Parents often bask in the glow of their childrens accomplishments, so if SARS-CoV-2 variants were like people, BA.2.86 would be busting its buttons right about now.
BA.2.86s spawn, JN.1, has become the dominant SARS-CoV-2 variant in the US, status its parent variant never achieved. Fortunately, although COVID-19 cases have surged, hospitalizations and deaths from the disease are still considerably lower than they were the same time a year earlier.
When BA.2.86 joined the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron family last summer, it grabbed pandemic trackers attention because it was so different from its progenitor, BA.2. Compared with BA.2, BA.2.86s spike protein carries more than 30 mutations, suggesting that it might spread more easily than its predecessors.
But even armed with those new mutations, BA.2.86 failed to dominate the other subvariants. Through early January of this year, BA.2.86 never exceeded much more than a 3% share of circulating SARS-CoV-2 subvariants in the US, according to Nowcast estimates from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Globally, BA.2.86 represented 8.9% of available SARS-CoV-2 sequences by the first week of November 2023, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), which classified BA.2.86, including its sublineages, as a variant of interest on November 20. (In a January 4 opinion piece, Eric Topol, MD, professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research Institute, argued that BA.2.86 was so different from previous Omicron subvariants that the WHO should have designated it as a variant of concern and christened it with a different Greek letter.)
Four weeks after labeling the entire burgeoning BA.2.86 family as a variant of interest, the WHO classified JN.1 alone as one, too, due to its rapidly increasing spread. By early January, JN.1s share of circulating variants in the US had soared to an estimated 61.6%, up from 38.8% just 2 weeks prior, according to the CDCs Nowcast estimate.
What a Difference a Mutation Makes
JN.1s spike protein has just 1 more mutation than BA.2.86s spike.
That mutation, called L455S, enhances the virus ability to bind to the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor, SARS-CoV-2s doorway into cells, Nicole Doria-Rose, PhD, chief of the Humoral Immunology Core at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Vaccine Research Center, noted in an interview with JAMA.
BA.2.86 didnt take off until it picked up this 1 mutation that made it JN.1, she said.
JN.1 appears to be highly contagious, perhaps more than any other member of the Omicron family, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine infectious disease and health policy professor William Schaffner, MD, said in an interview. Thats maybe why its outrunning them now.
As JN.1 gained traction, indicators of SARS-CoV-2 infection levels rose. In a January 5 report, the CDC estimated that compared with the same time last year, viral activity levels in wastewater were 27% higher and the percentage of positive COVID-19 tests was 17% higher.
The news wasnt all bad, though. Despite apparently higher infection levels, indicators of COVID-19 illness requiring medical attention were lower than a year earlier, the CDC said. For example, emergency department visits for COVID-19 were down 21%. And the percentage of all US deaths that were attributed to COVID-19 was 3.6% (839 deaths) for the week ending December 30, 2023, compared with 5.2% (3658 deaths) for the week ending December 31, 2022, according to provisional CDC data.
I think JN.1 clearly is driving transmission, epidemiologist Michael Osterholm, PhD, MPH, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, told JAMA. Fortunately, theres no evidence its producing more severe illness.
Given the high JN.1 infection rates, people with respiratory symptoms should assume they have COVID-19, even though they might test negative for the first few days, Osterholm said. If you have any symptoms at all of respiratory illness, dont go to a public or private event, especially indoors.
Higher rates of COVID-19 and other respiratory infections have spurred hospitals in a handful of states to reinstitute mask mandates, according to news reports, at least for staff who directly interact with patients in their rooms or other clinical care areas. For example, Mass General Brigham implemented the policy on January 2 and will adhere to it until infection levels drop later in the winter or in the spring.
Latest Vaccine Is Good Enough
COVID-19 vaccine components must be determined at least a few months in advance to allow time for manufacturing and distribution, so its not surprising they dont exactly match currently circulating variants.
The most recent COVID-19 vaccine targets XBB.1.5, an Omicron subvariant whose prevalence in the US had already shrunk to less than 3% by the time people began getting the new shots last September. In the 2-week period ending January 6, XBB.1.5which emerged from a different branch of the Omicron family tree from BA.2.86 and JN.1appeared to be out of circulation in the US, according to the CDC Nowcast.
Fortunately, laboratory research and rates of COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths suggest that the XBB.1.5 vaccine still protects against severe illness in the JN.1 era.
Our lab and others have shown thatJN.1 is about 3 to 5 times less susceptible to neutralizing antibodies than the XBB.1.5 variant that is in the updated booster, virologist David Montefiori, PhD, director of the Laboratory for HIV and COVID-19 Vaccine Research & Development at Duke University Medical Center, explained in an email. Most scientists are not very concerned about this reduced susceptibility because the titers of neutralizing antibodies remain in a range that is thought to be effective.
