News Release
Tuesday, September 28, 2021
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, has awarded approximately $36.3 million to three academic institutions to conduct research to develop vaccines to protect against multiple types of coronaviruses and viral variants. The awards are intended to fuel vaccine research for a diverse family of coronaviruses, with a primary focus on potential pandemic-causing coronaviruses, such as SARS-CoV-2.
The available COVID-19 vaccines have proven to be remarkably effective at protecting against severe disease and death, said NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. These new awards are designed to look ahead and prepare for the next generation of coronaviruses with pandemic potential.
The new awards are funded by NIAIDs Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases and its Division of Allergy, Immunology, and Transplantation through the Emergency Awards Notice of Special Interest (NOSI) on Pan-Coronavirus Vaccine Development Program Projects. The notice was issued in November 2020 while many SARS-CoV-2 vaccines were still under development because a critical need remained for prophylactic vaccines offering broad protective immunity against other coronaviruses, such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (SARS-CoV).
The awards are designed to fund multidisciplinary teams at each institution to conduct research focused on incorporating understanding of coronavirus virology and immunology, immunogen design, and innovative vaccine and adjuvant platforms and technologies to discover, design, and develop pan-coronavirus vaccine candidates that provide broad protective immunity to multiple coronavirus strains. Specific programs will address coronavirus diversity and infectious potential in humans, include innovative immunogen design and vaccine platforms, and approaches to elicit potent and durable pan-coronavirus immunity, and evaluate vaccine candidates in preclinical models. The awardees are expected to be flexible in the response to emerging knowledge about SARS-CoV-2 immune responses and infection and factor in new information as vaccines candidates are developed. Additional awards are expected to be issued under the NOSI in 2022 to support pan-coronavirus vaccine research at more institutions.
The new awards build on the $1.2 billion investment NIAID has made in coronavirus vaccine research since the COVID-19 pandemic began, including multiple projects in pan-coronavirus vaccine research in the NIAID intramural and extramural programs.
A key goal of the initiative is to develop multivalent vaccine platforms and strategies suitable for use in vulnerable populations and to understand vaccine-induced responses and efficacy related to a persons age or sex.
The following awards have been issued:
University of Wisconsin, MadisonProject Title: PanCorVac (Center for Pan-Coronavirus Vaccine Development)Grant: 1 P01AI165077-01
Brigham and Womens Hospital, Bostonroject Title: Discovering Durable Pan-Coronavirus ImmunityGrant: 1 P01AI165072-01
Duke University, Durham, North CarolinaProject Title: Design and Development of a Pan-Betacoronavirus VaccineGrant: 1 P01AI158571-01A1
More information on these awards is available at reporter.nih.gov.
NIAID conducts and supports research at NIH, throughout the United States, and worldwide to study the causes of infectious and immune-mediated diseases, and to develop better means of preventing, diagnosing and treating these illnesses. News releases, fact sheets and other NIAID-related materials are available on the NIAID website.
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH):NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.
NIHTurning Discovery Into Health
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Trevor Bedford, a computational virologist, has been named a MacArthur Fellow for his work on SARS-CoV-2. His early reaction: "Scary." Courtesy of John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation hide caption
Trevor Bedford, a computational virologist, has been named a MacArthur Fellow for his work on SARS-CoV-2. His early reaction: "Scary."
Trevor Bedford is a computational virologist and professor at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle who has devoted his professional life to the pandemic for nearly two years.
On February 29, 2020, he used Twitter to report that the genome of a COVID-19 case reported in Washington state showed the first known community transmission in the U.S. "There are some enormous implications here," he wrote. His prior work to track the evolution and spread of other viruses has been critical in understanding this global pandemic.
For his efforts, Bedford has been named a MacArthur Fellow the so-called "genius grant" that comes with a $625,000 grant paid out over 5 years. This is on the heels of an astounding financial award a 7-year, $9 million grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Robin Young, a host of NPR's Here and Now, interviewed Bedford to learn his thoughts on the origins, spread and possible future of the pandemic.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
So you've had quite a month.
It's been an overwhelming September, trying to feel like I can contribute into the future.
Clearly contributions are needed. Are you feeling pressure now?
Yeah, and it's all wrapped up with the pandemic and feeling like I need to somehow try to fix COVID, and it's impossible to fix it. But that's going to be the mission at least.
