A recent military study shows military personnel evaluated who received the flu vaccine were at 36 percent increased risk for coronavirus with varied benefit in preventing some strains of the flu.
Examining noninfluenza viruses specifically, the odds of both coronavirus and human metapneumovirus in vaccinated individuals were significantly higher when compared to unvaccinated individuals (OR = 1.36 and 1.51, respectively) (Table 5).
The flu vaccine studied demonstrated varied benefit in flu prevention some strains showed significant benefit while others did not.
Titled, Influenza vaccination and respiratory virus interference among Department of Defense personnel during the 20172018 influenza season, the report on the study addresses the phenomena of vaccine virus interference of the influenza vaccine.
Paraphrasing, the study highlights the value of the human bodys ability to fight against viruses. Apparently, by contracting influenza, the body naturally may reduce the risk of non-influenza respiratory viruses
Due to the flu vaccines interference with the naturally occurring biological process, there may be an increased risk of contracting non-influenza viruses:
While influenza vaccination offers protection against influenza, natural influenza infection may reduce the risk of non-influenza respiratory viruses by providing temporary, non-specific immunity against these viruses. On the other hand, recently published studies have described the phenomenon of vaccine-associated virus interference; that is, vaccinated individuals may be at increased risk for other respiratory viruses because they do not receive the non-specific immunity associated with natural infection.
I started digging into this topic on the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) advice two weeks ago when I noticed the agencys top advice about coronavirus was to get a flu shot.
This advice seemed a bit too simplistic when given to a population of largely elderly veterans with significant disabilities, vaccine histories, and exposures to various pathogens worldwide.
After writing about it, one reader sent an email citing this study in PubMed.
I was later provided a copy of the full study and reviewed it with an expert to verify my own conclusions based on the information in that report.
Now, the feedback I received that really caught my attention was mainly in a question: Is the heightened risk of coronavirus and other pathogens worth the benefit of the influenza vaccine based on this study as broken down in Table 5 above?
The column to focus on is OR in Table 5.
Coronavirus is 1.36 meaning 36% higher risk.
The influenza virus overall is 0.57 meaning the risk of contracting the flu was reduced overall. Three variants of flu did not receive a statistically significant reduction in risk.
Three of 8 evaluations noted a statistically insignificant benefit for the flu shot. Meanwhile, shot takers were at increased risk for coronavirus of 36%. I would bet $1 that this year, many Americans would likely rethink taking the vaccine with that bit of information.
If VA has this information, and they likely do, should the agency be required to share this increased risk factor with individuals considering the shot?
The study, published in the scientific journal Vaccine January 2020, was conducted by the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Branch Air Force Satellite at Wright-Patterson AFB, OH.
Taken at face value, the study indicates people who receive the flu vaccine are at increased risk for coronavirus pre-COVID-19. Like veterans, current service members, school teachers, and medical professionals, the study population consisted of a population with a history of being heavily vaccinated.
The DoD provides a unique population for vaccination studies as mandatory vaccination against influenza is required by the DoD for all Active Duty and Reserve Component personnel. This study aims to examine the relationship between specific respiratory viruses and influenza vaccination. The protocol for this study was reviewed and approved as exempt by the Air Force Research Laboratory Institutional Review Board.
Will veterans who contract the coronavirus after receipt of the flu vaccine based on VAs top recommendation be eligible for 1151 claims for malpractice?
How will the US Court of Claims Vaccine Court handle an influx of US citizens injured by contracting the coronavirus due to the significant risk in the study?
Given that this report was published by DOD researchers in a scientific journal, why is VA telling veterans to get the influenza vaccine?
What is the motive behind their advice?
Veterans, and many disabled veterans, may be at higher risk of contracting coronavirus based on vaccine history alone. That is especially true for veterans who took the flu vaccine at the encouragement of VA doctors.
Who stands to gain with the current recommendation?
There are winners and losers with each of these decisions. The virus itself appears to more severely impact the elderly, of which the veteran population has many.
How about Vietnam veterans exposed to toxic herbicides?
This virus is basically a death sentence for our poorly treated disabled Vietnam veterans who rely on VA to provide safe and effective medical care for their diabetes, cancer, hypertension, etc.
I encourage all readers to do your own research. Ask your VA medical doctor about this study and whether they agree with the blanket recommendation of the agency to get a flu shot to get ahead of coronavirus.
Is this solid medical advice?
For those interested, the studys data came from the Department of Defense Global Respiratory Pathogen Surveillance Program (DoDGRS) is a DoD-wide program established by the Global Emerging Infections Surveillance and Response System (GEIS).