BA.2.86 and JN.1 carry more than 30 mutations in their spike proteins compared with XBB, noted a research letter published January 3 by University of Tokyo virologist Kei Sato, PhD, and colleagues, who concluded that JN.1 appears to be one of the most immune-evading SARS-CoV-2 variants to date. For example, the authors wrote, JN.1 shows robust resistance to monovalent XBB.1.5 vaccine sera compared with BA.2.86.
However, despite JN.1s rapid spread and dissimilarity from XBB.1.5, no one is calling for COVID-19 vaccines to be updated to target the new variant.
Given the current SARS-CoV-2 evolution and the breadth in immune responses demonstrated by monovalent XBB.1.5 vaccines against circulating variants, the WHO Technical Advisory Group on COVID-19 Vaccine Composition recommended keeping the current vaccine composition in December.
Although the latest COVID-19 vaccine might not consistently prevent infections caused by JN.1 or other circulating Omicron subvariants, it still can decrease disease severity in those who do get sick, Sato wrote in an email to JAMA.
The purpose of vaccination is to decrease the severity of diseases, Sato emphasized. Many people think that the purpose of vaccination is to prevent infection, but this is wrong.
However, vaccines are effective only if people get them. As was seen with the bivalent vaccine that preceded it, uptake of the latest COVID-19 vaccine has been low. Although everyone 6 months of age or older was eligible for the bivalent vaccine, available starting in September 2022, only 17% of the US population had received it as of May 10, 2023, according to the CDC. (The federal COVID-19 Public Health Emergency declaration ended May 11, as did the CDCs routine updating of vaccination statistics.)
About 29% of US adults said theyd received the latest COVID-19 vaccine, compared with 47% who said theyd received this seasons flu vaccine, according to a Gallup survey conducted the first week of December.
The people were seeing hospitalized today are generally people in the high-risk categories who have not taken advantage of the updated vaccine, Schaffner said.
Inevitably, JN.1 will peakif it hasnt alreadyas newer, cleverer SARS-CoV-2 variants replace it.
In the next few months, many people will get infected with JN.1, Sato explained in his early January email. As they acquire anti-JN.1 immunity, he said, SARS-CoV-2 will evolve to evade it.
At this point, most of the planet has been vaccinated or infected or both, Doria-Rose noted. The virus is under pressure to keep mutating so it can evade immunity and infect better. As a result, she said, this fall will surely bring another updated COVID-19 vaccine.
If this werent so horrible, it would be absolutely fascinating, Doria-Rose said of SARS-CoV-2. This is an animal virus that keeps evolving to adapt to its new host, which is people.
Published Online: January 12, 2024. doi:10.1001/jama.2023.27841
Conflict of Interest Disclosures: Dr Montefiori reported that his laboratory receives funding from Moderna to measure neutralizing antibody responses in their clinical studies; he is not a paid consultant to Moderna or any other entity. Dr Sato reported receiving consulting fees from Moderna Japan Co, Ltd, and Takeda Pharmaceutical Co Ltd, and honoraria for lectures from Gilead Sciences, Inc, Moderna Japan Co, Ltd, and Shionogi & Co, Ltd. No other disclosures were reported.
World Health Organization director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is pointing to holiday gatherings and a rapidly spreading variant as reasons behind a rise in COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths worldwide, with nearly 10,000 COVID deaths reported last month.
"Although 10,000 deaths a month is far less than the peak of the pandemic, this level of preventable deaths is not acceptable," the head of the U.N. health agency told reportersWednesday from its headquarters in Geneva.
WHO says the JN.1 variantis now the most prominent in the world. In the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated late last month that the variant makes up about 44.1% of COVID cases across the country.
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"We are in January, and it's winter respiratory virus season COVID, along with influenza and RSV, is on the rise throughout much of the country today," Dr. William Schaffner, professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, told CBS News Thursday.
"Apropos of COVID, we're seeing an awful lot of mild infections that is, they don't require hospitalizations, but you can feel miserable for three to four days that are being caused by this JN.1 variant. However, it's not causing more severe disease."
You can think of the JN.1 variant as "a grandchild of the original Omicron strain," Schaffner said.
"These viruses like to mutate, and its distinctive characteristic is that it is contagious so it's spreading very, very widely. And as such, it's finding people who are more susceptible, including those people who have not yet taken advantage of the current vaccine," he explained.
He added the vaccine is still providing protection.
"The currently available updated vaccine still provides protection against hospitalization, but with so much widespread illness, it's going to find older people, people who are immune compromised, people who have underlying chronic medical conditions those are the folks we're seeing who currently are requiring hospitalizations," Schaffner said.
Public health experts continue to recommend getting the latest vaccination, in addition to consideringwearing masksin certain situations and making sure indoor areas are well ventilated.
"The vaccines may not stop you being infected, but the vaccines are certainly reducing significantly your chance of being hospitalized or dying," said Dr. Michael Ryan, head of emergencies at WHO.
-The Associated Press and Alexander Tin contributed reporting.
Sara Moniuszko is a health and lifestyle reporter at CBSNews.com. Previously, she wrote for USA Today, where she was selected to help launch the newspaper's wellness vertical. She now covers breaking and trending news for CBS News' HealthWatch.
