Category: Corona Virus

Long COVID continues to offer more questions than answers 27 months into the coronavirus pandemic, though researchers are slowly gaining a better understanding.

Long-term effects from SARS-CoV-2 infection, known more commonly as long COVID, has been the topic of more than 1,650 papers published in the National Library of Medicine since 2020.

When asked about long COVID, most physicians will offer up their experience and/or research with a caveat -- more research is needed to know for sure.

Were really just starting to work this whole thing out, said Dr. Matthew Sims, director of infectious disease research at Beaumont Health. Its complicated, its confusing. To be honest, I think were going to find that long COVID is the same sort of problem we see with other things and all the research thatll end up being done on long COVID, because its such a big issue, may help other diseases like fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome, that are really hard to figure out right now. We dont know.

Researchers have made some progress however. Below are some common questions and answers related to long COVID.

What is long COVID?

The typical definition of long COVID is long-term symptoms from SARS-CoV-2 that might be experienced weeks, months or even years after primary infection.

As for specific symptoms that linger, those vary.

A recent survey conducted by the Center for Health and Research Transformation (CHRT) at the University of Michigan found breathing issues were the most common ongoing symptom, followed by loss or distorted sense of smell or taste, and lingering anxiety, depression, or other mental health issues.

Other common symptoms were nervous system symptoms, neurologic problems, diabetes, heart problems, kidney damage, and fatigue.

The Cover Michigan Survey is a public opinion telephone and online survey that includes a random sample of Michigan adults. Its results were analyzed by CHRT staff, who said many of their findings were supported by national data and additional research.

I like to think this is sort of the tip of the iceberg with long COVID, because everything about this virus and this pandemic and this disease is so new and every day were still learning more stuff, said Melissa Riba, director of research and evaluation at CHRT.

In July 2021, long COVID became a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act. An individualized assessment is necessary to determine whether a persons long COVID condition substantially limits them.

How common is it?

The Cover Michigan Survey found more than one in three Michiganders who reported a COVID-19 diagnosis identified themselves as a COVID long hauler. While the sample size was limited -- 138 individuals with COVID, of which 48 reported long COVID -- it matched or followed trends found in other studies.

Stretching globally, the University of Michigan School of Public Health analyzed 50 studies and more than 1.6 million people and found the prevalence of long COVID to be around 43%.

With the overall rates, if you look at most of the literature, it generally falls among the range of between 25% and 43%, with most sources falling within a more narrow range between like 30% to 35%, said Jonathan Tsao, a project manager at CHRT.

Its not yet clear which demographics are more or less susceptible to long COVID, though researchers are gaining clarity on that issue.

The risk factors for getting long COVID are somewhat similar to those people who are at increased risk for severe disease, said Dr. Liam Sullivan, an infectious disease specialist at Spectrum Health. That being said, theres a lot of people whove had mild COVID cases who have had issues with long COVID as well. So thats not really been fully delineated yet.

A Swedish study of more than 205,000 COVID patients founds that 32% of those admitted to an ICU developed long COVID. Thats compared to 6% of those hospitalized but not placed into intensive care, and 1% of outpatients.

Other groups that have reported disproportionate levels of long COVID are women, individuals 40 to 54, and persons with preexisting conditions, according to a 2021 study conducted in California and published by the CDC.

In Michigan, CHRT found women were four times as likely to report long COVID, and diabetics were twice as likely, compared to their counterparts.

Does the vaccine offer protection against long COVID?

A study published last month in Nature Medicine used 2021 Veterans Affairs health records to assess potential vaccine-induced protection against long COVID. The St. Louis, Missouri study determined COVID vaccination reduced risk of long COVID by about 15%.

It was one of, if not the largest, study to date. Researchers looked at records from 34,000 vaccinated people with breakthrough infections, 113,000 non-vaccinated people who got COVID, and more than 13 million people who had not gotten COVID.

The study revealed no difference in specific lingering symptoms or the severity of symptoms.

Dr. Sullivan said you have to be careful extrapolating those results to the general population however, when the study population were veterans with an average age in their 60s with underlying risk factors.

Getting vaccinated doesnt eliminate your risk for long COVID, he said. You still have risk for long COVID; what is starting to probably become clear is the risk is probably lower and that people dont get quite as severe long COVID, but that question still has to be more fully answered.

Sullivan said he anticipates the results of a larger study being conducted by CDC and some partner universities to better define and understand the scope of long COVID.

Whatre the economic impacts of long COVID?

The latest Cover Michigan Survey found long haulers are more likely to be in a worse financial situation than a year ago, compared to those who recovered from COVID and those who never got infected.

Because long haulers may be unable to function at their pre-COVID capacity, they are more likely to take longer medical leave, work reduced hours, have their salary reduced, or quit their jobs, researchers found.

A national survey of more than 1,000 COVID patients found that 44% of workers experiencing long COVID reduced their weekly work hours. A majority of respondents said they needed to take medical leave due to long COVID symptoms.

Researchers who analyzed Michigans long COVID data said theres a need for further study on the impact of state-wide efforts to assist long haulers. They recommend:

By publishing its survey results, CHRT researchers said they hope to raise awareness among lawmakers and business leaders as to the prevalence of long haulers, as well as for individuals who are suffering and feeling like theyre alone with their long-term symptoms.

We want to raise an alarm, raise a flag to say hey, this is potentially going to be and could be a really big deal for policymakers, for the state, for the economy, for the health care system and we need to be prepared, Riba said.

