Ting Chan has seen Hong Kong’s pandemic situation lurch from over-the-top caution to outright chaos. A nurse at one of the city’s public hospitals, she’s been a ground-level participant in the strict Covid Zero strategy that has kept the financial hub largely free of the virus for the past two years. Key to that has been Hong Kong’s mandatory hospitalization of all Covid-19 cases, regardless of whether they’re mildly ill or even asymptomatic. While that’s helped keep the total death toll at a little over 200 for the entire pandemic, those elaborate defenses have collapsed in the face of the highly-transmissible omicron variant.
For two years, Hong Kong held off the pandemic. Then, everything fell apart. – Washington Post
Cocooned in mylar and fleece hospital blankets, the nearly two dozen elderly patients lay in hospital beds outside the Caritas Medical Center on Wednesday morning as health-care workers in full protective gear buzzed around them, cleaning and sanitizing.
Why does the Omicron sub-variant spread faster than the original? – Nature
The variant, known as BA.2, has spread rapidly in countries including Denmark, the Philippines and South Africa in the past few weeks. It follows the initial spread of the BA.1 Omicron variant of the virus SARS-CoV-2, which was first identified in southern Africa in late November and quickly spread worldwide.
COVID Is More Like Smoking Than The Flu – The Atlantic
It’s suddenly become acceptable to say that COVID is—or will soon be—like the flu. Such analogies have long been the preserve of pandemic minimizers, but lately they’ve been creeping into more enlightened circles. Last month the dean of a medical school wrote an open letter to his students suggesting that for a vaccinated person, the risk of death from COVID-19 is “in the same realm, or even lower, as the average American’s risk from flu.” A few days later, David Leonhardt said as much to his millions of readers in the The New York Times’ morning newsletter. And three prominent public-health experts have called for the government to recognize a “new normal” in which the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus “is but one of several circulating respiratory viruses that include influenza, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and more.”
Statewide Mask Mandates Are Lifting Across Most of the U.S. – NYT
Two of the last states with mandates announced Thursday that they would be dropped. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico, a Democrat, said in a surprise announcement that the state would immediately lift its indoor mask mandate, including for schools.
U.S. officials prepare for pandemic’s next phase as Omicron wanes – Reuters
U.S. health officials said on Wednesday they are preparing for the next phase of the COVID-19 pandemic as Omicron-related cases decline, including updating CDC guidance on mask-wearing and shoring up U.S. testing capacity.
The surgeon general’s young daughter got COVID. This is what he wants you to know – NPR
This past Sunday, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy wasn’t a leading scientific voice on the pandemic — he was another worried parent whose young daughter had just tested positive for COVID.
Vaccine Headlines
Will Adults Need a Fourth Dose of Covid Vaccine? It’s Too Soon to Know. – NYT
A Food and Drug Administration official said the best time for an additional shot may be fall, when the spread of the coronavirus is expected to pick up again
Vaccination After COVID Sank Reinfection Rates – MedPageToday
For those with a prior COVID-19 infection, getting at least one dose of vaccine was tied to a significantly lower rate of reinfection, and getting two doses provided substantial protection for more than a year after the initial infection, a pair of new studies found.
Nasal Vaccines Could Help Stop COVID-19 From Spreading—If Scientists Can Get Them Right – Time
When SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, infiltrates the body, it typically enters through the nose or mouth, then takes root and begins replicating. But what if it could never get a foothold in the upper airways? That’s the promise of nasal COVID-19 vaccines, which are meant to prevent infection by blocking the virus at its point of entry.
Clinical Considerations
Long COVID: Risk factors and how to mitigate them – MedNewsToday
After recovering from COVID-19, many experience long-term symptoms, including brain fog, fatigue, and skin rashes. This syndrome is known as long COVID, and researchers are in the early stages of understanding its risk factors.
Long-term cardiovascular outcomes of COVID-19 – Nature
The cardiovascular complications of acute coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) are well described, but the post-acute cardiovascular manifestations of COVID-19 have not yet been comprehensively characterized. Here we used national healthcare databases from the US Department of Veterans Affairs to build a cohort of 153,760 individuals with COVID-19, as well as two sets of control cohorts with 5,637,647 (contemporary controls) and 5,859,411 (historical controls) individuals, to estimate risks and 1-year burdens of a set of pre-specified incident cardiovascular outcomes.
