The latest Omicron variant BA.5 is fast becoming dominant worldwide. As it continues to surge, reinfection will become increasingly common and this in turn means more people will develop long COVID.
The two most concerning aspects of long COVID are its high prevalence and a link between reinfection and a higher risk of harmful outcomes.
In the face of official attitudes that are increasingly laissez-faire towards the continuing pandemic, many people no longer take even those precautions over which we have individual control: Mask wearing, physical distancing and choosing carefully whether to attend crowded events. The consequences are an increase in both daily case numbers and the lurking burden of long COVID.
Omicron variants, and BA.5 specifically, show several worrying features.
They can evade immunity acquired through earlier infections and breakthrough infections in vaccinated people. BA.5 is better able to infect cells, acting more like Delta than the previous Omicron variants.
WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT LONG COVID
SARS-CoV-2 is not unique in its ability to cause post-acute symptoms and organ damage. Unexplained chronic disability occurred in a minority of patients after Ebola, dengue, polio, the original severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and West Nile virus infections.
What is different is the sheer size of this pandemic and the number of people affected by long COVID.
One critical issue about long COVID is that we should not underestimate it.
It is now clear from multiple large studies that:
1) It is a set of syndromes;
2) It affects multiple organs and systems;
3) It resolves in some but remains persistent in others;
4) It can be markedly debilitating;
5) Its pathology is poorly understood.
We are just beginning to find ways to predict risk and monitor its course, and management is, at best, ad hoc. Though some countries are praising how well they have adopted Covid Resilience!
Perhaps most crucially, reinfection may now become a feature of the pandemic for at least the next 12 to 36 months, raising the risk of long COVID with each repeat infection.
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Once upon a time, there was this girl named Alice. One day, Alice had a wonderful dream. She dreamt that she was wondering in a Wonder Land.
There was this Queen of Hearts who ruled this Wonder Land that was infested with all sorts of strange animals.
All the animals can talk and express themselves like human beans. So, Alice was wondering why all the animals could talk. As she was wondering, the Queen of Hearts caught her and arrested her for intruding into her Animal Queen-Dom.
She was then thrown into a prison and there she caught Covid-19. The animal nurses put her in an incubator, and pumped oxygen into her lungs.
After two weeks, she was "cured" and they took her out of the incubator and set her free.
After being set free, she quickly rushed home. She then woke up from her dream but realised that she was suffering from Long Covid. Now, she is still wondering. Wondering when her Long Covid would end. It has been one year already.
I am also suffering from Long Covid-19. It has been 7 months.
AUComments
The US administration is blatantly lying. If they were interested in "protecting the health of humans and animals in our countries", then they would have sponsored this program under the WHO and UN.
“Our governments have partnered openly and transparently through the Biological Threat Reduction Program, which is a part of the US Department of Defense Cooperative Threat Reduction Program,”
Simply listing the governments that have agreed to be part of the US DoD BTRP does not equate to being "open and transparent"
If the research is directed by the US Department of Defense, then this is a military operation, and if the research is not being conducted with international oversight, its clandestine. And if the results of that research is being kept secret due to "national security", then its dual purpose.
The USA military is developing biological weapons that allow plausible deniability.
As the USA war economy is starting to wear out in it's ability to convince most of the world of it's benefits and instead lead to more destruction of countries around the world, it looks like the USA is developing a biological warfare economy of spreading diseases and monopolising the development of vaccines and medication for fake cures.
If nuclear war is going to lead to annihiliation of humans, biological warfare is going to do the same. The world is in self destruct mode right now - three of a kind - nuclear, biological and man made climate change destruction coming sooner than later.
Climate change is now irreversible, whatever hubris they are trying to spin. Blaming plastic bag usage and saving one more plastic bag or cutting down one less tree is not going to do much to save the earth. The melting poles are leading to rising sea levels. The melted glaciers on the higher peaks have been reduced so substantially that not much fresh water enters the major rivers of the world, causing droughts all over. As no new glaciers are forming and no new storage of precipitation is ongoing, rainfall goes into the ocean immediately, causing flash floods and raising sea levels as well. Mankind is doomed from self made extinction. But don't worry, just be happy as life is short anyway.
The US has, no doubt now, embarked on the total destruction of the World.
With its present military might it can destroy everything. However, the oppositions can also cause immense pain to the US.
This four-prong destruction of the World - biological, chemical, nuclear and climate change - will be a total destruction that leave nothing much, except the US own establishment intact.
