New Coronavirus News from 27 Sep 2022

Coronavirus variant Khosta-2 could infect humans, warns scientists. Read here | Mint [Mint, 27 Sep 2022]

According to Senior Scientist of the Indian Council of Medical Research - National Institute of Virology (ICMR-NIV), Pune, Dr Pragya Yadav there are no cases of human infection from the Khosta virus, so far

The recently discovered coronavirus variant, Khosta-2, found in Russian bats, could also infect humans, a team of Health experts from US has warned.

Indian Council of Medical Research - National Institute of Virology (ICMR-NIV), Pune, Dr Pragya Yadav has however, confirmed that there have not been a single reported case of Khosta infection in humans yet.

"There are no cases of human infection with Khosta viruses have been reported yet. Seifert et al. reported that Khosta-2 could infect cells expressing human ACE2," the Senior Scientist told news agency ANI in an exclusive conversation.

"However, the probability of the Zoonotic spillover of the sarbecoviruses from animals to humans could not be denied like, it happened earlier with SARS-CoV-1 and 2 viruses," she said further.

Dr Pragya Yadav further explained to the news agency about Khosta-2 virus, "Khosta-2 virus is a SARS-like coronavirus belonging to the subgenus Sarbecovirus of the genus Betacoronavirus of the family Coronaviridae. The virus was identified in horseshoe bats from Russia."

This virus which has been reported as vaccine restraint, Dr Pragya said, "In a recent study by Seifert et al., chimeric SARS-CoV-2-based spike with the RBD from the Khosta viruses have shown resistance to neutralization with SARS-CoV-2 RBD-specific monoclonal antibody, Bamlanivimab and serum of individuals who received either the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine.

Further studies would be required to determine the effectiveness of Covid-19 vaccines against Khosta-2 virus.

"On India's preparedness to deal with the reemergence of such viral pathogens, she said, "As an apex virology institute, ICMR-National institute of Virology along with the wide network of Virus Research and Diagnostic Laboratories (VRDLs) will be able to handle public health emergency situation related to the emergence or reemergence of any viral pathogen in India. We have already exhibited this strength in past as during the times of Zika, Nipah, and Monkeypox viruses, and the COVID-19 pandemic."

It is to be noted that both Khosta-2 and SARS- CoV-2 belong to the same sub-category of coronaviruses known as sarbecoviruses. Like Covid-19 virus, Khosta-2 also uses the spike protein to enter and infect the human cells.

World Bank slashes economic outlook for Asia over China slowdown [Al Jazeera English, 27 Sep 2022]

The Washington-based lender expects the region to grow 3.2 percent in 2022, down from a 5 percent forecast in April.

The World Bank has slashed its economic outlook for the Asia-Pacific, pointing to China’s ultra-strict “zero-COVID” policy as a drag on regional growth.

The region’s economies are expected to grow 3.2 percent in 2022, down from a 5 percent forecast in April, as China’s lockdowns continue to disrupt factories and dampen spending, the Washington-based financial institution said on Tuesday.

China, the world’s second-largest economy, is projected to grow 2.8 percent this year, according to the bank, and 4.5 percent in 2023.

The lender previously predicted China would grow 5 percent in 2022.

The bank is the latest financial institution to cut its growth forecast for Asian economies after the Asian Development Bank (ADB) last week lowered its growth outlook for the region’s developing economies for 2022 from 5.2 percent to 4.3 percent.

Despite the rest of the world’s moves towards living with the coronavirus, China has stuck to a zero-tolerance strategy aimed at stamping out the coronavirus at almost any cost.

China’s economy barely avoided contraction in the second quarter, with gross domestic product (GDP) expanding just 0.4 percent on year during the April-June period.

The World Bank also pointed to aggressive interest rate hikes by central banks trying to curtail soaring inflation as a risk to the region’s growth.

“As they prepare for slowing global growth, countries should address domestic policy distortions that are an impediment to longer term development,” World Bank East Asia and Pacific Vice President Manuela Ferro in a statement.

Michigan adds 14,678 COVID cases, 160 new deaths [MLive.com, 27 Sep 2022]

By Justin P. Hicks and Scott Levin

Michigan identified another 14,678 new COVID-19 cases and 160 new deaths last week, according to the state’s weekly coronavirus update.

The new confirmed and probable cases added to the total Tuesday, Sept. 27, brought the seven-day average from 1,849 cases per day last week down to 1,615, according to data from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. It’s the lowest average since early July.

Meanwhile, the seven-day average for COVID deaths climbed from 17 per day to 18 during that time.

