COVID-19, Vaccines, and Related Issues Part XIV

[NationalTitles18]

The WHO overturned dogma on how airborne diseases spread. Will the CDC act on it?

A new report comes as the CDC is updating its guidance for infection control. A committee advising the agency seems poised to brush the latest science aside.

www.nbcnews.com

While it may seem obvious, and some researchers have pushed for this acknowledgment for more than a decade, an alternative dogma persisted — which kept health authorities from saying that Covid was airborne for many months into the pandemic.

Specifically, they relied on a traditional notion that respiratory viruses spread mainly through droplets spewed out of an infected person’s nose or mouth. These droplets infect others by landing directly in their mouth, nose, or eyes — or they get carried into these orifices on droplet-contaminated fingers. Although these routes of transmission still happen, particularly among young children, experts have concluded that many respiratory infections spread as people simply breathe in virus-laden air.

“This is a complete U-turn,” said Dr. Julian Tang, a clinical virologist at the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom, who advised the WHO on the report. He also helped the agency create an online tool to assess the risk of airborne transmission indoors.

Peg Seminario, an occupational health and safety specialist in Bethesda, Maryland, welcomed the shift after years of resistance from health authorities. “The dogma that droplets are a major mode of transmission is the ‘flat Earth’ position now,” she said. “Hurray! We are finally recognizing that the world is round.”

In response to the outcry, the CDC returned the draft to its committee for review, asking it to reconsider its advice. Meetings from an expanded working group have since been held privately. But the National Nurses United union obtained notes of the conversations through a public records request to the agency. The records suggest a push for more lax protection. “It may be difficult as far as compliance is concerned to not have surgical masks as an option,” said one unidentified member, according to notes from the committee’s March 14 discussion. Another warned that “supply and compliance would be difficult.”

The nurses’ union, far from echoing such concerns, wrote on its website, “The Work Group has prioritized employer costs and profits (often under the umbrella of ‘feasibility’ and ‘flexibility’) over robust protections.” Jane Thomason, the union’s lead industrial hygienist, said the meeting records suggest the CDC group is working backward, molding its definitions of airborne transmission to fit the outcome it prefers.

 

[NationalTitles18]

Scientists create vaccine with potential to protect against future coronaviruses

Researchers say experimental shot is step towards goal of creating vaccines before a pandemic has started

www.theguardian.com

Scientists create vaccine with potential to protect against future coronaviruses
Researchers say experimental shot is step towards goal of creating vaccines before a pandemic has started

 

[Huckleberry]

Opinion | Why the Pandemic Probably Started in a Lab, in 5 Key Points

The world must not continue to bear the intolerable risks of research with the potential to cause pandemics.

www.nytimes.com

(NYT Gift Link above)
Why the Pandemic Probably Started in a Lab, in 5 Key Points

On Monday, Dr. Anthony Fauci will return to the halls of Congress to testify before the House subcommittee investigating the Covid-19 pandemic. He will most likely be questioned about how the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which he directed until retiring in 2022, supported risky virus work at a Chinese institute whose research may have caused the pandemic.

For more than four years, reflexive partisan politics have derailed the search for the truth about a catastrophe that has touched us all. It has been estimated that at least 25 million people around the world have died because of Covid-19, with over a million of those deaths in the United States.

Although how the pandemic started has been hotly debated, a growing volume of evidence — gleaned from public records released under the Freedom of Information Act, digital sleuthing through online databases, scientific papers analyzing the virus and its spread, and leaks from within the U.S. government — suggests that the pandemic most likely occurred because a virus escaped from a research lab in Wuhan, China. If so, it would be the most costly accident in the history of science.

Here’s what we now know: (NYT Gift Link above)

 

[mdb-tpet]

Opinion | Why the Pandemic Probably Started in a Lab, in 5 Key Points

The world must not continue to bear the intolerable risks of research with the potential to cause pandemics.

www.nytimes.com

(NYT Gift Link above)
Why the Pandemic Probably Started in a Lab, in 5 Key Points

On Monday, Dr. Anthony Fauci will return to the halls of Congress to testify before the House subcommittee investigating the Covid-19 pandemic. He will most likely be questioned about how the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which he directed until retiring in 2022, supported risky virus work at a Chinese institute whose research may have caused the pandemic.

For more than four years, reflexive partisan politics have derailed the search for the truth about a catastrophe that has touched us all. It has been estimated that at least 25 million people around the world have died because of Covid-19, with over a million of those deaths in the United States.