Coronavirus levels are high and rising throughout California amid a post-holiday spike in infections.
The uptick, documented through wastewater surveillance, is coinciding with a sharp rise in flu activity a one-two punch for whats proving to be a busy respiratory virus season.
We are certainly in some high levels of viral transmission. Flu is one of the bigger drivers of that right now, state epidemiologist Dr. Erica Pan said in a recent briefing. We are seeing some increases in COVID-19 activity, especially often after the travel and gatherings of the holiday season.
Around Christmas, flu was responsible for 4% of weekly emergency room visits statewide, up from about 1% a month earlier. COVID-19 was responsible for about 2%, up from about 1%.
For the week that ended Dec. 30 in Los Angeles County, the wastewater concentration of SARS-CoV-2 the virus that causes COVID-19 reached 60% of last winters peak, up from the prior weeks reading of 49%.
Statewide, the rates at which tests for COVID-19 and flu are coming back positive continue to rise. California continues to show very high flu-like activity, which includes non-flu illnesses such as COVID-19, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
While COVID-19 is no longer exerting the dangerous and devastating pressure seen earlier in the pandemic, it has not been defanged. Officials from the World Health Organization noted that 10,000 deaths were reported globally from COVID-19 in December, based on data from fewer than 50 countries, mostly in the Americas and Europe.
Although 10,000 deaths a month is far less than the peak of the pandemic, this level of preventable death is not acceptable, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the WHO, said at a recent briefing. We continue to call on individuals to be vaccinated, to test, to wear masks where needed and to ensure crowded indoor spaces are well ventilated.
The CDC reported more than 6,000 COVID-19 deaths nationally in December, a toll that is expected to rise.
Health officials noted that many deaths could have been avoided with higher rates of vaccination.
The vaccines may not stop you being infected, but the vaccines are certainly reducing significantly your chance of being hospitalized or dying, Dr. Michael Ryan, executive director of the WHOs health emergencies program, said at the briefing. And it really means that those people in vulnerable age groups with underlying conditions ... taking the opportunity to be vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2 and against influenza is the best investment you can make.
Uptake in COVID and flu vaccinations has been lackluster. Statewide, 31% of residents age 65 and older have received the updated COVID-19 vaccination since September, Pan said.
At nursing homes in California that report such data, 33% of residents and 10% of staff have received the updated COVID-19 vaccines well below typical uptake of the flu shot, which is about 50%.
This is where we see outbreaks. This is where we have the most deaths and, certainly, the most hospitalizations, Pan said.
California is doing worse than other states in terms of getting residents of nursing homes vaccinated against not only COVID-19, but flu and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, Pan said.
However, health officials are closely watching to see whether there are early indications that the winter respiratory viral season may be plateauing.
In California, there were 3,716 new coronavirus-positive hospitalizations for the week to Jan. 6, versus the prior weeks 3,720, which was the highest tally this winter, according to CDC data.
By contrast, last winter peaked at 5,260 coronavirus-positive hospitalizations for the week that ended Dec. 31, 2022. That was well shy of the heights seen during the devastating first two winters of the pandemic, when weekly hospital admissions topped out at more than 14,600.
Nationwide, coronavirus-positive hospitalizations are still rising. There were 35,801 for the week that ended Jan. 6, up 3% from the prior week. Last winters peak was 44,545, during the final week of 2022.
Its noteworthy that while national wastewater data suggest that this winter may be spawning the most coronavirus infections in any given week since the first Omicron wave in the winter of 2021-22, hospitalizations have remained lower than in any winter of the COVID-19 era.
Is this ... that were actually seeing more mild infection in people that are not getting tested, or reporting tests or seeking healthcare? Or are there are other reasons is there more shedding of the currently circulating variants? Pan said.
Hospitalizations remain elevated in L.A. County, public health officials say. But on Friday, the county moved out of the medium COVID-19 hospitalization level and back into low, according to the CDC. Orange County is still at medium.
The waning impact of COVID-19 has prompted public health officials for both California and L.A. County to relax guidance on isolation time after infection.
Previous isolation recommendations were implemented to reduce the spread of a virus to which the population had little immunity and had led to large numbers of hospitalizations and deaths that overwhelmed our healthcare systems during the pandemic, the California Department of Public Health said in a statement Tuesday. We are now at a different point in time with reduced impacts from COVID-19 compared to prior years, due to broad immunity from vaccination and/or natural infection and readily available treatments for infected people.
State and L.A. County officials say those who test positive need to isolate and stay home only while they have symptoms; they can end isolation once their symptoms are mild and improving and when they havent had a fever for 24 hours without using medication. Those who test positive yet are asymptomatic need not stay home, according to the guidance.
Previous guidance stated that those infected should stay home for at least five days.
Anyone with COVID-19 should wear a mask around others for 10 days after the beginning of symptoms or, if asymptomatic, after first testing positive. Infected people can stop masking sooner if they test negative on two consecutive rapid tests taken at least one day apart.
