Coronavirus Tidbits #237 March 19, 2023

FDA offers radio silence on question of spring Covid boosters, as other countries push ahead

By Helen Branswell

The FDA declined a request to interview Marks for this article. In an email, the agency sidestepped most of STAT’s questions, saying only on the issue of spring boosters that “We continue to closely monitor the emerging data...

the U.K.’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation and Canada’s National Advisory Committee on Immunization have both issued recommendations that high-risk individuals should be offered the opportunity to get a Covid booster shot this spring.

In the U.K., where an astonishing 82.5% of people aged 75 and older received a bivalent booster last fall, the recommendation is that people who are 75 and older, or who live in a care home for older adults, or who are 5 years and older and are immunocompromised should be offered a spring booster, as long as it has been six months since their last shot.

Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, would go further, saying people who are 50 and older in the U.S. should be offered the chance to get a second booster. He noted that in the second half of 2022, 97.3% of people who died from Covid in this country were aged 50 and older.

U.S.: Doctors’ offices and pharmacies would not face a tsunami of people seeking a spring booster, if one were allowed. Only 16.3% of people eligible for the updated jab have received one; even among the highest-risk population, people aged 65 and older, fewer than half of those eligible — 41.6% — have gotten the shot.

With no clearance from FDA for a spring booster, ACIP is not able to recommend one.

[fwiw, I think immunocompromised or those over 65 should have the boosters freely available 6 months after their last vax. The FDA seems to be penny-wise and pound foolish on this.]

https://www.statnews.com/2023/03/16/fda-offers-radio-silence-on-question-of-spring-covid-boosters-as-other-countries-push-ahead/?

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Paxlovid update

The FDA’s Antimicrobial Drugs Advisory Committee voted Thursday to support the approval of Paxlovid for the treatment of mild-to-moderate COVID-19 in adults at high risk for severe disease, hospitalization or death.

In July 2022, the FDA expanded the EUA to allow pharmacists to prescribe the drug to qualifying people immediately after testing positive for the virus.

During Thursday’s meeting, the FDA said it is looking at widening the number of people eligible for a prescription, and recommending those prescriptions be made earlier after infection.

https://www.healio.com/news/infectious-disease/20230316/fda-committee-supports-approval-of-covid19-treatment-paxlovid-for-highrisk-adults

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Unearthed genetic sequences from China market may point to animal origin of COVID-19

Science BYJON COHEN 16 MAR 2023

A scientific sleuth in France has identified previously undisclosed genetic data from a food market in Wuhan, China, that she and colleagues say support the theory that coronavirus-infected animals there triggered the COVID-19 pandemic...

“The data does point even further to a market origin,” says Kristian Andersen, an evolutionary biologist at Scripps Research who attended the meeting and is one of the scientists analyzing the new data. If so, the findings weaken the view of a vocal minority that a virology lab in Wuhan was the likely origin of SARS-CoV-2, perhaps when the coronavirus infected a lab worker, who spread it further.

Florence Débarre, a theoretician who specializes in evolutionary biology and works at the French National Centre for Scientific Research, unearthed the data, which consists of genetic sequences posted in GISAID, a virology database, by Chinese researchers. The Chinese team had collected environmental samples from the Huanan Seafood Market, which was connected to a cluster of early COVID-19 cases and despite its name also sold a variety of mammals for food. Since Débarre spotted the sequences, GISAID has removed them, noting that this was at the request of the submitter.

Given that the mystery of SARS-CoV-2’s origin has been a matter of intense global interest and divisive debate, the data’s discovery and subsequent disappearance will certainly raise questions about why the Chinese team—which includes the former head of China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), George Gao--did not make the sequences public earlier. Contacted by Science, Gao said the sequences are “[n]othing new. It had been known there was illegal animal dealing and this is why the market was immediately shut down.”...

https://www.science.org/content/article/covid-19-origins-missing-sequences

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Did Covid-19 originate w raccoon dogs in the Wuhan food market?

