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AVAC's weekly COVID News Brief provides a curated perspective on what COVID news is worth your time.
“Booster after booster in a small number of countries will not end a pandemic while billions remain completely unprotected.”
— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus quoted in The New York Times ([link removed])


** Share of the Population Fully Vaccinated Against COVID-19
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January 10, 2022
Source: Our World in Data ([link removed])


** Table of Contents
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* If You Are in a Hurry (#hurry)
* Shifting to "Living with COVID” (#shift)
* WHO: Don’t Call Omicron Mild (#who)
* Getting Vaccines into Arms (#getting)
* “Deltacron” Likely Lab Contamination (#deltacron)
* Vaccine Mandates (#mand)
* COVID and Children (#children)
* Long COVID (#long)
* Boosters (#boosters)

Many countries are setting records for numbers of confirmed COVID cases as Omicron continues to infect more and more people. The New York Times ([link removed]) (US) reports the world topped 300 million known cases of COVID. “Case counts, though imperfect, have been a key barometer throughout the pandemic, a benchmark not only for governments implementing mitigation measures but also for people trying to discern the threat in their own communities. Yet surpassing 300 million known cases…comes as a growing number of experts argue that it is time to stop focusing on case numbers… [as] hospitalizations and deaths from COVID are increasing more slowly.” The Times quotes Fauci: “As you get further on and the infections become less severe, it is much more relevant to focus on the hospitalizations.”

The Times notes “about 60 percent of the world has received at least a single dose of a COVID vaccine, but nearly three-quarters of all the shots have been administered in the world’s wealthiest nations, leaving people in parts of Africa and Asia vulnerable…. And Omicron’s impact could be harsher among populations with less protection from vaccines. Some of the fastest increases in cases are occurring in African countries, which have the lowest vaccination rates.”



** If You Are in a Hurry
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* Listen ([link removed]) to a webinar with Heidi Larson, John Nkengasong, Kate Hopkins and Rosemary Mburu on ways to tackle vaccine hesitancy.
* Read Bloomberg ([link removed]) on the challenge of getting vaccines into arms in Africa as more vaccines arrive in countries.
* Read an editorial from The Washington Post ([link removed]) arguing for a shift in US COVID policy.
* Read a Nature ([link removed]) editorial that argues 2022 is the year countries have to decide how to live with COVID.
* Read Ed Yong in The Atlantic ([link removed]) on the devastating impact of Omicron on the US healthcare system.
* Read The Monitor ([link removed]) and BBC ([link removed]) on the end of the world's longest school closure in Uganda.




** Shifting to "Living with COVID”
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Researchers, public health experts and policymakers are increasingly talking about moving beyond the pandemic or learning to live with COVID. But it is still largely unclear what that means.

New Scientist ([link removed]) (UK) reports, “UK government ministers are hinting at plans for the nation to ‘live with COVID'…. ‘We are moving to a situation where it is possible to say that we can live with COVID and that the pressure on the NHS and on vital public services is abating,’ senior minister Michael Gove told Sky News. ‘But it’s absolutely vital to recognise that we are not there yet.’” New Scientist reports, “To be considered endemic, a disease outbreak would be consistently present in a region, with predictable spread and infection rates. The spread and rates of the disease would be predictable. This is currently far from the case in the UK, where over 150,000 deaths have been reported so far, and 141,472 new cases were reported on Sunday.”

The New York Times ([link removed]) (US) reports, “In a striking critique, six prominent health experts who advised President Biden’s transition team called for an entirely new domestic coronavirus strategy…. In three opinion articles ([link removed]) published on Thursday in The Journal of the American Medical Association, they called for Mr. Biden to adopt an entirely new domestic pandemic strategy geared to the “new normal” of living with the virus indefinitely, not to wiping it out. One of the JAMA ([link removed]) (US) viewpoints argues, “The ‘new normal’ requires recognizing that SARS-CoV-2 is but one of several circulating respiratory viruses that include influenza, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and more. COVID-19 must now be considered among the risks posed by all respiratory viral illnesses
combined. Many of the measures to reduce transmission of SARS-CoV-2 (e.g., ventilation) will also reduce transmission of other respiratory viruses. Thus, policy makers should retire previous public health categorizations, including deaths from pneumonia and influenza or pneumonia, influenza, and COVID-19, and focus on a new category: the aggregate risk of all respiratory virus infections.”