Please be warned.
Mai Kia BA.5 FDA to the rescue!
US clears updated COVID boosters targeting newest variants
The U.S. on Wednesday authorized its first update to COVID-19 vaccines, booster doses that target today’s most common omicron strain. Shots could begin within days.
The move by the Food and Drug Administration tweaks the recipe of shots made by Pfizer and rival Moderna that already have saved millions of lives. The hope is that the modified boosters will blunt yet another winter surge.
“You’ll see me at the front of the line,” FDA vaccine chief Dr. Peter Marks told The Associated Press shortly before his agency cleared the new doses.
Until now, COVID-19 vaccines have targeted the original coronavirus strain, even as wildly different mutants emerged. The new U.S. boosters are combination, or “bivalent,” shots. They contain half that original vaccine recipe and half protection against the newest omicron versions, called BA.4 and BA.5, that are considered the most contagious yet.
The combination aims to increase cross-protection against multiple variants.
“It really provides the broadest opportunity for protection,” Pfizer vaccine chief Annaliesa Anderson told the AP.
The updated boosters are only for people who have already had their primary vaccinations, using the original vaccines. Doses made by Pfizer and its partner BioNTech are for anyone 12 and older while Moderna’s updated shots are for adults — if it has been at least two months since their last primary vaccination or their latest booster. They’re not to be used for initial vaccinations.
There’s one more step before a fall booster campaign begins: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention must recommend who should get the additional shot. An influential CDC advisory panel will debate the evidence Thursday — including whether people at high risk from COVID-19 should go first.
“As we head into fall and begin to spend more time indoors, we strongly encourage anyone who is eligible to consider receiving a booster dose with a bivalent COVID-19 vaccine to provide better protection against currently circulating variants,” FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf said in a statement.
The U.S. has purchased more than 170 million doses from the two companies. Pfizer said it could ship up to 15 million of those doses by the end of next week.
The big question is whether people weary of vaccinations will roll up their sleeves again. Just half of vaccinated Americans got the first recommended booster dose, and only a third of those 50 and older who were urged to get a second booster did so.
It’s time for U.S. authorities to better explain that the public should expect an updated COVID-19 vaccination every so often, just like getting a fall flu shot or a tetanus booster after stepping on a rusty nail, said University of Pennsylvania immunologist E. John Wherry.
“We need to rebrand it in a societally normal-looking way,” rather than a panicked response to new mutants, Wherry said. “Give a clear, forward-looking set of expectations.”
Here’s the rub: The original vaccines still offer strong protection against severe disease and death from COVID-19 for most generally healthy people, especially if they got that important first booster dose. It’s not clear just how much more benefit an updated booster will bring — beyond a temporary jump in antibodies capable of fending off an omicron infection.
One reason: The FDA cleared the modifications ahead of studies in people, a step toward eventually handling COVID-19 vaccine updates more like yearly flu shots.
First, FDA checked human studies of earlier Pfizer and Moderna attempts to update their vaccines — shots matching the omicron strain that struck last winter. That recipe change was safe, and substantially boosted antibodies targeting the earlier variant — better than another dose of the original vaccine — while adding a little protection against today’s genetically distinct BA.4 and BA.5 omicron versions.
But FDA ordered the companies to brew even more up-to-date doses that target those newest omicron mutants instead, sparking a race to roll out shots in less than three months. Rather than waiting a few more months for additional human studies of that recipe tweak, Marks said animal tests showed the latest update spurs “a very good immune response.”
The hope, he said, is that a vaccine matched to currently spreading variants might do a better job fighting infection, not just serious illness, at least for a while.
What’s next? Even as modified shots roll out, Moderna and Pfizer are conducting human studies to help assess their value, including how they hold up if a new mutant comes along.
And for children, Pfizer plans to ask FDA to allow updated boosters for 5- to 11-year-olds in early October.
It’s the first U.S. update to the COVID-19 vaccine recipe, an important but expected next step -- like how flu vaccines get updated every year.
And the U.S. isn’t alone. Britain recently decided to offer adults over 50 a different booster option from Moderna, a combo shot targeting that initial BA.1 omicron strain. European regulators are considering whether to authorize one or both of the updated formulas.
Didn't they said the boosters would only be effective for a couple of months and would quickly fade away? And if so, one would need a booster jab every 3 months! Is this the case?
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