AVAC's weekly COVID News Brief provides a curated perspective on what COVID news is worth your time. AVAC has been sharing similar information internally for years.
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"Most important, the global vaccination effort must be scaled up to blunt the continued circulation of the virus. This will not only limit the emergence of future variants but also help lessen the virus’s toll on the population by making fewer people sick. Certain groups, such as people who have weakened immune systems from treatment for conditions like cancer or HIV/AIDS, need to be made a higher priority for vaccinations and protection.”

—John Nkengasong in The New York Times ([link removed])


** Table of Contents
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* If You Are in a Hurry (#hurry)
* Fighting Disinformation (#disinformation)
* Vaccine and Treatment Access (#vaccineAndTreatmentAccess)
* Vaccine Manufacturing in Africa (#africa)
* What Comes After Omicron? (#omicron)
* Deltacron is Not a Thing (#deltacron)
* A New Phase of the Pandemic? (#pandemicPhase)
* Impact on Healthcare Workers (#workers)
* COVID and HIV (#HIV)
* Long COVID (#longCOVID)
* COVID and Breastmilk (#milk)
* COVID and Fertility (#fertility)
* COVID and Children (#children)
* Booster Efficacy (#booster)
* Ethics and the Unvaccinated (#ethics)

The COVID pandemic has changed much in our lives and will continue to affect multiple aspects of our lives for years to come. Perhaps the most profound impact of the pandemic has been on science. We’ve seen vaccines and treatments developed, tested and approved in record time and an unprecedented number of scientific publications since late 2019.

Nature Medicine ([link removed]) (UK) reports, “Medical discoveries have been shared at an unprecedented pace during the COVID-19 pandemic, but so have fraudulent studies, which has led to worries about scientific integrity…. [WHO’s] Van Kerkhove maintains that overall, preprints have been a positive in this pandemic, accelerating the pace of research and directly informing public-health policies. ‘But for many [people] I think the jury is still out on how helpful [preprints] are because they can be quite damaging,’ she says. ‘They can misdirect a policy or they can lead you astray if you don’t stay rooted in the totality of the science.’ …Some scientists have argued that subpar research is the unfortunate but inevitable fallout of the pandemic, which called for nothing less than speedy science. Others say preprints have served their purpose, aiding public-health decisions and accelerating research.”


If You Are in a Hurry
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* Read Helen Branswell in STAT ([link removed]) on the possibility we’ll “get a break” after the Omicron wave.

* Read a Lancet ([link removed](22)00100-3/fulltext#%20) (UK) comment headlined “COVID-19 will continue but the end of the pandemic is near,” from IHME’s Christopher Murray.

* Read Nature ([link removed]) on deltacron, the variant that wasn’t and the problems of misinformation in the media.

* Read a UNICEF ([link removed]) statement on the impact of the pandemic on education.

* Read Ed Yong in The Atlantic ([link removed]) on why denying healthcare to the unvaccinated is unethical and a bad idea.

* Read about the challenges faced with self-management of long COVID in Lancet ([link removed](21)02798-7/fulltext?rss=yes).



** Fighting Disinformation
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Medscape ([link removed]) (US) reports, “the authors of a fascinating new research study have concluded we are living in a "post-truth era," with baseless beliefs and subjective opinions given a higher priority than verifiable facts. The new study ― The Rise and Fall of Rationality in Language, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ([link removed]) ― found that facts have become less important in public discourse.” The study notes that this began before the Trump administration and the COVID pandemic, but has worsened during the pandemic. “Public health and media experts alike say the PNAS study findings are disheartening but underscore the need for doctors and scientists to do a better job of communicating about COVID-19 and other pressing issues.

To help combat the mis/disinformation around COVID vaccines for children, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health ([link removed]) “has launched a new free online course, COVID Vaccine Ambassador Training: How to Talk to Parents ([link removed]). The two-hour online class aims to train a cohort of “vaccine ambassadors”—including parents of school-age children, teachers, and school staff—to discuss concerns parents and guardians of school-age children might have about COVID-19 vaccines. The goal is to encourage parents to make evidence-based decisions about vaccinating their children.”


