A study by the Oregon Health Authority found reassuring evidence that a complication of the COVID-19 vaccine myocarditis was not associated with cardiac deaths among previously healthy young people, in the 19 months following the initial vaccine rollout.
However, due to its limitations, the study could not rule out the possibility that in very rare cases, cardiac death may be a complication of the vaccine.
FILE: A 10-year-old girl shows off her bandage after receiving a vaccination at a pediatric COVID-19 vaccine clinic held at Clackamas Town Center in November 2021 in Happy Valley, Ore.
Kristyna Wentz-Graff / OPB
The study was published this week in the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions public health bulletin Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
Myocarditis, which is essentially inflammation of the heart muscle, is a known but rare complication of the COVID-19 vaccine. It happens most often to adolescents and young males within seven days after the second dose of an mRNA COVID-19 shot.
The OHA study looked at deaths in Oregon that occurred following the initial rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine, from June 1, 2021, to Dec. 31, 2022.
The authors used the Oregon death certificate database to look for people aged 16-30 years old who died of cardiac causes or of undetermined causes during that time.
They found a total of 1,292 deaths among people in that age range. Of those, none had COVID-19 vaccination listed as a cause of death on their death certificate.
The authors then narrowed their focus to 66 males and 35 females whose deaths were due to cardiac events or unknown causes, according to their death certificates.
The researchers used the states vaccination records to see whether any of those young people had died within 100 days of receiving a mRNA COVID-19 vaccine dose. They found three deaths that met that criteria.
One male died 21 days after COVID-19 vaccination. His cause of death was listed as congestive heart failure attributed to hypertension and other chronic conditions. A second male died 45 days after vaccination, of an undetermined natural cause. One female died of undetermined causes four days after COVID-19 vaccination. Her death certificate listed chronic respiratory failure as a factor.
Lars Grosse-Wortmann, a pediatric cardiologist at Oregon Health & Science University and an expert on COVID-19 vaccine myocarditis, was not involved in the study.
He said that combining big datasets, as the study did, is a helpful approach to better understand a rare vaccine complication like myocarditis.
To me, the study is reassuring in the way that they didnt find a big smoking gun, Grosse-Wortmann said. They didnt all of a sudden identify a dozen patients where it had that close chronological association with their vaccine.
On the other hand, its neither big enough nor detailed enough for me to say, This study leads me to think theres no risk for sudden cardiac death, he added.
Without detailed medical records for the three patients the study identified who died within 100 days of vaccination, it was hard to draw firm conclusions in those cases.
In particular, the death of the female could plausibly have been vaccine-related, given the timeline in that case, Grosse-Wortmann said.
I would say we dont know, he said. The conclusion from the paper is correct, the data does not support the association, but it does not lay the question to rest whether sudden cardiac death could occur.
Grosse-Wortmann, at the Federal Drug Administrations request, has been leading an effort to compile research and better characterize myocarditis following mRNA vaccination.
That effort has found the prognosis of young patients with myocarditis related to the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine is generally positive. People with myocarditis after vaccination typically have mild cases of it, and they tend to recover quickly.
However, Grosse-Wortmann said, some show signs of heart injury and scarring in imaging scans that seem somewhat at odds with the mild clinical presentation of their cases.
Because the first cases were reported in 2021, the longest any patient has been followed is three years.
Thats long enough to say these patients do clinically well, but probably too short to say if the scars that some of them carry in their hearts have any significance for their long term health and survival, Grosse-Wortmann said.
Any risk due to a rare vaccine side-effect, Grosse-Wortmann said, has to be weighed against the benefits of vaccination. In the case of the COVID-19 shots, the potential benefits include protection against death, long ICU and hospital stays, long COVID, and the long-term cardiovascular risk factors of a COVID-19 infection.
The OHA study authors also looked at COVID-19 deaths among adolescents and young people during the same time period in 2021 and 2022. COVID-19 was cited as the cause of death for 30 Oregon residents in that age group. Almost all were unvaccinated.
It is clear that the risk, if any, of cardiac death linked to COVID-19 vaccination is very low, while the risk of dying from COVID-19 is real, said Paul Cieslak, co-author of the study. We continue to recommend COVID-19 vaccination for all persons 6 months of age and older.
