DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

A new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns that COVID-19 hospitalization is a “continued public health threat” that predominantly affects adults ages 65 and older. The study looked at hospitalizations from January to August and found that adults ages 65 and older accounted for 63% of all hospitalizations associated with COVID-19. Nearly all hospitalized individuals ages 65 and older had two or more underlying medical conditions. Despite the issues, uptake of the shot is likely to be significantly higher than the last round of boosters. Broken down by age group, about two-thirds of adults ages 65 and older are likely to get the vaccine.

Persons: ≥, Biden Organizations: Centers for Disease Control Locations: hospitalizations, U.S

☆ Fact Check: Australian COVID vaccine with HIV protein misrepresented online
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-05 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

The programme, titled “Horizon Special: The Vaccine”, documented the development, by the University of Queensland and biotechnology company CSL, of a COVID vaccine candidate that never made it to market. The 63-second video begins with a social media narrator saying: “This is utter madness. Explaining the reason behind choosing the HIV protein, Chappell says on-camera that the protein was picked because it’s well understood and presents no risks, including having no role in helping HIV to make copies of itself: “It’s a highly stable structure. VACCINE CANDIDATE DROPPEDThe social media clip fails to acknowledge that the production of the Australian vaccine candidate was halted following the discovery that it temporarily caused false-positive HIV tests due to the presence of the protein. The Australian vaccine candidate contained an HIV protein which posed no safety threat, but led the vaccine candidate to be dropped before ever making it to larger trials because it produced false-positive test results for HIV.

Persons: Keith Chappell, Chappell, ” Chappell, Read Organizations: University of Queensland, CSL, BBC, University of Queensland’s, Reuters, HIV, Thomson Locations: ”

The Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded Monday to two scientists whose work led to the mRNA vaccines against COVID-19. As countries prepared to roll out those shots, The Associated Press took a look at how the vaccines were developed so quickly. ___How could scientists race out COVID-19 vaccines so fast without cutting corners? A head start helped -- over a decade of behind-the-scenes research that had new vaccine technology poised for a challenge just as the coronavirus erupted. Both shots — one made by Pfizer and BioNTech, the other by Moderna and the National Institutes of Health — are so-called messenger RNA, or mRNA, vaccines, a brand-new technology.

Persons: Dr, Anthony Fauci, Buddy Creech, ” Creech, Tal Zaks, ”, Drew Weissman, Weissman, Katalin, Philip Dormitzer, Barney Graham’s, ” Fauci, Graham, Jason McLellan, hadn't, “, ” Graham, Germany’s, Pfizer’s Dormitzer, Ugur Sahin Organizations: Medicine, COVID, Associated Press, Vanderbilt University, Infectious Diseases Society of America, Pfizer, BioNTech, Moderna, National Institutes of Health, NIH, University of Pennsylvania, Penn, NIH’s Vaccine Research Center, Associated Press Health, Science Department, Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education, AP Locations: U.S, Massachusetts, BioNTech, New York, China

CNN —This year’s Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine has been awarded to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman for their work on mRNA vaccines, a crucial tool in curtailing the spread of Covid-19. The Nobel Prize committee announced the prestigious honor, seen as the pinnacle of scientific achievement, in Sweden on Monday. Rickard Sandberg, a member of the Nobel Prize in medicine committee, said, “mRNA vaccines together with other Covid-19 vaccines have been administered over 13 billion times. They sold their car, Karikó told The Guardian, and stuffed the money – an equivalent of about $1,200 – in their daughter’s teddy bear for safekeeping. Weissman told CNN that their technology is much more efficient than traditional methods of producing vaccines.

Persons: Katalin Karikó, Drew Weissman, “, Karikó, Weissman, Rickard Sandberg, ” Karikó, Steffen Trumpf, BioNTech, Penn Medicine J, Larry Jameson, . Weissman, ” Jameson, Drew, ”, Hope, I’m Organizations: CNN, University of Pennsylvania, Pfizer, Penn Medicine, UPenn’s School of Medicine, Kati, Temple University, Guardian, Moderna Locations: Covid, Sweden, Hungarian, American, Germany, Norway, Hungary, United States, Philadelphia, UPenn

Data is trickling in on a new COVID-19 strain nicknamed “pirola,” giving researchers a wider picture of what the variant could mean for the U.S. and the world. Van Kerkhove said that the global COVID-19 variant picture is complex, and that while BA.2.86 is spreading, it is not currently outcompeting other strains. “It is quite a complex picture globally in terms of how these variants behave because different variants circulate in different countries at different times.”Will Vaccines Work on Pirola? Moderna and Pfizer have announced that early data indicates that their updated vaccines do produce an immune response against BA.2.86. "These results demonstrate that our updated COVID-19 vaccine generates a strong human immune response against the highly mutated BA.2.86 variant.

