Category Archives: Corona Virus

As the fear of getting fined for not wearing masks set in after the DDMA order, people in the national capital have again started masking up in public places, especially at busy markets, railway stations, Metro, buses and ISBTs. The inspection by the Delhi Police and authorities at these places has also intensified again.

Delhi on Sunday reported 1,083 fresh COVID-19 infections with a positivity rate of 4.48 per cent, while one person died due to the disease, according to the health department. The infection tally in the national capital now stands at 18,74,876 and the death toll at 26,168. The capital had reported 1,094 COVID-19 infections on Saturday, highest since February 10, with a positivity rate of 4.82 percent and two deaths.

Meanwhile, Mumbai on Sunday reported 73 new coronavirus positive cases, which took its overall infection count to 10,59,286, according to PTI. The death toll in the metropolis remained unchanged at 19,562 as nobody succumbed to the infection during the day. On Saturday, the city had reported 72 cases.

A common anti-inflammatory drug has been found to be an effective antiviral agent in the treatment of mild and moderate Covid-19 patients. The drug, indomethacin, is widely used to treat various types of inflammation-related conditions. The study on Covid patients, by IIT Madras, has been published in Nature Scientific Reports.

THE DRUG: Indomethacin is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug available as capsules and a liquid suspension, to be taken orally. According to the US National Library of Medicine, indomethacin works by stopping the bodys production of a substance that causes pain, fever, and inflammation. It is used to relieve moderate to severe pain, tenderness, swelling, and stiffness caused by various kinds of arthritis, and pain in the shoulder caused by inflammation.

The findings: A randomised clinical trial was conducted by IIT Madras researchers at Panimalar Medical College and Research Institute, Chennai. Out of 210 patients admitted, 107 were randomly allocated to a control group and treated with paracetamol and standard care, while 103 patients were administered indomethacin along with standard care of treatment, a media release from IIT Madras said.

Also read | New Research: Common drug found effective against mild and moderate Covid

A UK patient with a severely weakened immune system had Covid-19 for almost a year and a half, scientists reported, underscoring the importance of protecting vulnerable people from the coronavirus. Theres no way to know for sure whether it was the longest-lasting Covid-19 infection because not everyone gets tested, especially on a regular basis like this case.

But at 505 days, it certainly seems to be the longest reported infection, said Dr. Luke Blagdon Snell, an infectious disease expert at the Guys and St. Thomas NHS Foundation Trust.

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Coronavirus News Live Updates: India reports 2,541 fresh Covid-19 cases, slightly lower than yesterday; active cases over 16,500 - The Indian Express

According to the state Department of Public Health, the average age of those dying from coronavirus is now 79.

And the statistics DPH presents bear it out.

Currently, 91% of all deaths are among those 60 and up and 54% of all deaths are among those 80 and up.

The latest two-week period between April 3 and April 16 showed a surge of 8,697 cases to 13,113, which was an increase of 51%.

During that time there were 6,086 cases among those from the age of 0 to 19 and no deaths.

There were 16,166 cases among those from the age of 20 to 59 and just four deaths.

Those from the age of 60 to 80 and above had 4,496 cases and 57 deaths.

Those 80 and over suffered the most deaths, with 35, or 57%, of the 61 deaths during that period.

Since the beginning of the pandemic in March of 2020, those 80 and over have suffered 54% of all deaths, which is 10,943 out of 20,208 total deaths.

And during that time, that age group has had the fewest number of cases at 54,853, which is 3% of all 1,733,156 cases as of April 16.

Meanwhile, those from the age of 70 to 79 have suffered 4,678 deaths, which is 23% of the 20,208 total deaths as of April 16.

That groups percentage of deaths is less than half the 80 and over group, but their percentage of cases is slightly more at 4%.

Those from the age of 20 through the age of 59 account for 60% of all cases and 9% of all deaths.

Those numbers are 1,048,158 and 1,851, respectively.

Those 1,851 deaths is a death percentage of just 0.17%, or just under two-tenths of one percent, for the number of cases which afflicted the group.

And the youngest group of those afflicted with coronavirus, those from the age of 0 through 19, account for 24% of all cases and 0.11%, or one-tenth of 1%, of all deaths; those numbers are 416,395 and 23, respectively.

Meanwhile, as the number of cases rose, the number of those being cared for in intensive care units, or ICUs, fell.

On Friday, when the number of cases for the week ending April 22 hit 13,198, the number of those in ICUs fell from 37 to 25 since the week ending April 15.

And the number of those intubated with breathing apparatus declined from 15 to 12.

The numbers of those in ICUs and on breathing apparatus indicates this latest surge is less deadly.

On Friday, there were 389 people hospitalized statewide with 12 on breathing apparatus and 25 in an ICU.

The last time there were that many people hospitalized (391) on Feb. 28, about two months ago, there were 39 patients on breathing apparatus and 71 patients in ICUs.

George W. Rhodes can be reached at 508-236-0432.

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Elderly continue to be hardest hit by coronavirus - The Sun Chronicle

BROOKVILLE, N.Y., April 25, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Results of a newly released Long Island University Steven S. Hornstein Center for Policy, Polling and Analysis national poll revealed what Americans think about wearing masks on planes and public transportation in light of a federal court order, that stated as of April 18, 2022, the CDC's Order requiring masks on public transportation conveyances and at transportation hubs was no longer in effect.

MIXED SUPPORT (42%) ON THE REMOVAL OF MASK MANDATES ONBOARD AIRLINE FLIGHTS

Americans were asked if they supported the removal of mask mandates onboard airline flights to reduce the likelihood of contracting the coronavirus; 42% of respondents said yes. Respondents with the highest support of the mask mandate removal were Republicans (73%), followed by Independents (41%) and Democrats (21%). Support of the mask mandate removal was higher in the Midwest (48%) and South (47%) than other regions in the Northeast (33%) and Pacific (35%). Respondents age 60 and older supported the mask mandate removal at a lower rate (34%) than other age brackets. Males supported the mask mandate removal at a higher rate (46%) than females (39%).

6 OUT OF 10 AMERICANS WOULD STILL WEAR A MASK WHILE TRAVELING

National poll results found that 64% of respondents said they would still wear a mask today if traveling by plane; 63% of respondents said they would still wear a mask today if traveling on public transportation. Political beliefs played a factor in respondents' choices: 87% of Democrats said they would still wear masks on planes; 84% of Democrats said they would still wear masks on public transportation; 61% of Independents said they would still wear masks on planes; 59% of Independents said they would still wear masks on public transportation; 38% of Republicans said they would still wear masks on planes; 41% of Republicans said they would still wear masks on public transportation.

