A country that has prevailed vs B.1.1.7
Those states that were in trouble?
No longer the case. In descent or flat.
Overall cases are down 30%, hospitalizations and deaths down ~10% over the past 2 weeks
Here's the lineage (variant) map of the US through the pandemic, based on 360,000 sequences. Dark blue is B.1.1.7 that became dominant throughout. The only other major variant competing now is P.1 (Brazil) at 2% prevalence outbreak.info/location-repor…
By getting nearly 150 million Americans vaccinated, the US averted pronounced surges, the worst seen in many countries, such as the UK and Israel, and throughout most of Europe
Instead, we just had a B.1.1.7 bump.
Had Americans not come together to get all the vaccinations done, including many days getting shots for well over 1% of the whole population, this would not have been the case.
But we've still got work to do. With >50,000 new cases a day we are nowhere near containment like the UK and Israel. That 5-15X gap is associated with a 10-15% more population vaccinated. If we can get that done, summer will be a time to celebrate.
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New US Covid genomic surveillance
The KP.3.1.1 variant is on the move to become dominant, more of a challenge to our immune response than KP.3 and prior variants (especially without new KP.2 booster when we need it for high-risk individuals)
It's the deletion 31/31 that makes the KP.3.1.1 spike different, but otherwise 2 mutations away from KP.2 (R346T and Q493E)
Buckle up; this wave isn't over yet d/t KP.3.1.1's emergence
We've known about KP.3's marked growth advantage since April and could have made the call then to make the new booster. That would have been aligned well with the current wave (available in July) 2/5 erictopol.substack.com/p/are-we-flirt…
But the FDA has tried to force fit Covid into an annual shot like flu, even though all data tells us it doesn't follow an annual pattern. Even the CDC acknowledges this now
3/5cdc.gov/ncird/whats-ne…
New CDC genomic data shows continued rise of the KP.3 variant that accounts for 1 of 3 Covid cases.
LB.1 is gaining, too, as JN.1 fades away
This variant growth advantage plot by @BenjMurrell (H/T @siamosolocani) shows why this is the case. Note KP.3 is the one at far left w/ almost 3-fold advantage to JN.1.
Reinforces why the decision to develop the KP.2 vaccine booster (instead of JN.1) was a good one
Spike mutation map to show the differences betweem KP.3 and JN.1 (and LB.1, KP.2)
The connection between #SARSCoV2 and neurodegeneration
@TheLancetNeuro
Quotes below: 1. SARS-CoV-2 infection should be considered as a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease, even though the distinction between causation versus disease acceleration is not clear.thelancet.com/journals/laneu…
2. Inflammation in patients with COVID-19, and controlled experiments show prolonged neuro-inflammation after mild SARS-CoV-2 infection
in macaques.
3. A direct correlation has been reported
between prior SARS-CoV-2 infection and increased risk
of Alzheimer’s disease (figure).
4. So far, the estimated lifetime cumulative risk of dementia due to hospitalisation for any viral infection is 1·48 (95% CI 1·15–1·91).
Breaking down the risks and benefit for lecanemab, the amyloid beta-directed antibody vs Alzheimer's drug approved @US_FDA last year. It doesn't look good.