Category Archives: Corona Virus

Ian Sheer, a Keller Army Community Hospital at West Point nursing student, administers a coronavirus booster shot to Master Sgt. Jose Rivera of the 1179th Transportation Surface Brigade during a booster shot clinic at the U.S. Army Garrison Fort Hamilton, N.Y., on Feb. 24, 2022. (Connie Dillon/U.S. Army )

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WASHINGTON The Army has issued its first three separations for soldiers who refused to get their mandatory coronavirus vaccinations, the service announced Friday.

The Army is the last of the service branches to begin kicking out troops who do not get the shots. Technically, the three soldiers were separated for refusing a lawful order to receive the vaccine, according to the Army.

The announcement comes more than three months after the Armys deadline to receive the vaccine, and about six weeks after Army Secretary Christine Wormuth ordered service commanders on Jan. 31 to begin the process of involuntarily separating vaccine refusers as expeditiously as possible.

While the Army had not separated any soldiers until this week, the Army relieved six service leaders from command including two battalion commanders and issued 3,251 general officer written reprimands to soldiers for refusing the vaccination order.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered all service members to receive the vaccine in August, but allowed each service to determine their own timelines.

Last week, the Army approved its first permanent religious waiver for the vaccine order. The service has granted one more as of Friday, according to an Army statement released Friday.

About 702 active-duty soldiers have been denied a religious exemption, while another 3,943 are awaiting decisions on their religious waiver requests.

The Army also has approved seven permanent medical exemptions to the vaccine, as of Friday. The service has denied 658 permanent waiver requests and another 692 are awaiting decisions.

Those denied exemptions to the Armys vaccine mandate have seven days to start the vaccination process or file an appeal of their denial before commanders are to begin the process of kicking them out, according to Wormuths January order.

Some 96% of the Armys about 486,000 active-duty soldiers have been fully vaccinated and another 1% were partially inoculated, the service said Friday. Those percentages remain unchanged from the previous week.

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Army kicks outs its first three coronavirus vaccine refusers - Stars and Stripes

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. Booster coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine doses will no longer be required for New York State health-care workers, according to a recent report.

The New York State Public Health and Health Planning Council voted on Thursday to no longer require health-care workers to receive a COVID-19 booster, stated a report by WETM-18 News, in Elmira, N.Y. The change in policy needs to be added to the State Registry before it becomes effective, according to the media outlet.

Gov. Kathy Hochul first mandated the booster in January, citing the effectiveness of the vaccine mandate for keeping health-care workers safe.

Many health-care associations, hospitals and workers themselves spoke out against the mandate, saying it would lead to further staffing shortages. Some associations, like the Health Care Association of New York State, asked for a 90-day extension before the booster mandate went into effect.

To help protect some of our most vulnerable New Yorkers from COVID-19, today the Public Health and Health Planning Council (PHHPC) extended the original vaccination requirement for health-care workers that has remained in effect since last year and does not renew the booster dose requirement for health-care workers, the state Health Department said, according to the report.

In light of concerns about potential staffing issues, on Feb. 18, the New York State Department of Health announced it would not enforce the mandate requiring health-care workers get a COVID-19 booster shot. As a result of the health-care worker vaccine requirement, hospital workers and long-term staff have a completed vaccine series of 98 and 99 percent, respectively, the statement continued.

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Coronavirus booster to no longer be mandated for health-care workers, report says - SILive.com

WASHINGTON Over the past 10 months, as tens of millions of children and teenagers received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, the companies main rival, Moderna, sat on the sidelines, its shot limited to adults.

But Moderna may now be poised for a comeback at a critical juncture in the nations vaccination campaign. The company is expected to send federal officials initial data this week on how well its coronavirus vaccine works for the nations youngest children.

About 18 million children under the age of 5 are the only Americans not yet eligible for vaccination. And while uptake for older children has been slow, many parents are still anxiously awaiting the chance to protect their babies, toddlers and preschoolers.

Moderna is going head-to-head with Pfizer-BioNTech for the opportunity to vaccinate this group, hoping it has found what some scientists are calling the Goldilocks dose: strong enough to offer lasting protection, but not so strong that it causes widespread worrisome side effects, such as high fevers.

Moderna has opted for a regimen of two doses at a quarter the strength of its adult dose for children under 6. Pfizer is expected to seek authorization next month for a three-shot regimen for children under 5, with doses one-tenth as strong as those for people aged 12 and up.

Moderna is also expected to release data soon from its clinical trial on the next age group up: children aged 6 to 11.

Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, a Stanford professor of pediatric infectious diseases and a lead investigator at the Stanford site of Pfizers pediatric vaccine trials, said new data from both Moderna and BioNTech in the coming weeks will offer critical insight into the effectiveness of their pediatric shots. She said researchers are watching carefully to see if Modernas stronger doses result in more robust immune responses than Pfizers shots have elicited in young children.

A series of new studies raising questions about how long Pfizers lower doses protect elementary-school-age children has piqued interest among federal scientists and vaccine experts in Modernas choices.

Dr. Ofer Levy, a pediatric expert at Harvard Medical School and a member of the Food and Drug Administrations independent vaccine advisory committee, said he thought Pfizer might have selected too low a dose for 5- to 11-year-olds in the understandable priority to maximize safety.

To date, Pfizer has been the only player in vaccinating younger Americans, winning authorization to vaccinate 12- to 15-year-olds last May, followed by 5- to 11-year-olds in October. Its authorization for adults also covers 16- and 17-year-olds.