If you have any COVID-19 questions that youd like answered, please submit them to covidquestions@mlive.com to be considered for future MLive reporting.

Read more on MLive:

11 counties in U.P., northern Michigan have high COVID-19 levels; CDC says, recommends masking

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FDA advisors recommend vaccinating children under 5 against COVID

Novavaxs more traditional COVID vaccine could combat hesitancy, doc says

See more here:

Long COVID answers are coming into focus, slowly - MLive.com

The Chief Clinical Officer of the HSE has said he is "very concerned" about the rise in the number of people in hospital with, or because of, Covid-19.

It comes as 606 confirmed cases of Covid-19 were reported in the country's hospitals this morning.

As of 8am there were 153 more people in hospital with Covid today than there were last Monday.

There were 453 people with confirmed cases in hospital on Monday 13 June.

Speaking on RT's Today with Claire Byrne, Dr Colm Henry said the rise is largely driven by a sub-type of the Omicron variant.

"This sub-type enjoys what is called a growth advantage over previous sub-types and is now displacing it as the dominant variant here. It's about 100% of cases in Portugal and now over 70% here."

Dr Henry said that although it is much more transmissible, it does not seem to be more virulent or aggressive.

"While hospitalisations are going up, we are seeing ICU numbers steady which is of some assurance," he said.

"Those who previously had immunity from previous variants, be they Delta or otherwise, can get infected again but they are much less likely to get seriously ill."

'Not too late to get vaccinated'

Dr Henry said there has been an increase in outbreaks in nursing home settings and residential care facilities but "nothing like we saw when we peaked in March following the surge of Omicron cases with earlier sub-variants but nevertheless, we have seen a rise at our operational clinical meeting this morning".

There has also been a rise in cases among healthcare workers.

Dr Henry said they are hearing that "they are not particularly sick but because they test positive, it does have that impact on services".

There has also been a rise in hospital-acquired infections, Dr Henry said.

On vaccinations and hospital cases, Dr Henry said: "The harsh reality is that if you look at hospitalisations, 606 this morning, unfortunately over half have not received their booster and over a third haven't even got vaccinated in the first place."

He said it is not too late to get vaccinated and "people who are unvaccinated in the first place have no protection from serious illness, no protection from being hospitalised and going to ICU or worse. It's not too late for those people to get vaccinated".

Latest wave of infection was 'predictable'

Dr Gerald Barry, Assistant Professor of Virology at University College Dublin, said the rise in case numbers in hospitals is reflective of what is going on in the general population.

He told RT's Morning Ireland that we are experiencing a further wave of Covid-19 and while around half of the cases identified in hospital are 'incidental' - that is patients are in hospital for another reason - infections are being picked up due to the ongoing testing in hospital settings.

Dr Barry said that this wave of infection was predictable up to eight weeks ago and talk of the reintroduction of mandatory mask wearing now was like "closing the stable door when the horse had bolted".

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He said it was likely that we were close to the peak of the current wave and he couldnt be sure that a mandatory mask wearing order would have much impact at this stage.

Dr Barry said the public should have been informed a month ago that this wave was coming. He said the focus then should have been about mask wearing, increased antigen testing and people adjusting their behaviour, to help reduce the peak of infection.

He said the virus is still causing a huge burden on the general population and the Government and the HSE needed to be more proactive in their ongoing communication and response to help reduce that burden.

Meanwhile, Tnaiste Leo Varadkar has said the Government will be guided by public health advice on whether or not a mask mandate is reintroduced.

On the summer wave of Covid, he said he thinks we will get over this wave without the need to impose any new restrictions, but any decision on that will be guided by public health advice.

Current wave to last 'two or three weeks'

Professor of Experimental Immunology at Trinity College Dublin, Kingston Mills, said he does not think there is a public appetite for mask wearing but that if everybody was wearing masks, it would make an impact on the transmission of the virus.

He said that there needs to be an "all or nothing" approach and that Covid is not seasonal.

He said that the current 'mini wave' could go on for two or three weeks, but long term we cannot give up on vaccines and boosters.

Professor Mills told RT's Drivetime that the big problem with hospitals is that the system is being stressed; healthcare workers are being infected and this is putting pressure on other healthcare procedures that have to be reduced, such as elective procedures, which is impacting people who do not have Covid.

Amid concerns that new variants may evade the vaccines currently in use, Professor Mills said updated vaccines are being produced and if they are rolled out in the autumn, with the flu vaccine, they will be closer to the strain of the disease that is circulating.

He said that another wave could come in the autumn but it totally depends on the virus and its mutation.

Dr Eoghan De Barra, consultant in infectious diseases at Beaumont Hospital in Dublin, said for the first time in a long time he is seeing patients admitted because of Covid rather than incidental Covid, where they tested positive while in hospital for another reason.

Dr De Barra said it is largely immunocompromised people, who have had some level of vaccination.

"They're not as sick as in earlier waves but still needed hospital care," said Dr De Barra.

He said it was really hard to say if we have reached the peak of this wave.

"When I see very immunocompromised patients, who have been very careful over [the] past two years, come in with Covid, I suspect there is a very high level in the community because they're the real tip of the iceberg of infection," he said.

Link:

HSE 'concerned' over rise in Covid-19 hospital numbers - RTE.ie

The member countries of the World Trade Organization on Friday reached a limited agreement to ease intellectual property protections on coronavirus vaccines, aiming to boost the supply for poorer countries.

The measure would make it easier for manufacturers in developing countries to override patents on the vaccines and export them for sale in other lower-income countries.