** Vaccine and Treatment Access
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Reuters ([link removed]) (UK) reports, “Africa's top public health bodies on Thursday called for donated COVID-19 vaccines to come with a shelf life of three to six months so countries could plan their rollouts and avoid a situation where doses expire. John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said 2.8 million doses of vaccine had expired on the continent…”

AFP ([link removed]) (France) reports, “Covax aims to break the Covid-19 pandemic in 2022 by ensuring a steady supply of vaccines at last for the world's poorest countries — and swiftly getting them into arms… Covax sees the new front in 2022 as smoothing the supply chain — from a reliable stream off the production lines to efficient distribution set-ups in recipient countries... At the current pace of vaccine rollout, 109 countries will miss the mid-2022 target, the WHO said.”

Reuters ([link removed]) (UK) reports, nearly 30 generic drugmakers in Asia, Africa and the Middle East will make cheap versions of Merck & Co's COVID-19 pill, under a landmark UN-backed deal to give poorer nations wider access to a drug seen as a weapon in fighting the pandemic. Merck's early greenlight to production of its anti-viral pill molnupiravir by other companies during the pandemic is a rare example in the pharmaceutical sector, which usually protects its patented treatments for longer periods.

Medscape ([link removed]) (US) reports in the US, “Black and White people had similar levels of hesitancy in getting COVID-19 vaccines when they first became available, but new data suggest that Black Americans overcame their hesitancy more quickly compared with Whites. The results of a new study suggest that hesitancy is likely not the main driver behind comparatively low vaccine uptake in the Black community, the authors say, and that signs point to access problems. Read the study on JAMA ([link removed]).


** Vaccine Manufacturing in Africa
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In a press release ([link removed]) the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and the Institut Pasteur de Dakar (IPD) announced a plan for a regional manufacturing hub for COVID-19 and other vaccines in Dakar, Sénégal. “In its initial phase, IPD’s new modular facility will manufacture up to 300 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine annually for use in Africa… IPD will fill the finished vaccine—known as drug product—into sterile plastic pouches similar to IV drip bags, which can hold and transport 200 doses of vaccine per pouch, as an alternative to filling the finished vaccine into conventional glass vials. This new technology for filling, transporting, and delivering vaccines makes the multi-dose pouches particularly suitable for use in low-resource settings.”


** What Comes After Omicron?
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Helen Branswell looks at what might come after the Omicron variant in STAT ([link removed]) (US). “By the time [the Omicrom wave] crashes, the immunological landscape in this country—and in much of the world—is going to be profoundly altered. Far more people will have some immunity to Covid-19 than was the case before the wave began. Many will have what is effectively hybrid immunity, from vaccination and infection. As a result, some experts think we may get a bit of a break from the Covid roller coaster after Omicron. It could be a respite, if you will, after the punishing months of the Delta and Omicron waves, with their millions of cases, that began at the beginning of last summer.”

In a Lancet ([link removed](22)00100-3/fulltext#%20) (UK) comment headlined “COVID-19 will continue but the end of the pandemic is near,” IHME’s Christopher Murray writes that during the Omicron wave, “By March, 2022 a large proportion of the world will have been infected with the omicron variant. With continued increases in COVID-19 vaccination, the use in many countries of a third vaccine dose, and high levels of infection-acquired immunity, for some time global levels of SARS-CoV-2 immunity should be at an all-time high. For some weeks or months, the world should expect low levels of virus transmission… The impacts of future SARS-CoV-2 transmission on health… will be less because of broad previous exposure to the virus, regularly adapted vaccines to new antigens or variants, the advent of antivirals, and the knowledge that the vulnerable can protect themselves during future waves when needed by using high-quality masks and physical distancing. COVID-19 will become another recurrent disease that health systems and societies will have to manage.”

An opinion piece in STAT ([link removed]) (US) argues, “Omicron begs the question, ‘Could you stop me?’ If a future variant were as contagious as Omicron, but much deadlier, could we contain it? This points to an urgent agenda. We need dependable variant detection. That includes incentivizing countries to sound the alarm, rather than punishing them with travel bans. We need to update vaccines faster. We can't spend 3 months in lockdown. We need to learn outbreak containment.”

