Fully vaccinated and boosted San Diego County residents are among those nationwide who will be able to participate in a new clinical trial that seeks to test combinations of vaccines that target variants, including Beta, Delta and Omicron.
UC San Diego is among 24 sites nationwide selected to enroll otherwise healthy residents in the COVID-19 Variant Immunologic Landscape Trial, a major nationwide effort funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease. Called COVAIL for short, the investigation initially plans to enroll about 600 participants into six different randomly-selected groups, each of which will receive a different combination of vaccines developed by pharmaceutical giant Moderna.
To date, the only vaccines approved for general use are those focused on the initial strain that emerged in Wuhan China in 2019. As the virus has mutated, causing additional waves of infection, companies have worked to update their initial offerings, retargeting the same mRNA technology on new features appearing in the coronaviruss latest versions.
The idea that drives the trial, explained Dr. Susan Little, a professor of medicine at UCSD and principal investigator of the local trial site, is to map the immune system responses to different variants, populating computer models with enough information to make the best predictions about which combinations would produce the strongest protection against coronaviruss next successful mutation.
When a new variant comes along, whatever it is, we want to have an immune response that matches as closely as possible, Little said.
Initially set for 600 participants, the research effort will expand to 1,500 as additional variant vaccines are ready for testing.
Participants must be at least 18 years old and fully vaccinated with evidence that they have already received a booster shot. According to the county health departments latest update, about 1.2 million residents across the region have received their boosters, making them eligible to participate if they are in good health.
Enrollment will be targeted toward specific age groups, with the study skewing toward the older age groups that are at significantly greater risk of severe consequences if they get infected. About 45 percent of COVAIL participants will be age 65 or older.
Investigators also want to better understand how a previous coronavirus infection affects the immune response elicited by vaccines, so 35 percent will have confirmed previous infections.
More information is available at www.covidvaccinesd.com or by calling (619) 695-4371.
San Diegos weekly coronavirus update, published weekly, continues to show that the local pandemic is in something of a steady state. There were 125 people with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 cases in local non-military hospitals Tuesday, a number that, while much lower than it was in January, remains stubbornly above 100 even as the number of new cases reported daily remains greater than 200.
Many have recently turned to the amount of virus detected in local wastewater as a better indicator of the pandemics current state. The most recent update from San Diegos SEARCH coalition, a group of local organizations led by UCSD, shows evidence of 2.2 million viruses per liter in samplings made in Point Loma on March 29. That number is up only slightly from the 2.1 million viruses per liter detected on March 21, though more recent information from the first week of April had not yet been posted as of 6 p.m. Wednesday.
Pulse Oximetry for Monitoring Patients with Covid-19 at Home A Pragmatic, Randomized Trial | NEJM nejm.org
In a clinical trial, the drug was shown to decrease the risk of developing COVID-19 by 77% over the course of six months, according to the FDA.
Editor's note: The above video on BA.2 becoming the dominant variant in Washington originally aired March 30, 2022.
OLYMPIA, Wash. - A drug that could potentially prevent immunocompromised people from developing COVID-19 is now available in the state of Washington, according to theDepartment of Health (DOH).
Those 12 and older who are moderately or severely immunocompromised or have had a severe reaction to the COVID-19 vaccine are eligible for the treatment. The drug is administered through two consecutive injections.
Evusheld cannot be used as a COVID-19 treatment and is not recommended for people who have been exposed to COVID-19, according to the FDA's Emergency Use Authorization.
Evusheld is not a substitute for the COVID-19 vaccine for those who are eligible and don't experience severe adverse reactions to the shot, according to the DOH. Those who are eligible for the drug must wait until two weeks after they complete their vaccination series to get their first injection.
Evusheld is a combination of two monoclonal antibodies, tixagevimab and cilgavimab, that prevent the spike protein of the virus from attaching to human cells, according to the FDA.
In a double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized clinical trial those who were administered the drug saw a 77% decrease in the risk of developing COVID-19, according to the FDAs emergency use authorization.
Trial participants were aged 60 or older with a co-morbidity or an increased risk of developing COVID-19 due to their occupation or living situation. Follow-up analyses showed that the effects of the drug lasted for six months.
The drug manufacturer, AstraZeneca, reported Evusheld was also effective against the Omicron variant, however, some studies showed the drug was less effective against Omicron than other variants, according to the DOH.
The drug was first authorized for emergency use in December of 2021, however, the FDA updated the recommended dosage for the treatment on Feb. 24 based on the Omicron BA.1 and BA.1.1 subvariants. Data showed that a higher dose was more effective in protecting against BA.1 and BA.1.1 than the original recommended dose.
