Pandemic Watch News Brief: The news you need to know

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AVAC's weekly Pandemic Watch is a curated news digest on the latest pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response (PPPR) news and resources.
“The COVID-19 pandemic created an opportunity to demonstrate the role of media monitoring and counter-messaging efforts in responding to dangerous medical rumors, misinformation, and disinformation."
-- "Addressing Viral Medical Rumors and False or Misleading Information" in Annals of Internal Medicine ([link removed])


** Table of Contents
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* If You Are in a Hurry (#If You Are in a Hurry)
* Politics, Vaccines and Death (#Politics, Vaccines and Death)
* Pandemic Fund Makes First Grants (#Pandemic Fund Makes First Grants)
* UN Declaration Language “Aspirational” (#UN Declaration Language “Aspirational”)
* Dengue Cases Surge (#Dengue Cases Surge)
* Huge Toll of Avian Flu (#Huge Toll of Avian Flu)
* Leave the Bats Alone; Monitor Markets (#Leave the Bats Alone; Monitor Markets)
* COVID-19 and Diabetes in Young People (#COVID-19 and Diabetes in Young People)
* Long COVID (#Long COVID)
* New Case of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (#New Case of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome)
* What We Know (and Don’t Know) about the Origins of COVID-19 (#What We Know (and Don’t Know) about the Origins of COVID-19)
* COVID-19 Cases Rise in Some Countries (#COVID-19 Cases Rise in Some Countries)

The lasting effects of misinformation around COVID-19 vaccines and other public health interventions continues to be a major problem in communities around the world. Researchers and healthcare providers who worked on projects to spread accurate health information about COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines share lessons learned in Annals of Internal Medicine ([link removed]) (US): “The COVID-19 pandemic created an opportunity to demonstrate the role of media monitoring and counter-messaging efforts in responding to dangerous medical rumors, misinformation, and disinformation.” The authors argue, “Understanding the scale and scope of what it takes to address viral medical rumors, misinformation, and disinformation in a networked information environment should inspire elected leaders to consider policy and regulatory reforms. Our transformed information ecosystem requires new public health infrastructure to address information that threatens personal safety and
population health…. As policymakers consider regulations, it is crucial for the medical and public health community to collaborate in actively mitigating the harms caused by viral medical rumors, misinformation, and disinformation. Durable investments in media monitoring and information sharing…. Could help to rapidly assess and coordinate responses to harmful medical information.”

In related news, Forbes ([link removed]) (US) reports, “X—the recently rebranded version of Twitter—removed a fact-check ([link removed]) from a Tuesday post ([link removed]) by company owner Elon Musk that linked the cardiac arrest suffered by college basketball player Bronny James to the COVID-19 vaccine—the latest assertion from the billionaire who’s increasingly promoting conspiracy theories and fringe ideas…. Musk’s embrace of vaccine skepticism and conspiracy theories is not a new development…. Last month, Musk and podcaster Joe Rogan pressed a vaccine expert, Dr. Peter Hotez, to debate Rogan, with Musk tweeting, ‘He’s afraid of a public debate, because he knows he’s wrong.’ Musk has also given a substantial platfo
rm to Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a well-known anti-vaccine figure who once claimed COVID-19 somehow spared Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people.”



** If You Are in a Hurry
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* Read Reuters ([link removed]) on a rapid rises in dengue, driven in part by climate change.
* Read The Washington Post ([link removed]) on a new US study that looked at political affiliations and excess deaths from COVID-19.
* Then read MedPage Today ([link removed]) on a PSA that used Fox News clips to encourage vaccination in republican-leaning communities.
* Read Health Policy Watch ([link removed]) on the initial round of grants from the Pandemic Fund.
* Read a GAVI Vaccines Work ([link removed]) blog post on concerns about cases of avian flu in cats and other mammals.
* Read on a new case of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome.
* Read David Quammen on what we know and don’t know about the origins of COVID-19 in New York Times Magazine ([link removed]) .




** Politics, Vaccines and Death
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The Washington Post ([link removed]) (US) reports, “The political maelstrom swirling around coronavirus vaccines may be to blame for a higher rate of excess deaths among registered Republicans in Ohio and Florida during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a study published Monday.… Yale University researchers found that registered Republicans had a higher rate of excess deaths than Democrats in the months following when vaccines became available for all adults in April 2021. The study does not directly attribute the deaths to COVID-19. Instead, excess mortality refers to the overall rate of deaths exceeding what would be expected from historical trends…. The Yale study adds to a growing body of research indicating that Republican messaging on vaccines and other public health measures such as mask-wearing, limiting crowds and social distancing may have led to preventable deaths.”