Still, anyone who has COVID-19 should stay away from people at higher risk for severe illness for 10 days, officials say. They should speak with a healthcare provider as soon as possible to learn whether they may be eligible for treatment, such as a prescription for Paxlovid or other antiviral medication.
The CDC, which most recently updated its guidance last spring, still recommends isolating for at least five days following the onset of symptoms or your first positive test if you have no symptoms.
The Terms of Reference for Ireland's inquiry into the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic are expected to go to Cabinet very soon.
This will be an inquiry like no other, given that the issues at the heart of it have affected every single citizen here, young and old.
Lives were at stake - so it will be vital to learn about what Ireland got right and what we got wrong and why. There is also still a lot of trauma and hurt over those most difficult times and the hard decisions had to be made in the heat of the crisis.
For all these reasons, there will be intense interest in the terms of reference and the scope of the probe.
Transparency
There will be a demand for total openness and transparency in the inquiry proceedings. This is important because many of the decisions made by Government and informed by NPHET and others were done behind closed doors.
A key issue will be whether it will be a truly public inquiry - if it will be broadcast and will the media be invited to attend?
The public will want to be reassured, in public, that all questions are asked and answered, that all the necessary witnesses attend, that all the required documents are furnished, so that Ireland will be better prepared for any future pandemic.
This will include frontline health staff and families affected by events.
We owe nothing less to the current and future generations.
The choice of chairperson and the panel of experts on the inquiry teams will also be important to its task.
The lead department for preparing the terms of reference is the Department of the Taoiseach. It has been scoping out various options on the best type of inquiry.
Sinn Fin's health spokesperson David Cullinane has said that his party has not yet been consulted on the terms of reference. He said he wants the inquiry to establish the facts but not to be a "witch-hunt".
Stephen McMahon, Irish Patients Association, said that the inquiry must be televised. He also said that some key players who have been making statements about how the inquiry should operate should refrain from making such statements.
"When we compare well with international benchmarks, this should not minimise a key question - could we have done better?", he said.
Thankfully, the Covid-19 public health emergency is over, although Covid-19 is still in circulation here and currently at high levels, with 1,200 cases last week and 459 hospitalisations.
Deaths are still being recorded but at lower levels to the peaks.
We are at a good remove now from the unprecedented events that started here on 29 February 2020 and that distance may help in a more dispassionate, factual examination of all the issues.
Other countries like Sweden, have held their inquiries and the UK is going through a difficult full public inquiry, that may continue for years. The aim here is to avoid a UK adversarial type inquiry with its battery of lawyers and attendant high costs.
Getting the Irish inquiry model right will be crucial. An inquiry that does not have broad public and political confidence would be a significant problem.
Fact finding mission
From the Government comments to date, the aim appears to be to avoid a combative, legalistic, blame-game hearing and instead have a fact-finding inquiry. That will not be an easy task.
Whatever the format, the inquiry is likely to last a year or two or more, as there is so much ground to cover, so patience will be needed.
The inquiry must look at the public health response, the social impact of restrictions, the health impact on people physical and mental, the huge economic impact, the limitations of civil liberties through emergency measures, plus the ongoing impact in terms of Long Covid.
Government and NPHET
It will also be expected to examine the crucial relationship between the Government and the advisory body, the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) which was centre stage.
It is an often quoted phrase that Civil Servants and Advisors advise, and the Government decides - did that always happen in Ireland's experience?
The question will be asked whether the Government relied too heavily on a relatively small group of scientific and medical advisors and what measures did the political leadership take to interrogate the regular NPHET recommendations and include a wider context.
A fundamental question for the inquiry will be whether Ireland was guided by the science, at all times. We all remember so well the terms wet pubs, 9 meals, the two metre rule, cocooning and staying at home.
It will be important for the inquiry to hear from individual NPHET members who dissented from various recommendations. One member, Professor Martin Cormican has said that the Covid response "depended on fear".
He also believed that basic freedoms were excessively limited. He has particularly pointed to the ban on visits to relatives in private nursing homes and school closures as wrong.
Act fast
There was a major problem in the early stages of the pandemic with limited data about the very nature of coronavirus and how to deal with it.
There was a telling line during the pandemic from World Health Organization executive Dr Mike Ryan about the need to act fast and have no regrets. He said the greatest error is not to move. Speed trumps perfection, he added.
Covid-19 was not like Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) or Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), which resulted in a relatively small number of cases and deaths worldwide. Covid was a once-in-a-100-year event and nothing like it had been seen in living memory.
Ireland essentially battled with five strains of concern during the pandemic. The first coronavirus case was confirmed here in late February 2020. That is ground zero. Then came the Beta strain in December 2020.
That was followed by the Alpha (Kent variant) in February 2021, the Delta variant in April 2021 and the severe Omicron variant in December 2021.
