More than 800 people attended the church retreat.
July 13, 2021, 1:52 PM
3 min read
A COVID-19 outbreak has been reported among attendees of a church retreat, officials announced.
At least 30 positive cases have been identified so far in people who took part in the weeklong event, health officials confirmed.
Dayton and Montgomery County Public Health said more than 800 people attended the Baptist Church retreat at Camp Chautauqua in Miamisburg, Ohio, from June 27 to July 3. Visitors came to the event from churches across Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois and Indiana.
Dr. Michael Dohn, medical director for Dayton & Montgomery County Public Health, spoke out about his concern, stating: Unvaccinated people, including children under 12 years of age, are up to 100 times more likely to get sick after exposure to COVID-19 compared to fully vaccinated individuals.
Dohn added: "the outbreak demonstrates that the COVID-19 virus is still circulating and continues to make people sick.
The positive cases were so far identified in attendees from Ohio and Kentucky.
Dayton and Montgomery County Public Health said more than 800 people attended the Baptist Church retreat at Camp Chautauqua in Miamisburg, Ohio, from June 27 to July 3.
One person tested positive for COVID-19 during the final days of the retreat and was immediately quarantined off campus, Jason Harmeyer, President of the Chautauqua Camp and Conference Center said in a statement. Event organizers then proceeded to monitor individuals associated with that group for symptoms and conducted regular temperature checks.
Health officials investigating the outbreak said camp and event organizers had failed to provide contact information for attendees after the initial cases were recognized, so authorities were asking anyone who may have attended the retreat to contact them or their local health department.
The camp organizer said it was in regular contact with group leaders to take necessary precautions.
It is unknown how many attendees had received COVID-19 vaccinations.
Oxfam is building on its work over the past year to help the poorest and most at-risk people survive the second wave of coronavirus in 2021.
When the second wave of COVID-19 hit India in late April, it created a public health crisis that left hospitals overwhelmed and people literally dying in the streets. In less than a month, the country saw more than 100,000 deaths, bringing the total death toll to more than 300,000the third highest in the world behind the United States and Brazil.
JOHANNESBURG, July 13 (Reuters) - At an emergency COVID-19 ward run by a charity in southern Johannesburg, medics wheel gasping patients to their beds, rush from room to room with oxygen cylinders and pat the back of someone in the grip of a coughing fit.
The scenes in the converted community hall are a reminder of how badly South Africa has been hit by its third and most debilitating COVID-19 wave yet, as the infectious Delta variant surges through a mostly unvaccinated population.
"The Delta variant has caused enormous strain on the resources ... Every hospital is getting strained, every healthcare worker is getting strained," said Fatimah Lambat, the doctor in charge of the ward set up by Gift of the Givers, a Muslim charity, to ease overloaded public hospitals.
"It's very draining ... patients are still phoning me from the community for help. And when we're full here, we still need to help them," she said. "We don't want them to be lost."
With South Africa recording an average of about 20,000 cases a day and nursing active cases, cumulatively, of more than 10 times that, Africa's most economically advanced nation has also been its worst hit by the virus, with 64,000 deaths.
Soemaya Raffie reacts while being treated at a makeshift hospital run by charity organisation The Gift of the Givers, during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Johannesburg, South Africa, July 11, 2021. REUTERS/Sumaya Hisham
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A vaccination campaign has been slow, with just 4.2 million doses administered to a population of 60 million. Officials aim to reach a vaccination rate of 300,000 a day by the end of August.
Doctors say they have never had to deal with so many COVID-19 infections all at once. Hospitals in the largest city Johannesburg, where the latest wave started, are full.
For 79-year-old Catherine Naidoo, the most terrifying thing about falling gravely ill was knowing that so many had died.
"You don't know what lies ahead. You look at the news and see how people are passing away," the recovered COVID-19 patient said, lying on her back and adjusting her mask. "It was the most frightening experience."
Behind another curtain, medics covered head to toe in protective gear adjusted the drip of a sleeping patient, while in another, a medic was getting a patient to do some exercises before getting her to blow into a tube to test her lungs.
President Cyril Ramaphosa extended COVID-19 restrictions on Sunday for another 14 days, including a ban on gatherings, a curfew from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. and a nationwide ban on the sale of alcohol.
Writing by Tim Cocks; Editing by Janet Lawrence
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
PROVINCETOWN, Mass. (WPRI) Barnstable County health officials are monitoring positive COVID-19 infections involving fully vaccinated people who visited Provincetown for Independence Day festivities.