Persons: “ pirola, ” Mandy Cohen, Maria Van Kerkhove, ” Benjamin Murrell, Ashish Jha, pirola, Van Kerkhove, it’s, ”, “, Stephen Hoge Organizations: U.S, CDC, Centers for Disease Control, World Health Organization, WHO, White, Moderna, Pfizer, EG Locations: United States, Denmark, Sweden, Portugal, Israel, Canada, South Africa

☆ Opinion: How Covid-19 is resurfacing after months of calm
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-05 | by ( Kent Sepkowitz | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

Kent Sepkowitz CNNThere are several plausible reasons why this latest bump is occurring now after months and months of calm. To sort it out, I decided to perform an at-home rapid antigen test. One negative test on the first day of symptoms, especially with the rapid antigen test, is not determinative. The virus that causes Covid-19 infection is a simple scrap of RNA that cannot survive without a living cell to support it. This won’t be the last alarm, real or false, for me (and others) in the months ahead.

Persons: Kent Sepkowitz, Covid, —, overconfidence Organizations: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, CNN, Kent Sepkowitz CNN, US, Twitter Locations: New York, United States, XBB

☆ Fact Check-Ivermectin still not FDA-approved to treat COVID
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-30 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

Ivermectin is not FDA-approved for COVID treatment, but misleading posts cast the attorney’s statement as though it represented a change in the drug’s status. Referring to ivermectin, a post on messaging platform X, formerly known as Twitter, said: “The FDA now says the Nobel Prize winning drug is approved to treat COVID” (here). Ashley Cheung Honold, a Department of Justice lawyer representing the FDA, said that “FDA explicitly recognizes that doctors do have the authority to prescribe ivermectin to treat COVID” (see 22:26 timestamp) and “FDA is clearly acknowledging that doctors have the authority to prescribe human ivermectin to treat COVID” (see 31:30 timestamp). “In general, off-label uses have evidence for efficacy and safety that is less than that required to have an indication FDA-approved. Ivermectin is not FDA-approved to treat COVID but the agency does not prohibit physicians from prescribing the drug off-label.

Persons: ivermectin, Ivermectin, COVID, Ashley Cheung Honold, Randall Stafford, ”, ” Stafford, “, Stafford, Ryan Abbot, ” Abbot, Read Organizations: U.S . Food, Drug Administration, FDA, Twitter, Facebook, U.S ., Appeals, Fifth Circuit, Department of Health & Human, COVID, YouTube, Justice, Stanford School of Medicine, University of Surrey, University of California, al, “, Reuters Locations: Los Angeles, Apter

☆ Australia: Doctors remove 3-inch parasitic worm from woman's brain in world first
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-29 | by ( Kathleen Magramo | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

The finding unleashed a mad scramble to find out what exactly the parasite was, Canberra Hospital infectious disease expert Sanjaya Senanayake told CNN. “We were able to send the live wiggling worm to him, and he was able to look at it and immediately identify it,” Senanayake said. In this case, the patient was likely an accidental host of the worm, Senanayake said. “There’s more opportunities for humans, domestic animals and wild animals to interact with each other and the vegetation that’s out there. And of those emerging infections, about 75% were zoonotic, meaning there has been transmission from the animal world to the human world – including coronaviruses.

Persons: Dr, Hari Priya Bandi, ” Bandi, Sanjaya Senanayake, “, ” Senanayake, ”, Senanayake, Hossain M, Kennedy KJ, Wilson HL Senanayake Organizations: CNN, Australian National University, Canberra Hospital, Wilson, US Centers for Disease Control, Prevention Locations: Canberra, New South Wales, Australia

☆ Covid-19 has changed and so has our immunity. Here’s how to think about risk from the virus now
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-28 | by ( Brenda Goodman | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +19 min

So if people are less likely to be hospitalized or die from a Covid-19 infection now, has the danger passed? Through genetic bad luck, some people may just be at higher risk of serious reactions to Covid-19 infections, and they probably wouldn’t know it. Researchers defined it as any new or continuing symptoms more than 90 days after a Covid-19 infection. Based on his experience treating long Covid patients, Griffin said that the percentage reported in the Australian paper seems high. Earlier in the pandemic, pediatric infectious disease specialists were on the lookout for a rare complication of Covid-19 infection in kids called multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, or MIS-C.MIS-C starts two to six weeks after a Covid-19 infection.

