COVID-19 Is Not Over: The World in the Wake of the BA.2 Wave
The Pandemic Continues: BA.2 Is Overwhelming Much of Europe and Growing to Dominate in the US, and There Are New Variants XD, XE, and XF
BA.2 is dominant but 3 additional composites are growing. XD and XF are Delta and BA.1 combinations, while XE is a BA.1 and BA.2 combination and has 3 mutations not in standard BA.1 or BA.2. XF and XE are found in the UK, and XD (which also contains a unique mutation) is mainly in France. The continued evolution of the virus comes as many countries are reducing mitigation measures and not protecting people from being infected, with its acute disease and Long Covid consequences. The growth of BA.2 is further along in Western Europe than in Eastern Europe and the US. Multiple states in the US are beginning to see accelerating growth of cases due to BA.2 as we enter the 3rd year of the pandemic.
Guidance
Guidelines and resources for COVID-19 mitigation – (WHN + CAG)
Meet with others safely via COVID Meetups! – (WHN + CAG)
Resources
OMICRON / Variant / COVID Consequences
With fast evolution due to widespread transmission, the properties of future SARS-CoV-2 variants may well include increased severity, transmissibility, and immune evasion (Nature)
Staggeringly high prevalence of long COVID in youth (MedRxiv)
Fetal lung volume was significantly reduced in pregnant women who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 (The Lancet)
Elevated risk of diabetes 12 months after acute phase of COVID (The Lancet)
Covid infects immune T-cells causing cell death (apoptosis), likely driving immunodeficiency (Nature signal transduction and targeted therapy)
COVID-19 infection associated with brain damage regardless of symptom severity (Nature)
Ivermectin confers no benefit in the treatment of COVID-19 according to largest trial to date (NEJM)
POLICY
Despite its notoriety in the west, the “Zero Covid” approach was effective, and can be again (The Guardian)
A cautionary tale: inequity, misinformation, premature underestimation of the long-term risks of COVID-19, and abandoning public policy response are not mistakes we can afford to repeat. (BMJ)
Stay-at-home lockdown to continue in Shangai (SHINE)
A detailed critical peek into Sweden’s approach to the pandemic (Nature)
The white house launches a one-stop shop website for their support of Masks, Tests, Vaccines and Treatments for COVID-19 (covid.gov)
Moderna to seek EUA for vaccines in children under 6 years of age (NPR)
The Government approves a second booster for adults over the age of 50 (WBUR)
ECONOMY
Is it time to consider an investment in elimination? Living with the virus is not a tractable strategy for businesses (Market Watch)
SCIENCE
Omicron demonstrates enhanced stability on some surfaces relative to prior variants (Preprint)
Limitations of existing vaccines and the need to reconsider vaccine design and constraints on efficacy in light of emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants (Preprint)
Acute disease severity, self-reported cognitive deficits, and ongoing neurological symptoms predict memory deficits and cognitive performance in a community sample with a history of COVID-19: results of the COVID and cognition study, part II (Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience)
Moderna and Pfizer vaccines elicit only subtle differences in immune response, so there is no conclusion about what differences might arise from their protective immunity (Science)
In Community,
-The WHN