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www.news-medical.net/news/20220912/Did-the-US-jump-the-gu...
Did the US jump the gun with the new omicron-targeted vaccines?
Last month, the FDA authorized omicron-specific vaccines, accompanied by breathless science-by-press release and a media blitz. Just days after the FDA's move, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention followed, recommending updated boosters for anyone age 12 and up who had received at least two doses of the original covid vaccines. The message to a nation still struggling with the covid-19 pandemic: The cavalry — in the form of a shot — is coming over the hill.
But for those familiar with the business tactics of the pharmaceutical industry, that exuberant messaging — combined with the lack of completed studies — has caused considerable heartburn and raised an array of unanswered concerns.
The updated shots easily clear the "safe and effective" bar for government authorization. But in the real world, are the omicron-specific vaccines significantly more protective — and in what ways — than the original covid vaccines so many have already taken? If so, who would benefit most from the new shots? Since the federal government is purchasing these new vaccines — and many of the original, already purchased vaccines may never find their way into taxpayers' arms — is the $3.2 billion price tag worth the unclear benefit? Especially when these funds had to be pulled from other covid response efforts, like testing and treatment.
Several members of the CDC advisory committee that voted 13-1 for the recommendation voiced similar questions and concerns, one saying she only "reluctantly" voted in the affirmative.
Some said they set aside their desire for more information and better data and voted yes out of fear of a potential winter covid surge. They expressed hope that the new vaccines — or at least the vaccination campaign that would accompany their rollout — would put a dent in the number of future cases, hospitalizations, and deaths.
That calculus is, perhaps, understandable at a time when an average of more than 300 Americans are dying of covid each day.
But it leaves front-line health care providers in the impossible position of trying to advise individual patients whether and when to take the hot, new vaccines without complete data and in the face of marketing hype..
Don't get us wrong. We're grateful and amazed that Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna (with assists from the National Institutes of Health and Operation Warp Speed) developed an effective vaccine in record time, freeing the nation from the deadliest phase of the covid pandemic, when thousands were dying each day. The pandemic isn't over, but the vaccines are largely credited for enabling most of America to return to a semblance of normalcy. We're both up-to-date with our covid vaccinations and don't understand why anyone would choose not to be, playing Russian roulette with their health.
But as society moves into the next phase of the pandemic, the pharmaceutical industry may be moving into more familiar territory: developing products that may be a smidgen better than what came before, selling — sometimes overselling — their increased effectiveness in the absence of adequate controlled studies or published data, advertising them as desirable for all when only some stand to benefit significantly, and in all likelihood raising the price later.
This last point is concerning because the government no longer has funds to purchase covid vaccines after this autumn. Funding to cover the provider fees for vaccinations and community outreach to those who would most benefit from vaccination has already run out. So updated boosters now and in the future will likely go to the "worried well" who have good insurance rather than to those at highest risk for infection and progression to severe disease.
The FDA's mandated task is merely to determine whether a new drug is safe and effective. However, the FDA could have requested more clinical vaccine effectiveness data from Pfizer and Moderna before authorizing their updated omicron BA.5 boosters.
Yet the FDA cannot weigh in on important follow-up questions: How much more effective are the updated boosters than vaccines already on the market? In which populations? And what increase in effectiveness is enough to merit an increase in price (a so-called cost-benefit analysis)? Other countries, such as the United Kingdom, perform such an analysis before allowing new medicines onto the market, to negotiate a fair national price.
The updated booster vaccine formulations are identical to the original covid vaccines except for a tweak in the mRNA code to match the omicron BA.5 virus. Studies by Pfizer showed that its updated omicron BA.1 booster provides a 1.56 times higher increase in neutralizing antibody titers against the BA.1 virus as compared with a booster using its original vaccine. Moderna's studies of its updated omicron BA.1 booster demonstrated very similar results. However, others predict that a 1.5 times higher antibody titer would yield only slight improvement in vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic illness and severe disease, with a bump of about 5% and 1% respectively. Pfizer and Moderna are just starting to study their updated omicron BA.5 boosters in human trials.
Though the studies of the updated omicron BA.5 boosters were conducted only in mice, the agency's authorization is in line with precedent: The FDA clears updated flu shots for new strains each year without demanding human testing. But with flu vaccines, scientists have decades of experience and a better understanding of how increases in neutralizing antibody titers correlate with improvements in vaccine effectiveness. That's not the case with covid vaccines. And if mouse data were a good predictor of clinical effectiveness, we'd have an HIV vaccine by now.
As population immunity builds up through vaccination and infection, it's unclear whether additional vaccine boosters, updated or not, would benefit all ages equally. In 2022, the U.S. has seen covid hospitalization rates among people 65 and older increase relative to younger age groups. And while covid vaccine boosters seem to be cost-effective in the elderly, they may not be in younger populations. The CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices considered limiting the updated boosters to people 50 and up, but eventually decided that doing so would be too complicated.
Unfortunately, history shows that — as with other pharmaceutical products — once a vaccine arrives and is accompanied by marketing, salesmanship trumps science: Many people with money and insurance will demand it whether data ultimately proves it is necessary for them individually or not.
We are all likely to encounter the SARS-CoV-2 virus again and again, and the virus will continue to mutate, giving rise to new variants year after year. In a country where significant portions of at-risk populations remain unvaccinated and unboosted, the fear of a winter surge is legitimate.
But will the widespread adoption of a vaccine — in this case yearly updated covid boosters — end up enhancing protection for those who really need it or just enhance drugmakers' profits? And will it be money well spent?
The federal government has been paying a negotiated price of $15 to $19.50 a dose of mRNA vaccine under a purchasing agreement signed during the height of the pandemic. When those government agreements lapse, analysts expect the price to triple or quadruple, and perhaps even more for updated yearly covid boosters, which Moderna's CEO said would evolve "like an iPhone." To deploy these shots and these dollars wisely, a lot less hype and a lot more information might help.
