A study of some of the sickest COVID-19 patients, such as those placed on ventilators, has identified gene variants that put people at greater risk of severe disease.
By Jocelyn KaiserOct. 13, 2020 , 1:25 PM
Sciences COVID-19 reporting is supported by the Pulitzer Center and the Heising-Simons Foundation.
Its one of the pandemics puzzles: Most people infected by SARS-CoV-2 never feel sick, whereas others develop serious symptoms or even end up in an intensive care unit clinging to life. Age and preexisting conditions, such as obesity, account for much of the disparity. But geneticists have raced to see whether a persons DNA also explains why some get hit hard by the coronavirus, and they have uncovered tantalizing leads.
Now, a U.K. group studying more than 2200 COVID-19 patients has pinned down common gene variants that are linked to the most severe cases of the disease, and that point to existing drugs that could be repurposed to help. Its really exciting. Each one provides a potential target for treatment, says genetic epidemiologist Priya Duggal of Johns Hopkins University.
In a standard approach to finding genes that influence a condition, geneticists scan the DNA of large numbers of people for millions of marker sequences, looking for associations between specific markers and cases of the disease. In June, one such genomewide association study in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) found two hits linked to respiratory failure in 1600 Italian and Spanish COVID-19 patients: a marker within the ABO gene, which determines a persons blood type, and a stretch of chromosome 3 that holds a half-dozen genes. Those two links have also emerged in other groups data, including some from the DNA testing company 23andMe.
The new study confirmed the chromosome 3 regions involvement. And because 74% of its patients were so sick that they needed invasive ventilation, it had the statistical strength to reveal other markers, elsewhere in the genome, linked to severe COVID-19. One find is a gene called IFNAR2 that codes for a cell receptor for interferon, a powerful molecular messenger that rallies the immune defenses when a virus invades a cell. A variant of IFNAR2 found in one in four Europeans raised the risk of severe COVID-19 by 30%. Baillie says the IFNAR2 hit is entirely complementary to a finding reported in Science last month: very rare mutations that disable IFNAR2 and seven other interferon genes may explain about 4% of severeCOVID-19 cases. Both studies raise hopes for ongoing trials of interferons as a COVID-19 treatment.
A more surprising hit from the U.K. study points to OAS genes, which code for proteins that activate an enzyme that breaks down viral RNA. A change in one of those genes might impair this activation, allowing the virus to flourish. The U.K. data suggest there is a variant as common and influential on COVID-19 as the interferon genetic risk factor.
Other genes identified by Baillies team could ramp up the inflammatory responses to lung damage triggered by SARS-CoV-2, reactions that can be lethal to some patients. One, DPP9, codes for an enzyme known to be involved in lung disease; another, TYK2, encodes a signaling protein involved in inflammation. Drugs that target those two genes proteins are already in useinhibitors of DPP9s enzyme for diabetes and baricitinib, which blocks TYK2s product, for arthritis. Baricitinib is in early clinical testing for COVID-19, and the new data could push it up the priority list, Baillie says.
The chromosome 3 region still stands out as the most powerful genetic actor: A single copy of the disease-associated variant more than doubles an infected persons odds of developing severe COVID-19. Evolutionary biologists reported last month in Nature that this suspicious region actually came from Neanderthals, through interbreeding with our species tens of thousands of years ago. It is now found in about 16% of Europeans and 50% of South Asians.
But the specific chromosome 3 gene or genes at play remain elusive. By analyzing gene activity data from normal lung tissue of people with and without the variant, the U.K. team homed in on CCR2, a gene that encodes a receptor for cytokine proteins that play a role in inflammation. But other data discussed at last weeks meeting point to SLC6Z20, which codes for a protein that interacts with the main cell receptor used by SARS-CoV-2 to enter cells. I dont think anyone at this point has a clear understanding of what are the underlying genes for the chromosome 3 link, says Andrea Ganna of the University of Helsinki, who co-leads the COVID-19 Host Genetics Initiative.
The U.K. genetics study did not confirm that the ABO variants affect the odds of severe disease. Some studies looking directly at blood type, not genetic markers, have reported that type O blood protects against COVID-19, whereas A blood makes a person more vulnerable. It may be that blood type influences whether a person gets infected, but not how sick they get, says Stanford University geneticist Manuel Rivas. In any case, O blood offers at best modest protection. There are a lot of people with O blood that have died of the disease. It doesnt really help you, says geneticist Andre Franke of the Christian-Albrecht University of Kiel, a coleader of the NEJM study.
Researchers expect to pin down more COVID-19 risk genesalready, after folding in the U.K. data plumbed by Baillies team, the COVID-19 Host Genetics Initiative has found another hit, a gene called FOXP4 implicated in lung cancer. And in a new medRxiv preprint posted last week, the company Ancestry.com reports that a gene previously connected to the effects of the flu may also boost COVID-19 susceptibility only in men, who are more likely to die of the disease than women.
Geneticists have had little luck so far identifying gene variants that explain why COVID-19 has hit Black people in the United States and United Kingdom particularly hard. The chromosome 3 variant is absent in most people of African ancestry. Researchers suspect that socioeconomic factors and preexisting conditions may better explain the increased risks. But several projects, including Baillies, are recruiting more people of non-European backgrounds to bolster their power to find COVID-19 gene links. And in an abstract for an online talk later this month at the American Society of Human Genetics annual meeting, the company Regeneron reports it has found a genome region that may raise the risk of severe disease mainly in people of African ancestry.
Even as more genetic risk factors are identified, their overall effect on infected people will be modest compared with other COVID-19 factors, Duggal says. But studies like the U.K. teams could help reveal the underlying biology of the disease and inspire better treatments. I dont think genetics will lead us out of this. I think genetics may give us new opportunities, Duggal says.
Reports of reinfection with the coronavirus evoke a nightmarish future: Repeat bouts of illness, impotent vaccines, unrelenting lockdowns a pandemic without an end.
A case study published on Monday, about a 25-year-old man in Nevada, has stoked those fears anew. The man, who was not named, became sicker the second time that he was infected with the virus, a pattern the immune system is supposed to prevent.
But these cases make the news precisely because they are rare, experts said: More than 38 million people worldwide have been infected with the coronavirus, and as of Monday, fewer than five of those cases have been confirmed by scientists to be reinfections.
Thats tiny its like a microliter-sized drop in the bucket, compared to the number of cases that have happened all over the world, said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Columbia University in New York.