Moderna sought authorization to vaccinate teenagers last June, but the F.D.A. delayed considering the request because of concerns about the risk of myocarditis, a condition involving inflammation of the heart that has been tied to both the Moderna and the Pfizer shots.

More than 22 million people in the United States under 18 are now fully vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine, but uptake has been leveling off. Only roughly one in four children ages 5 to 11 are fully vaccinated, for example, even though shots have been offered to that group for more than four months.

But there is still a demand to protect the youngest children as more of the country unmasks, more parents return to workplaces and the summer travel season approaches.

Compared with adults, there is no question that in children the benefit of an effective vaccine is less, because fewer get really sick, said Dr. Eric Rubin, an infectious disease expert at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a member of an advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration.

But it will benefit some individuals, he said. It will save some lives. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 336 children in the United States under the age of 5 have died of Covid since the start of the pandemic.

Hopes that the youngest children would soon be covered surged last month after regulators pressed Pfizer-BioNTech to submit preliminary results from its three-dose trial. The F.D.A. wanted to get the vaccination campaign underway with two doses while awaiting final results on three.

March 18, 2022, 7:05 p.m. ET

But that effort collapsed when new data from Pfizer that encompassed more of the Omicron surge showed convincingly that two doses failed to protect adequately against symptomatic infection.

Now, more detailed results from Pfizers and Modernas trials are materializing at roughly the same time. And while neither company knows yet whether its vaccines will prove effective enough for the youngest age group, but both say their research shows they are safe.

We have not seen anything untoward right now, so we feel confident in the safety profile, Dr. Paul Burton, Modernas chief medical officer, said in an interview.

Amy Rose, Pfizers spokeswoman, has said that after careful research, Pfizer-BioNTech chose the safest and most tolerable dose for young children. The companies have said they are hopeful that a three-shot regimen will provide strong protection for children under the age of 5. Pfizer is testing a 10-microgram dose for 5- to 11-year-olds, a third of the adult and teenage dosing; and 3 micrograms for children under 5.

Moderna is proposing substantially higher dosing than Pfizer in all three pediatric age groups: 100 micrograms, the full adult dose, for those ages 12 to 17; 50 micrograms in children 6 to 11, and 25 micrograms in those under 6. Regulators are considered likely to review the firms data for all three age groups simultaneously.

We really stand behind those doses, Dr. Burton said. Although federal officials say both Pfizer and Modernas vaccines wane in potency over time, some studies of adults have suggested that Modernas protection holds up longer. I think it comes down to dose, Dr. Burton said.

He said initial results showed a 50-microgram Moderna dose prompted a robust immune response in children 6 to 11. While the overall number of infections was small, researchers hope that trial will help reveal how well the vaccine prevents illness, not just how high it boosts antibody levels.

Dr. Philip Krause, who recently retired as a senior vaccine regulator at the F.D.A., said the agency spent significant time last year worrying about the safety of Modernas vaccine for those under 18, with some studies showing a higher risk of myocarditis from the companys shot than from Pfizers.

The question is always: What is the dose that gives rise to an immune response that we think is likely to be protective? he said. You couldnt actually test to figure out the rate of myocarditis since its rare, but you could ask, What are we sacrificing in immune response by lowering the dose, and do we think thats important?

Partly because of concerns about myocarditis, the C.D.C. recently encouraged some people 12 or older, particularly boys and men between 12 and 39, to wait eight weeks between their first and second Pfizer or Moderna shots. Studies have shown that teenage boys and young men are most at risk of developing the side effect.

Dr. Burton said that overall the research had proved reassuring, including recent British data that showed myocarditis was very rare and typically mild in both Pfizer and Moderna recipients.

But Dr. Walid F. Gellad, a drug safety expert at the University of Pittsburgh, said it remained unclear whether Modernas higher dosing might elevate the risk of myocarditis in young children. The companys pediatric studies are most likely much too small to identify the risk of the side effect, he and other experts said.

Modernas new push also comes after several studies raised questions about the protection that two doses of Pfizer-BioNTechs vaccine provide for children 5 to 11. Researchers in New York States health department recently found that protection against infection from two doses faded significantly within weeks.

C.D.C. researchers separately found that during the Omicron wave, the effectiveness of two doses of the Pfizer shot against moderate forms of the disease in children ages 5 to 11 dropped significantly.

The studies have kindled a debate among vaccine experts about whether a stronger dose would have been better or whether those children need third doses. Booster shots are now authorized for everyone 12 and up. Pfizer expects results from its study of a three-dose regimen for the younger children next month.

Dr. Gellad said it was possible the Pfizer dose for 5- to 11-year-olds may have been too weak, but that scientists could not yet be certain. He said he expected regulators would be especially careful in considering higher doses for young children given the comparatively low risks of them catching Covid now and getting severely ill.

Amid all the questions, one thing is clear: The back and forth over which vaccine will be better for young children could discourage uptake.

Alison M. Buttenheim, a behavioral health expert at the University of Pennsylvania, said those considering vaccination found comfort in certainty. Otherwise, thats just going to pave the way to say, Im going to hold off, she said. A lot of people are uncomfortable with evolving science.

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Which Coronavirus Vaccine Will Work in the Youngest Children? - The New York Times

(The Hill) White House adviserAnthony Fauci is warning that COVID-19 infection rates are likely to rise in the next few weeks in the United States after their dramatic drop following the omicron variants rapid spread across the country.

I would not be surprised if in the next few weeks, we see somewhat of either a flattening of our diminution or maybe even an increase, Fauci said on theABC News podcast Start Here,ABC News reported.

Whether or not that is going to lead to another surge, a mini-surge or maybe even a moderate surge, is very unclear because there are a lot of other things that are going on right now, he added.

