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Tag: Omicron

Topic: vaccinesView all posts for the topic: vaccines

Health Canada approves Pfizer-BioNTech’s updated COVID-19 vaccine

Published September 24, 2024

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Published by: The Canadian Press
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By Nicole Ireland, Hannah Alberga

Health Canada approved Pfizer-BioNTech’s updated COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday, marking its third authorization of vaccine formulations that protect against the most recently circulating variants of the virus.

Pfizer-BioNTech’s mRNA vaccine, called Comirnaty, targets the KP.2 subvariant of Omicron, replacing the previous version that targeted the XBB.1.5 Omicron subvariant.

The approval of Comirnaty follows last week’s authorization of Moderna’s updated Spikevax mRNA vaccine and Novavax’s updated protein-based vaccine, Nuvaxovid.

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Topic: SingaporeView all posts for the topic: Singapore

Singapore facing new Covid-19 wave; vaccination recommended especially for seniors: Ong Ye Kung

Published May 18, 2024

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Published by: The Straits Times
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By Chin Soo Fang

Singapore is seeing a new Covid-19 wave, with rising cases of infection in the last two weeks, said Health Minister Ong Ye Kung on May 18.

“We are at the beginning part of the wave where it is steadily rising,” said Mr Ong. “So I would say the wave should peak in the next two to four weeks, which means between mid- and end of June.”

The Ministry of Health (MOH) said that to protect hospital bed capacity and as a precaution, public hospitals have been asked to reduce their non-urgent elective surgery cases and move suitable patients to facilities like transitional care facilities or back home through Mobile Inpatient Care@Home.

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Topic: variantsView all posts for the topic: variants

New virus variants threaten a summer Covid-19 wave, but experts say the risk remains uncertain

Published May 17, 2024

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Published by: CNN
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By Deidre McPhillips

Covid-19 levels are about the lowest they’ve ever been in the United States, but another new crop of virus variants once again threatens to disrupt the downward trend as the country heads into summer.

KP.2 — one of the so-called FLiRT variants — has overtaken JN.1 to become the dominant coronavirus variant in the United States, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Data through May 11 shows that it’s responsible for more than a quarter of cases in the country, which is nearly twice as many as JN.1. A related variant, KP.1.1, has caused about 7% of cases, CDC data shows.

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Topic: mortality rateView all posts for the topic: mortality rate

Four Years On, Covid-19 Remains a Worse Killer Than the Flu, US Study Finds

Published May 15, 2024

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Published by: Bloomberg
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By Jason Gale

We did the 2024 Covid-versus-flu rematch thinking that we may find that risk of death in Covid may have sufficiently declined to become equal with the risk of death from flu. But the reality remains that Covid carries a higher risk of death than the flu. […]

Overall, I think this means that we still need to take Covid seriously. Trivializing it as an inconsequential ‘cold,’ as we often hear, doesn’t mesh or align with reality.

— Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly
Continue readingFour Years On, Covid-19 Remains a Worse Killer Than the Flu, US Study Finds
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Topic: metforminView all posts for the topic: metformin

Common diabetes drug lowers SARS-CoV-2 levels, clinical trial finds

Published May 3, 2024

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Published by: CIDRAP
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By Stephanie Soucheray

Today, researchers from the University of Minnesota published evidence that the common diabetes drug metformin decreases the amount of SARS-CoV-2 in the body and helps reduce the risk of rebound symptoms if given early in the course of non-severe illness.

The study, published in Clinical Infectious Diseases, suggests metformin may also help prevent long COVID.

The researchers tested metformin against a placebo in 999 adults infected with COVID-19. More than 50% of the study enrollees were vaccinated, and treatment took place when the Omicron variant was the most dominant strain in the United States.

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Topic: AustraliaView all posts for the topic: Australia

Omicron linked to more long COVID-19 cases: study

Published March 28, 2024

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Published by: The Canberra Times
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By Aaron Bunch

The Omicron coronavirus variant could be causing more cases of long COVID than earlier versions of the disease, scientists say.