In most cases, a second bout with the virus produced milder symptoms or none at all. But for at least three people, including one patient in Ecuador, the illness was more severe the second time around than during the first infection. An 89-year-old woman in the Netherlands died during her second illness.
Rare as these cases may be, they do indicate that reinfection is possible, said Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale University, who wrote a commentary accompanying the Nevada case study, published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.
Its important to note that there are people who do get reinfected, and in some of those cases you get worse disease, Dr. Iwasaki said. You still need to keep wearing masks and practice social distancing even if you have recovered once from this infection.
We asked experts what is known about reinfections with the coronavirus, and what the phenomenon means for vaccinations and the course of the pandemic.
First, the good news: Reinfection seems to be vanishingly rare.
Since the first confirmed case of reinfection, reported in Hong Kong on Aug. 24, there have been three published cases; reports of another 20 await scientific review.
But its impossible to know exactly how widespread the phenomenon is. To confirm a case of reinfection, scientists must look for significant differences in the genes of the two coronaviruses causing both illnesses.
In the United States, where testing was a rare resource much of this year, many people were not tested unless they were sick enough to be hospitalized. Even then, their samples were usually not preserved for genetic analysis, making it impossible to confirm suspected reinfections.
A vast majority of people who do get reinfected may go undetected. For example, the man in Hong Kong had no symptoms the second time, and his infection was discovered only because of routine screening at the airport.
There are a lot of people that are going to also have been exposed that arent having symptoms, that were never going to hear about, said Marion Pepper, an immunologist at the University of Washington in Seattle.
People whose second infections are more severe are more likely to be identified, because they return to the hospital. But those are likely to be even rarer, experts said.
If this was a very common event, we would have seen thousands of cases, Dr. Iwasaki said.
Reinfections can occur for any number of reasons: because the initial infection was too mild to produce an immune response, for example, or because the immune system was compromised by other health conditions. On occasion, a patient may be exposed to a large amount of virus that seeded an infection before the immune response could respond.
This variability is entirely expected, experts said, and has been observed in patients with diseases like measles and malaria.
Youll never have the distribution of anything with millions of people where you dont have some very severe rare cases happening at the fringe, said Dr. Michael Mina, a pediatric immunologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
At least two of the reinfected patients in Europe had compromised immune systems, for example, and the 89-year-old woman who died was receiving chemotherapy. In other reinfected patients, genetic factors or the lack of certain previous immune exposures may have blunted the bodys ability to fight off a second attack.
There are some people who just dont develop good immune responses to certain pathogens, said Florian Krammer, an immunologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. What is causing that? Were not sure, but its rare, usually.
In a vast majority of known infected patients, experts said, the immune system functions as it should against other pathogens.
There are a lot of different infections where you can get re-exposed to the virus, and we would probably not know because you dont have symptoms, Dr. Pepper said. And that might be an important part of boosting immunity.
When the body is exposed to an unfamiliar virus, its normal first to develop some immunity and then to increase that response with each additional exposure. This phenomenon is well known among children, but it is less often seen in adults because they rarely encounter new viruses, Dr. Mina said.
I think its important to recognize that reinfections are literally embedded in the evolution of our immune system, he added. We sometimes lose track of that with so many people talking about this who really havent studied the immune system.
For every confirmed case of reinfection, there are dozens of anecdotal reports of infected people who were sick and seemingly recovered but then became ill again weeks to months later.
Usually there are crucial data missing in those cases, like a confirmed lab diagnosis, or a virus sample that can be sequenced.
The question is always, Is it a real reinfection? Dr. Krammer said. Its very often very challenging to kind of get that kind of data.
A vast majority of these cases are unlikely to be true infections. More likely, these are people experiencing a resurgence of symptoms connected to the original infection. The virus may set off an inflammatory response that can flare up even weeks later and cause symptoms like fatigue and heart problems. In rare cases, some patients may develop a chronic low-grade infection with the virus that never quite goes away.
Even with viruses that can cause acute infections, like flu, Dr. Krammer said, you can have persistent infections if your immune system is sufficiently compromised.
Although these are not real reinfections, they are still worrying if they lead to renewed illness or hospitalization months after the initial infection, Dr. Rasmussen said. If theres recrudescence happening frequently, and people are getting severely ill the second time around, thats potentially its own problem, she said.
Reinfected people without symptoms may still transmit the virus to others. The patient in Hong Kong, for example, was isolated in a hospital even though he had no symptoms. But his viral load was high enough that he could have passed the virus to others.
Obviously, that person wasnt ill, so it bodes well for him, but it doesnt bode well for the community, Dr. Pepper said.
But to be sure of infectiousness, researchers may need to look for live virus. South Korean researchers investigated hundreds of reports of reinfection and were able to rule them out as real cases after failing to grow infectious virus from the samples.
Similar procedures would be needed to rule out the possibility of transmission in each patient, Dr. Rasmussen said, adding, I think thats the only way youd be able to get to the bottom of that.
Reports of reinfection have raised concerns about whether vaccines for the coronavirus will be effective and help communities achieve population immunity. The worry is that the immunity produced by vaccines will not be sufficient in preventing reinfections with the virus.
In reality, experts said, vaccines have a better chance at generating robust immunity than does natural infection with the virus.
For example, the coronavirus is particularly adept at dodging the bodys early immune alarms, buying valuable time to seed an infection. In some people, this lag eventually triggers a cascading immune overreaction that can be more harmful than the infection itself.
Vaccines are intended to unfurl an immune response without interference from the virus, and thus may avoid this inflammatory sequence. Vaccines can also be manipulated to enhance immune memory, in that way producing more lasting, more protective responses.
Vaccine trials are designed to look for an absence of disease, rather than of infection, and its unclear whether vaccines can suppress virus levels enough to prevent transmission to others.
Still, vaccine-induced immunity should perform better than natural immunity, Dr. Rasmussen said, adding, Im optimistic.
Even as vaccines are hailed as our best hope against the coronavirus, dozens of scientific groups are working on an alternate defense: monoclonal antibodies. These therapies shot to prominence just this month after President Trump got an infusion of an antibody cocktail made by Regeneron and credited it for his apparent recovery, even calling it a cure.
Monoclonal antibodies are distilled from the blood of patients who have recovered from the virus. Ideally, antibodies infused early in the course of infection or even before exposure, as a preventive may provide swift immunity.
