Alix Martichoux and The Hill
3 days ago
(NEXSTAR) On March 11, 2020, the director-general of the World Health Organization told the world that COVID-19 can be characterized as a pandemic.
At the time, fewer than 4,500 people were thought to have died from the virus, but it was spreading quickly, appearing in new cities and countries every day.
Fast forward to 2024, and the virus has taken an estimated 7 million lives. Its still mutating and sparking new variants, sickening thousands of people, and ultimately killing hundreds every day. But we also have far more tools than we did in 2020. We have several effective vaccines and anti-viral treatments to help combat the disease.
With all that in mind, is COVID-19 still considered a pandemic-level threat?
A WHO spokesperson told Nexstar the word pandemic is not binary, its not on or off. To make things even more complicated, theres not one universal agreed-upon definition of a pandemic.
Columbias Mailman School of Public Health says a pandemic begins when a disease is spreading exponentially and across international borders. This wide geographical reach is what makes pandemics lead to large-scale social disruption, economic loss, and general hardship.
On the other hand, a disease is endemic when its consistently present but limited to a particular region.
With COVID-19, its been consistently present for years, but isnt limited to any particular area or population. It still has wide geographical reach, but case counts arent exploding out of control.
The WHO wont make a ruling on when the pandemic is over, a spokesperson told Nexstar. However, they did declare an end to the Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) in May 2023. Unlike the term pandemic, a public health emergency is clearly defined under international health regulations.
While the WHO stopped short of determining whether or not COVID-19 still constitutes a pandemic, the agency made it clear the virus remains a global health threat.
There are hundreds of thousands people with COVID-19 in hospital now and there are many suffering from Long COVID, the WHO said. What we can say for COVID-19, is that the crisis is over, but the threat is not and what we need now, is countries to pursue their response and to take action needed to save lives.
Patients hospitalized with COVID-19 were more likely to die than those hospitalized with influenza during the fall and winter of 2023-2024, according to an analysis of Veterans Affairs data.
Among over 11,000 patients hospitalized for either illness during this past fall and winter, 5.7% of patients with COVID-19 died within 30 days of admission versus 4.24% of patients with influenza, reported Ziyad Al-Aly, MD, of the VA St. Louis Health Care System, and colleagues.
After adjusting for variables, the risk of death in people hospitalized for COVID-19 was 35% higher (adjusted HR 1.35, 95% CI 1.10-1.66), the authors detailed in a research letter in JAMA.
Al-Aly told MedPage Today that his group was actually surprised by the results. "We pretty much bought into the public narrative and drank the Kool-Aid like everybody, thinking that COVID is no longer [more deadly than the flu], although ... there was no data," he said. "But the verdict is out now, because we've analyzed the data from the 2023-2024 COVID season and clearly COVID mortality is still higher than the flu."
Moreover, the authors pointed out that the results of the study should be considered in light of the fact that there were nearly twice as many hospitalizations for COVID-19 compared with the flu for the 2023-2024 season, according to CDC surveillance data. In the study population, over three times the number of people were hospitalized for COVID-19 than for the flu.
However, the results did reveal that the risk of mortality in patients hospitalized with COVID-19 had fallen when compared to the previous 2022-2023 season. In their 2023 study, using the same database and methods, Al-Aly's group found that in the fall and winter of 2022-2023, COVID was about 60% more deadly than the flu in patients hospitalized for the illnesses.
"We should continue to take COVID seriously," Al-Aly emphasized. "I know we're all sick and tired of this pandemic and all of us have pandemic fatigue, but COVID is still more of a threat to health than the flu."
Reassuringly, there appeared to be no significant difference in the risk of death among patients hospitalized for COVID-19 before and during the emergence of the JN.1 variant of SARS-CoV-2 (adjusted HR 1.07, 95% CI 0.89-1.28), suggesting that JN.1 may not be more severe than other recent variants, they posited. The JN.1 variant became predominant beginning in late December 2023.
The study looked at data from VA electronic health records across all 50 states. Researchers identified people admitted to the hospital with a diagnosis of COVID-19 or influenza between Oct. 1, 2023 and March 27, 2024, along with a positive test 2 days before or up to 10 days after admission. Patients with either illness who were hospitalized for another reason were excluded. The study's cohort included 8,625 participants hospitalized for COVID-19 and 2,647 participants hospitalized for seasonal influenza.
