New Coronavirus News from 10 Apr 2022

China labels U.S. concerns over COVID regulations 'groundless accusations' [Reuters.com, 10 Apr 2022]

SHANGHAI, April 10 (Reuters) - China's foreign ministry expressed "strong dissatisfaction" with the United States late on Saturday after it raised concerns over China's coronavirus control measures.

The U.S. State Department said on Friday that non-emergency staff at its Shanghai consulate and families of U.S. employees could leave due to a surge in COVID cases and coronavirus restrictions in the city.

"We express strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to the groundless accusations against China's pandemic prevention policy from the U.S. in its statement, and have lodged solemn representations," foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said in a statement.

Shanghai is fighting China's worst COVID-19 outbreak since the virus first emerged in Wuhan in late 2019, with almost 25,000 new local cases reported on Sunday for the previous day.

While those case numbers are small by global standards, Shanghai's curbs to battle the outbreak have squeezed supplies of food and other essential goods for the city of 26 million, with residents also raising concerns about access to medical care.

The most controversial of Shanghai's practices had been separating COVID-positive children from their parents. Authorities have since made some concessions.

"Ambassador (Nicholas) Burns and other Department and Mission officials have raised our concerns regarding the outbreak and the PRC's control measures directly with PRC officials," a U.S. Embassy spokesperson said in a statement on Saturday, referring to the People's Republic of China.

"We have informed them about the voluntary departure decision," the statement said.

Friday's advisory said that U.S. citizens should reconsider travel to China "due to arbitrary enforcement of local laws and COVID-19 restrictions."

The advisory also warned Americans from travelling to Hong Kong, Jilin province or Shanghai, citing a risk of parents and children being separated.

China's foreign ministry said on Saturday that China's pandemic prevention and control is "scientific and effective", adding that the government had assisted foreign diplomatic personnel as much as possible.

Diplomats from more than 30 countries recently wrote to China's foreign ministry to express concern with the separations.

China reports 1351 new confirmed COVID cases on April 9 vs 1350 a day earlier [Reuters.com, 10 Apr 2022]

BEIJING, April 10 (Reuters) - China reported 1,351 new confirmed coronavirus cases on April 9, the national health authority said, compared with 1,350 the day before.

Of the new cases, 1,318 were locally transmitted, the National Health Commission said, compared with 1,334 on April 8.

The number of new asymptomatic cases, which China counts separately, stood at 25,111, compared with 23,815 a day earlier.

There were no new deaths, the commission said in data released on Sunday, leaving the death toll in China unchanged at 4,638.

As of April 9, mainland China had confirmed 164,393 cases.

Why China Sticks With Costly Lockdowns and 'Zero COVID' [Newsweek, 10 Apr 2022]

BY JOHN FENG

A s the occupants of a high-rise apartment block in western Shanghai sang from their windows in the third week of China's harshest COVID lockdown since the beginning of the pandemic, a small drone carrying a loudspeaker sought to quell their benign protest with a dystopian message: "Dear residents ... Please strictly comply with the municipal government's epidemic prevention regulations. Control your soul's desire for freedom and refrain from opening your windows to sing. This behavior carries a risk of transmission."

Like many countries in the West, the United States has done away with most rules surrounding public health. Some argue the measures were never restrictive enough to be begin with.
America's nearly 1 million COVID-19 deaths are now the go-to gibe in Beijing whenever Washington mentions the condition of human rights in China, where the death toll remains at a little more than 4,600.

With nearly 90 percent of China's population fully vaccinated, many observers outside the country—and some within—are wondering why policymakers still refuse to abandon their "zero-COVID" approach, despite fears that the strategy is becoming untenable.

In Shanghai, the eastern port city of 25 million, there was a sign of Beijing's lingering anxieties when Sun Chunlan, vice premier, arrived over the weekend. In spring 2020, Sun was dispatched to Wuhan, and wasn't recalled from central China until after the city had ended its lockdown. Her appearance in China's financial capital came on the back of a month of record daily cases, which continue to rise due to the Omicron BA.2 variant, in what has quickly become the country's most alarming outbreak in its most populous city.

The megacity has been at a standstill since late March. Citywide testing is underway, and exhibition centers are being converted into centralized quarantine facilities in moves that evoked scenes from Wuhan, which was abruptly shut down in order to stem a disease whose lethality wasn't fully known. But in Shanghai, where residents found themselves confined to their homes, workplaces and, in one case, even a public toilet as part of the sweeping clampdown on the virus, the recent surge has so far produced one severe case and no deaths, according to official data, despite a buildup of more than 100,000 mostly asymptomatic cases in the new epicenter.

Upon arrival, however, Sun—the only woman on the Chinese Communist Party's powerful 25-member Politburo—dashed any idea the leadership might change tack from what it calls "dynamic zero COVID"; on the contrary, Beijing is doubling down.

Sun ordered local health officials to "act quickly and forcefully" to stop the spread of the virus, stressing "unswerving adherence" to China's zero-tolerance approach by mandating lockdowns, centralized quarantine and mass testing. Tens of thousands of beds will be made available to isolate patients, and the military has been called in to assist.

Sun has put the city on a war footing not seen since workers erected emergency field hospitals in Wuhan, operations she was tasked with overseeing.

A Costly Trade-Off
Shanghai's chaotic response to the crisis suggests local leaders were woefully unprepared to impose such stringent measures.

Last month residential neighborhoods where positive cases were found were sealed off, and officials took a stepped approach to containment to protect the economy. The municipal government drew up plans for a two-stage snap lockdown that would split the city in two by the Huangpu River. But on March 27, an indefinite COVID shutdown was extended citywide, catching many residents and officials off guard.

This job is not a job—it's costing me my life. Sun Chunlan is here. I hope she has good policies.

Shanghai neighborhood official
Decision-makers were well aware of the economic impact of a full lockdown of Shanghai, a financial hub home to vehicle and electronics plants as well as semiconductor suppliers, and the world's busiest shipping port. The day before the announcement, Wu Fan, a member of the city's pandemic response team, told reporters: "If Shanghai, this city of ours, came to a complete halt, there would be many international cargo ships floating in the East China Sea," he said. "This would impact the entire national economy and the global economy." This week, French investment bank Natixis slashed China's 5.5 percent GDP growth targeted by 1.8 percentage points for the first quarter.

Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, describes Shanghai's COVID policy U-turn as a "strange twist."

Each locality is held accountable for disease control, failing which Beijing can use its "central playbook," he says. "For the supporters of that policy, it's not just politically justifiable, it also makes sense from a public health perspective, especially when they foresee a worst-case scenario."