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A new study out of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention dispels a popular coronavirus-related conspiracy theory thats been popular among right-wingers.
For a while now, anti-vaxxers have pointed to highly publicized incidents of people particularly, young people suffering cardiac arrest and concluded that their conditions must have been caused by the Covid-19 mRNA vaccine. Several Fox News hosts, for example, tried to blame the vaccine for LeBron James Jr.'s suffering a cardiac arrest last summer.And prominent right-wing conspiracy theorists waged a similar disinformation campaign around Damar Hamlin, a player for the Buffalo Bills who suffered cardiac arrest during a game in January 2023.
The CDC conducted tests over multiple years that disprove a link between mRNA vaccines and cardiac arrest. The study looked at more than 1,000 death certificates of young people who died of heart conditions or of unknown causes from June 2021 to December 2022, a period in which nearly 1 million young people got vaccinated.
As NBC News explains:
The authors refined their focus to people who got an mRNA Covid vaccine from Pfizer or Moderna and died within 100 days of being vaccinated. Out of 40 deaths that occurred among people who got an mRNA Covid vaccine, three occurred within that time frame. Two of the deaths were attributed to chronic underlying health conditions. The third death was recorded as an undetermined natural cause, with toxicology tests returning negative for alcohol, cannabis, methamphetamine or other illicit substances. The medical examiner could neither confirm nor exclude Covid vaccination as the cause of death; however, none of the death certificates attributed the fatalities to the vaccines.
Dr. Leslie Cooper, chair of the cardiology department at the Mayo Clinic, told NBC News that the researchers behind the study went above and beyond to try and capture any possible cardiac death from vaccinations, yet they found none.
To be crystal clear, this is precisely why reputable health experts have tried so hard to dispel conspiracy theories that link the Covid vaccine to cardiac arrest. Because the evidence for people having cardiac arrest as a result of taking a vaccine is nonexistent. And the potential for any heart problems as a result of taking a vaccine is extremely rare while experiencing heart problems after catching Covid is not.
Seems like a pretty obvious incentive to get vaccinated unless your doctor suggests otherwise. But that right-wingers ran with the cardiac arrest conspiracy theory is another manifestation of the conservative war on public health, which you can read more about here.
Ja'han Jones is The ReidOut Blog writer. He's a futurist and multimedia producer focused on culture and politics. His previous projects include "Black Hair Defined" and the "Black Obituary Project."
The CDC disclosed previously hidden reports of facial paralysis and other adverse occurrences after COVID-19 vaccine. The 780,000 reports obtained shortly after the COVID-19 vaccines were introduced show that people experienced heart inflammation, miscarriages, and seizures.
Immediate loss of consciousness and seizure after injection. One person reported being taken by ambulance to the ER.
I was diagnosed with Bells Palsy today due to left-sided facial numbness and paralysis, claimed another. V-Safe, a CDC text-message system for COVID-19 vaccination side effects, received the reports.
The CDC withheld V-safe data for years, issuing studies that said the findings reassured shot safety. According to 2022 data, approximately 8% of the 10 million users needed medical attention or hospitalisation following immunisation, while many others missed school, work, or other routine activities.
Topline statistics obtained from check-the-box surveys.
The same court who ordered the release of the data ordered the agency to divulge free-text submissions from a different part where people could discuss their experiences in January. Matthew Kacsmaryk, appointed by former President Donald Trump, rejected the governments claims that processing the responses and redacting sensitive material would be too laborious.
Among the 780,000 reports from 523,000 people, dozens reported heart irritation, hundreds reported facial paralysis, and thousands reported tinnitus.
Multiple persons had suicidal thoughts due to the situation. I was too tired to stay awake for 24 hours following the dose. I also have intense suicidal thoughts. One person wrote, No appetite.
Another person reported allergic reactions. Since Im allergic to PEG, I read that this vaccine shouldnt be given to me. The person said calling me would be reassuring because I only find dead ends.
According to previously published records, the CDC knew the shots could induce adverse effects like heart inflammation, but only the free-text component of the surveys allowed individuals to report them. Other records showed the CDC knew the immunisations could cause myocarditis and pericarditis early in 2021 but kept it from the public.
