New Coronavirus News from 25 Oct 2022

Fact Check: Did German Scientist 'Prove' COVID Was Made in a Lab? [Newsweek, 25 Oct 2022]

BY JESS THOMSON

A team of scientists are claiming to have found evidence that the COVID-19 virus was man-made, fueling speculation and some previously debunked narratives to resurface.

COVID-19, the disease caused by the Sars-CoV-2 virus, is an infectious respiratory illness that spread rapidly across the world in early 2020 as part of a pandemic that caused much of the world to go into lockdown.

"The results of our study show that this virus is 99.9 percent an artificially created copy of a natural virus", Valentin Bruttel, a scientist from the University Hospital of Würzburg and author of the paper, told EuroNews Weekly. Bruttel and his colleagues have published their findings as a pre-print, which has not yet been peer reviewed by the scientific community.

The Claim
According to EuroNews Weekly, Bruttel said that he noticed anomalies in the Sars-CoV-2 genome in 2021, and once he began studying the virus's genome, he found patterns apparently consistent with synthesized viruses.

There is, according to Bruttel, "a high probability [Sars-Cov-2] could have arisen as an infectious clone collected in vitro".

The claim soon spread on social media, including Twitter and Reddit, but does it really shift the scientific consensus on this subject?.

The publication of the paper, the latest in a string of studies making similar assertions, including some debunked ones, has been met with caution and skepticism in the scientific community.

The first obvious point to note is that, being a pre-print, the paper has not undergone peer-review and cannot tilt any established thinking on the issue until it has. There are other problems with it, too.

"There seems to be flaws in the logic of this paper in terms of why one would stitch a whole genome together piece by piece to manufacture a virus," Hassan Vally, an associate professor in epidemiology at Deakin University, told Newsweek.

"This to me makes no sense. If you were doing what the authors are purporting happened, you would insert small amounts of manufactured genetic material into a largely intact virus genome and there would be no need to piece together a genome in small segments. This doesn't make sense and points to a fundamental flaw in this paper and the logic behind the interpretation."
According to Vally, the logic of this paper is not sound and the recurring motifs in the genome may not represent what the researchers say they represent.

Other scientists in the field have responded to the preprint online, debunking the claims made by Bruttel and his colleagues.

Conspiracy theories along these lines emerged nearly as soon as the virus did, and have plagued the science behind treatment and vaccines throughout the pandemic.

"Theories on biological weapons peaked twice. At the beginning of the pandemic when people tried to link COVID-19 to biological weapons, and at the onset of active vaccination campaign when people discussed whether vaccine is a biological weapon," Dmitry Erokhin, a research assistant at the The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, which published a paper on COVID-19 conspiracy theories, told Newsweek.

According to Erokhin, the researchers found that "fear and distrust drive people to try and find a seemingly logical explanation for the emergence of the pandemic and band together with like-minded individuals on different aspects of the pandemic, forming so called "echo-chambers" consisting of, for example, pro- and anti-vaccine groups."

Conspiracy claims, therefore need rigorous scientific testing to debunk. The current scientific consensus is that Sars-CoV-2 was originally an animal-based disease that jumped to humans from bats somewhere in China.

"While its important that all questions are asked and explored, there are some researchers that display motivated reasoning on this and a number of other issues and this is why these studies needs to reviewed by experts who are objective and who can assess both the appropriateness of the methodology and the appropriateness of the conclusions drawn," Valley said.

The Ruling
False.

Scientific consensus is that there is very little evidence to suggest that Sars-CoV-2, the virus causing the COVID-19 disease, was man-made or created in a lab.

Once Bruttel and his colleagues' paper has been peer reviewed by other scientists in the field, and if it stands up to scrutiny, the consensus may change, but similar claims in the past failed to shift the needle on the issue.

New Coronavirus News from 11 Oct 2022

French former PM summoned in inquiry into the management of the Covid-19 pandemic [RFI English, 11 Oct 2022]

France's former prime minister Edouard Philippe has been summoned to appear before the Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR) later this month. He risks an indictment for possible offenses linked to the government's management of the Covid-19 epidemic

The former Prime Minister is suspected of not having ordered protective measures for healthcare personnel and exposed workers, nor of having anticipated the Covid-19 epidemic despite the alerts.

According to daily newspaper Le Monde, he will also have to explain himself on holding the first round of the municipal elections on 15 March, 2020 despite the fact that infections were on the rise.

"I vigorously dispute the charges against me," he added on Sunday in an interview with Le Parisien.

Philippe is the mayor of the northern city of Le Havre and also president of the political party "Horizons", close to the presidential majority.

He will be heard on 24 October by the three magistrates of the CJR's investigation commission on the offenses of "endangering the lives of others" and "voluntary abstention from fighting a disaster".

This information was confirmed on Tuesday by the public prosecutor's office at the Court of Cassation, according to the French news agency AFP, which added that neither Edouard Philippe, nor his entourage could be reached for comment.

'Failure to fight a disaster'
Philippe could avoid prosecution by being placed under the more favorable status of assisted witness, if he manages to convince the judges that at this stage there is not enough consistent evidence against him.

Opened in July 2020, this judicial investigation is being conducted by the CJR, the only authority with the power to prosecute and judge members of the government for crimes or misdemeanors committed while in office.

Philippe's summons to appear comes a year after the former health minister Agnès Buzyn (May 2017- February 2020) was indicted for endangering the lives of others on 10 September, 2021.

She was placed under the status of assisted witness for "voluntary failure to fight a disaster".

Apologies over masks
The former minister of health Olivier Véran, now government spokesman, is also targeted by the investigation, but at this stage, he has not been called for questioning.

The investigations were launched after several complaints denouncing, in particular, the lack of adequate protective equipment for caregivers and the population, and the errors on the need or not to wear masks.

"On the masks, we were wrong," Véran admitted in September at the release of his book Beyond The Waves, which he used to present his apologies for his actions in this respect.

• Thousands of complaints lodged over French government’s handling of Covid crisis
In 2021, the CJR received more than 20,000 complaints, almost all of which related to the coronavirus and the health pass.

But 19,685 of them, "standard" complaints written in identical terms from a paid form put online by lawyer Fabrice Di Vizio, were dismissed.

To date, according to figures from Public Health France, the Covid-19 epidemic has caused 155,000 deaths in France.

A COVID-19 Surge Could Come This Winter After Europe Spike [TIME, 11 Oct 2022]

BY JAMIE DUCHARME

Fall and winter have always been peak seasons for respiratory viruses. As the weather cools in many parts of the U.S., people are forced into indoor environments where viruses can spread more easily. Holiday gatherings and travel can also become breeding grounds for disease.

That’s one reason why experts are worried that COVID-19 case counts may rise in the U.S. in the coming weeks. But there’s also another. To help forecast COVID-19 rates for the U.S., experts often look to Europe—and the data there aren’t promising. More than 1.5 million COVID-19 diagnoses were reported across Europe during the week ending Oct. 2, about 8% more than the prior week, according to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) latest global situation report, published Oct. 5. More than 400,000 of those diagnoses came from Germany, and almost 265,000 came from France.

“We’re concerned,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s technical lead on COVID-19, at an Oct.
5 press briefing. “In the Northern Hemisphere, we’re entering autumn and the winter months, so we will see co-circulation of other viruses like influenza….We need health systems to be prepared.”

The U.S. doesn’t always follow in Europe’s footsteps. The Alpha variant, for example, caused a larger spike in Europe than in the U.S. But European outbreaks related to Delta and Omicron predated similar surges in the U.S.