According to some projections, abandoning the zero-COVID strategy could overwhelm China's healthcare system and lead to more than 1 million deaths. "But the question here is to what extent the worst-case scenario is likely. I think many of the policymakers, those who believe the zero-COVID approach, overestimate the likelihood," he says.

Huang notes factors including China's high vaccination rate and epidemiological data from Shanghai and Hong Kong that show Chinese-made inactivated vaccines can significantly reduce the risk of severe cases and death.

"In my opinion, there is a better, more cost-effective approach that may not be able to avoid the surge of cases when opened up, but it can minimize the damage by minimizing the number of fatalities and severe cases; by, more importantly, avoiding disruption to society and the economy," he says.

It would call for boosting the country's public health surge capacity, educating the public about the risks of the virus, effective triage procedures, and aggressively vaccinating the elderly.
"This would represent a more viable alternative to the zero-COVID strategy," says Huang, who is also a professor at Seton Hall University.

As the occupants of a high-rise apartment block in western Shanghai sang from their windows in the third week of China's harshest COVID lockdown since the beginning of the pandemic, a small drone carrying a loudspeaker sought to quell their benign protest with a dystopian message: "Dear residents ... Please strictly comply with the municipal government's epidemic prevention regulations. Control your soul's desire for freedom and refrain from opening your windows to sing. This behavior carries a risk of transmission."

Like many countries in the West, the United States has done away with most rules surrounding public health. Some argue the measures were never restrictive enough to be begin with. America's nearly 1 million COVID-19 deaths are now the go-to gibe in Beijing whenever Washington mentions the condition of human rights in China, where the death toll remains at a little more than 4,600.

With nearly 90 percent of China's population fully vaccinated, many observers outside the country—and some within—are wondering why policymakers still refuse to abandon their "zero-COVID" approach, despite fears that the strategy is becoming untenable.

In Shanghai, the eastern port city of 25 million, there was a sign of Beijing's lingering anxieties when Sun Chunlan, vice premier, arrived over the weekend. In spring 2020, Sun was dispatched to Wuhan, and wasn't recalled from central China until after the city had ended its lockdown.
Her appearance in China's financial capital came on the back of a month of record daily cases, which continue to rise due to the Omicron BA.2 variant, in what has quickly become the country's most alarming outbreak in its most populous city.

The megacity has been at a standstill since late March. Citywide testing is underway, and exhibition centers are being converted into centralized quarantine facilities in moves that evoked scenes from Wuhan, which was abruptly shut down in order to stem a disease whose lethality wasn't fully known. But in Shanghai, where residents found themselves confined to their homes, workplaces and, in one case, even a public toilet as part of the sweeping clampdown on the virus, the recent surge has so far produced one severe case and no deaths, according to official data, despite a buildup of more than 100,000 mostly asymptomatic cases in the new epicenter.

Upon arrival, however, Sun—the only woman on the Chinese Communist Party's powerful 25-member Politburo—dashed any idea the leadership might change tack from what it calls "dynamic zero COVID"; on the contrary, Beijing is doubling down.

Sun ordered local health officials to "act quickly and forcefully" to stop the spread of the virus, stressing "unswerving adherence" to China's zero-tolerance approach by mandating lockdowns, centralized quarantine and mass testing. Tens of thousands of beds will be made available to isolate patients, and the military has been called in to assist.

Sun has put the city on a war footing not seen since workers erected emergency field hospitals in Wuhan, operations she was tasked with overseeing.

A Costly Trade-Off
Shanghai's chaotic response to the crisis suggests local leaders were woefully unprepared to impose such stringent measures.

Last month residential neighborhoods where positive cases were found were sealed off, and officials took a stepped approach to containment to protect the economy. The municipal government drew up plans for a two-stage snap lockdown that would split the city in two by the Huangpu River. But on March 27, an indefinite COVID shutdown was extended citywide, catching many residents and officials off guard.

“This job is not a job—it's costing me my life. Sun Chunlan is here. I hope she has good policies.”

Shanghai neighborhood official
Decision-makers were well aware of the economic impact of a full lockdown of Shanghai, a financial hub home to vehicle and electronics plants as well as semiconductor suppliers, and the world's busiest shipping port. The day before the announcement, Wu Fan, a member of the city's pandemic response team, told reporters: "If Shanghai, this city of ours, came to a complete halt, there would be many international cargo ships floating in the East China Sea," he said. "This would impact the entire national economy and the global economy." This week, French investment bank Natixis slashed China's 5.5 percent GDP growth targeted by 1.8 percentage points for the first quarter.

Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, describes Shanghai's COVID policy U-turn as a "strange twist."

Each locality is held accountable for disease control, failing which Beijing can use its "central playbook," he says. "For the supporters of that policy, it's not just politically justifiable, it also makes sense from a public health perspective, especially when they foresee a worst-case scenario."

According to some projections, abandoning the zero-COVID strategy could overwhelm China's healthcare system and lead to more than 1 million deaths. "But the question here is to what extent the worst-case scenario is likely. I think many of the policymakers, those who believe the zero-COVID approach, overestimate the likelihood," he says.

Huang notes factors including China's high vaccination rate and epidemiological data from Shanghai and Hong Kong that show Chinese-made inactivated vaccines can significantly reduce the risk of severe cases and death.

"In my opinion, there is a better, more cost-effective approach that may not be able to avoid the surge of cases when opened up, but it can minimize the damage by minimizing the number of fatalities and severe cases; by, more importantly, avoiding disruption to society and the economy," he says.

It would call for boosting the country's public health surge capacity, educating the public about the risks of the virus, effective triage procedures, and aggressively vaccinating the elderly. "This would represent a more viable alternative to the zero-COVID strategy," says Huang, who is also a professor at Seton Hall University.

Hints of Unrest
The social impact of the governments's decision was felt in days.

China's social media platforms are awash with videos of residents protesting about a lack of daily necessities including food, water and other forms of welfare support. Images emerged of standoffs between citizens and police, and instances of micro-level cruelty against people and animals, performed in the name of upholding the law. One grim example saw a worker in a hazmat suit beat a corgi dog to death with a shovel, after its owner had been taken into quarantine, according to one social media account. The inspector was apparently concerned that the pet could inadvertently spread the virus.

This debate on zero COVID or coexistence with the virus is no longer just a debate between which method works better. It's characterized now as a competition between two political systems, even two civilizations.