After propensity score weighting, the mean age of the two cohorts was about 74 and 95% were male. About 19% were Black and 65% were white. Approximately 47% were infected before the JN.1 variant emerged. Also, of patients hospitalized for COVID-19, about 65% had received three or more shots of a COVID-19 vaccine, but approximately 15% had not received any COVID-19 vaccine. Approximately 44% of the study population had been vaccinated for influenza.
Only about 5.3% of people with COVID-19 had been treated with an outpatient antiviral, such as nirmatrelvir-ritonavir (Paxlovid), molnupiravir (Lagevrio), or remdesivir (Veklury). In contrast, 8% of patients hospitalized with the flu had received outpatient oseltamivir (Tamiflu).
The authors acknowledged that the VA study population was older and predominantly male, so the results may not be generalizable to other populations. Also, the causes of death were not examined.
Katherine Kahn is a staff writer at MedPage Today, covering the infectious diseases beat. She has been a medical writer for over 15 years.
Disclosures
The study was funded by the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Al-Aly and co-authors disclosed no relationships with industry.
Primary Source
JAMA
Source Reference: Xie Y, et al "Mortality in patients hospitalized for COVID-19 vs influenza in Fall-Winter 2023-2024" JAMA 2024; DOI: 10.1001/jama.2024.7395
A recent Brazilian study yielded alarming data about the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on maternal health. In 2020, the rate of maternal mortality was 40% higher than the average of the previous years. In 2021, there was a surge in the number of cases, and COVID-19 was responsible for 60% of maternal deaths that year.
These data suggest that the pandemic has disproportionately affected pregnant women and postpartum women, according to the investigators. The maternal mortality rate observed in 2021 significantly exceeded the global target of the Sustainable Development Goals for this indicator (70 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births), reaching a level of approximately 110 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. This level was similar to the levels that Brazil recorded in the 1980s.
Another Brazilian study showed that the country's northern and northeastern regions were most affected by excess maternal mortality in 2020. In 2021, the impact was greater in the midwestern and southern regions. The worst scenario occurred between March and June 2021 nationwide, with an excess of 413% in the mortality of mothers between ages 35 and 49 years in the southern region.
Brazil's numbers are significantly higher than those of other developing countries. In Chile, for example, maternal mortality increased from 19.2 to 28.1 per 100,000 live births. In countries in Central Asia, maternal mortality ranged from 18.5 to 36.5 per 100,000 live births during the pandemic, which was higher than in previous years. Colombia, which already had a high maternal mortality rate of 80 per 100,000 live births before the pandemic, saw an increase to 87 per 100,000 live births.
The data from the United States are also noteworthy. The maternal mortality rate, which was 20.1 per 100,000 live births in 2019, rose to 23.8 in 2020 and to 32.9 in 2021. Racial issues are important here: Among the Black population, maternal mortality reached 69.9 per 100,000 live births, which is more than two and a half times the rate in the White population (26.6 per 100,000 live births).
In addition, a US study conducted in the first year of the pandemic showed that the incidence of maternal mortality coincident with a confirmed COVID-19 infection ranged from 79.1 to 232.9 per 100,000 deliveries between April and December 2020. These numbers are more than 10 times higher than those for maternal mortality unrelated to COVID-19.
Maternal mortality is influenced by the quality of care, which involves issues such as access and availability of resources; prenatal, childbirth, and postpartum practices; and social, economic, and ethnic disparities in women's health overall.
The difference between the Brazilian numbers and those of other countries cannot be explained by biologic factors alone. During the pandemic, Brazil experienced significant strain on its healthcare system, including difficulty promoting prenatal care for pregnant women, barriers to accessing childbirth assistance, and the low availability of intensive care beds. The occurrence of a critical period in 2021 also suggests the slow adoption of measures to control and mitigate the effects of the pandemic, such as vaccinating pregnant women and postpartum women.
In 2022, the rate of maternal mortality decreased to 57.7 per 100,000 live births. The statistics for 2023 are not yet available. But much work remains to be done before the country reaches its target, as part of the Sustainable Development Goals, of fewer than 30 maternal deaths for every 100,000 live births.
