Featured Headlines
Why Is Covid Killing So Many Young Children in Brazil? Doctors Are Baffled – NYT
xperts believe Brazil’s overloaded hospital system and uneven access to health care are among the reasons babies and small children are succumbing to the virus at a high rate.
Covid-19 Hospital Patients Tend to Be Younger Now – Wall Street Journal
Hospitals are seeing fewer Covid-19 patients but increasingly the ones who do land in the hospital are 50 or younger, according to national data With older Americans vaccinated at higher rates, health officials and epidemiologists said they aren’t surprised that more hospital beds are being filled with younger patients.
A quiet revolution has permeated global health circles. Authorities have come to accept what many researchers have argued for over a year: The coronavirus can spread through the air. [Related: Experts Urge Strict Workplace Air Quality Standards, in Wake of Pandemic – NYT]
Madison woman dies from COVID-19 she contracted after full vaccination – Madison.com
A 75-year-old Madison woman died from COVID-19 Sunday after contracting the illness more than a month after being fully vaccinated, according to her sons, who say immunosuppressant drugs likely reduced her vaccine protection and chronic diseases made her more vulnerable to infection.
Malaysia mulls shutdown of richest state amid COVID-19 surge – Reuters
Malaysia’s health ministry on Monday said it may push for a total lockdown of the country’s most industrialised state if current coronavirus curbs are unable to rein in a spike in new cases.
Vaccine Headlines
Interim results from phase 2 trials of Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline’s experimental COVID-19 vaccine suggest that it may be not just safe but also effective.
COVID-19 Vaccine Trials Underway For Kids 5 And Younger – NPR
A Stanford University nurse carefully gives the little girl her shot. Eloise is one of 144 children in the country who are part of a Phase 1 clinical trial to test Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines in the most adorable of study cohorts — those 5 and younger.
Delaying a COVID vaccine’s second dose boosts immune response – Nature
Older people who waited 11–12 weeks for their second jab had higher peak antibody levels than did those who waited only 3 weeks.
COVID vaccines can block variant hitting Asia, lab study finds – Nature
Assays using live SARS-CoV-2 offer hope that the vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna will protect against a viral strain first seen in India.
Vaccine History Repeats Itself — Sometimes – NPR
Vaccines delivered by drones and by burros. People who shout about the danger of vaccines and refuse to get a jab. Public health campaigns to convince the vaccine hesitant. Public criticism of a failure to provide vaccines for lower-income countries and marginalized populations.
In the battle against COVID-19, the mRNA vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech have passed virtually every test for efficacy and safety. Now comes more positive news. Researchers at the University of California and the Gladstone Institute of Virology in San Francisco have found that both vaccines induce strong T cell responses against two important coronavirus variants.
U.S. will send 20 million more COVID-19 vaccine doses abroad – CBS News
President Biden on Monday announced the U.S. will send an additional 20 million doses of approved COVID-19 vaccines to other countries for a total of 80 million doses to other countries by the end of June. The president made that announcement as he shared that COVID-19 cases are dropping in all 50 states.
What Happens When Vaccine Incentives Aren’t Enough? – Bloomberg
Reluctant citizens can slow down herd immunity despite abundant vaccines. Compulsory shots are unpalatable, but may be necessary.
Clinical Considerations
Neurological issues linked to risk of in-hospital mortality for COVID-19 patients – MedNewsToday
Some patients with COVID-19 have also developed neurological symptoms. The researchers of the present observational study demonstrate the prevalence of these symptoms. They find that these neurological symptoms have links with an increased risk of in-hospital mortality.
Is there a connection between oral health and COVID-19? – MedNewsToday
One 2021 study suggests that poor oral health can play a part in contracting SARS-CoV-2. The study notes that the mouth can act as an entry point for SARS-CoV-2 because cells in the tongue, gums, and teeth have angiotensin-converting enzyme-2 (ACE2). This is the protein receptor that allows the virus to enter cells.
Kerfuffle Over NSAIDs in COVID Finally Resolved? – MedPageToday
There was no association between use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and increased disease severity or mortality among patients with COVID-19 requiring hospitalization, a U.K. cohort study found.
Official Reporting for May 18, 2021
World Health Organization
Weekly Epi Update May 17, 2021
Confirmed Cases: 162 773 940
Deaths: 3 375 573
Johns Hopkins
Confirmed Cases: 163,363,698
Deaths: 3,385,244
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Total cases: 32,771,733 (+17,724 New Cases)
Total deaths: 17,724 (+307 New Deaths)
Science and Tech
The 60-Year-Old Scientific Screwup That Helped Covid Kill – Wired
All pandemic long, scientists brawled over how the virus spreads. Droplets! No, aerosols! At the heart of the fight was a teensy error with huge consequences. Early one morning, Linsey Marr tiptoed to her dining room table, slipped on a headset, and fired up Zoom. On her computer screen, dozens of familiar faces began to appear. She also saw a few people she didn’t know, including Maria Van Kerkhove, the World Health Organization’s technical lead for Covid-19, and other expert advisers to the WHO. Marr is an aerosol scientist at Virginia Tech and one of the few in the world who also studies infectious diseases. To her, the new coronavirus looked as if it could hang in the air, infecting anyone who breathed in enough of it. For people indoors, that posed a considerable risk. But the WHO didn’t seem to have caught on. Just days before, the organization had tweeted “FACT: #COVID19 is NOT airborne.” That’s why Marr was skipping her usual morning workout to join 35 other aerosol scientists. They were trying to warn the WHO it was making a big mistake.
Immunotherapy in COVID-19: why, who, and when? – Lancet
Nearly 1·5 years into the global COVID-19 pandemic, immense progress has been made against SARS-CoV-2 in health care, most prominently in vaccine development. However, why some people infected with SARS-CoV-2 rapidly develop fulminant respiratory failure, while others have mild, self-limited, or even asymptomatic disease, is not fully understood. In the absence of highly effective antiviral therapy, treatment has focused on modulating the host immune response to SARS-CoV-2. Unsurprisingly, given human genetic variation and the burgeoning genetic variance of the virus itself, evidence for the efficacy of many interventions is unclear. Mortality rates approaching 50% among mechanically ventilated patients in the recent RECOVERY trial of tocilizumab,1 in both study arms, are a sobering reminder of the limitations of such treatments.
The latest resource from the Coronavirus Resource Center will explore state and national data discrepancies revealed by the pandemic
Coronavirus Mutations Could Muddle COVID-19 PCR Tests – The Scientist
Researchers find that SARS-CoV-2 variants can evade primer-probe sets and recommend that diagnostic assays include multiple targets for reliability.
Published Research
Global Incidence of Neurological Manifestations Among Patients Hospitalized With COVID-19—A Report for the GCS-NeuroCOVID Consortium and the ENERGY Consortium – JAMA
Reverse-transcribed SARS-CoV-2 RNA can integrate into the genome of cultured human cells and can be expressed in patient-derived tissues – PNAS
Misinformation, Disinformation, and Conspiracy Theories
‘Magnet test’ does not prove COVID-19 jabs contain metal or a microchip – Reuters
The flawed claim was made in a series of viral videos claiming to show magnets attracted to the arms of alleged jab recipients. Several clips said the supposed phenomenon was proof that people were microchipped (here , here and here), while others provided no explanation for the “magnet challenge” (here and here). Only one video named a specific vaccine, claiming the individual on camera had received the Pfizer/BioNTech shot (here).
Guo Wengui, living in self-exile in New York City, is at the center of a digital web pushing election and covid falsehoods, according to Graphika research
Coping in 2020 (and probably most of 2021)