New Coronavirus News from 27 Oct 2022

Dr. Fauci on His Career at NIH, the Darkest Days of COVID & His Reason for Retiring [NBC4 Washington, 27 Oct 2022]

By Doreen Gentzler

"The last thing in the world that I would ever want to do is to hurt a president of the United States. But I had to tell the truth. That was the most difficult time for me," Dr. Anthony Fauci said of his decision to publicly contradict former President Donald Trump's remarks about COVID-19

The nation's leading infectious disease expert will soon step down from his role after more than five decades of government service. News4 recently sat down with Dr. Anthony Fauci at his home to talk about his career, COVID-19 and how he hopes he'll be remembered.

Did you ever imagine the course that your career would take?
"My plans were pretty simple. I came on to the [National Institutes of Health] campus. I was 27 years old. I just finished a few years of medical residency, which I did immediately out after medical school, and I came down here for a three-year fellowship in infectious diseases," Fauci said.

"The unexpected was that I fell in love with the concept of research," he said. "I found that when you do research and you make a discovery, you can influence in a positive way many, many patients in a field if you develop a therapy or understand the pathogenesis of a disease. And I really got taken up by that."

Instead of going back to New York and treating patients in a hospital, Fauci has stayed at NIH since 1972 and never looked back.

He's worked under seven U.S. presidents and helped navigate the country through several infectious disease crises, including AIDS, Ebola and SARS.

But it was COVID-19 that thrust Fauci into the international spotlight.

COVID-19 Polarization
"I became the polarized enemy of some and the hero to others, and both of those are distortions of what reality is," Fauci said.

"I'm not a hero. I'm a physician scientist who's doing my job, and I became the devil to the people who were saying I was taking away the liberties of people by asking them to be vaccinated. So I happened to be caught in a very polarized time in our history, and that's just the way it is," he said.

"So I decided the only way to get through this is to focus like a laser on what my job was and what my responsibility is in. My responsibility, as a physician and as a scientist, is to do whatever I can with the resources we have to preserve the health and the safety of the American public."

"It's completely changed my life," Fauci said. "I can't really go out anywhere because of the notoriety."

You and every member of your family have faced death threats and things that would make most of us run and hide. How have you and your family handled that?

"When you're in the middle of a pandemic that has such an impact on the country and the world, you find yourself in a position that you don't choose to be in, but all of a sudden you're a public figure and you're in a divided society and you have people who don't wish you well," he said.

"I chose this profession, so, I mean, I'll accept it. The thing that's very tough is when they bring your family involved and they harass your children. I have three daughters, adult daughters, who didn't choose this. They just want to go their own life and they get harassed and threatened, and my wife, also," Fauci said. "So now I have a double whammy. I'm worrying about my children getting threatened."

The Pandemic's Darkest Days
There have been a lot of dark, difficult days during the pandemic. What's your memory of the worst?

"When we saw what was happening in northern Italy in the very early part .... We kind of knew in an ominous way that it was going to happen here. And then when New York exploded, then I knew we were in for some really, really tough times," he said. "That was the most painful realization of how bad things were going to get."

A lot of us were watching your face during the news conferences. Was there one day that was more difficult for you than others?

"I did not take any pleasure in having to get up publicly in front of a television camera … and have to contradict the president of the United States. So it was very painful for me to get up there and say, 'No, this is incorrect. This does not work. This is only anecdotal. You know, I'm sorry, sir, but this is not true,'" Fauci said of the news conferences with former President Donald Trump.

"You know, some of the people in the far right thought that I was doing that for political reasons to try and hurt the president. The last thing in the world that I would ever want to do is to hurt a president of the United States. But I had to tell the truth. That was the most difficult time for me."

Catching COVID
For two years, Fauci followed his own recommendations for masking and taking precautions and didn’t get COVID. But, in June, he got the virus after attending his college class reunion in Massachusetts and was in quarantine when one of his daughters got married.

"Oh, that was horrible. I missed my daughter's wedding," he said.

The world-renowned scientist explained that he got the virus after briefly breaking his own masking rules.

"I know exactly how I got infected. I, I was very compulsive about wearing a mask in a crowded indoor setting. Then, I went up to my college, College of the Holy Cross, who were wonderful in, in dedicating a science complex in my name, the Anthony S. Fauci Science Complex at the College of the Holy Cross," he said.

"I saw all of my old classmates that graduated with me in 1962, and these are people I know and love, and I hadn't seen them for decades. And I had a mask on and they were there in the reception and none of them had masks on. So I figured, you know, I don't want to be the the guy who looks standing out, making them feel guilty. So, literally, for about a half an hour, I took my mask off and stood around and hugged and took selfies. Sure enough, four days later - boom. I turned positive."

