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AVAC's weekly COVID News Brief provides a curated perspective on what COVID news is worth your time.
“As long as there are areas of the world where the virus could be evolving, and new mutants arriving, we all will be susceptible to these new variants."
— Glenda Gray in Bloomberg ([link removed])


** Share of the Population Fully Vaccinated Against COVID-19
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February 14, 2022
Source: Our World in Data ([link removed])


** Table of Contents
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* If You Are in a Hurry (#hurry)
* A Call for Reorienting Biomedical R&D (#call)
* It's Not Over (#over)
* Monoclonal Antibodies (#mono)
* In Praise of Vaccines (#praise)
* Booster Efficacy (#efficacy)
* Vaccine Access (#access)
* COVID and Politics (#politics)


* COVID and Kids (#kids)
* COVID and Pregnant Women (#pregnant)
* COVID Sequelae and Long COVID (#long)
* COVID and Inequities (#inequity)
* The Pandemic and Mental Health (#pandemic)
* Ivermectin Controversy (#iver)
* Science and Social Media (#media)


The story of COVID is still primarily vaccine access and uptake, even as governments lift restrictions, often responding to citizens who are “tired” of the pandemic. WHO’s Tedros said over the weekend that we could see an end to the “acute phase” of the pandemic by mid-2022. IOL ([link removed]) (South Africa) quotes the director general: “Our expectation is that the acute phase of this pandemic will end this year. Of course, with one condition that 70 percent of people are vaccinated by the middle of this year, around June or July.” IOL notes, “Statistics from Our World in Data reveal that around 62 percent of the world population has received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, however, only 11 percent of people in low-income countries have received even one jab.”

DW ([link removed]) (Germany) reports, “In a new report published on Monday, Amnesty said that the 10 billion vaccine doses produced in 2021 would have been enough to reach the World Health Organization's global vaccination target of 40 percent. Instead, only 4 percent of people living in lower income countries were fully vaccinated by the end of the year. These companies could have ‘been the heroes of 2021. Instead, they turned their back on those who needed vaccines the most and just continued with business as usual, putting profits before people,’ said Rajat Khosla, Amnesty's senior director of research…” Read the report here ([link removed]) .



** If You Are in a Hurry
------------------------------------------------------------
* Read an opinion STAT ([link removed]) from Luciana Borio and John Moore on the need to prioritize monoclonal antibodies for people who are immunocompromised.
* Read Bloomberg ([link removed]) on what could be next in our struggle with the virus.
* Read Reuters ([link removed]) on a new study that shows the wellbeing of minority and poor families in the US took a harder hit during the pandemic.
* Then read The Guardian ([link removed]) on a new damning report on England’s health system that shows massive inequities were exacerbated by COVID.
* Read an editorial ([link removed]) and a perspective ([link removed]) in Science about the challenges of communicating science on social media.
* Read more than a dozen leading researchers’ call to reorient biomedical R&D in Nature ([link removed]) .
* Read Helen Branswell in STAT ([link removed]) on the “freaking miracle” of COVID vaccines.




** A Call for Reorienting Biomedical R&D
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A comment in Nature ([link removed]) (UK) from more than a dozen leading researchers argues, “Challenges in ensuring global, equitable access to these fruits of biomedical research and development (R&D) during the COVID-19 pandemic have highlighted the urgency of reorienting the system towards the public interest. The first step is a clearer articulation of what R&D in the global public interest is.” They write that all of the actors involved in R&D “can and should reorient the biomedical R&D system to better serve the global public interest…. Concretely, that means answering three questions: why do R&D? How should it be done, and for whom?”



** It's Not Over
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Bloomberg ([link removed]) (US) reports, “As a virus-weary world limps through the third year of the outbreak, experts are sending out a warning signal: Don’t expect omicron to be the last variant we have to contend with—and don’t let your guard down yet…. In six months’ time, many richer countries will have made the transition from pandemic to endemic. But that doesn’t mean masks will be a thing of the past. We’ll need to grapple with our approach to booster shots, as well as the pandemic’s economic and political scars. There’s also the shadow of long COVID.” South Africa MRC’s Glenda Gray is quoted: “As long as there are areas of the world where the virus could be evolving, and new mutants arriving, we all will be susceptible to these new variants.”