Protection against infection from the BA.1 and BA.1.1 variants may not last six months, according to the FDA. However, Evusheld does appear to have a greater neutralizing effect against BA.2, which has become the dominant strain in Washington state.
The FDA declined to recommend a timeline for getting an additional dose of Evusheld because it is unclear which SARS-CoV-2 variant or Omicron subvariant will become dominant in the United States over the next few months.
The agency said updates on redosing recommendations will be provided soon when more data is available.
People who are interested in Evusheld should talk to their doctor to determine if theyre eligible. If so, they can work with their providers to find a facility where they can receive the treatment.
The NOLA Public Schools district is tracking six active cases of COVID-19 in staff and students and 44 people are quarantining after coming into contact with a known case of the virus, according to the districts weekly report. But due to recently announced changes in how schools are reporting COVID data, its unclear how well that reflects the actual number of cases in schools.
This weeks report will be the last including data generated locally and some schools though its unclear how many have already stopped reporting cases to the district.
The district reported a 0.12 percent positivity rate on the 16,251 tests it facilitated last week. That should yield at least 19 positive cases, but the district only reported six.
Beginning next week, the district will be using data that schools report to the Louisiana Department of Health, rather than data reported directly to the district.
According to district officials, that will include case counts by school, though LDH does not provide school case counts in its public-facing database, which reported 33 cases in Orleans Parish schools in its most recent data released last week. That report, like the week prior, said that more than 50 percent of the cases identified in the report, which covers every parish in the state, were based on test samples that were more than a month old.
Last week, district officials said schools were beginning to report solely to the state.
While schools are required to continue to report cases to the state, many schools are gradually relieving themselves of the extra burden of reporting the data to the District, which goes above and beyond whats required by health officials, and the COVID Tracker data from this point forward may reflect this, the release said.
Cases remain low in the city, with an average of 12 new cases per day and a test positivity rate of one percent, according to city data.
This week all but four schools show zero cases and zero quarantines but it is unclear if cases are that low in schools or if the majority of city schools have stopped reporting cases to the district.
When a school fails to submit a weekly report, the districts tracker still lists the school as having zero cases. In a February interview, Tulane University epidemiologist Dr. Susan Hassig suggested the district change its reporting standards, requiring schools with no cases or quarantines to submit weekly reports. If a school doesnt submit a report, she said, that should be reflected in the data as a non-report rather than a zero.
I am very much opposed to using zero for a field that doesnt have a report, she said in a February interview. It needs to be a non-valid response for the field, so if its a numeric field it should be a non-numeric response like an NR or an X.
The Association of American Law Schools wanted to know how law deans are different now, after the COVID-19 pandemic. So they organized a survey by NORC at the University of Chicago.
The percentage of deans who reported spending some or a lot of their time on crisis management increased from 11percent in 2019 to 88percent in 2020. Deans reporting some or a lot of time dedicated to diversity, equity and inclusion efforts increased from 16percent in 2019 to 79percent in 2020. Student life and student conduct issues were also major foci of law school deans, with 8percent reporting they spent some or a lot of time on the issue in 2019 compared to 44percent in 2020. But so were budget and financial management: 49percent before COVID-19 and 74percent after.
You can order the survey here.
When spring semester ends, so will Northeasterns PCR COVID-19 testing. The university announced on Tuesday that it will discontinue the testing program on all of its campuses, effective May 6.
The move reflects a shift in the public health approach to COVID-19 as the university and the nation transition to managing the disease like other illnesses. All members of the Northeastern community have been required to be vaccinated and boosted since last year.
University officials say they consider immunization as the first line of defense against serious illness due to COVID-19, because cases in vaccinated individuals are typically mild. Furthermore, new treatments reduce the risk of severe illness and mortality. Northeastern leaders say they are prepared to adapt their management of the virus as needed.
Moving forward, like with other infectious diseases, Northeastern community members can rely on now widely available COVID-19 testing in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom as needed, university officials say. In Boston, faculty, students and staff will be able to obtain home-use rapid antigen tests upon request and free of charge from University Health and Counseling Services (UHCS) after the PCR testing program ends.
I think it makes a lot of sense for our community, says Jared Auclair, who is an associate teaching professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Northeastern and runs the universitys COVID-19 analysis laboratory. Were test-optional, and the number of tests has drastically decreased. Of those who are testing, the positivity rate is relatively low and within a range thats what you would consider, perhaps, more normal. You cant go on forever like we were.