Most restrictions were lifted in January-February 2022 and Ireland has returned to so-called normality but the after effects remain for many people. And with those, so many questions to be answered.
Modelling projections for cases and deaths was challenging, with long term forecasting especially difficult. We know so much more now about Covid-19 but the early days were frightening because so little was understood by both the experts and the public.
A recent article in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) explored how inaccurate narratives, early in the pandemic about the way Covid-19 spread, shaped a flawed policy response.
There was an early belief that Covid-19 was transmitted by droplets, rather than being airborne.
In that BMJ article, Professor Trisha Greenhalgh and colleagues say that that measures aimed at an assumed droplet pathogen (handwashing, surface-cleansing, physical distancing) were over-emphasised.
The team's research found that measures to reduce airborne transmission, like improving indoor air-quality, reducing indoor crowding and high-grade respiratory protection were under-emphasised.
There were several experts here regularly pointing to the need for better air-quality measures like HEPA-filters, so that, for example, children could go to school. We know that children were badly affected by the pandemic, unable to attend school in person and all the other benefits that physical attendance with other kids provides.
PPE 'gold-dust'
Eventually, as we progressed through the pandemic, most people were wearing masks.
Early on the HSE said it was in a battle to secure PPE from outside of Ireland.
Its then CEO, Paul Reid, described PPE as like "gold dust" with competing countries willing to pay premium prices resulting in what he described as "modern day piracy".
Did the delays in securing PPE for health staff lead to avoidable infections of healthcare workers and patients?
No excess deaths
In the past week, a report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) placed Ireland alongside eight other countries which it found had no excess deaths during the pandemic.
The excess death toll in the UK is estimated to be around 230,000 people. Excess deaths are the number of deaths from all causes during a period of time, above what would normally be expected.
One of the countries with no excess deaths was Sweden, which had light-touch restrictions. That is very interesting. It has been postulated that the Swedish people did what was needed voluntarily to protect themselves, without the need for heavy Government controls.
Some of the other key issues to be examined by the inquiry here will be:
Private nursing homes
How were private nursing homes treated and protected in the early stages of the pandemic? Was there timely personal protective equipment (PPE) as well as staffing supports provided?
Early in the pandemic, to free up hospital beds, patients who were asymptomatic were discharged from hospitals to nursing homes but this resulted in other vulnerable people in homes being infected. The belief that asymptomatic people did not transmit the virus proved to be mistaken.
Lockdowns
Lockdowns were one of the most controversial issues and there were significant tensions between the Government and NPHET at times. At the heart of these tensions is whether it is appropriate for any civil servant to publicly question government policy.
Were all the lockdowns necessary in terms of timing and length? Were they introduced at the correct time and were the projections of Covid cases and hospitalisations and deaths correct, in support of those restrictions.
Proportionality
People debate the question as to whether the public health response was proportionate to the risk?
In particular, were all the school closures necessary and what consideration was given to the length of these closures. For many older people, especially those living alone, Covid-19 was a terrible time of isolation and loneliness.
Mask wearing
During the early stages of the pandemic there were differing expert views about mask wearing.
Indeed, in April 2020, then minister for health Simon Harris told the Dil he did not envisage face masking being made mandatory and was awaiting advice from NPHET.
Initially, some NPHET members felt that mask wearing could give a false sense of protection and people may not wear masks properly. But as we know, eventually mask wearing became mandatory.
Similarly, there was much debate on the use and value of antigen tests. Late into the pandemic, after several reports, they were more widely used and made available by the HSE.
To date, there have been over 1.7 million PCR-confirmed cases of Covid-19 here and 9,366 people have died.
Some of those deeply affected by the pandemic will want to share their experiences and no doubt the inquiry will facilitate that.
Hospital capacity
On several occasions, the hospital system had great difficult coping and cancer screening and other services were paused.
Some healthcare was put on hold and some people delayed going to a doctor for a variety of reasons, including the fear of entering a healthcare environment.
The inquiry will also be expected to look at HSE bed capacity and ICU capacity, how this was managed during the pandemic and how the health system can better prepare for the future.
The inquiry will want to examine what plans the Department of Health had for a pandemic, prior to anyone ever hearing about coronavirus. It was known that a pandemic would come at some point and that preparedness was needed.
Vaccination
The first Covid-19 vaccination here was given in December 2020. This was the beginning of new hope.
Most people view the vaccination campaign as one of the successes and there has been significant uptake here. Doctors say that this helped save many lives as well as serious hospitalisations.
But there was also some opposition to vaccination and many questions raised about it. Was it properly explained to people who had concerns?
Social media
The inquiry may also wish to look at the role of misinformation, disinformation and official communications to the public, as well as the role of conspiracy theories and social media and how this may be better handled in the future.
There have been a number of very good books on the pandemic but the full story has yet to be told.
Indeed, it will likely be historians of the future who should be able to convey the complete picture, removed from events, especially when all State papers are available.
For now, lessons need to be learned. Collectively, Ireland needs to understand why we went through what we did and the difficult decisions that had to be made.