Steven Thrasher writes in Scientific American ([link removed]) about the coming grim milestone of one million COVID deaths in the US. “Despite being the wealthiest nation on the planet, the US has continued to have the most COVID infections and deaths per country, by far, and it has the highest per capita death rate of any wealthy nation…. Several large mainstream publications, in complicity with politicians of both major political parties, have been beating a death knell of a drum for getting “back to normal” for months. The effect is the manufactured consent to normalize mass death and suffering—to subtly suggest to Americans that they want to move on.”



** Monoclonal Antibodies
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STAT ([link removed]) (US) reports the US FDA, “authorized another COVID-19 monoclonal antibody treatment, which will expand the supply of such treatments that work against the Omicron variant and its sister viruses…. Like other monoclonals, it’s given intravenously and is meant to keep high-risk patients with COVID-19 from getting so sick they need to be hospitalized.”

Luciana Borio and John Moore write in STAT ([link removed]) (US), “An estimated 7 million Americans are immunocompromised, rendering them especially vulnerable to the worst effects of COVID-19 because the vaccines don’t always trigger a sufficiently protective immune response in them.” They note that for many immunocompromised people more vaccine doses may not be enough to protect them. “One way to help this group of people would be to prioritize the use of available monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) to protect them from infection and/or developing severe COVID-19. and to fast-track clinical trials and emergency use authorizations for next-generation MAbs…. Immunocompromised people are a medically vulnerable group. Protecting them should be a public health priority, as many are already dealing with life-threatening medical conditions. We don’t want to see them have to cope with COVID-19, too. Life can’t
go back to normal until everyone has effective tools to cope with COVID-19.”



** In Praise of Vaccines
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In a story that wins the headline contest for the week (“Why COVID-19 vaccines are a freaking miracle”) Helen Branswell writes in STAT ([link removed]) (US) that it’s easy to “lament all that has come to pass…But let’s stop for a moment and consider something else that may have escaped you: You have witnessed—and you are a beneficiary of—a freaking miracle. That miracle is the development, testing, manufacturing, and global distribution of COVID vaccines.”



** Booster Efficacy
------------------------------------------------------------

The Washington Post ([link removed]) (US) reports on a new US CDC study ([link removed]) that found, “booster shots remained highly effective against moderate and severe COVID-19 for about two months after a third dose. But their effectiveness declined substantially after four months, suggesting the need for additional boosters…. The vaccine was 91 percent effective in preventing a vaccinated person from being hospitalized during the two months after a booster shot, the study found. But after four months, protection fell to 78 percent.”

Aidsmap ([link removed]) (UK) reports, “Additional and booster vaccine doses have been effective in preventing serious COVID-19 in people with HIV and others with immune dysfunction, a large study from the United States reported this week at the 2022 Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections. The study also found that people with immune dysfunction who received an extra dose still had a reduced risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection at least nine months after being fully vaccinated.”



** Vaccine Access
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The New York Times ([link removed]) (US) reports, “Johnson & Johnson’s easy-to-deliver COVID-19 shot is the vaccine of choice for much of the developing world. Yet the American company, which has already fallen far behind on its deliveries to poorer countries, late last year quietly shut down the only plant making usable batches of the vaccine, according to people familiar with the decision. The facility…has instead been making an experimental but potentially more profitable vaccine to protect against an unrelated virus…over the next several months, the interruption has the potential to reduce the supply of Johnson & Johnson’s COVID vaccine by a few hundred million doses…”

The Washington Post ([link removed]) (US) reports on a modelling study published in preprint. “According to the model, mRNA doses for every person living in lower-middle and low-income countries this year would avert 1.2 million deaths. Third doses for this population, already common in wealthy countries, would avert 1.5 million deaths, the model found. Zain Rizvi, a research director at Public Citizen and one of the authors of the study, said it should be a ‘wake-up call’ for the United States. ‘President Biden has the opportunity to save a million lives if he were to launch a serious global vaccine manufacturing and delivery programs,’ he said.”



