Posts

covid

What Experts Want You To Know About The New Covid-19 Vaccine As Cases Continue To Surge In The US

/in , /by

As Covid-19 continues its summer surge throughout the United States, new vaccines have been made available for individuals looking to get another level of protection as we enter autumn and the back-to-school season; when cases in the past few years have been known to surge. 

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are “high to very high” levels of Covid-19 in the wastewater in nearly every state, reported Politico. A recent report from the Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative estimated that about 2.5% of the US population is currently infected with Covid. 

Embed from Getty Images

Even with this increase in infections, the US population hasn’t been keeping up with their Covid-19 vaccinations to protect themselves from getting sick and spreading the virus further. 

“One of the challenges of today is just that people aren’t going to get vaccinated. Most people are confused. They don’t really understand what’s happening or what the risk to them is when it comes to Covid,” said Michael Osterholm, an epidemiologist and director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy. 

Politico reported on a recent poll from the Annenberg Public Policy Center that revealed more than 20% of Americans think it’s safer to get sick from Covid-19 than to get a vaccine. This percentage has increased by 10% within the past three years. 

The CDC revealed that last year, 22.5% of adults and 14.4% of children received an updated Covid-19 vaccine. The risk of hospitalization and death is not close to what it was back in 2021, however, that doesn’t mean that the public shouldn’t still view the virus as a threat. Immunocompromised individuals and the elderly are still those at the most risk should they be infected. 

Embed from Getty Images

In June, the FDA and vaccine manufacturers worked to incorporate the KP.2 Covid strain into vaccine formulas, as that particular variant was the most prevalent in the beginning of the summer. 

However, the KP.3 and KP.3.1.1 subvariants of KP.2 are currently the most prevalent strains of Covid, and account for more than half of the cases in the US, said the CDC. 

Public health experts are still urging the population to get their updated vaccines due to the consistent surges of cases, as getting vaccinated before you’re exposed or infected is your best chance at avoiding the virus or having a less severe reaction to becoming infected. 

In fact, a CDC study showed that last year’s vaccine provided 54% protection against symptomatic Covid-19 infections. 

If an individual was recently sick with Covid, however, the CDC recommends waiting to get an updated dose until three months after the symptoms first appeared or from when they received their first positive test.

Crystal La Tour Rambaund manages the vaccine program at the Pima County Health Department in Arizona, and stated that the US is experiencing a “Covid fatigue,” meaning citizens aren’t as concerned about the virus and its spreading, despite the surges. 

“The population we are concerned about are the people on the fence. They are not completely anti-[vaccine], and they are not completely all about it. And for those groups of people, it’s a very small thing that could tip the scale in the direction of not being vaccinated,” she said. 

T-Cells From Common Colds Could Help Create A ‘Variant-Proof’ Covid Vaccine 

/in , /by

According to new research from the Imperial College London, T-cells that are generated as part of the body’s natural immune response to the common cold could help protect against serious Covid-19 illness, and potentially lead to a vaccine that would be effective against new variants of the virus. 

The recently published study began back in September 2020 and followed 52 household contacts of people who had tested positive for Covid-19. The data showed that 26 people who were exposed to the virus, but didn’t show any symptoms, had significantly higher cross-reactive T-cells, which were generated by previous common colds.

Embed from Getty Images

“The conclusion should not be that if you’ve had a common cold you don’t need to worry about contracting COVID-19. This is so for a number of reasons, including that not all colds are caused by coronaviruses, and T-cells’ ability to fight off symptomatic infections wanes over time,” Professor Aljit Lalvani, one of the authors of the study, explained. 

“What the study tells us is that there is a mechanism, a natural mechanism of natural protective immunity, that is triggered by previous common cold coronavirus infections, so we want to harness that naturally occurring protective immunity to develop better vaccines.”

Lalvani explained that the majority of the current Covid-19 vaccines out there specifically target the virus’ spike protein, as that’s the part that attacks healthy human cells. The vaccines then cause the body to produce antibodies and T-cells that can respond to that protein. 

Embed from Getty Images

He then explained how the new research found that T-cells created after a common cold caused by other coronaviruses (which are common) can attack a type of protein that remains similar among all the known Covid-19 variants. These proteins are what give the virus the ability to replicate itself. 

“The fact that the T-cells can attack the internal proteins of each of these related COVID-19 variants means that they give what’s called a broad cross-protection. That’s in sharp contrast to the surface spike protein, which is the target of antibodies induced by vaccines.”

“Clearly, SARS-CoV-2 is under huge, intense pressure in the global population because most people now have these antibodies, whether induced by vaccination or infection, so the virus is trying naturally to evade that immunity through mutation, and that’s why Omicron has such a high number of mutations in the spike protein. But the internal proteins are relatively unchanged,” Lalvani stated. 

“We’re very fortunate to have found what immunologists refer to as the ‘Holy Grail,’ so we’re keen for people to understand this and to see that, at last, there is a path towards dealing with future variants.”

“This is now a definitive green light to move forward and develop a T-cell inducing vaccine to internal core proteins, which should protect against current and future variants,” he said.

Lying About High-Risk Travel In England Can Get You Up To 10 Years In Prison 

/in , /by

England announced new Covid-19 travel and border policies this Tuesday that state anyone arriving in the country and found to have lied about a recent trip to a country on the British government’s travel ban list could face up to 10 years in prison as a means of curbing the spread of the virus and all the new variants appearing throughout the world. 

Health Secretary Matt Hancock told citizens this Monday that all UK residents, as well as those in Ireland, arriving into England from places on the governments “Red List” will have to purchase a quarantine package that costs around $2,400 per person. This package covers accomodation, virus testing, and other essential services. 

Embed from Getty Images

Individuals who choose not to abide by these restrictions, including those arriving from a Red List country without a hotel already booked to quarantine in, could be subject to a series of heavy fines in addition to a potential prison sentence, according to Hancock.

“I make no apologies for the strength of these measures because we’re dealing with one of the strongest threats to our public health that we’ve faced as a nation. People who flout these rules are putting us all at risk.”

There are about 33 countries on the UK’s Red List for travel due to the slew of new variants appearing. If you enter into the UK from a country not on the list, you can simply quarantine at home, for those who do, however, must buy the coronavirus package mentioned above, and will be placed on “variant surveillance testing” as well. 

Embed from Getty Images

Hancock claimed that all of these policies will be going into effect as of Thursday of this week, and the government has created contracts with 16 hotels to give them an additional 4,600 rooms for the quarantining measures.

“Anyone who lies on a passenger locator form and tries to conceal that they’ve been in a country on our red list in the 10 days before arrival here will face a prison sentence of up to 10 years.”

Scotland is also tightening its rules on international travel, requiring all citizens entering into the nation on an international flight to quarantine in a designated hotel. “Airports and airlines are battling to survive with almost zero revenue and a huge cost base, and practically every week a further blow lands. Aviation-specific financial support is urgently needed to ensure our sector can get through the year,” Karen Dee, chief executive of the Airport Operators Association, and Tim Alderslade, chief executive of Airlines U.K, said in a statement. 

All of these measures will be indefinitely enforced until more citizens are vaccinated and the pandemic seems to subside more in general. 12.6 million UK residents have received their first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine so far, and the British government is set to announce the next phase of its vaccine rollout program at the start of next week.

Covid-19 Variants Causing Scientists To Rethink Vaccine Strategy

/in , /by

Top vaccine scientists throughout the world have made it known that current Covid-19 vaccine rollout programs need to be reexamined after variants of the virus are proving to be more resistant.

Read more