Town ManagerAlex Morse said on FacebookMonday Provincetown has seen a handful of newcoronaviruscases in the past few days. The Barnstable County Department of Health said there have been 20 to 25 positive cases from last week, according to Boston 25 News.
Morse stated on Facebook, a number of cases being reported are breakthrough cases, and that the town is in touch with the Health Department and Outer Cape Health Services closely monitoring the data. He also noted nearly all of Provincetowns year-round and part-time residents are fully vaccinated.
Tufts Medical Center epidemiologist and infectious disease expert Dr.Shira Doron told Boston 25 the cases are something to watch but not panic about, but because the town is one the Capes most popular destinations for tourists, there is also the possibility for more cases to arise.
Whenyou have a very highly immunized population, as is the case withP-Town, andthen you have travelers that may be coming from areas that are less well-immunized and maybe even hotspotsthats going to bring in more infection, Doron said.
She also stressed that if youre vaccinated and get infected, youre more likely to develop less severe symptoms.
If youre vaccinated, you havefulfilled your biggest obligation to public health, and you maychooseto go to a crowded bar or nightclub, even though there is some risk is involved inthat, Doron said. It is not zero and its never going to be zero because COVID is here to stay.
Jul 13th 2021
COUNTRIES WITH high covid-19 vaccination rates, including England, are lifting social restrictions. Behavioural scientist Katy Milkman and health-policy editor Natasha Loder assess the impact of these changes. Will mask-wearing and social distancing stick? And, how people may one day drill for copper as they now drill for oil. Kenneth Cukier hosts. Runtime: 26 min
Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify |Google | Stitcher | TuneIn
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CNN
Last month, 130 people died of Covid-19 in Maryland. None of them were vaccinated, according to Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan.
In addition, unvaccinated people made up 95% of new Covid-19 cases in the state and 93% of new Covid-19 hospitalizations, Hogan said at a news conference Wednesday.
The connection between vaccination status and Covid-19 is not specific to Maryland and is not limited to last month, medical experts have said.
Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine, said Marylands data is a trend that will be seen in states across the country.
No question that almost all of the deaths and hospitalizations will be in unvaccinated individuals, and therefore we should expect most of severe illnesses, hospitalizations and deaths will occur predominantly in areas of low vaccination and high Delta, such as in the South and Mountain West, he said.
So far its confirming what we saw with Phase 3 clinical trials: That all of the vaccines authorized for emergency use give extra protection against hospitalizations and deaths, so this has been confirmed now in very practical settings over the past year, Hotez added. Its a reminder that you have every reason to get vaccinated.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Maryland National Guard Sgt. Jason Grant administers a Moderna coronavirus vaccine at CASA de Maryland's Wheaton Welcome Center on May 21, 2021 in Wheaton, Maryland.
Dr. Paul Sax, an infectious disease doctor at Brigham and Womens Hospital in Boston, similarly highlighted the Maryland data as evidence of the continued effectiveness of the Covid-19 vaccines.
Were finding that 99% of the people with severe disease are unvaccinated, so the vaccines are preventing severe disease, even from Delta, he told CNN on Wednesday.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, gave similar numbers during a White House briefing last week.
In fact, more than 99% of US Covid-19 deaths in June were among unvaccinated people. In addition, early data suggests that over the last six months, nearly all Covid-19 deaths in a number of states have been in unvaccinated people, Walensky said last week during a White House briefing.
Preliminary data from a collection of states over the last six months suggest 99.5% of deaths from Covid-19 in these states have occurred in unvaccinated people, Walensky said. She did not specify which states.
In California, just 8,699out of 20 million fully vaccinated peoplehave become infected with Covid-19 between January 1 and June 30, according to state data. At least 652 of those were hospitalized, and at least 71 died a minuscule percentage out of the 37,180 Californians who died in that same time period, according to data from Johns Hopkins.
The data is further evidence of the effectiveness of the Covid-19 vaccines, which have proven to be remarkably effective at preventing on new Covid-19 infections, hospitalizations and deaths, according to studies featuring tens of thousands of people across the world.
The CDC has tracked so-called breakthrough cases in which a vaccinated person is hospitalized or dies from Covid-19. The CDC has tallied 879 deaths among vaccinated people a tiny fraction of the more than 600,000 Americans who have died of the novel coronavirus.