** COVID and Politics
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The COVID response and the public’s response to pandemic information continues to be caught up in politics in many countries. CNN ([link removed]) (US) reports, “Although more than 86 percent of the adult population of Brazil is now fully vaccinated, take-up for boosters has been slow, along with lower rates for younger ages. Some infectious disease experts attribute this to the lingering effects of a disinformation campaign ([link removed]) in which the country's leadership has played a role. Without that protection, those Brazilians have been vulnerable to the latest wave of Omicron infections sweeping the country…. Dr. Raquel Stucchi, an infectious disease expert and professor at Unicamp University told CNN that Bolsonaro's government had delivered ‘repeated messages questioning efficacy and security’ of COVID-19 vaccines,
including Bolsonaro himself, who raised the question as to why ‘one has to take three doses if before two were enough.’"

An editorial in MedPage Today ([link removed]) argues, “CDC and its director, Rochelle Walensky, MD, need to reclaim their independence and return to Atlanta. Let the White House continue to tout its pandemic accomplishments, and return the COVID briefings to where they started, conducted by career scientists at CDC headquarters. The agency's presence in Washington has hindered, not helped, its reputation. Rather than effectively and expertly managing the crisis, the White House COVID Response Team's uneasy marriage of politics and public health has instead fueled distrust of public health guidelines. And this unbalanced partnership has tainted the formerly apolitical health agency.”



** COVID and Kids
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An opinion piece in STAT ([link removed]) (US) argues, “Over the last two years, experts’ understanding of long COVID in children has deepened. Several peer-reviewed studies now include control groups consisting of children who did not have COVID-19 but who have lived through the same pandemic conditions—loneliness, interrupted schooling, anxiety, tensions at home, the loss of loved ones, and the like. These studies indicate that long COVID in children is rare and, when it does occur, is short-lived.”

Reuters ([link removed]) (UK) reports, “Novavax Inc said on Thursday its two-dose vaccine was 80 percent effective against COVID-19 in a late-stage trial testing the shot in teens aged 12 to 17 years. The trial involved 2,247 adolescents and took place between May and September last year when the Delta variant was the dominant strain in the United States. The vaccine was 82 percent effective against the variant.”

STAT ([link removed]) (US) reports, “Plans to attempt to authorize the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid vaccine for children under 5 before full data are available appear to have run aground. The Food and Drug Administration on Friday canceled a key meeting of its vaccines advisory committee that had been slated for next Tuesday to discuss the submission, saying that the delay ‘will give the agency time to consider…additional data.’” FDA’s Peter Marks is quoted: “The data that we saw made us realize that we needed to see data from a third dose in the ongoing trial in order to make a determination that we could proceed with doing an authorization. I think parents can feel reassured that we have set a standard by which we feel that if something does not meet that standard, we can’t proceed forward.”



** COVID and Pregnant Women
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AP ([link removed]) (US) reports, “New research suggests the coronavirus can invade and destroy the placenta and lead to stillbirths in infected women. It’s an uncommon outcome for any pregnancy but women with COVID-19 face an elevated risk. Authorities believe vaccination can help prevent these cases…. Previous evidence suggests the chances of stillbirth are higher than usual for pregnant women with COVID-19, particularly from the delta variant. Vaccination recommendations include pregnant women and note their higher risk for complications when infected.”



** COVID Sequelae and Long COVID
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The Jerusalem Post ([link removed]) (Israel) reports, “A new peer-reviewed study ([link removed]) published in the British Medical Journal examined the risk of delayed medical conditions brought on as a result of COVID-19 infection and determined that almost one in three adults aged 65 or older who became infected during 2020 developed at least one new condition during the months following diagnosis…. Many patients experienced complications involving vital organs such as the heart, kidneys, lungs and liver that required medical attention."