Fauci missed his daughter's wedding ceremony in New Orleans but watched from home on FaceTime.

Fauci's Decision to Retire
Fauci is notorious for his work ethic, clocking 14 to 16 hour days, six days a week and rarely taking time off for vacation. But he said his next chapter will focus on family, while also inspiring the next generation of scientists.

Why are you stepping down now? Why are you retiring? You’ve come this far.

"Some might say, 'Why? What took you so long?'" Fauci said with a laugh. "I wanted to do something outside of the confines of the government, which would give me a different perspective, a different viewpoint on things in the same field of medicine, science and public health. But with a little bit of a different twist."

"I wanted to leave while I was still at the top of my game and I could still walk away from what I was doing," he said. "I mean, I'm 81 years old, but I feel like I'm 50 years old, so I still think I can do some of those things that I want to do — such as inspire younger people, scientists and would-be scientists to get involved in public service or public health, to serve as kind of an inspiration for them."

What do you think that that last day is going to be like at NIH?
"That's going to be tough. I don't know what my reaction is going to be. I'm sure they'll be emotional to it because I do remember very clearly driving onto the campus in June of 1968 and driving onto that campus literally every day, every weekend, most Sundays for 54 years," he said. "It's been the idea of walking away from it and not coming back or not being allowed on campus. When they — when you hand in your ID."

How does your family feel about your retirement?
"Oh, they're delighted. Oh, my, my daughters are just celebrating that. They do it mostly because they see how hard I've worked. From the time that they were infants, they've recognized me as is the workaholic dad, and I didn't go to all of the soccer matches, and the crew regattas and the cross-country meets," Fauci said. "I went to some of them, but not as much as my wife, who went to every single one. I thought that they would maybe resent me for that, but they have just rallied behind me and supported me."

How do you want to be remembered?
"What I would hope people would, would remember is that I took my responsibility very seriously, and I gave it everything I had, and I didn't leave anything on the field. I just gave it all," Fauci said. "Everything, every bit of energy I had and every bit of passion and ... purpose. And I hope that people realize that that's what I did. I gave it my best."

Fauci said he's certain he’ll keep working after retirement, and teaching is one possibility. As for where, he said he plans to stay in D.C.

"I thought I was a New Yorker through and through. I left New York when I was 27 years old and now I've been in Washington and I'm 81 years old. So I consider myself a Washingtonian through and through. I love the city. I love everything about the city. So I will stay here. I'm not going to go anywhere."

New Coronavirus News from 31 Oct 2022

Europe's governments prepare third winter of mass COVID-19 infection and death [WSWS, 31 Oct 2022]

By Samuel Tissot

Contrary to the propaganda of the European political establishment and the corporate media the COVID-19 pandemic is not over. Thousands of people continue to die each week across Europe from the virus and a new winter surge, alongside other respiratory illnesses and increasing poverty, will lead to hundreds of thousands more excess deaths on the continent.

Another winter of mass infection and death from COVID-19 is primarily a product of the European ruling class’s decision to allow the virus to freely spread through the population.

With a “vaccine only” strategy and the near-total abandonment of even minimal measures to contain the spread of the virus, epidemiologists are warning of the deadly impact of two new vaccine resistant variants this winter.

In Europe over the past two weeks cases have fallen slightly as the eighth wave of the virus slowly subsides. In the last seven days there were just over 1 million cases throughout Europe, compared to 1.5 million in the week before. There were 4,216 deaths in the last week, compared to 5,449 the week before.

However, scientists are warning that the rapid spread of immunity-evading new variants in Europe will lead to a massive surge of the virus on the scale of the Omicron wave last winter.

Omicron was first detected in Europe on November 19, 2021, and the original variant and its offshoots have caused the majority of over 600,000 European COVID-19 deaths since.

On Friday, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) warned of the spread of the BQ.1.1 variant, which has immune escape from BA.5-targeted antibodies. The BA.5 and BA.4 drove the summer waves of COVID-19 throughout Europe.

BQ.1.1 is already dominant in France and accounts for more than 40 percent of infections in the UK. The ECDC predicts that it will be dominant across the continent in mid-November. This is also when new bivalent vaccines protecting against BA.1, BA.4 and BA.5 are scheduled to hit the European market. The effectiveness of these bivalent vaccines and their older counterparts against BQ.1 will be reduced, although it is not yet known to what extent.