In a lawsuit initiated by the organisation Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN), Judge Kacsmaryk ordered the publication of government materials related to the COVID-19 outbreak.
According to Barbara Loe Fisher, co-founder and president of the National Vaccine Information Centre, ICAN had to sue the Centres for Disease Control in order to gain access to the COVID-19 shot V-safe adverse event data, which is yet another shameful chapter in the decades-long history of federal health officials trying to cover up vaccine risks by ignoring patterns of vaccine reaction symptoms in reports made to the government.
Repeated reports of symptoms, such as shortness of breath and heart palpitations, after receiving mRNA COVID doses, should alert the public. It raises questions about what else government health professionals are hidden, she said.
The free-text entries are undated. ICAN attorney Elizabeth Brehm said the group wants CDC report dates. The group knows the CDC received the entries first. As vaccines were introduced in late 2020, V-Safe was launched. Rolling out the remaining entries is expected.
A CDC spokesman declined to address numerous queries, including entry dates.
VAERS reports were requested from V-safe participants who received medical care after vaccination. The spokesman told The Epoch Times that if they made a VAERS report and the adverse events were serious (as defined in the Code of Federal Regulations), the CDC tried to get further medical, hospital, and other information. All VAERS data is analysed and evaluated for unexpected patterns or large numbers of rare and serious adverse events following immunisation.
VAERS data helped the agency uncover vaccine-related illnesses like myocarditis, she said.
The CDC is collaborating with the Census Bureau, and the National Center for Health Statistics in conducting the Household Pulse Survey.
Post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 (PASC), or Long COVID, continues to be a difficult and challenging condition for millions of Americans. And according to new survey data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and being reported by KFF, we have some figures on how many Americans are affected by it.
In fact, there are an estimated 17 million American adults who currently have Long COVID. According to the Census Bureau, there are 258 million American adults, and in the latest CDC Household Pulse Survey, 6.7% of respondents say they have Long COVID right now. The data suggest approximately 3 in 10 report having Long COVID at some point, and roughly 1 in 10 report having long COVID now.1
These figures come from the CDCs Household Pulse Survey. The CDC has an ongoing partnership with the Census Bureau, and the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) and they have included select health-related questions as part of theHousehold Pulse Survey.
Other interesting survey data includes the breakdown of Long COVID in terms of location, sex, age group, race, and education.
LocationIn the most recent survey that covers the period between February 6 to March 4, 2024, people across the states were asked if they were currently experiencing Long COVID and as a percentage of all adults, Vermont ranked the highest with 10.4%, and a nearby New England state, Rhode Island, ranked last with 4.4%. In reviewing the survey data, there are just a few states where there are clusters of Long COVID considered in the highest bracket (7.7% to 10.4%). The neighboring states of Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma are in this highest bracket, as well as Nevada and Utah are also in the highest brackets.2
SexThere was a marked difference between male, female, and transgender, with the last group having the highest percentage. When asked if they Ever experienced long COVID, as a percentage of all adults, 21.1% who identified as cisgender female said they experienced the condition; 14.9% who identified as cisgender male; and 26% who identified as transgender had experienced Long COVID.2
Age GroupWhen asked if they Ever experienced long COVID, as a percentage of all adults the highest percentage of people with Long COVID were in the 40- to 49-years old range (20.3%), and the lowest was 80 years and above (9.9%). Aside from that major difference all the other age groups were in the mid-to-high teens in terms of percentage, for the exception of the 70-to 79-years old age range, which was the second lowest percentage (11.3%).2
RaceWhen asked if they, Ever experienced long COVID, as a percentage of all adults the highest percentage of people with Long COVID identified as Non-Hispanic, other races, and multiple races at 22.2%. The next highest group identified as Hispanic or Latino at 20.9% The lowest group was Non-Hispanic Asian, single race at 11.0%. Non-Hispanic Black, single race was 14.9%, and Non-Hispanic White, single race was 17%.2
EducationWhen asked if they, Ever experienced long COVID, as a percentage of all adults the highest percentage of people with Long COVID said they had Some college/Associates degree at 20.6%. The lowest group was Bachelors degree or higher at 15.1%.2
The CDC's Household Pulse Survey is an ongoing project.
