Featured Headlines
Deltacron: New variant or laboratory error? – MedNewsToday
Social media was recently lively with news that scientists in Cyprus claimed to have found a new hybrid variant of SARS-CoV-2. Named Deltacron, it appears to be a combination of the Delta and Omicron variants. However, other experts have questioned whether this is truly a new variant, suggesting the finding may be due to contamination during laboratory testing. Medical News Today looks at the arguments on both sides.
Covid Study Finds 18 Million Deaths, Three Times Official Tally – Bloomberg
The pandemic’s death toll may be three times higher than official Covid-19 records suggest, according to a study that found stark differences across countries and regions.
China is fighting its biggest Covid-19 outbreak since the early days of the pandemic, with discontent spreading on social media after one university cluster left students reportedly without access to bathrooms or drinking water.
COVID pandemic death toll may be 3 times higher than official tally, new study finds – CBS News
Two years after the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a global pandemic, new research suggests around 18.2 million people have died worldwide as a result. That toll is more than three times higher than the WHO’s tally of nearly 6 million officially reported COVID-19 deaths through the end of 2021.
How Supply Chains Broke, Sparking Global Shortages – Bloomberg
The pandemic threw the vital but usually humdrum world of logistics into a tailspin, creating shortages of masks and vaccine vials, semiconductors, plastic polymers and bicycles. The shipping system underpinning globalization — production on one side of the planet, connected to consumers on the other — proved too rigid to absorb the rolling tremors from Covid-19, or to recover quickly from the jolts to consumer demand and the labor force. That triggered supply-chain disruptions, idled factories and unleashed inflationary forces. The chief challenge was moving freight, and it started with a sudden shortage of shipping containers.
How will COVID end? Experts look to past epidemics for clues – MedPageToday
Two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, most of the world has seen a dramatic improvement in infections, hospitalizations and death rates in recent weeks, signaling the crisis appears to be winding down. But how will it end? Past epidemics may provide clues.
Mandatory masking in schools reduced COVID-19 cases during Delta surge – NIH
Schools with mandatory masking during the Delta surge had approximately 72% fewer cases of in-school transmission of SARS-CoV-2 when compared to schools with optional or partial masking policies, according to a study funded by the National Institutes of Health. The study included more than 1.1 million students and over 157,000 staff attending in-person school across nine states: North Carolina, Wisconsin, Missouri, California, Washington, Georgia, Tennessee, Kansas and Texas. The study is supported by NIH’s Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics – Underserved Populations (RADx-UP) program and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). It appears in Pediatrics.
Vaccine Headlines
Israel, Sweden and Chile are recommending a fourth COVID-19 jab. What about Japan? – Japan Times
Japan will begin discussions this month on whether a fourth shot of a COVID-19 vaccine is necessary as some countries start offering second booster doses to their most vulnerable people. If fourth doses are administered six months after third shots, a second booster rollout could begin as early as this summer.
Moderna Starts Study of Hybrid Vaccine That Targets Omicron – Bloomberg
Moderna Inc. said it had started a study of a booster shot that combines a formulation designed to fend off the omicron variant with the company’s current Covid-19 vaccine.
Clinical Considerations
None Today
Official Reporting for March 11, 2022
World Health Organization
Weekly Epi Update March 8, 2022 (latest release)
New Cases: 1,704,520
Confirmed Cases: 452,052,304
Deaths: 6,027,059
Johns Hopkins
Confirmed Cases: 454,252,678
Deaths: 6,033,880
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Total cases: 79,248,406 (+6,174 New Cases)
Total deaths: 961,620 (+95 New Deaths)
Science and Tech
APHIS to study SARS-CoV-2 in zoos, aquariums – AVMA Journal
Animal health officials hope to get a better sense this year which zoo and aquarium species are vulnerable to infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
Officials with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service hope to recruit 30-50 zoos and aquariums to provide serum from mammals known to be susceptible to infections, similar species that are untested, species with the ACE2 cell surface receptor that the virus uses to enter host cells, and other species of high importance, such as endangered animals or those that often interact with humans. Agency officials also want to assess biosecurity practices at facilities willing to participate in such evaluations, and APHIS Wildlife Services officials also plan to conduct sampling and tracking of wild animals—such as rodents, skunks, and foxes—that live near zoos and aquariums to assess the risk presented by those animals.
Psychological and Sociological Impact
The Hard Lessons We Learned — and Didn’t — From Two Years in Pandemic School – Washington Post
rom the start we knew it could be bad. A novel coronavirus had emerged in China and threatened to become a pandemic. But what would that be like? How many people might sicken and die? How long would it last? What is it like, day to day, month to month, to be in a pandemic? (We did not yet imagine “year to year.”)
Published Research
None today
Misinformation, Disinformation, and Conspiracy Theories
None Today
Coping with COVID
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