Featured Headlines
What We Know About Breakthrough Infections And Long COVID – NPR
Like millions of others, Kathleen Hipps thought she was safe from COVID-19 after she got two shots of the Moderna vaccine last spring. So she figured she just had a summer cold when she got the sniffles in July. But then she opened some Vick’s VapoRub. “Anyone who’s ever smelled Vick’s VapoRub knows how pungent of a smell it is. And I couldn’t smell it. And that’s how I knew I had COVID,” says Hipps, 40, a Los Angeles lawyer who has two young sons.
Last week, the Biden administration ordered sweeping vaccine mandates for federal workers and businesses with more than 100 employees, but the government did not extend those mandates to air travelers.
A Man Died After Being Turned Away From 43 ICUs At Capacity Due To COVID – NPR
Ray DeMonia, 73, was born and raised in Cullman, Ala., but he died on Sept. 1, some 200 miles away in an intensive care unit in Meridian, Miss.Last month, DeMonia, who spent 40 years in the antiques and auctions business, suffered a cardiac emergency. But it was because hospitals are full due to the coronavirus — and not his heart — that he was forced to spend his last days so far from home, according to his family.
Inside the Wuhan lab: French engineering, deadly viruses and a big mystery – Washington Post
One chilly morning in February 2017, a tall Chinese scientist in his 50s named Yuan Zhiming showed Bernard Cazeneuve, then the French prime minister, around Wuhan’s new high-security pathogen lab.
The British government on Tuesday announced its Plan A and Plan B for getting through the challenging autumn and winter months in the face of a stubborn pandemic driven by the highly contagious delta variant.
COVID and Afghanistan: A War on Two Fronts – MedPageToday
What it means to serve as a physician and military officer – I’ve faced this disease since it arrived. I flew into the storm in order to face it head-on, leaving behind my family and a hospital filled with denial and petulant resistance to the horror that was to come. While in New York, I worked alongside men and women who were working at the edge of their capabilities in a heroic and inspiring way. I watched what can happen when a group of people are united in battle.
A Second Major Seasonal Virus Won’t Leave Us Any Choice – The Atlantic
Businesses and schools must adapt, because the dual threat from COVID and the flu will be too severe.
Washington Grapples With Idaho Covid Cases – NYT
Hospitals in Washington State, already strained, are taking on an influx of Covid patients from Idaho, where the governor has refused to require masks or vaccinations.
Vaccinated Nursing Home Residents Not Immune to COVID Outbreaks – MedPageToday
French study adds evidence about vaccine efficacy in challenging population
Masks Limited COVID Transmission in Unvaxxed College Kids – MedPageToday
Masking worked, along with fewer exposure encounters, to help limit the incidence of COVID-19 infection among largely unvaccinated university students in Missouri, researchers found.
Vaccine Headlines
Considerations in boosting COVID-19 vaccine immune responses – The Lancet
A new wave of COVID-19 cases caused by the highly transmissible delta variant is exacerbating the worldwide public health crisis, and has led to consideration of the potential need for, and optimal timing of, booster doses for vaccinated populations.1
Although the idea of further reducing the number of COVID-19 cases by enhancing immunity in vaccinated people is appealing, any decision to do so should be evidence-based and consider the benefits and risks for individuals and society. COVID-19 vaccines continue to be effective against severe disease, including that caused by the delta variant. Most of the observational studies on which this conclusion is based are, however, preliminary and difficult to interpret precisely due to potential confounding and selective reporting. Careful and public scrutiny of the evolving data will be needed to assure that decisions about boosting are informed by reliable science more than by politics. Even if boosting were eventually shown to decrease the medium-term risk of serious disease, current vaccine supplies could save more lives if used in previously unvaccinated populations than if used as boosters in vaccinated populations.
The F.D.A. again warns parents not to get children under 12 vaccinated yet. – NYT
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is “working around the clock” to make Covid vaccines available to young children, it said in a statement on Friday. In the meantime, however, the agency urged parents not to seek out the shots for children who are under 12, and therefore not yet eligible for vaccination.
Clinical Considerations
Official Reporting for September 10, 2021
World Health Organization
Weekly Epi Update September 6, 2021 (latest release)
New Cases: 330,815
Confirmed Cases: 224,511,226
Deaths: 4,627,540
Johns Hopkins
Confirmed Cases: 225,545,060
Deaths: 4,644,078
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Total cases: 41,001,157 (+38,908 New Cases)
Total deaths: 658,410 (+279 New Deaths)
Science and Tech
Pathogen-Sensing Mask Could Detect COVID Infection – Scientific American
Masks and testing have been key to the COVID-19 pandemic response—and now devices that combine the two may be on the way. Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers used synthetic biology to create a face mask that accurately detects the COVID-causing virus.
Psychological and Sociological Impact
The Explanation for Seemingly Irrational Covid Behavior – Washington Post
Many reactions to Covid-19 can be explained by one simple concept: intertemporal substitution. Its awkward name notwithstanding, the idea helps to make sense of many behaviors that otherwise might appear irrational.
Published Research
Investigation of an Outbreak of COVID-19 in a French Nursing Home With Most Residents Vaccinated – JAMA
SARS-CoV-2 B.1.617.2 Delta variant replication and immune evasion – Nature
Low-dose mRNA-1273 COVID-19 vaccine generates durable memory enhanced by cross-reactive T cells – Science
Misinformation, Disinformation, and Conspiracy Theories
Google has finally pulled the plug on the ad dollars flowing to the Gateway Pundit, a leading source of false information about covid-19, vaccines and the 2020 presidential election.
Coping with COVID