Persons: CNN —, we’ve, aren’t, Good, ”, Megan Ranney, Covid, ” Ranney, that’s, Evusheld, haven’t, you’ve, they’re, They’re, Mandy Cohen, It’s, –, Jesse Bloom, Daniel Griffin, it’s ‘, Griffin, “, Peter Chin, Chin, Hong, Nathaniel Hendrix, Hendrix, it’s, hasn’t, she’s, Kristin Englund, shouldn’t, Dr, Sanjay Gupta, “ It’s, Ellie Murray, ” Murray Organizations: CNN, US Centers for Disease Control, Yale School of Public Health, Covid, National Institutes of Health, FDA, US Department of Health, Human Services, CDC, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, HHS, Columbia University, University of California, Census Bureau, Nature Medicine, American Board of Family Medicine, Nature, Veterans Affairs, Cleveland Clinic, CNN Health, Boston University School of Public Health Locations: South Africa, Botswana, United States, China, Seattle, Israel, Denmark, United Kingdom, Portugal, US, Switzerland, Thailand, Australia, San Francisco, Ohio

REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton/File Photo Acquire Licensing RightsLONDON/CHICAGO, Aug 24 (Reuters) - A highly mutated COVID variant called BA.2.86 has now been detected in Switzerland and South Africa in addition to Israel, Denmark, the U.S. and the U.K., according to a leading World Health Organization official. It has since been detected in other symptomatic patients, in routine airport screening, and in wastewater samples in a handful of countries. That the known cases are not linked suggests it is already circulating more widely, particularly given reduced surveillance worldwide, she said. There have been nine such cases detected as of Aug. 23 and the variant was also found in wastewater in Switzerland. Jha and others, including the European public health agency and COVAX, the global program for getting vaccines to the world's poorest, said COVID surveillance and defenses could be reactivated in the event of a major infection wave.

Persons: Shannon Stapleton, Maria Van Kerkhove, Kerkhove, ”, Marion Koopmans, Nirav Shah, Van Kerkhove, Tyra Grove Krause, Ashish Jha, Jha, Jennifer Rigby, Julie Steenhuysen, Pratik Jain, Caroline Humer, Bill Berkrot Organizations: REUTERS, Health Organization, Omicron, WHO, U.S . Centers for Disease Control, Pharmacy, Walgreens, Rite, Reuters, Statens Serum, White, Thomson Locations: Harlem, New York City, U.S, CHICAGO, Switzerland, South Africa, Israel, Denmark, COVID, Dutch, Danish, Bengaluru

☆ The Covid Lab-Leak Deception
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-27 | by ( Matt Ridley | Alina Chan | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Review and Outlook: Progressives want Donald Trump to win the GOP nomination so they're distorting Florida’s superior Covid-19 handling, in an effort to weaken Ron DeSantis's 2024 campaign. Images: Zuma Press Composite: Mark KellyThe controversy over the origins of Covid-19 refuses to die, despite efforts early in the pandemic to kill it. It was natural to doubt it was a coincidence that an outbreak caused by a SARS-like coronavirus from bats began in Wuhan, China, the only city where risky experiments were being done on diverse and novel SARS-like coronaviruses from bats. The Chinese Communist Party did its utmost to dismiss such suspicions, but so did a group of influential Western scientists.

Persons: Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis's, Mark Kelly Organizations: GOP, Chinese Communist Party Locations: Wuhan, China

☆ The Ongoing Mystery of Covid’s Origin
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-25 | by ( David Quammen | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +5 min

But as the researchers describe it, these apparent contradictions were simply a reflection of their fast-evolving views. It showed that such an RBD had evolved in the wild and might well have gotten into SARS-CoV-2 by recombination, the natural gene-swapping process. The genome was 96.2 percent identical to the SARS-CoV-2 genome as sampled from people during the early days of the pandemic. RaTG13 has attained renown, not just because it constituted strong evidence of SARS-CoV-2’s ancestry in bat viruses but also because the Mojiang mine figures in some of the more lurid scenarios for a lab-leak origin. The inference is that Shi’s team, a year after the mine workers died, may have taken the virus back to Wuhan.

Persons: Andersen, ”, Slack, Matt Wong, ” Andersen, Zhengli Shi, Shi, RaTG13 Organizations: Twitter, Nature, Wuhan Institute of Virology Locations: Houston, Yunnan Province, Wuhan, Tongguan, Mojiang, Yunnan

☆ New studies shed light on how genes might shape a person’s experience with Covid-19
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-19 | by ( Brenda Goodman | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

New research is exploring another dimension to the puzzle of how people experience this infection: genes. Hollenbach says it’s the job of HLA molecules to present pieces of proteins to the immune system so they can be recognized if they’re ever encountered again. The researchers then took a closer look at this group to see if there were any similarities in the genes that coded for their HLA molecules, and there were. So folks with these HLA molecules likely already had some preexisting immunity against SARS-CoV2 and were able to clear the virus before it caused symptoms, Hollenbach said. Genes, Zeberg said, are likely only one part of reason why someone develops long Covid, and there are probably a slew of genes involved.