Many of the women who died during the pandemic left behind families and children. A 2022 Brazilian study showed that in the first 2 years of the pandemic, over 40,000 children were left motherless. This phenomenon has implications for the well-being and structure of families and increases children's vulnerability to emotional and behavioral issues, even in the long term.
Finally, Brazil may observe changes in its population in the coming years as a consequence of the pandemic. There is an expectation, for example, that the observed population decline may accelerate. It may be too early to state that the excess of maternal deaths will have a population-level impact, but it is certainly something to monitor closely.
This story was translated from the Medscape Portuguese edition using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.
More than 150 years ago, some 15,000 Chinese workers arrived in the U.S. to help construct the countrys first transcontinental railroad, which connected the West Coast with the East Coasts rail network.
These Chinese laborers received lower wages than their white counterparts for the same job and endured worse living conditions.
Over the past century and a half, discrimination against Asians has persisted.
During World War II, the U.S. incarcerated hundreds of thousands of Japanese Americans; after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, hate incidents against Middle Eastern and South Asian communities soared; following the coronavirus outbreak, hatred directed at people of Asian heritage spread across the globe.
After witnessing a surge in anti-Asian hate incidents during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ethnic Studies Professor Jennifer Ho collected a diverse range of stories from authors of Asian heritage worldwide and released the edited volumeGlobal Anti-Asian Racism in February.
If you know someone who's Asian, living anywhere in this world, they have been subjected to and have thought about being the target of violence and racism, says Ho, a Chinese American woman who was herself subject to anti-Asian harassment at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
May marks the 155th anniversary of the railroads completion and the annual celebration of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month. CU Boulder Today spoke with Ho, director of theCenter for Humanities & the Arts, about her new book and the importance of supporting AAPI communities year-round.
Jennifer Ho
The COVID-19 virus originated out of China. Thats really all it took, given the centuries-long circulation of yellow peril rhetoric, which describes the Western fears that East Asians would take over the West and disrupt Western values.
The peak of the recent wave of anti-Asian racism was in March of 2021 when a gunman in Atlanta, Georgia, killed eight people, six of whom were Asian women. Around the same time, we saw multiple videos of Asian elders being punched in the face in various Chinatowns across the U.S.
The recent events are specifically targeting Chinese or people who have East Asian features and are misidentified as Chinese. But this violence is rooted in a longstanding history of targeting Asians in the U.S.simply because they look different.
In the U.S. context, white supremacy is the main driving force of anti-Asian racism. White supremacy perpetuates the belief that Asians never inherently belong in U.S. spaces and that Asians are always hyphenated Americans. For example, I'm never going to be treated or seen as someone who is just plain American, because in the minds of most people in the U.S., an American is someone with a white face.
Thankfully, we have not had another kind of mass fatality after Atlanta and Indianapolis. But that's not to say that anti-Asian racism isn't happening. For example, Florida recently passed a law banning Chinese nationals from purchasing real estate. The kind of anti-Chinese rhetoric that is constantly in the news means that if there's ever some kind of security threat, whether through a virus or an Asian entity, we will likely see another uptick in anti-Asian racism.
Over the years, there has been a growing collective sense of what it means to be Asian American. About 15 years ago, a survey revealed only 20% of Asian Americans identified themselves as Asian American. Instead, the vast majority of people of Asian heritage in the U.S. identified first and foremost with their ethnic background, like Chinese, Chinese American, Indian, Indian American, South Asian and so on.
In response to the recent waves of anti-Asian racism, more people realized if you have East Asian features, you can be misidentified as Chinese and become the target of hate incidents. As a result, the attacks that happened against one Asian ethnic group become attacks against all Asian ethnic groups. This led to a greater understanding and awareness that Asian Americans, as a racial collective body, need to come together in solidarity to protect one another.
I had done a few public-facing pieces during COVID-19 on anti-Asian racism. After one of them was published, I was contacted by people from around the world asking me if there were resources that I knew of in their countries similar to the Stop AAPI Hate coalition in the U.S.
My expertise is very limited to a U.S. context, and I didn't have other resources to share. So when I was contacted to develop a volume on global anti-Asian racism, I was grateful to curate acollection of essays from a diverse array of scholars from around the world.
I do hope the book can reach out to a more general readership, outside of a classroom space, outside of the ivory tower of academia. I hope that people who have a curiosity about anti-Asian racism, whether they're Asian-identified or not, will read about various forms of anti-Asian racism that have happened around the globe.
During COVID-19, I saw colleagues step up and be interviewed by a number of news outlets, write opinion pieces and share their expertise on what they knew about anti-Asian racism with the world. I hope, very humbly, that this book can be my contribution.
Breaking stereotypes is always just hard. In the U.S., we really like binary systems, like our political parties. We prefer things to be categorized as either good or bad. But the reality is always more complicated than that.
But I do have hope. The way we are now starting to understand that gender is not binary but on a spectrum and fluid makes me hopeful that one day we can do that with race.
The stories of Asians in America is yet to be told publicly, broadly and widely. I wish more people would do stories about the communities, not just when there's something bad happening to Asian Americans in America, but out of genuine curiosity about who Asian Americans are.
We are this really wonderful, complex group. It's not like we're all good, or we're all bad. It's not like we all excel in school. But we have really interesting stories to tell. I wish more people wanted to tell the stories, and more of the public would be curious about these stories outside of AAPI month.
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Study design, setting, and participants
We conducted a retrospective study among individuals who were tested for SARS-CoV-2 using RAT and RT-PCR during the same clinical encounter between 9 May 2022 and 21 November 2022. Under the Acute Respiratory Infection (ARI) surveillance programme at 11 polyclinics in Singapore which served as sentinel outpatient primary care sites, individuals presenting with acute respiratory symptoms of cough, runny nose, sore throat and/or fever were randomly selected and offered to join the surveillance programme by their clinician. Individuals who were willing to participate then underwent testing with a healthcare-administered RAT and RT-PCR. We evaluated the two RAT kits predominantly used in the sentinel clinics, Flowflex SARS-CoV-2 Antigen Rapid Test (Acon Laboratories) and STANDARD Q COVID-19 Ag Home Test (SD Biosensor).
Specimens for RT-PCR were tested using the BioFire Respiratory 2.1 (RP2.1) Panel (bioMrieux, France), a multiplex PCR which allows the simultaneous detection of multiple viral and bacterial respiratory organisms, including SARS-CoV-2 [14]. RT-PCR-positive cases were those which were SARS-CoV-2-positive on RP2.1 panel. The SARS-CoV-2-positive specimens were then tested using TaqPath COVID-19 Combo Kit (ThermoFisher, USA) and selected for whole genome sequencing (WGS) based on the cycle threshold (Ct) and S-gene target failure (SGTF) status. 40 PCR cycles were run as recommended by the manufacturer, and specimens with Ct value<30 could be selected for WGS.
WGS was conducted on specimens using the ARTIC nCoV-2019 amplicon panel (Integrated DNA Technologies) and the Nextera XT DNA Library Preparation Kit (Illumina) on the Illumina MiSeq platform in accordance with the manufacturers instructions. The viral genome sequences were assembled from raw data by in-house pipelines and the viral lineages were determined by Pangolin.
Data were collected from databases maintained by the National Public Health Laboratory and Ministry of Health, Singapore. Paired RAT and RT-PCR results for SARS-CoV-2, as well as age, sex, ethnicity, brand of RAT kit, presence of co-infection with other viral respiratory pathogen(s), clinic attended, vaccination status at time of infection, previous infection status, days between symptom onset and sample collection and SARS-CoV-2 lineage (if sequenced) were collected. Ct value was used as a proxy indicator of viral load, based on the lowest Ct value of the three targets in the TaqPath COVID-19 Combo Kit assay. Swab collection site for RT-PCR (nasopharyngeal, nasal, oropharyngeal and mid-turbinate, or throat) was recorded by healthcare staff and collected, but anatomical collection site of RAT was not known. Completion of the primary vaccination series was defined as two doses of Pfizer-BioNTech/Comirnaty or Moderna-Spikevax, three doses of Sinovac-CoronaVac or Sinopharm BBIBP-CorV, or two doses of non-mRNA vaccines approved under the World Health Organization (WHO) Emergency Use Listing besides Sinovac-CoronaVac and Sinopharm BBIBP-CorV [15]. Individuals who received additional vaccine doses after the primary vaccination series were considered boosted.