71% OF AMERICANS BELIEVE WEARING MASKS REDUCES THE LIKELIHOOD OF CONTRACTING THE CORONAVIRUS

Respondents were asked if they believe wearing face masks reduces the likelihood of contracting the coronavirus: 71% of Americans said yes; 92% of Democrats said yes; 68% of Independents/Other said yes; 46% of Republicans said yes.

HALF OF AMERICANS (53%) SAID THE WORST OF THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC IS OVER

Respondents were asked if they believe the worst of the pandemic is over. Overall, 53% of respondents said yes, the highest since June 2021 through national polls conducted by the Long Island University Steven S. Hornstein Center for Policy, Polling and Analysis. Respondents with the highest confidence level that the worst of the coronavirus pandemic is over are Republicans (70%), followed by Independents (51%) and Democrats (43%).Respondents age 18-29 believe the worst is over at the highest belief rate (58%) compared to respondents age 60 and older (47%) at the lowest belief rate. Males believe the worst is over at a higher rate (57%) than females (49%).

53% OF AMERICANS SAID THEY CURRENTLY WEAR A MASK TO AVOID CONTRACTING THE CORONAVIRUS

Respondents were asked if they were currently wearing a mask in general to reduce the likelihood of contracting the coronavirus: 53% of Americans said yes; 73% of Democrats said yes; 48% of Independents/Other said yes; 34% of Republicans said yes.

62% OF AMERICANS REMAINED CONCERNED OVER RISK OF FAMILY CONTRACTING THE CORONAVIRUS (DOWN SLIGHTLY FROM 69% IN NOVEMBER 2021)

Americans were asked how concerned they are about someone in their family becoming seriously ill from the coronavirus: 62% of respondents said they are somewhat or seriously concerned as compared to 69% in an earlier November 2021 Hornstein Center national poll.78% of Democrats, 59% of Independents/Other, and 43% of Republicans said they are somewhat or seriously concerned.

75% OF AMERICANS ARE FULLY VACCINATEDAGE 12 AND OVER (UP FROM 69% IN NOVEMBER 2021)

76% OF AMERICANS ARE FULLY VACCINATEDAGE 18 AND OVER (UP FROM 71% IN NOVEMBER 2021)

90% OF AMERICANS ARE FULLY VACCINATEDAGE 65 AND OVER (UP FROM 86% IN NOVEMBER 2021)

According toCDC data, 75% of Americans age 12 and over are fully vaccinated as of April 24, 2022 (up from 69% on November 16, 2021). 76% of Americans age 18 and over are fully vaccinated (up from 71% on November 16, 2021). 90% of Americans over age 65 are fully vaccinated (up from 86% on November 16, 2021), indicating a promising way forward for the most at-risk population.

CDC AUTHORIZED COVID-19 BOOSTER VACCINES

CDC guidance on COVID-19 Booster Vaccines stated that Americans eligible for a second booster shot include adults ages 50 years and older, people ages 12 years and older who are moderately or severely immunocompromised, and people who received 2 doses (1 primary dose and 1 booster) of Johnson & Johnson's Janssen vaccine. Currently, the three vaccines that are authorized and recommended to prevent COVID-19 by the CDC arePfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine,Moderna COVID-19 vaccineandJohnson & Johnson's Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine.

METHODOLOGYThis Long Island University Steven S. Hornstein Center for Policy, Polling, and Analysis online poll was conducted through SurveyMonkey from April 21 22, 2022 among a national sample of 1,584 adults ages 18 and up. Respondents for this survey were selected from over 2.5 million people who take surveys on the SurveyMonkey platform each day. Data for this week have been weighted for age and gender using the Census Bureau's American Community Survey to reflect the demographic composition of the United States. The modeled error estimate for this survey is plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.

ABOUT THE LONG ISLAND UNIVERSITY STEVEN S. HORNSTEIN CENTER FOR POLICY, POLLING, AND ANALYSISThe Long Island University Steven S. Hornstein Center for Policy, Polling, and Analysis conducts independent polling, empirical research, and analysis on a wide range of public issues. Our studies inform the public and policy makers about critical issues, attitudes, and trends shaping the world. Visit liu.edu/Hornstein for more information and results from this national poll.

ABOUT LONG ISLAND UNIVERSITYLong Island University, founded in 1926, continues to redefine higher education, providing high quality academic instruction by world-class faculty. Recognized byForbesfor its emphasis on experiential learning and by the Brookings Institution for its "value added" to student outcomes, LIU has a network of over 285,000 alumni, including industry leaders and entrepreneurs around the globe. Visit liu.edu for more information.

SOURCE Long Island University

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Where Americans Stand on Coronavirus and Mask Mandates on Planes: Long Island University Hornstein Center National Poll - PR Newswire

A checkpoint in Ningbo, China. A growing number of Chinese cities are requiring truck drivers to take daily Covid P.C.R. tests.Credit...Agence France-Presse Getty Images

BEIJING Chinas mounting Covid-19 restrictions are creating further disruptions to global supply chains for consumer electronics, car parts and other goods.

A growing number of Chinese cities are requiring truck drivers to take daily Covid P.C.R. tests before allowing them to cross municipal borders or are quarantining drivers deemed to be at risk of infection. The measures have limited how quickly drivers can move components among factories and goods from plants to ports.

Shanghai and other major Chinese cities have imposed lengthy, stringent lockdowns to try to control Covid outbreaks. Previous interruptions in the supply of goods from Chinese factories to buyers around the world mainly involved the temporary closure of shipping ports, including in Shenzhen in southeastern China in May and June last year and then near Shanghai last summer.

The problem is not ships its that theres no cargo coming because there are no trucks, said Jarrod Ward, the chief East Asia business development officer in the Shanghai office of Yusen Logistics, a large Japanese supply chain management company.

The testing of truck drivers has been held up because some cities are doing mass testing of residents. Shanghai tested essentially all 25 million people within its borders in a single day on Monday and detected another 21,000 cases on Thursday.

Now, there is an acute shortage of truck drivers in Shanghai and in nearby cities like Kunshan, a center of electronics production. Many electronics components manufacturers are shutting down in Kunshan.

The key electronics suppliers to Apple, to Tesla, theyre all based there, said Julie Gerdeman, the chief executive of Everstream, a supply chain risk management affiliate of DHL that is based in San Marcos, Calif.