The Lambda Rho chapter of Alpha Omicron Pi greeting new members during the chapter's second ever Bid Day at TCU. For those of you who don't know what Bid Day is...and I didn't either...all the sororities assemble on the Campus Commons. Then the newbies are released one chapter at a time to run toward their new sisters. It's kinda like a cattle drive, but with a much happier ending.
I also rolled about 90 seconds of video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qnt0kMEWWQ&list=UUlJLPNVzTQB...
You can learn more about AOII here:
www.facebook.com/AOIILambdaRho
This album is part of the event coverage for the Fort Worth Portrait Project. The project tells the story of Fort Worth from 2014 - 2044 one captioned portrait at a time, but I also enjoy covering events like this one too.
Please follow the Fort Worth Portrait Project:
www.redeemedexpressions.com/fort-worth-portrait-project/
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www.livemint.com/news/india/covid19-4-superfoods-that-wil...
COVID-19: 5 superfoods that will boost your immunity amid Omicron XBB spread
What is the best way to deal with variants having immune-escape properties?
The best way to deal with them is to keep the immunity quotient high throughout the year, ie through exercise and diet.
Here is a list of foods that can further boost your immunity:
Green tea: It is extremely rich in antioxidant and can highly boost immunity.
Yogurt: Fermented foods are excellent sources of good bacteria that keep your gut healthy.
Vegetables, fruits and nuts: A proper combination of these three is the best source of nutrients needed to keep yourself healthy.
www.news-medical.net/news/20221031/An-innovative-nasal-va...
An innovative nasal vaccine strategy to combat COVID
In a recent study published in the journal Science, researchers at Yale University developed a novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination strategy termed 'prime and spike' (P&S) that leveraged existing systemic immunity triggered by parenteral vaccination (prime) to boost immunity at the respiratory mucosa.
Background
The respiratory mucosa is the primary site of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection in humans; however, at this site, parenteral vaccination regimens cannot induce adequate protective immunity. Relying on intramuscular (IM) administration, these vaccines have been shown to induce high levels of circulating antibodies, memory B cells, and circulating effector cluster of differentiation (CD)4+ and CD8+ T cells in preclinical and clinical models. However, they fail to induce tissue-resident memory B (BRM) cells and T (TRM) cells and mucosal immunoglobulin G (IgG) and dimeric IgA.
Recent preclinical assessments of vaccines delivered intranasally (IN) induced adequate mucosal immunogenicity at respiratory mucosa. They also conferred immune protection and reduced viral shedding in mice, hamsters, and nonhuman primates. Further, they induced cross-reactive immunity against sarbecoviruses.
About the study
In the present study, researchers hypothesized systemic priming with messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA)-lipid nanoparticle (LNP) followed by IN boosting conferred adequate protective immunity, unlike parenteral vaccination.
So they vaccinated K18-hACE2 mice with mRNA-based BNT162b2 vaccine IM - the prime dose. After 14 days, they intranasally (IN) administered an unadjuvanted SARS-CoV-2 spike - the booster dose. The team used divergent unadjuvanted intranasal SARS-CoV-2 spike boosters or an immunosilent polyplex encapsulating spike mRNA. They euthanized these mice at days 21 or 28 to assess for mucosal humoral immunity.
First, the team assessed anti-SARS-CoV-2 spike IgG and IgA in nasal turbinates, bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF), and serum. IM prime nor IN spike alone helped mice develop mucosal anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. However, mice that received P&S developed high levels of anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgA and IgG in the nasal wash and BALF.
Further, the researchers compared mucosal CD8+ T cell and antibody responses following P&S under varying conditions. For instance, they tested the efficacy of two-week versus four-week boosting intervals. Likewise, they tested how 25-μl P&S vaccine formulations worked compared to 50-μl intranasal inoculations. Finally, the team evaluated humoral and cellular mucosal immune responses on days 91 and 140 in mice who received IM mRNA-LNP and were boosted with IN spike three months later.
Results
The BRMcells in the lungs serve as an important local immune effector in protecting against SARS-CoV-2. P&S led to increased antigen-specific B cells within lung tissue. It also increased class-switched antibody-secreting cells (ASC) and class-switched BRM cells in lung tissue expressing IgA or IgG. Thus, P&S elicited local B cell responses in the lung. Furthermore, P&S expanded the lung parenchyma and airway CD8+ TRM and CD4+ TRM cells.
The results showed that the robustness of P&S was modifiable across multiple experimental variables, yet, it did not affect overall immune responses. Most importantly, even delayed IN P&S boosting (up to three months after priming) elicited durable mucosal humoral and cellular immune responses.
Intranasal SARS-CoV-2 spike boosting protects against COVID-19-like disease.(A) Experimental schema: K18-hACE2 mice were IM primed with 0.05 μg of mRNA-LNP and IN boosted with 1 μg of spike IN 14 days post-IM Prime. Six weeks post boost, mice were challenged with 6×104 PFU SCV2 (2019n-CoV/USA_WA1/2020). The first cohort was used to evaluate weight loss and survival up to 14 days post-infection (DPI). The second cohort was used to collect lung and nasal turbinate tissues 2 DPI for viral titer measurement. The third cohort was used to collect lung tissues 5 DPI for histological assessment. (B to D) Weight loss and survival of naïve, IM Prime, or P&S mice from 1 to 14 DPI. (E to F) Measurement of infectious virus titer in lung and nasal turbinate tissues at 2 DPI by plaque assay. (G) Pathology score of lung sections at 5 DPI by hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining. (H) Representative H&E staining results from uninfected IM Prime, or P&S mice. Scale bar: 250 μm. Sections are representative of multiple sections from at least five mice per group. (I) Experimental schema: K18-hACE2 mice were IM primed with 0.05 μg of mRNA-LNP and IN boosted with 10 μg of mRNA encapsulated by PACE (IN PACE-Spike) 14 days post-IM Prime. Six weeks post boost, mice were challenged with 6×104 PFU SCV2 (2019n-CoV/USA_WA1/2020). Weight loss and survival were monitored up to 14 DPI. (J to L) Weight loss and survival of naïve, IM Prime, or Prime and PACE-Spike K18-hACE2 mice from 1 to 14 DPI. Mean ± s.e.m.; Statistical significance was calculated by [(D) and (L)] log-rank Mantel-Cox test, [(E) and (F)] one-way ANOVA followed by Tukey’s correction, or (G) Student’s t test; *P≤0.05, **P ≤ 0.01, ***P ≤ 0.001, ****P ≤ 0.0001. Individual data points are represented and pooled from two independent experiments.