Although how the pandemic started has been hotly debated, a growing volume of evidence — gleaned from public records released under the Freedom of Information Act, digital sleuthing through online databases, scientific papers analyzing the virus and its spread, and leaks from within the U.S. government — suggests that the pandemic most likely occurred because a virus escaped from a research lab in Wuhan, China. If so, it would be the most costly accident in the history of science.

Here’s what we now know: (NYT Gift Link above)

I'm no virologist, but the cover ups, denials, and lack of coordination from the Wuhan groups tells me a lot, and I generally agree with the author's conclusions.

 

[NationalTitles18]

Opinion | Why the Pandemic Probably Started in a Lab, in 5 Key Points

The world must not continue to bear the intolerable risks of research with the potential to cause pandemics.

www.nytimes.com

(NYT Gift Link above)
Why the Pandemic Probably Started in a Lab, in 5 Key Points

On Monday, Dr. Anthony Fauci will return to the halls of Congress to testify before the House subcommittee investigating the Covid-19 pandemic. He will most likely be questioned about how the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which he directed until retiring in 2022, supported risky virus work at a Chinese institute whose research may have caused the pandemic.

For more than four years, reflexive partisan politics have derailed the search for the truth about a catastrophe that has touched us all. It has been estimated that at least 25 million people around the world have died because of Covid-19, with over a million of those deaths in the United States.

Although how the pandemic started has been hotly debated, a growing volume of evidence — gleaned from public records released under the Freedom of Information Act, digital sleuthing through online databases, scientific papers analyzing the virus and its spread, and leaks from within the U.S. government — suggests that the pandemic most likely occurred because a virus escaped from a research lab in Wuhan, China. If so, it would be the most costly accident in the history of science.

Here’s what we now know: (NYT Gift Link above)

Alina Chan - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The link has links to the papers discussed in the wiki article.

Chan was early on the lab leak bandwagon, for whatever that means.

While her theory is largely inductive reasoning without strong evidence, I agree that the possibility should be vigorously investigated.

It does not help that China refuses to fully cooperate in such an investigation.

I am less concerned about her intent than I am some who latch onto it with intent to misconstrue and misuse it. Without delving deeply, she seems to have noble intentions.

 

[Huckleberry]

An Object Lesson From Covid on How to Destroy Public Trust

Big chunks of the history of the Covid pandemic were rewritten over the last month or so in a way that will have terrible consequences for many years to come.

Under questioning by a congressional subcommittee, top officials from the National Institutes of Health, along with Dr. Anthony Fauci, acknowledged that some key parts of the public health guidance their agencies promoted during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic were not backed up by solid science. What’s more, inconvenient information was kept from the public — suppressed, denied or disparaged as crackpot nonsense.

Remember the rule that we should all stay at least six feet apart? “It sort of just appeared,” Fauci said during a preliminary interview for the subcommittee hearing, adding that he “was not aware of any studies” that supported it. Remember the insistence that the virus was primarily spread by droplets that quickly fell to the floor? During his recent public hearing, he acknowledged that to the contrary, the virus is airborne.

NYT gift link

 

[Go Bama]

An Object Lesson From Covid on How to Destroy Public Trust

Big chunks of the history of the Covid pandemic were rewritten over the last month or so in a way that will have terrible consequences for many years to come.

Under questioning by a congressional subcommittee, top officials from the National Institutes of Health, along with Dr. Anthony Fauci, acknowledged that some key parts of the public health guidance their agencies promoted during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic were not backed up by solid science. What’s more, inconvenient information was kept from the public — suppressed, denied or disparaged as crackpot nonsense.

Remember the rule that we should all stay at least six feet apart? “It sort of just appeared,” Fauci said during a preliminary interview for the subcommittee hearing, adding that he “was not aware of any studies” that supported it. Remember the insistence that the virus was primarily spread by droplets that quickly fell to the floor? During his recent public hearing, he acknowledged that to the contrary, the virus is airborne.

NYT gift link

It’s an op-ed and not a very accurate one. The CDC clearly made mistakes, but they were fewer than what the author allows. I have not lost my faith in public health.

 

[Huckleberry]

It’s an op-ed and not a very accurate one. The CDC clearly made mistakes, but they were fewer than what the author allows. I have not lost my faith in public health.