Apple declined to comment, and Tesla had no immediate reply to questions.

Many factories have tried to stay open by having workers stay on site instead of going home. Employees have been sleeping on mats on the floor for as long as four weeks in some cities in northeastern China. Companies have been storing goods in nearby warehouses while waiting for normal truck traffic to resume.

But as lockdowns stretch on in cities like Shanghai, Changchun and Shenyang, factories are starting to run out of materials to assemble. Some are sending their workers home until further notice.

Making car seats, for example, requires different springs, bolts and other materials. Mr. Ward said car seat producers had run out of components. Volkswagen said it had closed a factory outside Shanghai.

While Shanghais cases increase, its main rival in electronics manufacturing, Shenzhen, has emerged from lockdown. That is freeing workers and factories there to resume full-speed production.

Retailers and manufacturers in the West tried to adapt to previous supply chain difficulties in China by switching from ships to airfreight, but airfreight rates have more than doubled from last year.

The near-total suspension of passenger flights in and out of Shanghai has roughly halved the airfreight capacity there, said Zvi Schreiber, the chief executive of Freightos, a freight booking platform. The war in Ukraine has forced many airlines to schedule longer flights around Russia and Ukraine, which means each plane can make fewer trips in a week and often can carry less weight on each flight.

The war in Ukraine is also starting to hurt the availability of Soviet-era Antonov freighters, Mr. Schreiber said. These workhorses of the airfreight industry have been kept going in recent years almost entirely by Ukrainian maintenance bases that are now closed.

For companies, any additional disruptions to the global supply chain would come at a particularly fraught moment, on top of rising prices for raw materials and shipping, along with extended delivery times and worker shortages.

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Covid News: At Least 53 People Test Positive After A-List Dinner in Washington - The New York Times

Arthur Allen| Kaiser Health News

In March 2020, Dr. Joseph Vinetz left the contemplative world of his Yale University infectious-disease laboratory and plunged into the COVID ward at Yale New Haven Hospital, joining an army of health care workers who struggled to treat the deadly viral disease.

There were no drugs against COVID-19, and no way to predict which infected patients would develop pneumonia or fall into an inflammatory tailspin leading to severe illness or death. In desperation, Vinetz and countless other doctor-scientists trawled the literature for existing medicines that might help.

We were in the hospital. We had nothing, Vinetz said. I was one of tens of thousands of doctors around the world who said, We gotta figure out what to do.

On April 16, 2020, Vinetz saw an article in the journal Cell about a drug called camostat, licensed in Japan in 1985 to treat inflammation of the pancreas. Research during the first SARS epidemic, in 2004, had shown the drug had a plausible biochemical mechanism for slowing coronavirus infections, so Vinetz and his colleagues quickly organized a small clinical trial on outpatients with mild to moderate symptoms.

In those days, before COVID vaccines and COVID-specific treatments appeared on the market, Vinetzs experiment was one of thousands conducted by doctors who hoped older vaccines and drugs, usually cheap and off-patent, might provide them with options.

Mostly, the drugs were too toxic or had no clear effect. Of the more than 1,500 trials for potential COVID drugs listed on the website of the National Institutes of Health including antivirals, anti-inflammatories, and drugs used for cancer, asthma, heart disease, and dozens of other conditions few have produced helpful medicines.

In fact, only one older drug is routinely used to fight COVID. Thats the steroid dexamethasone, proven by British scientists to help keep hospitalized patients from requiring supplemental oxygen or intubation.

Drugs like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin showed hints of value initially but failed in clinical trials only to remain in circulation, at least partly because their use symbolized affinity in the culture war for some of President Donald Trumps followers.

A few old drugs still show promise, but theyve had trouble getting traction. The ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine fiascoes soured doctors on repurposed medications, and the pharmaceutical industry has shown little interest in testing them, especially when it can earn billions from even mediocre new ones, scientists tracking the field say.

American and European scientists have confirmed the theoretical basis for camostats impact on COVID. But evidence for its effects is weak; last year the drug was dropped from a big NIH trial comparing various treatments.

A more promising story emerged with fluvoxamine, licensed under the brand name Luvox in 1994 to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder. The drug is in the same class as common antidepressants such as Prozac, Lexapro, and Zoloft.

A child psychiatrist noticed fluvoxamine might be good for COVID. In March 2020, while recovering from a bout of COVID, Dr. Angela Reiersen of Washington University in St. Louis saw a 2019 study in mice that showed how fluvoxamine could activate a protein similar to one missing in patients with Wolfram syndrome, a genetic disease that causes diabetes, neurological issues, and, eventually, death.

Reiersen and her colleague Dr. Eric Lenze, a geriatric psychiatrist, began a clinical trial of the drug in people with symptoms of COVID. Of the 80 in the fluvoxamine group, none suffered a serious decline, while six of 72 patients given sugar pills got pneumonia, and four were hospitalized.

In a follow-up 1,500-patient trial in Brazil, people who took at least 80% of their fluvoxamine pills were 66% less likely to require emergency care or hospitalization than those who got sugar pills. Only one died, compared with 11 in the placebo group.

Since October, when the Brazilian study was published, fluvoxamines future has dimmed. Neither the NIH nor the Infectious Diseases Society of America recommends fluvoxamine to prevent respiratory distress. The NIH panelists noted that the better outcomes in the Brazilian trial were only statistically significant among those who remained in the trial. (Because of nausea and other side effects, only 74% of trial participants in the fluvoxamine wing took all their pills, compared with 82% in the placebo wing.)

The NIH panel also was put off by the fact that the Brazilian trial counted hospitalizations as well as people put under a doctors care for six hours or more not a standard measure. Trial organizers said that was necessary because Brazilian hospitals were so packed with COVID patients that many people got their care in makeshift outdoor shelters.

Regulators and experts are awaiting results from two other big trials, one organized by a consortium of universities and hospitals, the other by the NIH. But both studies are using doses of 100 milligrams of fluvoxamine a day, compared with 200 or 300 milligrams in the successful trials.

I have concerns that they are not using a high-enough dose, Reiersen said, given that fluvoxamine operates on a different biochemical pathway to fight COVID than the one involved in psychiatric treatment.

The concern is shared by Craig Rayner, a former drug company scientist who worked on the Brazilian trial and other big tests of repurposed drugs. You can do the largest, most well-funded study in the world, he said, but if you choose the wrong dose, its rubbish in, rubbish out.

The team overseeing NIHs trial opted for a lower dose because higher doses had already been used in the earlier trials and often caused side effects, said Sarah Dunsmore, a program director at NIHs National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences.