Cases have fallen heavily across the nation over the last two months, with the average number of new cases totally just over 30,000.

Faucis prediction is based on the United Kingdom, where cases have slightly started to go up, although their intensive care bed usage is not going up, which means theyre not seeing a blip up of severe disease, Fauci added.

The increase in cases comes as the BA.2 variant is seeing an uptick in the U.S., with Fauci predicting on the podcast the variant will overtake omicron in the future.

The U.S. has just begun easing COVID-19 restrictions after two years of pandemic policies such as masking and social distancing.

All U.S. states have dropped their mask mandates as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said most areas in the U.S. did not need to require masks indoors.

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Fauci warns COVID-19 infection rates likely to increase - WGN TV Chicago

Last November, having alerted the world to the new and highly transmissible Omicron variant of the Sars-CoV-2 virus, South Africa-based scientist Tulio de Oliveira saw that country hit with travel bans.

Already smarting at what he saw as wealthier nations hoarding of vaccines, antiviral drugs and test reagents, his frustration spilled over. If the world keeps punishing Africa for the discovery of Omicron and global health scientists keep taking the data, who will share early data again? he tweeted.

Two years into this pandemic, as the World Health Organization (WHO) mulls the tricky question of when to call it over and some countries, including the UK, pre-empt that decision, the worlds attention is turning to the future.

How do we improve our response to the next pandemic?

There are two main challenges: improving the surveillance of pathogens; and ensuring vaccine equity.

And as De Oliveira intimated, these are linked. Not only morally, but for the first time in pandemic history, legally.

It used to be that living organisms, including pathogens, were considered humanitys common heritage, and sharing them for scientific purposes happened informally.

That changed with the UNs 1992 convention on biological diversity (CBD), which states that countries have sovereign rights over genetic resources found on their territory.

Under an annex to that convention, the Nagoya protocol, the host country can set terms for accessing those resources and for ensuring the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from them.

Covid-19 is the first pandemic since Nagoya entered into force in 2014, but the spirit of the protocol has not been respected. Starting with China in January 2020, countries have shared Sars-CoV-2-related data freely, demanding nothing in return.

That data has driven revolutions in vaccinology, pathogen sequencing and data collection. But the fruits of those revolutions have not been shared equitably.

Just 14% of people in low-income countries have received at least one vaccine dose, compared with about 80% in high- and upper middle-income countries.

The WHO is now proposing several separate initiatives to improve surveillance, including two Europe-based hubs for the international sharing of pathogen data and samples. But these proposals, too, effectively ignore Nagoya.

The WHO expects countries to contribute to the hubs for the common good, possibly even on pain of sanctions. Though it has been vocal about the need for vaccine equity, none of the current proposals explicitly address benefit-sharing.

Were treating pathogen-sharing as a common good, but were not treating vaccines and medical countermeasures as a common good, sayslegal scholar Mark Eccleston-Turner of Kings College London.

Eccleston-Turner says human pathogens should be excluded from Nagoya and vaccines should be similarly reclassified.

Practically, he suggests, this might be enshrined in a pandemic treaty the WHO is working on, that could apportion intellectual property (IP) rights according to the ratio of public-private investment in vaccine development.

The three or four leading coronavirus vaccines all took a different route to market, but one thing they have in common, according to IP law specialist Luke McDonagh of the London School of Economics, is that the public bore most of the risk and the drug companies maintained most of the IP.

More of the IP should stay in the public domain, he says, reflecting taxpayers investment. McDonagh points to research showing private-sector claims that reducing their IP dominance would dilute innovation do not hold up, and gives the example of antiretroviral drugs for HIV the subject of an earlier IP battle.

The fact of generic production in the global south has not affected incentives for HIV research in the rich countries, he says.

But changing the status quo via a new treaty may not be easy without government backing, he admits, and the UK and EU are among those whose current stance on patents suggests they might oppose it. Sharing knowhow and building up vaccine manufacturing capacity globally are also vital for achieving vaccine equity, he says, and the WHO is promoting both.

There may be a radically different solution: leave pathogens in Nagoya and respect its insistence on equitable benefit-sharing.

There is a precedent, says Edward Hammond, a Texas-based consultant who has advised low- and middle-income countries on the implications of Nagoya. He points to a successful implementation of Nagoya in the WHOs own pandemic influenza preparedness (PIP) framework.

Through PIP, WHO member states share samples of flu viruses that have human pandemic potential, and the WHO receives a share of the benefits. It has generated over $250m [190m] in cash payments from vaccine [and other] companies, Hammond says.

Some have said applying Nagoya to pathogens would at best create delays in sharing and at worst give control to bad actors. In the event of another pandemic, some country might assert its rights over virus samples, keeping the rest of the world in the dark, Thomas Cueni, director general of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations, wrote in a blog post at Stat last November.

It is not just drug companies expressing that view. It is shared by some in public health. Three years ago, Vasee Moorthy, a senior science adviser at the WHO, worked on a study into the impact of Nagoya on public health. Certain people were worried that there might be delays, but we havent seen that, Moorthy says.

If anything, the study found that the protocol encourages pathogen-sharing by building trust that benefits will be fairly shared. As Moorthy says: Sharing is in everyones interests.

De Oliveira agrees. With its history of fighting HIV, he says, South Africa would never withhold crucial data whose rapid release it knows could potentially save millions of lives, but unfortunately not every country has this long-term experience or transparent government and they might withhold.

To avoid that, he says, containment measures including travel bans should be balanced by financial or other support.