01:44 - Source: CNN
Fauci on vaccination rates: It's almost like there's two Americas
Overall, new infections, hospitalizations and deaths have sharply declined for everyone over the past few months as over two-thirds of Americans have had at least one vaccine dose.
Yet, unvaccinated people remain susceptible to infection, particularly in pockets of the country where vaccination rates are low.
Its really sad and tragic that most all of these are avoidable and preventable, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, told NBCs Meet the Press on Sunday.
Fauci noted that no vaccine provides perfect protection for everyone, but the data shows their clear positive impact.
Obviously there are going to be some people, because of the variability among people and their response to vaccine, that youll see some who are vaccinated and still get into trouble and get hospitalized and die, he noted. But the overwhelming proportion of people who get into trouble are the unvaccinated.
Indeed, states with below-average vaccination rates have almost triple the rate of new Covid-19 cases compared to states with above-average vaccination rates, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. In addition, people who have been vaccinated against coronavirus, if they do become infected, have milder illness than unvaccinated people, a CDC study found.
In a news conference Tuesday, President Joe Biden stressed that the vaccines are highly effective and safe.
Study after study has shown that since early May, virtually every Covid-19 hospitalization and death in the United States has been among the unvaccinated. So, if youre vaccinated, youre protected, but if youre unvaccinated, youre not, he said. So please get vaccinated now. It works. Its free. Its never been more important.
Infectious disease experts have also explained that unvaccinated people present an opportunity for the virus to mutate.
The more unvaccinated people are, the more opportunities for the virus to multiply, said Dr. William Schaffner, a professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. When it does, it mutates, and it could throw off a variant mutation that is even more serious down the road.
So unvaccinated people are potential variant factories, he added.
CNNs Jason Hoffman, Virginia Langmaid, Lauren Mascarenhas and Naomi Thomas contributed to this report.
The Lambda variant has become the dominant version of the Covid-19 coronavirus in Peru. Here a poll ... [+] worker sanitizes a polling station in Lima on April 10, 2021. (Photo by ERNESTO BENAVIDES/AFP via Getty Images)
Compared to all the attention that the Alpha and then Delta variants have been getting, theres been relative silence of the Lambda until now.
The Lambda variant of the Covid-19 coronavirus is not to be confused with the lambada, which is the forbidden dance. But this variant has been progressively dancing its way around the globe. Its already become the dominant strain in Peru, which has had the highest Covid-19 case fatality rate and deaths per capita in the world. It has also spread to at least 29 countries in five different World Health Organization (WHO) regions. So the question is: will this version of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV2) Lambda the world into even more trouble?
Its hard to say right now. Much to learn about the Lambda variant there is, as Yoda would say. Currently, the Lambda variant is like your dad wearing a one-legged cat suit thats way too tight for the first time. You can see some disturbing signs but you cant quite see or figure out everything thats going on yet.
The Lambda variant has been around for while. It was first detected in Peru back in August 2020 and has steadily grown in presence there. Eventually, the Lambda variant became the alpha or the top dog of Covid-19 coronavirus strains in Peru. Since April 2021, sequencing of Covid-19 coronavirus cases in the country has found the Lambda variant in over 80% of the samples. The Covid-19 pandemic has hit Peru particularly hard too. As of July 9, Peru has had a total of 2,074,186 reported Covid-19 cases with 193,909 of those resulting in death, yielding a 9.3% case fatality ratio and a 596.45 deaths per 100,000 people in the population, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. Those numbers have made Peru number one globally in both categories. And in this case, being number one is not good.
Peru has had the highest per capita Covid-19 death toll in the world. (Photo by Raul Sifuentes/Getty ... [+] Images)
A June 15 WHO report noted elevated prevalence of the Lambda variant in multiple other South American countries as well, including Chile, Ecuador, and Argentina. According to a Public Health England report, as of June 24, 2021, this variant has appeared in 525 samples from the U.S., 87 in Germany, 86 in Argentina, 57 in Mexico, 43 in Spain, 19 in Israel, 15 in Colombia, 13 in France, eight in Egypt, seven in Switzerland, six in the United Kingdom, five in Italy, three in Brazil, and three in Canada as well as in single samples from the Netherlands, Aruba, Portugal, Denmark, Czech Republic, Turkey, Australia, Curacao, and Zimbabwe.
