Featured Headlines
New Coronavirus Detected In Patients At Malaysian Hospital; The Source May Be Dogs – NPR
When the COVID-19 pandemic first exploded, Dr. Gregory Gray started to wonder whether there might be other coronaviruses out there already making people sick and threatening to trigger another outbreak.
European policymakers struck a deal Thursday to sweep away travel barriers among European countries through a digital certificate system, another step toward normalizing global movement after more than a year in which the modern, interconnected world has seemed on pause because of the pandemic.
Vaccines for crawfish: How New Orleans is luring critical tourism back – Washington Post
Fifteen months after the New Orleans’ French Quarter was completely shut down, visitors and music are slowly returning. The city is hoping continued vaccination efforts, in a state where vaccine hesitancy is high, will help a billion dollar tourism industry get back on its feet.
What history tells you about post-pandemic booms – The Economist
People spend more, take more risks—and demand more of politicians. The cholera pandemic of the early 1830s hit France hard. It wiped out nearly 3% of Parisians in a month, and hospitals were overwhelmed by patients whose ailments doctors could not explain. The end of the plague prompted an economic revival, with France following Britain into an industrial revolution. But as anyone who has read “Les Misérables” knows, the pandemic also contributed to another sort of revolution. The city’s poor, hit hardest by the disease, fulminated against the rich, who had fled to their country homes to avoid contagion. France saw political instability for years afterwards.
270 Doctors Die in India’s Latest COVID Surge – MedPageToday
A total of 270 doctors in India have died since the country’s latest surge of COVID-19 began in early April, the Indian Medical Association (IMA) announced. That includes past IMA president K. K. Aggarwal, MBBS, MD, a 62-year-old cardiologist who had been on a ventilator at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi for a week before he died Monday night, according to a statement on his Twitter profile.
Opinion: The 1918 pandemic tells us that we can’t celebrate the end of covid yet – Washington Post
More than a year into the pandemic, the situation is chaotic. Lacking vaccines, lacking resources or lacking good policies, India, Turkey, much of South America and elsewhere are seeing the virus rage as never before. Europe is finally improving after an extraordinarily difficult few months, while in the United States, the pandemic’s end may be in sight.
The CDC Is Gambling On Relaxed Mask Rules To Get More People Vaccinated – NPR
When it gave permission to fully vaccinated Americans to shed their masks in many situations, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made a tacit gamble: that easing mask rules will inspire more people to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
It’s Time For America’s Fixation On Herd Immunity To End, Scientists Say – NPR
The end of this pandemic sometimes gets boiled down to two words: herd immunity. But now, as an academic debate swirls over when or even if America can get to a high enough percentage of people with immunity to reach that goal, some scientists say it’s time for the public to stop worrying about it.
What went wrong in Singapore and Taiwan? – BBC
They’ve been hailed as virus success stories – places that have seen virtually zero or single-digit Covid cases since the start of the year.
But this month, Singapore and Taiwan have both seen a sudden and aggressive rise in cases – with Singapore logging 248 new cases just last week, and Taiwan 1,200 local infections.
India grapples with ‘black fungus’ drug shortage as cases rise among Covid-19 patients – CNN
Several Indian states are facing shortages of a drug used to treat black fungus, a rare and potentially fatal infection that is increasingly being detected in Covid-19 patients, health authorities in the country have warned.
Panama says will temporarily close border with Colombia over COVID-19 risk – Reuters
Panama will temporarily close its border with Colombia beginning Thursday to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and tighten security, its government said, after Colombia reopened the land and maritime crossings on the border.
Vaccine Headlines
U.S. administers 279.4 mln doses of COVID-19 vaccines – Reuters
The United States has administered 279,397,250 doses of COVID-19 vaccines in the country as of Thursday morning and distributed 351,955,515 doses, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Thursday.
S.Korea says to run mix-and-match trial of COVID-19 vaccines – Reuters
South Korea on Thursday said it will conduct a clinical trial that mixes COVID-19 vaccine doses developed by AstraZeneca Plc (AZN.L) with those from Pfizer Inc (PFE.N) and others.
Making COVID-19 vaccines widely available is key to getting people vaccinated and bringing the pandemic to an end. Pfizer Inc. submitted data to the FDA to support storage of undiluted, thawed vials of its COVID-19 vaccine for up to one month at refrigerator temperatures. This change should make this vaccine more widely available to the American public by facilitating the ability of vaccine providers, such as community doctors’ offices, to receive, store and administer the vaccine.