In a press conference on October 26, Marco Cavaleri, the head of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) vaccine strategy, stated that the EMA is also tracking the progress of the XBB variant in Europe. Due to its high number of protein spike mutations, it has been dubbed “the nightmare variant,” and is currently driving surges in Singapore and India. Early studies of XBB show significant immune escape from vaccines and the nullification of anti-viral treatments. A pre-print study from a lab in China describes the variant as, “the most antibody-evasive strain tested, far exceeding BA.5.”

It is possible that the vaccine resistant BQ1.1 and XBB variants will drive back-to-back or simultaneous waves. Cornelius Roemer, a computational biologist at the University of Basel in Switzerland, told Naturemagazine, “If it turns out that XBB is going to dominate globally in the end, we might see some sort of double wave in Europe and North America.”

It is also likely that the two variants are so genetically distinct that infection-based immunity conferred by BQ1.1 will be evaded by XBB and vice versa. Meanwhile, the level of vaccine conferred immunity is also waning amongst the European population. New vaccine doses are being taken up at a much slower rate than previously and the level of immunity gained from previous doses is continuously decreasing. These factors will significantly increase the number of infections and deaths over the winter.

In a massive COVID-19 surge, alongside other respiratory illnesses such as influenza and the effects of increased poverty and potential energy shortages, it is likely that many European hospitals, many of which are already near or overcapacity, will collapse under the weight of incoming patients.

Discounting the initial wave of the virus in in early 2020, this will be the northern hemisphere’s third winter of mass infection and death, and its second since the development of vaccines.

Indeed, over each of the last three years, the level of European deaths has remained consistent, despite the invention of life-saving vaccines. If March 1, 2020, is taken as the start of the pandemic, then in the first 12 months, around 845,000 died in Europe. The next year, after vaccines had been developed, between March 1, 2021, and March 1, 2022, 905,000 Europeans died. Since March 1, 2022, 220,000 people have died, and this is before the winter surge.

This constant level of death and the ever-present threat of illness underlines the criminal nature of the ruling class response to the pandemic. In France, a trial involving major figures under Emmanuel Macron’s first presidency is revealing considerable evidence that the French government broke the law in failing to take measures to stop the spread of COVID-19 in early 2020. This policy was mirrored throughout the Europe and the world, apart from China.
Measures were only reluctantly put in place in March 2020 by governments following a wave of wildcat strikes which began in Italy and soon spread throughout Europe and to the United States. However, at this time capitalist governments resolved not to eliminate the virus, but to force workers back to workplaces to resume the extraction of profit as soon as possible.

After the development of vaccines, the governments have pursued a “vaccine only” policy that has proven to be deadly for the working class. These vaccines were highly effective and have enormously reduced the proportion of those infected who fall seriously ill or die. But infection rates surged to astronomic levels, so that even after the first life-saving vaccines were rolled out in Europe in December 2020, nearly 1.5 million Europeans died from COVID-19 due to the malign neglect of the ruling class.

Under this policy, the impact of pandemic on the population is not being alleviated, but in fact threatens to get worse. In the same October 26 press conference, Cavaleri warned that new COVID-19 variants are evolving faster than vaccines are being developed. According to the World Health Organization, now over 300 Omicron sub-lineages are being tracked worldwide.

With more and more variants spreading freely, the mutation rate of the virus is increasing exponentially, making it harder to track variants and ascertain their risk, in a situation described as “variant soup” according to an article in Nature. A “vaccine only” strategy thus only ensures year after year of mass infection and death. Futhermore, epidemiologists’ ability to accurately track variants has also been systemically undermined by the gutting of testing infrastructure and reporting since European governments declared the pandemic over.
The criminal response of the French government in March 2020 was not the exception, but the rule for the pandemic response through Europe. At every possible juncture governments have lifted what remained of measures to stem the spread of the virus.

The ruling class in Europe and elsewhere have been able to achieve this only insofar as it has successfully suppressed scientific knowledge of the virus and its destructive impact on the human body. This continues with the consistent denunciation of China’s Zero COVID policy, which has saved millions of lives and has shown that eliminating the virus globally is possible.

Against this, the working class must actively struggle against the criminal and anti-scientific policy of the capitalist class throughout Europe and the world.

The vehicle for this opposition is the Global Workers’ Inquest into the pandemic, which was launched by the WSWS to give workers and young people a scientific understanding of the virus, while also unmasking the criminal record of capitalist governments throughout the pandemic. Workers and scientists who want to contribute their experiences or expertise to the Inquest should contact the WSWS today.

As more infectious variants spread in Germany, rising number of COVID patients experience severe illness [WSWS, 31 Oct 2022]

By Tamino Dreisam

As the number of severe COVID-19 cases rises and more infectious variants spread, politicians across party lines are showing their willingness to accept a new winter of death in the pandemic.