The individuals included in the study provided respiratory specimens to the DoDGRS for 2017-2018 influenza season. Individuals who were sick prior to receipt of the flu vaccine were excluded from the study:
All people submitting a respiratory specimen to the DoDGRS for the 20172018 influenza season were eligible for the study. The influenza season began 1 October 2017 and ended 29 September 2018. Those who submitted a sample and only tested positive for Chlamydia pneumoniae and/or Mycoplasma pneumoniae were excluded because these illnesses are bacteriological in nature, not viral. People with influenza and non-influenza coinfections were excluded because they could not be uniquely classified as either influenza or non-influenza respiratory virus. Individuals with multiple specimens collected during the season were also removed from the study as they could have had multiple different viruses over the season. Specimens where neither vaccination status could be obtained via databases nor a questionnaire was completed were excluded because vaccination status could not be confirmed. Subjects who were ill before receiving vaccination were excluded as vaccination status would therefore be unrelated to illness. Lastly, those people for whom the laboratory rejected the specimen were not included in the final study population.
From what I can tell, the odds of being exposed in the US are high. The death rate if you get sick is high enough to warrant concern.
Wouldnt it be nice to get good advice from the socialized healthcare system managed by the VA that is supposed to provide us with care?
For some non-US centric news about the virus, I wanted to include a YouTube video of 60 Minutes Australia about their perspective on the disease.
Now, this video pushes the narrative that the disease originated from the wet markets in Wuhan that also happened to be located near the level 4 biological laboratory studying the virus. I do not believe we know enough to confirm whether the origin is from such markets or manmade.
I am personally not getting the flu shot and do not plan on taking any vaccines moving forward beyond what I was forced to take in the military due to vaccine injury.
What are your thoughts? Getting the flu shot to get ahead?
UPDATE 3/19/2020: According to the chief medical officer for England, cited by news media publisher Mirror, Britons who received the influenza vaccine for this flu season were cautioned to self-isolate for 12 weeks as they fall into the governments high risk category.
When will a COVID-19 vaccine be available? How effective will it be? Those are two of the most pressing questions being asked by many with the number of COVID-19 cases rising in much of the U.S.
Unfortunately, the questions can't be answered yet with a high level of confidence. But there are 23 COVID-19 vaccine candidates currently in clinical testing, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The progress of these candidates can at least provide a clue as to when a COVID-19 vaccine might be available. Here are those vaccine candidates and how likely they could be to win regulatory approval.
Image source: Getty Images.
The field of early stage COVID-19 vaccine candidates is crowded. Of the 23 COVID-19 vaccine candidates currently in clinical testing, 18 are in phase 1 studies:
Vaccine Candidate
Status
BNT162
(Four candidates)
Data sources: WHO, ClinicalTrials.gov, company press releases.
BioNTech and Pfizer reported positive results on July 1 for BNT162b1, one of four candidates in development. The FDA recently granted Fast Track designation to two of those candidates, which paves the way for an expedited review process.
Novavax has attracted a lot of attention for its COVID-19 vaccine candidate as well. Operation Warp Speed, the U.S. government's program to accelerate COVID-19 vaccine development, selected NVX-CoV2373 to receive $1.6 billion in funding.
What are the chances of FDA approval for a vaccine candidate in phase 1 testing? Very low, at least based on historical data. Only 16% of experimental vaccines in early stage studies between 2006 and 2015 ultimately won FDA approval, based on an analysis conducted by biopharmaceutical industry trade organization BIO.
Two Chinese drugmakers are currently evaluating COVID-19 vaccine candidates in phase 2 clinical studies:
Vaccine Candidate
Status
Data sources: WHO, ClinicalTrials.gov, Chinese Clinical Trial Registry, company press releases.
The Chinese military is already using Cansino's experimental Ad5-nCoV vaccine under a one-year special permission granted by China's Central Military Commission. The vaccine candidate isn't approved for use outside of military personnel at this time, though.
Neither of these two COVID-19 vaccine candidates is being tested in the U.S. at this point. The odds an experimental vaccine in a phase 2 clinical trial will eventually win FDA approval is low, based on BIO's historical data -- less than 25%.
There are three leaders in the COVID-19 vaccine race based on the clinical progression of their respective candidates. Each of these companies' COVID-19 vaccine candidates is either in phase 3 clinical studies or soon will be.
Vaccine Candidate
Status
Data sources: WHO, ClinicalTrials.gov, company press releases.
Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine program has received the most publicity in the U.S. The biotech recently announced the publication of results from a phase 1 study of mRNA-1273 in The New England Journal of Medicine. Those results showed that Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine candidate produced neutralizing antibodies (which can prevent viral infection) in all 45 participants in the study.
