CORONAVIRUS INFO PROVIDED BY DR. JIM HARRIS – 10/1/2022

FROM THE ATLANTIC:

”...In furiously racing to rebuild on this same foundation, America sets itself up to collapse once more…”

”…America’s individualist bent has also shaped its entire health-care system, which ties health to wealth and employment. That system is organized around treating sick people at great and wasteful expense, instead of preventing communities from falling sick in the first place….

UP TO DATE REASONS TO GET VACCINE BOOSTER!

(J. Harris: The numbers in favor of boosters are convincing.)

COVID VACCINE AVAILABLE IN MARSHALL NOW FREE:

We have plenty of Pfizer COVID 19 vaccines (primary and booster) doses available. If you have a business or group that would like us to schedule an onsite vaccine clinic, please let me know.

Jennifer Hancock, RN, BSN

Executive Director – Marshall-Harrison County Health District

805 Lindsey Drive | Marshall | TX 75670

Tel 903.938-8338 | Fax 903.938.8330

www.mhchd.org

SHORT VIDEO ANIMATION OF HOW MRNA VACCINE WORKS

(Thank you, Ken Belson, NYT)

FROM HOPKINS SELECTIONS”

1. COVID-19—Clinical Practice

Long COVID Has Forced a Reckoning for One of Medicine’s Most Neglected Diseases (The Atlantic) ME/CFS involves a panoply of debilitating symptoms that affect many organ systems and that get worse with exertion. The Institute of Medicine estimates that it affects 836,000 to 2.5 million people in the U.S. alone, but is so misunderstood and stigmatized that about 90 percent of people who have it have never been diagnosed. At best, most medical professionals know nothing about ME/CFS; at worst, they tell patients that their symptoms are psychosomatic, anxiety-induced, or simply signs of laziness. While ME/CFS patients, their caregivers, and the few doctors who treat them have spent years fighting for medical legitimacy, the coronavirus pandemic has now forced the issue.

2. Public & Global Health:

Five things about covid we still don’t understand at our peril (The Washington Post) Since a new coronavirus launched the global pandemic that has now killed more than 6.5 million people — 16 percent of them in the United States alone ― scientists in record numbers have devoted themselves full time to unraveling its mysteries. In less than three years, researchers have published more than 200,000 studies about the virus and covid-19. That is four times the number of scientific papers written on influenza in the past century and more than 10 times the number written on measles. Still, the virus has kept many of its secrets, from how it mutates so rapidly to why it kills some while leaving others largely unscathed — mysteries that if solved might arm the world’s scientists with new strategies to curb its spread and guard against the next pandemic. Here are some of the most pressing questions they are trying to answer.

3. Moderna seeks FDA nod for Omicron-targeted COVID shot for adolescents, younger kids (Reuters) Moderna Inc said on Friday it has requested U.S. authorization for use of its Omicron-targeting COVID vaccine in adolescents and children. The company is seeking emergency use authorization of its updated vaccine in two age groups – adolescents aged 12 to 17 years and children aged six to 11. The application for the bivalent vaccine for children between the ages of six months and under six years is expected to be completed later this year, the company said in a tweet.

4. (27 Sept): PANDEMIC PREDICTIONS Recent increases in COVID-19 cases in the UK could signal that the US is heading into a fall and winter COVID-19 surge. Historically, the US lags the UK in case trends by about one month, and the UK trend began rising the week of September 17. Some models predict US case trends will continue to decrease into October before beginning to rise, and while current predictions suggest a big increase in infections, the infection-detection rate likely will remain low due to declines in testing. Because the US population has some underlying immunity, and most experts agree the country has the pandemic under control, the death toll is expected to be rather modest….

But this modeling is based on the Omicron BA.5 subvariant, and the emergence of a new variant or subvariant could upend these predictions, particularly if there is a reduction in cross-variant immunity. BA.5 continues to account for the majority of new COVID-19 cases in the US (83.1%), but BA.4.6 (12%) and BF.7 (2.3%), an offspring of BA.5, are beginning to show growth advantage over BA.5. BF.7 has an additional genetic mutation in the spike protein compared with BA.5, which could reduce the efficacy of the monoclonal antibody treatment Evusheld, one of the few remaining therapies effective against BA.4 and BA.5. The mix of variants in the UK appears to be about the same as the US, although epidemiologists are watching to see whether emerging variants such as BQ.1.1 and BA.2.75 grow in proportion.

FROM YOUR LOCAL EPIDEMOLOGIST:

1. BOOSTERS STIMULATE YOUR IMMUNE SYSTEM TO RESIST SOME NEW VARIANTS

”…an updated booster will increase the diversity of our antibodies and that memory will be retained by our immune systems…”

2. mRNA in breastmilk. That’s okay. And more on COVID19 vaccines and pregnancy

(J. Harris: Extensive review of Covid and pregnancy biochemistry/immunology.)

FROM THE NYT

1. In a Game Built on Violence, No Player Is Safe

(A football article written by honorary Marshallite, Ken Belson)

AND LAST BUT NOT LEASED: