🦘Cacatman's Personal Coronavirus COVID-19 Update Thread

[cacatman]

Variants

CDC, WHO Establish New Threat Levels for COVID-19 Variants

New designation levels will help clarify what's known about circulating viruses, and then help explain risk.

www.medscape.com

 

[cacatman]

COVID-19 Fuelling TB Epidemic
Impact of COVID-19 on the tuberculosis epidemic is much worse than they predicted a year ago.

‘A worse reality than we expected’: COVID-19 fuels TB epidemic

Experts said during a media briefing Thursday that the impact of COVID-19 on the tuberculosis epidemic is even worse than they predicted a year ago. “A year ago, we did a very similar briefing,” said Lucica Ditiu, MD, executive director of the Stop TB Partnership. “In that briefing, we assessed...

www.healio.com

 

[cacatman]

Reinfection - 26 cases
Ie. rare

COVID-19 reinfection tracker

NOTE: This page is no longer being updated. The table below shows confirmed cases of COVID-19 reinfection. The first confirmed case of reinfection was reported in Hong Kong in late August 2020, and 543 other cases were reported over the next year, along with nearly 180,000 suspected cases...

bnonews.com

Dutch site following 1600 more cases

COVID-19 reinfection tracker

NOTE: This page is no longer being updated. The table below shows confirmed cases of COVID-19 reinfection. The first confirmed case of reinfection was reported in Hong Kong in late August 2020, and 543 other cases were reported over the next year, along with nearly 180,000 suspected cases...

bnonews.com

A majority of patients with COVID-19 are protected from reinfection over a span of at least 6 months, according to a new real-world assessment from Denmark.

Just 0.65% of approximately 4 million PCR test-positive COVID-19 patients returned another positive test in 2020. The findings would indicate that persons under the age of 65 years old have an approximate 80% likelihood of protection against COVID-19 reinfection—while among older patients, protection was just 47%.

DEFINE_ME

 

[cacatman]

Advice for schools

https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/key-messages-and-actions-for-covid-19-prevention-and-control-in-schools-march-2020.pdf?sfvrsn=baf81d52_4

Lower physical distancing policies can be adopted in school settings with masking mandates without negatively impacting student or staff safety. ie 3 feet distance vs 6 feet found to be ok.

Effectiveness of 3 Versus 6 ft of Physical Distancing for Controlling Spread of Coronavirus Disease 2019 Among Primary and Secondary Students and Staff: A Retrospective, Statewide Cohort Study

There is no significant difference in K-12 student and staff severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 case rates in Massachusetts public school dist

academic.oup.com

Sharing a household with children and risk of COVID-19: a study of over 300 000 adults living in healthcare worker households in Scotland
Between March and October 2020, living with young children was associated with an attenuated risk of any COVID-19 and COVID-19 requiring hospitalisation among adults living in healthcare worker households. There was no evidence that living with young children increased adults’ risk of COVID-19, including during the period after schools reopened.

Main outcomes COVID-19 requiring hospitalisation, and any COVID-19 (any positive test for SARS-CoV-2) in adults aged ≥18 years between 1 March and 12 October 2020.
Results 241 266, 41 198, 23 783 and 3850 adults shared a household with 0, 1, 2 and 3 or more young children, respectively. Over the study period, the risk of COVID-19 requiring hospitalisation was reduced progressively with increasing numbers of household children—fully adjusted HR (aHR) 0.93 per child (95% CI 0.79 to 1.10). The risk of any COVID-19 was similarly reduced, with the association being statistically significant (aHR per child 0.93; 95% CI 0.88 to 0.98). After schools reopened to all children in August 2020, no association was seen between exposure to young children and risk of any COVID-19 (aHR per child 1.03; 95% CI 0.92 to 1.14).

Sharing a household with children and risk of COVID-19: a study of over 300 000 adults living in healthcare worker households in Scotland | Archives of Disease in Childhood

 

[cacatman]

Vaccines : Safety Surveillance Manual

Covid-19 vaccines: safety surveillance manual

Publicaciones de la Organización Mundial de la Salud

www.who.int

 

[Carrera1963]

Covid will always be around now, just like the flu

Yep, we’ll be in a cycle of annual boosters, amended for new circulating variants.

 

[cacatman]

A Possible Reason Why Men Get COVID-19 Worse
Akiko Iwasaki, a professor of immunobiology at the Yale School of Medicine, noted that several genes involved in the immune system’s response to viruses are on the X chromosome.

Women have two copies of this chromosome — along with two copies of each gene. That gives women a backup in case one copy of a gene becomes defective, Iwasaki said.

Men, however, have only one copy of the X chromosome. So if there is a defect or harmful gene on the X chromosome, they have no other copy of that gene to correct the problem, Iwasaki said.

Bastard noted that one woman in the study who developed autoantibodies has a rare genetic condition in which she has only one X chromosome.

https://media.nature.com/original/magazine-assets/d41586-020-03070-1/d41586-020-03070-1.pdf

 

[cacatman]

Anticoagulation Possibly a Key?
Blood-clot-promoting autoantibodies have been found in at least half of the serum samples collected from 172 patients hospitalized with COVID-19. These autoantibodies—which are also linked to a dangerous autoimmune condition called antiphospholipid syndrome—are promising therapeutic targets. For example, if the clot-causing autoantibodies were to be neutralized or removed from the blood, perhaps by plasmapheresis, clotting could be lessened in patients with severe COVID-19.