COVID-19 in the U.S. has been at a “high-plains plateau” for months, says Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. Since the spring, roughly 300 to 500 people have died from COVID-19 each day—a rate that is still tragically high but relatively stable.

The situation in Europe “may be a harbinger of things to come,” Osterholm says. He fears a “perfect storm” may be brewing, threatening to turn that U.S. plateau into another surge.

Waning immunity, low booster uptake, ever-evolving subvariants that are increasingly good at evading the immune system, and people behaving as if the pandemic is over all suggest “we are headed to the end of the high-plains plateau,” Osterholm says. “I just don’t know what [the next phase] looks like.”

Federal case counts aren’t showing an uptick in the U.S. yet; in fact, daily diagnoses and hospitalization rates have fallen steadily since July. But case counts have become increasingly unreliable as more people rely on at-home tests and states pull back on reporting. Osterholm says he pays closer attention to death and hospitalization rates, but both lag behind actual spread of the virus, since it can take time for infections to become serious enough to result in hospitalization or death.

Meanwhile, the CDC’s wastewater surveillance dashboard, which tracks the level of virus detected in wastewater samples across the country, suggests circulation is increasing in multiple parts of the country, including portions of the Northeast and Midwest.

Taken together, the signs suggest a surge is coming, says Arrianna Marie Planey, an assistant professor of health policy and management at the University of North Carolina’s Gillings School of Global Public Health.

“I don’t like to use the word ‘inevitable’ because all of this is preventable,” Planey says. “It’s just that prevention is harder and harder at this stage of the pandemic,” when mitigation measures like mask mandates have fallen away and many people either don’t know about or don’t want to get the new Omicron-specific boosters.

Planey has been encouraging people she knows to get boosted and making sure they know about tools like Evusheld (a vaccine alternative for people who are immunocompromised or unable to get their shots) and the antiviral drug Paxlovid. She says she’d like to see more urgency from the government, including stronger communication about the need to get boosted and a continued push for those who haven’t been vaccinated at all to get their primary shots.

The problem, Osterholm says, is getting people to actually heed those warnings. Many polls show that Americans are ready to leave the pandemic behind, even if the virus continues to spread and mutate in the future.

That leaves public-health experts with the frustrating job of repeating the same advice they’ve given for the last several years, to an increasingly detached audience. “There’s no joy in saying, ‘I told you so,’” Planey says, “because people are sick and dying.”

New Coronavirus News from 15 Oct 2022

COVID-19 Cases Rising Again In Germany Canada: New Variant BQ.1 Accounts For One In 10 Cases In The US | [TheHealthSite, 15 Oct 2022]

by Longjam Dineshwori

Currently, the world is facing the threat from fast-growing Omicron sub-variants. New COVID-19 variant BQ.1 is spreading in Europe and the US.

The first outbreak of COVID-19, the infectious disease caused by the novel coronavirus or severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), was reported at Wuhan city of China in early December 2019. With the virus spreading rapidly across the globe, the World Health Organization (WHO) then declared it a global pandemic on March 11, 2020. As of October 14, 2022, the WHO has recorded 620, 878, 405 confirmed cases, including 6, 543, 138 deaths. Although COVID-19 death rates have reduced following the launch of vaccines, experts have been warning about the possibility of future waves of the pandemic. In fact, the rising number of daily cases in some countries, including Canada and Germany, are pointing towards a resurgence of the viral disease.

In the week ending October 8, Canada recorded 20,002 new Covid-19 cases, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) confirmed on Friday. The country's total caseload now stands at 4,293,273 including 45,689 deaths, it stated.

The country is also witnessing an increase in Covid-19 hospitalizations. As reported by the Agency, the total number of people admitted with Covid-19 increased from 5,070 to 5,373 between October 3-10.

In Germany, federal states have been asked to reintroduce stricter requirements for wearing face masks as COVID-19 number continues to rise.

As per media reports, the country recorded around 114,000 new cases on Friday. The number of patients requiring treatment in ICU also increased to 1,683 on Friday (around 300 more than one week ago, news agencies reported quoting the German Intensive Care Availability Register (DIVI).

India recorded 2,430 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, as per the data released by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Friday morning.

New Covid variant BQ.1 spreading in Europe and the US
Currently, the world is facing the threat of new Omicron sub-variants such as BQ.1, BQ.1.1, BA.5, BF.7 and BA.5.1.7

While BA.5 remains the dominant lineage in the US, the BQ.1 and BQ.1.1. variants are fast growing in the country; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has stated.

According to the agency, BQ.1 now accounts for one in 10 COVID cases in the US. This new Omicron variant has already overtaken many rival strains in European nations like England and Germany.

The CDC estimates suggest that BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 each make up an 5.7 per cent of current infections in the country.

Meanwhile, China is dealing with the Omicron sub-variants BF.7 and BA.5.1.7, which are believed to be highly infectious with greater transmissibility.

New Coronavirus News from 13 October 2022

World Faces New Threats From Fast-Mutating Omicron Variants [Newsweek, 13 Oct 2022]

By Jason Gale

Since emerging in late 2021, the highly transmissible omicron strainof SARS-CoV-2 has splintered into a dazzling array of subvariants that are now driving fresh waves of Covid-19 cases around the world. The proliferation of such a diversity of variants is unprecedented, and pits numerous hyper-mutated iterations against each other in a race for global dominance.

That’s turbo-charged Covid, making it one of the fastest-spreading diseases known to humanity and further challenging pandemic-mitigation efforts in a global population already weary of frequent booster shots, testing and masking.

Omicron was first identified in southern Africa late last year, when it outcompeted the delta variant. Omicron’s initial iteration, B.1.1.529, is characterized by some 30 mutations in the gene for the spike protein, which gives the coronavirus its crown-like appearance and allows it to invade cells. Changes there can make the pathogen less recognizable to the antibodies the immune system makes in response to vaccination or a case of Covid, increasing the risk of infection.

Europe likely entering another COVID wave, says WHO and ECDC [Reuters, 13 Oct 2022]

Oct 12 (Reuters) - Another wave of COVID-19 infections may have begun in Europe as cases begin to tick up across the region, the World Health Organization and European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said on Wednesday.

"Although we are not where we were one year ago, it is clear that the COVID-19 pandemic is still not over," WHO's Europe director, Hans Kluge, and ECDC's director, Andrea Ammon, said in a joint statement.

"We are unfortunately seeing indicators rising again in Europe, suggesting that another wave of infections has begun."

WHO's region-wise data showed that only Europe recorded a rise in COVID-19 cases in the week ended Oct. 2, clocking an increase of 8% from the prior week.

Public health experts have warned that vaccine fatigue and confusion over available vaccines will likely limit booster uptake in the region.

Millions of people across Europe remain unvaccinated against COVID-19, the WHO and ECDC noted.

They urged European countries to administer both flu and COVID-19 vaccines ahead of an expected surge in cases of seasonal influenza.

"There was no time to lose," the WHO and ECDC said, adding that vulnerable groups, including people over 60 years old, pregnant women and those with co-morbidities, should get vaccinated against both influenza and COVID-19.

New Coronavirus News from 18 Jul 2022

The hunt for drugs for mild COVID: scientists seek to treat those at lower risk [Nature, 18 Jul 2022]

By Saima May Sidik

People who are unlikely to develop severe COVID-19 have no widely approved medications to ease the illness.

A shift is afoot in the search for COVID-19 therapies: some researchers are turning their attention towards drugs that could be used to treat mild illness, even in people who are not at high risk of severe disease.

Such drugs could fill a yawning gap, says infectious-disease expert Oriol Mitjà at Germans Trias i Pujol University Hospital in Barcelona, Spain. High-risk people have treatment options, he says, but moderate-risk people who don’t quite qualify for existing treatments are left fearing for their safety. “There is a need there,” he says. Such treatments could reduce the disruption that even mild cases can inflict on people’s jobs and family lives.

Political hurdles and recruitment issues have dissuaded some researchers from shifting their focus away from severe disease, but others are pushing ahead. “This could still be really important — to look at decreasing time spent ill,” says Susanna Naggie, an infectious-disease clinician at Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, North Carolina.

The cupboard is bare
The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends more than a half-dozen COVID-19 drugs for people who either have severe disease or are at risk of hospitalization. The WHO cautions against several drugs as treatments for mild illness — but makes no recommendations of what to take instead.

Treating sore throats and sniffles might sound indulgent, but drugs for mild disease could mark a turning point in the pandemic. Such a treatment not only would get people back to their lives sooner, but could also limit disease spread. Fewer infections mean fewer opportunities for the virus to mutate, so drugs for mild disease could stem the rise of new variants.

Low-income countries could also benefit. For example, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, only 3.3% of the population has received a vaccine dose. But drugs could help to compensate for low vaccination rates, says Frédéric Monnot, a drug-development researcher at the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative in Geneva, Switzerland. Many drugs are easier to deploy in Africa than vaccines, which often require cold storage and must be administered by trained personnel.

Not just a luxury
Immunologist Marc Feldmann at the University of Oxford, UK, points to another benefit: researchers don’t fully understand the risk factors that lead to severe disease. Widely used treatments for mild disease could save the lives of people who do not know that they are at high risk. “The reality is that everybody is at risk,” he said.

Naggie and her colleagues started recruiting participants for a trial called ACTIV-6 in early 2021, when vaccination was becoming widespread and it looked like the pandemic was trending toward less severe disease. Instead of focusing on treating people with risk factors, ACTIV-6’s organizers have leaned into this new phase of the pandemic.

The researchers recruit anyone 30 years old or older — including vaccinated individuals — to study whether existing drugs, such as fluvoxamine, now used to treat depression, can help people to get through COVID-19. The researchers consider whether therapies resolve recipients’ symptoms sooner, helping them to get back to their lives faster, rather than limiting their analysis to prevention of hospitalization or death. Neither the antiparasitic drug ivermectin nor the asthma drug fluticasone sped recovery under the conditions the team tested. The scientists have recently finished enrolling people for their trial of fluvoxamine.

Why scientists are racing to develop more COVID antivirals

Although ACTIV-6 tests repurposed drugs, Feldmann and his colleagues think a new type of antiviral could treat mild COVID-19. Most viruses need sugar molecules to take on their 3D shapes, and they use their hosts’ biochemical machinery to mould these molecules into a usable form. Modified sugars called iminosugars can gum up this machinery and disrupt the formation of viral particles.
Feldmann, who is developing iminosugars, says they could limit the disease course and viral reproduction and spread, making them good candidates for treating mild COVID-19. Because they interrupt host molecules instead of targeting the virus directly, they are unlikely to spur resistance. “It’s exactly what the patients want,” he said.
The drug company Emergent BioSolutions, in Gaithersburg, Maryland, recently tested the safety profile of iminosugars, clearing the way for clinical trials. Biochemist Raymond Dwek, who is also at the University of Oxford and involved in developing iminosugars, says such trials could be completed within two years.
Drug barriers
But there are barriers to finding drugs for mild disease. Among them are treatment guidelines ― published by organizations such as the WHO ― that focus on severe disease, says Edward Mills, a health researcher at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada. If guidelines don’t encourage doctors to prescribe drugs for mild disease, research into such drugs is unlikely to be useful, says Mills, who is also a principal investigator of the TOGETHER trial, aimed at finding existing affordable drugs to treat COVID-19.
The guidelines’ silence on mild disease, he says, has disincentivized him from widening his focus. Naggie, who is a member of the US National Institutes of Health committee on COVID-19 treatment guidelines, hopes trials such as ACTIV-6 prompt guideline committees to broaden their approach.
Researching mild disease is feasible in only some parts of the world, points out Monnot, who is involved in the ANTICOV trial, which seeks treatments for mild and moderate COVID-19. In Africa, where ANTICOV is running trials, people are unlikely to seek help for mild COVID-19, or even recognize the symptoms. That makes recruiting people in low-risk categories difficult. “In Africa, when they have fever, they’re not feeling well, the first thing they are thinking is about malaria,” he says.

African clinical trial denied access to key COVID drug Paxlovid

Some researchers had hoped that the antiviral Paxlovid, now the go-to drug for staving off severe symptoms in high-risk people, would serve as a treatment for mild disease. But in June, Paxlovid manufacturer Pfizer, based in New York City, ended a trial in people at moderate risk for severe disease when the drug failed to relieve recipients’ symptoms to a statistically significant degree. Likewise, the WHO recently recommended against using the gout drug colchicine or fluvoxamine for non-severe COVID-191. Both had engendered broad interest on the basis of initially promising results.
Despite difficulties and setbacks, Naggie thinks that it is important to continue working to find drugs to treat mild COVID-19, both because of broad public-health benefits and because long quarantine periods disrupt many people’s lives. “We need to make sure that we reflect that as we move forward with clinical trials in this space,” she said.
doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-01923-5
References
1. Agarwal, A. et al. Br. Med. J. 370, m3379 (2020).

New Coronavirus News from 3 Oct 2022

Outcry as British researcher is given ANOTHER US grant to investigate COVID - despite fears his initial work at Wuhan lab triggered pandemic: Peter Daszak is paid $650,000 to study bat coronaviruses - and 'assess their ability to infect humans' [Daily Mail, 3 Oct 2022]

by PAUL FARRELL

US health officials have given a hugely controversial research organization another $650,000 (£580k) grant to experiment on Covid-like viruses – despite fears similar risky work may have actually sparked the pandemic.

EcoHealth Alliance, run by British zoologist Peter Daszak, funded studies in Wuhan – the Chinese city where the pandemic began – on manipulated coronaviruses.

Such research, known as 'gain of function', can see viruses deliberately engineered to become more dangerous to humans.

EcoHealth Alliance's five-year experiment will investigate 'the potential for future bat coronavirus emergence' in Asia, with scientists set to trawl caves in Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam in the hunt to prevent another viral crisis.

The grant was awarded last month by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which is still ran by Dr Anthony Fauci.

Dr Fauci is known to be close to Dr Daszak, who thanked the American Government's departing chief medical adviser for downplaying theories that Covid may have been created in a lab.

EcoHealth Alliance is said to have received $60million (£53.5m) in federal cash over the past decade. Some of this money was funneled straight to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The justification for the grant says that previous research in this field 'identifies the border region of Southern China, Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam as a high risk for future emergence of novel coronaviruses and the potential site where SARS-CoV-2 first 'spilled over' from bats to people'.

The research will also include testing communities that live in close proximity to wildlife in south east Asia for coronaviruses.

According to the NIH's website, the research will include supplying 'viral sequences and isolates for use in vaccine development'.

The main aim of the research is described as conducting 'community-based surveys and biological sampling of people frequently exposed to wildlife in Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam, to find serological evidence of spillover'.