As of last week, between 700,000 and 1.6 million people in Germany were symptomatically infected with the virus. Although the autumn vacations, which are currently underway in many states, appear to have reduced the incidence of infection, the 7-day rate is still 464.1 infections per hundred thousand members of the population. However, due to the abolition of compulsory testing and infrastructure, official figures have long since inadequately reflected the actual incidence of infection.

This is evident from the continuing rise in the number of outbreaks in hospitals and nursing homes. In medical treatment facilities, there were 274 outbreaks last week, 126 more than the previous week. In addition, 38 people died from past outbreaks. In nursing homes and homes for the elderly, the number of outbreaks increased from 567 the previous week to 687 last week, when 99 people died from previous outbreaks.

The seriousness of the situation is particularly evident in hospitals. The number of hospitalizations has been rising for weeks and, when adjusted, is 20 per 100,000, or about 16,000 hospitalizations per week. It has thus tripled within one month. 1,723 people need intensive care treatment.

Two weeks ago, the chairman of the German Hospital Association (DKG) Gerald Gaß told the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND): “We have significant increases in Covid positive patients. Compared to the previous week, occupancy has risen by 50 percent. ... With around 19,000 positively tested patients, we are currently as high as at the peak times of the summer wave. ... We are heading for extremely difficult weeks across the board and not just in southern Germany.”

Christian Karagiannidis, head of the DIVI intensive care registry, also warned, “In some regions of Bavaria, Hesse and in several cities in North Rhine-Westphalia, we already have hotspots where there are hardly any free intensive care beds left because staff are often symptomatic and also absent for longer periods.”

Since then, hospitalization rates have risen steadily, bringing many hospitals to the brink of overcrowding. “The emergency centres are overcrowded, patients are piling up in the corridors,” complained the works council of the municipal Munich Clinic, for example. At Caritas Hospital in Bad Mergentheim, the medical director said more coronavirus patients were currently being treated than at any time in the last two years. Those experiencing severe illness as a result were also on the rise.

Hospitals are also burdened by a high number of staff absences, due to staff infections. For example, Detlef Troppens, chairman of the Brandenburg State Hospital Association (LKB), warned Monday, “We have 10 to 15 percent ward closures.” There are already restrictions in the treatment of patients.

Rising energy costs as a result of the war against Russia are also bringing numerous hospitals to the brink of collapse. “The financial situation continues to come to a head drastically and is assuming proportions that threaten hospitals’ existence,” reported Björn Saeger, management spokesman at the municipal hospital in Brandenburg an der Havel. Also, Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach (Social Democrat, SPD) warned even that hospitals “face a completely drastic liquidity problem come in the next months.”

The increase in the number of those experiencing severe illness following infection with coronavirus has also resulted in a growing number of deaths. Since the beginning of the week, 895 people have already died—an average of 179 per day, which is more than twice as many as died at the same time a year ago and about five times as many as died at the same time two years ago.

The situation threatens to worsen in the autumn and winter with the spread of Omicron subvariants BQ.1 and BQ.1.1. Both exhibit high immune escape, so that even the recently recovered and fully vaccinated can become infected with the variant.

According to Robert Koch Institute data, the BQ.1 variant currently accounts for 2 percent of infections and the BQ.1.1 variant for just under 3 percent. However, the figures are about three weeks behind the curve and are thus already much higher.

According to calculations by the German Cancer Research Centre, the proportion is already 6 and 7 percent. According to news magazine Der Spiegel, Cambridge scientist and bioinformatician Cornelius Römer suspects that the proportion of BQ.1.1 is already 10 percent.
He expects “that BQ.1.1 will drive a wave of variants in Europe and North America before the end of November. Its relative share has more than doubled every week.” The current autumn wave would then be joined by another—driven by the other Omicron subvariants. The result would be a double wave.

Numerous scientists share this opinion: according to Augsburger Allgemeine, the German Charité vaccine researcher, Leif Sander suspects, “In the next few weeks, BQ.1.1 could become the most widespread variant and displace BA.5.”

Friedemann Weber, director of the Institute of Virology at Justus Liebig University in Giessen, told Focus magazine, BQ.1.1 is “the fastest-growing virus variant in Germany at the moment. While its share of cases is relatively small and BA.5 remains dominant, that may soon change, as the BQ1.1 curve is much steeper.”

However, politicians from all parties have made it clear that they will not do anything about the rising number of those experiencing severe outcomes, nor about the spread of new variants.

Despite the surge in recent weeks, no state government has introduced stronger infection control measures. On the contrary, numerous leading politicians openly proclaim their intention to accept the current conditions.