Those who had a SARS-CoV-2 infection notified to the Ministry of Health at least 90 days before the date of study inclusion were considered to have a previous documented infection [16]. In January 2022, Omicron overtook Delta as the predominant strain in Singapore and comprised over 91% of local cases which were sequenced [17]. Hence, individuals with a documented infection episode before 1 January 2022 were considered to have a previous pre-Omicron infection, while those with a previous documented infection from 1 January 2022 were assumed to have an Omicron infection. Individuals who tested RT-PCR-positive during the study period and did not have a previous documented infection were considered first infections.
RAT sensitivity, specificity, negative predictive value, and positive predictive value were calculated using BioFire RP2.1 Panel RT-PCR as the reference standard, with 95% CI calculated. Logistic regression models were used to estimate odds ratios (OR) of factors with negative RAT results among those who were SARS-CoV-2-positive by RT-PCR. Two multivariable logistic regressions were constructed. Model 1 adjusted for demographics, COVID-19 vaccination status, RAT brand, presence of co-infection with other respiratory pathogens, previous known SARS-CoV-2 infection, days between symptom onset and sample collection, SARS-CoV-2 lineage, PCR sample type and clinic visited, while Model 2 adjusted for factors in Model 1 and Ct value, to elucidate the effect of Ct values on the associations. Adjusted ORs of Models 1 and 2 were labelled aOR1 and aOR2 respectively. All data analysis was performed using Stata version 15.0(StataCorp, College Station, TX, USA).A p-value of <0.05 was considered statistically significant.
The study received ethics approval from the NHG Domain Specific Review Board (DSRB Ref: 2023/00131) with waiver of informed consent.
COVID-19 levels have been lower than usual, but a new set of variants could make summer unpredictable when it comes to the novel coronavirus.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that KP.2 has overtaken JN.1 and is now the dominant variant circulating in the U.S. As of the most recent update, which is the two weeks ending May 11, KP.2 accounts for 28.2% of the COVID-19 cases circulating.
KP.2 is one of the variants in a group called FLiRT, which Johns Hopkins University explains are named after the technical names for their mutations. FLiRT refers to a whole group of variants, including any that start with KP or JN, which appear to have independently picked up the same set of mutations, called convergent evolution. They are the children and grandchildren of the JN.1 variant that has been dominant recently.
The prevalence of these variants comes at a critical time, when experts are deciding how to formulate the fall COVID vaccine, the university notes. The article adds that the COVID-19 virus mutates often to keep the bodys antibodies from recognizing it, but that makes it harder for the virus to infect cells. Then it mutates again to improve its ability to bind in a cycle that happens over and over. The fact that these different variants are picking up the same mutations tells virologists that this combination of mutations is helping the virus accomplish these goals most efficiently.
Johns Hopkins reports that a recent JN.1 infection should provide pretty strong protection against all the FLiRT variants. Infection from a variant older than JN.1 probably isnt very protective, it added.
Will the virus surge in summer? Guesses are varied. Johns Hopkins deems it certainly possible. According to virologist Andy Pekosz, a professor in molecular biology and immunology at Johns Hopkins, The FLiRT variants would be high on my list of viruses that could cause another wave of infection in the U.S. That said, our definition of a wave has changed. While we still see case rates rise and fall throughout the year, we see much lower numbers of cases of hospitalization or deaths than we saw in the first couple years of the pandemic, he said.
In the good news category, he added that Paxlovid is as effective against FLiRT variants as against previous variants of COVID-19.
The New York Times, though, offers some bad news. Dr. David Ho, a virologist at Columbia University, told the Times that his early lab tests suggest that slight differences in KP.2s spike protein might make it better at evading our immune defenses and slightly more infectious that JN.1.
However, Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, the chief of research and development at the Veterans Affairs St. Louis Healthcare System, told the Times that at this time, Im not seeing any major indications of anything ominous.
As virus experts try to predict surges, Today notes that the seasonality of COVID-19 is something scientists are still trying to understand. But one thing is obvious: This virus is now integrating itself into our population and our way of life, as Dr. William Schaffner, professor of infectious disease at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, put it in the article.
The proportion of cases caused by KP.2 is increasing while the proportion caused by other variants is decreasing, which suggests KP.2 has features that give it an advantage, the experts note, Today reported. The article added that low vaccination rates and immunity that is lagging over time could make the population vulnerable and allow the variant to surge.