To learn more about the respondent data, interested readers can visit their website by clicking the link below.
CDC Household Pulse Survey
Contagion recently spoke with Jacob Teitelbaum, MD, a board-certified internist in integrative medicine with more than 35 years of experience in chronic fatigue syndrome and post-viral conditions, offered insights into Long COVID. The symptoms are varied and can be due to multiple underlying causes. It's not sufficient to treat everyone for a single issue, says Teitelbaum. It's crucial to differentiate among the various conditions that could be contributing to the patient's symptoms.
Watch the video below to hear more of Teitlbaum's perspective.
References 1.Burns A. As Recommendations for Isolation End, How Common is Long COVID? KFF. April 9, 2024. Accessed April 11, 2024. https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/as-recommendations-for-isolation-end-how-common-is-long-covid/
2. Long COVID Household Pulse Survey. CDC. Last Reviewed: March 21, 2024. Accessed April 11, 2024. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/covid19/pulse/long-covid.htm
Image by Getty / Futurism
Conspiracy theorists have for years now insisted that COVID-19 vaccines were the real killers, especially among young men but a new study shows that there's no data to back that up.
Published in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention'sMorbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the new study conducted by the Oregon Health Authority's public health division used data from June 2021 through December 2022 to investigate whether there was any actual link between COVID vaccines and cardiac deaths in young men, which conspiracists have relentlessly claimed are linked.
Looking at death data from that time period in the state of Oregon, the OHA identified only three cases out of nearly 1,300 young men aged 16-30 who'd had mRNA vaccines within 100 days of their untimely passages. Of those, two had had underlying illnesses that resulted in their deaths, while the cause of death for the last person had remained undetermined.
While these findings would seem to pretty conclusively put to bed vaccine misinformation campaigns claiming that the jab causes cardiac arrests in otherwise healthy young men as was the case when Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamilton collapsed on the field in early 2023 due to such a rare heart event it's hard to say whether it will put a dent in any conspiracy theories, which tend to operate in an emotional realm beyond concrete data and evidence.
All the same, however, the researchers behind the study felt they had to try.
"When Damar Hamlin went down, immediately comments were getting made that it was possibly vaccine-related," Dr. Paul Cieslak, the OHA's medical director of communicable diseases and immunizations and a study coauthor, told NBC. "This is kind of what we were trying to address with this analysis."
As Cieslak noted, 30 people in the same age range in the state died from COVID itself during the same time frame that the study was looking into, the majority of whom were unvaccinated.
"When youre balancing risks and benefits," the doctor said, "you have to look at that and go, 'You got to bet on the vaccine.'"
According to Dr. Leslie Cooper, the chair of the Mayo Clinic's cardiology department who was not involved in the study, the 100-day post-vaccine window was actually "quite generous."
"They went above and beyond to try and capture any possible cardiac death from vaccinations," he toldNBC.
Because such events are quite rare in people under the age of 35 and generally are considered to occur due to genetic factors, looking into any potential links between mRNA vaccines and cardiac deaths in young men does indeed seem worthwhile especially given that there has been demonstrated aminor link between the vaccines and myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart.
All the same, the data clearly shows that among the substantial sample population in Oregon, COVID vaccines did not kill them.
"Their conclusions are quite reasonable," Cooper said.
More on health conspiracies: Joe Rogan's Idiotic New Theory: AIDS Is Caused by Poppers
Story so far: During this poll season, mentions of the COVID-19 pandemic are still doing the rounds. Countering the Modi governments claims of providing free novel Coronavirus-19 (COVID-19) vaccines to citizens, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said the BJP was dragged into the act by the Opposition and the Supreme Court. He added that it was hard to forget the extent of the mismanagement that occurred during the pandemic.
(For top health news of the day,subscribeto our newsletter Health Matters)
More than four years ago, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared COVID-19 as a pandemic, sending countries across the world into shutdowns to stop the spread. While the WHO declared an end to the global health emergency due to COVID-19 last year, new cases and deaths are still being recorded across the world, even in India one of the nations worst-hit by the virus. Since March 2020, India lost over 5.3 lakh citizens to the virus.