The editorial board of The Washington Post ([link removed]) (US) argues the Biden administration must listen to these experts. “To reach the new normal, they envision continued reliance on vaccines and vaccine mandates. They envision annual shots tailored to strains and urge accelerated efforts to develop a universal coronavirus vaccine, one shot that would hit all variants. They call for an electronic vaccine platform to replace the paper cards, and they suggest that no-cost, convenient outpatient treatments for COVID be made widely available for anyone testing positive. They also point out that trust in public health institutions needs to be rebuilt after two bruising years of crisis. It should not be difficult for the president or Congress to see the need for these changes. The investment will be well worth it if the result is to take COVID from being a dire emergency to just
another manageable malady.”

A Nature ([link removed]) (UK) editorial argues, “Rather than laying plans to return to the ‘normal’ life we knew before the pandemic, 2022 is the year the world must come to terms with the fact that SARS-CoV-2 is here to stay. Countries must decide how they will live with COVID-19—and living with COVID-19 does not mean ignoring it. Each region must work out how to balance the deaths, disability and disruption caused by the virus with the financial and societal costs of measures used to try to control the virus, such as mask mandates and business closures. This balance will vary from one place to another, and with time, as more therapies and vaccines become available—and as new variants emerge.” The authors conclude there is “cause for hope and optimism, but with a hefty dose of realism: the virus will continue to circulate and change, and governments must continue to rely on the guidance and advice of scientists. We will not always be able to predict the
virus’s path, and we must be ready to adapt with it.”

Bloomberg ([link removed]) (US) reports, “A South African study from the epicenter of the world’s omicron surge offers a tantalizing hint that the acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic may be ending.” The study found Omicron moved quickly and caused much milder illness than previous strains. “‘If this pattern continues and is repeated globally, we are likely to see a complete decoupling of case and death rates,’ the researchers said. That suggests ‘omicron may be a harbinger of the end of the epidemic phase of the COVID pandemic, ushering in its endemic phase.’”

A press release ([link removed]) from the University of Exeter (UK) outlines a new study which found that “Vaccine hesitancy could be reduced by providing health information in a foreign language…. The study found that when presenting two groups with the same information about vaccines in two different but familiar languages, the use of one language corresponded with a 7 percent higher number of people saying ‘yes’ and a 7 percent lower number of people saying ‘unsure’ when asked whether they intended to get vaccinated.” Among 611 people in Hong Kong, “participants who read materials about the vaccine in English showed higher willingness to get vaccinated than those who read about the vaccine in Cantonese…. According to the researchers, one language might be associated with more public trust than another—and that's the language that should be used when communicating about things like vaccines.”



** WHO: Don’t Call Omicron Mild
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BBC ([link removed]) (UK) reports, “Recent studies suggest that Omicron is less likely to make people seriously ill than previous COVID variants. But the record number of people catching it has left health systems under severe pressure, said WHO chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus…. The WHO—the UN's health agency—said the number of global cases has increased by 71 percent in the last week, and in the Americas by 100 percent. It said that among severe cases worldwide, 90 percent were unvaccinated.”

Ed Yong reports in The Atlantic ([link removed]) that in the US, “Omicron is inundating a health-care system that was already buckling under the cumulative toll of every previous surge…. Omicron’s main threat is its extreme contagiousness. It is infecting so many people that even if a smaller proportion need hospital care, the absolute numbers are still enough to saturate the system. It might be less of a threat to individual people, but it’s disastrous for the health-care system that those individuals will ultimately need.”



** Getting Vaccines into Arms
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Bloomberg ([link removed]) (US) reports, “As shipments of COVID-19 shots ramp up for billions of people left behind last year, and new vaccines make their way to the public, dozens of countries are struggling to turn supplies into inoculations. A dearth of immunization sites in Cameroon, weak communication and COVID denial in the Democratic Republic of Congo and a syringe shortfall in Kenya are among the hurdles complicating rollouts. In Zimbabwe, which initially raced ahead of many peers, complacency and a perception of omicron as less serious slowed the campaign; long vaccine queues have turned into a trickle.”