John Nkengasong writes in The New York Times ([link removed]) (US), “Rather than thrusting our societies into chaos as each new variant emerges, we need to recognize that the virus hasn’t been controlled yet and that nations need better strategies to prepare, detect and respond to future waves. All the knowledge that’s been gained on how to respond to a variant as lethal as Delta or as contagious as Omicron can be put to good use… Most important, the global vaccination effort must be scaled up to blunt the continued circulation of the virus. This will not only limit the emergence of future variants but also help lessen the virus’s toll on the population by making fewer people sick. Certain groups, such as people who have weakened immune systems from treatment for conditions like cancer or HIV/AIDS, need to be made a higher priority for vaccinations and protection.”


** Deltacron is Not a Thing
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Nature ([link removed]) (UK) reports, “News of a ‘super variant’ combining Delta and Omicron spread rapidly last week, but researchers say it never existed and the sequences may have resulted from contamination… The story behind how a small crop of SARS-CoV-2 sequences became the focus of a brief and intense scientific controversy is complicated. And although some researchers applaud the system for quickly catching a possible sequencing error, others warn that the events of last week may offer a cautionary tale on the spread of misinformation during the pandemic… ’Scientists need to be very careful about what they are saying,’ one virologist, who wanted to remain anonymous to avoid becoming embroiled in the controversy, told Nature. ‘When we say something, borders can be closed.’”


** A New Phase of the Pandemic?
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A group of top South African scientists write in The Daily Maverick ([link removed]) (South Africa), “Almost two years on, we are entering a new phase of the pandemic. All over the world, including within the WHO, there is an assessment taking place of the measures that will be most suited to this phase. Top of the list is vaccination, good indoor ventilation, and close monitoring of the SARS-Cov-2 virus and other possible pandemic threats. South Africa needs to do this too. As scientists, our current understanding of the science, the building of immunity protecting against severe Covid-19, and experience with policy renders most state of disaster measures still in place unfit for purpose and requires tailoring of others.”

AP ([link removed]) (US) reports that almost two years after a major lockdown, “Spain is preparing to adopt a different COVID-19 playbook. With one of Europe’s highest vaccination rates and its most pandemic-battered economies, the government is laying the groundwork to treat the next infection surge not as an emergency but an illness that is here to stay. Similar steps are under consideration in neighboring Portugal and in Britain.”

India Today ([link removed]) (India) reports, “Most wealthy countries are likely to start considering COVID-19 as endemic depending on how the virus is spreading within their borders, in addition to the possibility of new cases causing big outbreaks. The wide availability of Covid-19 vaccines, medicines and other measures in rich countries will to an extent help them curb outbreaks long before the virus is brought under control globally… [some] have argued that designating Covid-19 as endemic is arguably a political question rather than a scientific one, and it speaks to how much disease and death national authorities and their citizens are willing to tolerate.”


** Impact on Healthcare Workers
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An opinion piece in STAT ([link removed]) (US) argues, “As the Omicron variant of Covid-19 rages across the country, health care workers who are already physically, mentally, and morally exhausted are facing a hidden crisis: having to make decisions at patients’ bedsides about rationing health care. Political leaders and health care system administrators have left them to make life-or-death decisions about how to allocate increasingly scarce resources — not least of all their own time and expertise… Health care systems are unsustainable without a healthy workforce. The nation depends upon realizing the need for fair, equitable allocation of all types of resources in pandemic and non-pandemic times. How many health care workers have to leave their jobs or the profession before we take implementing crisis standards of care seriously?


** COVID and HIV
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AIDSMAP ([link removed]) (UK) reports, “A new study provides more evidence that people living with HIV who are vaccinated against COVID-19 are more likely to experience a breakthrough COVID infection compared to HIV-negative people. The good news is that—across the board—fully vaccinated people had less severe COVID illness than unvaccinated people… However, vaccinated people with HIV (including both fully and partially vaccinated individuals) were 33 percent more likely to experience breakthrough cases compared to HIV-negative people, independent of other risk factors such as age and pre-existing medical conditions. This result is similar to the previous analysis, which showed a 44 percent higher likelihood in breakthrough cases, but the current report did not evaluate whether CD4 count or viral loads affected the risk of breakthrough or disease severity.”