While cases are at an ebb, further concerns have arisen about long Covid and vaccine hesitancy. We take stock of where we stand today with regard to COVID-19, and take a brief look at the nations battle with the virus.
As COVID-19 cases which were first reported in Chinas Wuhan province began cropping up across the world, countries employed different approaches to deal with the rise in infections, deaths and threat due to the virus, employing varying levels of lockdowns. In India, the Centre evoked the Disaster Management Act, enforcing one of the worlds strictest lockdowns from March 24, 2020, shutting all commercial and private organisations, transport and hospitality services excluding those catering to essential services and goods like food, electricity, medicine and water, media houses, banks, petrol pumps, and security organisations.
File photo: A group of migrant workers from Madhya Pradesh, who started their journey back home from Hyderabad, walk along the railway line near Gimma in Telanganas Adilabad district on April 24, 2020. | Photo Credit: S. HARPALSINGH
Faced with job losses and the sudden onset of a total lockdown, migrants across India began their slow journey on foot to their home States mainly Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal leading to the biggest migration India had witnessed since the 1947 Partition. The total lockdown lasted till May 1, 2020, as cases and deaths due to the virus rose rapidly. By May 2020, India had crossed over 1 lakh cases and 5000 deaths.
To tackle the resulting economic downturn, migration, stranding of Indians abroad and the spread of the virus, the Centre began to gradually unlock the nation in phases. Running special trains, aircrafts and naval ships in phases, the Centre facilitated the return of over 52 lakh Indians stranded abroad by March 2021 and ferried 63.15 lakh migrants across 23 states by August 2020. Simultaneously, the Centre also rolled out a special economic package of over 10 lakh crores and a slew of reforms across sectors to kickstart the economy.
File photo: Medics collect swab samples of staff and students of Gauhati Medical College and Hospital for COVID-19 test after a PG student was tested positive for coronavirus, in Guwahati, Friday, May 8, 2020. | Photo Credit: PTI
As the Centre began slowly permitting the nation to open up from lockdown, COVID-19 cases and deaths began to steadily rise as more and more people were exposed to the virus. By September, daily cases had hit a peak of 96,000 new infections while total deaths rose to 1 lakh before the rate of increase fell. Simultaneously, trials for the newly-developed COVID-19 vaccines Covishield and Covaxin progressed and the government began to roll them out from January 16, 2021. Trials for other vaccines like Sputnik V, Corbevax, Covovax, iNCOVACC, and GEMCOVAC were also launched.
Prioritising essential workers including healthcare workers, police, paramilitary forces, sanitation workers, frontline volunteers, the Centre vaccinated 1.4 crore people with the first dose of either Covishield and Covaxin by March 2021. Later, in phases, the Centre allowed citizens above 60 years, 45-60 years, 18- 44 years, 15-18 years and later 12-14 years to receive both vaccine doses and subsequently the additional booster dose free of cost at government centres and at capped prices at private centres.
Family members of COVID-19 patients wait outside an oxygen-filling centre to refill empty cylinders in New Delhi on May 5, 2021. | Photo Credit: PTI
As the vaccination rate picked up pace, India also witnessed its deadliest wave of COVID-19 infections. By March 2021, cases rose to 1.1 crore cases and deaths to 1.6 lakhs, forcing states like Maharashtra, Delhi, Karnataka, and Uttar Pradesh to reimpose stringent lockdown measures. Despite scaling up its health facilities, India also witnessed acute shortage of oxygen cylinders, beds and vaccines, as newer variants like Beta, Gamma, and Delta, as well as allied infections caused by black fungus, yellow fungus, and pink fungus emerged with higher severity than the virus spread in the first wave (Alpha). Between March and September 2021, cases rose sharply from 1.1 crores to 3.3 crores, claiming up to 4.5 lakh lives till then.
Several crowded events like the Kumbh Mela and election rallies for State polls in Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, and West Bengal gained criticism from experts, courts and politicians as cases spiked across India. With several States grappling to procure vaccine doses and oxygen supply, hundreds of dead bodies appeared washed up on the banks of the river Ganges as crematoria across India were overflowing. Faced with a burdening number of infections,the Centre accelerated the vaccination drive touching almost 50 crore doses by August end. Despite high domestic demand, the Centre also began exportingvaccines to countries in Africa, North and South America, Ukraine and Asia under its Vaccine Maitri programme.