Nagoya is not perfect, Hammond admits. For one thing, it only covers physical samples, not the digital sequence data that is increasingly all that is needed to make vaccines, tests and drugs though he and others are lobbying to change that.

But it does embrace the spirit of the era, with its accent on reciprocity. It allows for multilateral benefit sharing, as befits a pandemic. It could, he feels, have prevented or at least mitigated vaccine nationalism.

And PIP could provide the model for a better instrument that covers many pathogens, including the one that causes the next pandemic.

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How should the world respond to the next pandemic? - The Guardian

Two years on from the start of the coronavirus pandemic, let me tell you what life is like in my Hong Kong neighborhood. Playgrounds are wrapped in red-and-white caution tape and barricaded with plastic fencing to keep children out, and the swings have been tossed over the crossbar to ensure that no illicit amusement takes place. The governments disastrous public messaging about a possible citywide lockdown has led to widespread panic-buying, so gossip swapped while Im out walking my dog focuses on which shops have restocked.

All restaurants have to close at 6 p.m., and bars arent open at all. A restaurant down the street from my apartment now offers happy-hour deals starting at 10 a.m. Gyms, movie theaters, campsites, and beaches have been shut down entirely. If I want to take a walk on my own in a remote country park, I am legally required to wear a mask.

This situation feels all the more shocking because in early 2020, Hong Kong was ahead of the COVID curve, not lagging behind it. As soon as news emerged of a still-mysterious virus, everyone here began wearing masks and adapted to social distancing almost immediately; I wrote article after article about what life would look like in the weeks to come in America, having seen the future myself. While the West was caught off guard, Hong Kong felt prepared.

Now medical facilities are overwhelmed with sick patients, and because morgues have struggled to keep pace, body bags are piled up in hospitals alongside patients still receiving treatment. Coffins are being shipped in to meet the demand. Construction workers are racing to build isolation facilities, including one that looks like a wartime field hospital on the border with the mainland. Some 300,000 people are in isolation or under home quarantine. After recording only 213 deaths and about 13,000 cases of COVID-19 from January 2020 to early 2022, the city is swamped by the current Omicron wave, which began at the start of the year and has led to more than 960,000 cases and more than 4,600 deaths.

Hong Kong was lauded for controlling the coronaviruss spread with its zero-COVID strategy. It has ample vaccine doses. It is wealthy enough to support its poorest people if it chooses to. It has effectively shut down swaths of its economy, including its lucrative tourism sector, to battle the virus.

And yet this month, it recorded one of the highest COVID death rates in the world. What just happened?

Hong Kong has employed its zero-COVID strategy since the onset of the pandemic. The approach has not been as restrictive as the one used in mainland China, which calls for shutting down whole metropolises and testing their population over a handful of COVID cases. The city has an aggressive test-and-trace program, as well as toughened border controls, to catch infections and break transmission lines, and enacts social-distancing measures when cases spike. All of this helped Hong Kong buy itself time in the early stages of the pandemic, when vaccines were not available, keeping deaths to a minimum.

But now it clings to measures not based on sound science, and which experts have dismissed as largely performative (while also being heavily damaging to its travel- and service-based economy). It has neither pivoted to a more flexible approach nor prepared for an outbreak that analysts repeatedly warned was inevitable.

The missteps are almost too numerous to recount, but the worst ones have to do with Hong Kongs singular inability to vaccinate its population. The governments efforts were from the start imbued with politics and marred by poor messaging. It initially rushed through approval of the China-made Sinovac vaccine, and city leaders made a show of being inoculated with it, despite a better optionBioNTechs mRNA jabbeing available. (The large majority of deaths have been among the unvaccinated, but officials refuse to disclose data on which vaccine was administered to those who died after being vaccinated.) Press releases highlighting, with little context, the vaccines adverse effects were amplified by the media, leading to intense skepticism. Distrust in the government, still lingering from its handling of prodemocracy protests in 2019, did not help the cause. And most troubling has been the poor vaccination rate among the citys elderly population, a persistent problem. Today, just 55 percent of people older than 80 have received one vaccine shot, and 36 percent have received two.

Lam Ching-choi, a physician and a member of Chief Executive Carrie Lams cabinet, told me that the governments early reliance on family doctors to advise patients on vaccination was a mistake: Many warned the elderly to be cautious about receiving the vaccine. Predictably, COVID has swept through residential care homesmore than 29,000 elderly care-home residents have been infected during the current wave. Lam also told me that the government should have offered at-home vaccination for residents with mobility issues, and said the authorities would soon begin implementing that program. Yet it will start only next week, more than two months into the surge and more than a year after the vaccine rollout initially began.

The 21-day hotel quarantine required for all arrivals into Hong Kong, even for those without COVID, is dangerous and unscientific, experts told me, but the government has continued the practice anyway, leading to cross infections and a spike in cases. A government-funded study published last year warned about vaccine hesitancy, but officials did little beyond sloganeering and a perfunctory poster drive. The government also insisted on issuing compulsory testing notices to residents even when testing and quarantine facilities were already overloaded, leading to more stress on a teetering health system. Flight bans from countries including the United States and Britain are scheduled to be in place until next month, though the governments own advisers say there is no reason for this to continue.

In sum, decision makers ignored public-health expertise, driven instead by politics and overly enthusiastic efforts to show fealty to Beijing. The result has been an embarrassingly shambolic effort that has created a preventable public-health disaster, yet another glaring failure of governance from an administration whose defining characteristic is catastrophic ineptitude.

The question to ask, not unreasonably, would be: How come we either didnt have a good plan or didnt execute a good plan? Gabriel Leung, the dean of medicine at the University of Hong Kong and a pandemic-response adviser to the government, told me. When I asked whether he had any thoughts on the answer to that question, Leung responded, Suffice to say that we have done our very best to generate the best science to inform policy decisions. And, as Margaret Thatcher once said, Advisers advise; ministers decide. Lets put it at that.

Much of the world has struggled with various phases of the pandemic, but Hong Kongs difficulties are in no small part due to the fact that the city no longer has even its previous limited democratic accountability to push the government to review public-health decisions, thanks to a crackdown by Beijing and the imposition of a draconian national-security law. For varying reasons, many residents believed the governments fiction that only a small minority of people would be affected by these changes, but the mishandling of COVID has highlighted how the reengineering of Hong Kong will touch all aspects of life.

With opposition voices silenced, Hong Kongs rulers claimed they could more efficiently govern. But in the city legislature, overhauled last year to ensure that nationalism and obedience are valued over competence and political know-how, suggestions on how to tame the outbreak have included the wildly impractical (using cruise ships as temporary isolation facilities) and the patently absurd (dropping fresh food into Hong Kong by drone). Even this newfound sense of urgency on the part of lawmakers and the government has emerged only after Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke last month of the overriding mission to bring the current outbreak under control.

At the same time, pro-Beijing pundits and mainland officials have cast pandemic response, and adherence to dynamic zero COVID, as a loyalty test. (Determining what exactly dynamic zero COVID means is futile; the description shifts from official to official and day to day. Nevertheless, authorities insist that it shouldnt be questioned.) The director of Chinas Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office said this month that patriotic forces must forcefully expose, criticize, and sanction with laws the anti-China destabilizing forces who launched smearing attacks, spread rumors, and created panic to disrupt the anti-pandemic efforts. Addressing the United Nations, a Hong Kong doctor said that the idea of living with the virus was tantamount to the U.S. creating biological terrorists, in a melodramatic screed that seemed scripted for a comic-book villain. Hong Kongs civil service has become a targeted group, fingered as being polluted by Western ideas for questioning the COVID strategy.

Hong Kongs pandemic response definitely shows the NSL [national-security law] new order is not only about election and activists, but extends to all realms of life, Ho-Fung Hung, a professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and the author of the forthcoming book City on the Edge: Hong Kong Under Chinese Rule, told me by email.

As they did with the imposition of the national-security law, mainland officials felt the need to step in to address COVID-related problems that the Hong Kong government had created for itself, a move that has been met with slavish praise. Newspapers controlled by the Chinese government here have splashed their pages with adoration for workers arriving from over the border. Pro-Beijing lawmakers have rushed to social media to post their gratitude to the motherland for its support. My inbox fills up daily with statements thanking Beijing for taking control. The citys secretary of health applauded the mainlands donation of traditional Chinese medicine. (Authorities in Singapore, by contrast, have warned that there is no scientific evidence that one such remedy, called lianhua qingwen, can be used to prevent or treat COVID-19, while Australia has banned the sale of the treatment entirely.) The endless, unrestrained flattery seems akin to the celebration of an arsonist who lights his house on fire, cuts the water hose, and then cheers as the fire brigade arrives to extinguish the flames.

All the while, the broader political purge and repression of rights that was already under way in Hong Kong has carried on undisrupted. Half a dozen people were arrested and charged with sedition last month. In early March, the former head of the bar association, a British lawyer, was questioned by national-security police before he left the city, followed through the airport by reporters from Chinese state media. Authorities accused a U.K.-based rights group of endangering national security and demanded that it take down its website. Carrie Lam, the citys chief executive, employs wartime rhetoric as an excuse to exercise emergency powers. The longer the coronavirus outbreak persists, the more policies to combat it become intertwined with the ever-expanding security apparatus.

Listing Hong Kongs mistakes triggers a sense of dj vu: a politicized and inept response, an unwillingness to adapt existing strategies to the viruss mutations, an inability to overcome vaccine skepticism, long-running fissures in society torn open by COVID. For years, we were told by pro-Beijingers that these were the Wests problems, not ours.

Two years ago, we looked at the U.S. and Europe, dumbstruck at how badly they were managing the pandemic. Two years on, we are experiencing what Siddharth Sridhar, a virologist at the University of Hong Kong, describes as a plane crash in slow motion, having apparently learned little from the Westsor our ownexperience.

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What Happened to Hong Kong? - The Atlantic

The official global death toll from COVID-19 eclipsed 6 million on Monday - underscoring that the pandemic, now entering its third year, is far from over.

The milestone, recorded by Johns Hopkins University, is the latest tragic reminder of the unrelenting nature of the pandemic even as people are shedding masks, travel is resuming and businesses are reopening around the globe.

Remote Pacific islands, whose isolation had protected them for more than two years, are just now grappling with their first outbreaks and deaths, fueled by the highly contagious Omicron variant.

Hong Kong, which is seeing deaths soar, is testing its entire population of 7.5 million three times this month as it clings to mainland China's "zero-COVID" strategy.

As death rates remain high in Poland, Hungary, Romania and other Eastern European countries, the region has seen more than 1.5 million refugees arrive from war-torn Ukraine, a country with poor vaccination coverage and high rates of cases and deaths.

And despite its wealth and vaccine availability, the United States is nearing 1 million reported deaths on its own.

Death rates worldwide are still highest among people unvaccinated against the virus, said Tikki Pang, a visiting professor at the National University of Singapore's medical school and co-chair of the Asia Pacific Immunization Coalition.

"This is a disease of the unvaccinated - look what is happening in Hong Kong right now - the health system is being overwhelmed," said Pang, the former director of research policy and cooperation with the World Health Organization. "The large majority of the deaths and the severe cases are in the unvaccinated, vulnerable segment of the population."