It's not surprising that Moderna ranks as a big winner among biotech stocks in 2020. So far this year, Moderna's shares are up well over 300%.
Chinese drugmaker Sinovac reported in June that its COVID-19 vaccine candidate CoronaVac produced neutralizing antibodies in over 90% of patients in a phase 1/2 clinical study. Results from a phase 1 study of AZD1222, the COVID-19 vaccine candidate being developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, are expected to be published on July 20 in The Lancet medical journal.
It's still too soon to know whether any of these vaccine candidates will be successful in late-stage testing. However, 74% of experimental vaccines that made it to phase 3 clinical trials between 2006 and 2015 went on to win FDA approval, according to BIO.
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The state of Alaska reported 119 new cases of COVID-19 Sunday, the most statewide cases in a single day since the start of the pandemic.
No new deaths or hospitalizations were reported. There were 82 resident and 37 non-resident cases, according to the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services coronavirus response site.
Thirty-six of the 37 non-resident cases were found in Unalaska and one in Juneau.
In Alaska residents, there were 36 cases in Anchorage, 10 in the Yukon-Koyukuk census area, nine in Fairbanks, seven in Wasilla, four each in Eagle River and Juneau, three in Soldotna, two in Homer and one each in Nikiski, Seward, Palmer, Sutton-Alpine, Ketchikan, a community marked as other in the Southeast Fairbanks census area and a community labeled as other in the Nome census area.
Six seafood workers in Unalaska aboard the American Triumph, an American Seafoods vessel, tested positive for COVID-19 Friday, after which all of the remaining 119 crewmembers were tested, the company wrote in a statement. It was not immediately clear if the spike in cases Sunday was tied to the outbreak on the vessel. There are now 48 COVID-19 cases confirmed in Unalaska.
The City and Borough of Juneau announced Sunday that 26 seafood workers tested positive for COVID-19. The results were not included in the states Sunday count because the test results were processed on Sunday, making them too late to include in the states full count of Saturday cases.
Nine employees at Juneaus Alaska Glacier Seafoods tested positive for the virus last week, the city said in an online statement. The cases stemmed from one employee who had contracted COVID-19 through community spread. The remaining 113 employees were then tested for the virus and about 23% were positive. The infected individuals are isolating, the city said. It was not immediately clear how many of them are non-residents.
There have been 2,277 confirmed COVID-19 cases in Alaska since the beginning of the pandemic. Eighteen Alaskans who contracted the virus have died, including an Anchorage woman in her mid-50s whose death was reported Saturday. She had pre-existing health conditions, DHSS said in an online statement.
There are 1,427 active COVID-19 cases in Alaska and 832 people have recovered from the virus.
Currently, there are 27 people in the hospital who tested positive for COVID-19 or are suspected to have contracted it and are awaiting test results, according to the state of Alaska. Since the beginning of the pandemic, 99 people have been hospitalized for COVID-19 statewide.
The number of cases across the state has been steadily rising in previous weeks. Sunday marks the second time the state has seen over 100 cases in a single day. The previous daily high case count was reported last Sunday, with 116 cases on July 12.
As cases have risen during the last few weeks, Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz noted that restrictions may be placed on the city again out of concern that the rising case numbers could overwhelm local hospitals. There were a record number of new cases in Anchorage reported last week, with 231 new cases and nearly twice as many nonresident infections as reported during the previous week.
Written by Abhishek De | New Delhi | Updated: July 19, 2020 9:32:54 pm Coronavirus (Covid-19) Symptoms, Treatment: A health worker speaks with a child at an isolation center for Covid-19 at CWG in New Delhi
Coronavirus (Covid-19) Symptoms, Treatment: What began with a handful of infections in the Chinese city of Wuhan last December, has now spread to over 216 countries, with cases of the novel coronavirus infection crossing 14 million worldwide, including more than 6 lakh deaths.
While initially animal-to-person spread of the disease was suspected, by January, person-to-person spread of the virus was reported around the world. In the first week of March, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared Covid-19 a pandemic, triggering unprecedented national lockdowns, upending economies and stretching healthcare systems to the brink.
However, even after seven months, scientists are still to come to a conclusion on the source of the virus, how the disease is transmitted, why some cases are more severe than others and whether people who have recovered from Covid-19 can get it again.
Till now, 12 symptoms of the virus have been identified by the US health protection agency Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Last month, the agency included congestion or runny nose, nausea, and diarrhea as possible indicators of the infection.
The list already included fever or chills, cough, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, fatigue, muscle or body aches, headache, new loss of taste or smell and sore throat. They may appear 2 to 14 days after exposure to the virus.