But the agreement, the outgrowth of an ambitious patent waiver proposed nearly two years ago, is arriving far too late and is far too modest in scope to meaningfully affect global vaccine supply, experts said.

This doesnt really move us beyond the status quo in any significant way, said Mihir Mankad, a researcher who advises Doctors Without Borders in the United States on global health advocacy and policy issues.

A key limitation is timing. Production of Covid-19 vaccines by the major drug companies that invented them is now far outpacing demand. The primary obstacles suppressing vaccination rates in lower-income countries are challenges with distribution and getting shots in arms, not with supply itself.

The agreement does not apply to coronavirus tests and treatments, which experts said were the more urgent priorities at this point in the pandemic, and could see their global supply increased significantly by a relaxing of intellectual property protections.

In October 2020, with wealthy countries locking up orders for the Covid vaccines that would soon become available, India and South Africa drafted an ambitious waiver of intellectual property rights under the W.T.O.s agreement on trade-related intellectual property rights, known as TRIPS.

A year ago, with poorer countries still facing severe vaccine shortages, the Biden administration came out in support of the proposal. The move was a significant departure from decades of U.S.-led opposition to easing intellectual property rules on medicines.

Katherine Tai, the United States Trade Representative, heralded Fridays deal as a concrete and meaningful outcome to get more safe and effective vaccines to those who need it most.

But experts said the proposal was weakened significantly over months of negotiations. They said they did not expect the final agreement to encourage manufacturers in developing countries to start producing Covid vaccines, in part because it does not address the trade secrets and manufacturing know-how that many producers would need.

The drug industry, which argues that robust intellectual property protections are crucial to innovation, has fiercely opposed the effort under the W.T.O. throughout the negotiations.

The industrys main lobbying group, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, sharply criticized Fridays agreement. Stephen J. Ubl, the groups head, called it one in a series of political stunts and said it wont help protect people against the virus. He noted that the industry had already produced more than 13 billion Covid vaccine doses.

James Love, who leads Knowledge Ecology International, a nonprofit focused on intellectual property in medicine, said Fridays agreement falls far short of a patent waiver, as the proposal before the W.T.O. was originally envisioned.

It may read to some people like its some magical new flexibility, he said. But the agreement is limited to taking the most awkward way to do exports and making it less awkward, he said.

Fridays agreement clarifies and expands existing mechanisms allowing for compulsory licensing, in which governments override intellectual property restrictions to allow manufacture of medications, typically in emergency situations. But compulsory licensing has not been easy in the past.

Its just politically really, really difficult, and the countries that do try to do it are faced with a lot of pressure, said Melissa Barber, a researcher who studies access to medicines at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Maybe this will make it easier, but I think those power dynamics arent going to change.

See more here:

W.T.O. Agrees to Limited Relaxing of Patent Protections on Covid Vaccines - The New York Times

As coronavirus cases continue to rise in Utah and the rest of the country, Summit County is one of five places in the state with a high coronavirus transmission risk.

The county in May was the first to have its designation increased from low to medium as cases reached the double digits nearly every day. As of Friday, 15 of Utahs 29 counties were rated as having medium to high transmission risks, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions COVID database. Salt Lake and Tooele counties were in the top risk category with Summit County on Thursday with Grand and San Juan counties also receiving a high designation on Friday.

There were 250 confirmed COVID cases in the county between May 16 and May 31, according to the Summit County Health Departments COVID dashboard. The data also shows 116 additional cases 103 of which were reported in the unvaccinated population between June 1 and June 7.

Phil Bondurant, the countys health director, speculated the higher number of unvaccinated cases may be because those who are sick are likely experiencing severe symptoms, which leads to more COVID tests being administered.

He said individuals who are vaccinated often report mild, allergy-like symptoms that some people dont associate with the virus. In certain cases, an individual may choose to self-isolate or take other precautions, but those who dont suspect theyre sick may continue the cycle of spread and contribute to the uptick, Bondurant said.

Cases have been increasing on the West Coast over the last few months and he compared it to the rise in cases the East Coast experienced in late April. However, Bondurant said, the case numbers locally may be skewed because at-home testing kits can be inaccurate and its hard for health officials to gauge who is using them. Summit County is also testing at higher rates than the rest of Utah following the closure of state testing sites at the end of March.

The good news is hospitalization rates, which are considered an important metric in the fight against COVID, appear to be stable and indicate the countys situation is still manageable, the health director said. There have been nine hospitalizations with one person in the intensive care unit in the last 30 days and one COVID-related death has been reported since March, according to the Health Department.

Approximately 47% of people living in Summit County who are eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine have received a booster shot as of Friday. Close to 88% of residents have completed their vaccination series and 100% have received at least one dose of a vaccine.

Bondurant said several factors play a role in why the county hasnt been able to reach the 50% mark. First, many people may be waiting to receive their booster in the fall when they anticipate theyll have the highest level of protection against COVID or they consider themselves at a lower risk during the summer. Others may expect theyre going to catch the virus either way and dont want to go through the inconvenience of the shot, according to the health director.

Bondurant admits hed like to see the booster number higher and said the Health Department is continuing messaging about the importance of the vaccine, while also recognizing its a personal choice.

Its likely a COVID vaccine similar to a seasonal flu shot, or one combining the two, will be offered sometime soon, he said. Until then, the CDC recommends a second booster for adults over 50 and people 12 and older who are moderately immunocompromised.

