New Coronavirus News from 3 Aug 2022

Global COVID cases trend down, with surges in Japan, Korea [CIDRAP, 3 Aug 2022]

by Lisa Schnirring

Global COVID-19 cases dropped again last week, as the BA.5-fueled disease burden shifts to some Asian nations, including Japan and South Korea, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in its latest weekly update.

In US developments, the Biden administration today released two new reports on long COVID, one on a research action plan and the other on services and support for people experiencing the long-term effects of the disease.

Cases still high as subvariants increase
After global cases rose through June, COVID activity appears to be declining, with a 9% drop last week compared to the week before, the WHO said. Two regions, however, reported increases, the Western Pacific, where cases rose 20%, and Africa, where illnesses were up 5%.

The WHO has urged caution in interpreting trends based on cases, due to declines in testing and surveillance.

In the Western Pacific region, the highest jumps were in Japan, which reported a 42% increase, and South Korea, which reported a 25% rise compared to the week before.

Japan's cases are averaging more than 200,000 per day, with healthcare systems feeling pressure in some areas, partly due to COVID-19 illnesses in staff, according to the Japan Times. South Korea is reporting more than 100,000 cases a day, the highest since the middle of April, according to the Korea Herald.

In Africa, the biggest proportional increases were reported from Liberia, Seychelles, and Rwanda.

Of more than 6.5 million cases reported to the WHO last week, the five countries with the most cases were Japan, the United States, South Korea, Germany, and Italy.

Deaths were stable last week after rising the previous week, with about 14,000 reported to the WHO, with the United States reporting the most.

The proportions of more transmissible BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron subvariants continue to increase. BA.5 prevalence rose from 63.8% to 69.6%, and BA.4 levels rose slightly, from 10.9% to 11.8%.

Biden administration unveils long-COVID reports
In April, President Joe Biden issued a memorandum calling for two reports in 120 days, both addressing the challenge of long COVID, in which patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 experience symptoms—some serious—for months or even years.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released the two reports today, one on a research action plan and the other on federal services and support for people with long COVID. HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, JD, said, "As our nation continues to make strides in the fight against COVID-19, these reports are critical to shine a light on Long COVID’s impact and how to match people to resources."

HHS estimates that 7.7 million to 23 million Americans are experiencing long COVID, and that about 1 million are out of the workforce at any given time, amounting to $50 billion in lost earnings each year.

In other COVID developments:
• President Biden, who is experiencing a rebound after Paxlovid treatment, tested positive for COVID again today for the fifth day in a row, according to a statement from his physician, Kevin O'Connor, DO. He noted that the president has a light cough but finished a light workout today. Biden will continue to isolate and work from the executive residence.
• The European Medicines Agency today recommended that pericarditis and myocarditis be listed as new side effects in the product information for the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine, owing to a small number of reported cases.
• Cattle can occasionally be infected with SARS-CoV-2, though it's not clear if the animals can transmit the virus, German researchers reported in a research letter in Emerging InfectiousDiseases. They based their findings on serology tests from samples from German cattle in late 2021.

Covid cases have halved in three weeks, but a record-breaking wave is expected in the Autumn [iNews, 3 Aug 2022]

By Tom Bawden

Covid cases have tumbled by more than half in just three weeks as the schools holidays and warmer weather mean people spend less time indoors together.

But experts warn that with further record-breaking waves expected in the Autumn and Spring we are still nowhere near witnessing the end of Covid.

Daily Symptomatic infections fell from a record 351,546 cases on 10 July to 164,427 on Monday – a decline of 52 per cent, or 181,455 daily infections, according to the ZOE Covid study app.

The drop was fuelled by the huge number of cases in June and early July which have left far fewer people to infect – with a prior infection thought to offer significant protection against reinfection for around 28 days (and reasonable protection for about 100 days) against the dominant BA.5 variant.

