WHO calls XBB.1.5 among the most resistant variants yet

WHO calls XBB.1.5 the most resistant variant yet

The World Health Organization on Wednesday released its XBB.1.5 risk assessment report, saying the omicron offshoot is among the “most antibody-resistant variants to date.” Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s COVID-19 technical lead said during a briefing that the lineage is one of more than 500 coronavirus subvariants that the WHO is currently tracking worldwide but is notable for its rapid increase in proportion in the U.S. and “growth advantage compared to other sublineages of omicron.” The U.N. health agency said it is working with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to determine if XBB.1.5 is deadlier than previous strains or if it is “associated with potential changes in severity.”

WHO officials also lamented a global decline in virus surveillance, which has made it hard to keep track of the true impact of COVID-19. “Since the peak of the omicron wave, the number of sequences being shared has dropped by more than 90%, and the number of countries sharing sequences has fallen by a third,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. “The world cannot close its eyes and hope this virus will go away. It won’t. Sequencing remains vital to detect and track the emergence and spread of new variants, such as XBB.1.5.”

Virus killed more police officers than guns in 2022, new data show

COVID-19 remained the leading cause of death for law enforcement officers in the line of duty in 2022, according to preliminary data published Wednesday by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. Of the total 226 law enforcement officers who died in the line of duty last year, the virus accounted for 70 of those deaths. Despite the grim toll, the latest figure marks an 83% drop in COVID-19 deaths among officers compared to the 405 reported in 2021.

“While America’s law enforcement officers are still battling the deadly effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a significant reduction in such overall deaths, likely attributed to reduced infection rates and the broad availability and use of vaccinations,” the report said.

The second most common cause of death among officers in the line of duty in 2022 were firearms-related fatalities, which claimed the lives of 64 officers — the same number killed by firearms the previous year. “Although the numbers remain the same in 2022 as in 2021, the impact can be seen when you compare this decade to the prior decade,” said Marcia Ferranto, CEO of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. “If you look at 2010 to 2020, we’re up 21% in firearms-related fatalities within law enforcement.”

Expert on XBB.1.5 variant: “People are saying this will be mild. It’s not mild”

This winter’s COVID-19 surge will likely resemble the previous two due to the rapid emergence of the immune evasive XBB.1.5 omicron subvariant, according to the influential infectious disease expert Peter Hotez. “It’s starting to smell like another traditional winter wave like we had in 2021 with alpha and 2022 with omicron,” the dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine told the Houston Chronicle.

Hotez noted that while there may be fewer deaths due to the mitigating effects of vaccines and past infections, about 400 to 500 people are still dying in the U.S. each day. With the XBB.1.5 strain driving up infections, that number could grow. “I think people are saying this will be mild. It’s not mild,” Hotez said. “Even without 2,000 to 3,000 deaths a day, we’re still seeing a lot of hospitalizations, a lot of long COVID.”

Protection may be waning even for those who received the updated bivalent COVID-19 booster in the fall, Hotez said. “The problem with these mRNA boosters is that they’re not holding up as well in terms of durability as we’d like, about four to six months,” he said, adding that emerging variants from the unmitigated spread of the virus in China could soon yield even more aggressive virus strains. “China is being completely non-transparent,” he said. “In terms of disease intelligence and getting some genomic sequencing from the variants, we can’t count on the Chinese to do that.”

Government sending out expired home test kits, report finds

Many people have reported receiving expired coronavirus tests from the U.S. government in the latest round of kits distributed through the free mail order Covid.gov program through the USPS. Even with the Food and Drug Administration extending the shelf life of several brands last summer, NBC News found that many of the tests arriving this month have already expired or will expire soon. The Department of Health and Human Services, which runs the mail-order COVID test program, did not respond to the network’s repeated requests for comment and information about the expiration date issues. The FDA said COVID tests may degrade over time, so expired kits could give inaccurate or invalid results.

U.S. extends COVID public health emergency

The U.S. Health and Human Services department on Wednesday extended the COVID-19 public health emergency, which was first declared in January 2020. As hundreds of people continue to die daily from the coronavirus across the nation, the declaration will allow the government to continue to deliver free tests, vaccines and treatments to Americans. The U.S. is tallying about 471,000 new cases and 2,700 virus-related deaths each week, according to data from the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with no indicators that the pandemic will abate. Once the Biden Administration lifts the order, tools to combat COVID-19 will transition to a private market.

Moderna plans to charge Americans $130 per vaccine dose

Moderna plans to charge between $110 to $130 per dose of its COVID-19 vaccine after its contract with the U.S. government expires, Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel told the Wall Street Journal. The federal government currently pays about $26 per dose for Moderna bivalent vaccine and provides the shots at no cost to Americans. Bancel said the 400% price hike was justifiable based on market demands. “I would think this type of pricing is consistent with the value,” he said.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders countered that claim, and in a letter to Bancel on Tuesday described the price hike as “outrageous,” adding the company should refrain from any price increase considering the federal government funded the development of the vaccine. “In the midst of a public health crisis, quadrupling the price of a publicly-funded COVID-19 vaccine is unacceptable corporate greed,” said Sanders, the incoming chairman of the Senate Health Committee.