Nature ([link removed]) (UK) reports, “a new study has found only 40 percent of Africans support mandatory vaccinations, while 63 percent of participants would receive a COVID-19 vaccination as soon as possible. About 26 percent did not think that vaccination was necessary at all, and 43 percent believed that there are suitable alternatives to COVID-19 vaccination. The findings, published in PLoS ONE, were from a survey of 5,416 people—94 percent in 34 African countries, and the remainder living elsewhere.” Co-author Folorunso Oludayo Fasina says, “There is a need to tackle misconceptions and myths around the COVID-19 vaccines through targeted risk communication and community engagement strategies, in order to increase awareness, knowledge, and dissemination of accurate vaccination information to boost confidence in the safety and effectiveness of these vaccines.”

Listen ([link removed]) to a webinar with Heidi Larson, John Nkengasong, Kate Hopkins and Rosemary Mburu on ways to tackle vaccine hesitancy. Spoiler alert: Larson ([link removed]) says it’s Trust. Trust. Trust…trust in health systems, in providers. “It is not about information but about relationships.”

DW ([link removed]) (Germany) reports, “Damaging myths about the coronavirus have been spreading across Africa through social media—fueling mistrust for vaccines designed to protect people. Even prominent influencers have been peddling false news…. Since the start of the pandemic, rumors and conspiracy theories have been rife, unsettling many people and making vaccination campaigns more difficult.”

Medical Brief ([link removed]) (South Africa) reports, “A study by the University of Cape Town has revealed that at least a quarter of South Africans who have not been vaccinated against COVID believe the jab will harm or kill them. Interviews, conducted with 1,940 unvaccinated people countrywide, found that about 34 percent are willing, but there are barriers to doing so; 21 percent will wait and see, and 15 percent will only get vaccinated if required…. As many as one in four will continue to refuse, the research found, mainly because of fears about the safety of the doses.”



** “Deltacron” Likely Lab Contamination
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The Independent ([link removed]) (UK) reports, “The apparent COVID strain known as ‘Deltacron’ is likely the result of laboratory contamination, scientists have said. Fears emerged over the weekend that the Omicron and Delta variants had merged in a so-called recombination event—when two variants infect a patient to produce a new viral offspring. It has now been suggested that fragments of Omicron were accidentally inserted into Delta’s genetic make-up during sequencing to identify a COVID variant infection. This is a common error that can occur in any laboratory….”

A separate article in The Independent ([link removed]) (UK) quotes the researcher who identified deltacron, “defending himself, Dr Kostrikis said that the cases he has identified ‘indicate an evolutionary pressure to an ancestral strain to acquire these mutations and not a result of a single recombination event.’…He said the samples were processed in multiple sequencing procedures in more than one country, and added that at least one sequence from Israel, deposited in a global database, exhibits the same genetic characteristics of Deltacron.”

WHO’s Krutika Kuppalli tweeted ([link removed]) , “Okay people let’s make this a teachable moment, there is no such thing as #Deltacron (Just like there is no such thing as #Flurona) #Omicron and #Delta did NOT form a super variant. This is likely sequencing artifact (lab contamination of Omicron fragments in a Delta specimen). Medscape (US) reports Dr. Kuppalli, “was also reported as saying: ‘Let’s not merge of names of infectious diseases.... Leave it to celebrity couples.’ Medscape Editor-in-Chief and molecular biologist Eric Topol of the Scripps Research Translational Institute tweeted: ‘Deltacron is a scariant. One less thing to worry about.’"



** Vaccine Mandates
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The Globe and Mail ([link removed]) (Canada) reports in Europe, “the idea of vaccine mandates is no longer taboo, and many government leaders support them, even if some have yet to confront the ‘refuseniks’ head on.” Italy has already put mandates in place, requiring “everyone 50 or older to become fully vaccinated, making Italy one of only three European Union countries to mandate vaccines for an entire age group…. The two other EU countries that will soon require jabs for entire age groups, not just certain professions such as medics, are Greece and Austria.”

DW ([link removed]) (Germany) reports, “Thousands of people took part in demonstrations against coronavirus restrictions on Sunday in Belgium and the Czech Republic, while cities in Germany and Vienna saw renewed protests on Saturday. Weekend demonstrations have continued across the European Union as governments move to implement tighter curbs and new rules to encourage COVID jabs and booster shots.”