This version of the virus, otherwise known as the C.37 variant, made the WHOs Variants of Interest (VOI) list on June 14, 2021, joining other variants like the Eta, Iota, and Kappa ones. These Greek lettered names all may sound like fraternities or sororities but if someone asks you to rush the Lambda variant, its better to say, get the heck away from me. In this case, interest doesnt mean oh, that would be cool like a statue of Ariana Grande made out of hot dogs. Instead, interest here means that public health officials should watch the variant very closely because it could become a major threat. A VOI is a version of the virus that, in the words of the WHO, has genetic changes that are predicted or known to affect virus characteristics such as transmissibility, disease severity, immune escape, diagnostic or therapeutic escape and that is spreading so that it may be an emerging risk to global public health.
A VOI is one step below a Variant of Concern (VOC). The Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Gamma variants have already made the VOC list. The Lambda variant doesnt qualify as a VOC at this moment because studies have not yet confirmed that it is more transmissible, causes worse illness, or better able to get past the Covid-19 vaccines or treatments than other versions of the virus.
The key words here are have not yet confirmed. There just havent been enough studies so far to draw any strong conclusions about the Lambda variant. The situation in Peru does raise concerns that the Lambda variant may be more transmissible and more likely to result in worse Covid-19 outcomes. However, other factors can affect the spread of the virus and resulting death rates such as access to health care and the presence or lack of control measures such as social distancing and face mask use. Therefore, Perus higher death rates may not be solely due to the characteristics of the virus. The spread of this variant to so many other countries does lend more support, though, to the possibility that it is indeed more transmissible.
Of course, every time a new variant emerges, a big question is how well currently available Covid-19 vaccines may protect against the variant. Early indications are that the Covid-19 mRNA vaccines may still offer good protection, as you can see by this tweet from Peter Hotez, MD, PhD, Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine and Professor of Pediatrics and Molecular Virology and Microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine:
Hotez cited a pre-print thats been uploaded on to the bioRxiv website. This pre-print describes a study that took antibodies from the blood of people who had had Covid-19 previously or had received the Covid-19 mRNA vaccines and determined whether these antibodies were able to neutralize the Lambda variant of the Covid-19 coronavirus. The not so good news is that the Lambda variant was able to infect cells more readily than the original version of the virus. The good news is that the antibodies seemed to neutralize the Lambda variant. This provided evidence that the currently available Covid-19 mRNA vaccines may offer good protection against the Lambda variant and that the Regeneron monoclonal antibody therapy cocktail would remain effective against this version.
Keep in mind though that a pre-print is not the same as a peer-reviewed publication in a respectable scientific journal. All you need to upload a pre-print is a computer, Internet access, and someone besides a hamster to press the right keys on the keyboard. Hamsters are not always great with keyboards because they can end up typing out expletives. They also may trade dogecoin if they can access your computer. More studies are needed to determine whether the Lambda variant is actually more transmissible and more likely to cause more severe Covid-19 and whether it can get around the protection offered by currently available Covid-19 vaccines.
Anyone who understands the science of coronavirus replications and mutation will understand that variants will be a continuing threat until enough people are vaccinated and pubic health officials get the pandemic under control. Variants are not a scare campaign as the following tweet suggests:
The media isnt rolling out these variants, its viral replication thats doing this. Again, this is science. Continuing to overlook the science will continue to extend the current situation:
The emergence and spread of the Lambda variant is a reminder that the Covid-19 coronavirus is not going to stay the same. The virus is not like that adult who peaked in high school and still insists that beer funneling and giving people atomic wedgies are cool. Instead, the Covid-19 coronavirus is more like Madonna in that it continues to evolve and adapt to the times. Like a drunk person trying make photocopies of his or her butt, every time the virus replicates or makes more copies of itself, it can make mistakes. These mistakes result in mutations in the genetic codes of the resulting copies of the virus. Such mutants are in effect new variants.
Thats why its so important to slow the spread of the virus as much as possible at least until enough people can be vaccinated to break the chains of transmission. As long as the Covid-19 coronavirus remains so widespread, unvaccinated people can serve as variant factories. In other words, when you dont protect yourself against the virus, your body serve as a cheap motel. The viruses can essentially say, your body is a wonderland, I'll use my spike proteins. This isnt exactly what John Mayer has sung about because he is not a gigantic virus. But its close. Getting vaccinated wont completely protect you against getting infected, since the vaccine is not like a impenetrable concrete full-body condom. However, the vaccines do offer very good protection and may make the virus effectively say, Damn, baby, you frustrate me.