Recently, in several countries, including India, children have often shown some symptoms associated with a rare illness called Kawasaki disease about 2-3 weeks after getting infected with coronavirus. These symptoms include rashes and inflammation. Last month, the World Health Organization (WHO) termed this new illness as multi system inflammatory disorder.
The WHO recently updated its brief on Modes of transmission of virus causing COVID-19 and formally acknowledged evidence emerging of the airborne spread of the novel coronavirus. In the brief, the WHO has formally acknowledged the possibility that the novel coronavirus can remain in the air in crowded indoor spaces, where short-range aerosol transmission cannot be ruled out.
However, the WHO still maintains that transmission through respiratory droplets when an infected person coughs, sneezes, talks, or sings is still understood to be the primary mode of transmission of the virus.
It also mentions another type of transmission called fomite transmission. It refers to transmission through infected surfaces such as doorknobs, elevator buttons, handrails, phones, switches, pens, keyboards and, if not disinfected, even a doctors stethoscope.
Researchers across the world are studying whether antibodies developed by the body in response to the virus can provide permanent immunity. A new study by Kings College London has found that those recovering from Covid-19 may have antibodies for only a few months.
Upon analysing the immune response of more than 90 people, the researchers found that antibody levels peaked about three weeks after the onset of symptoms and then started declining. Thus, the findings suggest that people can become reinfected just like the common cold and other kinds of flu.
Meanwhile, Dr Randeep Guleria, director of AIIMS and one of the experts leading the countrys novel coronavirus disease response, has also said cell-mediated immunity, an immune response that does not involve antibodies, may also be protecting the body.
While initially Covid-19 was thought to be just a respiratory infection, patients were now suffering from strokes and neurological disorders, including inflammation, psychosis and delirium, and some have also complained of weakness after weeks.
Lung damage, known as lung fibrosis, and blood clots in the pulmonary artery Pulmonary Thrombo Embolism or PTE have also been seen in persons who have recovered from very severe cases of the disease. A study by University College London researchers revealed 43 patients who suffered either temporary brain dysfunction, strokes, nerve damage or other serious brain effects.
Besides, Dr Guleria also said medical examination of patients with severe illness showed that even months after recovery, their lungs continued to be in bad shape, and they required oxygen at home.
According to the World Health Organisation, there is no evidence so far that pets or animals can transmit the disease to humans even though several dogs and cats in contact with infected humans have tested positive for Covid-19.
It has been found that ferrets appear to be susceptible to the infection and it has been found that both cats and ferrets were able to transmit Covid-19 to other animals of the same species.
Recently, minks raised in farms have also been detected with the virus. In a few instances, the minks that were infected by humans have transmitted the virus to other people. These are the first reported cases of animal-to-human transmission.
To date, there are no specific vaccines or medicines to prevent Covid-19 and the drugs being used only help reduce the viral load. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted emergency-use authorisation for antiviral drug remdesivir while the UK government has approved the use of a low-cost, widely used steroid dexamethasone.
India has also authorised off-label use of immuno-suppressant drug tocilizumab and convalescent plasma therapy on specific groups of patients apart from oxygen or mechanical ventilation. Moreover, India has also been using hydroxychloroquine as a prophylactic drug.
Besides, India is also using Favipiravir for Covid-19 treatment. Last month, Glenmark Pharmaceuticals launched the drug under the brand name FabiFlu, making it the first oral Favipiravir-approved medication in India for the treatment of Covid-19.
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TheWest Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) reports as of 10:00 a.m., on July 19,2020, there have been 229,368 total confirmatory laboratory results receivedfor COVID-19, with 4,983 total cases and 100 deaths.
In alignment with updated definitions fromthe Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the dashboard includes probablecases which are individuals that have symptoms and either serologic (antibody)or epidemiologic (e.g., a link to a confirmed case) evidence of disease, but noconfirmatory test.
CASESPER COUNTY (Case confirmed by lab test/Probable case):Barbour (25/0), Berkeley (547/19), Boone(57/0), Braxton (7/0), Brooke (39/1), Cabell (221/7), Calhoun (5/0), Clay(15/0), Fayette (100/0), Gilmer (13/0), Grant (21/1), Greenbrier (76/0),Hampshire (48/0), Hancock (55/4), Hardy (48/1), Harrison (137/1), Jackson(149/0), Jefferson (267/5), Kanawha (509/12), Lewis (24/1), Lincoln (20/0),Logan (43/0), Marion (132/3), Marshall (80/1), Mason (26/0), McDowell (12/0),Mercer (72/0), Mineral (71/2), Mingo (51/2), Monongalia (712/15), Monroe(16/1), Morgan (20/1), Nicholas (19/1), Ohio (177/0), Pendleton (19/1), Pleasants(4/1), Pocahontas (37/1), Preston (90/25), Putnam (111/1), Raleigh (92/3),Randolph (196/2), Ritchie (3/0), Roane (12/0), Summers (2/0), Taylor (29/1),Tucker (7/0), Tyler (10/0), Upshur (31/2), Wayne (149/2), Webster (2/0), Wetzel(40/0), Wirt (6/0), Wood (195/10), Wyoming (7/0).