An enthusiastic Mr. Trump has promised to distribute these experimental drugs free to anyone who needs them. But they are difficult and expensive to produce. At the moment, Regeneron has enough to treat only 50,000 patients; the supply is unlikely to exceed a few million doses in the foreseeable future.
Dozens of companies and academic groups are racing to develop antibody therapies. Already Regeneron and the drug company Eli Lilly have requested emergency use authorizations for their products from the Food and Drug Administration.
These drug companies have the long experience and deep pockets needed to win the race for a powerful antibody treatment. But some scientists are betting on a dark horse: Prometheus, a ragtag group of scientists who are months behind in the competition and yet may ultimately deliver the most powerful antibody.
Prometheus is a collaboration between academic labs, the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, and a New Hampshire-based antibody company called Adimab.
The groups antibody is not expected to be in human trials until late December, but it may be worth the wait. Unlike the antibodies made by Regeneron and Eli Lilly, which fade in the body within weeks, Prometheuss antibody aims to be effective for up to six months.
A single dose goes a long way, meaning we can treat more people, said Kartik Chandran, a virologist at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the groups leader.
In mice and laboratory tests, Prometheuss antibody protects against not just the coronavirus, but also the SARS virus and similar bat viruses suggesting that the treatment may protect against any coronaviruses emerging in the future.
A study published last year recorded about 400 strains of bat-origin coronaviruses in China, some of which had already spilled over into people.
Among scientists, Dr. Chandran and Prometheus are famous for careful and clever work that has unearthed critical insights into deadly pathogens. While working on Ebola, for example, the team discovered a new entryway into human cells used by the virus, and used that information to design an antibody combination that works against all major strains of Ebola.
They do very innovative stuff, said Florian Krammer, an immunologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. If they find something cool, they dig deep.
Antibodies are as variable as the people who produce them. Some antibodies are weaker than others; some target a different part of the coronavirus than others; and some are powerful protectors, while a small number may even turn against the body, as they do in autoimmune diseases.
Monoclonal antibodies are artificially synthesized copies of the most effective antibodies produced naturally by patients. In late February, AbCellera fished out an apparent winner from among 550 antibodies drawn from the blood of an infected patient. Barely three months later, partner Eli Lilly began the first trial of a synthesized version in patients.
Regeneron, which has a $450 million contract from the federal government to develop its treatment, was not far behind. Its drug is a cocktail of two antibodies. One was discovered in a patient in Singapore, while the other was made using a synthetic viral snippet in mice.
On Sept. 29, days before Mr. Trump received his infusion, Regeneron announced that this cocktail seemed particularly helpful for people who did not produce enough antibodies of their own against the coronavirus.
Both Regeneron and Eli Lilly have stockpiled tens of thousands of doses of their drugs, rather than wait for F.D.A. approval.
Without the resources or reach of these bigger companies, Prometheus has lagged behind.
With a $22 million federal grant, the group had been developing therapies for deadly viruses like the one causing Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever and various hantaviruses. But in the earliest days of the pandemic, the group was not able to take on the coronavirus.
We had all of the technology, all the tools ready to go, Dr. Chandran said. The only thing we didnt have was a patient sample.
Most of those samples had been handed to large pharmaceutical companies by the federal government. So the Prometheus researchers took an unusual tack, instead relying on blood from a survivor of the 2003 SARS outbreak. (The coronavirus is a close cousin.)
These scientists had experience on their side. One teammate, Jason McLellan of the University of Texas at Austin, was an expert in coronaviruses; another, John Dye of the Armys infectious diseases institute, had done pioneering work on Ebola antibodies.
In March, Dr. McLellan was the first to publish the structure of the new coronavirus in the journal Science. He supplied Adimab, Prometheuss commercial arm, with the pathogens spike protein, a protrusion on its surface that latches on to human cells and breaks in.
Using the protein as a lure, Adimab snared 200 antibodies from the patient sample. Dr. Chandran screened those antibodies against a proxy for the coronavirus, and Dr. Dye against the live virus in a high-safety laboratory.
Together, they refined the list to seven antibodies that recognized both SARS and the new coronavirus. Scientists at Adimab then enhanced the neutralizing power of one antibody by about 100-fold, yet retaining its effectiveness against all SARS family coronaviruses.
The goal was to do what we did with Ebola find an antibody that not only works against the current virus, but also past viruses that might re-emerge, like SARS, and future viruses that exist already in the bat reservoir, said Laura Walker, an immunologist and a director at Adimab.
If you had something on Day 1 to prevent all of this from happening in the first place, that would be a very good thing.
Monoclonal antibodies can rapidly prevent the virus from taking hold in the body say, in the residents of a nursing home with one confirmed case of infection. Vaccines, which require weeks to unspool an immune response, are useless in such a scenario.
But limited production capacity is likely to keep monoclonal antibodies out of reach for most people.
Regeneron expects to have enough of its cocktail to treat 300,000 patients within the next few months. The company may eventually produce about two million doses annually worldwide in partnership with Roche. Eli Lilly hopes to have 100,000 doses available later this month.
Even dozens of companies manufacturing antibodies could not produce the billions of doses required for the world or just the minimum estimate of 25 million doses needed for Covid-19 patients and high-risk people in the United States alone.
And its not clear how quickly manufacturing capacity could be scaled up. For one, the treatments are made in specialized facilities with ingredients sterile vials, protein resins, culture media needed to make other antibodies and vaccines, as well.
Its a finite capacity, and there are only so many things you can do to try to increase that capacity, said John Kokai-Kun, the director of external scientific collaboration at U.S. Pharmacopeia, an organization that monitors manufacturing quality.
The antibodies are also expensive to produce. Some cost up to $200,000 even the cheapest cost about $15,000 per year of treatment, making them unattainable for all but the richest of countries, according to a report released in August.
I dont see monoclonal antibodies being at large-scale use in the public, Dr. Kokai-Kun said. Theyre just too complicated to make and too expensive to really be effective in that regard.
Like vaccines, the antibodies have to be injected, and the amounts, which are calibrated to a persons weight, can be significant. (Mr. Trump received eight grams vaccine doses tend to be in micrograms or even nanograms.) The protection wanes after just a few weeks.
That puts a strain on your manufacturing infrastructure already to make the kinds of doses that we think are going to be required worldwide, said Andrew Adams, a vice president at Eli Lilly. We have to start thinking about the populations that we should prioritize.
