MASK MANDATES:
1 - A change in indoor mask-wearing guidance by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control is expected as early as next week, report Berkeley Lovelace Jr. and Heidi Przybyla at NBC News (2/15/22). In guidance dated 1/13/22, the CDC recommends that students, staff and teachers in all K-12 schools wear masks regardless of their COVID-19 vaccination status: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/cdc-masks-cdc-expected-update-mask-guidance-early-week-rcna16331.
2 - In the past week or so, plans to drop pandemic-related mask mandates have been announced by various state and regional government leaders in the U.S., including in California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, Virginia (public schools), Oregon (indoors) and Washington (large outdoor gatherings, but indoor and school mandates stay in place), and Washington, D.C. Dates and details vary re: schools, day care centers, health care facilities, etc., so please verify for your region. “The decision comes despite continued push back from the [U.S.] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which still recommend that masks be worn in areas of substantial or high transmission, and in educational settings, regardless of vaccination status,” reports Arielle Mitropoulos at ABC News (2/10/22): https://abcnews.go.com/Health/dozen-states-move-end-masking-mandates-covid-19/story?id=82806903.
3 - This 2/15/22 illustrated post at The Unbiased SciPod states that “there’s disagreement about whether the timing” of these U.S. mask-mandate changes is “premature given that we are not fully out of the weeds with the omicron surge,” the post states. Two of the post’s slides show state-by-state mask-mandate statuses, overall and in schools, on maps of the U.S., ranging from “mandated” to “recommended” to “no mandate” (source is indicated as The New York Times). One slide states that “though N95s are not made for children, duck-billed N95s come in ‘regular’ and ‘small’ sizes, and can be effective for people (and children) with smaller faces”:
VACCINES:
4 - U.S. children under 5 and their parents now might have to wait until “at least April” for the Food and Drug Administration to decide whether to authorize Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine against COVID-19, report Sharon LaFraniere and Noah Weiland at The New York Times (2/11/22). A decision had been expected this month, but two doses of the vaccine were “not sufficiently effective in preventing symptomatic infection” during the surge of the omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, the story states. “Children ages 2 through 4 produced only 60 percent of the antibody levels that older teens and young adults did,” the Times story states. Pfizer is now testing the amount of protection kids in this age group get from a third dose, LaFraniere and Weiland report: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/11/us/politics/fda-children-pfizer-vaccine.html.
5 - As for the Moderna vaccine, the company is testing its COVID-19 vaccine in three age groups of children: 2 to 5 years old; 6 months to 11 years old; and 12 to 17 years old. The U.S. Food and Drug administration is reviewing data for the oldest group, and that effort “is expected to be completed soon,” according to this illustrated Unbiased SciPod post on 2/16/22. The Moderna vaccine is “authorized for 12-17 year olds in several other countries” (including the UK and other European countries, Australia, and Canada), the post states. Moderna is expected to submit data on its vaccine trials (experiments) in the middle (6-11 years old) group “soon” and for 2 to 5 year olds “in March 2022,” according to the Unbiased SciPod post on Instagram:
6 - For an update on progress toward the development of intranasal or oral COVID-19 vaccines, aka mucosal vaccines, see this 2/2/22 story by Apoorva Mandavilli at The New York Times. “Nasal vaccines may be the best way to prevent infections long term, because they provide protection exactly where it is needed to fend off the virus: the mucosal linings of the airways, where the coronavirus first lands,” Mandavilli writes. Also, it’s faster to deliver these sprayable vaccines than injections, the story states, and children might prefer a nasal-spray vaccine to an injected one. Injected vaccines were the right choice early for preventing deaths and disease early in the pandemic, the story quotes a Stanford University immunologist as saying. Now, intranasal vaccines are needed as boosters, he is quoted as saying: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/02/health/covid-vaccine-nasal.html.