On Dec. 21, David Boulware, a University of Minnesota infectious-disease expert, petitioned the FDA to approve a change in fluvoxamines label stating it can be used to prevent respiratory distress in at-risk patients with mild to moderate COVID. He hasnt received a response yet.

Its a different story for big drug companies. Two days after Boulwares submission, FDA authorized Merck to market its drug molnupiravir, which in its clinical trial showed about as much effectiveness as fluvoxamine, and also had side effects like nausea and dizziness. Fluvoxamine also can cause insomnia and anxiety; molnupiravir is not recommended for pregnant women or anyone, male or female, having unprotected sex, because it caused genetic and fetal damage in test animals.

Still, federal guidelines recommend molnupiravir in certain settings, and the government has bought more than 3 million doses for about $2.2 billion, or $733 per dose. Fluvoxamine, a generic, goes for less than $5 a pill.

You hate to say that Big Pharma has a lot of influence, but clearly they do, Boulware said. The molnupiravir data was not that great, but were spending billions on the drug and it got fast-track emergency use authorization while fluvoxamine remains in a gray area.

With the arrival of effective vaccines and the trickle of antiviral treatments, the urgency of rehabilitating old drugs for U.S. patients has ebbed. But the need remains high in lower- and middle-income countries where vaccines and new COVID treatments remain unavailable.

Its not rare for a pharmaceutical company to synthesize or study a drug for one purpose, only to discover it works better for something else. The classic instance is sildenafil, or Viagra, which was being developed as a drug for hypertension when scientists noticed a remarkable side effect. Remdesivir, now a front-line drug against COVID, was aimed at treating Ebola.

Its less common for a drug marketed for one use to acquire an entirely different purpose, but the pandemic drove scientists to try. They tested thousands of compounds in petri dishes for their virus-killing power, but the journey from test tube to human remedy is long, said Rayner, who is also a professor of pharmaceutical sciences at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.

If fluvoxamine were a new drug, the company sponsoring it would have spent the money needed to get the drug approved and to show the FDA it has the means to monitor the drugs safety and efficacy. Since its an old drug, it will be up to independent scientists, or perhaps a reluctant generics manufacturer, to sponsor safety monitoring should the FDA provide an emergency use authorization, Rayner said.

An EUA or approval comes with strings. You have to continue to monitor the safety, to make sure no signals pop up when you move it from thousands to millions of patients, he said. Thats very expensive.

U.S. physicians can prescribe drugs off label, but most are leery of doing so until a drug has won approval for the new use. Thats especially true now.

Definitive answers on some repurposed drugs were slow in coming because there were too many small, poorly designed studies by every man and his dog, Rayner said. He calculates up to $5.6 billion has been wasted on hydroxychloroquine clinical trials alone.

A recent World Health Organization resolution called for better coordination and information-sharing among those organizing trials so that definitive answers can be obtained quickly with big pots of data.

As for camostat, Vinetz said those who took the drug felt better than those who got a placebo. It basically prevented loss of smell and taste, which people really bitterly care about, he said. That means theres a real biological effect. That merits further exploration.

But will that happen? Vinetzs team has sought publication of their research for five months with no success. Hed like to see whether camostat can prevent long COVID, but such investigations cost millions. Camostats Japanese manufacturer apparently lost interest in it as a COVID drug after its own small, unsuccessful trial.

When theres no profit motive, its tough, Vinetz said. Meanwhile, hes resumed his research into controlling a neglected tropical disease: leptospirosis.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a nonprofit news service covering health issues. It is an editorially independent program of KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation) that is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

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Why cheap, older drugs that might treat COVID never get out of the lab - Great Falls Tribune

Patients suffering from respiratory and neurological symptoms, including loss of taste and smell.

Long-haul sufferers who struggle to muster the energy to return to work.

A pandemic with a penchant for attacking the elderly and obese with particular force.

Sounds a lot like COVID, right?

Its not.

Rather, its the Russian Flu, the worlds first well-documented pandemic, occurring as modern germ theory rose to prominence and miasma theory dispelled, ushering in the era of modern medical science and public health.

A quick check of the textbooksthe few that actually mention the thingwill inform you that the pandemic, which killed an estimated 1 million worldwide, lasted from 1889 to 1890.

Experts will tell you it likely hung around much longerand might still lurk, in some form, today.

Predating the now oft-discussed Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918, which killed an estimated 50 million worldwide, the Russian Flu likely wasnt a flu at all, some contend.

Instead, its symptoms more closely resemble a coronavirusa category of viruses named for their crown-like appearance under a microscope, of which COVID-19 is a member.

Coronaviruses typically cause mild to moderate upper-respiratory infections in humans and are responsible for a handful of common colds. But some have turned deadly, including COVID-19; SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), an epidemic that emerged in 2002 and killed hundreds; and MERS (Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome), another epidemic that emerged in 2012 and killed hundreds.

The epidemiology and clinical symptoms of the Russian Flu are much more in line with COVID than what we know about influenza pandemics, said Dr. Harald Bruessow, editor of Microbial Biotechnology and a guest professor at KU Leuven in Belgium who has studied and published extensively on the esoteric ailment.

You have respiratory infection, but at the same time there are strong neurologic symptoms, he said of both the Russian Flu and COVID. Theres also something like Long COVID that was observed following the Russian Flu pandemic. These people were incapacitated for a really long time, with an increase in suicide rate and an inability to return to full work capacity.

Story continues

All this stuff makes one think that one is dealing with a coronavirus infection in the 1880s.

Lets say the so-called Russian Flu was a coronavirus. Does it serve as a better lens through which to view the current pandemic than the Spanish Flu? What lessons can we learn? Does it offer any clues to how the COVID-19 pandemic might endor linger, rather, as viruses tend to?

"If we say maybe the Russian Flu went extinct by a deus ex machina event, the odds are much lower for COVID," Dr. Arijit Chakravarty, Fractal Therapeutics CEO and COVID researcher, told Fortune.

"We're past that point."

When "nobody really dared to predict the trajectory of the COVID pandemic, how it will develop or end"frustrated by short-term computer simulations with a tendency toward inaccuracyand looking to glimpse into a COVID-19 crystal ball, Bruessow turned to the past.

What pandemic might serve as the best paradigm for COVID? He first examined the Spanish Flubut that was a different virus, he reasoned. Traveling backward in history from there, his options were limited, with the Russian Flu being the next chronological optionand, ironically, the first pandemic for which data was collected en masse.