Michigan’s coronavirus environment has held fairly consistent throughout the summer, with weekly reporting seeing ebbs and flows. Case counts are expected to be undercounts due to the rise in at-home testing, but health officials say case counts are still useful in addition to wastewater surveillance and tracking hospitalizations, test positivity and deaths.

The health department has included both probable and confirmed cases in its totals since the spring. A case is confirmed only when there is a positive PCR test. Cases are classified as “probable” when there was no such test but a doctor and/or an antigen test labeled them COVID.

In total, there have been more than 2.8 million confirmed and probable cases, and 38,624 confirmed and probable deaths since the start of the pandemic in Michigan. Of them, 2,451,012 cases and 35,220 deaths are confirmed. About 385,155 cases and 3,404 deaths are probable.

Below is a chart that indicates the seven-day average for new cases reported per day throughout the pandemic. (Can’t see the chart?

Cases by counties
All of Michigan’s 83 counties reported new cases last week.

The following 10 counties have seen the most new, confirmed cases per 100,000 people in the last seven days: Wayne (159), Eaton (157), Ogemaw (149), Schoolcraft (149), Macomb (146), Gogebic (139), Kalamazoo (138), Oakland (133), St. Clair (127), and Washtenaw (123).

Without adjusting for population, these 10 counties have seen the greatest number of new cases over the last week: Wayne (2,848), Oakland (1,690), Macomb (1,286), Kent (496), Washtenaw (456), Kalamazoo (361), Genesee (320), Ingham (307), St. Clair (203) and Saginaw (202).

The arrows and colors on the map below show per-capita cases compared to the previous week in Michigan’s 83 counties. Hover over or tap on a county to see the underlying data.
(Hint: Drag the map with your cursor to see the entire Upper Peninsula.)

The chart below shows new cases for the past 30 days by county based on onset of symptoms. In this chart, numbers for the most recent days are incomplete because of the lag time between people getting sick and getting a confirmed coronavirus test result, which can take up to a week or more.

You can call up a chart for any county, and you can put your cursor over or tap on a bar to see the date and number of cases.

Hospitalization
COVID hospitalizations kept relatively close over the last few weeks.

As of Monday, Sept. 26, there were 1,058 adult and 33 pediatric patients with confirmed or suspected cases of COVID across Michigan’s health systems. That’s compared to 1,134 adult and 40 pediatric patients a week ago.

Deaths
Thirty-eight counties reported at least one new death in the last seven days, led by Wayne with 28. Other leading counties included Oakland with 20, Macomb with 10, Kent with seven, Saginaw with six, St. Clair nd Calhoun with five each, Genesee with four, and Washtenaw and Kalamazoo counties with three each.

Below is a chart that tracks the state’s seven-day average for reported COVID-19 deaths per day over the course of the pandemic. (These are based on the date reported, not necessarily on the date of death.)

Testing
On Monday, 15.1% of the more than 13,400 tests came back positive.

Over the last week, the state’s positivity rate dropped to 14.8%, which is the lowest point in months. A week ago it was 16.3% and two weeks ago it was 18.2%.

Below is a chart of daily test positivity rates for Michigan throughout the pandemic. The data is based on confirmatory testing for SARS-CoV-2.

The interactive map below shows the seven-day average testing rate by county. You can put your cursor over a county to see the underlying data.

COVID-19 vaccinations
There’s been very little change in Michigan’s vaccination efforts in recent weeks. As of Wednesday, Sept. 14, about 63.4% of residents had received at least one COVID-19 vaccine shot, according to Michigan health department data. That’s up less than 0.1% from three weeks ago.

About 58.4% of Michiganders of all ages have completed their initial series, and 36.1% of individuals 5 and older have received a booster dose.

At least 36,481 children ages 6 months to 4 years old have gotten their first dose since mid-June, while about 24,309 of those kids have since gotten their second dose and about 1,781 have gotten their third dose.

Below is a chart that shows vaccination rates by county for people 5 and older.

To find a testing site near you, check out the state’s online test find send an email to [e-mail], or call 888-535-6136 between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. on weekdays.

Rising Covid-19 cases in the UK may be a warning for the US [CNN, 27 Sep 2022]

By Brenda Goodman

CNN — There are signs that the United Kingdom could be heading into a fall Covid-19 wave, and experts say the United States may not be far behind.

A recent increase in Covid-19 cases in England doesn’t seem to be driven by a new coronavirus variant, at least for now, although several are gaining strength in the US and across the pond.