Everybody is aware and everyone knows what COVID is and how to protect yourself, the risks, those different things, Bondurant said. People know where [the booster and vaccine is] available so at this point we continue to take those appointments and help people make the decision thats best for them and their families.

With summer here and tourists likely on their way, Summit County health officials urge Parkites and visitors to follow precautions to limit their exposure to COVID. Individuals who are unsure if they have contracted the virus are also encouraged to get tested. Testing is available from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Thursdays in Coalville and Tuesdays in Kamas as well as 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays in Park City.

Here is the original post:

Summit County one of five in Utah with high coronavirus transmission risk - The Park Record

Trudeau tweeted "I'll be following public health guidelines and isolating. I feel okay, but that's because I got my shots. So, if you haven't, get vaccinated -- and if you can, get boosted. Let's protect our healthcare system, each other, and ourselves."

Trudeau also tested positive in January, as did two of his children.

US President Joe Biden is not considered to have been in close contact with Trudeau, a White House official said, despite the fact the leaders had a bilateral meeting Thursday in Los Angeles. Neither wore masks, and they were sitting in close proximity.

CNN's Arlette Saenz contributed to this report.

More:

Justin Trudeau tests positive for coronavirus for a second time this year - CNN

You may have heard of several side effects of the COVID-19 vaccine. But appendicitis probably isnt one of them.

While appendicitis has been documented after the COVID-19 vaccine, its still unclear whether its an adverse vaccine effect. Research into this topic has returned mixed results.

Below, well cover more about appendicitis, its potential connection with the COVID-19 vaccine, and its known COVID-19 vaccine side effects. Keep reading to discover more.

Appendicitis happens when your appendix becomes inflamed. Your appendix is a hollow pouch attached to your large intestine. Its in the lower right-hand area of your abdomen.

When the opening of the appendix becomes blocked, it can lead to appendicitis. Some things that can cause blockages include:

Sometimes the exact cause of appendicitis is unknown. Regardless, blocking the opening of the appendix leads to a buildup of bacteria and inflammation. This causes symptoms like:

Appendicitis is a medical emergency. If its not treated promptly, the appendix can burst, causing severe and potentially life threatening complications like peritonitis and abscess formation.

Appendicitis has been reported after COVID-19 vaccination. One possible mechanism for this could be enlarged or swollen lymph nodes in the body following vaccination.

Research on this topic is conflicting. Some data indicate appendicitis may be a potential adverse effect of vaccination, while others note that the risk of appendicitis after vaccination is no higher than in the general population.

Appendicitis was noted in the large-scale clinical trial of the Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA COVID-19 vaccine. Out of 43,448 trial participants, 8 in the vaccine group and 4 in the placebo group experienced appendicitis.

These cases were considered unrelated to vaccination. This is because they didnt happen more frequently than is expected within the general population.

A 2021 study looked into the adverse effects of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in over 1.7 million people in Israel. Researchers used a matched group of vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals for each adverse effect.

The adverse effect with the strongest association with vaccination was myocarditis. But researchers also found an increased risk of swollen lymph nodes and appendicitis.

Another 2021 study looked into appendicitis after COVID-19 vaccination using a World Health Organization (WHO) database. At the time of the study, researchers estimated that 1.82 billion vaccine doses had been given worldwide.

From the database, researchers were able to find 334 unique reports of appendicitis after vaccination. Most of these were associated with mRNA vaccines and occurred 0 to 4 days after vaccination.

The researchers found that the number of appendicitis cases after vaccination was slightly higher than expected. They concluded that appendicitis was a possible adverse effect of COVID-19 vaccination but that more research was needed.

A 2021 study disagreed with the findings above. In this study, researchers in the United States evaluated vaccine safety data from the Vaccine Safety Datalink for 23 adverse effects.

A total of 11,845,128 mRNA vaccine doses given to 6.2 million people were included in the study. Researchers found that the incidence of appendicitis in people getting an mRNA vaccine was not significantly higher than expected.

A 2022 study looked into appendicitis and COVID-19 vaccination in a large cohort of people in Denmark. Researchers compared over 4 million people vaccinated with an mRNA vaccine to an unvaccinated reference group.

It was found that appendicitis occurred at about 8 cases per 100,000 vaccinated people. When this rate was compared with the rate of appendicitis in the unvaccinated reference group, no significant difference was found.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the most common side effects of the COVID-19 vaccine are:

These side effects are a sign that your immune system is building a response to the vaccine. Vaccine side effects typically go away on their own within a few days. In the meantime, you can help to ease them by:

If your side effects dont go away within a few days or begin to get worse, contact a doctor.

COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective at preventing severe illness, hospitalization, and death due to COVID-19. As such, the CDC currently recommends COVID-19 vaccines and boosters for everyone ages 5 and older.

Vaccination is particularly essential for people at an increased risk of severe COVID-19 illness. This includes, but isnt limited to, individuals who are immunocompromised and those with medical conditions like:

Getting immunity through vaccination is also safer than getting immunity by having COVID-19. Contracting SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, can cause severe illness in some people and lead to long-term health issues, including long COVID.

While any treatment, medication, or vaccine comes with risks, the risks of serious complications due to COVID-19 are extremely low. This includes appendicitis.

For example, according to the CDC, anaphylaxis occurs in only 5 out of every 1 million vaccine doses. Further, out of over 55 million vaccine doses given to people under age 18, only 647 cases of myocarditis have been confirmed.