Yanzhong Huang, Council on Foreign Relations
In another case of helplessness, a mother in Shanghai complained of inadequate social distancing enforcement in a phone call with her neighborhood health official, only to be met with surprising frankness from the woman on the other end of the line. In a recording of the nine-minute conversation, the sobbing official said her supervisors weren't taking her calls, and that she'd rather be isolating at home too, instead of dealing with irate residents who were likely carrying COVID. "This job is not a job—it's costing me my life," she cries. "Sun Chunlan is here. I hope she has good policies."

The inhabitants of Shanghai have become the living embodiment of the Chinese proverb "the crying child gets the milk"; however, it's hard to say whether social grievances will lead to a meaningful change in the government's approach.

Politics Lead the Way
It may be that fewer and fewer experts see the practical merits of continuing a similar policy in any country at this point in the pandemic.

But inside Zhongnanhai, zero COVID emerges from a specific assessment about continued socio-political stability in 2022, a year in which China's President Xi Jinping is expected to tout his political achievements as reasons to be re-elected at the CCP's 20th National Congress this autumn. Accordingly, party ideology is part of the approach to public health.

In an April 6 letter from the CCP's Shanghai Committee, members were told to bravely "draw swords and fight" against actions that interfere with or undermine the anti-epidemic battle.

"Those who step forward in critical moments and risk everything in times of crisis are real Communists," it read.

The Chinese public doesn't directly vote its national leaders into power, but the legitimacy of the leadership matters. There's no question that China's successful containment of COVID compared to the West has won Xi overwhelming support at home.

April 8 marks the second anniversary of Wuhan's lifting of its 76-day lockdown in 2020. Two months after the city reopened, at the delayed "Two Sessions" political convention in Beijing, the CCP all but declared victory over the virus, while the West had yet to experience the worst of the disease. In public addresses since, Xi has put his country forward as a leader in global health. China reported its first COVID deaths in over a year last month.

A new COVID wave is probably coming, and America just doesn’t seem to care [Fortune, 10 Apr 2022]

BY ERIN PRATER

It was a viral moment that elicited both nervous laughs and tears of joy from a pandemic-weary nation: Colorado Gov. Jared Polis awaiting his state's first COVID vaccine shipment in December 2020, staring at a delivery door like a child stares at a fireplace on Christmas Eve.

“Any minute now we’re going to hear a doorbell,” Polis says with childlike glee, his words muffled by a surgical mask.

“And then we’re going to ….” He dramatically pauses before saying, “of course, let the vaccine in.”

Before he finishes his sentence, a bell shrieks.

“Ope, there we go!” Polis exclaims, making a rapid rotation to hit a button and open the warehouse door.

“This is the Pfizer vaccine, arriving here in Colorado, to end the pandemic!” he exclaims as the door opens slowly, awkwardly revealing a delivery man who perhaps wasn’t aware he’d been chosen to save mankind—or at least Coloradans.

Polis’ giddy anticipation mirrored the mental state of so many Americans in those weeks before Christmas 2020. The potential side effects were unnerving, maybe, but the vaccine was coming.

To end the pandemic and nine months of isolation and tragedy.

That was the hope. But it wasn’t reality.

“I think some of it is just human nature, that you want to believe there will be a quick technological fix,” Fractal Therapeutics CEO Arijit Chakravarty told Fortune. His position is summed up by the headline of his searing new article published to Lancet-affiliated preprint journal medRxiv: “Endemicity is not a victory: the unmitigated downside risks of widespread SARS-COV2 transmission.”

Scenarios under which the U.S. sees surges of a variant more deadly than any seen before are plausible, Chakravarty and his colleagues contend.

Hundreds of thousands of deaths could ensue annually, they say. COVID could become the No. 1 cause of death in the U.S., beating out the most common maladies like heart disease and cancer.

“It’s not a specific prediction about the future,” Chakravarty hedged. “We’re not saying the world will end on Tuesday, April 7, 2024. But the goal is to make people say, ‘Gee, some scenarios out there are really quite ugly.’”

A ‘one-way ceasefire’
Chakravarty isn’t alone in worrying about what happens next. He has good company in Dr. Anthony Fauci, the infectious disease expert who has become the face of America’s COVID response. He said this week that a surge of COVID is likely this fall, and an increase in cases over even the next few weeks would not be surprising.

Fauci’s remarks contrast with a sudden vanishing of the Omicron wave that gripped the country in December and January (and ruined many people’s holiday plans). Cases fell so far so fast that big cities like New York relaxed mandates that had been in place for nearly two years. In New York’s case, famously unvaccinated celebrities like basketball star Kyrie Irving are free to play indoors again, and masks are off at most restaurants and retail outlets, bringing it in line with the rest of the country.

March is seeing cases creep back up again as bosses consider a widespread return to the office.

When it comes to the blissful oblivion of many to the pandemic’s continued existence, “motivated reasoning” is to blame, says psychologist Paul Thagard, a philosopher and cognitive scientist who authored the paper “The cognitive science of COVID-19: Acceptance, denial, and belief change.”

Another term for motivated reasoning: “a complicated version of wishful thinking.”

“People look at what makes them happy instead of evidence,” Thagard says. “This virus has been very unpredictable. People want to believe it’s going to get better and better. It’s not based on solid knowledge of the biology of the virus.”

If another severe wave of COVID were to hit the U.S., Thagard predicts the country would see a similarly large wave of denial, “one more application of motivated reasoning.”

“Right now things don’t look that bad in North America, generally, because hospitals aren’t that full. That could change fairly quickly.”

Vaccines aren't enough Current vaccines have failed to end the pandemic.

That’s a key argument Chakravarty and his coauthors make in their new paper.

It’s a reality, they say, that so many are failing to recognize as they buy into the scenario that the pandemic is becoming milder and will continue to, and that the pandemic is shrinking to endemicity and will continue to shrink in scale.

“Public-health authorities in many countries have advocated for a strategy of using the vaccines to limit morbidity and mortality while permitting unchecked SARS-CoV-2 spread (‘learning to live with the disease’),” Chakravarty’s team writes.

But that strategy seems to rely on future waves of COVID being less deadly, either due to weaker but more transmissible strains of the virus taking hold, or due to population immunity that is inevitably temporary, the authors write. And it ignores the fact infection fatality rates of future COVID variants may wax and wane.

“Omicron was mild. Maybe if there’s a BA.3, it will be mild too,” Chakravarty says. “But just because it was named Omicron 3 doesn’t mean it couldn’t be its own beast.”