For example, Federal Family Minister Lisa Paus (Greens) warned against closing schools or children’s and youth facilities in the coming months. “Under no circumstances should day-care centres and schools, gymnasiums and youth clubs be shut down this autumn and winter. Not because of coronavirus and also not because of energy savings.”

Brandenburg’s SPD state parliamentary group leader Daniel Keller rejected the call for an expansion of the mandatory mask-wearing requirement, saying, “The incidence rate in hospitals is in the red, but in terms of the occupancy of intensive care beds, we are not yet in the critical area,” He warned against “political actionism”: “We have a mandatory mask requirement where it is relevant.”

In his speech at the Christian Social Union (CSU) party conference, Bavarian state Prime Minister Markus Söder also ruled out any real measures to combat the pandemic: “We will no longer do cordoning off in winter. No way.” He added that COVID-19 in Germany was on its way to becoming endemic and that the state government would also set its sights on relaxing quarantine rules.

Last week, the Green Party-Christian Democrat state government in Baden-Württemberg even went so far as to overturn the mask-wearing requirement in nursing homes.

Omicron BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 – an expert answers three key questions about these new COVID variants [The Conversation, 31 Oct 2022]

Two new omicron subvariants, BQ.1 and BQ.1.1, are quickly gaining traction in the US, collectively accounting for 27% of infections as of October 29. Both are descendants of BA.5, the omicron variant that has dominated around the world for some months.

Although they appear to be most common in the US at this stage, BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 have also been identified in the UK and several countries in Europe, with the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) having classified BQ.1 as a variant of interest.

Based on modelling estimates, the ECDC expects that by mid-November to the beginning of December 2022, more than 50% of COVID infections will be due to BQ.1 and BQ.1.1. By the beginning of 2023, they could account for more than 80% of cases.

When we hear about new COVID variants, three key questions spring to mind: is it more transmissible compared with previous variants? Can it cause more severe illness? And can it escape our immune response? Let’s take a look at what we know so far.

1. Are these variants more transmissible?
Transmissibility refers to the capacity of a pathogen to be able to be passed from one person to another. This characteristic is determined by many factors relating to the pathogen, its host and the environment.

At this stage, we have limited data on how transmissible these two new variants are. But BQ.1.1 appears to be highly transmissible, with social media reports calculating it took only 19 days to grow eight-fold from five sequences to 200 sequences.

Although BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 currently comprise a small proportion of all COVID cases globally, in some countries the proportion of cases is increasing at a rate which suggests it’s more transmissible than other circulating variants.

2. Can they escape our immune system?
The ECDC suggests the observed increase in the growth rate of BQ.1 is probably driven mainly by immune escape. This refers to the virus’ capacity to evade our immune response from prior infection or vaccination.

BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 contain mutations to the spike protein, a protein on the surface of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) which allows it to attach to and infect our cells. These mutations include K444T, N460K, L452R and F486V. BQ.1.1 contains an additional mutation, R346T, also found in the BA.5 variant.

These mutations have been associated with significant immune escape and antibody evasion.

One study indicated that it’s likely that immunity induced by infection from previous omicron sublineages and vaccination will not provide broad protection against BQ.1.1 infection.

However this study is a preprint, meaning it’s yet to be peer-reviewed.

Although the current COVID vaccines and previous infections provide good protection against severe disease, they do not provide full protection from infection or reinfection. Likewise, while they reduce COVID transmission, they do not prevent it entirely. And these new variants appear to have the highest capacity for immune evasion yet. That said, COVID vaccines will continue to offer strong protection against severe disease and death.

3. Can they cause more severe illness?
We still don’t know much about the severity of illness associated with BQ.1 or BQ.1.1. But based on the limited data available, the news is good on this front. There’s no evidence that BQ.1 is associated with more severe illness than BA.4 and BA.5.

Worryingly though, a recent preprint study suggests that BQ.1.1 could be resistant to Evusheld, an antibody therapy designed to protect people who are immunocompromised and don’t respond as well to COVID vaccines.

The pandemic is not over yet
Beyond the US and Europe, BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 have also been identified in other countries around in the world including New Zealand, Thailand, Singapore and Canada, where they’ve been detected in wastewater. Sewage samples often give us a good indication of possible COVID spikes.

The continued emergence of new COVID variants indicates that the virus is very much still with us, and rapidly evolving. As we face resurgences heading into winter in the northern hemisphere, we need to keep our eyes on these and any other new variants, and carefully observe how they behave.

We also need studies which test how well the new bivalent vaccines – those which target omicron alongside the original strain of SARS-CoV-2 – work against BQ.1 and BQ.1.1.