The other primary aim will include 'sampling and PCR screening of bats and other wildlife at community surveillance sites'.

The new research may 'also provide data on wildlife reservoirs and community spillover events of relevance to the origin of COVID-19,' according to a section of the NIH report.

Another section reads: 'Finally, we will rapidly supply viral sequences and isolates for use in vaccine and therapeutic development.'

The long-term goal of projects such as this one is to help aid global preparedness in case of another global pandemic, the NIH said.

Further details of British researcher Daszak's role in facilitating risky coronavirus research in China were revealed in a report back in April.

They outlined how his EcoHealth Alliance raked in millions in federal grants.

Daszak's group, which bizarrely evolved from a save-the-manatees non-profit to a top champion of viral gain-of-function research as it chased federal funding, has long been at the center of questions about the origins of Covid.

The lengthy report that was published in Vanity Fair, based on dozens of interviews and more than 100,000 leaked internal documents, detailed how EcoHealth operated in a world of 'murky grant agreements, flimsy oversight, and the pursuit of government funds for scientific advancement, in part by pitching research of steeply escalating risk'.

The report did not offer conclusive evidence as to whether Covid leaked from the Wuhan lab that worked closely with EcoHealth, or was transmitted to humans by an animal in a 'natural spillover' event, as Daszak has long insisted.

But it does outline the lengths to which Daszak - and Dr Fauci, whose agency helped fund his research - went to try to cast doubt on the lab-origin theory and downplay the potential role of risky research that EcoHealth supported in Wuhan.

In 2014, the National Institute of Health approved a $3.7million grant to EcoHealth titled Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence, the purpose of which was to create a sort of pandemic early-warning system.

The research involved gathering bat coronaviruses in China and studying them at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), as well as mixing components of SARS-like viruses from different species to create a novel chimera that was able to directly infect human cells.

Allowing such risky research to go forward at the Wuhan lab was 'simply crazy, in my opinion,' Jack Nunberg, director of the Montana Biotechnology Center, told Vanity Fair.

'Reasons are lack of oversight, lack of regulation, the environment in China,' he said. 'So that is what really elevates it to the realm of, 'No, this shouldn't happen.'

Facing a funding shortfall when certain grants expired, EcoHealth in 2018 submitted an even more ambitious research proposal to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA.

The plan titled Project DEFUSE involved partnering with WIV to engineer bat coronaviruses to be more deadly, by inserting genetic features that are similar to those found in SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid.

In their response, DARPA officials slammed the plan as risky for failing to address significant ethical legal and social concerns, refusing to issue the $14.2million grant.

Daszak has also been accused of being relentless in his pursuit of obtaining NIH grant money from Fauci for EcoHealth's research.

He would invite Fauci to EcoHealth events that were described on invitations as 'educational' despite the fact that nonprofit officials referred to them as 'cultivation events' in which they should network with 'prospective federal funders'.

The group would spend approximately $8,000 on each 'cultivation' event.

'These kinds of events are common among many nongovernmental organizations and nonprofits, which depend upon both public and private donors for support,' Daszak told the magazine, defending the parties.

Daszak also repeatedly lauded Fauci, requesting he serve as a 'panel speaker' at select EcoHealth events.

In April 2020, Daszak came under scrutiny in April 2020 when theories about the origin of COVID surfaced.

A reporter asked then-President Donald Trump during a Covid press briefing why the U.S. government would support a $3.7million grant to a Chinese lab.

'We will end that grant very quickly,' Trump replied, prompting a follow-up question, from another reporter, directed at Fauci about whether a lab could be responsibly for Covid.

Dr Fauci, answered, alleging a 'group of highly qualified evolutionary virologists' determined the virus was 'totally consistent with a jump of a species from an animal to a human.'

The next day, Daszak reportedly emailed Dr Fauci to thank him for 'publicly standing up and stating that the scientific evidence supports a natural origin for Covid from a bat-to-human spillover, not a lab release from the Wuhan Institute of Virology'.

Dr Fauci reportedly thanked the scientist back.

New Coronavirus News from 4 Oct 2022

Covid-19 public inquiry opens amid anger from bereaved over testimony [The Guardian, 4 Oct 2022]

by Robert Booth

Chair Lady Hallett tells families upset their evidence will not be heard directly that they will be ‘at the heart’ of hearing

The bereaved will be “at the heart” of the Covid-19 public inquiry, its chair, Lady Hallett, has pledged at the first public hearing in the investigation into the UK’s handling of the pandemic, which the inquiry’s counsel described as an “unprecedented and vastly difficult undertaking”.

Opening the first module to a sprawling inquiry expected to run for several years, Hallett addressed anger from some of the bereaved that their testimonies may not be heard as direct evidence, by saying: “We shall ensure that those most affected, particularly the bereaved, will be properly consulted.”

But she said if they were consulted on every stage of the inquiry it “would go on forever”. She insisted her priority was to reach conclusions “before another disaster strikes the four nations of the United Kingdom” and would not allow the inquiry to “drag on for decades”.

The Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group is upset Hallett is planning only a “listening exercise” to capture a cross-section of views among the hundreds of thousands of bereaved people in the UK. They want their evidence to be heard directly.

“There is a balance to be struck between making timely recommendations and the extent to which we explore every issue,” Hallett said.

Hugo Keith KC, counsel to the inquiry, also said it would need to be “ruthless” in its focus.

It is already set to consider the performance of the public health system, care homes, lockdowns, schooling, children, minorities, mental health, the economy and border controls among other issues.

A communications company is being sought to handle the listening exercise, which some of the bereaved have described as an attempt to “outsource the grief of bereaved families”.

In previous public inquiries, such as those into the Grenfell Tower fire and Manchester Arena bombing, family and friends provided “pen portraits” of victims at the start of the formal hearings. However, the UK pandemic toll of 204,776 people with Covid on their death certificate, is far higher.

“We feel very strongly that this inquiry should be focusing on the impact on the bereaved families and to do that our voices need to be heard inside the inquiry and taken as evidence,” said Fran Hall, who lost her husband, Steve Mead, 65, to Covid in October 2020.

Matt Fowler, a co-founder of the group, whose father, Ian, died in hospital in April 2020, said: “Anything less [than hearing the bereaved’s stories directly] would be devastating for families like mine who have worked so tirelessly to get here and could cost lives in the future.”

Hallett used her opening remarks to argue the listening exercise would “ensure everyone across the UK who wishes to contribute to the inquiry can do so in a less formal setting … their contributions will inform the inquiry about the impact of the pandemic”. She denied anyone had been barred from giving evidence.

Keith said the listening exercise would take accounts from tens or hundreds of thousands of people, which would be “analysed and summarised before being provided to the inquiry teams and the core participants” as written evidence.

Pete Weatherby KC, representing the Covid-19 bereaved group, said the inquiry’s terms of reference were “to listen to and consider carefully the experiences of bereaved families”. But, he said the listening exercise, “as cast up to now, does not do this”. He said that it marginalises “the bereaved and their voices”.

Hallett responded: “There is absolutely no question that the bereaved will be marginalised and I really don’t want to hear that expression again.”

Before starting proceedings with a minute’s silence, Hallett said: “There is one word that sums up the pandemic for so many and that is the word loss … millions of people suffered loss, including the loss of friends and family members, the loss of good health both mental and physical, economic loss, the loss of educational opportunities and the loss of social interaction.

Those who were bereaved lost the most.”