One thing that's helped is can I call it "crowd-sourced virus tracking?"
That's pretty close. We had back in 2015 a thing called "Next Flu" to try to look at how flu is circulating and help with influenza vaccine strain selection.
And you used the same type of tracking to look at Ebola, Zika ...
By 2019 we had a pretty good system to take publicly shared viral genome sequence data and very quickly build an evolutionary tree or a family tree and use that tree to understand spatial spread and what's going on ...
The genome is the genetic blueprint?
Mmm hmm.
And then you ...
When the first genomes for the novel coronavirus were shared on January 11 in 2020 we immediately had that built and rebuilt [for] a real-time view of what's circulating and how the pandemic is spreading.
What was your early reaction to this novel coronavirus?
Noticing it was a SARS-like coronavirus which is already scary.
Any other concerns?
[Knowing] how quickly coronaviruses evolve. That the initial infection was only in November 2019 and had very quickly ramped, this let us understand how much human-to-human transmission there was at a time when it's not acknowledged that there was human-to-human transmission.
How did you built the family tree of the virus?
We need people and groups from across the world to share their data. And during the pandemic that's been remarkable. We're looking for particular mutations that are shared among those samples.
What does that tell you along with other data points, like international travelers who've been infected by the novel coronavirus?
We're able to estimate the number of secondary infections that one infection causes. On January 23 [2020] we have a public report, we have an "R nought" of 3. And 3 is a really terrifying R nought.
Define R nought.
It means how many infections on average does one infection cause. Flu has an R nought of 2.
Having an R nought of 3 gives you a lot of exponential growth. That is what led to the pandemic very quickly spreading.
And you felt ...
That week mid-January 2020 was rough. For a while it felt like I had this special knowledge that I was trying to share with public health [like] WHO.CDC and kind of being alone with this knowledge. Eventually things caught up, which almost made it better in this tragic and ridiculous way.
Now your software is being used around the world and helping analyze, for example, the spread of the delta strain.
Right now delta has basically taken over the world in a fashion that I don't think many people would have predicted back in April. And we're watching very closely for the emergence of a sublineage of delta that has additional mutations on top of delta that is going to be the next thing to worry about.
Has your own life changed?
It actually has gotten difficult to remember what it was like before. It's been cycles of overwork and burnout, and then particular things cropping up that require more attention like when the variants first emerged.
Do you have any thoughts about the future of this virus?
If we compare SARS-CoV-2 to influenza virus I think it's a helpful analogy. The evolution of SARS-CoV-2 up to this point has been faster [than the influenza virus]. Having something that's that evolvable suggests that it will be able to keep evolving. We'll have to keep updating vaccines.
And the R nought factor [of] 3, which was terrifying back in January 2020, with delta it's now 5 or 6.
If 3 was "horrifying," what can you say about 5 or 6?
This is why places like Vietnam that were able to control the original form have struggled with delta. Because of this high rate of evolution it suggests that you'd have something that's [going to become] the worst of our seasonal respiratory diseases.
What about this winter?
I expect there to be a winter wave. However, we had a number of infections pulled forward by this delta late summer wave that has created its own immunity. Five percent of the U.S. has perhaps gotten delta at this point. So [winter] actually might not be so bad. But looking forward to 2022, 2023 once this [coronavirus] is endemic that's where my comparison with flu comes it, where it's looking like a severe flu season every winter.
For your own future, what do these prizes mean?
It's the scientific dream of having sustained funding to be directed in whatever fashion you'd want, and that's amazing.
How does that make you feel?
It's really been difficult for me to reconcile that with feeling like [these prizes are] coming out of my work on the pandemic. It's hard to accept things given that it came out of such terrible circumstances.
So you don't want to benefit from the global pain of the pandemic?
Yeah.
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PORTSMOUTH, Va. (WAVY) The coronavirus vaccine has been in circulation since late last year, yet only 60.2% of Virginia is fully vaccinated, according to the Virginia Health Department Sept. 29, 2021 report.
The report also reveals 62.4% of the white population and only 58.8% of the Black population has received at least one vaccine dose.
As the pandemic enters its 19th month, the president of the American Heart Association is joining the chorus of concern regarding vaccine hesitancy.
It [the vaccine] is incredibly effective in preventing severe infection, hospitalization, and death. Its among the safest vaccines weve ever produced and its free, said Dr. Donald M. Lloyd in a Zoom video call from Chicago.