Infection could trigger multiple sclerosis, study finds

The coronavirus shares a significant number of proteins targeted by the immune system in multiple sclerosis, according to a study published this week in the journal Nature. Researchers from the National Institute of Health attribute the phenomena to “molecular mimicry,” noting that COVID-19 causes an autoimmune response that provides an on-ramp for MS-like disease in some individuals. “These manifestations suggest a pathogenesis potentially involving demyelination, which may further suggest the centrality of an autoimmune process in both acute and post-infectious clinical presentations in some COVID-19 patients,” the authors wrote.

Virus is “here to stay,” WHO officials say

The coronavirus is “circulating intensely” worldwide following the holidays, Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s COVID-19 technical lead said during a briefing on Tuesday. She noted that cases are up at least 10% and deaths have increased by 22% over the past month, but that those figures were likely an undercount due to diminishing surveillance. “We’re concerned the virus is changing in a way that is going to increase our risk and that is a reality,” said Mike Ryan, the U.N. agency’s emergencies director. He added that so far while the virus is evolving to become more transmissible it has not yet become more lethal. “But what’s worrying me is that our vulnerability to that virus is increasing because vaccine coverage in all countries is not optimal — and it doesn’t matter what country you’re in,” Ryan said. He also cited the strain on the health care system for the past three years as a growing cause for concern.

Looking ahead, the officials said it was unlikely life would ever return to pre-pandemic normal. “We’re not going to get to zero COVID, we’re not going to have no COVID,” Ryan said. “COVID is here to stay as a disease.” In addition to staying up to date on vaccinations, Van Kerkhove strongly encouraged the continued use of masking in high-risk environments. “The recommendation is not for everyone to wear a mask everywhere all the time” but instead in indoor settings where circulation is poor and distancing from others is difficult, she said. “This is one of the hallmarks of the response… It helps. It is that source control. It is that barrier.”The officials also promoted the importance of ventilation as a basic quality of life issue. “We all want to breathe fresh, clean air,” said Ryan.

What do we know about XBB.1.5, the “most transmissible” COVID subvariant yet?

As the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic nears an end, the coronavirus continues to evolve and prove that it has more tricks up its sleeve. The highly contagious XBB.1.5 strain, the latest in a succession of omicron subvariants that was first detected in the U.S. in October, is quickly spreading. Its rise had been most rapid in the Northeast, where XBB.1.5 made up 71.6% of sequenced coronavirus cases in the seven-day period ending Jan. 7, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That compared to 27.6% across the U.S. as a whole, and 7.6% of cases in the Western region, which includes California. Read more about the XBB.1.5 subvariant and how people in the Bay Area should respond to its spread.

Chinese bank offers bivalent booster for $500,000 deposit

A Chinese state-owned bank in Hong Kong is offering a shot of Pfizer’s updated bivalent booster as an “exclusive privilege” to customers who deposit the equivalent of about $512,000. China CITIC Bank International Limited, known as CNCBI, rolled out the offer on Tuesday in anticipation of the lifting of border travel restrictions between mainland China and Hong Kong, “with an aim of providing cross-border customers a comprehensive array of wealth management services which will open the door for creating value to customers’ wealth and wellness.” New and existing customers will receive an express reservation for the mRNA vaccine, which is not available in mainland China, when they deposit a minimum of HK$4,000,000 into an account now through March 31.

European CDC reconsiders extent of XBB.1.5 threat due to “significant uncertainty”

There is “significant uncertainty” around the XBB.1.5 subvariant, according to an epidemiological update posted Tuesday by the European Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, although the agency affirmed that the latest omicron offshoot is estimated to have a large growth advantage over previously circulating lineages of the coronavirus in North America. It repeated that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports a “doubling time” of nine days in the proportion of XBB.1.5, which defines how many days it takes for cases, hospitalizations, or deaths related to a virus variant to double.

But in its latest report, the ECDC noted that the U.S. health agency had scaled back the estimates of the current proportion of the variant to around 27.6% from the previously reported 40%. “Due to the uncertainty associated with the estimate, it is still unclear whether the variant will become dominant in the U.S. in the coming few weeks. The rapid growth in the U.S. does not necessarily mean that the variant will become dominant in the EU/EEA, since major differences in variant circulation between North America and Europe have been observed several times during the pandemic.”

Pentagon drops vaccine mandate for troops

The Pentagon formally dropped its COVID-19 vaccination mandate Tuesday, but a new memo signed by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also gives commanders some discretion in how or whether to deploy troops who are not vaccinated. Austin’s memo has been widely anticipated ever since legislation signed into law on Dec. 23 gave him 30 days to rescind the mandate, the Associated Press reports. The Defense Department had already stopped all related personnel actions, such as discharging troops who refused the shot.