I haven't lost mine either, but I think many of the MAGA/conspiracy theory crowd have seized on perceived and real mistakes to advance their agenda.

 

[NationalTitles18]

It’s an op-ed and not a very accurate one. The CDC clearly made mistakes, but they were fewer than what the author allows. I have not lost my faith in public health.

I agree there are some inaccuracies in the article and perhaps some misconstruing of events.

At the time the CDC was a mess, thanks to Trump's guy. Trump had also dismantled the team that had been in place to respond to pandemics.

It is bothersome the author does not call out political influence of the time as being part of the issue.

But she also gets it wrong on the science at times. The reason the 6 foot rule was in effect was that it was incorrectly thought that droplets were the mode of transmission.

A large part of that goes back to flawed decades old research that established our understanding at the time, which also is revealing of our lack of investment in that kind of research over many years.

And based on that flawed understanding and the need to preserve limited numbers of masks for healthcare workers who had little choice but to be repeatedly exposed, the general public was advised to stay apart and not mask in the early days.

She generally gets it right about outside activities - to a point. If crowds are too compact then transmission risks went up significantly.

 

[92tide]

I haven't lost mine either, but I think many of the MAGA/conspiracy theory crowd have seized on perceived and real mistakes to advance their agenda.

they would have seized on something regardless of what was done

 

[DzynKingRTR]

they would have seized on something regardless of what was done

they "do their own research"

 

[Huckleberry]

“I had confronted terrible outbreaks, but none of them prepared me for the environment I would find myself in during the coronavirus pandemic.” Anthony Fauci on what he saw inside the government’s response to COVID-19 (gift link below):

The First Three Months

What I saw inside the government’s response to COVID-19

www.theatlantic.com

 

[Bamaro]

“I had confronted terrible outbreaks, but none of them prepared me for the environment I would find myself in during the coronavirus pandemic.” Anthony Fauci on what he saw inside the government’s response to COVID-19 (gift link below):

The First Three Months

What I saw inside the government’s response to COVID-19

www.theatlantic.com

I find it horrible that some on the right have vilified Dr Fauci, simply for political reasons to pander to the uninformed and misinformed.

 

[92tide]

fresh air had a great interview with fauci yesterday

 

[Bazza]

A COVID-19 outbreak has emerged at the 2024 Olympics in Paris, and at least 40 athletes tested positive, including U.S. track star Noah Lyles.

Maria Van Kerkhove, the director of epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention at the World Health Organization, said in a briefing Tuesday that many countries have seen a surge in COVID, including the international group of athletes gathered at the Olympics.

Athletes who are COVID-positive are still competing, like Lyles.

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/4820673-olympics-noah-lyles-covid-19-outbreak-paris-2024/

Anyway.......

USA bids adieu to Paris Olympics with most total medals, matched by China with 40 golds

Just as it was a few years ago at the Tokyo Olympics, it took until the final few medal events to decide who — China or the United States — would leave the Games with the most gold medals.

www.nbcolympics.com

 

[NationalTitles18]

https://www.axios.com/2024/08/22/fda-approves-new-covid-shots-moderna-pfizer

 

[92tide]

https://www.axios.com/2024/08/22/fda-approves-new-covid-shots-moderna-pfizer

i was wondering about that. someone on our thursday night ride said the local pharmacy said they expected to have doses in by the end of next week.

i will probably get it along with the flu shot in early oct

 

[Go Bama]

I had my flu shot yesterday. I’ve been waiting on the updated Covid vaccine to be approved. I’ve already contacted my pharmacist, and she will text me when she has it.

 

[Padreruf]

Don't wait too long...I've been feeling under the weather for about 3 days, administered an at home Covid test just a while ago -- positive. Ugh. I actually feel better and have not had a fever. Nasal congestion and coughing --- treating symptoms. Be careful out there boys and girls!!!

 

[4Q Basket Case]

Got the new COVID vaccine from CVS yesterday afternoon.

I tend to react to them (the first one back in April of 2021 wiped me out for three days), but this one wasn't so bad. Didn't sleep particularly well last night and it feels like a mild to moderate hangover this morning. But as I write this just before 9AM Friday, I'm already starting to feel a tiny bit better.

I expect to be through the reaction by supper time.

Flu, RSV and pneumonia to go.

I'm grateful for the immunologists that have developed these vaccines (I've had all shots and boosters as soon as they were available). But dang, the annual 4-shot fall regimen is a pain.