The AHA chief is sounding the alarm as health disparities exposed by the pandemic have left the underserved at high risk for two potentially fatal conditions.
The things that put us at risk for COVID, severe COVID infection, are obesity, hypertension and diabetes. Those are the same risk factors that put us at risk for heart disease and stroke, said Lloyd-Jones.
Research indicates the novel coronavirus often enters the body through the nasal passages but then uses the bloodstreams highways to transport a potentially lethal dose of the pathogen.
A lot of the way the virus gets around the body is traveling through the bloodstream and damaging blood vessels and causing small blood clots, he said.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, minorities in America are more likely to catch the coronavirus and die from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.
So what can you do now for a fighting chance? The AHA is prescribing the vaccine and Lifes Simple 7.
A healthy diet, physical activity, healthy weight, not smoking and knowing your cholesterol, your blood pressure and your blood sugar numbers. Thats seven and if you have a problem, just pick one of those and work on it and your heart health will improve, said Lloyd-Jones.
To prepare for the next pandemic, Lloyd-Jones is calling for reinvestment in public health, better cooperation between the 50 states and improved health for the next generation.
We need to get much more serious about launching our children into healthy trajectories, meaning, keeping them from developing weight gain that happens in adolescence and young adults. That drives obesity, hypertension and diabetes, he said.
In efforts to debunk a barrage of vaccine misinformation, the American Heart Association of Hampton Roads is hosting a free online Community Conversation on Wednesday, October 13, 2021, from noon to 1 pm.
Panelists will elaborate on vaccine hesitancy in communities of color, debunk vaccine myths and they will share strategies of best practice to maintain good health and wellness, according to a news release.
For more information contact the AHA of Hampton Roads: 757-628-2605
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SHERIDAN The number of Wyoming deaths linked to coronavirus climbed to 996 on Tuesday as the Wyoming Department of Health released new information on 42 deaths, including two Sheridan County residents.
The departments weekly update of deaths tied to coronavirus said the 41 all died in August or September and said most of the victims, 35, had been hospitalized for treatment of coronavirus before their deaths.
Six of the victims, five women and one man, were Laramie County residents, while four others, three men and one woman, were from Fremont County.
Four Natrona County residents, two men and two women, also died in September, as did four Park County residents, three men and one woman, and four Platte County residents, three men and one woman.
Other victims included an Albany County man and woman, two Big Horn County men, three Campbell County men, a Carbon County man and a Converse County woman.
A Crook County mans death was also linked to COVID, as was the death of a Goshen County man, a Niobrara County man, two Sheridan County men, a Sweetwater County man and woman, a Teton County woman and two Uinta County men.
The announcement came as the health department announced the number of active coronavirus cases in Wyoming declined for a second consecutive day Tuesday, falling by 45 from Monday to total 3,662.
AKRON, Ohio Akron Childrens Hospital will begin offering drive-thru COVID-19 testing at its Akron campus Wednesday.
The drive-thru testing is available to children whether they are patients or not, with or without symptoms, and young adults up to age 26 who are still in the care of Akron Childrens.
Testing will take place in the circular drive by the hospital's Kay Jewelers Pavilion, located at 177 West Exchange Street.
Testing will be available Monday through Friday, from 4 to 7 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 9 a.m. to noon.
Testing results are expected to be available within 48 to 72 hours after testing.
Appointments are required and can be scheduled through MyChart.
Insurance information will be required at the time of scheduled and at testing.
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See complete coverage on our Coronavirus Continuing Coverage page.
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Long COVID patient Gary Miller receives treatment from physiotherapist Joan Del Arco at the Long COVID Clinic at King George Hospital in Ilford, London, in May. Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP hide caption
Long COVID patient Gary Miller receives treatment from physiotherapist Joan Del Arco at the Long COVID Clinic at King George Hospital in Ilford, London, in May.
Symptoms of COVID-19 persist or recur months after diagnosis for more than a third of all people who get the illness, a new study finds, potentially pushing the number of so-called long COVID cases higher than previously thought.
In the study published Tuesday in the journal PLOS Medicine, researchers found that about 36% of those studied still reported COVID-like symptoms three and six months after diagnosis. Most previous studies have estimated lingering post-COVID symptoms in 10% to 30% of patients.