Writing the paper wasn’t easy, Chakravarty says.

“We, as a team, went back and forth—this took months to write,” he says. “Emotionally, it’s a difficult conclusion to come to. It doesn’t help you sleep well at night.”

Regarding COVID, “You have to mitigate the risk of the worst thing without having a big debate about whether or not it’s going to happen today. People aren’t really having that conversation.”

He and his colleagues realize an approach like China’s zero COVID policy isn’t sustainable. The team recommends an approach of “subtle changes” that “don’t require endless amounts of personal sacrifice,” and that “slow down evolution and work on limiting the spread.”

Among their proposals: upgrading air quality and ventilation in buildings, since most transmission occurs indoors; widespread surveillance of virus transmission; and focusing on the development of preventative medicines and next-generation vaccines that can reduce the spread.

But with Congress bickering over a $10 billion COVID aid bill and the U.S. running out of funds for things like vaccines and research, the U.S. is quickly losing its ability to “see what’s happening and react nimbly.”

“We’re more and more flying blind,” he says.

A World Health Organization official recently aid we may be entering a "period of ceasefire" with the virus, but Chakravarty says "it takes two parties to agree to a ceasefire. Another word for a one-way ceasefire? Surrender.”

'We get comfortable with what happens' Chakravarty says America is now rolling the dice with its COVID strategy.

Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, says it’s the no-plan plan.

In short: The American approach to COVID seems to be “ignore it and hope it goes away, and hope the interventions we have right now are functional enough to make it tolerable,” he says.

“And the answer is, not yet. We have good tools. We’re better than we were two years ago, but this virus is pretty tricky. It’s fooled us every time we thought we understood something.

“In many ways, we were unprepared and playing catch-up.”

COVID isn’t the only public health crisis about which Americans have become complacent, Benjamin says.

“We get tired of an issue,” he says. “We park it. We get comfortable with what happens.
Thousands of people die from gun violence every year. That’s something that, when it happens, particularly mass shootings, everyone says, ‘It’s terrible. We must do something.’

“But the political will to do something about it quickly fades.”

He worries the most about politicians getting COVID fatigue and potentially failing to pass another COVID aid bill to fund, among other things, surveillance of the virus and research on new variants.

“Resource allocators have a tendency to, when something happens, throw a lot of money at it—usually not quite enough, never for long enough,” he says. “Then they withdraw funding, and their expectation of performance far exceeds the money put into it.

“We’re seeing that happen right now.”

A cautionary tale This isn’t the first time Americans have turned a blind eye toward disease, says John M. Barry, author of “The Great Influenza: The story of the deadliest pandemic in history.”

The 1918 flu pandemic “killed young people and children, and the elderly largely escaped it—despite that, people grew tired of taking precautions.”

The flu, an H1N1 virus thought to have originated in birds, was first identified in the U.S. in the spring of 1918. It spread worldwide in waves, infecting about a third of the world’s population and killing at least 50 million, with about 675,000 deaths in the U.S. alone, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Many were previously healthy young adults and young children.

When it comes to America’s collective memory, the flu pandemic was left out, a seeming historical amnesia.

“That’s the single question I was asked most when my book came out in 2004: ‘How come I never heard of this?’” he says.

He’s not entirely sure, though it might have something to do with people at the time being more accustomed to death by infectious disease, World War I, and historians writing about “what people did to people,” but not about what nature did to people.

Thagard offers a cautionary tale: a fourth wave of the 1918 flu pandemic that came in 1920 at a time when the public was weary.

“They pretty much entirely ignored it—and the fourth wave, in some cities, was the deadliest yet,” Barry says.

“People just didn’t want to deal with it, just as we don’t want to deal with it.”

New Coronavirus News from 8 Apr 2022

Japan considers 4th doses of COVID-19 vaccines [NHK WORLD, 8 Apr 2022]

Fourth dose under discussion
Japan's health ministry is considering whether to authorize a second booster, or fourth dose, of a coronavirus vaccine as the efficacy of a third dose reportedly wanes over time. Though no decision has been taken yet, the ministry says local authorities should complete the groundwork for a rollout, arranging vaccination coupons and venues, by around the end of May.

Slow uptake for booster shots
Though more than 80 percent of Japan's elderly people have received a booster shot, the rate for the population as a whole was just 44 percent as of April 7. Some experts say the delay is one of the reasons for the failure to bring the infection rate under control.

Research in Israel
Research has shown that a third shot is more effective against the Delta variant than the currently dominant Omicron variant. The efficacy also declines as time passes. As a result, some nations have already begun administering fourth shots.

On March 16, the New England Journal of Medicine published the results of a study in Israel that found the first booster was key to maximizing immunity, and that a second booster was effective primarily in restoring antibody levels that had diminished since a third dose.

The researchers looked at 154 medical workers who had received a Pfizer shot for their fourth dose, and 120 medical workers who received the Moderna shot. They found that both vaccines were only one tenth as effective against Omicron as against the original virus. They say a fourth dose for young, healthy people may have only marginal benefits.

Pfizer claims that when people aged 60 or older receive a fourth shot more than four months after a third shot, it cuts the number of infections in half, and reduces the number who develop serious symptoms by 75 percent.

Around the world
On March 29, the US Food and Drug Administration authorized fourth doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines for people aged 50 or above who got their third shot at least four months ago, and for people under 50 who are immunocompromised.

The United Kingdom, France, Germany, South Korea and Israel are already offering second booster shots–in most cases limited to the elderly, residents of care homes, medical workers and the immunocompromised.

No need to rush
Immunologist Miyasaka Masayuki, guest professor at the Osaka University Immunology Frontier Research Center, says that even though the ability to prevent serious illness can decline, a resurgence of efficacy can be expected after a fourth shot, based on the data from Israel among other sources.

He says the level of neutralizing antibodies rises to a certain level after a fourth shot and that is enough from the perspective of immunology.

"Immune system could be weakened, especially in older people, and people with underlying health conditions such as diabetes and cardiac problems, so they are highly likely to be the target of the fourth dose," Miyasaka says. "We don't need to rush to provide a fourth dose, but it is important to prepare for it as variant strains with higher pathogenicity or infectivity could emerge."

As for the vaccine interval, he doesn't recommend receiving a fourth too soon after a third dose, and that leaving a long-enough interval can produce high-quality antibodies.

He says that a third dose activates the B cells, a kind of immune cell, that create antibodies, so before a fourth dose, waiting for a sufficient period to develop B cells is highly likely to produce antibodies that can respond to various variant strains.