Dozens more companies, and scores of academic groups including many in China are in the hunt for antibodies against the coronavirus. Given the urgent need, some may combine their resources as some did at the height of the AIDS pandemic to keep prices affordable for low- and middle-income countries.
In July, six companies, including Eli Lilly and AstraZeneca, successfully appealed to the Department of Justice to allow them to share information about manufacturing facilities, raw materials and supplies without violating antitrust laws.
Using a single antibody, as Lilly does, poses some risk of the virus mutating to escape it.
Prometheus is testing its first antibody in isolation, but plans to create a cocktail with a second antibody that is specific to the new coronavirus. The two antibodies have to be chosen carefully to complement each other or, at the very least, to not hinder each other, because they bind within the same small piece of the virus.
But each additional antibody requires more manufacturing capacity, increasing time and cost. For now, the first priority is a single powerhouse antibody that broadly protects against bat-origin coronaviruses, Dr. Chandran said.
We believe its a matter of when, and not if, the next coronavirus spillover happens.
Another 26 coronavirus cases have been reported in Maine, health officials said Tuesday.
Mondays report brings the total number of coronavirus cases in Maine to 5,780. Of those, 5,160 have been confirmed positive, while 620 were classified as probable cases, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
The agency revised Mondays cumulative total to 5,754, up from 5,752, meaning there was an increase of 26 over the previous days report, state data show. As the Maine CDC continues to investigate previously reported cases, some are determined to have not been the coronavirus, or coronavirus cases not involving Mainers. Those are removed from the states cumulative total.
New cases were reported in Cumberland (5), Androscoggin (3), Franklin (2), Oxford (1), Somerset (5), York (6), Kennebec (4), Penobscot (2) and Sagadahoc (2) counties, state data show.
The seven-day average for new coronavirus cases is 34.3, up from 33.4 a week ago and up from 22.6 a month ago.
The state continues to see outbreaks of the coronavirus in which three or more cases in a particular place are connected largely in counties that have seen a recent uptick in case numbers. In Kennebec County, for example, four cases have been recorded in the fire department that serves the Togus VA Medical Center in Chelsea, Maine CDC Director Nirav Shah said Tuesday. A number of other outbreaks announced recently have also grown, Shah said, including an outbreak at Community Regional Charter School in the Skowhegan area in Somerset County and The Meadows independent living facility in the Androscoggin County town of Greene.
The Maine CDC is also keeping an eye out for cases potentially connected to a hockey referee who tested positive after refereeing eight games in southern Maine and New Hampshire on Oct. 3 and 4, potentially exposing 400 people to the virus. The CDC hasnt learned of any connected cases yet, Shah said, but were entering the time period at which those might happen.
We hope that there are no cases, but we dont know, he said.
No new deaths were reported Tuesday, leaving the statewide death toll at 143. Nearly all deaths have been in Mainers over age 60.
So far, 463 Mainers have been hospitalized at some point with COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus.
Meanwhile, eight more people have recovered from the coronavirus, bringing total recoveries to 5,006. That means there are 631 active confirmed and probable cases in the state, which is up from 611 on Monday.
A majority of the cases 3,357 have been in Mainers under age 50, while more cases have been reported in women than men, according to the Maine CDC.
As of Friday, there had been 493,158 negative test results out of 501,020 overall. About 1.5 percent of all tests have come back positive, the most recently available Maine CDC data show.
The coronavirus has hit hardest in Cumberland County, where 2,392 cases have been reported and where the bulk of virus deaths 70 have been concentrated. It is one of four counties the others are Androscoggin, Penobscot and York, with 817, 271 and 1,284 cases, respectively where community transmission has been confirmed, according to the Maine CDC.
There are two criteria for establishing community transmission: at least 10 confirmed cases and that at least 25 percent of those are not connected to either known cases or travel. That second condition has not yet been satisfied in other counties.
Other cases have been reported in Aroostook (53), Franklin (72), Hancock (56), Kennebec (268), Knox (52), Lincoln (50), Oxford (158), Piscataquis (10), Sagadahoc (74), Somerset (123), Waldo (80) and Washington (20) counties.
As of Tuesday afternoon, the coronavirus had sickened 7,829,476 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 215,476 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.
The news: A man in the US caught covid-19 for a second time in the space of just two months, according to a study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases. That makes him the fifth person to have officially caught the coronavirus twice, after cases recorded in Hong Kong, Belgium, Ecuador, and the Netherlands (and there will certainly be more cases we don't know about). However, whats strange about his case is that he had had a worse bout of illness the second time. His doctors compared the genome of the virus during the two illnesses and found they were too different to have been caused by the same infection. Theres only one other recorded instance where this has happenedthe case in Ecuador.
The details: The 25-year-old man tested positive for the first time on April 18, after experiencing several weeks of symptoms including sore throat, cough, headache, nausea, and diarrhea. He felt fully recovered by April 27, and tested negative for the virus on both May 9 and 26. But just two days later, on May 28, he developed symptoms again, this time with fever and dizziness too. He tested positive on June 5 and needed to be hospitalized after his lungs were unable to get enough oxygen into his body, causing hypoxia and shortness of breath. He had no underlying health conditions. The man has now recovered.
The significance: Being infected once does not mean youre protected from being infected again, even if such cases are still vanishingly rare, with just five identified out of nearly 40 million confirmed cases worldwide. That means people who have had covid-19 still need to stay vigilant, following the advice on social distancing, wearing face masks, and avoiding crowded, poorly ventilated spaces. This was not altogether unexpected: coronavirus experts warned us that other coronaviruses, such as the common cold, are seasonal. However, there are still many questions that researchers are racing to answer. How much protection does having covid-19 confer? Is that mainly through antibodies or T cells? How long does protection last? What does it mean for the medical treatments that are being developed, or for vaccines? Will we all require a yearly shot rather than a one-off vaccine, for example? If nothing else, this new case is a reminder of how much about this virus we still dont know.
LOGAN SQUARE Juan Aponte barely survived coronavirus.
He was on a ventilator for a week. At one point, he has been told, he said his goodbyes to his wife, who was also hospitalized with COVID-19. But he was deeply ill, exhausted and so weak he couldnt even pick up a phone. He remembers nothing.
Months later, he has recovered but he is still sick.
Aponte, who works in Chicago, is one of many coronavirus survivors who is suffering from painful, debilitating and sometimes baffling side effects of COVID-19 months after seemingly recovering. Theyre known as long-haulers, and theyve had wildly different experiences and symptoms.