Conclusions
FluMist is the only approved respiratory mucosal vaccine that relies on a live attenuated influenza virus. It is only approved for young people and is contraindicated in people with pre-existing respiratory conditions. Several recombinant subunit vaccines are administered IN but require co-formulation with adjuvants to enhance immunogenicity. However, administering such vaccines to the respiratory tract in humans has proven difficult without adjuvants. Also, IN adjuvanted inactivated influenza vaccine has led to Bell's palsy in some cases, likely due to adjuvant toxicity mediating neuronal inflammation. As SARS-CoV-2 continues to evolve and become more immune evasive and transmissible, boosting that induces mucosal immunity is urgently warranted.
The current study described the preclinical development of an alternative vaccine strategy, P&S. P&S utilized diverse unadjuvanted spike subunit protein(s) to elicit strong protective mucosal immunity following mRNA-LNP parenteral vaccination. Since P&S leveraged pre-existing immunity rather than inhibited it, unadjuvanted IN P&S boosting proved more successful in individuals who had received multiple previous vaccine doses. In addition, P&S could also trigger mucosal immunity to other sarbecoviruses, such as SARS-CoV-1. Further, it could be broadly applicable as a booster against new SARS-CoV-2 VOCs in a previously vaccinated individual or as a de novo primary immunization strategy against other emerging respiratory pathogens.
The Lambda Rho chapter of Alpha Omicron Pi greeting new members during the chapter's second ever Bid Day at TCU. For those of you who don't know what Bid Day is...and I didn't either...all the sororities assemble on the Campus Commons. Then the newbies are released one chapter at a time to run toward their new sisters. It's kinda like a cattle drive, but with a much happier ending.
I also rolled about 90 seconds of video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qnt0kMEWWQ&list=UUlJLPNVzTQB...
You can learn more about AOII here:
www.facebook.com/AOIILambdaRho
This album is part of the event coverage for the Fort Worth Portrait Project. The project tells the story of Fort Worth from 2014 - 2044 one captioned portrait at a time, but I also enjoy covering events like this one too.
Please follow the Fort Worth Portrait Project:
www.redeemedexpressions.com/fort-worth-portrait-project/
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Do you want to be featured in the project? Just head to the following site with a photo and a caption:
The Lambda Rho chapter of Alpha Omicron Pi at TCU held their 2014 Big-Little Reveal on Friday, October 3.
Sierra, a student at USC, describes the Big-Little reveal this way in her blog: "The day every new member and to-be Big waits impatiently for all semester long is finally here, the day where Little has to wonder no more of which girl she would call Big from this day on for the rest of her life. It's the day of reveal and as all of the Bigs are stressing to get the final touches done and set up the activities for the day, the Little's wait anxiously, excited to finally be united with their one and only but nervous about what is in store for them until that point." For the rest of her post, see www.thisonelifeblog.com/blog/big-little-reveal-week-day-4....
You can learn more about the Lambda Rho chapter of AOII here:
www.facebook.com/AOIILambdaRho
This album is part of the event coverage for the Fort Worth Portrait Project. The project tells the story of Fort Worth from 2014 - 2044 one captioned portrait at a time, but I also enjoy covering events like this one too.
Please follow the Fort Worth Portrait Project:
www.redeemedexpressions.com/fort-worth-portrait-project/
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Recostado na janela mais alta ouvi "Un vestido y un amor" de Fito Páez na voz de Mercedes Sosa.
O horizonte intocável durante a música. No céu as nuvens não dançavam. As folhas das árvores permaneciam estáticas e nem latido o cachorro do vizinho tinha.
Mais alto um avião pairava desafiando a gravidade já não tão "grave" assim.
A cada verso a música penetrava os objetos congelando-os.
Talvez a música tenha durado dias, semanas, talvez segundos, não sei. Mas sei que vi de tudo enquanto o cd, num louco spin, roubava os movimentos do mundo. Não sei precisar o que senti pois sentia tudo a ponto de pensar que sentiria todos os sentimentos, desgastando-os severamente.
Preocupava-me este velho mundo agora em sua forma estática. Não seria eu acusado mais tarde de fazê-lo parar? Frutos que nuncam amadureceriam, pássaros que foram roubados de suas acrobacias, abelhas condenadas a uma singular flor, máquinas travadas em meio a lida, motores e engenhos impedidos de serem e fazerem o que sempre foram e fizeram.
A água do rio não mais encontraria o mar e o mar não mais ofereceria peixe ou paisagem. Não havia olhar a não ser o meu. Não havia o tempo a não ser eu. Não havia o dito e o desdito pois não havia bocas e seus ocos, nem semântica, nem sintaxe, nem equações desmedidas, nem alunos sentados e professores de pé, nem cálculos complexos, nem Deus e suas diversas vestes, pois somente nada havia e seus imperfeitos sinônimos.
Insisto, foi o que aconteceu comigo.