If you arent vaccinated, its best to maintain other Covid-19 precautions like wearing face masks and social distancing. This not only will protect you but also protect the rest of society by slowing the emergence of variants. Not slowing the emergence of variants could prolong the pandemic and get us to a point where we have fewer and fewer Greek letter to name the new variants.
Scientists have long been interested in creating portable devices that can quickly and painlessly screen a person for disease simply by taking a whiff of their breath. But delivering on this dream has proved to be a challenge. Different diseases may cause similar breath changes. Diet can affect the chemicals someone exhales, as can smoking and alcohol consumption, potentially complicating disease detection.
Still, scientists say, advances in sensor technology and machine learning, combined with new research and investment spurred by the pandemic, mean that the moment for disease-detecting breathalyzers may have finally arrived.
Ive been working in the area of breath research for almost 20 years now, said Cristina Davis, an engineer at the University of California, Davis. And during that time, weve seen it progress from a nascent stage to really being something that I think is close to being deployed.
In May, when musicians from dozens of countries descended on Rotterdam, the Netherlands, for the Eurovision Song Contest, they had to pass a breath test before they were allowed onstage. The musicians were asked to exhale into a device the size of a water bottle called the SpiroNose, which analyzed the chemical compounds in their breath to detect signatures of a coronavirus infection. If the results came back negative, the performers were cleared to compete.
The SpiroNose, made by the Dutch company Breathomix, is just one of many breath-based coronavirus tests under development across the world. In May, Singapores health agency granted provisional authorization to two such tests, made by the domestic companies Breathonix and Silver Factory Technology. And researchers at Ohio State University say they have applied to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for an emergency authorization of their coronavirus breathalyzer.
Its clear now, I think, that you can detect this disease with a breath test, said Paul Thomas, a chemist at Loughborough University in England. This isnt science fiction.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP)
Florida health officials reported an increase in COVID-19 cases and a higher positive test rate over the past week.
The number of virus cases in Florida rose by about 8,000 compared with the week before, for a total of 23,747 new cases, the state Department of Health reported Friday.
New cases of the coronavirus have been on the rise in Florida over the past month. The rate of positive tests was 7.8% last week after trending at about 4% positivity in recent weeks.
There were 172 deaths in Florida from COVID-19 last week, the health department reported.
More than 2,300 people were hospitalized in Florida with COVID-19 for the week of June 30 to July 6, according to the latest White House report. In comparison, 1,868 were hospitalized the previous week.
The state has recorded at least 2.4 million coronavirus cases and 38,901 deaths since the pandemic began, state figures show.
Officials also said the total number of Floridians who have been fully or partially vaccinated at around 11 million, or 58% of Floridians who are 12 and older.
The Netherlands reported more than 10,000 new coronavirus cases on Saturday, an eightfold increase when compared to last week after most restrictions were lifted despite the rise of the fast-spreading Delta variant.
The National Institute for Public Health (RIVM) said 10,345 new cases were reported on Saturday, the biggest one-day increase since December 25. This compares to 1,146 new cases on the same day last week.
The coronavirus infection rate in the Netherlands has increased much faster than expected since society reopened almost completely on 26 June, the government said in a statement on Friday. Most infections have occurred in nightlife settings and parties with high numbers of people.
Even though the current surge is not posing a threat to vulnerable groups or the capacity of the healthcare system, such high numbers create a risk for people who are not (fully) vaccinated and raises the possibility of new variants, the government said. Some may also suffer from long COVID.
Prime Minister Mark Rutte announced new measures on Friday in an attempt to stop the unprecedented surge in new cases. These measures focus mainly on nightclubs, music festivals, and restaurants because most of the spread is occurring among young adults.
Fridays announcement followed an urgent advice from the Outbreak Management Team, which expects that pressure on the healthcare system will soon increase, even though it is currently declining. On Friday, only 12 people were admitted to hospital.
If the increase among teenagers and people in their early twenties continues, it will increasingly spread among the unvaccinated population and the vulnerable, and this group amounts to more than 3 million people, the team said in its advice. The pressure on the healthcare system will increase substantially in parallel.
Virologist Marion Koopmans, who is part of the Outbreak Management Team, said tougher restrictions cannot be ruled out if cases continue to rise in the coming days. We are closely watching what happens next week, she told local media.
More than 1.7 million people in the Netherlands have been infected with COVID-19 since the pandemic began, including 17,765 people who died, according to NewsNodes. Nearly 6.5 million people, or 37.1% of the population, is fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