The study, led by University of Oxford scientists in the United Kingdom, searched anonymized data from millions of electronic health records, primarily in the United States, to identify a study group of 273,618 patients with COVID-19 and 114,449 patients with influenza as a control.
Although long COVID is poorly defined, the researchers looked at such symptoms as chest/throat pain, abnormal breathing, abdominal symptoms, fatigue, depression, headaches, cognitive dysfunction and muscle pain.
"The research found that over 1 in 3 patients had one or more features of long-COVID recorded between 3 and 6 months after a diagnosis of COVID-19," the authors concluded.
The researchers also found that of those who had long COVID three to six months after diagnosis, roughly 40% had no record of such symptoms in the prior three months.
Months after the pandemic began, scientists, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, warned about a post-viral syndrome that was showing up in people who had recovered from COVID. That led some to compare the symptoms experienced by many following COVID-19 to the same experience that some people have after other viral infections, such as the flu.
But the new study concludes that the chances of getting COVID-19 symptoms months after the acute stage of the illness was more than twice as high as for influenza.
The Oxford-led team also found that people who had more severe COVID-19 illness were more likely to get long COVID. Likewise, female and young adult patients also had an elevated risk for the long-term symptoms, but the authors of the study found no difference between white and nonwhite patients.
Now nearly 19 months into the COVID-19 pandemic in Minnesota, the majority of the states residents are vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus.
Yet with cases rising mostly among the unvaccinated and the more infectious delta variant prompting breakthrough cases even among those who have the shots, demand for COVID-19 tests has risen rapidly in recent months. Minnesotans are getting tested as part of routine screening, when they have symptoms of illness, to keep friends and family members safe at gatherings or because they need a negative test to board an airplane or go to school or work.
Amid the high demand, Minnesotans are having more trouble securing rapid tests and are sometimes seeing longer waits for test results than they were over the summer.
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Longer waits
The number of COVID-19 tests performed in Minnesota has increased rapidly in recent weeks: the most recent data show a weekly average of 486 tests per 10,000 residents, compared to just over 100 tests per 10,000 residents in early July. In November 2020, just before Thanksgiving, Minnesota reported nearly 790 tests per 10,000 residents.
As demand for tests has increased, some Minnesotans have noticed appointments for tests filling up more quickly at doctors offices and pharmacies, and many report waiting longer for test results.
Stephanie Zawistowskis family has been visiting the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport regularly since February so their two elementary-aged kids, who have been in school and summer programs, can get tested as a precaution. The MSP airport testing site is one of 13 no-cost community testing sites run by Vault Health under contract with the state.
At first, it took Zawistowskis then-kindergartner an hour to fill the sample tube with spit.
Now shes in and out in 10 minutes, she said.
Emails from Vault say test results should be available within 24 to 48 hours of the sample arriving at the lab, but often, theyre available more quickly. From February until late summer, Zawistowskis family would usually get tested on Saturday mornings, receive an email that their samples had arrived that evening, and have results by the time they woke up on Sunday. But lately, its felt less predictable, and usually takes longer than it did before, though still within the 24 to 48 hour timeframe from the time the tests arrive at the lab to when results are available.
In recent weeks when family members have been tested on Saturday, results often havent been available until Monday evening, Zawistowski said. When one child who was home under quarantine developed potential COVID-19 symptoms, the family kept the other child home from school recently on a Monday awaiting test results.
Rena Carlson Rasmussen has noted an increase in test turnaround time, too. Shes been getting tested weekly as a precautionary measure. Though vaccinated, Rasmussen said that as the manager of a coworking space, weekly testing offers peace of mind: Its just a part of my regular routine with being around a lot of people, she said.
In the spring, when Rasmussen got tested at the states testing site at Roy Wilkins Auditorium in downtown St. Paul, also run by Vault Health, she would typically get results back the same night. Now, its often taking more than a day, she said, between the time she spits in the tube and when she receives an email with her results.
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Vault has seen some increase in median test processing time in recent weeks, spokesperson Kate Brickman said.
The company measures turnaround time as the time between when the sample arrives at the lab and when results are available. Thats because the company processes both mailed-in tests and tests taken at community testing sites across the state and some in schools.
The median time between test arrival and results for the most recent week was nine hours, Brickman said Monday. Thats down from 12 hours the week prior and up from five to six hours in June and July when test volume was lower. Still, 95 percent of test results take less than 24 hours to come back after they arrive at the lab, Brickman said.