Osvaldo Santos Lima
The Lambda Rho chapter of Alpha Omicron Pi at TCU held their 2014 Big-Little Reveal on Friday, October 3.
Sierra, a student at USC, describes the Big-Little reveal this way in her blog: "The day every new member and to-be Big waits impatiently for all semester long is finally here, the day where Little has to wonder no more of which girl she would call Big from this day on for the rest of her life. It's the day of reveal and as all of the Bigs are stressing to get the final touches done and set up the activities for the day, the Little's wait anxiously, excited to finally be united with their one and only but nervous about what is in store for them until that point." For the rest of her post, see www.thisonelifeblog.com/blog/big-little-reveal-week-day-4....
You can learn more about the Lambda Rho chapter of AOII here:
www.facebook.com/AOIILambdaRho
This album is part of the event coverage for the Fort Worth Portrait Project. The project tells the story of Fort Worth from 2014 - 2044 one captioned portrait at a time, but I also enjoy covering events like this one too.
Please follow the Fort Worth Portrait Project:
www.redeemedexpressions.com/fort-worth-portrait-project/
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Do you want to be featured in the project? Just head to the following site with a photo and a caption:
2-27-13 | SUN-e Picture of the Day: On Feb. 24, the Shenandoah University Omicron Delta Kappa (ODK) Circle inducted 24 students and one faculty member into its ranks. Congratulations to all of the new members of ODK! Pictured from left to right: Nathan Rinard, Marrisa N. Volonino, Dorothy Claire Earner, Emily Hesse, Jonathan Jacob Heeren, Susan Toman-Jones, Joshua James Hynson, Marie A. Clary, Myles Anthony Hairston, Katie Cataldo, Jon C. Bannan, Kelcy M. Brown, Sydney Lian Anderson, Spencer King, Stormie Eve Malik, Hilary L. Legge, Jakob A. Curtis, Blanca O. Navarro, Dr. Miles K. Davis, and Brad Earl Dinklocker. Not pictured: J'Dana Holsinger, Joshua Must, Tamytha M. Ohlschwager, Justine C. Preston, and Heather M. Sink. (Photo and information submitted by Jennifer Spataro-Wilson)
Nurses hold national day of action Jan. 13 to demand employers, Biden administration protect RNs, health care workers
Registered nurse members of National Nurses United (NNU), the nation’s largest union of RNs, hold actions across the country on Thursday, Jan. 13 — including a candlelight vigil in Washington, D.C. for nurses who lost their lives to Covid-19, and a national virtual press conference — to demand the hospital industry invest in safe staffing, and to demand that President Biden follow through on his campaign promise to protect nurses and prioritize public health.
NNU nurses emphasize that in recent weeks, the Biden administration has ripped away critical protections from health care workers and the public, with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) weakening Covid isolation guidelines and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announcing that it intends to withdraw critical Covid protections for health care workers—right when the Omicron variant is exploding across the country and hospitalizations are skyrocketing. Nurses emphasize that being left unprotected by the government and by their profit-driven hospital employers which have failed to invest in safe staffing and provide critical health and safety protections, has created such unsafe working conditions that nurses are being driven away from the profession.
#ProtectNurses
The Lambda Rho chapter of Alpha Omicron Pi at TCU held their 2014 Big-Little Reveal on Friday, October 3.
Sierra, a student at USC, describes the Big-Little reveal this way in her blog: "The day every new member and to-be Big waits impatiently for all semester long is finally here, the day where Little has to wonder no more of which girl she would call Big from this day on for the rest of her life. It's the day of reveal and as all of the Bigs are stressing to get the final touches done and set up the activities for the day, the Little's wait anxiously, excited to finally be united with their one and only but nervous about what is in store for them until that point." For the rest of her post, see www.thisonelifeblog.com/blog/big-little-reveal-week-day-4....
You can learn more about the Lambda Rho chapter of AOII here:
www.facebook.com/AOIILambdaRho
This album is part of the event coverage for the Fort Worth Portrait Project. The project tells the story of Fort Worth from 2014 - 2044 one captioned portrait at a time, but I also enjoy covering events like this one too.
Please follow the Fort Worth Portrait Project:
www.redeemedexpressions.com/fort-worth-portrait-project/
www.facebook.com/fortworthportraitproject
www.twitter.com/FWPortraitProj
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Do you want to be featured in the project? Just head to the following site with a photo and a caption:
The Lambda Rho chapter of Alpha Omicron Pi at TCU held their 2014 Big-Little Reveal on Friday, October 3.
Sierra, a student at USC, describes the Big-Little reveal this way in her blog: "The day every new member and to-be Big waits impatiently for all semester long is finally here, the day where Little has to wonder no more of which girl she would call Big from this day on for the rest of her life. It's the day of reveal and as all of the Bigs are stressing to get the final touches done and set up the activities for the day, the Little's wait anxiously, excited to finally be united with their one and only but nervous about what is in store for them until that point." For the rest of her post, see www.thisonelifeblog.com/blog/big-little-reveal-week-day-4....
You can learn more about the Lambda Rho chapter of AOII here:
www.facebook.com/AOIILambdaRho
This album is part of the event coverage for the Fort Worth Portrait Project. The project tells the story of Fort Worth from 2014 - 2044 one captioned portrait at a time, but I also enjoy covering events like this one too.
Please follow the Fort Worth Portrait Project:
www.redeemedexpressions.com/fort-worth-portrait-project/
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Do you want to be featured in the project? Just head to the following site with a photo and a caption:
OmiCron the Interface at the Rhythm Society's end of the world celebration on Dec 21st, 2012. Oakland CA
Rueda trasera aro 28 y rueda delantera aro 26.-
Marco hecho a mano por artesanos italianos en Colombia.