Long-haulers spoke to Block Club about how their health has changed: Some cannot smell or taste months after shaking the virus, while others experience phantom smells; many are exhausted all the time; their brains feel foggy and their memories dull; and people have aches, pains, shortness of breath and coughs, among many other side effects.
With much still unknown about the virus, theyre worried about how it will impact their long-term health.
Its given me pause to wonder like, What is actually going inside of my lungs or inside of my respiratory system? What are they going to find 10 years from now?' said Heather Tarczan, who runs the nonprofit Urban Autism Solutions in University Village.
Tarczan paused to cough, apologizing. She had coronavirus in April but now, in October, shes still coughing, still tired, still not smelling normally.
Im so sorry, she said, catching her breath. Thats the cough that comes and goes.
Because COVID-19 is a new disease, theres little information on how it can affect people after they recover.
The virus can be deadly, but the vast majority of people only experience mild or moderate illness, and some are entirely asymptomatic. People who are elderly or have pre-existing health conditions are those most at risk of severe cases and death, but even young, healthy people have been killed.
Similarly, the long-term effects vary widely. Some survivors are back to full health; but then there are long-haulers who experience everything from shortness of breath to loss of taste for months after recovery.
Sotiria Tejeda, 21, of Mount Greenwood, used to be able to run 5Ks on just three hours of sleep. Now, she lies in bed for hours at a time. She hasnt been able to take even a walk since June.
Tejeda became sick with what doctors told her was likely coronavirus in March, before testing was widespread. Tejeda had to quarantine for 84 days, but she was young with no pre-existing conditions. She never needed to be hospitalized. Yet she is still very ill.
Prior to this, oh my God, I was so healthy, Tejeda said. Yesterday, I went to sit down in my bed for about five minutes and it turned into six hours of laying there. I could not get up.
Tejedas exhausted, but its not just that: She feels pain in her lungs, pain when lying down, pain when sleeping, pain when getting up. Shes lost her appetite. Her senses of smell and taste were gone for six months; even now, theyre only somewhat back and some foods taste off.
Kimberly Walz, 45, of Lakeview, tested positive for COVID-19 in March. It was a mild case, she said, with her symptoms mostly limited to losing her senses of taste and smell and being extremely tired yet shes another long-hauler still suffering side effects.
For Walz, the after-effects have included fatigue, brain fog and forgetfulness. Her taste has returned, but everything is off: Sweet things seem like theyve been sprayed with perfume, for example.
And, most disconcerting of all, everything smells like fire.
To be in your condo and constantly smelling what feels like the building is on fire has my flight or fight response activated, Walz said. Its very stressful because it never goes away.
Aponte, 58, became sick at the start of May and was hospitalized May 13. He was discharged May 29 after spending time on a ventilator and in the ICU. His case was pretty serious, he said.
Its been 137 days since Aponte left the hospital yet hes still sick. Just driving to work uses all his energy, he said; he loads up on caffeine to make it through the days and is spent at night.
Aponte had aches in his joints before, but now the pain is magnified; he feels burning, prickly, pins-and-needles kind of pain and numbness thats allowed him to only sleep about two hours per night.
And Aponte still has shortness of breath and chest tightness. Hes lost more than 30 pounds as his appetite has decreased. He has new gastrointestinal issues. Theres brain fog, too: There are time where hell be in the middle of a sentence and he loses his train of thought.
Apontes wife, Laurie, 59, had a milder cases of COVID-19, and shes felt edgier and more anxious since recovering, Aponte said.
Tarczan and Julie Tracy, who work together, became sick within days of each other in March.
Tarczan still has a cough and fatigue thats so bad, she said, she feels like she could lie in bed all day and sleep.
But the worst of Tarczans side effects has been that, like Walz, she experiences phantom smells. She constantly smells cigarette smoke, even though no one around her can smell it and even though she didnt lose her own sense of smell while actually sick with COVID-19.
It makes you feel like youre going crazy, Tarczan said. Even laying in bed at night, you smell it. And its such a repulsive smell to me that I just cant even sleep.
Tracy, of University Village, has some trouble breathing and has had to start using an inhaler. Shes fatigued and hasnt fully regained her sense of taste and smell, and her appetite has fallen.
While Tracy has struggled with those after-effects, her husband, who was sick with COVID-19, has had no lasting symptoms, she said.
All of the coronavirus survivors who spoke to Block Club said theyre at least somewhat worried about what kind of damage the virus has done to their heart and lungs, and what ailments that damage will cause in the future.
The Journal of the American Medical Association looked at a range of research that found many people have experienced prolonged effects of COVID-19, even if they only had mild cases. Yet theres little information to help doctors as they try to care for these people or plan for their future health.
The Centers For Disease Control and Prevention website notes heart damage can be one of the most serious long-term symptoms, but it provides little other information about long-haulers.
Despite the uncertainty surrounding their long-term health, long-haulers are looking for ways to regain control of their bodies and get back to how they used to feel.
Walzs family has a history of heart disease, she said, so she reached out to a cardiologist to see if that needs to be looked at. Aponte has similar worries and plans to see specialists, especially now that he has lung scarring from COVID-19.
The long-term effects are still being discovered, Walz said. Even when I reached out to the cardiologist, so far their staff has said dont worry about it unless you had a problem. And thats what worries me the most: There could be things changing in my body or others peoples bodies that had COVID that were not aware of and were told, Just wait and see it out.'
Aponte said he tries to exercise on the weekends, when he has more energy, despite the joint pain hes experiencing after coronavirus. Hes a positive person, he said, so he tries to stay focused on the good.
My body took a beating. Ill definitely have to follow up with my cardiologist, pulmonologist, make sure that my heart and my lungs are OK, Aponte said. But other than that, I have to live my life, I have to carry it on and help others to make sure they do the same.
Chicagos long-haulers are also concerned about their other symptoms: if their taste and smell will return to normal and if theyll ever stop feeling tired or foggy, among other things.
Tracy worries about if her symptoms will return in the future, especially as her prolonged effects have waxed and waned in severity.
That definitely occurs to me: Is this something that can flare up again? What will that look like? Can you catch it again? she said. I definitely do think about that. I think theres a lot we just dont know.
Tarczan said shes tried exercising and not exercising, resting and changing her diet. Despite all that, nothing helps with the perpetual funk she feels.