A study of more than 11,000 Western Australians infected in 2022 found almost one in five continued to suffer symptoms three months after they initially tested positive.

Epidemiologist Mulu Woldegiorgis said the findings show the Omicron variant puts patients at greater risk of developing long COVID than previously thought.

“It is more than double the prevalence reported in a review of Australian data from earlier in the pandemic, and higher than similar studies done in the UK and Canada,” she said on Thursday.

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Topic: vaccinesView all posts for the topic: vaccines

Fall COVID-19 vaccine cut illness risk by half overall

Published February 22, 2024

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Published by: Globe and Mail
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By Kelly Grant

The fall COVID-19 vaccine cut the risk of COVID-19 illness by about half overall, and by 67 per cent for those with a previous infection, according to new research from the Canadian network that has long tracked the performance of the annual flu shot.

This is the first time the Canadian Sentinel Practitioner Surveillance Network, which is comprised of hundreds of primary care providers in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec, produced mid-season estimates of the effectiveness of immunization against COVID-19.

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Topic: vaccinesView all posts for the topic: vaccines

Canadian data show moderate to good vaccine efficacy against COVID, flu

Published February 19, 2024

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Published by: CIDRAP
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By Mary Van Beusekom

The Canadian Sentinel Practitioner Surveillance Network (SPSN) data reveal mid-season vaccine effectiveness (VE) against the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron XBB.1.5 variant of 47% against medically attended outpatient COVID-19 and 67% among previously infected people.

The same test-negative case-control study reports that the flu vaccine is 63% effective against medically attended outpatient infection with the influenza A H1N1 strain and 40% against H3N2.

The researchers enrolled patients with new or worsening cough that is characteristic of acute respiratory illness (ARI) who sought care within 7 days of symptom onset from community-based sentinel practitioners in Alberta, British Columbia (BC), Ontario, or Quebec.

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Topic: rapid testsView all posts for the topic: rapid tests

Researchers report COVID home tests as accurate as the same tests given by a clinician

Published February 14, 2024

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Published by: CIDRAP
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By Mary Van Beusekom

A single-center study conducted at a free community testing site in Maryland suggests that patient-administered BinaxNow COVID-19 rapid antigen tests (RATs) have similar accuracy as those performed by a clinician, although the results can be misinterpreted or falsely negative.

Researchers from the Baltimore Convention Center Field Hospital and Johns Hopkins University and their collaborators compared the sensitivity and specificity of Abbott’s BinaxNOW home RAT with those administered by a healthcare provider and reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) from February to July 2022, a period of Omicron variant predominance.

The median age of the 953 participants was 34 years, 60.6% were women, 58.6% were White, 98.2% were English-speaking, and 34.1% had at least one COVID-19 symptom. Hospital staff administered both a RAT and an RT-PCR test to participants, who then self-tested with a RAT, the results of which were both self-reported and reviewed by the researchers.

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Topic: New ZealandView all posts for the topic: New Zealand

Covid-19: Vaccines saved thousands of lives during Omicron outbreak, study estimates

Published February 9, 2024

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Published by: RNZ
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A new study estimates vaccines prevented between 4000 and 12,000 deaths during the Omicron phase of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The paper, published in the medical journal Vaccine, models scenarios with different levels of vaccine coverage in the 18 months from January 2022.

The authors say the elimination strategy meant most people were able to be vaccinated before being exposed to the virus.

The researchers say it meant there were between 34,000 and 56,000 fewer hospitalisations over the period.

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Topic: JN.1View all posts for the topic: JN.1

Holiday gatherings and a new variant have driven up COVID cases globally, the UN health agency says

Published January 10, 2024

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Published by: The Associated Press
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The head of the U.N. health agency said Wednesday holiday gatherings and the spread of the most prominent variant globally led to increased transmission of COVID-19 last month.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said nearly 10,000 deaths were reported in December, while hospital admissions during the month jumped 42% in nearly 50 countries — mostly in Europe and the Americas — that shared such trend information.