La fabrica de bicicletas Canopus nacio el año 1984 y dejo de funcionar el año 1996.-
Aquí puedes ver alguna referencia de como se ve completa.-
The Lambda Rho chapter of Alpha Omicron Pi at TCU held their 2014 Big-Little Reveal on Friday, October 3.
Sierra, a student at USC, describes the Big-Little reveal this way in her blog: "The day every new member and to-be Big waits impatiently for all semester long is finally here, the day where Little has to wonder no more of which girl she would call Big from this day on for the rest of her life. It's the day of reveal and as all of the Bigs are stressing to get the final touches done and set up the activities for the day, the Little's wait anxiously, excited to finally be united with their one and only but nervous about what is in store for them until that point." For the rest of her post, see www.thisonelifeblog.com/blog/big-little-reveal-week-day-4....
You can learn more about the Lambda Rho chapter of AOII here:
www.facebook.com/AOIILambdaRho
This album is part of the event coverage for the Fort Worth Portrait Project. The project tells the story of Fort Worth from 2014 - 2044 one captioned portrait at a time, but I also enjoy covering events like this one too.
Please follow the Fort Worth Portrait Project:
www.redeemedexpressions.com/fort-worth-portrait-project/
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www.twitter.com/FWPortraitProj
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Do you want to be featured in the project? Just head to the following site with a photo and a caption:
abcnews.go.com/Health/covid-hospitalizations-forecast-inc...
COVID hospitalizations forecast to increase amid concerns over new omicron subvariants
For the first time since May, COVID-19-related hospital admissions are forecasted to increase again in the U.S., as highly infectious omicron subvariants continue to spread, according to updated forecasting models used by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The models show that nearly 40 states and territories are currently projected to see increases in new hospitalizations over the next two weeks. States in the South, including Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, are expected to see the greatest increases in hospitalizations.
Nationally, between 3,200 to 13,800 daily confirmed COVID-19 hospital admissions are expected to be reported on Aug. 5. As of Wednesday, the U.S. is reporting nearly 5,800 virus-related hospital admissions each day, according to the CDC.
Hospitalization levels have already been increasing, with nearly 40,000 virus-positive Americans currently hospitalized, according to federal data. Totals are more than double the level they were at this time last summer, when the delta surge was beginning to emerge, and a growing number of COVID-19 positive people are also showing up to emergency departments, data shows.
In the South, where many states are forecasted to see notable increases, hospital admissions have risen by more than 20% in the last week.
Although the overall total remains significantly lower than at the nation's peak, when more than 160,000 patients were hospitalized with the virus, hospitalizations are still at their highest point since early March.
The forecast also predicts that virus-related deaths will have either a stable or an uncertain trend in the next four weeks.
Even so, more than 5,700 deaths are still expected to occur nationally over the next two weeks. Texas, Oklahoma and California are projected to see the largest death tolls in the weeks to come.
"Deaths are still around 300, but hospitalizations are ticking up. This is something you don't want to panic about, but we really need to pay attention to it because there are things that we can do to blunt that," Dr. Anthony Fauci, a senior adviser to the president on the pandemic, told CNN on Wednesday.
Fauci and other federal health officials have been raising the alarm about omicron subvariant BA.5, which they say has been causing a resurgence of infections.
The U.S. is currently reporting more than 118,000 new cases a day, marking the country's highest daily infection average since mid-February.
Fauci said the current reported case total is likely a "gross underestimate" as the majority of Americans are testing with home kits and not reporting their results to their local jurisdictions.
BA.5 is now the dominant variant in the U.S, accounting for an estimated 65% of new cases in the country. Scientists say it does appear to have a transmission advantage over the original omicron strain, although they do not believe it is more severe than prior strains.
"[BA.5] is certainly the most immune evasive. What we're seeing is people who were previously infected getting reinfected at high rates, people who were vaccinated last year having a ton of breakthrough infections. It's something we're paying a lot of attention to," White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha told ABC News' George Stephanopoulos on "Good Morning America" Wednesday.
However, Jha said the vaccines and boosters are still helping blunt the impact of severe disease.
www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/superbug-infections-sp...
Superbug infections spiked in pandemic's first wave
The spread of drug-resistant bacteria and fungi in 2020 erased the progress the U.S. made against these deadly germs
The first wave of the Covid pandemic created the perfect storm for superbugs in the U.S., with cases and deaths from dangerous drug-resistant bacterial and fungal infections spiking in hospitals in 2020, a report published Tuesday finds.
The spike, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report said, wiped out the progress made against the deadly pathogens before the pandemic.
Drug resistance occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi or parasites evolve and no longer respond to the treatments that once killed them. The World Health Organization has called drug-resistant pathogens one of the 10 greatest public health threats to humanity.
The CDC monitors 18 drug-resistant bugs in all 50 states and Puerto Rico. The new report, however, included data for only half of the superbugs, because of delays in data collection during the pandemic.
Even that limited data is troubling, experts say.
“The report is concerning on two levels,” said Dr. Arjun Srinivasan, the CDC’s deputy director for program improvement, who worked on the report.
The first is the rise in infections that the agency does have data on. Equally concerning, he said, are the organisms the CDC wasn’t able to collect data on. Those are superbugs that are found more often in the community, rather than in hospital settings.
Superbugs regain ground
The CDC report found that overall, superbug infections and deaths in hospitalized patients increased by 15% from 2019 to 2020, with some worrisome pathogens gaining far more ground.
There was a nearly 80% increase in patients in the hospital who became infected with Acinetobacter, a group of bacteria that can cause blood and urinary tract infections and pneumonia. Infections with another bacteria of concern, P. aeruginosa, which is resistant to multiple drugs, rose by more than 30%. And cases of carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales — resistant to the antibiotic carbapenem — increased by 35%.
Experts are particularly worried about a 60% rise in infections with Candida auris, a drug-resistant fungus that health officials around the world have been monitoring since 2009.
