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Coronavirus: OFFICIAL Updates/ Health Info/Travel Info

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georgiapeach:
Not Covid but getting a lot of concern over this:

Could possibly affect our next TAR runs...


https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/monkeypox

https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/our-work/publications/monkeypox

https://www.cdc.gov/poxvirus/monkeypox/index.html

theschnauzers:
It’s confusing as infection rates slowly rise literally in every state due to the various Omicron sub variants. These sub variants are more infectious but less likely to result in hospitalizations or deaths. Large indoor and possibly outdoor settings seem to be the likely factor in transmission. (Various political and entertainment figures have been testing positive, but news reports aren’t being specific as to which variant or sub variants. Two finalists on the current season of American Idol tested positive in the same week, after the then remaining contestants filmed segments at Disneyland. One contestant had to perform live remotely from his hotel room, while prerecorded rehearsals were used for the other contestant. Both recovered within a week, and completed the following week.(One of the contestants is one of the Final Three, and recorded a hometown visit and performance for the finale Sunday.

theschnauzers:
On the monkeypox situation, the disease is frequent in some areas of Africa. What’s unusual about this outbreak is that it’s being detected inEurope and North America.

theschnauzers:
The latest on the Omicron subvariants, the lack of effective vaccines and the greater transmissibility of the sub-variants:

https://www.axios.com/2022/06/01/coronavirus-vaccine-omicron-variants

Omicron is outrunning the vaccines designed to fight it
.
Efforts to update COVID vaccines can't seem to keep up with changes in the virus itself.

State of play: New variants appear to be even more immune-resistant than the original Omicron strain, raising the possibility that even retooled vaccines could be outdated by the time they become available this fall.

Driving the news: Preliminary data suggests that the most recent Omicron subvariants are significantly different from the original version that began spreading late last year.

One preprint released last week found that BA.4 and BA.5, which originated in South Africa, are substantially more resistant to antibodies — compared to an earlier strain, and also to the one that's dominant in the U.S. right now — and thus more likely to lead to breakthrough infections.
Other preliminary research has found that the latest subvariants are more pathogenic and can potentially evade even the immune protection that comes from a previous Omicron infection.
The big picture: Clinical trials are underway to study tweaked versions of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, and the FDA has said it will decide this summer whether to recommend these updated versions for use later this year.

A leading option is to target multiple variants, including Omicron, with the same vaccine. But the Omicron version that's around in a few months may be significantly different than the strain the vaccine was designed to target.
Between the lines: Although the vaccine manufacturers have said they can quickly adapt to produce new vaccine versions, collecting data on those vaccines' effectiveness through real-world clinical trials takes time.

"It takes six months for the omicron BA.1 vaccines to be properly tested and then longer to produce them. That's inevitable," Cornell virologist John Moore said.
What they're saying: "It's unclear what the mix will be in the vaccine that's used in the fall, but there's a very good chance that it'll be against the original Omicron," said Celine Gounder, an infectious disease specialist and KHN editor-at-large.

"But it's really unclear that it's going to be much of an improvement versus the original vaccine when BA.4 and BA.5 are so significantly different than the original Omicron."
"It's pretty challenging. We're very much behind the virus given the speed at which it's moving," Gounder added.
Yes, but: The jury is still out as to whether an Omicron-specific vaccine has significant benefits compared to the original version in the first place.

"I'm not convinced they are going to be a meaningful upgrade anyway," said Moore, who also thinks the two latest subvariants "are not game changers."
Three doses of the existing vaccines are still very good at preventing severe disease and death, despite the drop in effectiveness against infection.
The bottom line: Keeping up with a virus that is evolving this quickly is inherently in tension with collecting the data traditionally required to make big regulatory decisions.

In this case, the implications are likely relatively minor. But if a more dangerous variant that requires new vaccines emerges, the current situation suggests that very tough choices will have to be made.

theschnauzers:
More on the rapid changes about the various Omicron sub variants from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (via Deadline.com):

https://deadline.com/2022/05/omicron-ba-4-ba-5-variants-increase-1235035960/

“Battle Of Omicron” Being Won By New BA.4 And BA.5 Variants As Overlapping Covid Waves Hit U.S.

Estimates released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention today indicate that the share of cases tied to Omicron variants BA.4 and BA.5 increased 79% in the past week. That means, even as the more transmissible BA.2.12.1 Omicron subvariant became officially dominant in the U.S. last week, it’s already being pushed out by newcomers BA.4 and BA.5. The result would seem to be overlapping waves of Omicron.

While BA.2.12.1 gained an advantage by being more transmissible than BA.2 before it, the two newer variants are said to be making inroads at least in part because of their abilities to reinfect.

We now report findings from a systematic antigenic analysis of these surging Omicron subvariants,” says a recent paper published to the BioRxiv preprint server. “BA.2.12.1 is only modestly (1.8-fold) more resistant to sera from vaccinated and boosted individuals than BA.2. On the other hand, BA.4/5 is substantially (4.2-fold) more resistant and thus more likely to lead to vaccine breakthrough infections.”
If true, that means the new variants have a much larger population that they can potentially access via breakthrough infections, where previous variants like BA.2.12.1 produced far fewer breakthrough infections.