COVID-19 infection itself is no longer the terror that it was early on. Now, the threat of long COVID-19 is what looms large. Dr. Grace McComsey, who is the main investigator of the Long COVID RECOVER study at University Hospitals Health System in Cleveland, told WebMD that long COVID is the bigger issue. Per the article, Research released from The Lancet Infectious Diseases recently showed that many of those who end up with long COVID a chronic illness marked by fatigue, brain fog, and heart and lung problems didnt necessarily have a severe bout with the infection.
The Global Center for Health Security at the University of Nebraska Medical Center has four predictions for COVID-19 this summer and beyond:
In 2020, Zhang was appointed leader of Shanghais clinical expert team for Covid-19, becoming a household name and central figure in the countrys fight against the virus.
He has published hundreds of papers in the field of public health and infectious diseases. But now he is embarking on a new initiative to address the intersection between two growing threats: climate change and infectious diseases.
Research examining this relationship will become a growing focus globally, he said.
As the planets climate changes, including the expansion of the tropics, the way pathogens evolve and mutate is also changing.
A study published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres in 2020 found that ocean surface warming in subtropical regions was expanding the width of the tropics.
02:27
Mosquito scientist leading fight against the worst dengue outbreak ever in Bangladesh
Mosquito scientist leading fight against the worst dengue outbreak ever in Bangladesh
It has been expanding from near the south the more tropical areas towards the north, and now it has also begun to expand to the Yangtze River Basin. So we can now also detect dengue fever in the Yangtze River Basin, Zhang said.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has said that in future decades climate change will affect the spread of vector-borne diseases like malaria due to changes in global temperature and precipitation patterns.
There is a hypothesis that the Covid-19 pandemic spread to humans from bats, whose habitats are also expanding.
So the work we are doing now is actually for the next pandemic.
But countries will need more data if they are to work together to create global disease management agreements and strategies to respond quickly to another global pathogen.
As director of the Shanghai Sci-Tech Inno Centre, Zhang signed a memorandum of understanding with the University of Hong Kong (HKU) to work towards that goal at the annual Pujiang Innovation Forum in Hong Kong in late April.
As part of the project, experts in climate change, public health, infectious disease control and public policy will be brought together for research at HKUs Centre on Contemporary China and the World (CCCW).
Resident and non-resident experts will pursue original research, establish regular monitoring systems and provide public policy discourse platforms, according to the CCCW.
Using this platform, infectious disease experts and microbiologists can work with environmental experts and climate experts to conduct in-depth research on climate change and infectious diseases together, Zhang said.
While Zhang and other experts from the mainland will begin their work alongside experts in Hong Kong, preparing for the next pandemic will need to be a group effort for researchers around the world.
It will require science from different angles and levels to provide as much evidence as possible for policy experts and governments to use when devising disease management strategies.
As part of the work with the CCCW, an information-sharing platform will be created so that we scientists have some systems that we can use to communicate, Zhang said.
The work scientists are doing today will be guided by the research that has been done in the past few years since the coronavirus pandemic.
Beyond preparing to manage the spread of future pathogens, scientists are also concerned with how climate change will affect treatments for infected patients.
Antimicrobial resistance when bacteria, parasites, viruses and fungi develop resistance to drugs meant to kill them is another growing challenge.
Zhang said that in 2019, 1.27 million people died directly as a result of antibiotic resistance around the world.
An issue that scientists all over the world agree on is that by 2050, annually, 10 million people will die of drug resistance, Zhang said. That is equal to the number of people who currently die of cancer each year.
In the past, research on drug resistance was separated into clinicians studying how to treat it and pharmacologists trying to make new antibiotics.
But we have now discovered that the emergence of drug resistance is faster than the emergence of antibiotics, Zhang said.
02:50
World Health Organization announces Covid-19 is no longer a global health emergency
World Health Organization announces Covid-19 is no longer a global health emergency
While research on how climate change and drug resistance may be linked was currently lacking, expanding on this field should be an important part of pandemic preparedness, he said.
One of the strategies that has been proposed is One Health, an initiative that the WHO describes as an integrated global approach mobilising different sectors of society to work together on issues like managing global health threats.
This includes researchers, doctors, government officials, world organisations and global communities.