C. auris, which “spreads like wildfire,” is particularly good at picking up drug-resistant genes from other pathogens and mutating to resist the few antifungal medications available, said Dr. Luis Ostrosky, the infectious diseases division chief at the McGovern Medical School in Houston.
The fact that different superbugs can pass drug-resistant genes among one another highlights the importance of regaining control over their spread.
“We are not only talking about one single organism pandemic,” said Dr. Cesar Arias, a co-director of the Center for Infectious Diseases Research at the Houston Methodist Research Institute.
Overburdened hospitals
For years, hospitals have honed practices to keep superbugs from spreading among patients.
“We were actually seeing reductions in antimicrobial resistance,” Srinivasan said. “That was something a lot of people said would never happen.”
One way to avoid drug resistance is “antibiotic stewardship,” or reducing the use of antibiotics when they might not be needed. The more often antibiotics are prescribed, the more bacteria have the chance to become resistant to them.
That, in particular, took a hit in the first wave of the pandemic, when doctors didn’t have treatments for Covid. Antibiotics were often the first option given to sick patients, even though they don’t work to treat Covid, which is caused by a virus, the report found.
The strain on hospitals may also have contributed to the spread of such infections, Ostrosky said.
“You have a massive influx of patients who are very much acutely ill, much more than usual for a hospital, and you overwhelm the regular systems. You have to open new units, and you have to staff these units with people who do not usually care for such acutely ill patients,” he said. “Then you have to cover for the possibility of bacterial infections early on.”
Srinivasan made it clear that the report doesn’t reflect a failure of health care workers.
“They did heroic work to take care of patients. What the findings represent is a failure of the system. We have to invest in a better system so that when future pandemics happen, we can not only more effectively combat the pandemic, but the complications we’re seeing, including antimicrobial resistance,” he said.
Ostrosky agreed.
“The Covid pandemic has many more ramifications than we thought other than Covid infection itself,” he said. “I think this really confirms our worst fears.”
amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/04/13/health/omicron-subvariant-covi...
With the BA.2 subvariant on the rise, what's safe and what's not? A medical expert explains - CNN
How should people weigh which precautions they want to follow? Should indoor mask mandates come back? Are there settings where people should consider masking outdoors? What if you have to go back to the office, and others aren't masking? And should we skip large indoor events again?
To help us with these questions, I spoke with CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician and professor of health policy and management at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health. She is also author of "Lifelines: A Doctor's Journey in the Fight for Public Health."
The following conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
CNN: Can you give us a quick refresher -- what protective measures are effective against this very contagious BA.2 variant?
Dr. Leana Wen: BA.2 is a subvariant of the Omicron variant. It appears to be even more contagious than Omicron. Like previous variants, it's spread through direct contact and is airborne. Someone coughing and sneezing will exhale droplets that can transmit the virus. The virus can also be carried on microscopic aerosols that are expelled by breathing. In addition, surfaces may play a greater role in Omicron transmission. Someone who coughed onto their hand and then touched a door could seed virus there and transmit it to you if you touch that door and then your nose or mouth.
The protective measures we talked about early in the pandemic still work against Omicron. Masks work very well, though here I would urge that people wear an N95 or equivalent mask, such as a KN95 or KF94. A simple cloth mask is much less effective, especially against a variant as contagious as BA.2.
Ventilation is very important. The risk of outdoor transmission is exponentially lower than indoor transmission, and a well-ventilated, less crowded space also has much lower risk than people packed together in an unventilated space. Surfaces play less of a role than aerosol transmission, but it's still good practice to wash your hands well or to use hand sanitizer if you shake people's hands and touch frequently used surfaces. That will reduce not only this coronavirus transmission but other respiratory and gastrointestinal pathogens, too.
We also have more tools at our disposal than we did in 2020. Namely, we have vaccines and boosters, which protect very well against severe illness and also reduce the risk of Covid-19 infection. Testing prior to getting together with others tells people if they are infectious and need to avoid the gathering. That's another key preventive measure that we now have access to.
CNN: What should people consider when deciding what precautions they want to bring back, like canceling restaurant reservations or masking up indoors?
Wen: I'd consider three things. First, what is the Covid-19 risk in your community? I've talked before about how the new guidelines from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention can be used here. If your community is in an orange, or "high risk," area by the CDC's metrics, you should mask indoors. If it's in green or yellow -- or "low" or "medium" risk -- you could choose not to, depending on the other two factors.
The second thing to think about is, what is your medical situation and the circumstances of others in your household? If you are generally healthy and fully vaccinated and boosted, your chance of severe illness from Covid-19 is very low. That's different if you are immunocompromised or live with someone who is elderly with multiple medical conditions. You would want to have a higher threshold for caution depending on your family's medical situation.
Third, how important is it to you to continue to avoid Covid-19? Of course, none of us want to get infected by the coronavirus, and no one should be trying to get it. But there are some people who want to avoid it at all costs and others who accept that if they engage in travel, resume parties, dine in restaurants and engage in other pre-pandemic activities, they will have some level of risk. That's a personal decision that will differ from person to person.
CNN: Does it make sense to mask in some situations but not others?
Wen: Absolutely. Risk is additive. You can bring back some things that are lower risk or higher value but still take some precautions. For example, if you work in an office that has pretty good ventilation and is well-spaced, and requires proof of vaccination, you may consider not masking in that setting. But you might still decide to mask in crowded, indoor places like grocery stores and train stations. Again, I'd urge that if you are wearing a mask, wear an N95 or equivalent mask, because it will be your best chance of protecting against the very contagious BA.2 variant.
CNN: What about outdoors? Is BA.2 so contagious that it could transmit there?