Northeastern moved to optional PCR COVID-19 testing on Feb. 28. In the month of March, an average of 620 tests were performed per day, according to Auclair, down from an average of 3,695 per day in November and 2,515 in January (spring semester classes started on Jan. 18).
We have the toolbox now to deal with COVID-19 that we didnt have in the beginning, Auclair says. Theres not much else that we can add now, aside from vaccines for children under 5.
As for the timing, he adds, the end of the spring semester makes a lot of sense. Its spring, windows open, people go outside, and generally speaking, prevalence goes down. We saw that last summer.
The way that the university has handled the pandemic has fostered trust in the community.
Northeastern did a really good job in the beginning keeping the school open to a lot of the students and having the ability for in-person classes, while also allowing optional at-home learning, says Finn Shiely, a first-year student studying communications and business. I think they have taken a lot of precautions, and they wouldnt lift the testing if they didnt see it was safe.
For Denise Gregorio, whose daughter is a first-year student, steps toward normalcy are welcome.
I trust the university. I think Northeastern has handled it beautifully. Theyve kept the campus healthy, she says. I feel very comfortable with [my daughter] being there moving forward with treating it more like an everyday illness. [The students] do need to start living normal lives. Theyve lost some time theyre never going to get back. These are big years for them.
For media inquiries, please contact media@northeastern.edu.
UGA researchers track public health chatbot use to provide best practices
If youve been to a clinic for a vaccine or COVID test during the past two years, youve likely interacted with a chatbot. Chatbots are computer programs designed to simulate conversation with human users. Scalable to answer thousands of questions simultaneously, easily accessible to the public, and enabling social distancing, chatbots were ubiquitous during the COVID-19 pandemic.
But not all chatbots are created equal, according to Elena Karahanna, University of Georgia Distinguished Research Professor in the department of management information systems at the Terry College of Business. Karahanna, who studies the use of chatbots and social media in health care settings, published an analysis of how chatbots were used in response to COVID-19.
A lot of out-of-the-box tools developed during the pandemic offer customization options so organizations and agencies can tailor them to their needs, said Karahanna, who also serves as the C. Herman and Mary Virginia Terry Distinguished Chair of Business Administration. Our study informs what should be prebuilt and what customization options would be useful for the next pandemic or public health crisis.
The paper, co-authored with former Terry Ph.D. student Parham Amiri, catalogs the novel ways chatbots were deployed in the public health response to this pandemic and offers strategies to answer future health crises. Chatbot use cases in the COVID-19 public health response appeared in the February edition of the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association.
Chatbots have helped health departments answer questions patients might be too embarrassed to ask in person, provide health care education, or schedule appointments. But there wasnt a wide scale deployment of chatbots to address the same health challenge until 2020, when health departments, hospitals and government agencies stood up chatbots to assess risk and quickly disseminate accurate information.
Karahanna and Amiri analyzed the use of public health response chatbots presented in English language research papers in 2020 and 2021. Their sample included 61 COVID-specific chatbots in 30 countries. They werent looking to take a census of all chatbots used but to take a snapshot of the ways they were being used.
They found bots being used in a few common ways.
One of the things chatbots are good at is handling a lot of parallel questions at the same time from thousands and thousands of users, Karahanna said. With the fast-shifting landscape of information about the virus during the pandemic, there was confusion and a huge need for information. Doctors offices and public health agencies were overtaxed with phone calls. Chatbots expanded their capacity by offloading some of those repetitive questions from humans to a machine so humans could handle more complicated tasks.
Hospitals and public health organizations used bots to risk assess and triage patients to prevent exposed individuals from flooding emergency rooms. They also collected broad symptom data to pinpoint hotspots, while others allowed patients to schedule tests or vaccines. The fourth group of bots connected doctors, nurses and public health officials in rural areas with their countrys central health ministry.
One thing distinguishing bots across countries was the anonymity of the user. Some cultures place less of a premium on privacy, and bots in these countries provide more follow-up services because the interactions werent anonymous. This would not work everywhere, Karahanna said.
Decisions about anonymity are made on an agency-by-agency basis because using a chatbot that violates privacy expectations could result in an unused tool.
This wide-ranging experimentation with chatbot use during this pandemic helps the public health establishment prepare for the next health crisis.
The content is pandemic specific, but we now know what will work, Karahanna said. We can provide guidelines as to what we need to build.
Knowing whats needed for a response may also minimize duplication efforts and enhance the bots quality.
Chatbot technology is improving, but during the pandemic many of these were built very quickly to address pressing needs, and they were not as user-friendly or sophisticated, Karahanna said. We can learn what we need and possibly develop modules that can be customized for different organizations so were not having to reinvent the wheel next time.