And Tejeda, the 21-year-old, is worried about if her exhaustion and shortness of breath will go away. She checks her oxygen level daily. She is concerned about if shell ever again be healthy enough to fulfill a lifelong dream: becoming a mother.
I want to be a mom more than anything, and I worry because I go, Gosh, is this gonna impact that at all?' Tejeda said. Am I gonna be able to get the help I need? Are medical professionals even turning their attention to that right now?
I want to walk again, and its like I cant. That would be a really great day, really, to go for a walk again.
Many long-haulers told Block Club theyre struggling with feelings of anxiety and depression on top of their physical symptoms. Some said they feel like theyve become quicker to anger or more impatient; other long-haulers have reported PTSD-like symptoms.
Support groups for long-haulers have formed, allowing people to talk about their symptoms physical and mental and to understand theyre not alone.
These people can relate to what youre going to, said Aponte, a member of Survivor Corps, which has more than 100,000 members. I was fortunate I came through, and you gotta support people who, perhaps, are not as strong emotionally or physically to endure this. This is gonna last a while. I find the group tobe unbelievably supportive and very helpful.
But long-haulers said its not enough to just support people there need to be changes in how officials manage the COVID-19 crisis.
Some said theyre angry or upset with the lack of a national plan to slow the viruss spread. More than 215,000 Americans have died from COVID-19, and there have been more than 7.8 million confirmed cases here. Tejeda said President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly downplayed the pandemic, needs to take the crisis seriously.
People need to wear masks, social distance and listen to scientists and doctors, multiple long-haulers said. Experts have long said those measures can prevent the spread of coronavirus, meaning fewer people will get sick.
Long-haulers said they also want more research on people like themselves, especially since so many people have reported lingering effects after having COVID-19.
And officials should do more to stay connected with people who survive coronavirus, updating them on what health effects they could face and keeping them informed about what symptoms they should watch for, Walz said.
Its been anxiety-causing because I feel as if every week theres something in the news talking about a long-term impact to our health that I was unaware of, Walz said. The unknown worries me the most.
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The Oregon Health Authority reported 321 new known cases of COVID-19 and six new deaths Tuesday, bringing the statewide death toll to 605.
Today we surpassed 600 reported COVID-19 deaths, marking an unhappy milestone for all Oregonians," said the agencys director, Pat Allen, in a news release. At OHA we note each COVID-19 related death with great sadness. Our thoughts go out to the families and loved ones of those we have lost.
Officials have been watching anxiously and pleading with Oregonians to wear masks, maintain physical distance from others outside their households and avoid large social gatherings indoors to slow the novel coronavirus' spread. Flu season and much colder, wetter months when people spend more time indoors are approaching. The virus is expected to spread more easily.
Oregon is one of more than 30 states that has reported an increase in new cases in the past week compared to the previous week. Nationwide, in the past two weeks new infections are up 19% and deaths down 5%, according to The New York Times. Meanwhile, in Oregon new infections during that same time period are up 21% and deaths 53%.
New daily cases in Oregon over the past week have surpassed the all-time highs reached in late July.
Deaths, however, are still far below the records reached in August when Oregon recorded at least 138 coronavirus-related deaths.
Doctors say deaths typically come weeks after new cases because it can take that long for the disease in the most severe cases to progress to the point that it kills.
Where the new cases are by county: Benton (10), Clackamas (37), Clatsop (5), Columbia (1), Crook (1), Curry (4), Deschutes (2), Douglas (1), Jackson (13), Jefferson (1), Josephine (3), Klamath (5), Lake (1), Lane (39), Lincoln (5), Linn (20), Malheur (14), Marion (35), Multnomah (45), Polk (3), Tillamook (1), Umatilla (11), Union (2), Wasco (1), Washington (50) and Yamhill (11).
New fatalities: The state released the following details about the six deaths announced Tuesday:
An 83-year-old Yamhill County man who tested positive Sept. 21 died Oct. 5 in his home. Officials are investigating whether he had underlying medical conditions.
An 89-year-old Multnomah County man who had underlying conditions tested positive Sept. 30 died Monday at Adventist Health Portland.
A 75-year-old Marion County woman who had underlying conditions tested positive Oct. 1 and died Friday at her home.
A 90-year-old Clackamas County man who had underlying conditions tested positive Saturday and died Sunday. Officials didnt say yet whether he died at a hospital, his home or elsewhere.
A 91-year-old Malheur County man with underlying conditions tested positive Sept. 7 and died Sept. 18 at his home.
An 81-year-old Multnomah County woman with underlying conditions tested positive Oct. 1 and died Saturday at Providence Portland Medical Center.
Prevalence of new infections: The state reported 321 new infections, but 297 came in the form of positive tests while the rest where presumed cases. Of the 6,006 people tested, 297 people equates to a 4.9% positivity rate. The rolling seven-day average was 6.1%.
Who got infected: New confirmed or presumed infections grew Tuesday among these age groups: 0-9 (18); 10-19 (34); 20-29 (59); 30-39 (61); 40-49 (46); 50-59 (47); 60-69 (24); 70-79 (13); 80 and older (13).
Whos in the hospital: The state Tuesday reported 156 people hospitalized in Oregon for confirmed cases of COVID-19. Thats up by two from Monday. The state still has hundreds of available beds and ventilators.
Since it began: There have been 605 deaths and 37,780 people whove tested positive or been presumed to have the disease. So far, 749,375 tests have been conducted.
Coronavirus in Oregon: Latest news | Live map tracker |Text alerts | Newsletter
-- Aimee Green; agreen@oregonian.com; @o_aimee
The estimate is based on the number of infections "that have already occurred," Dr. Tom Frieden said Saturday, during CNN's "Coronavirus: Facts and Fears" town hall.
"Anytime we ignore, minimize or underestimate this virus, we do so at our peril and the peril of people whose lives depend on us," Frieden said.
By February, the coronavirus death toll in the US could double to about 400,000, a model from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington School of Medicine projected. Daily deaths will peak at about 2,300 in mid-January, the model predicted.
Projections aren't set in stone, however, and what the public does can have a big impact, another former CDC director, Dr. Richard Besser, said.
New Covid-19 cases continue to grow across the country, though. Florida health officials reported 5,570 new cases of Covid-19 on Sunday after there was no case or death update on Saturday, according to the Florida Department of Health.
There were also 178 Floridian deaths reported on Sunday, bring that total to 15,364, according to the data.