File photo: Devotees gather to offer prayers during the third Shahi Snan of the Kumbh Mela 2021, at Har ki Pauri Ghat in Haridwar, Wednesday, April 14, 2021. | Photo Credit: PTI
Cases continued to rise but at a slower rate after September 2021 and by January 2022, the severity reduced, with most reported cases being asymptomatic. A third, less-intense wave of infection spread in India from December 2021 as India recorded its first case for the new Omicron variant which carried a higher risk of re-infection. The rise in cases continued till February 2022, after which the daily cases recorded dropped to 10,000, with total fatalities also remaining constant at 5.2 lakhs. In March, the Centre revoked the Disaster Management Act orders imposed for containing COVID-19 and bolstered the vaccination drive. By July 2022, the nation had administered 200 crore doses including first, second and booster doses.
In March 2023, India once again witnessed a small spike in daily infections recording over 1000 cases mostly asymptomatic and three deaths. However, active cases remained low, comprising 0.01% of the total infections, and recovery rate stood at 98.8% while fatality rate remained at 1.19%.
On May 5, 2023, WHO chief Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared an end to the public emergency which had arisen due to COVID-19. However, he said that the risk of new emerging variants causing a surge in cases and deaths remained. While the pandemics effects had waned due to increased immunity caused by mass vaccination, he warned nations of post-COVID conditions i.e. long COVID.
As of April 11, 2024, India has only 640 active COVID-19 cases while the total fatalities are at 5,33,570. Around 4.45 crore people have been discharged till date, clocking a recovery rate of 98.81%.
File photo: CHENNAI,TAMIL NADU,17/08/2021: Healthcare workers collects the swab sample of a International Air passenger for the RT-PCR test during Covid-19 screening at Chennai International Airport on August 17, 2021. | Photo Credit: VELANKANNI RAJ B
While there are few active cases, symptoms of long COVID are prevalent among Indians.
A study by the Lancet COVID-19 Commission India Task Force, found that women were more likely to develop long COVID issues compared to men. The study, which was conducted on 2205 subjects from three districts in Haryana Rohtak, Gurugram, and Jhajjar, found that only cough remained as the significant persistent symptom while other illnesses like depression, fever, tiredness, and influenza-like issues were found to be statistically insignificant.
However, another Lancet study found that COVID-19 had replaced stroke to become the second-leading cause of death globally in 2021. In India, COVID-19 had slashed the life expectancy by 1.9 years, reducing the net gain of life expectancy between 1990 and 2021 to 7.9 years.
Currently, only 14 private and public centres are offering COVID-19 vaccinations, as 92.66% of Indians are fully vaccinated. As of date, India has administered 220 crore doses of COVID-19 vaccines, of which 102 crores are first dose, 95.19 crores are second dose and 22.74 crores are precaution doses (booster dose).
Number of COVID-19 doses administered in last 30 days
Among States, Uttar Pradesh ranks the highest, vaccinating 39.2 crore citizens of which 17.7 crores are partially vaccinated (only 1 dose), 16.9 crore are fully vaccinated while 4.6 crore have also received the precaution dose. The second-highest vaccine coverage is in Maharashtra (17.8 crores), followed by Bihar (15.73 crores), West Bengal (15.61 crores) and Madhya Pradesh (13.4 crores).
In the last two weeks (28 March 8 April), the total vaccinations done across all 14 centres range between 9 and 133, mostly precaution doses for citizens between ages 18- 44. Despite COVID-19 vaccine doses available for children above 12 years (Covovax, Corbevax and Covaxin), the total number of doses administered to children between ages 12-18 is only 18.97 crores; this includes both doses. While India approximately has 43 crore children below the age of 18, as per UNICEF, COVID-19 innoculation among them is very poor (21%).