It took the world seven months to record its first million deaths from the virus after the pandemic began in early 2020. Four months later another million people had died, and 1 million have died every three months since, until the death toll hit 5 million at the end of October. Now it has reached 6 million - more than the populations of Berlin and Brussels combined, or the entire state of Maryland.

But despite the enormity of the figure, the world undoubtedly hit its 6 millionth death some time ago. Poor record-keeping and testing in many parts of the world has led to an undercount in coronavirus deaths, in addition to excess deaths related to the pandemic but not from actual COVID-19 infections, like people who died from preventable causes but could not receive treatment because hospitals were full.

Edouard Mathieu, head of data for the Our World in Data portal, said that, when countries' excess mortality figures are studied, as many as nearly four times the reported death toll have likely died because of the pandemic.

An analysis of excess deaths by a team at The Economist estimates that the number of COVID-19 deaths is between 14.1 million and 23.8 million.

"Confirmed deaths represent a fraction of the true number of deaths due to COVID, mostly because of limited testing, and challenges in the attribution of the cause of death," Mathieu told The Associated Press. "In some, mostly rich countries, that fraction is high and the official tally can be considered to be fairly accurate, but in others it is highly underestimated."

The United States has the biggest official death toll in the world, but the numbers have been trending downward over the last month.

The world has seen more than 445 million confirmed COVID-19 cases, and new weekly cases have been declining recently in all regions except the Western Pacific, which includes China, Japan and South Korea, among others, the World Health Organization reported this week.

Although the overall figures in the Pacific islands seeing their first outbreaks are small compared to larger countries, they are significant among their tiny populations and threaten to overwhelm fragile health care systems.

"Given what we know about COVID ... it's likely to hit them for the next year or so at least," said Katie Greenwood, head of the Red Cross Pacific delegation.

Tonga reported its first outbreak after the virus arrived with international aid vessels following the Jan. 15 eruption of a massive volcano that was followed by a tsunami. It now has several hundred cases but - with 66% of its population fully vaccinated - it has so far reported people suffering mostly mild symptoms and no deaths.

The Solomon Islands saw the first outbreak in January and now has thousands of cases and more than 100 deaths. The actual death toll is likely much higher, with the capital's hospital overwhelmed and many dying at home, Greenwood said.

Only 12% of Solomon Islanders are fully vaccinated, though the outbreak has provided new impetus to the country's vaccination campaign and 29% now have at least one shot.

Global vaccine disparity continues, with only 6.95% of people in low-income countries fully vaccinated compared to more than 73% in high-income nations, according to Our World in Data.

In a good sign, at the end of last month Africa surpassed Europe in the number of doses administered daily, but only about 12.5% of its population has received two shots.

The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is still pressing for more vaccines, though it has been a challenge. Some shipments arrive with little warning for countries' health systems and others near the expiration date - forcing doses to be destroyed.

Eastern Europe has been particularly hard hit by the omicron variant, and with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a new risk has emerged as hundreds of thousands of people flee to places like Poland on crowded trains. Health officials there have been offering free vaccinations to all refugees but have not been making them test upon arrival or quarantine.

"This is really tragic because great stress has a very negative effect on natural immunity and increases the risk of infections," said Anna Boron-Kaczmarska, a Polish infectious disease specialist. "They are in very high stress, being afraid for their lives, the lives of their children, their family members."

The Biden administration plans to begin stockpiling millions of at-home tests and pills for COVID treatment, as part of a new96 page planthat charts the future of the federal efforts to confront the pandemic.

"We've reached a new moment in the fight against COVID-19. Because of the significant progress we've made as a country, the determination and resilience of the American people, and the work we've done to make tools to protect ourselves widely available, we are moving forward safely, getting back to our more normal routines," White House COVID-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients told reporters last week.

The plan, first outlined by President Biden during hisState of the Union address, aims to strike a balance between efforts to ease restrictions imposed to curb the virus while ramping up efforts to address the danger future variants could pose. Zients has discussed the White House's work on the new playbook in recent weeks; he told reporters that the administration was consulting a wide array of public health experts, local governments, and agencies to finalize the plan.

--Alex Tin contributed to this report

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Official COVID-19 death toll tops 6 million as pandemic ebbs in many places but roars on in others - CBS News

A nurse helps with treatment of a COVID-19 patient in the ICU (Intensive Care Unit) at Milton Keynes University Hospital, amid the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, Milton Keynes, Britain, January 20, 2021. REUTERS/Toby Melville/File Photo

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March 8 (Reuters) - Here's what you need to know about the coronavirus right now:

China says Hong Kong must stick to "dynamic zero" COVID strategy

A top Chinese health official rallied embattled Hong Kong on Tuesday to stick with a "dynamic zero" coronavirus strategy and warned that the city's "lifeline" health system was at risk and the situation had to be turned around as soon as possible.

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Hong Kong reported more than 43,100 new cases on Tuesday after the launch of an online platform for people to record infections in a surge that has seen the city suffering the most deaths globally per million people in the week to March 6, according to the Our World in Data publication.

China has championed the "dynamic zero" strategy that involves stamping out infections with strict mitigation measures as opposed to the approach adopted in other places of relying on high vaccination rates and moderate mitigation like masks in an effort to "live with COVID". read more

Scientists identify new gene differences in severe COVID patients

Scientists have pinpointed 16 new genetic variants in people who developed severe COVID-19 in a large study published on Monday that could help researchers develop treatments for very sick patients.