As case surveillance continues at thelocal health department level, it may reveal that those tested in a certaincounty may not be a resident of that county, or even the state as an individualin question may have crossed the state border to be tested.Such is the case of Cabell,Fayette, Lincoln, Mason, Nicholas, and Summers counties in this report.
Pleasenote that delays may be experienced with the reporting of information from thelocal health department to DHHR.
Please visit thedashboard at www.coronavirus.wv.gov for more detailed information.
How is the world going to go back to the days when we could grab a coffee, see a movie, or attend a concert or footy game with anyone? Opinion suggests there are two options: an effective vaccine, or herd immunity via at least 60%-80% of people becoming infected. Either one of these options requires that people become immune to SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes Covid-19.
An important new study released online this week could have a large bearing on how our future looks in 2021 and beyond.
It suggests our immunity to SARS-CoV-2 does not last very long at all as little as two months for some people. If this is the case, it means a potential vaccine might require regular boosters, and herd immunity might not be viable at all.
Antibodies are an important part of our immune system that mainly work by physically binding to virus particles and stopping them infecting cells. They can attach to infected cells to induce cell death in some cases.
We also have T cells, another part of the immune system that is much better at recognising and killing virus-infected cells. But for Covid-19, antibodies are important in the lungs because T cells arent good at getting to airways where the virus first invades.
The newly-released research, from Katie Doores and her team at Kings College London, looked at how long the antibody response lasted in people who had Covid-19. It has been submitted to a journal but hasnt been peer-reviewed, so it must be treated with some caution.
Of the 65 patients studied, 63 produced antibody responses. The important measurements in the study relate to how good the response is. This is measured in the lab by putting patients blood serum together with infectious SARS-CoV-2 virus and seeing whether the virus can infect cells in a lab dish. This is called a neutralisation assay, and here the results were good. Around 60% of people produced a very potent neutralisation response that stopped virus growing in the lab cells.
Finally, the researchers measured how long the antibody response lasted. This is the most important data. Unfortunately, antibodies levels began falling after day 20 and only 17% of patients retained a potent level at day 57. Some patients completely lost their antibodies after two months.
This suggests our immune response to SARS-CoV-2 may be lost much faster than we might have hoped, and people might thereafter be susceptible to reinfection with the virus.
It therefore follows that Covid-19 vaccines may not be as effective as we hope. The fact antibody levels reduce over time is normal, but this typically happens much more slowly. Antibody responses against the mumps, measles and chickenpox viruses last for more than 50 years. A tetanus vaccination wanes more quickly but still lasts five to 10 years before a booster is needed.
So why is this happening? It comes down to the nature of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus itself. The four normal strains of coronaviruses that cause common colds in humans also fail to prompt a long-lasting immune response, with most people losing antibodies completely after six to 12 months. Coronaviruses in general seems to be particularly good at not being well recognised by our immune system. Indeed, a feature of common cold coronaviruses is that people get reinfected by them all the time.
SARS, another coronavirus which caused a pandemic in 2003, seems to produce a slightly longer antibody response, lasting up to three years. Its still a long way short of a lifetime, but it perhaps helps explain why the virus disappeared in 2003.
So herd immunity may not be the solution some think. This is because if immunity is short-lived, we will be in an ongoing cycle of endless reinfection. For herd immunity to be effective we need a high percentage perhaps more than 60% of people to be immune at any one time to disrupt chains of transmission. This cant happen if a lot of reinfection is occurring.
The hope is vaccines will give much stronger and longer lasting immune responses to the virus than getting and recovering from Covid-19 itself. Indeed, the first vaccine candidates from Pfizer and Moderna, reported in early July, show very strong immune responses.
However, these studies only reported out to 14 and 57 days, respectively, after vaccinations were completed. They dont tell us whether there is a long-lived response that we would need for a vaccine to be truly protective. Phase 3 trials designed to measure this are due to report in December 2020, so watch this space.
While we wait, we should reflect on the fact that although the results of the Kings College study are in one sense disappointing news, this knowledge adds to the truly remarkable scientific progress we have made in understanding a virus that only emerged in December 2019.