** Long COVID
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MedPage Today ([link removed]) (US) reports, “Young adults performed worse on memory and attention tests several months after an acute case of mild COVID-19, according to a small study that may support the ‘brain fog’ reported by many.” According to the small study ([link removed]) , “COVID-19 patients displayed significantly worse episodic memory for up to 6 months after infection and a greater decline in vigilance on a sustained task for up to 9 months than uninfected people... These deficits in memory and concentration were not significantly different from normal after 6 or 9 months, suggesting people recover over time.”

USA Today ([link removed]) (US) reports, “Experts say potentially tens of millions of Americans face consequences of long COVID, although exactly how many remains unclear. A recent study conducted in the United Kingdom—where health records are electronic and centralized—found that nearly 40 percent of people who tested positive for COVID-19 had at least one symptom that persisted up to six months post-infection.”

The New York Times ([link removed]) (US) reports, “It is too early for scientists to know much about the relationship between Omicron, vaccination and long Covid. Research from earlier in the pandemic does not yield definitive clues… Although recent reports suggest that Omicron may cause less severe initial illness than other variants, the basic symptoms of infection with Omicron are similar to infection with other variants, suggesting that long-term effects could also be similar. Milder initial illnesses do not necessarily mean that Omicron is less likely to lead to long Covid, doctors, researchers and patient-led groups caution.”

A Lancet ([link removed](21)02798-7/fulltext?rss=yes) (UK) correspondence addresses the issues of self-management of long COVID. “Insufficient support [of people with long Covid] has led to loss of faith and disappointment in health-care service delivery, leading people with long COVID to seek alternative sources of support and treatment… People with long COVID reported turning to a vast range of over-the-counter medicines, remedies, supplements, other therapies, and dietary changes to manage relapsing and remitting symptoms. Individuals have expressed a willingness to try anything because symptoms have substantial effects on quality of life and work capability.”


** COVID and Breastmilk
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Forbes ([link removed]) (US) reports, “Breastfeeding women infected with Covid-19 cannot transmit the virus through breast milk, according to a peer reviewed study published in Pediatric Research Tuesday, validating a small number of more limited studies and supporting recommendations from health organizations advising mothers to continue breastfeeding after infection and vaccination.”


** COVID and Fertility
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A US NIH press release reports ([link removed]) , “COVID-19 vaccination does not affect the chances of conceiving a child, according to a study of more than 2,000 couples that was funded by the National Institutes of Health. Researchers found no differences in the chances of conception if either male or female partner had been vaccinated, compared to unvaccinated couples. However, couples had a slightly lower chance of conception if the male partner had been infected with SARS-CoV-2 within 60 days before a menstrual cycle, suggesting that COVID-19 could temporarily reduce male fertility. The study was conducted by Amelia K. Wesselink, Ph.D., of Boston University, and colleagues. It appears in the American Journal of Epidemiology ([link removed])”.


** COVID and Children
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A UNICEF statement ([link removed]) warns, “More than 635 million students remain affected by full or partial school closures… Follow-on consequences of school closures are on the rise. In addition to learning loss, school closures have impacted children’s mental health, reduced their access to a regular source of nutrition, and increased their risk of abuse.”


** Booster Efficacy
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USA Today ([link removed]) (US) reports that in the US “booster doses were 90 percent effective at keeping people out of the hospital after they had become infected with the omicron variant. The doses also were 82 percent effective at preventing emergency department and urgent care visits, the data shows… Another CDC study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association on Friday found people who received three doses of an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine were less likely to be symptomatic when they got tested for COVID-19, compared to people receiving tests who only got two vaccine doses.”


** Ethics and the Unvaccinated
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Ed Yong writes in The Atlantic ([link removed]) (US) about increasing calls from some people to deny healthcare to the unvaccinated. “I ran this argument past several ethicists, clinicians, and public-health practitioners. Many of them sympathized with the exasperation and fear behind the sentiment. But all of them said that it was an awful idea—unethical, impractical, and founded on a shallow understanding of why some people remain unvaccinated... Unlike vaccine mandates, which limit the jobs unvaccinated people can hold or the spaces they can enter, withholding medical care would be a matter of life or death. And in such matters, medical care should be offered according to the urgency of a patient’s need, not the circumstances leading up to that need.”

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