Take the first booster, prepare for the next
Tokyo Medical University Hospital Professor Hamada Atsuo, an expert on infectious diseases, says it is good to provide a fourth shot to older people who have a higher risk of serious illness and medical workers about six months after their third. But, he also emphasizes that the current priority is to increase the coverage of third shots to more than 50 percent in April or May to seek an exit strategy to get society and the economy back on track. Our immediate challenge is to continue taking basic anti-infection measures and, at the same time, to bring daily life back to normal.

This information is accurate as of April 8, 2022.

Fauci expects uptick in COVID-19 cases in coming weeks, another surge in the fall [FOX 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul, 8 Apr 2022]

By Stephanie Weaver

BETHESDA, Maryland - White House medical adviser and infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said he expects another increase in COVID-19 cases in the coming weeks in the United States, with a more serious surge that could arrive in the fall.

"I would not be surprised if we see an uptick in cases," Fauci said during an exclusive interview with Bloomberg Television on Wednesday.

Fauci noted that the increase could come "over the next couple of weeks," potentially fueled by the high transmissibility of BA.2 — a subvariant of the omicron variant.

Fauci says we could see COVID-19 surge in fall
Fauci, who is also the director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, noted that it is very difficult to accurately predict when the next surge will happen, but said, "it is likely that we will see a surge in the fall" when the weather gets cooler and as immunity from the virus wanes.

Currently, about half of eligible Americans have received booster shots, and there have been nearly 80 million confirmed infections overall.

Some states have shown small rises recently in COVID-19 cases, but overall cases are still at the lowest since last summer and hospitalizations are at a pandemic low.

But most health experts cite that immunity from the COVID-19 vaccine wanes over time, so the best way to avoid another surge is by getting more people vaccinated and boosted against the virus.

COVID-19 booster may be effective against BA.2 variant, study shows
In fact, new evidence released last month showed a booster dose of the coronavirus vaccine may provide protection against BA.2.

Researchers from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center examined neutralizing antibodies produced after vaccination or infection.

The study, funded in part by the National Institutes of Health’s National Cancer Institute and published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that after a booster vaccination, levels of antibodies in the blood that could bind to and neutralize a new omicron variant increased substantially.

"After the booster dose, levels of antibodies that could neutralize BA.2 jumped substantially.
The number that could recognize BA.2—as well as BA.1—after the booster dose was higher than those recognizing the original virus after only the first two shots," the NIH wrote. "

Fauci hopes US won’t see surge in hospitalizations
If an uptick does become a surge, Fauci said he hopes the U.S. won’t see a large increase in hospitalizations due to existing background immunity.

The NIH is currently conducting studies to determine what the best booster in fall should be — an omicron boost or a boost of the original ancestral strain. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and its committee also met this week to discuss how and when vaccines should be modified.

US death toll from COVID-19 hits 900,000
In February, the U.S. death toll from COVID-19 hit 900,000. President Joe Biden lamented the milestone, saying, "After nearly two years, I know that the emotional, physical, and psychological weight of this pandemic has been incredibly difficult to bear."

He again urged Americans to get vaccinations and booster shots.

"Two hundred and fifty million Americans have stepped up to protect themselves, their families, and their communities by getting at least one shot — and we have saved more than one million American lives as a result," Biden said.

As of Friday, 75.6% of adults in the U.S. were fully vaccinated, or about 195 million Americans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Some 98.4 million people have received a booster dose of the vaccine.

One study from earlier this year used those factors and others to estimate that 73% of Americans were, at the time, immune to omicron. And according to health experts, this could prevent or shorten new illnesses in protected people and reduce the amount of the virus circulating overall, likely tamping down new waves.

Immunity from virus, vaccination may ease wave of COVID-19 cases
"When you combine the immunity that many people have following infection, with the immunity that people who have been vaccinated and hopefully boosted have, there’s a significant amount of background immunity," Fauci continued.

Fauci: US ‘likely’ to see fall COVID-19 surge [The Hill, ８ Apr 2022]

BY NATALIE PRIEB

President Biden’s chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci predicted Wednesday that there will likely be a rise in COVID-19 cases in the coming weeks as well as a potential surge in the fall.

“I think we should expect, David, that over the next couple of weeks, we are going to see an uptick in cases – and hopefully there is enough background immunity so that we don’t wind up with a lot of hospitalizations,” Fauci told Bloomberg TV’s David Westin.

Fauci, who serves as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that the increase in infections could come as a result of waning immunity and the loosening of COVID-19 restrictions across the U.S.

“Those conditions are also present in the United States,” he said. “So, I would not be surprised if we see an uptick in cases. Whether that uptick becomes a surge where there are a lot more cases is difficult to predict.”

When Fauci was asked whether the U.S. will be faced with a similar COVID-19 surge in the fall as the country has experienced for the past two years, he said the prospect is “likely,” noting that “these are uncharted waters for us with this virus.”

“I would think that we should expect that we are going to see some increase in cases as you get to the colder weather in the fall,” he said. “That’s the reason why the [Food and Drug Administration] and their advisory committee are meeting right now to plan a strategy, and we at the [National Institutes of Health] are doing studies now to determine what the best boost would be.”

Over the past two fall seasons during the pandemic, the U.S. has experienced a surge in cases due to the holiday season when families gather and the colder weather that forces people indoors.

Fauci’s remarks come as the BA.2 variant, which has an increased level of transmissibility compared to the original omicron strain, has become the dominant variant in the U.S.

New York City and Washington, D.C., have seen a rapid rise in coronavirus cases over the past two weeks, according to The New York Times COVID-19 tracker. However, the cases are still relatively low compared to January’s spike.

The coronavirus is also making its way through Congress. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) tested positive for the disease earlier this week. Following the news of her infection, Sen.
Susan Collins (R-Maine) announced she had tested positive for COVID-19.

B.C. scientist wins prestigious national award for work on mRNA COVID-19 vaccine [Global News, 8 Apr 2022]

By Simon Little

A British Columbia biochemist whose work played a key role in the development of COVID-19 vaccines has been honoured with one of Canada’s most prestigious scientific awards.

Biochemist Pieter Cullis, former director of UBC’s Life Sciences Institute, was named a winner of the 2022 Canada Gairdner International Award on Tuesday.

He was honoured alongside Katalin Karikó, senior vice-president of RNA Protein Replacement Therapies at BioNTech SE and Drew Weissman, director of the Penn Institute for RNA Innovation, for their work developing the vaccine’s mRNA engineering.