As it turns out, it was a great fit.

The Russian Flu was actually the best case I could figure out of a respiratory pandemic of a comparable size to COVID that was sufficiently medically documented, Bruessow said of the disease, thought to have originated in cattle in Turkestan before enveloping the Russian empire and sweeping the world.

While considered a flu at the time, scientists did not yet have a solid grasp on what caused disease, with germ theory arising nearly simultaneously and duking it out with the miasma theory, the pre-scientific notion that disease was caused by "bad air" rising from the ground.

In one of his articles on the ailment, Bruessow refers to a 344-page doctors report from 1891 London, which describes Russian Flu patients as suffering from a hard, dry cough, fevers of 100-105 degrees, frontal headache of special severity, pains in the eyeballs, general feeling of misery and weakness, and great depression of spirits, and weeping, nervous restlessness, inability to sleep, and occasional delirium.

As with COVID, children seemed relatively spared, often only mildly affected, if they fell ill at all. Those who were elderlyin addition to those with pre-existing conditions like heart disease, tuberculosis, or diabeteswere more apt to take a fatal course, Bruessow wrote.

And theres more: Nearly 10% of cases saw continued symptoms, referred to by European doctors of the time as long enduring evil effects.

As with COVID, it was noted that patients were likely infectious before developing symptoms, and were occasionally reinfected, as was the case with a patient who fell ill with the flu in December 1889 in France, and then again a month later in January 1890 in England.

Dr. Tom Ewing, a history professor and associate dean at Virginia Tech who has published extensively on the topic, considered the Russian Flu an apt comparison during the first three months of the COVID pandemic due to its quick spread and global efforts to track symptoms.

He now considers the Spanish Flu to be a better comparison due to the body count: It's thought to have killed about 650,000 people in the U.S. in eight months, and COVID has killed nearly a million in the U.S. in a little over two years. In contrast, the Russian Flu is thought to have killed a million worldwide, in sum.

"I think where the useful comparisons are is, how do people react?" Ewing said. "How do they respond to first reports? How do physicians deal with a new threatening scale of disease? What we're all living with right nowat what point do you say it's all over?

The Russian Flu is typically considered to have lasted from 1889 through 1890, but in reality, it lasted much longerthrough 1894, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health National Library of Medicineand nearly a decade, depending on whom you talk to. Major mortality peaks, as seen in public health data from the United Kingdom, continued through 1899 or 1900, Bruessow said, adding that the mortality peaks in England during that period are nearly as high as they were during what was likely the first phase of the Russian Flu.

It is unknown if later deaths were from additional waves of the Russian Flu or something else. But reports of symptoms from potential later waves, found in The Lancet and other British medical journals, are strikingly similar, and contemporary researchers were formulating the suspicion of an up-flair, he said.

All this makes me think that we should consider the possibility that the Russian Flu agent was evolving and hanging around and even causing a major mortality peak in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, he concluded.

While its unknown if the Russian Flu was indeed a coronavirus, some believe it lives on today as OC43, a common human coronavirus that often causes upper-respiratory track illness, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While its presentation is often mild, the pathogen is known to cause bronchitis, bronchiolitis, and pneumonia in children and the elderly, as well as immunosuppressed patients, and its presentation may be easily confused with that of COVID-19, according to a 2021 article in The Southwest Respiratory and Critical Care Chronicles.

The thought that the Russian Flu endures as OC43 is a fascinating hypothesis, developed when scientists realized how genetically similar OC43 is to bovine coronavirus and projected a common ancestor arising around 1890the Russian Flu era, and a time of major cattle pandemics that may have spread to humans.

If theyre correct, the Russian Flu is still circulating, and it's still occasionally deadlya 2021 study published in Naturefound a 9.1% mortality rate for those hospitalized with confirmed cases of OC43, though it only tracked 77 patients between 2012 and 2017 at one Korean hospital.

The Russian Flu may indeed be "still killing people off, and we're just not paying attention to it, which is totally plausible," Chakravarty said. "We used to think the Epstein-Barr Virus was harmless," and now we know it raises the risk of developing multiple sclerosis by more than 30 times.

"There's a lot of sort of 'dark matter' in the infectious disease world that we haven't fully mapped out."

Such a future may await COVID, Bruessow contends.

This is what virologists working in the viral evolution field are thinking we should expect from SARS-CoV2, he said regarding the potential of COVID to persist well into the future. Some people think the Omicron variant that dominates now is already going a bit in this direction, because this variant is much less affecting the lung and much more targeting the upper respiratory tract.

Bruessow hopes Omicron is the last hoorah of COVID-19s acute phasethe Russian Flus lasted about three yearsbut hes well aware this may not be the case.

Personally, I would be a bit skeptical that Omicron would be the end of this, he said. The virus will still occupy our societies for a while.

Even if the Russian Flu eventually became less severe, theres no reason to necessarily think COVID-19 will go the same route, Bruessow cautions, nor is the Russian Flu's presumed attenuation necessarily permanent.

Viral evolution is really neutral with respect to virulence," he said. "The indication is that [COVID-19] will try to escape from the immune response, simply to infect the maximum number of people, and the virus with the highest efficiency will replace less efficient viral types.

This is the dynamic we are seeing, of increasing transmission. Theres no guarantee that the next wave wont be a virus that has, once again, increased virulence, like Delta.

Among Chakravarty's take-aways from the Russian Flu: "The body count can still pile up" over several years, even if a disease isn't incredibly transmissible and has a relatively low fatality rate, as was the case with the Russian Flu.

Even so, "mortality bounced around," he said. "There wasn't a steady decrease toward endemicity."

Regardless, COVID is "much more contagious" than the Russian Flu was, Chakravarty cautionsand the world is much better connected than it was in the industrial era, allowing for greater ease of disease spread.

COVID has a "screamingly high" transmission rateone person with Omicron infects, on average, eight to nine others, making it nearly as infectious as mumpsand the duration of immunity is low, he cautioned.

"You can sneeze in Wuhan in the morning and someone can be really ill the next day in Frankfurt."

The potential Russian Flu wave of 1900 is the last mention of the illness Bruessow sees in medical literature. There seem to have been seasonal, legitimate influenza outbreaks up until the onset of the Spanish Flu in 1918, after which major respiratory pandemics were all influenza related.

After that, theres no indication of a coronavirus causing a major epidemic in the 20th century," he said.

It's possible that a "very mild" coronavirus continued to circulate throughout the 20th century but was less impactful due to improvements in public health and quality of life, Ewing said.