The inquiry is divided into numerous modules to run in sequence. The first module, which opened on Tuesday, will examine the UK’s resilience and preparedness for the coronavirus pandemic. Evidence hearings will not start until next year.

Covid-19: New wave could begin before Xmas - modeller [New Zealand Herald, 4 Oct 2022]

By Jamie Morton

A Covid-19 modeller is urging eligible Kiwis to get boosted if they haven't been, amid the growing probability New Zealand could get another coronavirus wave before Christmas.

Professor Michael Plank told the Herald it was possible that wave – expected to come on the back of building surges in the Northern Hemisphere – might even compare with July's.

Cases and hospitalisations already appear to be on the rise in Denmark, Belgium and the UK.
In Germany, where reported cases tripled in three weeks to reach 96,000 on September 29, the country's federal minister of health Karl Lauterbach told media another wave had begun.

Plank said this could be because of a combination of factors, such as people in Europe heading back to school, waning immunity, and a raft of troublesome new Omicron sub-variants.

BA.5 descendant BQ.1.1 has been popping up around the world and indicating its own potential at evading immune antibodies – but it's so new that little is known about it.
Another sub-type, BA.2.75.2, makes up just 1 per cent of Covid-19 cases, but has now been detected in nearly 50 countries – including New Zealand.

It's thought to be nearly seven times tougher for our immune systems to block than BA.5 - and is now considered the most resistant variant seen yet.

Scientists have pinpointed two specific mutations that make it better able to latch onto our cells and infect us: even if we'd already been exposed to its relatives.

In one recent study, Chinese researchers estimated it to be, on average, more than six times more likely to reinfect someone who'd had BA.2 - and 2.7 times more likely to cause a reinfection in a person who'd had BA.5.

Another Swedish study has also indicated virus-fighting antibody levels may be five-fold lower against BA.2.75.2 than BA.5.

While ESR has tracked a slight uptick in New Zealand cases recently, there still wasn't any indication that new variants were already beginning to drive a fresh surge here.

While the removal of border testing had left the picture somewhat less clear, importantly, the latest surveillance data from wastewater sampling hadn't shown any tell-tale shifts in variant activity.

And across hospitals, the most recent sequencing data showed BA.5 making up 87 per cent of samples, followed by BA.4.6 (5 per cent), BA.4 (2 per cent), B.A2.75 (2 per cent) and BA.2 (2 per cent).

"But as these variants become more widespread, this could actually accelerate things a little bit," Plank said.

"So whatever happens in the Northern Hemisphere, I'd expect something similar to happen here – maybe in a matter of weeks."

It remained to be seen what effect open borders, dropped mandates and open borders would have in the next wave.

While increasingly warmer temperatures might play in our favour, Plank pointed out many Kiwis were no longer masking up.

"It's very difficult to predict, but it could be that we see something comparable with the recent July wave we had, in terms of the number of potential cases."

That surge topped out at just over 10,000 daily reported cases in mid-July, before dropping away to between 1000 and 2000 now.

"There's also uncertainty about how this will translate to health impacts and hospitalisations, because we do now have very levels of immunity."

Modellers estimate as much as two-thirds of the population now might have been exposed to the virus, giving them extra immunity on top of that conferred by the vaccine, against severe illness and death.

"But we can't say exactly how this might blunt the impacts of another wave."

Plank urged people to ensure they were up to date with their vaccinations and boosters.

"If you're eligible, it's definitely a good time to go out and get one, because you of course want to have that extra immunity before another wave really takes off."

New Coronavirus News from 1 Oct 2022

COVID in California: Emerging coronavirus subvariants gain ground in U.S. [San Francisco Chronicle, 1 Oct 2022]

by Aidin Vaziri

The newer BA.4.6 and BF.7 versions of the coronavirus are nibbling away at the dominance of omicron subvariant BA.5, according to the CDC.

UPDATE: Here are the latest updates on COVID in the Bay Area and California.

Three out of four Americans are now living in areas designated by the CDC as having “low” community levels of COVID-19. California COVID deaths have dropped 20% statewide, but the number of people still dying from coronavirus infections did not budge. Scientists at Scripps Research have developed a drug that turns the coronavirus against itself. And a group of doctors issued guidance for diagnosing and treating long COVID in children.

Latest updates:
BA.4.6 and BF.7 subvariants expand their reach in U.S.

The omicron BA.5 subvariant continues to lose ground to newer sublineages of the virus, according to data published Friday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
BA.5 made up an estimated 81% of sequenced cases last week, down from nearly 90% a month ago. Emerging subvariants are growing in proportion, including BA.4.6 at 12.8% (up from 11.9% last week) and BF.7 at 3.4% (up from 2.3%), while BA.2.75 holds at 1.4%. Public health experts believe those strains may have mutations that can help them evade immunity and could make some COVID-19 treatments ineffective. “We are monitoring variants and their impacts in the US and around the world,” said Dr. Cyrus Shahpar, the White House COVID-19 Data Director.

S.F. public pool cancels programs due to COVID outbreak
One of San Francisco’s public swimming pools has temporarily canceled several of its programs due to a COVID-19 outbreak among the staff. Swim lessons, lap swim and family swim session at the Martin Luther King Jr. Pool in the city’s Bayview district are suspended until at least Sunday due to staffing shortages, the Recreation and Park Department said in a bulletin.

Hospital data show unsafe wait times during surges
Emergency department patients during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic had to wait an average of 6.6 hours before getting a bed during virus surges — a substantially longer period than the four-hour boarding standard established by The Joint Commission, according to a research letter published Friday in JAMA Network Open. The long wait times, which required patients to remain in hallways or waiting rooms when hospital occupancy exceeded 85% to 90%, put individuals at risk and have been associated with excess mortality, according to the report, which parsed monthly hospital data from January 2020 to December 2021. “The harms associated with ED boarding and crowding, long-standing before the pandemic, may have been further entrenched,” researchers from Yale University and the University of Michigan wrote.

Older people hit hardest by rising European cases
COVID-19 cases among people aged 65 years and older across Europe rose by 9% compared with the previous week, driven by a recent uptick in infections in 14 countries, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said in its weekly update. Increases in overall rates for all ages have been reported for two consecutive weeks for the first time since the most recent BA.5 wave abated. Of the 27 countries reporting hospitalization data, 14 observed an increase in patients compared to the previous week.

Half of U.S. adults know little or “nothing at all” about new boosters, survey finds
About half of adults have heard “little” or “nothing at all” about the the updated COVID-19 jabs, according to a survey published Friday by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Awareness about the bivalent booster that targets both the newer omicron variants and the original strain of the virus is relatively modest, with another half of respondents saying they’ve heard “a lot” (17%) or “some” (33%) about the new shots. Older adults and Democrats are somewhat more likely than their counterparts to say they have heard at least “some” about the new boosters, but fewer than a quarter across these groups report hearing “a lot” about the new shots, the report said. Four in ten fully vaccinated adults say they are not sure if the CDC has recommended that people like them get the bivalent booster, including about half of fully vaccinated rural residents (54%), Hispanic adults (51%), and those without a college degree (49%) who say they are not sure. The CDC has recommended that all adults get a bivalent COVID-19 booster at least two months after they complete their primary vaccine series.
Rising cases in New York State “tip of the iceberg”

While most regions of the U.S. are showing improved COVID-19 community levels, cases continue to rise in New York State. Nine out of the state’s 62 counties moved into the “high” tier this week for the first time since the summer, according to updated data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In Onondaga County, cases and hospitalizations rose to the highest in four months. “I think it’s the tip of the iceberg,” Dr. Mitchell Brodey, an infectious disease expert who runs the Family Care Medical Group, told Syracuse News. New York state ended its COVID state of emergency earlier this month and lifted the mask requirement on public transportation.