Its definitely increased a little bit in terms of turnaround time as demand has doubled and tripled, Brickman said. But the test results are still generally taking under 12 hours once they arrive at the lab.
Brickman said turnaround time is similar to high volume testing times in the spring.
At Sanford Healths Bemidji location, test results are often taking a bit longer to come back than they used to, too, as test volume rises. Sanford Bemidji has gone from administering around 900 tests in a week to 2,100 recently, and appointments to get tested are filling up quickly, said Amy Magnuson, the director for primary care at the Bemidji site.
The site has switched to exclusively using PCR tests for symptomatic patients, That means the samples need to be sent to a lab, increasing turnaround time, which is now typically between 24 and 48 hours.
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I think were still doing pretty good, but it is a little bit longer than what people may have experienced over the last couple months, Magnuson said.
Its not just Minnesota where COVID-19 test turnaround time is increasing. As demand for COVID-19 tests has risen, other states are seeing similar increases in time it takes to get results back, per news stories in Montana, Maryland and Maine.
Minnesota Department of Health spokesperson Scott Smith said in an email that Minnesotas labs both private and contracted through the state have the capacity to meet higher testing demand than the state is now seeing.
Currently, labs are processing between 17,000 and 40,000 tests per day far fewer than the roughly 90,000 processed on the peak processing day. Smith said he hadnt heard of issues with turnaround time.
As Minnesotans seek to get tested more often, many are turning to rapid antigen tests. These tests, available at pharmacies for about $12 to $40 each, come back in around 15 minutes. They are typically less accurate than the gold-standard PCR tests done at Vault and other labs, but offer the advantage of a quick result.
Rapid tests are widely available and sometimes free in some other countries, but here, supply is falling short of demand, with pharmacies often unable to keep them in stock. As of publication, most local CVS stores and some Walgreens showed them out of stock.
In recent weeks, Minnesotans have been sharing tips on social media when and where the scarce tests become available, and parents especially report frustration finding tests as back-to-school sniffles season starts.
With elementary school kids, I had to drive all over town last week to find a rapid test for littles, one Twin Cities parent tweeted.
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Testing capacity
Unvaccinated people with COVID-19 exposures are supposed to quarantine for 14 days regardless of test outcome, but getting a result sooner can offer some measure of comfort. For screening testing to be effective in schools, tests should be available within 24 hours, the CDC says.
Zawistowski said shes glad to have the testing sites available, but said a longer wait time makes it harder for parents to make decisions that ultimately affect their children, and potentially, their communities.
You cant test your way out of a pandemic, but it certainly provides you with a lot more information to make better choices, particularly when you are a parent trying to make choices for your kids who are not eligible yet to be vaccinated, Zawistowski said.Were into our third school year in which were dealing with the pandemic, and it seems like its just gotten harder and not easier and its weird to backtrack like that.
NEW DELHIIndia is preparing to produce its ownmRNA-based Covid-19 vaccine by the end of the year, in what would be a scientific breakthrough for the countrys growing pharmaceutical industry and help expand the range of global production hubs for the shots.
A host of companies across the world are pushing to bring their own vaccines using themRNAtechnology to market following the success of the Pfizer Inc. and Moderna Inc. shots. Indian firms, urged on in part by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, aim to be significant players in the new sector, with Gennova Pharmaceuticals Ltd. hoping to be the first.
Pregnancy can be a difficult, anxiety-riddled adventure even outside a pandemic.
Women, once peppering doctors with questions about allowed or prohibited foods, exercise duration or hair dye, are now faced with the reality of beginning or growing a family during a long-lasting pandemic.
Cases are rising in Michigan and across the nation. The population is divided on the necessity of masks. Efforts to vaccinate the residents against COVID-19 are continuing, with less success.
Though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommend immunization against COVID-19, some patients remain leery of the vaccines.
RELATED: Vaccinating pregnant women more urgent than ever, CDC says in recommending shots
Doctors and studies here address the risks to pregnant women.
Pregnant women already are vulnerable.
Generally, women of child-bearing age are young and healthy. However, pregnant women are undergoing physiologic adaptations.
Pregnancy is considered an immunocompromised state, said Dr. Alissa OHagan, an obstetrician and gynecologist at the Grand Traverse Womens Clinic and Munson Medical Center in Traverse City.