** COVID and Children
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The Monitor ([link removed]) (Uganda) reports, “Uganda ended the world's longest school closure on Monday, ordering millions of students back to the classroom nearly two years after learning was suspended because of the coronavirus pandemic…. Remote learning was available only for the privileged few during Uganda's school closures. BBC ([link removed]) (UK) reports, after one of the world's longest school closures, authorities warned at least 30 percent of students may never return. Some have started work, while others have become pregnant or married early, the country's national planning authority said. About 15 million students have been affected by the closure, the government says.”

CIDRAP ([link removed]) (US) reports on a call from the US CDC director for more children to be vaccinated. “Walensky said only 15 percent of US kids ages 5 to 11 were vaccinated, while just over 50 percent of those 12 to 17 were fully vaccinated. She said vaccination significantly reduces the risk of hospitalization for adolescents, with unvaccinated 12- to 17-year-olds 11 times more likely to be hospitalized than vaccinated peers…. Despite the push from the CDC to keep schools open, some school districts across the country have moved to virtual learning this week. And in Chicago, leaders of Chicago Public Schools canceled classes for a third straight day as negotiations with the Chicago Teachers Union over remote learning continue….”

Medscape ([link removed]) (US) reports, “SARS-CoV-2 infection was associated with an increased risk for diabetes among youth, whereas other acute respiratory infections were not, new data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicate…. The findings, which are supported by independent studies in adults, ‘underscore the importance of COVID-19 prevention among all age groups, including vaccination for all eligible children and adolescents, and chronic disease prevention and treatment,’ Barrett and colleagues say.” Read the MMWR ([link removed]) report.

AP ([link removed]) (US) reports, “Hospitalizations of US children under 5 with COVID-19 soared in recent weeks to their highest level since the pandemic began, according to government data released Friday on the only age group not yet eligible for the vaccine. The worrisome trend in children too young to be vaccinated underscores the need for older kids and adults to get their shots to help protect those around them, said Dr. Rochelle Walensky…. Overall, ‘pediatric hospitalizations are at their highest rate compared to any prior point in the pandemic,’ Walensky said.”



** Long COVID
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A systematic review and meta-analysis published in the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity ([link removed]) (US) found, “Fatigue and cognitive impairment are amongst the most common and debilitating symptoms of post-COVID-19 syndrome. Approximately 1 in 3 individuals experienced fatigue 12 or more weeks following COVID-19 diagnosis. Approximately 1 in 5 individuals exhibited cognitive impairment 12 or more weeks following COVID-19 diagnosis.”

Reuters (UK) reports, “Long COVID…could be emerging as a chronic disease in Finland, Minister of Family Affairs and Social Services Krista Kiuru said on Friday…. ‘There is a threat that Finland will see the emergence of the largest, or one of the largest, new groups of chronic diseases, and that not only too many adults will suffer from a long-term COVID-19, but at worst also children,’ Kiuru said.”



** Boosters
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AP ([link removed]) (US) reports, “Healthcare and front-line workers along with people above age 60 with health problems lined up Monday at vaccination centers across India to receive a third dose as infections linked to the omicron variant surge. The doses, which India is calling a ‘precautionary’ shot instead of a booster, were given as new confirmed coronavirus infections rocketed to over 179,000 on Monday, nearly an eightfold increase in a week. Hospitalizations, while still relatively low, are also beginning to rise in large, crowded cities such as New Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata.”

The Washington Post ([link removed]) (US) reports, “China achieved last month the herculean goal of vaccinating more than 80 percent of its 1.4 billion people with two doses. But far from reopening, the country has returned to its harshest controls in two years, as it seeks to contain the highly contagious omicron variant. The renewed lockdowns reflect official concerns about whether China’s vaccines can hold up against omicron, as well as the looming challenge of supplying the population with booster shots before the efficacy of their first two doses diminishes…. For now, China has returned to harsh and inflexible controls, including the lockdown of 13 million people in their homes in Xian, the city with the most severe outbreak.”

NBC News ([link removed]) (US) reports, “UK government advisers have recommended against giving a fourth dose of COVID-19 vaccine to nursing home residents and people over 80 because data shows that a third shot offers lasting protection against admission to the hospital. For people over 65, protection against hospitalization remains at about 90 percent three months after the third dose, according to data compiled by the UK Health Security Agency…. Instead, the government should focus on giving a third dose to as many people as possible to boost protection against the highly transmissible omicron variant.”

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