7 - The majority of side effects that people have to COVID-19 vaccines are the result of “anxiety, expectation and misattributing various ailments to having” been vaccinated, according to a 1/18/22 study published in JAMA Network Open and covered by Ian Sample at The Guardian on the same day. The solution is to tell and prepare patients for these possible placebo-like reactions (mainly headaches and fatigue), according to one of the study authors, a global health and social medicine researcher at Harvard Medical School, the story states. “Most researchers argue that patients should be told less about side-effects to reduce their anxiety. I think this is wrong. Honesty is the way to go,” the story quotes this co-author Ted Kaptchuk, of Harvard Medical School, as saying: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jan/18/nocebo-effect-two-thirds-of-covid-jab-reactions-not-caused-by-vaccine-study-suggests.
TREATMENTS:
8 - COVID-19 anti-viral drug treatments, i.e. Merck’s molnupiravir and Pfizer’s combination of nirmatrelvir and ritonavir (called Paxlovid), are “slowly arriving at U.S. pharmacies,” writes Mary Van Beusekom for the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, but it’s not that easy for patients to get these drugs or they just don’t seek them (2/11/22). Systemic issues are getting in the way too, with limited incentives for doctors to encourage prescribing and using the drugs. The window for starting the drugs in time for them to be effective closes six days after the onset of COVID-19 symptoms, the piece suggests. Hurdles for getting the drugs include testing positive on a COVID-19 test, getting a health-care appointment, getting a prescription, and finding a pharmacy that has the drugs. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has authorized the antiviral drugs for people (ages 12 and up for Paxlovid, and 18 and up for molnupiravir) with mild or moderate COVID-19 who are at high risk for hospitalization and death. Some patients do not seek the drugs because they mistakenly think they are not at high risk for COVID-19 hospitalization and death, the story suggests: https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2022/02/eagerly-awaited-covid-lifesavers-molnupiravir-paxlovid-now-wait-patients.
CHILDREN:
9 - A reason behind the rise in pediatric hospitalizations for COVID-19 in recent months could include the Omicron variant’s “preference for airway passages above the lungs, which can be more easily blocked [with mucus and inflammation] in small children,” writes Marla Broadfoot for Scientific American (1/25/22). Also, the variant spreads more easily than past versions of SARS-CoV-2 and is infecting more people, whereby even a small fraction of the group will yield higher numbers of infected children and of children in need of hospital care. It sounds like the increase pertains primarily to children under age 5. There is no COVID-19 vaccine authorized in the U.S. for this age group. Experts say that we can help to keep kids safe from COVID-19 by getting vaccinated and boosted “when possible, wearing masks, and avoiding social activities at the first sign of symptoms,” Broadfoot writes: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-omicron-is-putting-more-kids-in-the-hospital/
TESTING:
10 - If you are one of the many people who remain confused about getting tested for SARS-CoV-2, check out this 1/18/22 guide by Melody Shreiber and Jonathan Franklin at NPR. Some of the newer details: 1) as of January 15, most U.S. private health insurance is reimbursing for the cost of up to eight monthly over-the-counter antigen and PCR tests; 2) use tests to tell if you’ve been infected after being around someone who tested positive (test 5 to 7 days afterward) or if you have COVID-19 symptoms (maybe immediately or maybe within a day or two of their onset – advice is unclear); but also use the tests as “an added precaution before socializing”; and 3) with the rapid antigen tests, take two over the course of a few days, rather than relying on just one test result. That repeat interval can allow enough time for any virus in you to multiply to the point that it is more detectable by an antigen test: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/01/06/1070096493/covid-test-guide.
PUBLIC HEALTH:
11 - For those struggling with the concept of shifting from pandemic to “endemic” posture toward COVID-19, that is “living with the virus,” see this round-up of thinking by several epidemiologists, by Jonathan Wolfe at The New York Times (2/11/22). “We should each reflect on how we live with other viruses that routinely circulate, such as influenza, respiratory syncytial virus, noroviruses and others,” the story quotes infectious disease epidemiologist Pia MacDonald, of RTI International, as saying. It’s a huge mental shift, says cancer epidemiologist Eduardo Franco, of McGill University, the story states. So what does that mean behavior-wise? Sources in the piece cite a range of decisions that are not all in agreement: fewer restrictions on activities if all household members are vaccinated and boosted; family trips including air travel; allowing children to socialize for the most part; avoiding OR resuming indoor dining; wearing masks when visiting indoors in groups; taking at-home tests for the virus before get-togethers; entering people’s homes without a mask; hosting older parents for visits; and wearing a mask at the grocery store. “For many Americans, however, any big adjustments are still on hold until young children can get vaccinated,” the story states: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/12/world/scientists-prepare-for-the-next-phase-of-learning-to-live-with-covid.html.