MedPage Today ([link removed]) (US) reports, “A strategic public service announcement (PSA) with counter-stereotypical vaccine messaging using real Fox News clips led to an uptake in COVID-19 vaccination in red counties, according to a large-scale randomized controlled trial. Across 1,014 counties, an estimated 104,036 people were vaccinated who otherwise wouldn't have been had they not seen the PSA, for an average 103 additional vaccines per treated county.…” The study authors say "whether the dividing line is politics or something else, our study suggests that public health proponents might do well to reflect on messengers whose voices might carry special weight among target populations." Read the study ([link removed]) .



** Pandemic Fund Makes First Grants
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Health Policy Watch ([link removed]) (Switzerland) reports, “Thirty-seven countries have received grants worth $338 million from the Pandemic Fund to boost their resilience to pandemics in the first round of the fund’s disbursements. Three disbursements involve multi-country grants: to 12 Caribbean countries to strengthen their early warning surveillance, build laboratory systems and workforce development; to seven Latin American countries to engage communities and territories​ in pandemic response, and to five Central Asian countries to bolster their One Health response.”



** UN Declaration Language “Aspirational”
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Health Policy Watch ([link removed]) (Switzerland) reports the revised text of the Political Declaration for the United Nations High-Level Meeting on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response “has a few more practical clauses than the bland zero-draft ([link removed]) , [but] bit remains more aspirational than actionable…. The revised version ([link removed]) …. Puts ‘equitable, people-centered and community-based’ primary health care at the centre of countries’ pandemic mitigation.”



** Dengue Cases Surge
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Reuters ([link removed]) (UK) reports, “The World Health Organization warned on Friday that cases of dengue fever could reach close to record highs this year, partly due to global warming benefiting mosquitoes that spread it. Dengue rates are rising globally, with reported cases since 2000 up eight-fold to 4.2 million in 2022, WHO said. The disease was found in Sudan's capital Khartoum for the first time on record, according to a health ministry report in March, while Europe has reported a surge in cases and Peru declared a state of emergency in most regions.

The Daily Observer ([link removed]) (Bangladesh) reported on Tuesday, “A total of 16 dengue patients died and 2,418 were admitted to different hospitals in the country during the last 24 hours till 8 am on Tuesday.”



** Huge Toll of Avian Flu
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The Guardian ([link removed]) (UK) reports, “Millions of wild birds may have died from bird flu globally in the latest outbreak, researchers have said, as the viral disease ravages South America, with 200,000 deaths recorded in Peru alone. The highly infectious variant of H5N1, which gained momentum in the winter of 2021, caused Europe’s worst bird flu outbreak before spreading globally. The disease reached South America in November 2022, and has now been reported on every continent except Oceania and Antarctica.”

A GAVI Vaccines Work ([link removed]) blog post looks at concerns raised by an outbreak of H5N1 among cats in Poland. “Scientists have also expressed anxieties about recent bird flu outbreaks in farmed mink and foxes. Yet, although some human infections have occurred, there is currently no evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission. Meanwhile, a growing understanding of the obstacles these viruses must overcome to infect humans could bolster surveillance efforts and help to keep us protected…. As highly pathogenic H5N1 influenza continues to circulate, global surveillance for any signs that it is adapting to humans are more important than ever.”



** Leave the Bats Alone; Monitor Markets
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Scitech Daily (As%20highly%20pathogenic%20H5N1%20influenza%20continues%20to%20circulate,%20global%20surveillance%20for%20any%20signs%20that%20it%20is%20adapting%20to%20humans%20are%20more%20important%20than%20ever.) (New Zealand) reports, “A recent paper in the journal The Lancet Planetary Health advocates for a universal agreement to avoid disturbing bats and their habitats as a measure to prevent pandemics. Bats have been identified as the source of the virus in both the SARS coronavirus outbreak of 2003 and the COVID-19 pandemic. It remains uncertain whether the transmission resulted from direct contact with an infected bat, exposure to bat bodily fluids in a cave or similar environment, or via another animal infected by a bat, we will quite likely never know…. A new analysis points to the value of a global taboo whereby humanity agrees to leave bats alone—not fear them or try to chase them away or cull them (activities that only serve to disperse them and increase the odds of zoonotic
spillover)—but to let them have the habitats they need and live undisturbed.”