During the early 20th century "health was getting better, mortality rates were decreasing, life expectancy was going up." This, in addition to tuberculous public health campaigns encouraging people to beware of coughing, sneezing, and spitting in public, may have blunted any circulating coronaviruses, he said.

While the Spanish Flu may not be the best lens through which to view COVID-19, it does contain pertinent lessons, Bruessow contends.

While the Spanish Flu is generally thought to have subsided in 1919 after three waves, later waves occurred periodically in the late 1920s into the 1940ssome as virulent as the initial Spanish Flu, with even higher mortality, he contends.

As U.S. COVID czar Dr. Anthony Fauci and colleagues pointed out in a 2009 New England Journal of Medicine article, "It is not generally appreciated that descendants of the H1N1 influenza A virus that caused the catastrophic and historic pandemic of 1918-1919 have persisted in humans for more than 90 [now 100] years and have continued to contribute their genes to new viruses, causing new pandemics," including the 2009 H1N1 "swine flu."

"We are living in a pandemic era that began around 1918," they wrote 13 years agolong before the advent of COVID-19.

Bruessow agrees with Fauci and his colleagues that viruses do not simply disappear."

"They change and hopefully they adapt and behave," Bruessow said. "But there are still some escapes, and we might see a return with higher virulence. Vigilance is indicated.

Chakravarty is of a similar mindset but cautions that one can't draw too many inferences from any particular pandemic, regardless of similarities.

"Each new pandemic, new plague is a new chapter in the history books," he said. "Your mileage may vary."

But one thing remains constant.

"There's no two-year timeline for pandemics," he warned.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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Curious if, or when, COVID-19 will end? Meet the Russian Flu, a forgotten pandemic from the late 1800s that might still linger today - Yahoo Finance

Confirmed cases of COVID-19 have passed 505 million globally, according to Johns Hopkins University. The number of confirmed deaths has now passed 6.19 million. More than 11.47 billion vaccination doses have been administered globally, according to Our World in Data.

Pfizer and BioNTech have said that a third dose of their COVID-19 vaccine produced significant protection against the Omicron variant in healthy children aged 5-11 in a trial.

The Moderna COVID-19 vaccine has been approved for use in children between six and 11 by Britain's medicines regulator.

Life expectancy in the United States fell by nearly two years in 2020 to about 77 years amid the COVID-19 pandemic. It was the sharpest drop among 21 other high-income countries, according to a global study.

It comes as the US extends its COVID-19 public health emergency for at least three more months. A mandate requiring travellers to wear masks on airplanes, trains and in transit hubs has also been extended by 15 days to 3 May.

Hong Kong, SAR, has confirmed it will ease some COVID-19 restrictions from 21 April.

South Korea is set to offer a second COVID-19 vaccine booster shot to people aged over 60. "The government plans to expand the fourth round of vaccination to those aged 60 and older," Health Minister Kwon Deok-cheol told a meeting, adding the infection rate in the age group has continued to rise to stand above 20%.

Almost all residents of Indonesia's most populous island of Java have antibodies against COVID-19, owing to a combination of prior infection and vaccination against the virus, a government-commissioned survey showed.

A Japanese Health Ministry committee said on April 17 it had approved Novavax's COVID-19 vaccine.

Shanghai reported a record number of symptomatic COVID-19 cases on Saturday and other areas across China tightened controls as the country kept up its "dynamic clearance" approach that aims to stamp out the highly transmissible Omicron variant.

Daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases per million people in selected countries.

Image: Our World in Data

The COVID Response Alliance to Social Entrepreneurs - soon to continue its work as the Global Alliance for Social Entrepreneurship - was launched in April 2020 in response to the devastating effects of the pandemic. Co-founded by the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship together with Ashoka, Echoing Green, GHR Foundation, Skoll Foundation, and Yunus Social Business.

The Alliance provides a trusted community for the worlds leading corporations, investors, governments, intermediaries, academics, and media who share a commitment to social entrepreneurship and innovation.

Since its inception, it has since grown to become the largest multi-stakeholder coalition in the social enterprise sector: its 90+ members collectively support over 100,000 social entrepreneurs across the world. These entrepreneurs, in turn, have a direct or indirect impact on the lives of an estimated 2 billion people.

Together, they work to (i) mobilize support for social entrepreneurs and their agendas; (ii) take action on urgent global agendas using the power of social entrepreneurship, and (iii) share insights from the sector so that social entrepreneurs can flourish and lead the way in shaping an inclusive, just and sustainable world.

The Alliance works closely together with member organizations Echoing Green and GHR Foundation, as well as the Centre for the New Economy and Society on the roll out of its 2022 roadmap (soon to be announced).

Global confirmed COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic have passed 500 million. It comes as the highly contagious BA.2 sub-variant of Omicron continues to drive cases across Europe and Asia.

The BA.2 variant now makes up about 86% of all sequenced cases globally, according to the World Health Organization. It is known to be more transmissible than the BA.1 and BA.1.1 Omicron sub-variants. Evidence so far, though, suggests BA.2 is no more likely to cause severe disease.

Scientists continue to emphasize vaccines are critical for avoiding the devastation the virus can cause.

More than 6 million people around the world are confirmed to have died of COVID-19.

India's tally of daily confirmed COVID-19 cases almost doubled on April 18 from the previous day, hitting 2,000 for the first time in a month. The southern state of Kerala also reported a big jump in deaths.

India was at the centre of the global COVID crisis this time last year but the situation has improved since then and most precautions including the wearing of masks have recently been dropped.

But COVID-19 cases have been creeping up in the country of 1.35 billion people in the past few days.

Delhi last week tightened COVID precautions for schools and neighbouring Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state, again made masks compulsory in public places in some districts.

Authorities reported 2,183 new infections on April 18, taking the running total to more than 43 million, according to health ministry data.

Written by

Joe Myers, Writer, Formative Content

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

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COVID-19: What you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic - World Economic Forum

In the first year of the pandemic, at least four people in Michigan were infected with a version of the coronavirus observed mostly in mink, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed on Monday.

The cluster, which previously included just three cases, represents the first known instance of possible animal-to-human transmission of the virus in the United States.

Two of the infected were employees of a Michigan mink farm that experienced a coronavirus outbreak in October 2020. The other two had no known links to the farm, suggesting that the mink variant may have been circulating more widely among area residents at the time.

Samples of the virus collected from all four people contained two mutations that scientists have hypothesized may be signs of adaptation to mink, Dr. Casey Barton Behravesh, who directs the C.D.C.s One Health Office, said in an email on Monday.