“It’s astonishing, really,” Cullis told Global BC Morning on Friday.

“This really reflects the work of hundreds of people. I had the privilege of leading some pretty successful groups, but this is really a group effort and a very collaborative endeavour.”

Technology developed over decades by Cullis and his colleagues was used in the Pfizer-BioNTech messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine.

Scientists have been working with mRNA, which can direct cells in the human body to produce proteins for decades, but one of the key challenges in its use in medicine was how to deliver it safely into cells.

That’s where Cullis’ work was important. Cullis and UBC colleagues pioneered the development of lipid nanoparticles, tiny droplets of fat that work to create a “bubble” around mRNA and allow it to travel to cells in the body.

“You need a delivery system both to protect it from the external environment and also to carry it across the cell membrane. Without a delivery system, the mRNA would not get into the cell, and therefore not make the protein it codes for,” Cullis explained.

Unlike traditional vaccines, which involve the use of an inert form of a virus, messenger RNA vaccines work by teaching human cells how to create a protein that triggers an immune response.

In the case of COVID-19, they direct he cells to produce proteins that mimics the spike protein that allows the SARS-SoV-2 virus to interact engage with our cells.

Messenger RNA research itself has been ongoing since the 1980s.

Cullis and B.C. researchers have been working on lipid nanoparticle technology for decades, and in 2009 he and colleagues Thomas Madden and Michael Hope launched a private company, Acuitas Therapeutics, which later partnered with Pfizer-BioNTech to develop their mRNA vaccine.

Those decades of work, Cullis said, belies the popular misconception that mRNA COVID-19 vaccines were developed “overnight.”

“This is work that has been going on in my laboratory and others for over 25 years now,” Cullis said.

“It certainly is a different form of vaccine, but it’s not one you can say has been developed overnight. This has been a gradual improvement in technology so that we can actually use nucleic acid polymers as therapeutics.”

Madden, president and CEO of Acuitas, described work to actually produce the vaccine as a sprint that involved sending scores of different formulations to BioNTech for pre-clinical work.

“We were doing that at at time where we still needed to ensure the safety of people at Acuitas who were doing this work — most other businesses were locked down,” he said.

“People were working seven days a week, 24-hours a day ins some cases, in order to be able to quickly turn around all of these different vaccine candidates so that the best ones could move into phase one clinical trials.”

Cullis said he believes the technology used in the vaccine has massive potential, and could one day be used to treat other diseases including cancer.

It’s a potential the Gairdner Foundation also saw, noting the honorees “pivotal discoveries also have the potential to revolutionize the future delivery of effective and safe vaccines, therapeutics and gene therapies.”

“This is work that has been going on in my laboratory and others for over 25 years now,” Cullis said.

“It certainly is a different form of vaccine, but it’s not one you can say has been developed overnight. This has been a gradual improvement in technology so that we can actually use nucleic acid polymers as therapeutics.”

Madden, president and CEO of Acuitas, described work to actually produce the vaccine as a sprint that involved sending scores of different formulations to BioNTech for pre-clinical work.

“We were doing that at at time where we still needed to ensure the safety of people at Acuitas who were doing this work — most other businesses were locked down,” he said.

“People were working seven days a week, 24-hours a day ins some cases, in order to be able to quickly turn around all of these different vaccine candidates so that the best ones could move into phase one clinical trials.”

Cullis said he believes the technology used in the vaccine has massive potential, and could one day be used to treat other diseases including cancer.

It’s a potential the Gairdner Foundation also saw, noting the honorees “pivotal discoveries also have the potential to revolutionize the future delivery of effective and safe vaccines, therapeutics and gene therapies.”

New Coronavirus News from 7 Apr 2022

People urged to stay vigilant as coronavirus infections rebound in Japan — again [The Japan Times, 7 Apr 2022]

Merely two months after the peak of the sixth wave, coronavirus infections are already rebounding in Japan, with experts again urging people to stay vigilant by getting vaccine booster shots, wearing masks and avoiding crowded places.

The seven-day average of new COVID-19 infections stood at 46,594 as of Tuesday, up from 43,250 the week before and increasing for two weeks in a row. New infections had been gradually declining for several weeks after the government in January began implementing quasi-emergency measures, which restricted business hours for restaurants and some activities.

The lifting of those measures nationwide in late March, an uptick in people’s movement around the April start of the new school and business year, and the spread of the highly transmissible BA.2 omicron subvariant are seen as factors behind the rebound. Experts said the situation needs close monitoring given that new cases are increasing in all age groups, but particularly among teens and those in their 20s.

Low vaccination rates among young people were discussed in a meeting Thursday between Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Shigeru Omi, the nation’s top coronavirus adviser. In an apparent attempt to entice younger people to get their third jabs, the government is reportedly considering offering discounts for music and sports events to people who have received booster shots.

“The level of new infections remains higher than in the peak we experienced last summer, and a potential rebound is a concern,” Takaji Wakita, chair of the health ministry’s COVID-19 advisory board, said after its weekly meeting Wednesday.

On the bright side, as the weather gets warmer, it becomes easier for people and businesses to ventilate indoor spaces, which can help reduce infections, Wakita said. People will also spend less time indoors, helping prevent the spread of the virus, he said.

But Hiroshi Nishiura, a mathematical modeling expert at Kyoto University, presented a grimmer outlook, saying “a seventh wave has already started.” He cited a resurgence in infections in many prefectures in recent days.

The pathogen fueling the current case increase is the BA.2 sublineage, a heavily mutated version of the coronavirus. BA.2 is more transmissible than the original omicron variant, BA.1, which led to record numbers of infections in Japan in February. Now accounting for 70% of new cases, BA.2 is expected to make up 90% of all new cases by the first week of May, according to surveillance data provided by the National Institute of Infectious Diseases.

Between the two variants, there has been no difference reported when it comes to vaccine efficacy or the risk patients will develop severe symptoms, meaning the treatments and prevention measures needed will be the same, said Motoi Suzuki of the NIID.

As the coronavirus continues to mutate, a new set of highly transmissible variants known as “recombinant variants” have been detected overseas. A recombinant variant occurs when an individual becomes infected with two or more variants at the same time, resulting in a mixing of their genetic material within the patient’s body, according to the U.K. Health Security Agency. The U.K. has already reported more than 600 cases of XE — a recombinant of the omicron variant’s BA.1 and BA.2.