In Montana, it took almost five months from the beginning of the pandemic for the state to reach 5,000 confirmed coronavirus cases. But in just the past 11 days the state has reported a further 5,000 cases as the virus continues to spread throughout the country.
Impacts could be much greater than officials think
Officials are tracking coronavirus infections and deaths, but Frieden said those numbers may be too small.
The true number of coronavirus deaths in the United States is well over a quarter million, Frieden said Saturday.
Part of the problem in determining the true impact is how deaths are listed on death certificates, especially for older patients who are more likely to have other health problems along with a coronavirus infection. Often the other health condition is listed as the cause of death, he said.
"If you die from cancer, and you also have diabetes, you still died from cancer," Frieden explained. "If you died from Covid, and you also had diabetes, you died from Covid."
The number of infections is likely closer to 40 million people, he said.
"You may not get sick at all from this, but you may spread it to someone who then dies, or spreads it to someone else who dies," he said. "That's why we all have to recognize that we're in this together. There's only one enemy, and that's the virus."
Regaining trust in vaccines and health agencies
While researchers are racing to develop a coronavirus vaccine, health experts said Saturday that improving trust and accessibility around any potential vaccine is essential.
"For a vaccine to actually work, it's got to not only be safe and effective, but also be accessible and trusted. And that's why it's so important that it not get politicized and not be seen as from any political party or political figure," Frieden said. "It's a big job to get vaccines out there."
Opinion polls show that the public doesn't trust the CDC with information around coronavirus.
The way to regain trust "depends first and foremost on telling the truth, even when it's hard," Dr. Julie Gerberding said in the townhall.
"Americans can tolerate really tough truths, but it has to come from reliable and credible sources," Gerberding said. "One of the reasons that we have so much anxiety among Americans is because they're hearing different things from different political leaders. We haven't consolidated and cascaded the messages from reliable sources."
She reiterated what the other former CDC leaders said during the town hall: Transparency is key.
"It is going to be very difficult to crawl back into a situation where people believe that we really do have their best interest at heart. The good news is that science is on our side," she said.
A wake-up call for politicians and public health officials
Former CDC directors warned that both politicians and public health officials need to take the virus seriously for the sake of the public.
President Donald Trump said that Americans shouldn't let fear of coronavirus dominate their lives, but former director Dr. Jeffrey Koplan said the country should "absolutely" be afraid.
"When your leadership is working against you in this virus, the virus has an ally that makes it a pretty strong contender for further destruction," Koplan said.
Koplan said he believes this pandemic will serve as a wake-up call for politicians and public health officials.
"I would very much hope that we see stronger state and local health departments, working with a stronger CDC -- that there is particularly more attention paid to an up-to-date surveillance system, early detection of problems, and then approaches towards ameliorating them," he said.
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly reported the number of daily deaths predicted by a model from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington School of Medicine. Daily deaths will peak at about 2,300 in mid-January, the model predicts.
CNN's Lauren Mascarenhas, Andrea Kane, Leanna Faulk, Shelby Lin Erdman, Nicole Chavez and Christina Maxouris contributed to this report.
4. ICE
5. Russia
The NY Philharmonic has canceled its entire concert season for the first time in its 178-year history
A Utah hiker stalked by a cougar spent six whole minutes slooowly backing away from the animal
Second giant 'murder hornet' escapes after it was captured by scientists in Washington
We have gone from being unable to vote legally to a highly courted voting bloc -- all in little more than a century. Despite this and despite the way so many have embraced messages about racial justice this year, Black women are still constantly disrespected and disregarded in so many areas of life.
R-0 may be the most important scientific term youve never heard of when it comes to stopping the coronavirus pandemic. USA TODAY
Nearly 10,000 people are gearing up to attend President Donald Trump's rally at the Des Moines International Airport on Wednesday, defying advice from White House experts on limiting social gatherings there to 25 people.
Meanwhile, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is warning that small, intimate gatherings inside homes this holiday season are an "increasing threat" to the spread of the coronavirus.
And as the need for a vaccine grows more dire with some White House officials apparently endorsing a herd immunity approach widely condemned by public health officials experts say the recent pauses of vaccine studies and trials are reassuring and mean theprocesses are working as they should.
Some significant developments:
Today's numbers:The U.S. has reported more than 7.8million cases and 215,000deaths,according to Johns Hopkins data. There have been more than 38million confirmed cases around the world and 1million deaths.Five states had a record number of deaths in a week, and 12 states set records for new cases in a week, a USA TODAY analysis found.
Mapping coronavirus:Track the U.S. outbreak, state by state.
This file will be updated throughout the day. For updates in your inbox, subscribe toThe Daily Briefing newsletter.
A Sawyer County judge has, for now, blocked Gov. Tony Evers' latest order to curb the spread of coronavirus by limiting public gatherings and the number of customers bars and restaurants may serve at one time.
The order from Judge John Yackel comes at a time of record hospitalizations, new casesand deaths and after bars and restaurants have lost a massive amount of revenue ascustomers stay away while the pandemic rages on in the state.
Democratic state Sen. LaTonya Johnson of Milwaukee said if the decision becomes permanent, the state will be exacerbating the already out-of-control spread.
"Make no mistake, if this dangerous decision stands, Wisconsin will be choosing full bars over full classrooms. What a pathetic set of priorities to teach our children," she tweeted.
Molly Beck, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Brigham Young University's Rexburg, Idaho campus is warning against students intentionally contracting COVID-19 in order to sell plasma with antibodies for spare cash.
The alert comes weeks after the National Institutes of Healthexpanded clinical trials for convalescent plasma, which has received emergency use authorization by the FDA.Nearbycentersare offering as much as$200 per visit for convalescent plasma. according tothe Salt Lake Tribune
Students found intentionally spreading COVID-19will be suspended, the school cautions, and possibly expelled from campus.
As President Donald Trump embarks to a Wednesday campaign rally in Des Moines, Iowa,areport by the New York Times found that the White House is welcoming a declaration by a group of epidemiologiststhat calls for young people to re-enter society to stimulate "herd immunity."
Herd immunity is when a disease stops spreading because the majority of the population has had it.
The New York Times reported that two senior administration officials cited The Great Barrington Declaration, whichcalls for schools and universities to reopen, "young low-risk adults" to work normally and restaurants to reopen a stance that has largely been condemned by most public health officials, who have called it "scientifically and ethically problematic."
The declaration came out of a meeting from the libertarian-leaning American Institute for Economic Research and its website says it has more than 9,000 signatures, though most names are not public.