For all these reasons, the forthcoming inquiry is of huge national significance and one which many members of the public will want the opportunity to follow in detail, in public.
Vegans and vegetarians may be 39% less likely to catch COVID-19, according to a recent study published in BMJ Nutrition Prevention & Health.
According to researchers, plant-based diets, which emphasize the consumption of nuts, fruits, vegetables, and plant-based proteins while avoiding meat and dairy, may offer numerous nutritional benefits.
Previous studies have also indicated that diet plays a significant role in both the likelihood of catching COVID-19 and the infection's severity. To further explore this connection, Brazilian researchers investigated the influence of dietary patterns on COVID-19 prevalence, severity, and duration among 702 elderly volunteers. Participants were questioned about their typical diets, lifestyle, medical history, and COVID-19 vaccination status.
The volunteers were divided into two dietary groups: omnivores (424 participants) and those who subscribe to plant-based diets (278 participants). Within the plant-based group, there were flexitarians or semi-vegetarians who ate meat no more than three times a week (87 participants), as well as vegetarians, including vegans (191 participants).
While there were no significant differences in gender, age, or vaccination rates between the two groups, a higher proportion of vegetarians had a higher level of education. The omnivorous group reported more medical conditions, lower physical activity levels, and a higher prevalence of overweight or obesity factors associated with an increased risk of COVID-19 infection.
Out of all participants, 330 (47%) reported contracting COVID-19. Among them, 224 (32%) experienced mild symptoms, and 106 (15%) suffered from moderate to severe symptoms. The prevalence of COVID-19 was significantly higher in the omnivorous group (52%) compared to the vegetarian groups (40%), and the omnivores were more prone to moderate or severe infections. However, there was no difference in the duration of symptoms between the two groups.
After adjusting for factors such as weight, existing medical conditions, and physical activity levels, the researchers did not find an overall difference in the severity of symptoms between the two diet groups. However, those following a primarily plant-based, vegetarian, or vegan diet had a 39% lower chance of infection compared to their omnivorous counterparts.
The researchers believe that a plant-based diet may provide more nutrients that strengthen the immune system and exhibit direct antiviral properties. However, they caution that further rigorous research is needed before definitive conclusions can be drawn about the impact of specific dietary patterns on COVID-19 infection risk.
Coronavirus levels are high and rising throughout California amid a post-holiday spike in infections.
The uptick, documented through wastewater surveillance, is coinciding with a sharp rise in flu activity a one-two punch for what's proving to be a busy respiratory virus season.
"We are certainly in some high levels of viral transmission. Flu is one of the bigger drivers of that right now," state epidemiologist Dr. Erica Pan said in a recent briefing. "We are seeing some increases in COVID-19 activity, especially often after the travel and gatherings of the holiday season."
Read more: COVID-19 intensifies across California, with the worst probably still to come
Around Christmas, flu was responsible for 4% of weekly emergency room visits statewide, up from about 1% a month earlier. COVID-19 was responsible for about 2%, up from about 1%.
For the week that ended Dec. 30 in Los Angeles County, the wastewater concentration of SARS-CoV-2 the virus that causes COVID-19 reached 60% of last winter's peak, up from the prior week's reading of 49%.
Statewide, the rates at which tests for COVID-19 and flu are coming back positive continue to rise. California continues to show "very high" flu-like activity, which includes non-flu illnesses such as COVID-19, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
While COVID-19 is no longer exerting the dangerous and devastating pressure seen earlier in the pandemic, it has not been defanged. Officials from the World Health Organization noted that 10,000 deaths were reported globally from COVID-19 in December, based on data from fewer than 50 countries, mostly in the Americas and Europe.
"Although 10,000 deaths a month is far less than the peak of the pandemic, this level of preventable death is not acceptable," Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the WHO, said at a recent briefing. "We continue to call on individuals to be vaccinated, to test, to wear masks where needed and to ensure crowded indoor spaces are well ventilated."
Read more: Nearly 10,000 COVID deaths reported globally last month, fueled by holiday gatherings and new variant
The CDC reported more than 6,000 COVID-19 deaths nationally in December, a toll that is expected to rise.
Health officials noted that many deaths could have been avoided with higher rates of vaccination.
"The vaccines may not stop you being infected, but the vaccines are certainly reducing significantly your chance of being hospitalized or dying," Dr. Michael Ryan, executive director of the WHO's health emergencies program, said at the briefing. "And it really means that those people in vulnerable age groups with underlying conditions ... taking the opportunity to be vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2 and against influenza is the best investment you can make."
Uptake in COVID and flu vaccinations has been lackluster. Statewide, 31% of residents age 65 and older have received the updated COVID-19 vaccination since September, Pan said.
At nursing homes in California that report such data, 33% of residents and 10% of staff have received the updated COVID-19 vaccines well below typical uptake of the flu shot, which is about 50%.
"This is where we see outbreaks. This is where we have the most deaths and, certainly, the most hospitalizations," Pan said.