While appendicitis has been reported following the COVID-19 vaccine, its not entirely clear whether its an actual adverse effect of vaccination. Research results have been mixed on this topic, and more research is needed overall.

Regardless, appendicitis after vaccination has happened very rarely.

Overall, the benefits of receiving a COVID-19 vaccine outweigh the potential risks. If you have concerns about the COVID-19 vaccine, discuss them with a doctor.

Visit link:

Is Appendicitis a Side Effect of the COVID-19 Vaccine? - Healthline

Cyclist Aleksandr Vlasov was leading the Tour de Suisse before a positive coronavirus test forced him to abandon the race a fate shared by many other riders. Vlasov is seen here in March, at the Paris-Nice race. Francois Mori/AP hide caption

Cyclist Aleksandr Vlasov was leading the Tour de Suisse before a positive coronavirus test forced him to abandon the race a fate shared by many other riders. Vlasov is seen here in March, at the Paris-Nice race.

Two races that are supposed to be tune-up events for the Tour de France are instead raising worries about COVID-19's impact on cycling's biggest event, with dozens of riders forced to withdraw because of positive tests.

"It's just crazy," Welsh cyclist Geraint Thomas said at the Tour de Suisse on Friday. "Kind of thought all of this was behind us now."

Around 30 riders abandoned the Tour de Suisse on Friday alone, including race leader Aleksandr Vlasov of the Bora-Hansgrohe team who was coming off of winning Thursday's stage. Several teams withdrew their entire squads.

The sudden exits were the talk of the bus ride to the start of Friday's stage, Thomas said: "This rider out; that rider out; this team; whole team; another whole team."

"Despite all precautions, corona has crept into the team again," Dutch team Jumbo-Visma, which withdrew Thursday, said via Twitter.

In addition to Vlasov, the departures include some of cycling's most well-known names, such as Adam Yates, Rui Costa, Marc Hirschi, Rigoberto Urn and Tom Pidcock.

"It's a bloodbath!" the French news outlet Ouest France declared, as news of the positive tests spread.

"Everyone has the jitters," sports director Philippe Mauduit of the team Groupama-FDJ told Ouest France. His team is crossing its fingers, he said, adding that he's now seeing more people wear masks.

Thomas said he'll keep riding in the Tour de Suisse, but it's not a certainty that the race will finish as planned: Organizers said they are "monitoring further developments and will assess the situation together again on Saturday morning."

The abrupt exits are another reminder that the pandemic isn't over and similar scenes are playing out on a smaller scale at the Tour of Slovenia, where defending Tour de France champion Tadej Pogaar won Friday's stage despite losing two teammates to positive coronavirus tests.

The 2022 Tour de France is slated to begin in Copenhagen on July 1, further expanding the footprint of a race that sprawls from the north to the south of France in this year's route.

At least one team official has called for the organizers of the French race to reimpose a tight bubble and other COVID-19 protocols, according to Cycling Weekly.

France has reported the most COVID-19 cases in Europe, with more than 30 million. This month, transmission rates have been rising across Europe, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, although the agency notes that death rates have continued to fall.

Read more:

COVID cases are upending cycling, and the Tour de France starts in 2 weeks - NPR

Dr. Anthony Fauci has not recently been in close contact with President Biden or other senior government officials, the institute he leads said in a statement.Credit...Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times

WASHINGTON Maybe it was only a matter of time.

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, President Bidens top medical adviser for the coronavirus pandemic, has tested positive for the virus and is experiencing mild symptoms, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said on Wednesday.

Dr. Fauci, the institutes director, was positive on a rapid antigen test, the agency said in a statement. It added that he was fully vaccinated against the virus and had been boosted twice. He is taking Paxlovid, the Pfizer antiviral therapy authorized by the Food and Drug Administration for treatment of Covid-19, an agency spokeswoman said.

News that Dr. Fauci, one of the worlds foremost infectious disease specialists and a household name thanks to the pandemic, had fallen victim to the coronavirus reverberated across Washington and the country. The positive test was the first for Dr. Fauci, who is 81.

But with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimating that more than half of Americans have contracted Covid-19, he is hardly the only big-name sufferer. Xavier Becerra, the secretary of health and human services, tested positive on Monday for the second time in less than a month. Representative Maxine Waters, Democrat of California, who is 83, announced on Tuesday that she had tested positive; she had also done so in April.

Dr. Fauci has not been in close contact with Mr. Biden or other senior government officials recently and will isolate and continue to work from his home, the statement from his institute said. He will return to his office once he tests negative.

But he had been making public appearances. The AIDS Clinical Trials Group a network of hundreds of researchers conducting studies to improve treatment of H.I.V. and related infections is meeting in Washington this week, and Dr. Fauci, whose laboratory work has been focused on H.I.V./AIDS, addressed the group in person on Tuesday.

Along with other top federal health officials, Dr. Fauci was expected to testify on Thursday before the Senate health committee on the state of the pandemic. An official said that Dr. Faucis institute was working with committee staff members to arrange for a remote appearance.

While much of the nation appears to be trying to move on, the coronavirus remains a pervasive threat. According to a New York Times database, more than 100,000 new cases are still being identified each day in the United States a figure that has stayed roughly flat during June. Many experts believe the number is an undercount because so many people are taking at-home tests whose results are not recorded with public health authorities.

While cases are declining in the Northeast and the Midwest, cases and hospitalizations are surging in the West and the South. Reports of deaths, however, remain low. Fewer than 350 deaths are being reported each day, The Timess database shows, down from more than 2,600 a day at the height of the Omicron surge.