Opinion: If politicians want no COVID-19 restrictions, they should stop complaining about the end of Title 42 and find another way to control the border.
Biden expected to lift Title 42, White House prepares for influx of migrants
President Biden is lifting Title 42, the Trump-era regulation that gave the government authority to expel migrants during a public health emergency.
Connor Ling, USA TODAY
If Republicans and even some Democrats want no COVID-19 restrictions, then why complain about ending Title 42?
The folks furious about President Biden finally ending the health clause are the same ones who want no masks, no vaccine requirements nor any other type of COVID-19 mandates.
Yet, theyre going to court to use the COVID-19 restriction to keep expelling most border crossers.
That doesnt make any sense logically, anyway.
On Monday, Arizona, Missouri and Louisiana filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration to stop the White House from ending Title 42 by May 23.
Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich called Bidens move a ridiculously poor decision with a bad intention for border states and American communities across the country.
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmit bluntly said Title 42 is a crucial tool for controlling the influx of illegal aliens at our Southern border.
Title 42, which former President Trump invoked in 2020 to expel most border crossers in the name ofcontaining the spread of the virus, has nothing to do with COVID-19 anymore.
What a bunch of hypocrites all of them.
They say ending Title 42 will lead to a flood of border crossers, which in fact may be the case. But what does that have to do with COVID-19?
Even Arizona Democratic Sens. Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly are warning Biden against ending the border restrictions without a comprehensive plan to secure the border.
What does that tell you? That once again the border is just a campaign prop in the hunt for votes.
Brnovich will do and say anything about border security in his bid to win the GOP nomination to compete against Kelly in the November general election.
Title 42 is just the latest Republican tool to paint Democrats as open border supporters,whod let cartels and human smuggling flood America with foreigners and drugs.
Fact is both Trump, a Republican, and now Biden have expelled most border crossers under the COVID-19 pretense.
Still, not everyone nor all the drugs are stopped from getting to American consumers.
But that has nothing to do with COVID-19. These politicians better come up with other ways to control the U.S.-Mexico border.
Elvia Daz is an editorial columnistfor The Republic and azcentral.Reach her at 602-444-8606 orelvia.diaz@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on Twitter,@elviadiaz1.
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A new COVID-19 variant has been identified in the United Kingdom, but experts say there is no cause for alarm yet.
The variant, known as XE, is a combination of the original BA.1 omicron variant and its subvariant BA.2. This type of combination is known as a "recombinant" variant.
Public health experts say that recombinant variants are very common and often crop up and disappear on their own.
"Right now, there's really no public health concern," said Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist and chief innovation officer at Boston Children's Hospital and an ABC News contributor. "Recombinant variants happen over and over. In fact, the reason that this is the XE variant recombinant is that we've had XA, XB, XC, XD already, and none of those have turned out to be any real concern."
According to an update last week from the U.K. Health Security Agency, 637 cases of XE have been identified as of March 22, with the earliest detected Jan. 19.
A medical worker collects a swab sample from a person at a COVID-19 testing site on Times Square in New York, March 29, 2022.
An early indication from the U.K. suggests XE could be slightly more transmissible than BA.2, but the World Health Organization said more research is needed.
Meanwhile, XE makes up less than 1% of total COVID-19 cases that have undergone genomic sequencing in the U.K., and there is no evidence to suggest that the variant can escape vaccines, cause more severe disease or is more deadly.
"This particular recombinant, XE, has shown a variable growth rate, and we cannot yet confirm whether it has a true growth advantage," Professor Susan Hopkins, chief medical adviser for UKHSA, said in a statement.
So far, no cases of the recombinant variant have been reported in any other country, including the United States.
Brownstein said there are still a lot of unanswered questions surrounding XE, but that -- in the U.S. -- there is a high level of protection both from vaccines and from natural immunity during the omicron wave.
"It's possible it may be more transmissible, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's more severe," he said. "And given the sheer number of infections we've already seen with omicron, it's really unclear whether even being slightly more transmissible means we'll see any impact of this variant whatsoever."
This illustration, created at the CDC, reveals ultrastructural morphology exhibited by coronaviruses. The illness caused by the novel coronavirus has been named COVID-19.
Brownstein said one of the reasons the U.K. was able to pick up on the variant as quickly as it did is because of its robust surveillance system.
According to the global database GISAID, the U.K. has submitted more than 1 million omicron samples for genomic surveillance. The U.S. has submitted more than 781,000.