Nigel McMillan, Program Director, Infectious Diseases and Immunology, Menzies Health Institute, Griffith University.
This article first appeared on The Conversation.
As state and local governments move through phased re-openings amid Covid-19, with resurgences in some states, many organizations are trying to decide how best to responsibly return employees. The reality for all employers is that we cannot return to what was before, and a thoughtful, phased approach will be needed. This is probably the case for at least another year or more until our country achieves the gold standard of herd immunity from widespread access to an effective vaccine or exposure.
As a physician, Ive been wrestling with how to judiciously return our own CVS Health colleagues and protect our frontline professionals through a clinically-driven approach that aligns and evolves in step with the latest guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). I know firsthand that other business leaders are concerned with the same, and thats why we recently launched a solution, with Covid-19 testing at its core, to help organizations return to and maintain worksites.
Without an effective vaccine or treatment, widespread Covid-19 testing is the next best tool for organizations working to responsibly reopen. This is especially important as the CDC has suggested that up to 40 percent of those with Covid-19 could unknowingly spread the virus before they experience symptoms. Testing helps organizations support effective population health surveillance, facilitate contact tracing and ultimately help reduce the virus R0 or reproduction number. But, organizations are asking: Who to test? How? Where? When?
Because every organization has specific population health management needs, flexibility is key. That is why our medical affairs team mapped out clinical protocols, based on the latest science and technology, and aligned with CDC guidance for viral testing, to help guide our own and other organizations. The first crucial step is segmenting an onsite population into clinical cohorts, which become the foundation for guidance and protocols for testing and containing COVID-19. They include:
Based on these cohorts, we can guide on how and where these populations should be tested, which could include either point-of-care testing with rapid results or third-party lab-processed testing with results in a few days, and in addition, organizations should have the flexibility to determine where testing takes place, either onsite or in the community. That flexibility is critical, as no two organizations are alike and its clear that a one-size-fits all solution will not work. Further, testing is just one component. Organizations should also consider implementing symptom checking and temperature screening, among other protocols.
For CVS Health, helping employers and universities is our next big area of focus as we continue to increase access to widespread Covid-19 testing, which started first in the community and for vulnerable populations most impacted by the virus. Now more than ever, its incumbent on us to use our vast presence in communities across the country to support organizations and the economy.
Photo: KaanC, Getty Images
Six new cases of COVID-19 were announced in Manitoba on Sunday, including more inHutterite colonies.
The update brings the total number of cases identified in the province to 343, the Manitoba government said on Twitter.
Eighteen of those cases were announced this week,after the province went 13 days without reporting a new case of the illness.
Public health officials confirmed seven of Manitoba's most recent COVID-19 cases have been on at least two Hutterite colonies, includingfive new caseson acolony in the Interlake-Eastern Health region announced on Friday.
But according to Mark Waldner of the Hutterian Safety Council's COVID-19 task force, there are more.
"We believe there's a few additional cases among our communities," he told CBC News on Sunday.
Waldnercouldn't provide details or say how many of the new cases are from Hutterite colonies until he has exact numbers.
He said overall, Hutterites in Manitoba are worried, but are working hard to prevent the spread.
Manyare restricting all travel in and out of colonies, a number of people are going into voluntary self-isolation and communities are ramping up their sanitization procedures.
"Everybody is a bit anxious there's no doubt about it, but people are coping. We've got to get through this and we will. Hopefully in a couple of weeks just be history and a story that we can tell."
He added as soon as communities learned of the cases, they began their owncontact tracing procedures,leading to droves of community members going to get tested.
Waldner said overall he's been amazed at the widespread response across Manitoba, but he's also worried about drawing negative attention to the community.
"I think there's a bit of concern that the spotlight may shine on us as a minority group We've heard of cases in other jurisdictions where visible minorities have been targeted somewhat and we don't want to go there," he said.
"We're hoping that we do the right thing and everybody does the right thing and recognizes that this virus has no boundaries."
As of Friday, there was no one in hospital in Manitoba with the illness caused by the new coronavirus. In total, seven people who contracted COVID-19 had died in the province and 318 had recovered.
There had been73,885 COVID-19 tests done in Manitoba to date as of Friday. Meanwhile, the province's five-day test positivity rate a rolling average of the percentage of completed tests that came back as positive was 0.43 per cent.
On Friday evening, Manitoba Health officials saidsomeone with COVID-19 visited four Winnipeg locations and one location in Brandon while symptomatic onthree days last week.
Numbers on testing, recoveries and active cases will be updated again on Monday.
TheWest Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) reports as of 5:00 p.m., on July 19,2020, there have been 230,864 total confirmatory laboratory results receivedfor COVID-19, with 5,042 total cases and 100 deaths.