Harvard Gazette ([link removed]) (US) reports, “the results of a new study suggest we are as vulnerable as ever to the emergence of another such virus as deadly, or even more so, [than SARS-CoV-2].” The study included “an in-depth examination of 36 animal markets in the US, spanning everything from livestock for food to the fur trade to niche markets like camel farming and bat guano harvesting. They found that the U.S. live animal trade is enormous and largely unregulated.” Researcher Ann Linder says, “One point I want people to take away is that we need to focus on prevention. Some of these pathogens are so contagious, you can’t afford to wait until an outbreak happens to mount a response. We have a good understanding of how diseases move from animals to humans, but the more interesting and important question is, what are we going to do about it? Do we have the willpower to do something
before we’re forced to by something like COVID-19?”



** COVID-19 and Diabetes in Young People
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Nature ([link removed]) (UK) reports, “A study of more than 38,000 young people has confirmed what researchers had begun to suspect: the COVID-19 pandemic precipitated a jump in cases of type 1 diabetes in children and teenagers. At first, researchers thought that the rise was caused by the virus itself — but it turns out that is probably not true. Nevertheless, with the overall cause of type 1 diabetes still a mystery, the findings offer new mechanisms for researchers to explore…. It’s still unclear what triggered the sudden increase in diabetes and how long the trend might persist, says [study author] Shulman.” Read the study ([link removed]) .



** Long COVID
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In a MedPage Today ([link removed]) (US) opinion Karen Bonuck, a researcher and mother of a child living with long COVID says, she has “been reaching out to people across disciplines and government to sound the alarm that long COVID is a mass disabling event. And it is not going to disappear, as much as media outlets and policymakers want to move on and ignore it.” She calls on healthcare professionals to “Listen to your patients -- and believe them; educate yourself [on long COVID; and] advocate. Use your voice as a healthcare provider. Given how policy decisions affect medical practice, consider researching and supporting long COVID legislation that will create patient-centered registries, fund research on post-infectious disease treatments, conduct public education opens in a new tab or window, or offer research grants.



** New Case of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome
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The Telegraph (Middle%20East%20Respiratory%20Syndrome) (UK) reports, “A 28-year-old man has been hospitalised with Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (Mers) in Abu Dhabi, with officials racing to determine the source of the infection. The World Health Organisation said it is not clear how the man contracted the virus, which is a relative of Sars-Cov-2 and can kill up to 35 per cent of people it infects. There is no evidence that he came into direct or indirect contact with dromedary camels, which spread the disease, or another infected individual.”



** What We Know (and Don’t Know) about the Origins of COVID-19
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David Quammen lays out what is known and what remains unknown about the origins of COVID-19 in a long New York Times Magazine ([link removed]) (US) article. “Where did it come from? More than three years into the pandemic and untold millions of people dead, that question about the COVID-19 coronavirus remains controversial and fraught, with facts sparkling amid a tangle of analyses and hypotheticals like Christmas lights strung on a dark, thorny tree.” He notes the different theories and their supporters and detractors and says that there seems to be a lot of public support for the lab leak theory, arguing, “What’s tilting the scales, it seems to me, is cynicism and narrative appeal…. This is not a contest now, in the public domain, between bodies of evidence…This is a contest between stories.”



** COVID-19 Cases Rise in Some Countries
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Korea Times ([link removed]) (South Korea) reports, “COVID-19 is showing signs of a resurgence in Korea as the numbers of daily new cases have increased for three consecutive weeks to reach over 30,000. The number of patients who were diagnosed with or suspected of having seasonal influenza has also risen in recent weeks, which is considered unprecedented, given that epidemics of influenza usually break out in winter. Amid the so-called ‘twindemic’ of COVID-19 and the flu, health experts raised concerns over the government's plan to fully lift the remaining indoor mask rules as early as next month.”

CBS News (US) reports, “Weekly COVID-19 hospitalizations have risen by more than 10 percent across the country, according to new data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, marking the largest percent increase in this key indicator of the virus since December…. ‘US COVID-19 rates are still near historic lows after 7 months of steady declines.  Early indicators of COVID-19 activity (emergency department visits, test positivity and wastewater levels) preceded an increase in hospitalizations seen this past week,’ CDC spokesperson Kathleen Conley said in a statement. Conley said virtually all counties are at ‘low’ COVID-19 hospital admission levels, below the thresholds at which the CDC recommends additional precautions to curb the virus.”
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