“Generally, what happens in the UK is reflected about a month later in the US. I think this is what I’ve sort of been seeing,” said Dr. Tim Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology at Kings College London.

Spector runs the Zoe Health Study, which uses an app to let people in the UK and US report their daily symptoms. If they start to feel bad, they take a home Covid-19 test and record those results. He says that about 500,000 people are currently logging their symptoms every day to help track trends in the pandemic.

Spector says the study, which has been running since the days of the first lockdown in England in 2020, has accurately captured the start of each wave, and its numbers run about one to two weeks ahead of official government statistics.

After seeing a downward trend for the past few weeks, the Zoe study saw a 30% increase in reported Covid-19 cases within the past week.

“Our current data is definitely showing this is the beginning of the next wave,” Spector said.
On Friday, that increase was reflected in official UK government data too, although it was not as large as the increases reported by Zoe loggers.


Data from the National Health Service showed that after falling for nearly two months, the seven-day average of new cases in England and Wales rose 13% for the week ending September 17 over the week before. The seven-day average of hospitalizations was up 17% in the week ending September 19 compared with the week prior.

The data aligns with what models have predicted would happen in both the UK and the US.
“They predicted that we’d get a June to July peak and then there’d be a month where nothing happened in August and then it would flatten in in August and September and then start again in October. So it’s exactly matching what the modelers have have been predicting,” Spector said.

In the US, some models have predicted that Covid-19 cases will begin to rise again in October and continue to increase into the winter. Experts are hopeful that because most of the population now has some underlying immunity to the coronavirus, this wave would be less deadly than we’ve seen in previous winters.

Is this a blip or a wave?

It’s not clear what’s driving the increase in the UK or whether it will be sustained.

“These trends may continue for more than a week or two, or they may not,” said Kevin McConway, emeritus professor of applied statistics at the Open University in Milton Keynes, England.

Broken down by age, he says, there are clear increases among adolescents who are around middle school age and younger adults, those 25 through 34.

“It wouldn’t be surprising if there were some increase in infection as people come back from summer holidays and as the schools reopen,” McConway said in a statement to the nonprofit Science Media Centre. “Even if it is, there’s certainly no clear indication yet that it will continue.”


He’s not the only one who needs to see more data before calling this the start of a new wave.

“Question one is, how significant is that rise? Is it, for instance, the beginning of something, a new wave, or is this a temporary blip because of all of the getting together around the Queen’s funeral and other events that have been going on?” said Dr. Peter Hotez, who co-directs the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston.

A second important question will be whether the increase is being driven by a new variant.
“That’s the worst possible situation. Because historically, when that situation occurs in the UK, it’s reflected within a matter of weeks in the United States,” Hotez said. “That was true of the Alpha wave; that was true of the Delta wave; that was true of Omicron and its subvariants.”

The role of new variants
That’s where the US may catch a break this time around.

Instead of new variants, Christina Pagel, a professor of operational research at University College London, thinks cases are going up in the UK because of a combination of waning immunity and behavioral changes.


Many people in the UK are several months past their last Covid-19 booster or infection, and government statistics show that just 8% of adults 50 and older have gotten an Omicron-specific vaccine since the government started its fall vaccination campaign in September.
School and work have fully resumed after the summer holidays, and people are spending more time indoors as the temperature drops.

Immunity is also waning in the United States, and Americans have also been slow to get boosted. Just 35% of those for whom a booster is recommended have had one, according to CDC data.

The updated boosters in the US are slightly different from the ones in the UK. The UK is using vaccines that have been updated to fight the original version of Omicron, which is not circulating anymore. US boosters have been updated to fight the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants, which are currently causing infections both here and abroad. It’s not clear whether the strain differences will have an effect on cases or disease severity.

There are a mix of new variants – offshoots of BA.4 and BA.5 – that are waiting in the wings. They represent just a small proportion of total cases, but several are growing against BA.5, which is still dominating transmission.

“It is very likely that these will accelerate current increases and cause a substantial wave in October” in the UK, Pagel said in an email to CNN.

Other experts agree with that assessment.

“There is talk about a bunch of lineages with concerning mutations, including BA.2.75, BQ.1.1, etc, but none of these are of high enough frequency in the UK right now to be driving the change in cases,” Nathan Grubaugh, who studies the epidemiology of microbial diseases at the Yale School of Public Health, said in an email to CNN.

He says the mix of variants in the UK seems to be much the same as it is in the US, at least for now.

“We are seeing the increase in many respiratory viruses right now in the US, so it’s not a stretch to think that a new COVID wave (or ripple) will be coming soon,” he wrote.