State’s COVID sick pay program extended through end of year
Among the many bills Gov. Gavin Newsom approved on Friday was AB 152, which extends California’s COVID-19 supplemental paid sick leave program through Dec. 31. The law, which was originally enacted in February and applies only to businesses that employ 26 or more people, allows workers in the state who get infected with COVID to claim up to 80 hours of paid leave. It was set to expire on Friday. Read more about the bill and Newsom’s signing.

Sweden to stop recommending vaccines for teenagers
Sweden’s Public Health Agency said on Friday it will no longer recommend that children aged 12 to 17 get vaccinated against COVID-19, saying there is a “very low risk of serious illness and death” for children and adolescents. The general recommendation will go into effect on Oct. 31. “Overall, we see that the need for care as a result of COVID-19 has been low among children and young people during the pandemic, and has also decreased since the omicron virus variant began to spread,” Sören Andersson, head of the Public Health Agency’s vaccination department, said in the statement. “At this stage of the pandemic, we do not see a continued need for vaccination in this group.”

In February, Sweden halted wide-scale testing for COVID-19 even among people showing symptoms of an infection. For most of the pandemic, Sweden stood out among European nations for its comparatively hands-off response. It never went into lockdown or closed businesses, largely relying instead on individual responsibility to control infections. An independent commission that looked into Sweden’s handling of the pandemic in 2020 determined government failed to sufficiently protect the elderly in care homes from COVID-19 and is ultimately responsible for the pandemic’s effects on the country.

Jane’s Addiction guitarist backs out of tour due to long COVID
Dave Navarro, a television personality and the guitarist for Jane’s Addiction, said on Friday he is pulling out of the band’s upcoming tour due to ongoing symptoms of long COVID. “I had hoped for a full recovery by October but I am still very fatigued and will not be able to join this leg,” Navarro said in an Instagram post. “I am personally gutted as our original bass player has returned, Eric Avery. We wanted to bring you the original lineup but that will have to wait until I am recovered. While the band is touring, I will be working on some new Jane’s material in the studio here in L.A.” Navarro was initially diagnosed with COVID-19 in December. He will be replaced on tour by Troy Van Leeuwen, who has played with bands such as Queens of the Stone Age and A Perfect Circle.

Experts warn of “a wake-up call” as cases rise by 14% in U.K.

The U.K. has registered its highest rise in new COVID-19 cases since the summer, with a 14% increase in the past week. The Office for National Statistics has also detected a rise in virus-related hospital infections. “The fact there are people getting so seriously ill they need to go into hospital is a wake-up call to us all that COVID is still here,” Dr Thomas Waite, deputy chief medical officer for England, told BBC News. He said that number of new subvariants of omicron were circulating at low levels, and could be behind the hospital figures. The U.K.
recorded 1.1 million new infections last week. UCSF’s Bob Wachter earlier this week warned that what happens abroad may be a “harbinger” of things to come for the U.S., which has traditionally followed the virus waves seen in the U.K.

COVID can infect fat cells. That may explain why some people get much sicker
The virus that causes COVID-19 can infect and replicate in fat cells, and cause inflammation in fat tissue, Stanford researchers found in a new study that could help explain why obese people are at higher risk for severe COVID. Since the early days of the pandemic, doctors and researchers have observed that people who are obese, across many ethnic groups, experience disproportionately bad COVID outcomes, including hospitalization, ICU admission, mechanical ventilation and death. But it wasn’t clear how or why. Read more about the study here.

Less than 4% of eligible Americans have gotten updated boosters
About 3.2 million Americans got bivalent COVID-19 vaccine shots last week, according to data released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A total of 7.6 million people have received the new booster doses since they became available on Sept. 1, representing less than 4% of the eligible population. The CDC recommends that everyone over 12 years and older receive an updated Pfizer or Moderna booster at least two months after their last shot.

Omicron spreads faster at home than delta, study finds
The omicron COVID variant is substantially more transmissible among household members than the earlier delta, with an estimated secondary attack rate of 46% in people who received three doses of an mRNA vaccine, compared with 11% for delta, according to a study published Thursday in Nature Communications. Researchers at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health used contact tracing data to track the infection rates among 1,122 index patients infected with omicron or delta and 2,169 household contacts from December 2021 to January 2022 for this study but noted it had some limitations. “Household exposure is often prolonged and repeated compared to social contacts in society, and preferably a complete evaluation should consider all close contacts,” they wrote.

Three out of four Americans have “low” community levels
For the first time since April, more than three-quarters of Americans live in areas with “low” COVID-19 community levels, based on hospitalization and case rates, according to updated data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That includes nearly all Californians. Most regions nationwide are showing improving trends with 77% of Americans living in a region classified as being in the “low” tier, 21% in “medium” and 2% in “high.” Based on a separate metric that tracks the rates of new cases and positive tests, about 70% of all counties remain in the “high” virus transmission category, which under the CDC’s revised rules for health care settings means universal masking is still required in nursing homes and hospitals.

Cases drop 20% statewide, but deaths plateau
COVID infections continue to slide in California. As of Thursday, the state was reporting on average about 3,500 cases a day, down 20% from the previous week, according to health department data. That means California is tracking about 9 daily cases per 100,000 residents, marking the first time the figure has dipped below 10 per 100,000 since early April. The statewide test positive rate is now down to 4.8%, although a near record low number of coronavirus tests were administered at sites that report results to the state. There are about 2,000 hospitalized patients with COVID, down from a summer peak of 4,654 in early August.

The only number not showing significant improvement is is the number of deaths, which remain at about 30 a day — the same figure as the previous week.

New drug takes “revenge on the virus”
California scientists have designed a new drug that causes COVID-19 to turn against itself. The drug, NMT5, coats SARS-CoV-2 with chemicals that can temporarily alter the human ACE2 receptor—the molecule the virus normally latches onto to infect cells. That means that when the virus is near, its path into human cells via the ACE2 receptor is blocked, according to the study by Scripps Research in La Jolla published on Thursday in described in Nature Chemical Biology. “What’s so neat about this drug is that we’re actually turning the virus against itself,” said senior author Stuart Lipton, a research professor. “We’re arming it with little molecular warheads that end up preventing it from infecting our cells; it’s our revenge on the virus.”

Qatar says World Cup fans must test before arrival
International fans attending the FIFA World Cup matches in Qatar this fall will be required to provide a negative COVID-19 test upon arrival in the country, regardless of vaccination status, event organizers announced Thursday. “Any visitor aged six and over is required to present an official negative COVID-19 PCR test result taken no more than 48 hours before departure time or an official negative Rapid Antigen Test result no more than 24 hours before departure time.

The test result will need to be submitted at the airport check-in counter,” the guidelines said.

Self-administered rapid tests are not valid. The organizers added that anyone who tests positive for COVID-19 while in Qatar will be required to isolate in accordance with Ministry of Public Health guidelines.

New Coronavirus News from 2 Oct 2022

Covid-19: UK hospitalisations on the rise, Germany’s cases double [Newsbook, 2 Oct 2022]

By Michaela Pia Camilleri
-
After a summer of calm, Covid-19 cases are back on the rise in parts of Europe, with the UK experiencing a rise in hospitalisations, and Germany’s number of active cases doubling within a week.