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Topic: pandemic responseView all posts for the topic: pandemic response

Opinion: The U.S. is facing the biggest COVID wave since Omicron. Why are we still playing make-believe?

Published January 4, 2024

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Published by: Los Angeles Times
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By Eric J. Topol

The pandemic is far from over, as evidenced by the rapid rise to global dominance of the JN.1 variant of SARS-CoV-2. This variant is a derivative of BA.2.86, the only other strain that has carried more than 30 new mutations in the spike protein since Omicron first came on the scene more than two years ago. This should have warranted designation by the World Health Organization as a variant of concern with a Greek letter, such as Pi.

By wastewater levels, JN.1 is now associated with the second-biggest wave of infections in the United States in the pandemic, after Omicron. We have lost the ability to track the actual number of infections since most people either test at home or don’t even test at all, but the very high wastewater levels of the virus indicate about 2 million Americans are getting infected each day.

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Topic: United StatesView all posts for the topic: United States

Less than 5% of US preschool cohort hospitalized for COVID were fully vaccinated, study finds

Published December 29, 2023

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Published by: CIDRAP
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By Mary Van Beusekom

Only 4.5% of a cohort of pediatric COVID-19 patients admitted to US hospitals during the period of Omicron predominance had completed their primary COVID-19 vaccine series, and 7.0% had started but didn’t finish the series, The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal reports.

The study team, led by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) researchers, enrolled 597 vaccine-eligible COVID-19 inpatients aged 8 months to 4 years at 28 hospitals participating in the Overcoming COVID-19 network from September 2022 to May 2023. A total of 62.1% of patients were aged 8 months to 1 year, and 37.9% were aged 2 to 4 years.

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Topic: United KingdomView all posts for the topic: United Kingdom

Covid rising in England and Scotland as new variant spreads around world

Published December 21, 2023

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Published by: The Guardian
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By Nicola Davis

Snow might not be swirling in the UK but Covid is in the air this Christmas, data has revealed, with experts warning a new variant is on the rise around the world.

According to data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), an estimated 4.2%, or one in 24 people, in England and Scotland had Covid on 13 December compared with 1.8% – or one in 55 – on 29 November.

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WHO designates JN.1 as separate COVID-19 variant of interestA healthcare worker conducts genomic sequencing of the SARS-COV-2 virus at the National Virology Laboratory in Honduras, on March 29, 2023. The healthcare worker is wearing a light blue translucent protective gown and cap, teal blue gloves, and a white respirator. Photo by: Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) / World Health Organization (WHO).
Topic: variantsView all posts for the topic: variants

WHO designates JN.1 as separate COVID-19 variant of interest

Published December 19, 2023

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Published by: CIDRAP
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By Lisa Schnirring

Due to its rapid growth and potential to add to the respiratory virus burden in Northern Hemisphere countries, the World Health Organization (WHO) today designated JN.1, part of the BA.2.86 SARS-CoV-2 lineage, as its own variant of interest.

The announcement came following an assessment from the WHO’s Technical Advisory Group on SARS-CoV-2 evolution.

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Topic: QuebecView all posts for the topic: Quebec

One million Quebecers infected with respiratory viruses

Published December 19, 2023

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Published by: Montreal Gazette
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By Aaron Derfel

Quebec Health Minister Christian Dubé and his chief public health officer warned Tuesday that the province is facing a major COVID-19 resurgence, coupled with a spike in influenza cases.

“We have a lot of vulnerable people that (are being hospitalized) because of influenza and because of COVID, and they should have been vaccinated,” Dubé said at a news conference.

“I think that the situation over the next few weeks will deteriorate. Let’s be clear about that.”

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