Read more: With COVID on the rise, your at-home test may be taking longer to show a positive result
California is doing worse than other states in terms of getting residents of nursing homes vaccinated against not only COVID-19, but flu and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, Pan said.
However, health officials are closely watching to see whether there are early indications that the winter respiratory viral season may be plateauing.
In California, there were 3,716 new coronavirus-positive hospitalizations for the week to Jan. 6, versus the prior week's 3,720, which was the highest tally this winter, according to CDC data.
By contrast, last winter peaked at 5,260 coronavirus-positive hospitalizations for the week that ended Dec. 31, 2022. That was well shy of the heights seen during the devastating first two winters of the pandemic, when weekly hospital admissions topped out at more than 14,600.
Read more: When should I get vaccinated for COVID-19? Flu? RSV?
Nationwide, coronavirus-positive hospitalizations are still rising. There were 35,801 for the week that ended Jan. 6, up 3% from the prior week. Last winter's peak was 44,545, during the final week of 2022.
It's noteworthy that while national wastewater data suggest that this winter may be spawning the most coronavirus infections in any given week since the first Omicron wave in the winter of 2021-22, hospitalizations have remained lower than in any winter of the COVID-19 era.
"Is this ... that we're actually seeing more mild infection in people that are not getting tested, or reporting tests or seeking healthcare? Or are there are other reasons is there more shedding of the currently circulating variants?" Pan said.
Hospitalizations remain elevated in L.A. County, public health officials say. But on Friday, the county moved out of the "medium" COVID-19 hospitalization level and back into "low," according to the CDC. Orange County is still at medium.
The waning impact of COVID-19 has prompted public health officials for both California and L.A. County to relax guidance on isolation time after infection.
Read more: Everyone in California seems to be sick with respiratory illness. Here's why
"Previous isolation recommendations were implemented to reduce the spread of a virus to which the population had little immunity and had led to large numbers of hospitalizations and deaths that overwhelmed our healthcare systems during the pandemic," the California Department of Public Health said in a statement Tuesday. "We are now at a different point in time with reduced impacts from COVID-19 compared to prior years, due to broad immunity from vaccination and/or natural infection and readily available treatments for infected people."
State and L.A. County officials say those who test positive need to isolate and stay home only while they have symptoms; they can end isolation once their symptoms are mild and improving and when they haven't had a fever for 24 hours without using medication. Those who test positive yet are asymptomatic need not stay home, according to the guidance.
Previous guidance stated that those infected should stay home for at least five days.
Read more: Sick with COVID and the flu: Double infections hit California hard
Anyone with COVID-19 should wear a mask around others for 10 days after the beginning of symptoms or, if asymptomatic, after first testing positive. Infected people can stop masking sooner if they test negative on two consecutive rapid tests taken at least one day apart.
Still, anyone who has COVID-19 should stay away from people at higher risk for severe illness for 10 days, officials say. They should speak with a healthcare provider as soon as possible to learn whether they may be eligible for treatment, such as a prescription for Paxlovid or other antiviral medication.
The CDC, which most recently updated its guidance last spring, still recommends isolating for at least five days following the onset of symptoms or your first positive test if you have no symptoms.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
New York and other states in the Northeast had the highest rates of COVID-19 test positivity in the week in the week through January 6, according to the latest data.
Some 15.8 percent of COVID-19 tests in the U.S. were positive that week, up slightly from the week before, according to the data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The CDC's map shows New Jersey, along with Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, also had higher test positivity than anywhere else in the country, with 15.8 percent of tests coming back positive in the first week of 2024.
They were followed by Vermont, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Maine and Connecticut, with test positivity rates of15.5 percent.
Meanwhile, California, the most populous state in the country, was among those with the lowest test positivity rate. California, Nevada, Hawaii and Arizona all had 8.3 percent test positivity rates.
Four percent of deaths were due to COVID-19 in the week through January 6, a 14.3 percent increase from the previous seven days, the CDC said.
There were 35,801 hospitalizations due to COVID-19 in the week through January 6, up 3.2 percent on the previous week. Hospitalizations due to the virus are considered low in about half the country, according to the CDC.
The CDC on Friday said that new hospital admissions for COVID-19 were up by more than 50 percent in December, while new hospital admissions for flu more than doubled from the end of November to the end of December. "These increases are typical for this time of year, and short-term forecasts suggest elevated numbers of hospital admissions will continue," the agency said.
More hospitals in the U.S. are requiring people to wear masks as heath officials face a second winter season where COVID-19, flu and other respiratory syncytial viruses (RSV) have been circulating simultaneously.
New York City instituted a mask mandate for the city's 11 public hospitals in December, and similar measures were ordered at some hospitals in other states, including California and Massachusetts.
COVID-19 is continuing to cause more hospitalizations and deaths than flu and RSV combined, the CDC said.
The JN.1 variant is now the most prominent in the world, but the CDC has said that while this variant may spread easier or be better at evading our immune systems, there is no evidence that its effects are more severe than other recent variants.