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic has been challenging the scientific community to promptly treat the patients and mitigate its spreading. The rapid development of vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 is being highly effective, but it is still lacking knowledge about its side effects. Epidemiological studies point toward virus infection as causative agents of subacute thyroiditis. More than 20 cases of thyroiditis after SARS-CoV-2 have also been described. Here, we aim to broad the spectrum of SARS-CoV-2 vaccination thyroid-associated disorders with the description of a new case of subacute thyroiditis associated with thyroid autoimmunity. The temporal association with the inoculation of the vaccine and the absence of other plausible etiological agents makes it highly possible that this thyroiditis was caused by Vaxzevria vaccine. It remains to be established whether the presence of thyroid autoimmunity can facilitate this condition, as this is one of the few described cases associated with autoimmunity.
Official Reporting for February 18, 2022
World Health Organization
Weekly Epi Update Feb 15 (latest release)
New Cases: 2,023,138
Confirmed Cases: 416,614,051
Deaths: 5,844,097
Johns Hopkins
Confirmed Cases: 420,778,073
Deaths: 5,867,844
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Total cases: 78,060,327 (+109,422 New Cases)
Total deaths: 926,497 (+2,430 New Deaths)
Science and Tech
Can COVID-19 vaccines teach T cells to recognize Omicron? – MedNewsToday
In the body, antibodies recognize and destroy viruses before they cause infection in cells, while T cells are responsible for destroying cells with a viral infection. In a recent study, scientists discovered that COVID-19 vaccines prompt the body to make long lasting T cells that are effective against the SARS-CoV-2 virus and its variants.
For all the misery that the pandemic has wrought, it has also opened up a vast storehouse of knowledge about medical issues beyond COVID-19. While it’s still too early to draw conclusions, evidence is emerging of links between autoimmune disorders and the virus that causes COVID-19.
How new drugs are finally taming the virus – BBC
The first patients in the NHS are being offered a new drug to help treat Covid-19. As Covid treatments are changing, fewer patients are becoming seriously ill or dying. So does this mean we are finally taming the virus? At the start of the pandemic there were no drugs for Covid. In April 2020, I stood in a Covid intensive care ward while a doctor, in full PPE, told me they had nothing but oxygen to treat critically ill patients. I watched patient after patient on ventilators being turned on to their fronts to help their lungs take in oxygen.
Psychological and Sociological Impact
Large study reveals clearer links between COVID-19, mental health risks – CIDRAP
In a large US study that tracked people for as long as a year, COVID-19 patients had a 60% higher risk of mental disorders such as anxiety, depression, or substance abuse compared with those who weren’t sickened by the virus.
COVID Infection Linked to Slew of Mental Health Conditions – MedPageToday
Among those who survived the first 30 days of COVID-19 infection, there was a 60% (HR 1.60, 95% CI 1.55-1.66) increased risk for having any new mental health diagnosis or a new mental health-related drug prescription compared with those who were never infected, reported Ziyad Al-Aly, MD, of the VA Saint Louis Health Care System in Missouri, and colleagues.
Alterations in taste and smell associated with SARS-CoV-2: An exploratory study investigating food consumption and subsequent behavioural changes for those suffering from Post-Acute Sequelae of COVID-19 – Journal of Nutritional Science
Published Research
Risks of mental health outcomes in people with covid-19: cohort study – BMJ
Investigation of SARS-CoV-2 Transmission Associated With a Large Indoor Convention – CDC
High amounts of SARS-CoV-2 in aerosols exhaled by patients with Omicron variant infection – Journal of Infection
Misinformation, Disinformation, and Conspiracy Theories
Tennessee’s Board of Medical Examiners unanimously adopted in September a statement that said doctors spreading covid misinformation — such as suggesting that vaccines contain microchips — could jeopardize their license to practice.
Coping with COVID
The original photo