Researchers are also currently running a randomized clinical trial called DICER, which is testing a well-known anticlotting agent, dipyridamole, in patients with COVID-19 to determine whether it’s more effective than a placebo in reducing excessive blood clots.

Prothrombotic autoantibodies in serum from patients hospitalized with COVID-19 | Science Translational Medicine

Some COVID-19 survivors have developed serious autoimmune diseases, which occur when an overactive immune system attacks the patient, rather than the virus. Doctors in Italy first noticed a pattern in March 2020, when several COVID-19 patients developed Guillain-Barré syndrome, in which the immune systems attacks nerves throughout the body, causing muscle weakness or paralysis. As the pandemic has surged around the world, doctors have diagnosed patients with rare, immune-related bleeding disorders. Other patients have developed the opposite problem, suffering blood clots that can lead to stroke.

All these conditions can be triggered by “autoantibodies” – rogue antibodies that target the patient’s own proteins and cells.

Key immune players called “helper T cells” typically help antibodies mature. If the body is invaded by a pathogen, these T cells can switch jobs to hunt down viruses, acting more like “killer T cells,” which destroy infected cells. When an infection is over, helper T cells usually go back to their old jobs.

In some people with severe COVID-19, however, helper T cells don’t stand down when the infection is over, said James Heath, a professor and president of Seattle’s Institute for Systems Biology.

About 10% to 15% of hospitalized COVID-19 patients Heath studied had high levels of these cells even after clearing the infection. By comparison, Heath found lingering helper T cells in fewer than 5% of COVID-19 patients with less serious infections.

10% of nearly 1,000 COVID patients who developed life-threatening pneumonia had antibodies that disable key immune system proteins called interferons. These antibodies — known as autoantibodies because they attack the body itself — were not found at all in 663 people with mild or asymptomatic COVID infections. Only four of 1,227 healthy individuals had the autoantibodies. The study, published on Oct. 23, was led by the COVID Human Genetic Effort, which includes 200 research centers in 40 countries.

AAAS

science.sciencemag.org

Half of the hospitalized COVID-19 patients had autoantibodies, compared with fewer than 15% of healthy people. While some of the autoantibodies were present before patients were infected with SARS-CoV-2, others developed over the course of the illness.

Hospitalized COVID-19 patients harbored a diverse array of autoantibodies.

Distinct Autoimmune Antibody Signatures Between Hospitalized Acute COVID-19 Patients, SARS-CoV-2 Convalescent Individuals, and Unexposed Pre-Pandemic Controls

Increasing evidence suggests that autoimmunity may play a role in the pathophysiology of SARS-CoV-2 infection during both the acute and ‘long COVID’ phases of disease. However, an assessment of autoimmune antibodies in convalescent SARS-CoV-2 patients has not yet been reported. Methodology We...

www.medrxiv.org

Rogue autoantibodies in patients for up to 6 months following infections

Distinct Autoimmune Antibody Signatures Between Hospitalized Acute COVID-19 Patients, SARS-CoV-2 Convalescent Individuals, and Unexposed Pre-Pandemic Controls

Increasing evidence suggests that autoimmunity may play a role in the pathophysiology of SARS-CoV-2 infection during both the acute and ‘long COVID’ phases of disease. However, an assessment of autoimmune antibodies in convalescent SARS-CoV-2 patients has not yet been reported. Methodology We...

www.medrxiv.org

 

[cacatman]

COVID-19 Mortality Rates
Table 1
Estimated covid-19 mortality for different individuals based on the ALAMA COVID-19 Medical Risk Assessment1

Individual​	Risk factors​	“Covid-age”​	Estimated mortality if infected (range of uncertainty)​
Your patient​	60 year old woman White BMI <30 Type 2 diabetes Rheumatoid arthritis​	71​	14 per 1000 (7 to 28 per 1000); ~1 in 70 chance of dying​
Your patient without medical risk factors​	60 year old female White BMI <30​	55​	3 per 1000 (1 to 5 per 1000); ~1 in 333 chance of dying​
High risk friend (father of groom)​	75 year old man Asian BMI 35-39.9 Heart failure​	≥85​	60 per 1000 (30 to 119 per 1000); ~1 in 8 chance of dying​
Low risk friend (daughter)​	31 year old woman White BMI <30​	26​	0.1 per 1000 (0.07 to 0.3 per 1000); ~1 in 10 000 chance of dying​

BMI = body mass index

What is my covid risk?

### What you need to know A 60 year old woman with type 2 diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis contacts her GP to discuss her risk from covid-19. Her daughter is getting married next month and is planning a socially distanced ceremony with 30 guests . One of the many unprecedented challenges that...

www.bmj.com

Covid-19 Medical Risk Assessment – Alama

https://alama.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Covid-19-risk-matrix-and-viral-prevalence.pdf

 

[cacatman]

Vaccine Side Effects
While you can get the COVID-19 vaccine and have no side effects, there's a chance you could experience something. If it happens to you, don't freak out—the CDC says that side effects are normal signs that your body is building protection against the virus, should you ever come into contact with it. Possible side effects include:

• Pain in the arm where you got the shot
• Redness around the area where you were vaccinated
• Swelling in the arm where you got the shot
• Tiredness
• Headache
• Muscle pain
• Chills
• Fever
• Nausea

The CDC study published in late February found that the most commonly reported symptoms were headache (22.4%), fatigue (16.5%), and dizziness (16.5%).

Why People of This Sex May Have Worse COVID-19 Vaccine Side Effects

According to data from the CDC, more women are reporting worse side effects from the COVID-19 vaccine than men. Here's what to know.

www.health.com