Dr. Fauci has spent half a century in government and has advised seven presidents, beginning with Ronald Reagan, on epidemic and pandemic threats.

But the coronavirus pandemic turned him into a political lightning rod. His public urging of health precautions like mask-wearing and social distancing made him a frequent target of critics who questioned or opposed such measures.

Perhaps more than anyone, he knows how infectious the coronavirus is. This spring, he decided against attending the White House Correspondents Dinner a gathering of prominent political and news media figures that featured an appearance by the president because of my individual assessment of my personal risk, he said then. At the time, Dr. Fauci was preparing for other public engagements, including commencement speeches at Princeton and the University of Michigan.

The correspondents dinner, which drew more than 2,000 guests to a packed hotel ballroom, ended up spreading the virus among many journalists and other attendees.

Its a matter of time before we all get infected, honestly; this virus has become so transmissible, Dr. Carlos del Rio, an infectious disease specialist at Emory University, said on Wednesday. What I tell people is that at some point in time you will encounter this virus, because we are doing more things and getting together. And if you are going to encounter the virus, youd better be vaccinated and boosted.

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Covid Updates: Fauci Has His First Positive Test for the Coronavirus - The New York Times

Getting sick with a newborn in the house can be stressful, especially if youre worried about passing the illness to your baby through close contact or even breast milk.

It might be a relief to know that the virus that causes COVID-19 doesnt pass to your baby through breast milk. However, its still possible to infect your baby if you are sick and providing care to an infant.

This article will discuss the risks and benefits of breastfeeding if youre infected with COVID-19, and how to protect an infant if you are sick with COVID-19.

Breast milk and the act of breastfeeding itself have many benefits for your baby even if you are sick with COVID-19. Numerous studies have analyzed the milk of mothers infected with COVID-19 and found that the virus is not passed through breast milk but antibodies that protect them from infection can be.

As with other viral illnesses, your body begins making antibodies shortly after infection. These antibodies are similar to vaccines in the way they include information to help your body fight the infection.

However, when you breastfeed with a COVID-19 infection, your baby can be infected if other precautions such as washing your hands and wearing a mask are not taken. This is due to face-to-face and hand-to-body contact while breastfeeding, not the breast milk itself.

Although the virus isnt passed through breast milk, its important to remember that you can still infect your baby through regular transmission methods like saliva and respiratory particles.

While your breast milk itself is safe, there are still precautions you should take to avoid transmitting the virus to your baby in other ways. These include:

Pregnant and breastfeeding women are at an increased risk of becoming severely ill with COVID-19, but vaccination is considered safe and is strongly recommended.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) currently recommends vaccination against COVID-19 for pregnant and nursing mothers, as well as other close caregivers.

In general, CDC recommends pregnant and nursing mothers stay up to date on all vaccinations not just the COVID vaccine except vaccines that contain live virus particles like:

Aside from protecting mothers from becoming severely ill, there is evidence that vaccination can help protect babies, too. Antibodies that offer protection from the virus can be passed through breast milk, whether those antibodies came from a COVID-19 infection itself or from vaccination.

If you are sick with COVID-19, its best to isolate yourself from other members of the household who are not infected including your baby. This means having other members of the household who are well, and ideally vaccinated, take care of the baby while you recover.

When this isnt an option either because you live alone or other household members are also infected, you or other caregivers should wear a mask and practice careful hand hygiene when caring for your baby.

Even household members who are well should wear masks when caring for your infant as long as you are in isolation or ill.

If you or other members of the household are feeling better after having COVID-19, you should continue to wear a mask when caring for your baby until at least the 10th day after you tested positive for COVID-19 or began experiencing symptoms.

One report that tracked mothers infected with COVID-19 who breastfed their babies found that between 2 and 5 percent of infants ended up infected also, but they were either asymptomatic or only mildly sick.

If you suspect your baby has become infected with COVID-19, call your pediatrician for guidance.

No. No particles of virus that cause active infection have been found in breast milk.

Breast milk has been found to contain antibodies to the COVID-19 virus that can help protect your baby from severe infection. This includes antibodies you develop during an active COVID-19 infection or from vaccination.

At this time babies cannot be vaccinated. Children must be at least 5 years old to receive the COVID vaccine.

If you have COVID-19 and have an infant you are breastfeeding, consider expressing milk and allowing someone else who is not infected to feed the baby while you isolate.

If you or someone else who is infected must feed and care for your baby while you have COVID-19, wear a mask and be sure to wash hands for at least 20 seconds before handling the baby or breast milk.

Breast milk is a nutritional and readily available food source for your baby, and it can even provide protective antibodies that can prevent severe infection should COVID be passed to your child.

The virus that causes COVID-19 is not passed through breast milk, but anyone handling a baby still has to be careful to avoid infecting the baby through respiratory particles or close contact.

More here:

Can I Breastfeed If I Have COVID-19? Safety Recommendations - Healthline

There are moments when one can dive into the sustained dream of a book and stay there for hours. The spring of 2020 was not one of those times. If you werent actively battling COVID-19 or grieving a loved one, your life was likely all of a sudden relentlessly logistical: the sudden evaporation of childcare, the Tetris of fitting multiple working adults inside one tiny apartment, the paranoid wiping down of groceries. Reading often felt impossible, even for those of us who love to read. How could anyone focus long enough, amid all the chaos and grief, to absorb complex ideas? Instead, I found myself flicking through the latest headlines and my multiple email inboxes, or obsessively checking COVID-19 case statistics in my area. The world was on fire, and it was hard to tear my eyes away.