In alignment with updated definitions fromthe Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the dashboard includes probablecases which are individuals that have symptoms and either serologic (antibody)or epidemiologic (e.g., a link to a confirmed case) evidence of disease, but noconfirmatory test.
CASESPER COUNTY (Case confirmed by lab test/Probable case):Barbour (25/0), Berkeley (548/19), Boone(61/0), Braxton (7/0), Brooke (38/1), Cabell (222/7), Calhoun (5/0), Clay(15/0), Fayette (101/0), Gilmer (13/0), Grant (21/1), Greenbrier (78/0),Hampshire (50/0), Hancock (57/4), Hardy (48/1), Harrison (138/1), Jackson(149/0), Jefferson (268/5), Kanawha (520/12), Lewis (24/1), Lincoln (20/0),Logan (45/0), Marion (134/3), Marshall (82/1), Mason (27/0), McDowell (12/0),Mercer (72/0), Mineral (71/2), Mingo (53/2), Monongalia (733/15), Monroe(16/1), Morgan (20/1), Nicholas (20/1), Ohio (177/0), Pendleton (19/1),Pleasants (5/1), Pocahontas (37/1), Preston (90/23), Putnam (111/1), Raleigh(92/3), Randolph (196/2), Ritchie (3/0), Roane (12/0), Summers (2/0), Taylor(29/1), Tucker (7/0), Tyler (10/0), Upshur (31/2), Wayne (149/2), Webster(2/0), Wetzel (42/0), Wirt (6/0), Wood (198/9), Wyoming (7/0).
As case surveillance continues at thelocal health department level, it may reveal that those tested in a certaincounty may not be a resident of that county, or even the state as an individualin question may have crossed the state border to be tested.Such is the case of Preston and Wood counties in this report.
Pleasenote that delays may be experienced with the reporting of information from thelocal health department to DHHR.
Please visit thedashboard at www.coronavirus.wv.gov for more detailed information.
WASHINGTON Russian hackers are attempting to steal coronavirus vaccine research, the American, British and Canadian governments said Thursday, accusing the Kremlin of opening a new front in its spy battles with the West amid the worldwide competition to contain the pandemic.
The National Security Agency said that a hacking group implicated in the 2016 break-ins into Democratic Party servers has been trying to steal intelligence on vaccines from universities, companies and other health care organizations. The group, associated with Russian intelligence and known as both APT29 and Cozy Bear, has sought to exploit the chaos created by the coronavirus pandemic, officials said.
American intelligence officials said the Russians were aiming to steal research to develop their own vaccine more quickly, not to sabotage other countries efforts. There was likely little immediate damage to global public health, cybersecurity experts said.
The Russian espionage nevertheless signals a new kind of competition between Moscow and Washington akin to Cold War spies stealing technological secrets during the space race generations ago.
The Russian hackers have targeted British, Canadian and American organizations using malware and sending fraudulent emails to try to trick their employees into turning over passwords and other security credentials, all in an effort to gain access to the vaccine research as well as information about medical supply chains.
The accusations against Russia were also the latest example of an increasing willingness in recent months by the United States and its closest intelligence allies to publicly accuse foreign adversaries of breaches and cyberattacks. The American government has previously warned about efforts by China and Iran to steal vaccine research.
Attributing such attacks, however, is imprecise, an ambiguity that Moscow takes advantage of in denying responsibility, as it did Thursday.
Still, government officials, as well as outside experts, expressed strong confidence that Cozy Bear, controlled by Russias elite S.V.R. intelligence agency, was responsible for the attempted intrusions into the virus vaccine research.
We condemn these despicable attacks against those doing vital work to combat the coronavirus pandemic, said Paul Chichester, the director of operations for Britains National Cyber Security Center.
The head of the center, Ciaran Martin, told NBC News that the cyberattacks were first detected in February and that no evidence had emerged that data was stolen.
Government officials would not identify victims of the hackings. But the primary target of the attacks appeared to be Oxford University in Britain and the British-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, which have been jointly working on a vaccine, said Robert Hannigan, the former head of G.C.H.Q., the British intelligence agency.
Oxford scientists said on Thursday that they had noticed a surprising resemblance between their vaccine approach and the work that Russian scientists had reported.
Though Russia could be seeking to steal the vaccine data to bolster its own research, it could also be trying to avoid relying on Western countries for any eventual coronavirus vaccine.
While AstraZeneca has announced it will make the Oxford vaccine available at cost, governments and philanthropies have paid huge sums to the company to secure their place in line, even without any guarantee it will work. The United States has said it will pay up to $1.2 billion to AstraZeneca to fund a clinical trial and secure 300 million doses. Russia could find itself near the back of the line if the vaccine proves successful.