The mutations have previously been documented in farmed mink in Europe, as well as in people with connections to those farms.

This, in addition to the mink farm workers testing positive for Covid-19 after the mink herd had begun experiencing illness and increased mortality, suggests that the most likely hypothesis is that the workers were infected after contact with mink on the farm, Dr. Barton Behravesh said.

But that cannot be conclusively proved, she noted.

Because there are few genetic sequences available from the communities around the farm, it is impossible to know for sure whether the mutations came from mink on the farm or were already circulating in the community, she said.

National Geographic first reported the fourth human case, after obtaining government documents about the mink farm outbreak under the Freedom of Information Act.

Last year, The Detroit Free Press and the Documenting Covid-19 project reported on the first three cases, which included the two farm workers and a taxidermist who had no known connection to the mink farm, according to emails obtained by the two organizations.

On Monday, they reported that the fourth case had been the taxidermists wife.

In early October 2020, Michigan officials announced that the virus had been detected in mink on a local farm and that several of the animals had died. Upon the states request, the C.D.C. deployed a team to help investigate the outbreak.

The investigators collected samples from animals and human workers on the farm, as well as people in the surrounding community, Dr. Barton Behravesh said. In March 2021, the C.D.C. updated its website to note that a small number of people had contracted a version of the virus that contained unique mink-related mutations.

This suggests mink-to-human spread might have occurred, the agency said, noting that all of the human patients had recovered.

But the first human cases, in two workers on the affected mink farm, were identified as early as Nov. 4, months before the agency updated its website, National Geographic reported.

C.D.C. became aware of genetic sequencing data indicating possible mink-to-human transmission in late 2020, Dr. Barton Behravesh said.

The agency then worked with other federal and state officials to analyze that data, she added: Information was published on the C.D.C. website as soon as it became clear there was possible mink to human spread.

Mink-to-human transmission has also been reported in Denmark, the Netherlands and elsewhere.

Overall, transmission of the virus from animals to humans is believed to be rare. Humans are far more likely to spread the virus to one another, or to other species, than they are to catch it from animals, experts say.

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Four Americans Were Infected With a Virus Variant Seen in Mink - The New York Times

We regularly answer frequently asked questions about life during the coronavirus crisis. If you have a question you'd like us to consider for a future post, email us at goatsandsoda@npr.org with the subject line: "Weekly Coronavirus Questions." See an archive of our FAQs here.

Many of us are returning from spring break travel and holiday celebrations with loved ones just as cases in parts of the United States and in some other countries are starting to tick back up.

Testing for COVID is as critical now as it was in earlier stages of the pandemic in order to understand where cases are rising and so that you can seek treatment.

So you may be wondering: When do I need to test now? And can I trust a first test result?

First off: If you develop COVID-like symptoms, test as soon as possible.

And let's assume you're going to self-test because you don't have easy access to a facility that offers PCR tests and/or your insurance doesn't cover it and/or you don't want to wait extra time for results rather than an instant read off a do-it-yourself antigen test.

So you take that home test... and it's negative. Are you in the clear? Maybe, but not definitively. Our experts suggest testing again after a couple of days.

Your body's response to SARS-CoV-2 infection depends on your level of immunity from previous encounters with the virus and from vaccines and boosters.

So it's possible that the negative result is correct and you simply didn't get infected.

Or you might not have enough "viral load" in the early stages of being infected to test positive. That can happen if you have some degree of immunity from a prior case or a vaccination but you get infected anyway (see: Nancy Pelosi).

That's why experts recommend testing at least twice. Test number one would come when you first have concerns that you are infected based on symptoms.

And if you've been exposed to someone with COVID or were in a higher-risk situation (traveling, karaoke party, Gridiron dinner) and then plan to be around an older relative or a child too young to be vaccinated or someone who's immune-compromised?

"If you are going to be around the vulnerable population that can't be protected from the disease and, unfortunately, we have a lot of people that fall into that category then you should do everything in your power to try and make sure you don't have the virus," said Omai Garner, director of clinical microbiology in the UCLA Health System.

You might be tempted to test right away to ease your anxiety. But the recommendation from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is to wait five days after a possible exposure.

It takes a little while for the virus to build up in your body. Testing too soon might give you a false negative.

"You can't take a pregnancy test the day after intercourse to see if you're pregnant, right?" Bergstrom said. The rapid test for COVID is "an excellent test it just has to be used properly and at the right time."

And there's a reason tests come in pairs of two, Garner said. "You need to use them in the pair that they come in, and have multiple days in between, in order to be sure."

And for that second test, waiting a few hours doesn't count because your viral load still might not be high enough to detect. Testing experts suggest an interval of 48 hours before a second test.

Now if you do go for a PCR test, you won't have quite the same concerns. That's because for rapid home tests to turn positive, you need a higher viral load: Those antigen tests don't amplify the sample as PCR tests do.

For those with prior immunity to the virus, "most people feel that a PCR is positive 24 hours sooner than the rapid," says Ida Bergstrom, an internal medicine physician at a medical and travel clinic that conducts testing in Washington, D.C.t.

If you've developed symptoms after close, significant contact, you might consider getting a PCR even after negative rapid tests.

"If your husband is positive, and you develop symptoms, and you have a negative rapid and then the subsequent day you have a negative rapid I would still personally do a PCR before I called myself in the clear," Bergstrom says.

And should I contact my doctor if I have a positive test?

YES. There are a few reasons why.

If you are at risk of severe outcomes because of your age or preexisting conditions, you should try to get highly effective antivirals or monoclonal antibodies as soon as you test positive. The faster you can get the treatments, the better they work but they can only be prescribed after a positive test.

Even if you're not at high risk, you should let your doctor know of your positive test so that they can help you monitor your symptoms and have a more complete record of your health history.

This is a really important step, because you could go on to develop long COVID even after a mild illness, even if you were previously healthy. Between 10 to 50% of people who recover from COVID have long-term symptoms.

"If your symptoms linger or if there's any question with disability or anything in the future, it's nice that there's a trail," Bergstrom said.

Insurance companies may not cover treatments for long COVID if you don't have documented evidence of a positive test, and you may not be able to apply for disability without it.

It's also a great idea to report your home test results to your local health department, if that's an option, so that they can track local cases. Some states and cities also offer services like deferred rent or mortgage assistance for those who test positive.

Melody Schreiber (@m_scribe) is a journalist and the editor of What We Didn't Expect: Personal Stories About Premature Birth.