It wasnt just bad for readers. Early 2020 was simply a very bad time to publishand publicizea book. First-time author and Atlantic staff writer Olga Khazan, whose book Weird: The Power of Being an Outsider in an Insider World came out on April 7, reflected on the experience of releasing a book into a giant dumpster fire on Twitter a year later: I realized I felt guilty for feeling so robbed, and honestly just acknowledging the guilt and frustration was a good step forward. The publishing industry mostly moved online, and suddenly publicists couldnt easily send out physical review copies, whether because of supply-chain issues or because the books were trapped in offices that were now inaccessible. Libraries and physical bookstores closed, launch events were canceled, and publishers hadnt quite figured out Zoom yet.

Still, once I was finally able to focus, sometime in the fall, I found that among the galleys and not-so-new releases I had packed into boxes were titles that I immediately longed to talk to someone about. The nine works below, a selection of excellent books released between March and June 2020, include some of those gems. Each illuminates some underappreciated aspect of contemporary life or allows us to see the greater context beyond our own circumstancesperspective that the early days of the pandemic swept away.

Fiebre Tropical, by Julin Delgado Lopera (March 4, 2020)

What makes this novel is the swaggering, vulnerable, bilingual voice of Francisca, the 15-year-old narrator newly arrived in Miami, much to her chagrin. This wasnt a Choose Your Own Migration multiple-choice adventure with (a), (b), and (c) laid out at the end of each page and you could simply choose (b) Stay in Bogot, you idiot. Cachaco, please, she thinks. Shed rather wear all black and listen to the Cure than get involved in the youth group at the evangelical church that forms her relatives social and emotional world. That is, until she catches the interest of Carmen, the pastors charismatic daughter. As the two become more intimate, Francisca cant tell whether shes feeling Jesus or falling desperately, confusedly in love. There are gorgeous interludes depicting her mother and grandmother at around Franciscas age, in 1970s Bogot and 1950s Cartagena, filled with the same yearning and stubbornness. Its a coming-of-age story in triplicate, where dreams dont quite pan out in messy realityincluding the glamorous vision of the U.S. that draws the family there in the first place. But the longing that suffuses the writing has its own beauty.

Some Assembly Required: Decoding Four Billion Years of Life, from Ancient Fossils to DNA, by Neil Shubin (March 17, 2020)

Evolutionary biologist Neil Shubin wants us to know that feathers didnt in fact develop specifically to help animals fly, nor did lungs or legs appear to help animals walk on land. This absorbing book traces how monumental evolutionary changes actually happen, and Shubins answers are illuminating even to people who think they know how evolution works. Life as we know it, the reader learns, was actually formed by a grand process of bricolage, where body parts like feathers and lungs appeared, then eventually conferred advantages on their owners to serve different purposes than what they initially arose to do. (Evolution, in other words, is kind of like MacGyver.) Our own genomes are littered with randomly duplicate genes and the viruses that once infected our ancestors; we now use that DNA to make proteins crucial for pregnancy and the formation of memories. Through the stories of scientists like Susumu Ohno, who used cardboard cutouts to theorize about gene duplication, and Barbara McClintock, who won a Nobel Prize for discovering that certain genes move around within a genome, one gets a sense of how quickly our understanding of genetics has progressedand how human the scientific endeavor is.

The Everlasting, by Katy Simpson Smith (March 24, 2020)

This time-skipping novel tells the stories of four characters living in Rome at vastly different historical moments: an aquatic biologist named Tom in 2015; Giulia de Medici, self-conscious of her African heritage, in 1559; Felix, a closeted monk in 896; and Prisca, a 12-year-old girl who becomes a Christian martyr in 165. All come to Rome from elsewhere, all are haunted by unattainable love, and all are desperately lonely. A metal fishhook performs a decisive role in each arc. And Satan himself interjects throughout, responding to the characters rhetorical questions with snark and affectionhe can relate to their romantic anguish; he's never gotten over his breakup with God. The Everlasting meditates on faith, contingency, and human longing through a wealth of period detail in each setting: Who knew that spending time in a putridarium, a room beneath monasteries where the corpses of monks were seated on toilets to rot, could be so riveting? From seeing what changes and what stays the same in these glimpses of the Eternal City, an intimate sense of history arises.

Read: The exquisite pain of reading in quarantine

Afterlife, by Julia Alvarez (April 7, 2020)

Alvarezs first book for adults in 14 years is a quiet, philosophical novel, fraught with questions of what we owe to others and to ourselves. It also happens to be a page-turner. Antonia is a recently retired English professor whose beloved husband died nine months ago, and all of her instincts are to practice self-care and hold herself apart from otherswhich, throughout the story, can seem necessary, selfish, or both. That slippage is the central point of the novel. Antonia is always piously lecturing her three sisters about personal responsibility: Take care of yourself so you dont become a burden on others, she says, and they set their phones to play the sound of church bells when she calls. But then her erratic sister Izzy goes missing and a pregnant 17-year-old undocumented Mexican immigrant named Estela takes shelter in Antonias garage, and Antonia is caught between her own inclinations and the memory of her husband, Sam, who would likely help others in need even at a cost to himself. A bleak world of self-protections, she thinks close to the end. Did she really want to live in it? Antonias constant self-questioning anchors this deft work, showing readers the thoughts of a woman who decides to do the right thing despite herself.