Nature ([link removed]) (UK) reports, “Even a mild case of COVID-19 can increase a person’s risk of cardiovascular problems for at least a year after diagnosis, a new study shows. Researchers found that rates of many conditions, such as heart failure and stroke, were substantially higher in people who had recovered from COVID-19 than in similar people who hadn’t had the disease. What’s more, the risk was elevated even for those who were under 65 years of age and lacked risk factors, such as obesity or diabetes.”



** COVID and Inequities
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Reuters ([link removed]) (UK) reports, “The wellbeing of minority and poor families in the US took harder hits during the pandemic in the realms of financial worry, food insecurity, family routines, child sleep, and child health access, a new study finds. An analysis of data from nearly 10,000 children and their caregivers revealed that social determinants of inequity were associated with transgenerational impacts of COVID-19, above and beyond factors such as preexisting medical and psychiatric conditions, according to the report published in JAMA Psychiatry.”

The Guardian ([link removed]) (UK) reports on a forthcoming report on “overwhelming” health inequities in England’s National Health Service (NHS). The inequities stem from well before COVID, but were exacerbated by the pandemic. “The COVID pandemic has taken a disproportionate toll on ethnic minorities, prompting fresh questions about inequalities that permeate the practice of medicine. The observatory ordered the review last year to synthesise the evidence, translate it into ‘actionable policy’ and ‘challenge leaders to act’.”



** The Pandemic and Mental Health
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CNBC ([link removed]) (US) reports, “Many psychologists and psychiatrists have reported an influx of people seeking mental health support during the pandemic, with the unprecedented global health crisis causing an increase in anxiety and depression as well as exacerbating existing mental health conditions.” The story quotes a Lancet study ([link removed](21)02143-7/fulltext) from October that, “found that mental health dramatically declined in [2020], with an estimated 53 million additional cases of major depressive disorders and 76 million additional cases of anxiety disorders seen globally. Women and younger people were found to be affected more than men and older adults.”



** Ivermectin Controversy
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The Washington Post ([link removed]) (US) reports on a controversy around ivermectin in Mexico. Health officials in Mexico City gave out thousands of medical kits that contained the drug in early 2021. “Mexico City officials eventually declared their effort a success. They issued an academic paper last spring saying the medical kits had significantly reduced hospitalization rates. That finding, they said, ‘supports ivermectin-based interventions’ to ease the coronavirus pandemic’s burden on health systems…. A US-based academic site that had posted their paper, SocArXiv, withdrew it last Friday, charging it was ‘promoting an unproved medical treatment in the midst of a global pandemic.’ The site accused city officials of bad science and unethical behavior—in effect, of using citizens like rats in a giant laboratory experiment, without their consent.”



** Science and Social Media
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In an editorial in Science ([link removed]) (US) Holden Thorpe writes, “it is undeniable that the pandemic has boosted the visibility and engagement of scientists on many platforms, especially Twitter. Has this been good or bad for science? The answer is both.” Among the problems: “Science is an honorably self-correcting process. Interpretations are revised and sometimes experimental results are found to be incorrect, and conclusions are modified. The system does a good job of converging ever closer to the truth, but the record of these changes, often preserved indefinitely on social media, provides material for agenda driven naysayers to paint scientists as flip-floppers when they’re just doing what scientists are supposed to do.”

A perspective in the same issue of Science ([link removed]) (US) argues, “It is debatable whether social media platforms that are designed to monetize outrage and disagreement among users are the most productive channel for convincing skeptical publics that settled science about climate change or vaccines is not up for debate. Even worse, when scientists do engage, the fast-moving and often almost real-time back-and-forth on social media can change the way they use and represent evidence. Rules of scientific discourse and the systematic, objective, and transparent evaluation of evidence are fundamentally at odds with the realities of debates in most online spaces. Consequently, scientists are at a distinct disadvantage—especially during everything- goes-type social media clashes—as some of the very few participants in public debates whose professional norms and ethics dictate that they prioritize reliable, cumulative evidence over persuasive power.”
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