12 - I pay strong attention when I see the name of John M. Barry, author of “The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History” (2004). On 1/31/22, Barry published an essay, “What we can learn from how the 1918 pandemic ended,” in The New York Times. Barry encourages us not to repeat the public health errors made after that flu pandemic’s third wave in the U.S., particularly the failure to impose public-health measures in the U.S. to reduce the spread of the virus in 1920. “A variant that emerged in 1920 was lethal enough that it should have counted as a fourth wave,” Barry writes. “In some cities—among them, Detroit, Milwaukee, Minneapolis and Kansas City, Mo.,--deaths exceeded even those in the second wave, responsible for the vast majority of the pandemic’s deaths in the United States and elsewhere. This occurred despite the fact that the U.S. population had plenty of natural immunity from the influenza virus after two years of infections”: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/31/opinion/covid-pandemic-end.html.
SCIENCE:
13 - A sub-type of the omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 called BA.2 is not likely to cause a spike in SARS-CoV-2 infections, reports Carl Zimmer at The New York Times (1/30/22). It does seem to be more contagious than other types of the omicron variant, which is already highly contagious, the story states. But the COVID-19 vaccines remain effective against the BA.2 version of omicron in protecting against severe COVID-19, the story states: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/30/health/stealth-omicron-variant.html.
14 - For Scientific American, I interviewed one of the primary authors of two new studies that pinpoint SARS-CoV-2-caused inflammation in the body’s smell machinery as the cause of the loss of or distortion of your sense of smell as well as of Long Covid. Our olfactory system starts in the back of the nasal cavity and connects and communicates with a region called the olfactory bulb in the brain (2/7/22): https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/covid-smell-loss-and-long-covid-linked-to-inflammation1/.
THIS NEWSLETTER:
15 - David Levine, co-chair of Science Writers in New York, interviewed me on 1/26/22 about this “smart, useful science stuff about COVID-19” newsletter, including why I started it and how I choose the information to include in it. The archived video is part-way down this page, which indexes online interviews that Levine has conducted with experts and authors (many on COVID-19 topics) far more accomplished than me. Interviewees have included vaccine researcher and pediatrician Dr. Paul Offit, vaccine researcher and virologist John Moore, Lina Zeldovich (author of “The Other Dark Matter: The Science and Business of Turning Waste into Wealth and Health”), Brendan Borrell (author of “The First Shots: The Epic Rivalries and Heroic Science Behind the Race to the Coronavirus Vaccine”) and Melinda Wenner Moyer (author of “How to Raise Kids Who Aren’t Assholes”). The next SWINY online interview is set to start at 7pm Eastern tonight (2/16/22), with David M. Oshinsky, of the NYU Grossman School of Medicine, who wrote an excellent book on the history of Bellevue Hospital in New York City. He will discuss lessons about the COVID-19 vaccines that we can learn from the polio vaccine: https://www.swiny.org/youtube/.
ENTERTAINMENT:
16 -
17 – “How to meet the frankly very aspirational recommended servings of fruits and veggies,” by Jenny G. Zhang (Gawker, 1/24/22): https://www.gawker.com/news/most-us-adults-dont-consume-recommended-servings-fruits-vegetables-cdc-report.
18 -
19 -
————
TAG ME: Please reply to this email to send feedback and/or good SARS-CoV-2 or COVID-19 science coverage that you’ve read, written, or produced in English, Spanish, French, etc.
Love/In friendship, Robin