Persons: Covid, ”, Jill Hollenbach, Hollenbach, they’re, “, ” Hollenbach, they’d, it’s, Gene, Dr, Sanjay Gupta, Hugo Zeberg, Zeberg Organizations: CNN, University of California, San Francisco’s Weill, for Neurosciences, Karolinska Institute, Get CNN, CNN Health, Karolinska . Genes Locations: San, Stockholm, FOXP4

CNN —The US intelligence community still believes it is plausible that Covid-19 originated in a laboratory or in the wild, a conclusion that has been consistent for months, according to newly declassified information released Friday evening. And almost all American intelligence agencies also assess that the virus itself was not genetically engineered, the report states. “Most agencies assess that SARS-CoV-2 was not laboratory-adapted; some are unable to make a determination. All IC agencies assess that SARS-CoV-2 was not developed as a biological weapon,” according to the ODNI report. US intelligence agencies remain split over whether it resulted from a lab leak or occurred in the wild.

Persons: ”, WIV Organizations: CNN, National Intelligence Locations: Wuhan, China

☆ Opinion | The Government Must Say What It Knows About Covid’s Origins
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-21 | by ( Zeynep Tufekci | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

One of those named researchers, Ben Hu, is a leading scientist who has worked on bat coronaviruses related to SARS. In September 2021, DRASTIC also obtained a funding proposal that the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s U.S. collaborator, EcoHealth Alliance, submitted to the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The proposal called for using genetic engineering to perform experiments with bat SARS-like coronaviruses and modify them by inserting features that can increase their ability to infect humans. The feature could also have evolved naturally, and many scientists dismissed its significance as evidence that research set off the pandemic origins. (Some of the scientists have said they later changed their minds).

Persons: Ben Hu, Yu Ping Organizations: U.S, U.S ., Waste, Wuhan Institute of Virology’s, EcoHealth Alliance, Pentagon’s Defense, Research Projects Agency, Wuhan Institute, Virology Locations: Wuhan, U.S, coronaviruses

☆ Former PM Cameron says Britain was prepared for flu-like pandemic rather than COVID
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-19 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

LONDON, June 19 (Reuters) - Former prime minister David Cameron told an inquiry on Monday that Britain was prepared for a flu-type pandemic but not enough work was done in advance to confront an asymptomatic disease similar to COVID-19. Britain is holding an inquiry into the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic after Britain recorded one of the world's highest death tolls. It could prove a headache for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who was finance minister during the pandemic and faces an election expected next year. "When you think: what would be different if more time had been spent on a high-infectious asymptomatic pandemic, different recommendations would've been made about what was necessary to prepare for." Cameron's finance minister George Osborne will testify on Tuesday while Jeremy Hunt, the current finance minister and health minister under Cameron, will give evidence on Wednesday.

Persons: David Cameron, Hugo Keith, Rishi Sunak, Cameron, COVID, would've, George Osborne, Jeremy Hunt, Alistair Smout, Angus MacSwan Organizations: Thomson Locations: Britain

☆ Fact Check-SKYCovion vaccine is not sprayed from aircraft
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-01 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

A South Korean COVID-19 vaccine recently authorised in Britain is administered by injection, not sprayed into the sky from aircraft, as social media posts falsely claim. Some social media users have since been saying that SKYCovion will be sprayed on people from aircraft in a possible misinterpretation of the vaccine’s name (here). However, the vaccine is not based on mRNA and is administered through intramuscular injection, according to the MHRA and SK bioscience. SKYCovion is not an mRNA vaccine but has a traditional protein-antigen design. The SKYCovion vaccine authorised in Britain is injected intramuscularly, not sprayed from the sky.

Persons: chemtrails, Read Organizations: South, SK bioscience, GlaxoSmithKline, GSK, SK Chemicals, Britain’s Medicines, Healthcare, Agency, Twitter, ” SK bioscience, Reuters Locations: Britain, South Korean

☆ Here’s what Pfizer and Moderna say is next for their Covid vaccines
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-22 | by ( Annika Kim Constantino | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +9 min

Scott Olson | Getty ImagesThree years and billions of Covid vaccinations into the pandemic, Pfizer and Moderna say their work is far from over. Here's what Moderna and Pfizer say is next for their Covid shots. Annual Covid shotsPfizer and Moderna aim to keep up with a shift in the U.S. toward annual Covid shots rather than frequent booster doses. Miller, who helped lead the development of Moderna's Covid shot in 2020, said the advantages of using mRNA became evident earlier on in the pandemic. 'Next-generation' Covid shotsPfizer's and Moderna's Covid vaccines both deliver robust protection against the virus, but that immunity can start to fade after four to six months.