In China, which is seeing its biggest outbreak since the coronavirus was first detected in Wuhan, authorities have reported two novel omicron subvariants that don’t match any existing sequences, according to Bloomberg News. It’s unclear how serious the symptoms caused by them are and whether they pose a significant risk.

Nishiura said Japan should also keep an eye on XE and other new variants.

“XE’s transmissibility is certainly higher than that for BA.1 or BA.2,” Nishiura said. “If people’s international mobility increases, XE has a high chance of replacing the current omicron variants. But we still don’t know the severity of symptoms among the infected people, so we need to examine the epidemiological impact of the variant closely.”

The omicron variant, first detected in South Africa last November, quickly overtook delta as the dominant strain worldwide. Many people infected with the omicron variant have developed mild or no symptoms, although the variant is far more infectious than delta. More recently, BA.2 has fueled a resurgence of infections worldwide.

BA.2’s generation time, or the time between the start of infection in a primary case and the start of infection in a secondary case, is slightly shorter than with BA.1, with both at around two days. Omicron’s generation time as a whole is also shorter than delta’s, which is around five days. The shorter the generation time, the harder it becomes to control an outbreak.

A new coronavirus variant combination, XE, has been detected in the UK. Here's what we know. [USA TODAY, 7 Apr 2022]

by Gabriela Miranda

A new variant of the coronavirus has emerged in the U.K., but it’s too soon to know whether it should be cause for concern.

Called XE, it is a combination of two versions of omicron, named BA.1 and BA.2. It’s common for viruses to recombine, experts said.

Since XE was identified in early January, it has infected about 600 people in the U.K.. It’s not clear whether XE is more contagious than BA.2, and there is no indication it can cause more severe disease.

XE “has shown a variable growth rate and we cannot yet confirm whether it has a true growth advantage.” Susan Hopkins of the U.K. Health Security Agency said in a statement. “So far there is not enough evidence to draw conclusions about transmissibility, severity or vaccine effectiveness.”

Dr. Jeremy Luban, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, said he’s watching XE but is not worried yet.

“XE has a powerful combination of all these variants of coronavirus. Should it spread rapidly through the U.S. at some point, we would be concerned,” Luban said.

Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, Tennessee, said there’s no reason to panic

“There’s still a lot we don’t know about XE,” he said. “XE could surprise us, so we have to wait to see how severe it will be.”

He said he's more concerned about BA.2, which accounts for 72% of COVID-19 cases in the USA and is the dominant variant worldwide.

BA.2 has led to several outbreaks around the world but is not driving up cases substantially in the USA. Cases dropped 4% compared with a week earlier, and hospitalizations and deaths are both down more than 16%, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Tuesday.

What exactly is XE?
The British Health Security Agency confirmed 637 cases of XE, the earliest on Jan. 19.
As a mix of two variants, XE is what’s called a recombinant virus. This mixing of viral DNA is so common that XE is the fifth recombinant virus involving omicron.

The British Health Security Agency identified XD and XF as combinations of delta and omicron BA.1.

In the U.K., 38 cases of XF have been identified, all before mid-February, and there is no evidence that this version of the virus is being transmitted within the country.

Forty-nine cases of XD have been reported in global databases, the majority in France.

Infectious disease experts worry that a variant will develop that’s as contagious as BA.2 and as lethal as delta, but all the omicron-related variants have caused less severe disease.

The vaccines have provided good protection from severe illness and death from the variants, though a third vaccine dose is needed to provide the same level of protection against omicron as against earlier variants.

Because of their unpredictability and dangerous potential, variants will continue to pose a threat to the world’s “return to normalcy,” Schaffner said.

“This is our new reality, variants popping up everywhere because fortunately, we are detecting them,” he said. “The more we can find, the more we can study and contain.”

New Coronavirus Variant XE Identified, Spreading in U.K. [U.S. News & World Report, 7 Apr 2022]

by Cecelia Smith-Schoenwalder

Early estimates suggest XE is 10% more transmissible than ‘stealth omicron,’ which would make it the most transmissible variant yet.

A new coronavirus variant that could be the most transmissible yet has been identified in the United Kingdom.

The variant, known as XE, is a combination of the omicron subvariants BA.1 and BA.2. It was first detected in the U.K. on Jan. 19, according to the World Health Organization, though it has since been reported in India as well. As of late March, roughly 600 cases of it were identified.

According to the U.K. Health Security Agency, there is evidence of community spread of the variant in England. However, it currently is responsible for less than 1% of sequenced infections.

Early estimates suggest XE is 10% more transmissible than BA.2 – sometimes referred to as “stealth omicron” – which would make it the most contagious variant yet. But WHO states in a recent report that “this finding requires further confirmation.” Its level of severity is not yet known.

The development comes as BA.2 has taken over both worldwide and in the U.S. as the dominant variant. While some states in the U.S. have started seeing increases in new coronavirus cases, experts don’t expect BA.2 to lead to another surge.

WHO is tracking XE under the umbrella of omicron, so as of now, it does not have its own Greek letter name. The organization said that “XE belongs to the omicron variant until significant differences in transmission and disease characteristics, including severity, may be reported.”

XE is an example of a so-called “recombinant” event, which involves two virus strains mixing their genetic material in the same cell that then replicates. WHO is also tracking another recombinant nicknamed “deltacron” that has been found in European countries but so far has not yet alarmed experts either.

WHO notes that “recombination is common among coronaviruses and is regarded as an expected mutational event.”

New Coronavirus News from 9 Apr 2022

Dr. Fauci explains why US will see a new COVID surge this fall [Deseret News, ９ Apr 2022]

By Herb Scribner

A new coronavirus outbreak will begin in the fall, according to Dr. Fauci
There will likely be an uptick in COVID-19 cases in the next few weeks, but a true coronavirus surge will happen this fall, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

The news: Bloomberg TV’s David Westin asked Fauci about the potential for a new coronavirus outbreak in the United States from the BA.2 variant.

• Fauci said the United States often lags behind the United Kingdom, which has seen a recent surge in cases.
• The BA.2 variant — a subvariant of the omicron variant — and opening up by loosening restrictions will contribute to an uptick in cases, Fauci said, per CNN.

What Fauci said: “I think we should expect, David, that over the next couple of weeks, we are going to see an uptick in cases — and hopefully there is enough background immunity so that we don’t wind up with a lot of hospitalizations,” he said.

Yes, but: Fauci told Bloomberg TV that “it is likely that we will see a surge in the fall.”