Wen: The risk of outdoor transmission is very low to the point that it's virtually nonexistent. Outdoor social gatherings are very safe, and certainly lower risk than the equivalent setting indoors. I do not think that people need to mask outdoors, but there may be situations where someone is extremely vulnerable -- for example, a cancer patient on chemotherapy -- and wants to be extra careful. In that case, they should definitely feel free to wear a mask when in outdoor and more crowded settings.
CNN: What if you have to go back to the office, and others aren't masking?
Wen: You need to decide what's best for you, with the understanding that one-way masking with an N95 or equivalent works very well -- that is, even if others around you aren't masking, you are still well-protected if you wear a well-fitting, high-quality mask at all times.
It also depends on the specifics of your workplace. Let's say you work in a well-ventilated office, everyone around you is vaccinated, and you are well-distanced from the next person. You could decide to remove your mask when sitting at your desk, but put it on again to go into a crowded elevator or a conference room where you're sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with other people. You could decide to go to an outdoor lunch with your colleagues, but skip the happy hour in a packed bar. These are all reasonable decisions depending on how you think about your own risk.
CNN: Should people avoid indoor gatherings, knowing that outbreaks can happen?
Wen: Not necessarily. It again depends on what's going on in your community, what your medical situation is, and how much you want to keep avoiding Covid-19. For me, my area, in Baltimore City, is in a green or "low-risk" area for Covid-19 transmission, according to the CDC. My husband and I are vaccinated and boosted. We have two little kids who are too young to be vaccinated, but we also recognize that it's going to be very difficult to keep them from getting the coronavirus given how transmissible this new variant is.
As such, I am attending large events, including indoor conferences and meetings. I'd prefer that these events require proof of vaccination and same-day negative test result. If they don't, they are less safe, and I certainly understand if others want to avoid them for the time being—just as I understand if others will want to keep attending them. This, to me, is no different from a decision to go back to the gym, resume travel or dine indoors in restaurants. Some will think those activities are worth the risk. Others will not.
Simmon Omega 120 range finder camera (third model, 1954)
with 90mm f=3.5 Omicron lens in a Wollensak Rapax shutter
This is the first civilian production of the Combat camera made by the Simmon Brothers (known for their range of enlargers). Has a ratchet rapid film advance. The camera was later further developed by Konica to create the Koni-Omega Rapid.
© Dirk HR Spennemann 2010, All Right Reserved
The Lambda Rho chapter of Alpha Omicron Pi at TCU held their 2014 Big-Little Reveal on Friday, October 3.
Sierra, a student at USC, describes the Big-Little reveal this way in her blog: "The day every new member and to-be Big waits impatiently for all semester long is finally here, the day where Little has to wonder no more of which girl she would call Big from this day on for the rest of her life. It's the day of reveal and as all of the Bigs are stressing to get the final touches done and set up the activities for the day, the Little's wait anxiously, excited to finally be united with their one and only but nervous about what is in store for them until that point." For the rest of her post, see www.thisonelifeblog.com/blog/big-little-reveal-week-day-4....
You can learn more about the Lambda Rho chapter of AOII here:
www.facebook.com/AOIILambdaRho
This album is part of the event coverage for the Fort Worth Portrait Project. The project tells the story of Fort Worth from 2014 - 2044 one captioned portrait at a time, but I also enjoy covering events like this one too.
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Nurses hold national day of action Jan. 13 to demand employers, Biden administration protect RNs, health care workers
Registered nurse members of National Nurses United (NNU), the nation’s largest union of RNs, hold actions across the country on Thursday, Jan. 13 — including a candlelight vigil in Washington, D.C. for nurses who lost their lives to Covid-19, and a national virtual press conference — to demand the hospital industry invest in safe staffing, and to demand that President Biden follow through on his campaign promise to protect nurses and prioritize public health.
NNU nurses emphasize that in recent weeks, the Biden administration has ripped away critical protections from health care workers and the public, with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) weakening Covid isolation guidelines and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announcing that it intends to withdraw critical Covid protections for health care workers—right when the Omicron variant is exploding across the country and hospitalizations are skyrocketing. Nurses emphasize that being left unprotected by the government and by their profit-driven hospital employers which have failed to invest in safe staffing and provide critical health and safety protections, has created such unsafe working conditions that nurses are being driven away from the profession.
#ProtectNurses
www.cnbc.com/2022/10/14/omicron-bapoint5-is-declining-in-...
Omicron BA.5 is declining in the U.S. as emerging variants gain ground, CDC data shows
▫️ Although the omicron BA.5 variant remains dominant in the U.S., it is starting to lose some ground to other versions of the virus, according to CDC data.
▫️ The omicron subvariants BQ.1, BQ.1.1 and BF.7 have gained ground and are causing about 17% of new infections, according to the data.
▫️ Scientists and health officials are closely monitoring these emerging variants because they appear to have a growth advantage over BA.5.
The U.S. faces at least seven different versions of Covid-19 omicron as the nation heads into winter when health officials are expecting another wave of viral infections.
Although the omicron BA.5 variant remains dominant in the country, it is starting to lose some ground to other versions of the virus, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published on Friday.
Omicron BA.5 has splintered into several new but related variants that include BQ.1, BQ.1.1 and BF.7. The U.K. Health Security Agency, in a report earlier this month, said these three variants are demonstrating a growth advantage over BA.5, which was the most contagious version to date.
In the U.S., omicron BA.5 makes up about 68% of all new infections, down from about 80% at the beginning of October. BQ.1, BQ.1.1 and BF.7 are now causing about 17% of new infections combined, according to the CDC data.
About 3% of new infections are attributable to BA.2.75. and BA.2.75.2, which are related to the omicron BA.2 variant that caused a bump in cases during the spring but was pushed out.
Scientists at Peking University in China found that omicron BA.2.75.2 and BQ.1.1 were the most adept at evading immunity from prior BA.5 infection and several antibody drugs. The study, published earlier in October, has not been peer reviewed.
Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House Covid response coordinator, said earlier this week that U.S. health officials are closely monitoring these variants because they are good at evading prior immunity.
"The reason we're tracking them is because they either have a lot more immune invasiveness or they render many of our treatments ineffective," Jha said. "Those are the two major things that get our attention."
But Jha said the new omicron boosters that the U.S. started rolling out last month should provide better protection than the first-generation vaccines against these emerging variants. The boosters target BA.5 and the emerging variants are all omicron and most descend from BA.5.
Jha called on all eligible Americans to get the new boosters by Halloween so they will have full protection for Thanksgiving when family holiday gatherings kick into full swing.
But the scientists at Peking University said the immune evasiveness of variants like BA.2.75.2 and BQ.1.1 could mean that the BA.5 booster shots will not provide sufficiently broad protection.
It's unclear how much more effective the boosters will prove in the real world. The Food and Drug Administration authorized the shots without direct human data, relying instead on clinical trials from a similar shot that was developed against the original version of omicron, BA.1.
Pfizer and BioNTech on Thursday published the first human data from their BA.5 shots. They triggered a significant boost to the immune system against omicron BA.5 in a lab study that looked at blood samples from adults ages 18 and older, the companies said.
www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-variant-bq-1-omicron-cdc-estim...
"Pretty troublesome": New COVID variant BQ.1 now makes up 1 in 10 cases nationwide, CDC estimates
In just over a month since a new COVID variant known as BQ.1 was first named, that strain and a descendant called BQ.1.1 have already grown to make up more than 10% of new infections across the country, according to updated estimates published Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"When you get variants like that, you look at what their rate of increase is as a relative proportion of the variants, and this has a pretty troublesome doubling time," Dr. Anthony Fauci, the president's chief medical adviser, said in an interview with CBS News.
It comes as federal health authorities have been bracing for a widely-expected resurgence of COVID-19 this fall and winter. BQ.1 variants have already outpaced many rival strains in European nations from England to Germany, which have already seen renewed waves begin.
The CDC had previously bundled BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 with their shared parent BA.5 in the agency's weekly "Nowcast" estimates. BQ.1 was first named by scientists in early September, based on sequences spotted across the U.S. and several other countries.
BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 each currently make up an estimated 5.7% of infections around the country, the agency said. The remainder of BA.5, which had dominated a wave of cases over the summer, has shrunk to 67.9% of circulating variants.
"While BQ.1 and BQ.1.1. represent a small but fast-growing subset of the Omicron variant, BA.5 remains the dominant lineage in the United States," CDC spokesperson Kristen Nordlund said in a statement.
BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 also appear on track to overtake the only other strain that still outnumbers them: BA.4.6, which currently makes up 12.2% of infections.
Nordlund said the agency had not listed BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 separately in the agency's previous weekly variant reports because they "were circulating at less than 1% in the empiric data."
Out of all regions, the New York and New Jersey area has the largest proportion of BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 infections. Around 20% of infections there are already from BQ.1 or BQ.1.1, the CDC estimates.
News of the new variants' growth comes as COVID-19 metrics are still largely improving nationwide.
Only around 1% of Americans live in counties seeing "high" COVID-19 Community Levels, where the CDC urges indoor masking and other steps to curb the virus. Less than half of counties are seeing community transmission bad enough to warrant requiring universal masking in hospitals and nursing homes, under recent federal guidance.
But data from Health and Human Services Region 2, which spans New York and New Jersey, has also tracked a recent uptick in COVID-19 hospitalizations and nursing home infections.
"As much as you want to feel good about the fact that cases are down, hospitalizations are down, we don't want to declare victory too prematurely. And that's the reason why we've got to keep our eye out on these emerging variants," Fauci said.
Concerns about immunity and monoclonal antibodies
Fauci also echoed worries that the variant's mutations might evade medications like Evusheld, which is a key antibody drug used to help protect immunocompromised Americans from the virus.
"That's the reason why people are concerned about BQ.1.1, for the double reason of its doubling time and the fact that it seems to elude important monoclonal antibodies," said Fauci.
A spokesperson for AstraZeneca said they did not currently have data on how BQ.1 might impact its drug.
The FDA warned doctors earlier this month of data suggesting other variants now on the rise around the country could threaten high-risk patients who had relied on Evusheld's protection.
BQ.1 is one of a wide-ranging "soup" of new strains that scientists have been tracking, over concerns that their mutations at specific positions on the spike protein of the virus could fuel a surge.
Experts have cited the "sizable number of unique mutations" in variants like BQ.1 in speculating that it could evade immunity people have from prior infections or vaccination.
However, so far little is known about what impact these mutations might have in affecting the severity of the disease, which would require further studies in animals and humans.
Fauci said he expected the updated COVID boosters from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, which were recently expanded to children as young as 5, would be able to help curb a potential surge fueled by BQ.1.
"The bad news is that there's a new variant that's emerging and that has qualities or characteristics that could evade some of the interventions we have. But, the somewhat encouraging news is that it's a BA.5 sublineage, so there are almost certainly going to be some cross protection that you can boost up," he said.
More than 14.7 million Americans have so far gotten an updated COVID booster, which includes a component aimed at the BQ.1's parent BA.5.
That works out to around 7% of the 209 million who were initially eligible for the shots when they were first greenlighted last month.
However, after accelerating in the wake of the initial booster rollout, figures published late Thursday by the CDC show the daily pace of new COVID shots is now slowing.
The shortfall between the pace of updated boosters and the typical uptake of the annual flu vaccine by this time of year has also widened.
"That's the thing that's so frustrating for me and for my colleagues who are involved in this, is that we have the capability of mitigating against this. And the uptake of the new bivalent vaccine is not nearly as high as we would like it to be," Fauci added.