That compares to around 200 days of protection against earlier variants of Covid as BA.5 is better at getting around immunity built up by vaccination and prior infection – meaning it will be even harder to keep a lid on the virus.

“It appears that BA.5 is more resistant to the innate immune response,” said Professor Lawrence Young, a virologist at Warwick University.

“The hope is that that frequent reinfection will continue to provide a wall of immunity that protects from severe disease. Booster jabs, particularly if modified to target omicron, should also provide some protection from infection and transmission.

“But I fear that we will be confronted with new variants over the winter and that the cycle of infection and reinfection will continue for some time – perhaps another couple of years – until we have improved vaccines and better levels of population immunity,” he said.

Professor Karl Friston, a virus modeller at University College London, added: “An increase in the rate at which immunity is lost means that the endemic phase of the pandemic may entail higher levels of circulating virus.”

“This means that ‘getting rid of Covid’ is purely aspirational. The real question is what level of prevalence is tolerable before adjustments to our behaviour are required,” he said.

Professor Friston’s modelling suggests the UK is facing two separate Covid waves in the next eight months that will each see case numbers soaring above anything seen so far in the pandemic.

He predicts that the current decline will continue at a similar rate until early October as the school holidays and warmer weather bring infections down sharply.

This will take cases to a trough in just over two months time, with about 1.5 per cent of the population forecast to be infected at that point, he says.

But, as schools go back and the weather cools, infections will begin to spread more rapidly.
And within a few weeks cases will start shooting up – on or around 6 October – to the point where they hit an unprecedented high in late November, Professor Friston says.

At that point, about eight per cent of the UK population would be infected – compared to about 5.5 per cent during the current record.

While cases will then come down, he forecasts a further wave in March 2023 that will see about 6.5 per cent of the population infected – making it smaller than the expected autumn wave but still bigger than anything seen up to this point.

Simon Williams, of Swansea University, said: “One of the big challenges going forward, especially since the removal of free testing is whether people are able to recognise COVID symptoms – which will help determine what actions they might take to help prevent spreading it on.”

The top five symptoms of the BA.5 Omicron subvariant are sore throat, headache, cough without phlegm, a blocked nose and a runny nose.

Cross-Border Transmissions of the Delta Substrain AY.29 During Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games [Front. Microbiology, 3 Aug 2022]

Authored by Takahiko Koyama, Reitaro Tokumasu, Kotoe Katayama, Ayumu Saito,
Michiharu Kudo and Seiya Imoto

Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games, postponed for the COVID-19 pandemic, were finally held in the summer of 2021. Just before the games, the Alpha variant was being replaced with the more contagious Delta variant. AY.4 substrain AY.29, which harbors two additional characteristic mutations of 5239C > T (NSP3 Y840Y) and 5514T > C (NSP3 V932A), emerged in Japan and became dominant in Tokyo by the time of the Olympic Games. Variants of SARS-CoV-2 genomes were performed to extract AY.29 Delta substrain samples with 5239C > T and 5514T > C. Phylogenetic analysis was performed to illustrate how AY.29 strains evolved and were introduced into countries abroad. Simultaneously, ancestral searches were performed for the overseas AY.29 samples to identify their origins in Japan using the maximum variant approach. As of January 10, 2022, 118 samples were identified in 20 countries. Phylogenetic analysis and ancestral searches identified 55 distinct introductions into those countries. The United States had 50 samples with 10 distinct introductions, and the United Kingdom had 13 distinct strains introduced in 18 samples. Other countries or regions with multiple introductions were Canada, Germany, South Korea, Hong Kong, Thailand, and the Philippines. Among the 20 countries, most European and North American countries have vaccination rates over 50% and sufficient genomic surveillances are conducted; transmissions seem contained. However, propagation to unvaccinated regions might have caused unfathomable damages. Since samples in those unvaccinated countries are also undersampled with a longer lead time for data sharing, it will take longer to grasp the whole picture. More rigorous departure screenings for the participants from the unvaccinated countries might have been necessary.