The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power, by Deirdre Mask (April 14, 2020)

Addresses are sort of like flush toilets, I concluded after reading this wide-ranging exploration of the subject: an assumed part of modern life you only really see once you go somewhere without them. Mask traces the origins of addressing systems beginning in Enlightenment-era Europe, when burgeoning nation-states were eager to collect more detailed information about its citizens in order to provide them with services, but also to tax, conscript, and surveil them. Today, simply giving someone an addressa resident of a Kolkatan slum, or a homeless person in the U.S.could help lift them out of poverty by allowing them to open bank accounts and apply for jobs. Charming historical facts abound, including a chapter describing the way ancient Romans likely navigated a city largely without street names. But the books most striking point is how passionately people throughout history have felt about the names of their streets, from reunified Berlin to Tehran, South Africa, and Hollywood, Florida. They invite such heated debate, Mask writes, because they are about powerthe power to name, the power to shape history, the power to decide who counts, who doesnt, and why.

Synthesizing Gravity: Selected Prose, by Kay Ryan (April 14, 2020)

In 1976, when she was 30, Kay Ryan bicycled across the United States in order to decide, once and for all, whether to become a poet. Today shes about as decorated as a poet can bea Pulitzer Prize winner, two-term U.S. poet laureate, and a MacArthur fellow. Synthesizing Gravity is the first collection of her prose, written over three decades; it includes an essay that tells the story of that cross-country bike ride, as well as ones that dissect her favorite poets: Philip Larkin, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Marianne Moore, Stevie Smith. Its a little ironic that I have so many quotes from this book dutifully recorded, considering that one essay elaborates on the danger of notebooks. (Almost everything is supposed to get away from us, she argues.) Even her criticism inspires envy and an urge to jot down everything she writes: Nobel Prizewinning poet Joseph Brodsky was born to be posthumous, she tells us, and Annie Dillard could get high C out of a potato. What she advocates for is a life of simplicity, repetition, and solitude, and her insights are so bracing that the collection feels like a palate cleanser for everything thats overwhelming about our world.

Read: You wont remember the pandemic the way you think you will

Sansei and Sensibility, by Karen Tei Yamashita (May 5, 2020)

In this collection, Yamashitas characters are all growing up as sansei, the relatively pampered children of a generation of Japanese Americans who had been sent to internment camps during World War II. Theyre grappling with the weight of a history their parents never talk about. One protagonist considers what it means to apply the KonMari method to artifacts from the camps; a woman locked in her dead aunts apartment becomes interested in the Japanese antiques and old groceries she left behind. Throughout, theres a pleasingly casual sense of intimacy. One of the stories is, in fact, a timeline of important events in Los Angeless Japanese American community, while another incorporates recipes from Yamashitas friends and family, with directions like Toss, and serve with sake and beer. Play cards. Oh, and the books latter half consists of extremely witty sendups of all of Jane Austens completed novelsyes, even Lady Susanset in the Southern California of Yamashitas childhood. Eligible teens attend prom instead of fancy balls and Emma is now Emi, afire with plans to start the Japanese American revolution. The transplanted stories are fun (who doesnt love an Austen adaptation?) and also revealing, as this particular milieu is rife with unspoken expectations about what station in life the young protagonists are meant to attain.

One Mighty and Irresistible Tide: The Epic Struggle Over American Immigration, 1924-1965, by Jia Lynn Yang (May 19, 2020)

For most of this countrys past, Yang points out, it had been firmly established that being an American was inextricably tied to European ancestry. Her book charts the long, agonizing fight to recast the U.S. as a nation of immigrants, in which lawmakers and activists created a story about the countrys core values that became popular more recently than one might expect. This history is bookended by two laws: the Immigration Act of 1924, which barred nearly all new Asian immigrants and established national quotas based on eugenics and white nationalism, and the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which eliminated these quotas and banned discrimination against immigrants based on race or ethnicity. Its a fascinating and often sobering picture of how immigration in America has been shaped by a host of factorsforeign affairs, political expediency, anti-Communist hysteria, and principled, determined lawmakersand valuable context for the still-roiling battles over what it means to be an American. In the end, Yang argues, those of us who believe in multiculturalism as one of our countrys fundamental values have unfinished work if were to create a vision that recognizes and actively embraces our country's unprecedented diversity.

Read: How I came to love my epic quarantine reading project

The Dragons, the Giant, the Women, by Waytu Moore (June 2, 2020)

It feels nearly impossible to write about ones experiences as a 5-year-old with the clarity and narrative surety of a novelist, and yet thats exactly what Moore does in this memoir, which chronicles her familys escape from Liberia to the United States after civil war breaks out in 1989. The hardship itself commands attentionthe family, including three children, walks for weeks, passing through checkpoints surrounded by volatile soldiers and dead bodies. But Moores storytelling abilities and structural ingenuity are what made this one of my favorite books of 2020; after reading it I felt, despite everything that was going on, mildly outraged that people werent gushing about it on every platform. As Moores family flees, we feel her fathers and grandmothers terror and, simultaneously, the confusion of a child who weaves her own mythology of princes and dragons to make sense of the chaos. And, at a crucial juncture in their escape, the memoir leaps in time to Moore as a young woman in America, adjusting to racism and her identity as a West African immigrant, not to mention the buried trauma of her childhood. Her search for the female soldier who helped smuggle them out of the country brings her back to Liberia and a conclusion that moved me to tears.

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More here:

The Books Swallowed by the Black Hole of the Coronavirus - The Atlantic