Coronavirus and Avian Flu Tidbits #297, June 2, 2024 - Dr. Judy Stone (2024)

Announcements:

First, there is now a Resources Pageherefor the most commonly asked questions I'm getting.

Happy to continue to answer your questions/concerns as best I can, so don't be shy about that.

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A call to action--to defeat the GOP and protect democracy.

While Trump was found guilty on all 34 counts yesterday, we will have to work harder than ever to defeat him in November.

Given what is going on with the Supremes and in the world, it's clearly more important than ever that we work to do this.There are so many ways you can help, from GOTV, to supporting various grassroot efforts, to phone banking, etc.

There are 3 groups I work with and recommend:

Please share:Great explanation ofhttp://BlueVoterGuide.org- How to build the blue wave in 2024!https://youtu.be/1l8R_jEuZyA?si=i8v2kK-5To0TMxWY…

also, Maryland is now important to get involved in. If Hogan wins the Senate race, he will work w the Right wing Republicans. He is not the "moderate" many believe him to be.

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I recently gave a talk at Allegany College, sharing a story fromResiliencewhich highlights some of the issues at stake in the election. "Mari's Story" is about my 5 year old cousin, who was an American citizen. She, her mom, and grandmother were in Strasshof concentration camp and then others. Because of "papers please" problems, she was then separated from her parents until she was 19.

I would love to give similar short talks to book groups, libraries, churches, etc. Please share with friends. Thank you!

Covid cases continue to rise each week in US. "So far this year, nearly 3.3 million COVID cases have been reported in the U.S., causing 283,605 hospitalizations and 29,370 deaths."

https://x.com/BNOFeed/status/1795195453627048409

Surges in Covid also in Egypt, Singapore, and Australia. The latter is telling people to mask up.

But we're flying blind in the US with the CDC no longer tracking/reporting data.

Hawaii still keeps data, and can see/predict from their current surge.

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Here we go again. WHO recommended mitigation measures when positivity was over 5%. We are at 17.5% as a nation.https://t.co/Q0nmGYoTzT pic.twitter.com/l2Z2qtTek4

— Michael Olesen 💉😷🇺🇸🇺🇦 (@maolesen) May 26, 2024

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Long Covid: 3 yr followup from @Zalaly, Miao Cai, @Biostayan, @EricTopol

Among people who had mild COVID-19 , risk of death became insignificant 1 year after infection Risk of new post acute sequelae declined over time, but residual risk remained even at 3 years in the pulmonary, GI and nervous systems.

This residual risk in the third year translates into 41 new sequelae/Long Covid components per 1000 persons in the third year (4 sequelae per 100 people).

In hospitalized patients, Risk of death declined over time, but remained elevated even 3 years after infection. Risk of new post acute sequelae declined over time, but significant risk remained even at 3 years in nearly all organ systems - cardiovascular, neurologic, GI, coagulation and pulmonary organ systems

This risk in the third year translates into 252 new sequelae/Long Covid components per 1000 persons in the third year (~ 25 sequelae per 100 people)

New conditions in the third year after infection led to 10 DALYs per 1000 persons in non-hospitalized , and 90 DALYs per 1000 persons in those who were hospitalized during acute COVID One DALY equals one lost year of healthy life.

The big revelation here is that the risk persists for 3 years in several organ systems (e.g. GI and nervous system) even 3 years after a mild infection.

Why is this be happening? Possibly viral persistence (perhaps far more common than most people think), chronic inflammation or chronic immune dysfunction or all the above.

The story in hospitalized people is more stark – they have greater risk and longer risk horizon with resultant burden of disease that is astronomically much higher than non-infected people and higher than non-hospitalized individuals. Hospitalization can have huge and wide-ranging effects on people's lives for years if not more. Preventing hospitalization is very important.

In fact, 90% of people with Long Covid had mild COVID-19.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-024-02987-8

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Long Covid and autoimmunity:

Preprint on how antibodies could drive #LongCOVID symptoms. By transferring IgG #antibodies from Long COVID patients to mice, we induced disease-associated symptoms. This model can help in understanding and treating Long COVID.

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.05.30.596590v1

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Despite this strong association, the big question remained: is autoimmunity a CAUSE or CONSEQUENCE in Long-COVID? So we decided to put this to the test: we purified antibodies from patient blood, transferred these to mice, and tested whether mice would develop symptoms.

Strikingly, transfer of IgG antibodies of Long-COVID patients strongly induced symptoms in mice! Most pronounced was the induction of pain,

Since Long-COVID is a very heterogeneous disease (different symptoms, severity, etc.) we also tried to divide the patients into separate groups. With a little help from proteomics (proteins in blood) we identified three groups (color coded red/grey/yellow).

Interestingly, antibodies from different patient-groups induced different symptoms in mice! Group-yellow IgG immediately induced pain symptoms, group-red induced delayed symptoms. Remarkable: group-grey IgG induced no pain, but was the only group to induce immobility.

So in short: 1. IgG antibodies from Long-COVID patients induce symptoms in mice, indicating autoimmunity plays a causal role in this disease. 2. Antibodies from different subgroups induce distinct symptoms, indicating the presence of multiple (groups of) auto-antibodies.

Another cool thing: our findings seem to have been independently validated by the @PutrinoLab, who recently showed similar preliminary data on this scientific conference (May 2024): https://youtube.com/watch?v=F3Sv9tfu_ww…

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Avian influenza H5N1:

Third dairy farm worker infected with H5 avian flu

unlike the earlier cases, the patient is experiencing respiratory symptoms as well as conjunctivitis. Michigan has been hit hardest by the dairy farm outbreaks and hasreported 22 outbreaks across 10 of the state's counties. Neither worker exposed to sick cows was wearing PPE. They were treated with Tamiflu.

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/avian-influenza-bird-flu/second-dairy-farm-worker-infected-h5-avian-flu-michigan

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Vaccines are being readied...

CSL Seqirus will deliver 4.8 million vaccine doses that are matched to the current H5N1 strain of the virus. They would likely be targeted initially to protect at-risk poultry and dairy workers, veterinarians and lab technicians,

https://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/csl-seqirus-scores-4th-award-us-government-bird-flu-pandemic-preparedness

The U.S. government is reportedly close to finalizing a deal with Moderna to fund its bird flu mRNA vaccine trial as concerns remain surrounding the outbreak in poultry and cattle.

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/4693878-us-government-moderna-nearing-deal-for-bird-flu-vaccine-funding-reports/

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Also, the virus in raw milk may remain infectious when maintained at refrigerated temperatures.

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Dengue is surging:

in 2024 so far,more than 7.6 million cases have been reported, which includes 16,000 severe infections and more than 3,000 deaths, theWorld Health Organization (WHO)said today.

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/dengue/who-launches-dengue-dashboard-global-threat-remains-high

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Pertussis

The resurgence of vaccine preventable diseases in US is truly alarming. This will cause kids to miss school, drain public health resources (and tax dollars), and eventually cost lives. Kentucky county declares pertussis outbreak

-- @JeromeAdamsMD

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Oregon health officials are concerned about a sharp increase in cases of pertussis – known as whooping cough – across nine counties and are encouraging people to get vaccinated against the disease.