A new analysis of genetic samples from China appears to link the origin of COVID-19 to raccoon dogs. (The Atlantic)

The common raccoon dog (Nyctereutes procyonoides), also called the Chinese or Asian raccoon dog to distinguish it from the Japanese raccoon dog, is a small, heavy-set, fox-like canid native to East Asia. Named for its raccoon-like face markings, it is most closely related to foxes. Common raccoon dogs feed on many animals and plant matter, and are unusual among canids (dogs, foxes, and other members of the family Canidae) for climbing trees and for hibernating in cold winters.

--Wikipedia

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Do COVID-19 vaccine mandates still make sense?

COVID-19 vaccines clearly prevent severe disease, but they worry maintaining the mandates could undermine future public health efforts. “Having to show these old vaccination proofs or certificates really doesn’t make sense, and it could cause harm, because people might lose trust in the competence of the organization,” says University of Konstanz psychologist Katrin Schmelz, whose research has found that institutional trust is crucial for health policy acceptance.

https://www.science.org/content/article/do-covid-19-vaccine-mandates-still-make-sense

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Other:

West Nile, Lyme, and other diseases are on the rise with climate change. Experts warn the U.S. is not prepared

STAT  By Sara Van Note

Even before Covid-19 arrived, the public health response to diseases transmitted to humans by vectors like fleas, ticks and mosquitoes — including West Nile, Zika, dengue fever, Lyme disease, and others — was muted, perhaps because the number of reported cases has been relatively low, and the public largely unaware of the health risks such diseases pose.

With climate change accelerating, however, shifting the ranges of many disease-carrying species and sharply increasing infections, scientists and others warn that the nation’s public officials, as well as hospitals and doctors, are underprepared for a potentially devastating surge in infections. Research on vector-borne diseases and disease surveillance, they note, are underfunded by federal and local governments, leaving the country vulnerable to outbreaks.

In the United States, cases of 17 different vector-borne diseases have been reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and nine pathogens new to the country have been identified since 2004, according to a 2020 report by the agency, which noted that the data for 2019 and 2020 might be incomplete due to underreporting during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Reported cases of vector-borne diseases more than doubled from 2004-2019, to more than 800,000 cases. But those figures are almost certainly an undercount, CDC officials said in a presentation to Congress last year.

statnews.com/2023/03/15/climate-change-diseases-west-nile-dengue-lyme/

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Tick-borne babesiosis in New England

The prevalence of babesiosis is increasing in certain states, including Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, which should now be considered to have endemic transmission, according to research published in the March 17 issue of the MMWR

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/wr/mm7211a1.htm?s_cid=mm7211a1_w

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New Bed Nets available against Malaria:

...The new nets endorsed yesterday are treated with pyrethroid and a second chemical called chlorfenapyr. It is a relatively new insecticide that targets mosquitoes’ mitochondria, inducing muscle cramps and preventing them from moving or flying.

This is the first time WHO has given its full recommendation to a new insecticide formulation.

https://www.science.org/content/article/next-generation-bed-nets-get-major-endorsement-world-health-organization

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Artificial sweetener found to dampen immune response to disease in mice

by The Francis Crick Institute   MARCH 15, 2023

Scientists at the Francis Crick Institute have found that high consumption of a common artificial sweetener, sucralose, lowers activation of T-cells, an important component of the immune system, in mice.

If found to have similar effects in humans, one day it could be used therapeutically to help dampen T-cell responses. For example, in patients with autoimmune diseases who suffer from uncontrolled T cell activation.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-03-artificial-sweetener-dampen-immune-response.html

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Nordstream blasts...stirred up toxic sediment

the blasts happened in the vicinity of a historical dumping ground for chemical warfare, including mustard and arsenic agents from the Second World War. They scrambled to work out how these chemicals might affect marine life.

The sediment thrown up by the Nord Stream 1 blast contained contaminants that breached the threshold safety level for 15 days, at depths of between 95 and 53 metres. For the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, the threshold was breached for 34 days, at depths of between 78 and 42 metres. In total, the blasts contaminated 11 cubic kilometres of seawater for more than a month. The work, which is under peer review at a journal, has been published as a preprint¹.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00746-2

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Millions of People Could Lose Medicaid Starting in April

— In 2 weeks, states will begin unwinding pandemic's continuous enrollment provisions

https://www.medpagetoday.com/publichealthpolicy/medicaid/103599?