Vaccination as April 9, 2024
Moreover, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), which has been spearheading the COVID-19 strategy in India, has not issued any guidelines allowing vaccination of children below the age of 12. Four vaccines approved by ICMR Covaxin, Corbevax, Covovax and the ZyCoV-D are available for paediatric usage. A 2023 study has found that parental hesitancy, lack of guidelines and adverse effects of immunisation were causing hurdles in innoculating children for COVID-19. It concluded that a school-based vaccination program like Mission Indradhanush would be most effective in covering majority of Indias children.
With India only reporting few COVID-19 cases everyday (mostly asymptomatic) and the vaccination drive slowed down drastically, Indias fight against Coronavirus-19 has been reduced to screening and studying new variants.
Australia remains yet to record zero weekly deaths from COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, despite federal health data yesterday showing the milestone had been reached.
The Department of Health and Aged Care's rolling seven-day average at one point showed the number of deaths fell to zero briefly in March, however it has since been confirmed there were fatalities linked to the virus that week.
Hospital admissions are also at their lowest since January 2022.
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While hailed as a "milestone", some experts were sceptical about the data from the outset.
"While this is encouraging data, it's almost certainly not correct that there were zero COVID deaths in that week," infectious disease modeller Associate Professor James Wood, from the University of New South Wales, said.
"Instead, our near real-time reporting system for reporting of deaths has mostly wound down and we now need to rely on the slower ABS reporting which tends to occur at about a two-month delay."
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Karen Cutter, the chair of the Actuaries Institute's Mortality Working Group, agreed that the error was due to delays in how the data is collected and processed.
"The graph on the federal health website showing COVID-19-associated deaths is based on date of death, but there are delays between when a death occurs and when it is reported," she said.
"So for the most recent month shown, the number of deaths is vastly understated as not all deaths have been reported.
"This is particularly the case for the most recent week, where it is almost impossible for a death to happen and for it to be captured in the federal database.
"As such, to state that there have been no COVID-19 deaths in the last week based on this graph is simply not true."
The latest COVID-19 strain spreading across the world
Wood estimated COVID-19 infections are still high, previously saying 20 to 25 per cent of Australians had caught the virus in the most recent wave.
"Clearly, we are in a trough after the wave caused by the subvariant JN.1 at the end of last year," University of South Australia chair of biostatistics Professor Adrian Esterman said.
"However, that trough is still at a fairly high level, with over 22,000 confirmed cases so far in March, and presumably many times that number of actual cases."
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Esterman said Australia may be in its best position since the beginning of the pandemic, but warned against complacency.
"Last month there were over 250 active COVID-19 outbreaks in residential aged care homes, and only 36 per cent of Australians aged 75 and over have had a booster shot within the last six months," he said.
"We see very little messaging from any of our governments encouraging elderly people to get vaccinated. This is not good enough. We should at the very least still be doing all we can to protect our vulnerable population."
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The intense reaction of one of the lungs guardians against infection may help explain why COVID-19 can become severe.
The guardians, immune cells called interstitial macrophages, patrol lung tissue. These cells can be infected in a big way by SARS-CoV-2, researchers report online April 10 in the Journal of Experimental Medicine. Overwhelmed by the virus onslaught, the cells extreme inflammatory response may contribute to the development of pneumonia, a disease that damages the lungs and makes breathing difficult.
There is this gap in our knowledge of how human lung tissue really responds in the earliest phases of a SARS-CoV-2 infection, says Jos OrdovsMontas, an immunologist at Boston Childrens Hospital and Harvard Medical School, who was not involved in the research. The new work has put a spotlight on interstitial macrophages role, he says. I think this is an interesting piece of the puzzle.
A bout of COVID-19 can begin after someone breathes in the coronavirus, which launched by a sneeze or a cough spreads through the air (SN: 12/16/21). Evidence suggests the virus first infects cells that line the nasal cavity or the throat, and then the immune system response kicks in. From that point, many people clear the infection, says Catherine Blish, a viral immunologist at Stanford University School of Medicine. But some dont, and the virus can spread into the airways of the lungs and infect cells lining the air sacs, the structures where oxygen and carbon dioxide are exchanged.
Blish and her colleagues wanted to investigate the next steps of a coronavirus infection in the lungs and what might drive the progression to pneumonia. The team worked with thin slices of human lung tissue, procured from organ donations or surgeries in which some of the tissue needed to be removed. The researchers exposed the tissue to SARS-CoV-2 to see which cells became infected. It was really no contest, Blish says. The vast majority were macrophages, immune cells that take up viruses and other pathogens and eat them in order to present the parts to other immune cells. This helps activate the bodys immune response.
