Excellent article on all things Covid with useful facts from @AmandaKvalsvig and @DrAnnaNZ on the risks of Covid and the need to do more to prevent infections.

Balanced by some less helpful quotes from the usual suspects.

Paywalled
nzherald.co.nz/the-listener/h… One of the many reasons that Covid can't be treated the same as influenza:

“People might expect to get flu twice in a decade,” says @AmandaKvalsvig. “With this virus, some people are getting it twice a year.”

An exciting discovery! There’s a way to boost antibodies against Cov1d by sucking a lozenge.

A study found that Blis K12 S. salivarius oral probiotic boosts salivary anti-SARS-CoV-2 Spike IgG antibodies in vaccinated people via a process known as via molecular mimicry.
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https://twitter.com/mashreghi_lab/status/1722323205858193894

Within two weeks of taking #BlisK12 probiotic, vaccinated participants showed increased antibody levels compared to controls or unvaccinated participants.

Participants took 50 mg (10^7 CFU) of Streptococcus salivarius K12 once per day before sleep.
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Potentially concerning mutations in BA.2.86 descendant JN.1

“What is most intriguing about JN.1 and why I believe there is cause for concern is the striking amount of differences between it and the leading viruses today: XBB.1.5 & HV.1.” @WmHaseltine


1/ 12ft.io/proxy?q=https%…

https://twitter.com/jpweiland/status/1717672606948549011

JN.1 was identified in Luxembourg on August 25 2023 followed by England, Iceland, France & the US. In GISAID there are 91 instances of JN.1 at the time of writing, suggesting hundreds if not thousands have been infected with JN.1 as sequencing efforts have been largely halted.
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Taranaki healthcare staff volunteer to help colleagues with Long Covid - because there are no nationally coordinated Long Covid resources to help patients.
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rnz.co.nz/news/national/… The clinic has no funding and relies on physios, occupational therapists and nurses volunteering to care for staff with the disease.

This is what #LongCovid looks like. Debilitating symptoms and limited support.
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Novavax is commencing a phase 2/3 clinical trial of higher doses of an XBB.1.5 vaccine NVX-CoV2601 as a heterologous booster for people who have had 3+ mRNA vaccines.

The trial will test the original dose (5μg) compared with doses of 35μg and 50μg

1/clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05925… #Novavax’s original Covid vaccine in doses ranging between 5μg to 35μg were well tolerated in Novavax's Phase 2 COVID-Influenza Combination trial.

Now, Novavax is testing even higher doses of up to 50μg in its XBB1.5 monovalent vaccine NVX-CoV2601
.
2/ir.novavax.com/press-releases…

Exciting news!
Novavax is working on an Omicron XBB specific vaccine with data expected to be presented at this month's FDA VRBPAC meeting.

Unlike Pfizer and Moderna #Novavax hasn’t yet updated its vaccine to specifically target more recently circulating strains of the virus.
1/ “Up through BA.5, our immune responses had held steady,” said Filip Dubovsky, Novavax’s chief medical officer.
“I can tell you right now that this #xbbvariant XBB, XBB.1, it looks different to us.”
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#kraken #XBB #XBB15 $NVAX
barrons.com/articles/novav…

Ayesha Verrall on the most recent changes to Covid settings:
“I advocated for this package to be adopted.”

There was an obvious reluctance to step up protections in the future, because the government has promised "certainty" that events will go ahead.
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The certainty of summer festivals and events appears to be more important than preventing infection or allowing medically vulnerable people to safely access public transport or to participate in society.

Ableism, we see you.
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When asked if COVID was going to be with us forever, like cancer and heart disease, and be one of our biggest killers @DrAndrewOld said we would be “very unlikely” to eliminate it from the world but hopefully it would be manageable with an annual vaccine like influenza.
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https://twitter.com/NewshubNationNZ/status/1570906476666839040

Dr Old says the jury is out on where cases will plateau but the expectation is that there will be a lull and then future waves, with the possibility of a wave over summer.
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BA.2.75.2 (subvariant of #Centaurus) is one to watch. Early data suggests Omicron BA.2.75.2 exhibits more extreme antibody escape than any variant to date. It’s too early to know whether this will result in a wave

https://twitter.com/benjmurrell/status/1570862185819303937

Further explanation here. Neutralizing antibody levels for vaccinated & (overwhelmingly) infected serum is >5-fold lower than BA.5 & nearly 4-fold lower than BA.4.6

https://twitter.com/longdeserttrain/status/1570868589179305986?s=21&t=jN8LVr_FZTGYzCLmaJIHmg