, with 86 in critical care and 38 on a ventilator. Overall, 57 out of 377 critical care beds and 220 out of 321 ventilators are available.
The total statewide hospitalization rate on Saturday was 29.17 patients per 10,000 residents.
Cases have been reported in Androscoggin (17,596), Aroostook (8,364), Cumberland (35,577), Franklin (4,373), Hancock (5,124), Kennebec (16,813), Knox (4,148), Lincoln (3,679), Oxford (8,709), Penobscot (19,669), Piscataquis (2,219), Sagadahoc (3,650), Somerset (7,367), Waldo (4,341), Washington (3,091) and York (29,504) counties. Information about where an additional case was reported wasnt immediately available.
An additional 1,774 vaccine doses were administered in the previous 24 hours. As of Saturday, 975,557 Mainers are fully vaccinated, or about 76.2 percent of eligible Mainers, according to the Maine CDC.
As of Saturday afternoon, the coronavirus had sickened 74,106,549 people in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as caused 883,225 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.
Correction: An earlier version of this report misstated the number of new coronavirus cases reported Saturday morning.
More articles from the BDN