Specifically, there were two types of macrophages: Those that reside in the lung tissue, called interstitial, and those associated with the air sacs. The researchers took purified macrophages of each type and put them in a dish with SARS-CoV-2 for additional experiments to show that the cells were being infected, not just gobbling up virus. The team also probed the immune response of the two populations of macrophages. Those that reside in the lungs air sacs werent as dominated by the virus and produced a proportionate inflammatory response.
But the coronavirus was able to take over the cellular machinery of the interstitial macrophages. The team found that in response, these macrophages ramped up their production of proteins that target viruses and call in other immune cells. The cells are sending massive alarm signals Theres an invader, danger, danger, Blish says.
In the body, this kind of immune response can lead to a huge influx of cells and inflammatory proteins into the lungs air space, Blish says. That can compromise the air sacs ability to function and help set the stage for pneumonia.
Blish and colleagues also found that SARS-CoV-2 enters the interstitial macrophages through a different receptor than the very well-known entry point for other cells, ACE2. This may help explain why treatments that target ACE2 havent worked well for severe pneumonia, Blish says.
Experiments with lung slices cant exactly replicate whats going on in the body. The study doesnt answer how the virus would get into the lung tissue and gain access to the interstitial macrophages, Blish says.
Its a sensible model to put forward, OrdovsMontas says. But with the lung slices, you give equal chance to any cell that was either on the outside part or on the inside part of the lung to become infected. It may be helpful to complement this research with studies in animal models in which the lungs physiology is intact, he says, although those types of studies also dont exactly translate to whats happening in people. Each model is going to give you a slightly skewed view of reality.
In 2023, US Senator Rand Paul's (from Kentucky) book, Deception: The Great Covid Cover-Up, blew up the covers of public health bureaucracy. His well-documented coverage blew the lid off Anthony Fauci, the former Chief Medical Advisor of the President of the United States, and his scientific yes-men who knew about Covid's supposed true origins from day one.
Paul's book presented evidence that The Covid virus was likely the product of gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab in Chinaresearch funded in part by the U.S. government.
On April 9, he again took back the reins in his hands to further expose bombshells about federal employees covering up alleged hard facts about COVID-19's reality. His recent discoveries caught government officials from 15 federal agencies possessing knowledge of how the coronavirus was basically manufactured in 2018.
Penning his findings on the Fox News website, Paul claimed these officials were well aware that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was attempting to create a virus like COVID-19. Despite the hefty knowledge in their corner, they failed to expose the scheme to the public and chose to maintain their forthcoming stance. Moreover, 15 organisations similarly turned away from publicly releasing the details of the hazardous research.
The US senator reported that at least 15 federal agencies had knowledge of the project introduced by Peter Daszaks EcoHealth Alliance and the Wuhan Institute of Virology. These findings imply that all these agencies were privy to the EcoHealth Alliance and the Wuhan Institute of Virology's need for federal funding in 2018.
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Known as the DEFUSE project, its plans intended to insert a furin cleavage site into a coronavirus to create a novel chimeric virus that would have been shockingly similar to the COVID-19 virus.
US-based research organisation EcoHealth Alliance's President, Peter Daszak, and Ralph Baric, the University of North Carolina scientist, concealed all facts related to the issue that could've possibly birthed the coronavirus, an alleged man-made virus.
Dr Anthony Fauci was previously also mentioned in the senator's book. His latest report again brings him up, claiming that his National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) wasn't merely briefed on the matter, but also engaged in the initial DEFUSE project pitch. Additionally, Fauci's Rocky Mountain Lab was also associated as a partner of the Wuhan Institute of Virology for the same proposal.
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The newly discovered documents also out researcher Ian Lipkin, whose lab has been funded (worth millions of dollars) by EcoHealth, as one of the original participants of the project.
In his Fox News piece, Paul declared that despite all these agencies and their top-notch officials staying tight-lipped, Marine Lt. Col. Joseph Murphy came forward as the whistleblower, revealing the truth.