The results suggest that people with severe COVID have genes that predispose them to one of two problems: failure to limit the ability of the virus to make copies of itself, or excessive inflammation and blood clotting.

The scientists said their discoveries, published in the journal Nature, could help prioritise the likely treatments that could work against the disease. read more

COVID can cause brain shrinkage, memory loss - study

COVID-19 can cause the brain to shrink, reduce grey matter in the regions that control emotion and memory, and damage areas that control the sense of smell, an Oxford University study has found.

The scientists said that the effects were even seen in people who had not been hospitalised with COVID, and whether the impact could be partially reversed or if they would persist in the long term needed further investigation. read more

Florida breaks with CDC, recommends no COVID vaccine for healthy children

Florida's top health official said on Monday the state would recommend against the COVID-19 vaccine for healthy children, breaking with guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In announcing the move during press briefing convened by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, the state's surgeon general Dr. Joseph Lapado cited studies that showed few COVID fatalities among healthy children and elevated risk among young boys receiving the vaccine of side effects such as myocarditis. read more

Malaysia to reopen borders from April with quarantine waiver

Malaysia will reopen its borders fully from April 1 and allow entry without quarantine for visitors vaccinated against COVID-19, Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob said on Tuesday.

Malaysia has since March 2020 maintained some of the tightest entry curbs in Asia to try to contain coronavirus outbreaks, with most foreign nationals barred from entry and returning Malaysians required to undergo quarantine. read more

Bali welcomes first foreign tourists after COVID quarantine rule lifted

Indonesia's resort island of Bali on Monday welcomed its first foreign tourists under relaxed coronavirus rules that no longer require arrivals to quarantine, part of a broader easing of curbs in the Southeast Asian country after infections declined. read more

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Compiled by Linda Noakes

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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What you need to know about the coronavirus right now - Reuters.com

Find an updated count of COVID-19 cases in California and by county on our tracker here.

Black-owned businesses dropped 41% during the start of the pandemic, study shows

WHO says booster shots are now needed, in reverse from last years stance

Hong Kong experiences COVID-19 surge, could lead to lockdowns again

Global COVID-19 death toll surpasses 6 million

NFL and NFL Players Association drop face masking rules

10:02 a.m.: Black-owned businesses dropped 41% during the start of the pandemic, study shows

Recent research from UC Santa Cruz shows a dramatic drop in small businesses early in the pandemic, especially those owned by people of color.

In particular, there was a loss of about 450,000 Black-owned businesses, a 41% drop.

The Inclusivity Project aims to raise $100 million to help 1,000 Black entrepreneurs in California.

Jay King, president and CEO of the California Black Chamber of Commerce,, is involved in this effort.

My hope is that what it does is, it starts to build those micro and mini-micro businesses into a small business that can house two to four employees and then scale it up, King said on CapRadios Insight.

He said the goal of the Inclusivity Project is to provide mentorship and business development expertise.

9:56 a.m.: WHO says booster shots are now needed, in reverse from last years stance

An expert group convened by the World Health Organization said it strongly supports urgent and broad access to coronavirus vaccines, including booster doses, according to the Associated Press.

The call caps a reversal from the U.N. health agencys previous insistence that booster doses werent necessary and contributing to vaccine inequity.

In a statement on Tuesday, WHO said its expert group concluded that immunization with authorized COVID-19 vaccines provide high levels of protection against severe disease and death amid the global circulation of the hugely contagious omicron variant.

Last year, WHOs director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called for a moratorium on booster doses, pleading with rich countries to donate their vaccines instead.

9:32 a.m.: Hong Kong experiences COVID-19 surge, could lead to lockdowns again

Hong Kong has reported more than 34,000 new coronavirus infections on Monday a record as authorities assess the possibilities of locking down the city.

According to the Associated Press, Hong Kong is grappling with a coronavirus surge driven primarily by the omicron variant. Daily cases have more than quadrupled from a week ago.

Health authorities say the government could implement measures that may involve asking people to stay at home.

Several supermarkets' shelves were wiped bare as residents stockpiled daily necessities after rumors of a lockdown circulated on social media. Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam has called for calm, saying that food supplies were normal.

9:47 a.m.: Global COVID-19 death toll surpasses 6 million

The death toll from COVID-19 has surpassed 6 million, according to the Associated Press.

The tragic number confirmed on Monday is believed to be a vast undercount and shows that the pandemic in its third year is far from done. Its also a reminder of the unrelenting nature of the pandemic, even as people are shedding masks, traveling and moving around the globe.

The last million deaths of the tally compiled by Johns Hopkins University were recorded over the previous four months.

Thats slightly slower than the previous million but highlights that many countries are still struggling with the coronavirus. Overall, some 450 million cases of COVID-19 have been recorded.

9:39 a.m.: NFL and NFL Players Association drop face masking rules

The NFL and NFL Players Association recently announced that they have agreed to suspend all COVID-19 protocols going into the 2022 football season, effective immediately.

NPR reports that both the NFL and the players association announced the suspension, which means the NFL will no longer conduct mandatory testing for any of its players or staff.

With the change in protocols, players and staff will no longer have to wear face coverings at team facilities, regardless of vaccination status. However, each club can require face coverings if they elect to do so.

While no NFL games were canceled during the 2020 and 2021 seasons due to COVID-19, many teams ended up moving games during the 2020 schedule, according to the Associated Press. Nearly 95% of NFL players and about 100% of NFL staff were fully vaccinated.

9:23 a.m.: China sees new COVID-19 cases despite 'zero-tolerance policy'

China is seeing a new surge in COVID-19 cases across the country, despite its zero tolerance approach to dealing with outbreaks.