According to British health leaders, every hospital in the UK is currently under significant pressure, as a new Covid-19 surge is proving to be “a very heavy straw on the camel’s back”.

Last week, some eight hospitals have declared a critical accident, cancelled operations, or even asked patients not to come to A&E unless seriously ill.

It appears that there is a link between such accidents and the rapid rise in hospitalisations related to Covid-19, which have risen by nearly 37 per cent in a week, reaching 7,024.

In the meantime, Germany’s residents will have to adjust to a new set of rules aimed at curbing the spread of the virus, as infections have doubled within a week.

From Saturday, passengers on long-distance trains over the age of 14 will be obliged to wear FFP2 masks rather than the less-protective surgical masks that have hitherto been compulsory.

All 16 German states have agreed that passengers on local buses and trains will be required to wear at least surgical masks, although that is not mandatory under the new federal rules.

Officials have recorded 96,367 new cases in the past 24 hours, in a country with a population of over 80 million.

A week ago, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz tested positive for Covid-19.

New York is also experiencing a rise in cases, with the U.S. Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommending the use of masks in Central New York.

While most of the US is at low risk, nine counties in New York state are now at a high risk, including Onondaga County, Oswego County and Jefferson County. Masks are being recommended in these high-risk areas.

In fact, daily cases in Oswego County have doubled from 20 on 8 September to an average of 40 this week.

Meanwhile, the situation in Malta has proven to be quite calm, with number of active cases currently at 271, and just 9 new cases on Sunday.

COVID-19 world weekly cases drop 5% but some European nations surge [UPI News, 2 Oct 2022]

By Allen Cone

Oct. 2 (UPI) -- COVID-19 cases and deaths continue to drop, including fatalities the lowest since the start of the pandemic in March 2020, but cases are spiking in European nations, including Germany, Austria, Italy, France at least 33% each.

The seven-day moving average for deaths was down to 1,191, the fewest since 1,074 March 21, 2020, 10 days after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, according to Worldometers.info. In one week deaths declined to 8,029, a 20% drop, with the cumulative 6,550,670 Sunday.

And cases' moving average was at 419,734, which is the least since 397,470 July 5, 2021. In one week they declined 5% to 2,938,462 with the total 623,459,880 but Europe rose 5% over seven days.

Daily deaths worldwide dropped to 524 Sunday, the fewest since 424 March 14, 2020, after 841 Saturday and 867 last Sunday.

Cases were 240,236 Saturday, the lowest number since 230,983 on Aug. 30, 2020, after 302,672 Saturday. The last time cases were above 1 million was July 31.

Some nations do not report data on weekends. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention doesn't report data on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays.

The records were 3,846,212 cases on Jan. 21, during the height of the Omicron subvariant, and 16,815 deaths on Jan. 21, 2021, when the Delta subvariant was at its peak.

Few big countries reported increases in both categories in the past week, mainly in Europe.
Germany posted the most weekly cases, 434,179, which is a 60% gain, and the fourth-most deaths at 606, a 15% rise.

Japan had the second-most cases, 318,384, which dropped 24 percent. In deaths, the United States was No. 1 at 1,751, which decreased 32%, and a 1,000 more than second-place Russia at 710, a 1% drop.

In the past week, Asia reported 33% of the world's cases though it dropped 15% for a cumulative 190,058,096, according to Worldometers.info. The continent has 59% percent of the world's population.

Europe's cases rose 11%, for a cumulative world-high 227,735,916. Also increasing were Africa 6% for 12,648,930. Decreasing were Oceania 37% for 12,404,333, North America 33% for 116,486,955, South America 5% for 64,124,929.

Oceana is the sole one to gain in deaths, 7% for 21,002. Decreasing were North America 37% for 1,540,110, Africa 31% for 257,633, Europe 13% for a world-high 1,921,347, Asia 13% for 1,480,575, South America 11% for 1,329,979.

The United States leads with 1,084,891 fatalities and 98,248,623 infections. The nation also holds the world record for daily cases at 906,886 on Jan. 7. Brazil is second in deaths at 686,366, including 62 Suday and fourth in cases at 34,721,228, including 791 Sunday, the first time under 1,000 since the start of the pandemic.

India is second in cases at 44,594,487, including 3,375 Sunday and third in deaths at 528,673, including 18 Sunday, including 11 reconciled by Kersala state, with single deaths also reported in April and zero the last time on March 24, 2020.

India has the daily deaths record at 4,529 on May 18, 2021, with no adjustments from regions.
Case increases in the past week with more than 25,000 in descending order were France 34% at No. 3 312,126, Taiwan 5% at No. 4 293,330, Italy 59% at No. 5 215,534, Austria 62% at 77,717, Brazil 2% at No. 10 47,216.

Also in the top 10 for most cases but dropping: No. 5 Russia 272,779 with 25%, No. 6 United States 248,729 with 32%, No. 7 South Korea 201,678 with 14%.

Among nations reporting more than 100 deaths with increases in the past week: Brazil 9% at No. 5 467, Taiwan 8% at No. 6 307, Australia 19% at No. 10 256, Poland 35% at No. 15 142, Chile 7% at No. 16 132, Indonesia 9% at No. 17 124.

Also in the top 10 for most deaths but decreasing: No. 3 Japan with 632 at 13%, No. 7 South Korea 15% at 305, No. 8 Britain with 285 at 33%, No. 9 Italy 18% at 26.

In the top 10 for deaths, Mexico is fifth with 330,131 and 19 Sunday, Peru sixth with 216,578 and three Saturday, Britain seventh with 190,317 with no data on weekends, Italy eighth with 177,150 including 20 Sunday, Indonesia ninth with 158,014 including 10 Sunday and France 10th with 155,112 with no change on the weekend.

In the top 10 for cases, France is third with 35,475,260 including 37,453 Sunday, Germany is fifth with 33,386,229, Britain seventh with 23,672,855, Italy eighth with 22,529,252 including 29,906 Sunday, Russia 10th with 21,049,027 including 30,085 Sunday.

European nations are experiencing case surges, the first spike since the most recent BA.5 wave, the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control said in a weekly update.

In the report, cases among people 65-plus years rose by 9% in one week, driven by increases in 14 of the 26 countries reporting data. But the pooled death rate fell by 20%.

"Changes in population mixing following the summer break are likely to be the main driver of these increases, with no indication of changes in the distribution of circulating variants," the ECDC said.

The cumulative uptake of a first booster was 64.9% among adults aged 18 years and older, 84.1% among individuals aged 60 years and older and 53.9%in the total population.

Germany's rate is 77.9% for one shot among the entire population.

Germany has instituted some new mandates amid the spike.

Passengers older than 14 on long-distance trains will be obliged to wear N95-type respirators. Also, health ministers in all 16 German states have agreed that passengers on local buses and trains will be required to wear at least surgical masks.

The respirator masks are now also to be worn in hospitals, nursing homes and doctors' offices. Also before visiting a nursing home or hospital, a negative test must be presented and employees there facilities must be tested several times a week.

"We have a particularly difficult winter ahead of us due to the energy crisis, we don't want to make it worse through the Covid crisis," German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said at a news conference Friday.

England's hospital admissions for patients with COVID-19 rose 48% in one week with most of the surge is driven by the disease acquired in hospital.

Britain's one-shot rate for the entire population is 69.6%, which is much lower than other nations. The best rate in Europe among large nations is Portugal at 94.6%.