The result has been what epidemiologist and biostatistician Dr. Katelyn Jetelina — who blogs under the moniker Your Local Epidemiologist — calls the “battle of Omicron.”

“After our first massive BA.1 wave,” Dr. Jetelina wrote today in her email newsletter, “BA.2 tried to take hold only to be overtaken by BA.2.12.1. Now, BA.4 and BA.5 are gaining traction very quickly and seem to be easily outcompeting the rest. Given recent lab studies, though, this isn’t a surprise. BA.4/5 are particularly good at escaping antibodies and reinfecting people previously infected with Omicron, as well as boosted individuals.”

The CDC data released today show BA.4 and BA.5, which are folded into the B.1.1.529 designation but likely make up the vast majority of the new cases in that grouping, still with a modest 6.1% share of new cases analyzed at the end of last week. Compare that to 59% for BA.2.12.1 and 6.1% doesn’t seem like much, but the fact that BA.4 and BA.5 are making inroads at all is remarkable.

Even as BA.2.12.1 continues to expand, the new South African variants are slowing its spread. While BA.2.12.1 accounts for 59% of variants identified, that’s only up from 52% last week, a roughly 7% increase overall. As previously mentioned, BA.4 and BA.5 increased 79%, from 3.4% to 6.1%.

Like BA.2.12.1 before them, the new Omicron strains have taken root more rapidly some parts of the U.S. than others. While BA.2.12.1 spread quickly first the Northeast, it’s now the Midwest — specifically Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and Missouri — that are feeling the brunt of BA.4 and BA.5.

While the national share of cases attributed those variants is 6.1% this week, in that four-state region it’s 12.4%. The area seeing the smallest share of the new strains is the region of the Northeast that’s been hit hardest by BA.2.12.1: New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

the majority of cases in the U.S., we should expect another (or extended) case surge,” wrote Dr. Jetelina this week. So as the BA.2.12.1 wave seems to be cresting, with a 7-day national average 106,000 new cases on May 21 per the CDC and hospitalizations potentially peaking this week, a new wave is building right behind it, which likely means a much higher trough after BA.2.12.1 and a rise from there.

BA.4 was first identified on January 10, 2022 in cases sequenced in South Africa, per Outbreak.info. That country was likewise the first to identify BA.5 on February 26. It took some time for the new variants to take hold, with daily recorded cases in South Africa averaging about 12,000 through early April.

BA.2 — including BA.2.12.1 — accounted for nearly all of South Africa’s daily cases at the end of February. By the end of April, however, BA.4 and BA.5 were found in 90% of all positive test samples analyzed in that nation. Of those, 70% were BA.4 and 22% were BA.5, according to CovSpectrum.org which sources data from GSAID.

In Europe, the South African variants have hit Portugal hard. They were first detected in that nation the week of April 3. In the roughly eight weeks since then, BA.5 has come to account for 87% of new cases, the country’s National Institute of Health reported today.

Why BA.4 came to dominate in South Africa and BA.5 took over in Portugal is still an open question. For an overview of how each of those variants have fared in different countries, click here.

In the U.S., it’s hard to tell which will win out. It’s still early days and many variant trackers do not break them out separately. In fact, as lab testing becomes less prevalent and local surveillance budgets are cut, it’s increasingly difficult to detect new strains.

California, for instance, doesn’t even separate the newer Omicron variants from the older ones. Instead, its reporting page lumps them all in together under the heading “Omicron,” and that category has completely dominated the chart since January 20, offering little new data. But there are some hints.

The the California Department of Public Health confirmed to the Los Angeles Times that one case of BA.4 was identified in March and one case of BA.5 was documented in April.

When contacted by Deadline last week, California’s public health department said in a statement, “CDPH is not currently producing internal growth or variant proportion estimates for BA.4 or BA.5 due to their relative rarity at the moment and the high number of circulating subvariants in competition with BA.4 and BA.5.”

The statement went on, “Per CDPH data, B.1.1.529 (as categorized by CDC Nowcast to include BA.1, BA.3, BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants) make up 1.5% of circulating variants in CA in the month of May.”

But the CDC data reported today puts the share of those variants in the category “B.1.1.529” at 6.6% (see map above). While still proportionally small as a share of the whole, the category is up an eye-popping 440%.

News reports have BA.4 and BA.5 showing up around the state in the Bay Area last week. A cluster of potential cases was also identified recently in Yolo County, near Sacramento. Los Angeles Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said earlier this month that they had been identified in L.A., as well. So while the state doesn’t have the data on these variants, local health officials do have some visibility into their spread, and the evidence seems to point to increasingly rapid, overlapping waves of new variants.

As Ferrer said on Tuesday, “Within weeks of one variant of concern dominating, there are reports from other parts of the country or other parts of the world of other either subtypes or different strains, and this has been especially true with Omicron.”

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