Russia clearly doesnt want to disrupt vaccine production, but they dont want to be dependent on the U.S. or the U.K. for production and discovery of the vaccine, said Mr. Hannigan, now an executive at the BlueVoyant cybersecurity firm. It not impossible to think Kremlin pride is such that they dont want that to happen.
An intense international race is underway to develop a vaccine for the coronavirus that has already killed 580,000 people and upended daily life around the world. More than 155 vaccines are under development, including 23 being tested on humans.
Some vaccines work by altering another common virus to mimic the coronavirus to prompt an immune response without making people sick. The research by Oxford and AstraZeneca is based on one such pathogen, a chimpanzee adenovirus. Russias Ministry of Health is trying to use two other adenoviruses but is not as far along in its testing as the Oxford researchers are.
Some officials suggested the Russian attacks have not been hugely successful but were widespread enough to warrant a coordinated international warning.
Across the globe, intelligence services have stepped up their focus on information surrounding the virus. The F.B.I. director, Christopher A. Wray, accused China last week of working to compromise American health care organizations conducting Covid-19 research.
Russia is not alone, said John Hultquist, the senior director of intelligence analysis at FireEye, a Silicon Valley cybersecurity firm. A lot of people are in this game even if they havent been called out yet. The whole pandemic is absolutely riddled with spies.
Chinese government hackers have long focused on stealing intellectual property and technology. Russia has aimed much of its recent cyberespionage, like election interference, at weakening geopolitical rivals and strengthening its hand.
China is more well known for theft through hacking than Russia, which is of course better now for using hacks for disruption and chaos, said Laura Rosenberger, a former Obama administration official who now leads the Alliance for Securing Democracy. But theres no question that whoever gets to a vaccine first thinks they will have geopolitical advantage, and thats something Id expect Russia to want.
Still, a Russian intrusion could inadvertently damage some vaccine data and additional security protocols to protect from future cyberattacks could impose a burden on researchers. Private firms are more at risk than the public, said Mike Chapple, a former National Security Agency computer scientist who teaches cybersecurity at the University of Notre Dame.
The potential harm here is limited to commercial harm, to companies that are devoting a lot of their own resources into developing a vaccine in hopes it will be financially rewarding down the road, he said.
The Kremlin mocked the announcements Thursday, and Russian officials said they did not know who could have hacked the companies or research centers in Britain. One Russian official said the accusation was an attempt to discredit Moscows own work on a vaccine.
Dmitri S. Peskov, the spokesman for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, told reporters that the accusations were unacceptable. Russia has nothing to do with these attempts, he said.
Cozy Bear is one of the highest-profile, and most successful, hacking groups associated with the Russian government. It was implicated alongside the group Fancy Bear in the 2016 hacking of the Democratic National Committee. Though Cozy Bear is believed to have breached the committees computers, it played no known role in releasing stolen Democratic emails.
Cozy Bear has a long history of targeting governmental, diplomatic, think tank, health care and energy organizations for intelligence gain, so we encourage everyone to take this threat seriously, said Anne Neuberger, the National Security Agencys cybersecurity director.
The malware used by Cozy Bear to steal the vaccine research included code known as WellMess and WellMail. The Russian group has not previously used that malware, according to British officials.
But American experts say the tactics used in trying to obtain access to the vaccine data bear all the hallmarks of Russian intelligence officials. And American officials said they were confident in attributing the attacks to the Russian hacking group.
The American, British and Canadian governments said Cozy Bear used recently publicized weak spots in computer networks to get a foothold. If organizations do not immediately patch a vulnerability that a software company has identified, their networks can be exposed to hacks.
Once Cozy Bear hackers exploit those gaps to gain entry to a computer system, they create legitimate credentials to maintain access even after the hole is patched.
While the various Russian hacking groups often share similar targets, they are run by different intelligence agencies for different purposes.
Hackers with Cozy Bear are after information but do not generally release it publicly, according to government and outside experts. Fancy Bear, which works for Russian military intelligence and is also known as APT28, will often publicize the information it steals.
Cozy Bears ties are to the S.V.R., the Russian equivalent of the C.I.A., according to current and former officials. Unlike other Russian hackers, Cozy Bears operations are sophisticated, stealthy and hard to detect.
Their job is quiet, old-fashioned intelligence collection, said Mr. Hultquist, the cybersecurity analyst.
Reporting was contributed by Nicole Perlroth from San Francisco, David D. Kirkpatrick and Stephen Castle from London, Andrew Higgins from Moscow, and Charlie Savage from Washington.