Although the world officially came out of Covid-19 lockdowns last year, Zhang said that how the virus mutates and evolved is still of great concern.
We will also observe how coronavirus spreads from the natural reservoir to human society, he said. This is due to the expanding habitable areas for its vectors.
It will have important implications for the future.
Coronavirus
Data reveals pandemic accelerated decline in number of worshippers regularly attending C of E services
Mon 20 May 2024 02.00 EDT
The Covid pandemic accelerated a decline in the number of people who regularly attend Church of England services, according to data.
If there had been no pandemic during which churches were closed for several months the C of E estimates that about 747,000 people would have attended weekly services in 2023, continuing a declining trend.
Preliminary analysis of data gathered by the C of E shows 685,000 worshippers attended services in 2023 62,000 less than the projection or 1.2% of the population of England.
In the pre-pandemic year of 2019, weekly attendance was 854,000, or 1.5% of the population.
However, some recovery was seen in 2023, with weekly attendance figures rising by almost 5% overall, and nearly 6% for under-16s.
Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, welcomed the figures, saying he hoped they would encourage clergy and congregations who have shown such faith, hope and confidence over recent years to share the gospel with their communities.
He added: These are just one set of figures, but they show without doubt that people are coming to faith in Jesus Christ here and now and realising its the best decision they could ever make.
Stephen Cottrell, the archbishop of York, said: For the first time in a long time we have seen noticeable growth. Of course we dont yet know whether this growth is a trend but I take it as a great encouragement that our focus on reaching more people with the good news of Jesus, establishing new Christian communities, wherever they are, revitalising our parishes, and seeking to become a younger and more diverse church, making everyone feel welcome, is beginning to make a difference.
The C of E will publish full attendance data in the autumn.
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President Biden appeared to claim he was vice president during the coronavirus pandemic and that former President Barack Obama had dispatched him to Detroit to help with the response.
In comments first reported by the New York Post, Biden addressed an NAACP campaign event in Michigan Sunday night, where he repeatedly railed against his presumptive Republican opponent, former President Trump, while offering an aside about the contagion which began in 2019 while the latter was in office.
"When I was vice president, things were kind of bad during the pandemic," Biden said near the beginning of his remarks.
"And, what happened was Barack said to me: Go to Detroit help fix it."
BIDEN BIZARRELY ENDS CONNECTICUT SPEECH WITH GOD SAVE THE QUEEN, MAN
Going on to reference Detroit Democratic Mayor Mike Duggan, who was seated to Biden's right, the president continued, "Well, the poor mayor he's spent more time with me than he ever thought he's going to have to."
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Duggan then rose and shook Biden's hand.
The pandemic, numbered COVID-19 due to global health officials having deemed it an outbreak in 2019, transpired in the latter years of Trump's term, not Obama's. Biden succeeded Trump during the denouement of the pandemic.
Elsewhere in the speech, Biden referenced working with civil rights activists in his youth, and quipped that Detroit helped "put food on" his family's table, as his father, Joseph Biden Sr., was in the automobile business.
BIDEN DROPS EMBARRASSING GAFFES DAYS AFTER LIBERAL MEDIA HYPES SOTU PERFORMANCE
Reserving much of his remarks to criticize Trump, Biden claimed at one juncture that "MAGA Republicans" want to engage in book-banning and other endeavors he described as extremist.
"All that progress is at risk. Trump is trying to make the country forget just how dark things were when he was president," Biden said.
"We will never forget him lying about how serious the pandemic was, telling Americans just inject bleach I think that's what he did. I think that's why he's so screwy."
In another jab, Biden warned against his predecessor potentially nominating more justices to the Supreme Court: "Do you think he'll put anybody [there] who has a brain?"
"It's clear when he lost in 2020, and I mean this sincerely: something snapped in Trump. He just can't accept he lost That's why Jan. 6 happened."
A mid-April Fox News Poll in Michigan found 46% of registered voters there support Biden, while 49% support Trump. Trump gained two percentage points in that survey over a similar one conducted in February. Two years prior, Biden led Trump by eight percentage points in the Great Lakes State.
Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment but did not receive a response by press time.
Original article source: Biden suggests he was vice president during COVID-19 pandemic: 'Barack said to me, go to Detroit'