Excerpt from:

COVID home tests are still critical but there's confusion about test protocols : Goats and Soda - NPR

(CNN) Although a federal judgestruck downthe Biden administrations mask mandate forpublic transportationMonday, some experts say you dont want to throw out your mask just yet. No matter the form of public transportation planes, trains, trams, subways, buses or even rideshares good ventilation can help reducethe spread of Covid-19, but masks work best.

You cant engineer your way out of a problem like this, saidKrystal Pollitt, an assistant professor of epidemiology and assistant professor in chemical and environmental engineering at the Yale Institute for Global Health.

Someone infected with Covid-19 releases aerosols that contain the coronavirus when they talk, laugh or simply exhale. If the person isnt wearing a mask to block those aerosols, they can hang in the air and be inhaled by other people nearby.

Outdoors, viral particles may disperse with even a light wind. But indoors, where there is no wind, particles tend to concentrate and hang around. Good ventilation can help break up the concentration of viral particles, but it cant do everything.

Ventilation is great, but we know if we are outside, the risks are lower. Being able to re-create the same amount of airflow that you would have with just your natural wind patterns in a confined indoor space thats heavily occupied is incredibly hard to do, Pollitt said. Outside of putting yourself into, say, a wind tunnel, which obviously wouldnt be comfortable for many reasons or energy-wise, we have to think about whats realistic.

On public transportation of any kind, a heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system sucks in air from outside, treats it and pushes it into the cabin or car. Its a closed-loop system that can pull a little bit of fresh air.

A bus or subway car can have 10 to 18 air exchanges per hour on the low side, according to Jim Alosi, a former Massachusetts secretary of transportation who is now a lecturer on transportation policy planning at MITs Department of Urban Studies and Planning; on the high side, it might have 40 to 50.

Everything depends on the age of the equipment, Alosi said. Older systems are not as efficient as newer ones.

Ventilated air that iswell-mixedhas good circulation and is relatively safe, saidVarghese Mathai, an assistant professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst who has done studies on how the coronavirus spreads in an environment.

But when ventilation is not as good, the air is not so well-mixed, and there can be zones inside a room with a higher concentration of particles.

One cant really predict where these zones are not well-mixed in a room. Really, its a multidimensional problem, and its not easy to predict in a not-so-well-mixed room how safe it is to stay for an extended duration of time, Mathai said.

And if the transportation system wants maximum efficiency to cool or heat the air in a cabin, it can shut off the air intake and use whats already inside,explained Aly Tawfik, director of the Fresno State Transportation Institute and an assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Geomatics Engineering at California State University, Fresno.

Buses have filters, just like the ones inside our vehicles, Tawfik said. But they are not designed for viruses like the coronavirus or the flu virus.

In May 2020, Tawfik and his team didan experimentto see how a virus could spread through buses with a typical ventilation system.

Using nontoxic colored candles and steam, they simulated how air flowed in a variety of buses. They found thatHVAC systems are extremely efficient and hold cool or the warm air inside a bus a lot longer than some may expect.

When the team introduced smoke, they saw that it spread in seconds and filled the whole cabin. Even when they opened the doors and introduced fresh air into the HVAC systems, the smoke lingered for minutes. The researchers think the virus behaves like the smoke did and could linger even after an infected person has left a bus.

These were unpleasant findings, because it means that opening the doors and windows doesnt help much, Tawfik said. The systems were designed to treat air fast and keep it inside the cabin for a long period of time.

With another experiment, the team tried to see if they could treat the air to make it safer. They tested the buses with three viruses that were similar to the coronavirus.

Cooling the air mitigated an average of about 80% of the viruses, and heating was at about 90%.

That does not necessarily mean that its safe, because this 10% is still millions of viruses, Tawfik said. For one thing, its not clear how much of the virus virus it takes to infect someone.

HEPA filters mitigated about 94% of the viruses. Ionizers were a little less efficient, but photocatalytic oxidation and UV lights were better. UV lights in the HVAC system removed about 99% of the viruses.

Northern Californias BART system and New Yorks Metro system are among those that have introduced some of these technologies during the pandemic.

People can catch Covid-19 on planes, especially when an infected person isnt wearing a mask,studies have shown,but a planes air system is much stronger than one on a bus or train.

Airplanes use HEPA filters that can capture about 99% of particles in the air. They also have better air circulation when flying. Air is typically fed in through the top of the cabin, extracted by floor vents, fed through those filters and eventually sent back into the cabin.

Planesbring in air in a top-to-bottom direction about 20 to 30 times per hour, creating a 50-50 mix of outside and recirculated air and reducing the potential spread of the virus. So the risk of getting sick is low, the experts say.

However, people are usually on planes a lot longer than they may be on a subway or on a bus, and more time in a crowded plane can increase someones exposure.

When a plane is parked, it does not have that superior circulation.

Airplane systems are a little similar to bus systems when they are on the ground, Tawfik said. Thats why youll notice the temperature isnt as well-regulated then, and its also when there isnt the same amount of fresh air circulating. Its then dealing with the same challenges.

Uber and Lyft have dropped their mask mandates, and many taxi companies have stopped requiring masks.

Infection in a car is certainly possible,studies show.

You can always wear a mask, and some experts suggest opening car windows and keeping talk to a minimum. Keep in mind that shorter rides are also better than longer ones.

Alosi said there are things that transportation systems could do to mitigate some of the risk. Trains and buses could run more often so there arent as many people on board, for instance.

He says it could help to require people to show proof of vaccination if they want to get on a train or plane. That probably wouldnt work with subways or buses, though, nor would it fly politically.

Alosi thinks public transportation has been unfairly stigmatized. If youre not up in arms about people being unmasked in the grocery store, you should chill out about public transit, he said.

Even before masks were mandatory on public transportation,studies have found, mass transit systems dont seem to be major drivers of viral spread.

And although its not mandatory, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still recommends that people wear masks in indoor public transportation settings.

When you spend significant duration indoors, you obviously inhale, and if you have co-occupants who are potentially infected, you can inhale these tiny droplets that can get you sick, Mathai said.

Ventilation absolutely helps, he said, but protecting yourself can take multiple tools of mitigation. Masks really reduce the momentum of these released aerosol droplets.

A maskcan even protect youwhen others arent wearing them.

Just wearing a mask is a such a simple solution to increasing the level of safety, Pollitt said. Putting one on, its an easy thing to do.

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Ventilation helps make public transit safer from spread of Covid-19, experts say, but masks are better - WISH TV Indianapolis, IN