☆ China, birthplace of COVID, lays tracks for a new global health crisis
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-18 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +10 min

Bat viruses have been the source of multiple health crises besides those related to coronaviruses, including recent outbreaks of Ebola, Nipah, and Marburg. Partners in risk The total area at high risk for bat viruses to infect humans more than doubled in size in Laos between 2002 and 2020. The animals, known to be susceptible to bat viruses, included raccoon dogs, bamboo rats and porcupines. As China boomed in recent decades, global demand for rubber also skyrocketed, leading to further development and deforestation here. Already, scientists have found local bats bearing viruses closely related to those responsible for the 2003 SARS and COVID-19 pandemics.

☆ How a deadly bat virus found new ways to infect people
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-17 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +16 min

Scientists found bats with Nipah virus roosting near Sabith’s home. A search of the neighborhood led to a colony, near their house, of flying foxes, a common fruit bat. NETTING NIPAH: Researchers in Bangladesh use nets to catch bats and collect samples to find the Nipah virus in the wild. REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir HossainWhether Sabith ate contaminated fruit or somehow came into direct contact with a bat, the virus entered his cells. REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir HossainA year later, Chua’s team found the same strain of Nipah virus in flying foxes.

☆ We may never know where the COVID pandemic originated
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

LONDONIt’s the enduring mystery of the COVID-19 pandemic: Where did the virus come from? They also mostly agree that many of the earliest known infections and deaths clustered around a wildlife market in Wuhan, China. Others suspect the pathogen somehow leaked from a Wuhan laboratory, 27 km from the market, where researchers study bat viruses. One concentration of jump zones includes a region of mountains and lakes about 175 km southeast of the Wuhan market. In late 2002, the SARS-CoV-1 virus emerged in Guangdong province, in southern China, and became the SARS pandemic of 2003.

☆ Bat lands worldwide are besieged, seeding risk of a new pandemic
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +16 min

This collision – bats and humans competing for resources on territory long the domain of the bats – could trigger the next pandemic. As people destroy bat habitats worldwide, they are unwittingly helping bat-borne viruses mutate, multiply, and infect other species, including homo sapiens. For millennia, bat viruses lurked across the forests of West Africa and in other undisturbed parts of the world but posed little threat to humanity. They’re potent proliferators: Some roost tightly together and in close quarters with other bat species. Each of the bat viruses analyzed by Reuters has epidemic potential, according to the World Health Organization.

☆ How Reuters pinpointed bat-virus risk zones worldwide
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +12 min

Areas where conditions are similar are more prone to spillover, scientists say. The Reuters analysis, which assessed spillover risk through 2020, has proven to have some predictive power. Similar statistical models are used widely to analyze data in ecology, and researchers use them to understand spillover risk. More than one of every five people on the planet is living in areas where the risk is highest for spillover. Using epidemic modeling software called GLEAMviz, the news agency simulated a worldwide pandemic originating from the spillover of a theoretical novel virus.

☆ Opinion | The Pandemic Threat That Hasn’t Gone Away
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-12 | by ( Zeynep Tufekci | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

His father said the man “wanted to die at home” rather than bring shame to his lab and his country. The incident came to light only after the desperate father threatened to kill himself unless his son sought medical help. Back in 2003 her supervisor had been infected with SARS in a lab. But the abilities scientists have developed in the past few decades have increased the threat. Scientists studying animals in the wild can carry back pathogens to their lab and the densely populated areas where they may be situated.

☆ Opinion: Why I’m not reassured by our victory over Covid-19
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-08 | by ( Opinion Kent Sepkowitz | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

Editor’s note: Kent Sepkowitz is a physician and infectious disease expert at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. CNN —At long last, the Covid-19 pandemic has entered its whimper phase. Last week, the World Health Organization decided to end the Covid-19 global health emergency. The US public health emergency is scheduled to end on Thursday, and beginning the following day, vaccination against Covid-19 will no longer be required for non-US travelers entering the States. Infectious diseases don’t ever really go away; they just change a little, then change some more till one day, they return bigger and fiercer than ever.

Search resuls for: "SARS"

25 mentions found