CORONAVIRUS INFO PROVIDED BY DR. JIM HARRIS –11/18/2021

ELLO,

FROM THE NY TIMES (which costs new subscribers $1.00 / week for several months)

(J. Harris: Harrison County is not vaccine protected from the next Covid crisis, which could already be starting since total cases of Covid are increasing again in the US and cold weather is coming. We have been running a month or two behind Western Europe and they are again in trouble with Covid, apparently still the Delta strain. Fortunately, for Thanksgiving, Covid rates in E. T. are very LOW at present. )

The Ways Biden’s social policy bill will change health care.

(J. Harris: I hope you can open and read this article about potential health care changes. They will help Marshall if they pass. As a retired physician, I welcome additional federal health care and reorganization. If it passes, I might even try hearing aides.)

C.D.C. Investigates Flu Outbreak at University of Michigan

”…Since October, there have been 528 cases of the flu on the campus in Ann Arbor, a vast majority — 77 percent — occurring in students who have not been vaccinated against the flu. The spread of the disease has accelerated over the past several weeks, according to the university…

(J. Harris: Looks like this will be a bad flu winter. Don’t forget to get your flu shot. It does not react with the Covid vaccine.)

‘COVID positive from Vegas.’ Phish concerts leave a long trail of infections, fans say

(J. Harris: Also have a Facebook group following Halloween concerts in Vegas semi supper spreader even. What’s the limit on Pfish? )

FROM HOPKINS

1. Why Healthcare Workers Are Quitting In Droves (The Atlantic) The moment that broke Cassie Alexander came nine months into the pandemic. As an intensive-care-unit nurse of 14 years, Alexander had seen plenty of “Hellraiser stuff,” she told me. But when COVID-19 hit her Bay Area hospital, she witnessed “death on a scale I had never seen before.”

2. Promoting COVID-19 Vaccine Acceptance: Recommendations from the Lancet Commission on Vaccine Refusal, Acceptance, and Demand in the USA (The Lancet) Exacerbating the direct impact of the virus, a low uptake of COVID-19 vaccines will prolong the social and economic repercussions of the pandemic on families and communities, especially low-income and minority ethnic groups, into 2022, or even longer. The scale and challenges of the COVID-19 vaccination campaign are unprecedented. Therefore, through a series of recommendations, we present a coordinated, evidence-based education, communication, and behavioral intervention strategy that is likely to improve the success of COVID-19 vaccine

across the USA.

3. European Commission Authorizes Ronapreve Cocktail for Treating Non-hospitalized Adult, Adolescent COVID-19 Patients (Homeland Preparedness News) Ronapreve, a Roche and Regeneron-developed drug cocktail of casirivimab and imdevimab, gained marketing authorization from the European Commission last week for treatment of COVID-19 cases before hospitalization among adults and adolescents at least 12 years old. Ronapreve can now be used in Europe to prevent cases of COVID-19. More specifically, to be used, patients must not require supplemental oxygen and must be at increased risk of progressing to severe COVID-19. Authorization followed a single day after positive opinions from the European Medicines Agency’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP), based on positive data from two studies: a treatment of non-hospitalized patients and a prophylaxis study of those exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

FDA Plans to Authorize Pfizer Boosters for All Adults This Week (New York Times) The Food and Drug Administration is aiming to authorize booster doses of Pfizer-BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine for all adults as early as Thursday, a move that would expand the number of Americans eligible for additional shots by tens of millions, according to people familiar with the agency’s plans.

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