“The Department will continue to promote and encourage COVID-19 vaccination for all service members,” Austin said in the memo. “Vaccination enhances operational readiness and protects the force.”

Older Americans bearing brunt of latest surge

Americans 65 and older are dying at disproportionately higher rates from COVID-19, according to an analysis of CDC figures published Tuesday by WebMD. People between the ages 65 to 74 account for 22% of virus deaths, even though this age group represents less than 10% of the U.S. population, the latest data show. Those between 75 to 84 account for 26% of deaths but make up less than 5% of the nation’s population, while the oldest Americans, those 85 and over, account for 27% of deaths while accounting for just 2%.

While a recent preprint study published in the journal The Lancet demonstrated that people ages 65 and older who received the bivalent booster were 81% less likely to be hospitalized and 86% less likely to die from COVID-19 than those who did not receive it. Only about one-third of Americans in that age group have received the updated shot. “The messaging has to be clear: You need to get the bivalent booster,” said Lisa Sanders, director of media relations at LeadingAge, a national association of nonprofit providers and aging services for older adults, “especially now after the holidays and [when] new variants are emerging.”

Reinfections raise risk of long COVID symptoms, federal study finds

A federal study funded by the National Institutes of Health analyzing the electronic health records of a cohort of more than 1.5 million individuals found that the severity of coronavirus reinfections was similar to those of the initial infection in most patients and most commonly occur between 300 days and up to 500 days after the previous COVID-19 infection. The researchers found that the number of long COVID diagnoses also increased in frequency following reinfection with more recent variants, including most omicron offshoots.

With “no alternative,” federal officials push ineffective drug

Despite the Food and Drug Administration’s warning to immunocompromised Americans last week that the drug Evusheld is unlikely to neutralize XBB.1.5, the coronavirus omicron subvariant that is currently estimated to account for 28% of circulating variants in the U.S., the National Institute of Health said on Tuesday that clinicians should still use it for now. “In the United States, the prevalence of subvariants likely to be resistant to tixagevimab plus cilgavimab (Evusheld) is more than 91%,” the agency said in an update, noting it is unlikely to be effective at preventing COVID-19 in the vast majority of individuals. “However, no alternative options for (pre-exposure prophylaxis) are available, and clinicians could still administer tixagevimab plus cilgavimab after considering an individual patient’s risks and the regional prevalence of the resistant subvariants.”

XBB.1.5 sends hospitalizations soaring on East Coast

COVID-19 hospitalizations on the East Coast have reached 11-month highs, fueled by the XBB.1.5 omicron subvariant, according to updated federal data. The most transmissible coronavirus strain yet accounted for 81% of new cases in the New York and New Jersey regions, which saw the biggest uptick, compared to a national proportion estimate of 27.6%. Deaths are also climbing in the region, with weekly fatality reports for both states at their highest levels since February 2022, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy are scheduled to deliver State of the State addresses on Tuesday which are likely to include updates on the state’s ongoing pandemic response.

Republicans change focus of the House coronavirus committee

With the GOP taking control of the chamber, the House’s 12-person coronavirus committee will substantially change tack in the current session. Under a sweeping rules package approved by a 220-213 vote on Monday, the group will now focus on probing the virus’ origins, audit government spending for the pandemic (“including any reports of waste, fraud, or abuse”) and question mandates. The previous Democrat-led committee had put its efforts towards combating COVID-19 misinformation and exploring the nation’s pandemic preparedness. The subcommittee is expected to publish a report by January 2, 2025.

Moderna CEO says virus moving into endemic stage

Modena CEO Stephane Bancel said believes the coronavirus pandemic is winding down and moving into the endemic stage. “It’s tough to look precisely because none of us managed a transition from a pandemic to an endemic before,” he told Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo in an interview Tuesday. “But we really think now that we’re moving into an endemic setting.” Bancel added that the updated bivalent vaccine booster is so effective that he anticipates making it a once-a-year shot for older people. “I think we are now getting ready for yet another update in the fall, and we are going to move most probably to annual boosters for people at high risk,” Bancel said.

WHO urges airline passengers to wear masks

Travelers are strongly encouraged to wear masks on international flights to help slow the spread of the highly contagious XBB.1.5 omicron subvariant of COVID-19 in the United States, World Health Organization officials said at a briefing on Tuesday. Catherine Smallwood, the U. N. agency’s senior emergency officer for Europe, said “this should be a recommendation issued to passengers arriving from anywhere where there is widespread COVID-19 transmission.” XBB.1.5, which was first detected in the U.S. in October, has been labeled as the most transmissible coronavirus subvariant yet and was sequenced in about 28% of COVID-19 cases in the country last week. It is growing in proportion in Europe and other parts of the world. “Countries need to look at the evidence base for pre-departure testing,” Smallwood said, adding “travel measures should be implemented in a non-discriminatory manner.”