• “I would think that we should expect that we are going to see some increase in cases as you get to the colder weather in the fall,” he said.
• “That’s the reason why the (Food and Drug Administration) and their advisory committee are meeting right now to plan a strategy, and we at the (National Institutes of Health) are doing studies now to determine what the best boost would be.”

Flashback: At the end of March, Fauci, the White House medical adviser on the coronavirus, said on ABC’s “This Week” program that he didn’t think there would be a surge from the BA.2 variant, per The Hill.
• “I don’t think we will,” he added. “The easiest way to prevent that is to continue to get people vaccinated. And for those who have been vaccinated, to continue to get them boosted, so that’s really where we stand right now.”
• Fauci also told KGTV he expects “we might see an uptick in cases here in the United States because, only a week or so ago, the CDC came out with their modification of the metrics for what would be recommended for masking indoors, and much of the country right now is in that zone, where masking indoors is not required.”

New Mutant May be More Transmissible: Gurugram Health Dept Issues Guidelines to Monitor XE Covid Variant [India.com, 9 Apr 2022]

An intensive screening campaign will be run in crowded places and the private health facilities will have to update the department if they find any suspicious case of the new variant.

Gurugram: The Gurugram district health department has issued directions for the private and government health facilities to monitor the newly reported Covid cases here in the wake of country’s first case of coronavirus variant XE being reported in Mumbai. Although no cases of the new variant have been reported yet, Gurugram Chief Medical Officer (CMO), Virender Yadav has issued an advisory to all the concerned officials and authorities about the new variant.Also Read - Massive Fire Breaks Out In Slum Cluster In Gurugram's Sector 74, Fire Tenders Rush To Spot

The health officials said that the department has prepared an action plan to deal with the new variant. An intensive screening campaign will be run in crowded places and the private health facilities will have to update the department if they find any suspicious case of the new variant.
The officials said that the new mutant may be more transmissible than any strain of Covid. Also Read - Gurugram Police Arrest 2 For Duping Car Buyers on OLX. Here's What Happened
“We have directed the private health facilities to keep a watch on patients who had foreign travel history and immediately inform the health department. Rapid antigen probe will be emphasised. Necessary directions have been issued to the concerned authorities,” Yadav told IANS. All government and private hospitals have been instructed to take necessary steps to prevent Covid infections, Yadav added. Also Read - Thieves Break Open Private Bank ATM, Walk Away With Rs 13.28 Lakh in Gurugram

Gurugram Covid update
On Friday, the city reported 61 new Covid cases which has increased the total number of active cases in Gurugram to 270. The health department said fewer people are now using face masks which is another reason for the rise in cases. On April 2, the Haryana government had lifted its mask mandate in public spaces and government offices.

Coronavirus Fourth Wave: UN Expresses Caution As large COVID-19 Outbreaks Reported In Asia [India.com, 9 Apr 2022]

by Sanstuti Nath

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for governments and pharma companies to work together to deliver vaccines to "every person, everywhere".

United Nations: With the threat of the fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic looming large, and new variants of the virus emerging every four months on average, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has cautioned that the COVID-19 pandemic is far from over as large outbreaks are spreading in Asia. Guterres has also called for governments and pharma companies to work together to deliver vaccines to “every person, everywhere”.Also Read - You May Soon Get 'Highly Accurate' COVID-19 Test Result In Just 30-second.

In a video message, Guterres said, “We’re seeing 1.5 million new cases each day. Large outbreaks are spreading in Asia. A new wave is sweeping across Europe.” He added that some countries are reporting their highest death rates since the start of the pandemic. Also Read - Covaxin Booster Dose Enhances Antibody Response Against COVID-19 Variants Including Omicron: ICMR Study

He noted that the Omicron variant of the coronavirus is a startling reminder of how quickly COVID-19 can mutate and spread especially in the absence of high vaccination coverage, and rued, “While some high-income countries are preparing for their second booster doses, one-third of humanity remains unvaccinated.” Also Read - Amid XE COVID Variant Scare, Is India Making A Mistake by Lifting COVID Curbs? Experts Explain

“This is a brutal indictment of our deeply unequal world. It’s also a prime breeding ground for new variants more deaths and increased human and economic misery,” he said, adding that the next variant is not a question of if but of when.

“We are far from our target of every country reaching 70 per cent vaccination coverage by the middle of this year. And with new variants emerging every four months on average, time is of the essence,” he said and added that governments and pharmaceutical companies need to work together to deliver vaccines to every person, everywhere not just in wealthy countries.
COVID XE recombinant and its spread

A new strain of the COVID-19 Omicron variant, first detected in the United Kingdom, appears to be more transmissible than previous strains of the virus, the World Health Organization (WHO) had said. The UN health agency last week that the XE recombinant (BA.1-BA.2), was first detected in the United Kingdom on January 19 and more than 600 sequences have been reported and confirmed since.

“Early-day estimates indicate a community growth rate advantage of 10 per cent as compared to BA.2. However, this finding requires further confirmation,” WHO had said. It added that XE belongs to the Omicron variant until significant differences in transmission and disease characteristics, including severity, may be reported.

WHO continues to closely monitor and assess the public health risk associated with recombinant variants, alongside other SARS-CoV-2 variants, and will provide updates as further evidence becomes available.

Status Of COVID-19 Across the globe
The WHO COVID-19 Weekly Epidemiological Update issued this week said that after the increase observed during the first half of March 2022, the number of new COVID-19 cases has decreased for a second consecutive week, with a 16 per cent decline during the week of March 28 through April 3 as compared to the previous week.

The number of new weekly deaths also decreased sharply (-43 per cent) as compared to the previous week, when an artificial spike in deaths was observed. Across the six WHO regions, over nine million new cases and over 26,000 new deaths were reported. All regions reported decreasing trends both in the number of new weekly cases and new weekly deaths. As of April 3, over 489 million cases and over 6 million deaths have been reported globally.

At the country level, the highest number of new weekly cases were reported from South Korea (2,058,375 new cases; a decline of 16 per cent), Germany (1,371,270 new cases; a 13 per cent decrease), France (959,084 new cases; a 13 per cent increase), Vietnam (796,725 new cases; a 29 per cent decline), and Italy (486,695 new cases; a 3 per cent fall).

The highest number of new weekly deaths were reported in the United States of America (4,435 new deaths; a 10 per cent decline), Russia (2,357 new deaths; an 18 per cent decline), South Korea (2,336 new deaths; a 5 per cent decline), Germany (1,592 new deaths; a 5 per cent rise) and Brazil (1,436 new deaths; a 19 per cent fall).

(With agency inputs)