Younger pregnant patients with COVID will likely do better than, say, a 70-year-old with the coronavirus. But theres so much individual variation that thats not an observation thats worth carrying too far, said Dr. Gregory Goyert, division head of maternal, fetal medicine at Henry Ford Health System in Detroit.
You give them COVID and make them critically ill with multi-organ failure. Well, all competitive advantage has now been lost, Goyert said.
Though it is rare, pregnant women sick with COVID-19 are more likely to die than those who are not infected.
A study, published in August by the peer reviewed medical journal JAMA Network, looked at about 870,000 pregnant women at 499 U.S. medical centers from March 2020 to February 2021. It found 24 of 18,715, or 0.1%, infected with the coronavirus died. In comparison, 71 of 850,364 or less than 0.001% of women without COVID-19 died.
Of 1,378 people identified in 2020 as pregnant with COVID-19 in Michigan, two died. Their babies survived, according to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. (Not all of the women had yet given birth.)
An earlier study, also published by JAMA, found pregnant women infected with COVID-19 were 22 times more likely to die than women who had not contracted the illness. Eleven of 706 women with a COVID-19 diagnosis died. Four had severe preeclampsia. Five experienced respiratory failure and two developed fever, cough and breathlessness within seven days of an uneventful delivery. Of 1,424 women without COVID-19, one died because of a preexisting liver concern.
RELATED: Pregnant during a pandemic: Babies in Michigan fare better than in other states
Patients with COVID are at significantly increased risk for adverse pregnancy outcomes compared to those who are not infected.
There is an increased rate of preterm delivery, either spontaneous or induced by medication or cesarean section due to severe maternal disease. There are greater chances of hypertensive complications, such as preeclampsia, a potentially fatal blood pressure condition if untreated, and risk of a caesarean section, doctors said.
If you are entering into a cesarean section with severe consequences from COVID pneumonia and other organ systems, thats a significantly greater risk for mom than the patient without COVID, Goyert said.
Underlying medical conditions, such as diabetes, obesity or cardiovascular disease, can increase those risks among people who get COVID and get sick, as can being part of racial or ethnic minority groups because of health inequities.
You kind of put all those numbers and start multiplying, Goyert said.
Chance of going to ICU or requiring mechanical ventilation increase.
Most pregnant patients will not get COVID, but if they do, their chances of having to go to the ICU or requiring mechanical ventilation increase.
In the study published in August 2021, 5.2% of COVID-positive pregnant women versus 0.9% of women who did not have the virus were admitted to ICUs. About 1.5% of the coronavirus group and 0.1% of the larger group required respiratory intubation and mechanical ventilation.
Usually, babies survive when mothers contract COVID-19.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports of 27,268 women with confirmed cases of COVID-19 in 2020, there were 27,449 live born infants and 266 pregnancy losses, according to most recent data, updated monthly.
This means for every 1,000 live birth plus fetal deaths, there were about 9.6 deaths, according to information collected through 26 state and local health departments across the country, including Michigan.
In Michigan, of pregnant women who tested positive in 2020, there were 2.4 deaths per 1,000 live births plus fetal deaths.
The state, as of Sept. 1, recorded three deaths and 1,273 live births attributed 1,247 pregnant women identified as infected by the coronavirus in 2020, according to a spokeswoman for the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.
The closer a baby is carried to term, 40 weeks, the greater its chance of success, doctors said.
About 12% of babies born to women who contracted the coronavirus in 2020 were born before 37 weeks, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In the study published in August, about 16% of women with COVID had a preterm birth vs about 12% in the larger group.
According to the national CDC data, about 3,600 babies have been tested at birth and about 6% were positive for SARS-CoV-2.
What to do to minimize the risks?
Vaccination is probably the biggest tool presently available, said OHagan, who encourages her patients to get immunized.
As far as other precautions, OHagan points to what has been recommended to all throughout the pandemic: Frequently wash hands, maintain distance from others and wear masks in certain situations, particularly while indoors and in public.
Read more on MLive:
Coronavirus data for Friday, Sept. 24: Teens account for largest COVID case increase in Michigan
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Should I immunize my child against COVID-19? Doctors answer parent questions
CDC endorses booster shots for older Americans, people with underlying conditions, at-risk workers