"It is clear now that we are seeing an increase which could signal the start of the anticipated winter wave of COVID-19," Dr. Mary Ramsay, who directs Britain's Health Security Agency, posted on Twitter. "Cases have started to climb, and hospitalizations are increasing in the oldest age groups," Ramsay said.

In all, more than 12.7 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered worldwide, a gain of less than 100 million in one week, with the world's population of 7.9 billion, according to Bloomberg tracking. Mainland China leads with 3.5 billion doses administered and a 92.4% one-shot vaccination rate among the 1.5 billion population, the most in the world. India is second with 2.2 billion among the 1.4 billion population and a 74.4% rate.

Some of the most recent hotspots -- Japan and South Korea -- are subsiding. On Sunday, Japan added 29,492 infections, an 15% decline from the previous week, for a total of 21,359,708 in ninth worldwide with the record 255,534 six weeks ago.

Also, Japan gained 71 deaths for a total of 45,107 in 25th globally, 29 days after a record 291.
Japan, which has an 82.8% one-shot vaccination rate among all residents, is in the midst of a seventh wave amid the BA.5 Omicron variant.

On Oct. 11, Japan plans to drop a ban on individual tourist visits and remove a 50,000 cap on daily arrivals. Those were the strongest restrictions among the Group of Seven nations.

Japan has 358 deaths per million, which is 145th in the nation, with the world at 840.4 and Peru No. 1 at 6,430. In cases, Japan's rate is 169,851 per million in 196th place with the world 79,975 and Austria the highest among large countries at 568,502 with Portugal 541,739, France 540,338 and Denmark 533,294. Japan's population is 125 million.

South Korea posted the eighth-most weekly cases 201,678, a 14% decrease, for a total of 23,569,192, but only 23,597 Sunday, in sixth place. The nation added 44 deaths for a cumulative 28,489 in 37th, including a 15% weekly loss at 305, seventh-most worldwide.

South Korea's records are 621,328 cases in March 17 and 470 deaths on March 24.

But South Korea's cases are at three-month lows with a seven-day moving average of 28,741. In late June it was around 7,000. The daily record was 621,328 on March 17.

Starting last Monday, the nation will no longer require masks for outdoor group activities.
General outdoor use ended May 2. South Korea plans to keep the indoor mask mandate, because of a projected resurgence in COVID-19 infections during the fall and winter seasons.

"For nearly two years, students have been forced to cover their faces all day at school without any exemption. A lot of them have been suffering from allergies, skin inflammation, irritated eyes and even breathing difficulties," Shin Min-hyang, head of the solidarity of human rights for parents and students, a civic group against mask mandates, told The Korea Times on Friday.
"Moreover, recent studies show that facemasks are slowing children's language and social development. The developmental delays will have lasting effects on the young generation."

But North Korea apparently has brought back its mask mandate. The official Korean Central News Agency released photos of elderly people wearing masks while attending the previous day's celebrations of the International Day of Older Persons.

The nation has reported no cases or deaths since July.

China, where COVID-19 emerged more than 2.5 years ago, has reported 5,226 deaths. Before a spike in April, it was 4,636, which stayed at that number since early February 2021. On Sunday, China reported 179 cases with 5,659 on April 29. Those are confirmed cases with illness. Asymptomatic ones are reported separately in Mainland China.

Lockdowns have been removed in big metropolitan areas. But data for September indicated that while manufacturing improved slightly, the services industry contracted for the first time since May.

"The data show that the foundation for an economic recovery is still unstable," said Bruce Pang, chief economist at Jones Lang Lasalle Inc., told Bloomberg. "Of the triple whammy of shrinking domestic demand, supply disruption and weakening expectations, consumption is the most prominent."

Hong Kong, like China, has adopted a "zero tolerance" for coronavirus. But since Monday, people arriving will no longer have to go into mandatory hotel quarantine. They cannot enter common areas, restaurants or shopping malls, for the first three days after arrival. They also have to undergo PCR tests on day two, four six.

Hong Kong reported 6 deaths and 3,569 cases Sunday with the record 79,876 on March 3.
The BA.5 Omicron strain has become the most dominant in the world, accounting for 84.8% of cases in the United States, according to the CDC projections through Saturday. The strain was first tracked in late April.

The Centers f Dave Navarro to miss Jane's Addiction tour due to battle with 'long COVID'
or Disease Control and Prevention has classified 3% of counties, districts and territories with a "high" category level, compared with 33.9% "medium" and 73.7% "low." In "high" locations, masks are urged indoors.

The seven-day moving average for cases Thursday was 45,725, the lowest since 45,348 April 22, according to the CDC. And the deaths average Thursday fell to 325, the lowest since 318 on June 22.

New weekly hospitalizations in the United States to Tuesday were 3,773, which is a 7.4% weekly drop. A total of 5,353,767 have been hospitalized with COVID-19 since its inception with a population of 332 million. The U.S. total reported Sunday was 27,344, which is 3.91% capacity, and far below the record 160,113 (20.6%) on Jan. 20, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

On Thursday in its weekly report, the CDC said the U.S. adult one-shot vaccination rate was 90.5% with completed primary service at 77.6% and one booster at 51.9%. The full population rates are 79.5% for one shot, 67.9% for two, 48.7% for three, 36.6% for four with only those 50 and older allowed to get the second booster.

The CDC says 3.5% of eligible people older than 12, around 7.5 million, have received the updated booster that targets Omicron after the rollout four weeks ago.

New Coronavirus News from 14 Sep 2022

'Eighth wave of Covid imminent in France' says health ministry [The Connexion, 14 Sep 2022]

By Hannah Thompson

Cases have risen 55.5% over the past seven days, figures show, with the incidence level rising especially quickly among children aged 10 and under

Covid appears to be making a comeback in France, after cases jumped by 55.5% over the past seven days, and 41,850 cases were reported in the last 24 hours.

The figures from the Health Ministry and health authority Santé publique France, released on September 13, show a significant rise in infections. The daily average over the past seven days is around 17,000, but rising.

The Health Ministry has warned that “an eighth wave” appears to be imminent and Health Minister François Braun has called on people in France to take “responsibility” and think about bringing back their social distancing and hygiene measures where appropriate.

He added that the government is following “the potential evolution of this epidemic”, to “react as soon as we see signs of a resurgence”.

From September 11 to September 12, there were 4,579 new cases. This was a drop from 16,422 cases the day before, but a rise compared to September 5, which saw 3,443 cases.

The incidence level (the number of cases per 100,000 people) had risen to 178.2 by September 12 compared to 173 on Sunday 11.

The incidence rate is rising among children aged under 10 particularly, which is thought to be linked to the rentrée (return to school in September).

Health Minister François Braun told BFMTV Marseille on September 9 that the country was “calling on the responsibility of our citizens”, and asking people to respect barrier gestures.
He said that the ministry was following the “potential evolution of this epidemic” daily, and would “react as soon as we see signs of a return”.

The majority of cases are from sub-variants of the Omicron strain BA5, which are more contagious but generally less virulent.

The number of people arriving at hospitals has risen (550 over the past 24 hours), but the number of people actually being admitted to a ward has dropped (118 fewer people in the past 24 hours). There were 63 people admitted to intensive care in the past week (two in the past 24 hours).

A total of 13,065 Covid patients are currently in hospital nationwide, of which 727 are in intensive care. A total of 49 people have died with Covid in hospital over the past 24 hours, versus 609 people who returned home in the same time.

Since the start of the pandemic, 125,456 people in France have died.