Clinical Considerations
Researchers are closing in on long covid – The Economist
Britain’s Office for National Statistics (ons) estimates that 14% of people who have tested positive for covid-19 have symptoms which subsequently linger for more than three months (see chart 1). In more than 90% of those cases the original symptoms were not severe enough to warrant admission to hospital. According to the ons, in the four weeks from February 6th nearly half a million people in Britain reported they had had long covid for more than six months—and this will not include any of those infected towards the end of 2020 in the country’s second wave.
A Clinical Riddle: Post-COVID Inflammatory Syndrome in Adults – MedPageToday
Adults with multi-system inflammatory syndrome (MIS-A) following COVID-19 illness had a wide variety of organ involvement, a retrospective single-center study found.
COVID-19 may reduce gray matter volume in brain, small study suggests – MedPageToday
Around 15% of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 experience neurological complications. The symptoms, which are more common in severely ill patients, include impaired consciousness, confusion, and agitation.
Official Reporting for May 21, 2021
World Health Organization
Weekly Epi Update May 18, 2021
Confirmed Cases: 164 523 894
Deaths: 3 412 032
Johns Hopkins
Confirmed Cases: 165,266,463
Deaths: 3,425,965
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Total cases: 32,855,010 (+27,857 New Cases)
Total deaths: 584,975 (+639 New Deaths)
Science and Tech
Face masks effectively limit the probability of SARS-CoV-2 transmission – Science
Airborne transmission by droplets and aerosols is important for the spread of viruses. Face masks are a well-established preventive measure, but their effectiveness for mitigating SARS-CoV-2 transmission is still under debate. We show that variations in mask efficacy can be explained by different regimes of virus abundance and related to population-average infection probability and reproduction number. For SARS-CoV-2, the viral load of infectious individuals can vary by orders of magnitude. We find that most environments and contacts are under conditions of low virus abundance (virus-limited) where surgical masks are effective at preventing virus spread. More advanced masks and other protective equipment are required in potentially virus-rich indoor environments including medical centers and hospitals. Masks are particularly effective in combination with other preventive measures like ventilation and distancing.
Computational modelling reveals SARS-CoV-2 mutation ‘hotspots’ – Drug Target Review
A new modelling method could be used as a surveillance tool to monitor emerging infectious SARS-CoV-2 variants, scientists say.
Two New Coronaviruses Make the Leap into Humans – The Scientist
Scientists have identified two new coronaviruses in humans, although neither was proven to cause illness or spread to other people. One study identified pigs as the animal host of one virus, and another study found that a coronavirus had likely stemmed from dogs, the first time a canine coronavirus has been shown to infect humans.
Sociological & Psychological Impact
What Happens When Americans Can Finally Exhale – The Atlantic
he pandemic’s mental wounds are still wide open. This time last year, the United States seemed stuck on a COVID-19 plateau. Although 1,300 Americans were dying from the disease every day, states had begun to reopen in a patchwork fashion, and an anxious nation was looking ahead to an uncertain summer. Twelve months later, the situation is very different. Cases are falling quickly. About half as many people are dying every day. Several vaccines were developed faster than experts had dared to predict, and proved to be more effective than they had dared to hope. Despite a shaky start, the vaccination campaign has been successful, and almost half of the country has received at least one shot, including 85 percent of people older than 65. As the pandemic rages on elsewhere in the world, the U.S. is eyeing a summer of reconnection and rejuvenation.
Podcast: Dealing With Post-Pandemic Trauma – The Atlantic
We’ve all been suffering during the coronavirus pandemic in one way or another, and as the U.S. starts to emerge, we’ll need to reckon with that. The Atlantic’s Ed Yong discusses his piece on pandemic trauma, how to think about it, and what he’s learned through talking to psychiatrists and other experts.
Published Research
Mix-and-match COVID vaccines trigger potent immune response – Nature
Efficacy of the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 Covid-19 Vaccine against the B.1.351 Variant – NEJM
Misinformation, Disinformation, and Conspiracy Theories
Your Friend Doesn’t Want the Vaccine. What Do You Say? – NYT
The difference between people who eagerly want the Covid-19 vaccine and people who are hesitant is not as great as it may seem. Most vaccine holdouts are not anti-vaxxers or conspiracy theorists.
Coping in 2020 (and probably most of 2021)