"The U.K. has done a phenomenal job of sequencing a large number of cases, doing analyses and producing the output of that work," he said. "So you could see the identification of XE actually as a positive because it shows that our public health systems are working, identifying new variants even when the case numbers are super small."
Brownstein added, "This shows that some of these variants can be needles in a haystack, and here we have an example of one being identified very early on."
The World Health Organization released its own report saying it is monitoring XE, but there is no evidence yet that it is a variant of concern like alpha, delta and omicron.
"WHO will continue to closely monitor and assess the public health risk associated with recombinant variants" and will "provide updates as further evidence becomes available," the organization said in a report published March 29.
A fan is swabbed at the COVID-19 testing site prior to attending the opening night game of the Tomlin UNITED Tour on March 29, 2022 in San Diego, Calif.
Brownstein said variants will continue to emerge, but it is important for people to follow COVID-19 mitigation measures so they don't get a chance to spread.
"Being vaccinated and boosted, as well as practicing good hygiene and following public health recommendations all help to drive transmission down in the community," he said. "When we have uncontrolled spread, that's when the virus is given chances to mutate."
The UKHSA said it is also monitoring two other recombinant variants known as XD and XF, both of which are a combination of the delta variant and BA.1.
To date, only 38 cases of XF have been identified in the U.K. and none since mid-February while the XD variant has only been identified in global databases in 49 cases, mostly in France.
CDC removes COVID risk warning for passengers going on cruise ships
The CDC dropped its risk assessment of cruise travel after more than two years of warning travelers against the dangers of COVID on a cruise ship.
USA TODAY
The lifting of most external pandemicprotections this wintercould increase the risk of catchingCOVID-19 from someone without a mask who's infected.
For the most part, people need to protect themselves and assume risk, but there are cases when a person with the virus is accountable for spreading it.
In some cases, a person saying they'd intentionallyspreadCOVID-19 resulted in an arrest for making a terrorist threat.
But can you sue in court and win against someone who knowingly has COVID-19 and gave it to you?
Theoretically, yes if you couldprove the person infected you intentionally andyou didn't get it from someone else.
In California, the general rule is that all persons have a duty to use ordinary care to prevent others frombeing injured as the result of their conduct. Redding attorney Catie Barrsaid.
'It feels like its almost a punishment':Millions of people could lose health insurance coverage when the COVID-19 emergency ends
In 2006, the California Supreme Court ruled a person has a duty to avoid knowingly transmitting an infectious disease. It compared being stricken with a disease dueto someones negligence as no different than being hit by a car due to the drivers negligence. Therefore, the intentional spread of an infectious diseasecouldbe prosecutedcivilly, Barr said.
The trouble is proving the person intentionally gave you COVID-19.
Just being exposed to the disease by someone and contracting it isnt enough.
There must be proof that the individual knowingly transmitted the disease and (you were)actually harmed by that specific conduct," Barr said. "This would be incredibly difficult to prove.
Past successful cases dealt withintentional transmission of sexually transmitted diseases, like HIV, Barr said. Establishing proof in those situations is likely easier thanproving transmission of COVID-19.
California Safety Code 120290 says a person is guilty of intentional transmission of an infectious or communicable disease if:
You'd have to prove all five pointstoshow a violation, according to California Safety Code 120290.
To read the complete code go to bit.ly/3qsBc6J.
Intentionally spreading or threatening to spread COVID-19 could be considered a terrorist act, according to the U.S. government.
On March 24, 2020 about a week after the national shutdown the U.S. Department of Justice issued a memorandum regarding COVID-related criminal behavior, including "threats targeting specific individuals or the general public" and "the purposeful exposure and infection of others with COVID-19."
The documentclassified thecoronavirus as a biological agent and said spreading it couldfall under nationalterrorism-related statutes.
COVID-19: New coronavirus omicron variant BA.2 enters Shasta County
The next day, USA Today reporteda Missouri man was arrested and charged with making a second-degree terrorist threat after Warrenton police saidheposted video of himself saying "Who's scared of coronavirus?" and licking stock at a Walmart.
Other cases involve people posting they planned to spread COVID-19on social media ordeliberately coughing on others while claiming they had the virus.
To read the memorandum, go tobit.ly/3K0Aup5.
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Jessica Skropanic is a features reporter for the Record Searchlight/USA Today Network. She covers science, arts, social issues and entertainment stories.Followher on Twitter @RS_JSkropanicand on Facebook. Join Jessica in theGet Out! Nor Calrecreation Facebook group. To support and sustain this work, please subscribe today. Thank you.