"Herd immunity is achieved by protecting people from a virus, not by exposing them to it," WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus said Monday, before the report dropped.
A USA TODAY analysis of Johns Hopkins data through late Tuesday shows 12 states set records for new cases in a week, while five states had a record number of deaths in a week.
New case records were set in Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming. A record numbers of deaths were reported in Kansas, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin.
Wisconsin and North Dakota are alsoreporting new cases at a rate more than 10 times faster than they did in their worst week of the spring, though changes in testing mean it's not clear how much cases have actually gone up.
Michael Stucka
Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cautioned governors during a call that small household gatherings are emerging as a key threat during the COVID-19 pandemic as many states report a record number ofcases.
Accordingto audio obtained by CNN, the agency chief emphasized that people shouldremain wary ofbreaking social distancing guidelines as the holidays approach.
"Particularly with Thanksgiving coming up, we think it's really important to stress the vigilance of these continued mitigation steps in the household setting, he said.
'Small events add up to a lot': Limited gatherings quietly emerge as source of coronavirus infections
Students who were involved in an off-campus party at Monmouth University in New Jersey, which forced hundreds of students into isolation and shut down in-person instruction,are not cooperating with investigators who have yet to find out where the party was held.
Monmouth County health officials who are investigating the event blamed for spreading the coronavirus to an estimated 125 students so far said they have reached out to students through contact tracing, but none will disclose where the party occurred or who organized it.
Monmouth University President Patrick Leahy revealed in a Friday letter that the off-campus gathering occurred in recent weeksbut had no location or exact date.
Joe Strupp, Asbury Park Press
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Recent pauses to two large-scale COVID-19 vaccine trials and a treatment study should reassure peoplenot frighten them vaccine experts said, though it is a reminder of the messiness of science.
Its not unusual for late-stage trials of drugs and vaccines to be stopped briefly to examine safety concerns.This is an indication that the system is working as it was designed to work to protect human subjects in clinical trials, Lawrence Gostin, a public health and legal expert at Georgetown and Johns Hopkins, told USA TODAY.
There are 49 COVID-19 candidate vaccines in clinical trials around the world, andnine are in large, late-stage studies, said Alan Barrett, director of the Sealy Institute for Vaccine Sciences at The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. Only three people out of the roughly 300,000 volunteers in all those trials have been known to have suffered serious side effects.
Karen Weintraub and Elizabeth Weise
Travelers from 38 states and territories will now have to isolate upon entering New York, New Jersey and Connecticut after the three neighboring states expanded their quarantine list again.
Michigan, Virginia and Ohio were all added Tuesday to the tri-state travel advisory, whichdirects out-of-state travelers to self-quarantine for 14 daysin an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19.
Restrictions are appliedto any state that averaged 10 daily positive COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents over the past week, as well as states where 10% of tests came back positive over the same time period.
Jon Campbell, New York State Team
Pediatricians and public health experts predict a potentially dramatic increase in childhood obesity this year as months of pandemic eating, closed schools, stalled sports and public space restrictions extendindefinitely.
About one in seven children have met the criteria for childhood obesity since 2016, when the federal National Survey of Children's Healthchanged its methodology, a report out Wednesday by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation found.
Thetrend,already seen in pediatricoffices, is especially concerning as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week expanded its definition of those at elevated risk of severe COVID-19 disease and death to include people with a body mass index of 25 to 30. Previously, only those with a BMI 30 and higher were included
Jayne O'Donnell and Adrianna Rodriguez
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer an "apologist for the Republican position" during a tense interview aboutthe current state of a COVID-19 stimulus package.
As you know, there are Americans who are being evicted from their homes. They cant pay their rent. Many Americans are waiting in food lines for the first time in their lives, Blitzer toldPelosi. Can you look them in the eye, MadamSpeaker, and explain why you dont want to accept the presidents latest stimulus offer?
Pelosi then pondered if Blitzer would ask the same question of the Republicans before insistingthe GOP bill doesnt meet the needs of Americans.Blitzer asked Pelosi why she would not take the $1.8 trillion deal, referencing statementsfromRep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., and former Democraticpresidential candidateAndrew Yang, who say she should.
"I dont know why youre always an apologist and many of your colleagues are apologists for the Republican position," Pelosi said during the nearly 14-minute interview."I want this very much now because people need help now. But it's no use giving them a false thing just because the president wants to put a check with his name on it in the mail."
Savannah Behrmann
New York's iconic Roosevelt Hotelis saying goodbye after being a midtown Manhattanmainstay for nearly 100 years.
The New York Cityhotel, which has been around since 1924 and has made cameos in movies including "The Irishman" and "Maid in Manhattan" is closing its doors by the end of this year because oftheeffects of the coronavirus pandemic.
Thehotel is owned by Pakistan International Airlines and has been home to manyhistoric American momentsfrom serving as the headquarters for Gov. Thomas Dewey's election campaign in 1984 when he incorrectly announced he'd defeatedHarry Truman to being the first placeGuy Lombardo and his orchestra performed in 1929.
Rasha Ali
Facebook is injecting itself into the public health debate by encouraging flu shots and banning anti-vaccination advertisements. But the social network may not be going far enough, some say, because nonpaidanti-vaccination posts are still allowed.
In a post Tuesday, Facebook said it would begin a flu shot campaign this week with a tool to find where to get a shot. Other features: News feed itemsand shareable flu reminders.
Facebook will also globally begin rejecting ads discouragingpeople from getting a vaccine and work with health groups to increase immunization rates, the network said. "Our goal is to help messages about the safety and efficacy of vaccines reach a broad group of people, while prohibiting ads with misinformation that could harm public health efforts," the authors said.
Mike Snider
Delta Air Lines posted a massive $5.4billion loss for the quarterthat endedSept. 30, results showing how the coronavirus pandemic is wrecking the airline industry.
Delta, the first of the largest airlines to report earnings for the quarter, said it plans to take additional steps cut its losses and conserve its remaining cash, including retiring 400 aircraft by 2025 and delaying taking new planes.
Though its losses are staggering, the company said it still has $21.6 billion in reserve to try to get it through the crisis.
While our September quarter results demonstrate the magnitude of the pandemic on our business, we have been encouraged as more customers travel and we are seeing a path of progressive improvement in our revenues, financial results and daily cash burn, said CEO Ed Bastian in a statement.
Chris Woodyard
Contributing: The Associated Press
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