"There is no data that would indicate JN.1 infection produces different symptoms from other variants," a spokesperson for the CDC told Newsweek earlier in January. "In general, symptoms of COVID-19 tend to be wide-ranging with all variants."
An updated COVID vaccine formula would protect against the JN.1 variant, the spokesperson said, and "existing vaccines, tests, and treatments still work well against JN.1."
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Cases of COVID-19 and flu have risen sharply in Georgia since the Christmas holidays, State Epidemiologist Dr. Cherie Drenzek reported Tuesday.
COVID cases have increased by about 50% since last week, hospitalizations are up 75%, and deaths have risen by 10%, Drenzek told members of the Georgia Board of Public Health. However, cases still remain well below levels experienced during the pandemic, she said.
Cases involving a new COVID variant - JN.1 - that surfaced recently have jumped 62% in the last month, Drenzek said. It is not thought to be as severe as some previous variants, she said.
"The most recent booster is thought to provide protection," she said.
Drenzek said cases of flu in Georgia have more than doubled during the last month, accounting for more than 10% of all health-care visits. Hospitalizations have increased 50% since last week, while flu has caused 10 deaths in Georgia, she said.
Most of the flu cases involve the H1N1 strain, which typically peaks in January, she said.
The good news is that cases of RSV, another respiratory virus the public health agency tracks, have declined dramatically since an October peak, Drenzek said. Severe outcomes from RSV are most likely in children from birth to 6 months of age, while the RSV vaccine is targeted primarily for infants and pregnant women.
Drenzek said it's not too late for Georgians to get the latest COVID booster or a flu shot, despite the lateness of respiratory illness season.
"Everyone over the age of 6 months should have a flu vaccine," she said.
Stacy and Michael on their wedding day.
When Covid-19 hit, the wedding industry took a deep financial hit because most weddings had to be cancelled or postponed to due to safety regulations. However, many other couples continued with their weddings, despite the lockdown.
This couple had to make adjustments and plan parts of the wedding via WhatsApp.
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A new Covid-19 variant has exploded in recent weeks to become the world's most dominant strain, despite accounting for just 4% of cases in early November.
First detected in France and the US, the JN.1 strain also referred to as "Juno" is spreading rapidly in the UK. Over the past month, the new variant has accounted for 47.5% of all UK Covid cases.The most recent data suggests the figure has risen to 65%.
Experts suspect that "socialising over the Christmas and New Year period has helped fuel the rise of the variant", said the Daily Mirror.
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Juno was "first tracked as part of the BA.2.86 'Pirola' strain", said The Independent, but has now been classified as a sub-variant by the World Health Organization (WHO), and a "variant of interest in its own right". Juno differs from Pirola by just a single spike protein.
Professor Lawrence Young, a virologist at Warwick University, told the Mirror: "The rapid rise of infections with the JN.1 variant in the UK and across the world is yet another reminder that the pandemic is far from over. JN.1 is one of the most immune-evading variants to date and is likely to be the lineage from which new variants will evolve."
Both the Pirola and Juno strains descended from Omicron, the last Covid strain to have been issued a Greek letter by the WHO. In late 2021, Omicron came "flying in out of left field", said Fortune. It was "so highly mutated, so drastically different that it changed the trajectory of the Covid-19 pandemic", with Covid and Omicron becoming "all but synonymous", the site said.
Now Juno has achieved similar global dominance, but whether WHO will recognise it with an official Greek letter "remains to be seen", Fortune added.
Juno appears to be "especially adept at infecting those who have been vaccinated or previously infected", said The Washington Post. As well as experiencing huge growth in the UK, it is also the fastest growing variant in the United States.
While highly contagious, Juno "is not thought to be any more severe than other recent Covid variants", said the i news site. However, reduced levels of vaccinations in the past two years "have increased the risk of serious symptoms when people become infected", the paper added.
Although Covid "no longer poses the same threat as it did when it burst onto the scene in early 2020, thousands are currently in hospital with the virus every day", Mail Online said.
And the latest rise in infections comes as "NHS facilities are already juggling with a spike in flu and other seasonal bugs", the site added.
Covid-19 "is still causing lasting personal and economic damage", said Alice Thomson in The Times.Rishi Sunak recently advised the UK to "stick with the plan", but "there is no pandemic plan any more", she said. The government has gone from "locking down the entire country to ignoring the situation".
Vaccination remains the best way to protect yourself from the latest strains, "but it isn't a 100 per cent guarantee", said the Daily Record.
Doctors have encouraged anyone who is eligible for a vaccine booster to get one if they haven't already done so. Dr Heidi Zapata, from Yale Medicine, said: "I would advise getting your updated vaccine, consider masking in certain situations, and if you get sick, please test for Covid because you can get medicine to treat it."
Further to that, the same approaches to minimising exposure apply to the current variants. People should be "washing their hands regularly, as well as wearing masks in public spaces and ventilating their rooms correctly", the Daily Record said.