According to the Associated Press, the mainland reported 214 new cases in 24 hours on Monday. The southern province of Guangdong, which borders Hong Kong, reported the most cases at 69.

Hong Kong has been recording tens of thousands of cases per day. No new cases were reported in Beijing, which was essentially back to normal.

In his annual report to the national legislature on Saturday, Premier Li Keqiang said China needs to constantly refine epidemic containment but gave no indication that Beijing may switch up its current zero tolerance strategy.

10:59 a.m.: UC Davis will no longer require masks in most indoor settings

On March 19, UC Davis will drop their current masking policies and follow the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions guidelines to no longer require masking in most indoor settings.

This change will apply to both the Davis and Sacramento campuses. However, masks will still be required in clinical settings and on public transit, following federal, state and local guidelines.

Despite this change, masks are still strongly recommended by public health officials and by the school for vaccinated and unvaccinated people alike. The school said it will support those who continue to wear masks indoors for any reason.

Employees and students who are not fully vaccinated must continue testing every four days. Davis campus employees and fully vaccinated students must continue testing every 14 days.

As a reminder, people who are up to date on their vaccinations have a much lower risk to their health.

Further updates will be provided in Chancellor Gary S. Mays next letter to the community on March 11.

10:50 a.m.: Senators introduce bill to fund research into long COVID

Nearly two years after getting COVID-19, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine said he still has mild symptoms, according to the Associated Press.

The Washington Post reports thats why Kaine joined fellow Democratic senators Edward Markey of Massachusetts and Tammy Duckworth of Illinois in introducing a bill to fund research aimed at better understanding long COVID.

The little-understood phenomenon in which symptoms linger for weeks or months after a coronavirus infection could affect thousands.

The Comprehensive Access to Resources and Education (CARE) for Long COVID Act would centralize data about patient experiences and fund research into the effectiveness of treatments.

It would also expand resources to help those with lingering symptoms.

10:44 a.m.: Heres why vaccine rates are still low in some countries.

Experts say there are several reasons why COVID-19 vaccination rates are still low in some countries, in addition to limited supplies.

Other challenges now include unpredictable deliveries, weak health care systems and vaccine hesitancy. According to the Associated Press, many countries with low vaccination rates in Africa. Other places include Yemen, Syria and Haiti.

For most of last year, developing nations were struggling with a lack of supplies, but other setbacks have emerged, such as poor infrastructure to distribute the shots and a lack of materials like syringes.

At the same time, rich countries were hoarding doses, while many countries didnt have the facilities to make their own vaccines. COVAX, the initiative to distribute vaccines equally around the world, faltered in delivering shots to countries that needed them.

Vaccine hesitancy has also contributed to low uptake.

9:43 a.m.: Some of Nevadas school districts have lowered the bar for substitute teacher hiring during states of emergency

In a move prompted by the pandemic, the state has cleared the way for Nevadas largest school districts to hire substitute teachers with only a high school diploma during states of emergency.

According to the Associated Press, the Legislative Commission on Monday unanimously approved a permanent rule change covering school districts with over 9,000 students attending district schools or public charter schools within a districts geographic boundaries.

The covered districts include Las Vegas, Clark and Washoe counties.

The new permanent regulation replaces a temporary measure that expired Nov. 1. It was put in place during the pandemic because of Clark Countys severe staffing shortage.

9:39 a.m.: As demand for COVID-19 vaccines drop, states scramble to figure out what to do with soon-to-expire doses

As demand to get COVID-19 vaccines in the U.S. collapses in many areas, states are scrambling to use stockpiles of doses before they expire.

Millions of doses have already gone to waste across the nation, as reported by the Associated Press.

From the least vaccinated states like Indiana and North Dakota to some of the most vaccinated states like New Jersey and Vermont, public health departments are shuffling doses around their states in hopes of finding providers that can use them.

In California, the percentage of wasted doses is only about 1.8%, but in a state thats received 84 million doses and administered more than 71 million of them, that's about 1.4 million wasted doses.

All this comes only about a year after the vaccines were released, and people such as hospital board members, their trustees and donors jumped the line to get early access before those deemed a higher priority.

9:34 a.m.: Pfizers COVID-19 pill treatment takes months to produce

Pfizers new COVID-19 treatment came with a catch when it debuted late last year it can take months to make tablets.

According to the Associated Press, company leaders said they have since expanded production and expect big gains in the next several months. That could help if another wave of cases develops later this year.

The drugmaker uses more than 20 different sites in over 10 countries to produce Paxlovid, however making the complex drug involves chemical reactions that need time to develop. Pfizer said it has reduced production time from nearly nine months to about seven.

9:56 a.m.: California man allegedly stole $1 million in COVID-19 tests

Authorities say they are seeking a Southern California warehouse manager who is accused of stealing more than $1 million worth of COVID-19 tests from his employers clinic.

Santa Ana police say 33-year-old Carlitos Peralta had access to his employers shipping and delivery system, according to the Associated Press.

His employer has seven warehouses nationwide that are used to store and ship COVDI-19 tests to customers, including clinics, pop-up testing sites, schools, and hotels.

Police say Peralta diverted nearly 100 separate shipments from multiple warehouses to his home.

The police department asked the public on Thursday to contact the agency with information about his whereabouts.

9:51 a.m.: Pfizers COVID-19 vaccines protect young kids against omicron, report shows

A new government report shows Pfizers COVID-19 vaccine gave children 5 and older strong protection against hospitalization and death even during the omicron surge.

As reported by the Associated Press, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the new data on Tuesday.

A day earlier, a study from New York raised the question of whether the vaccine is less effective in children ages 5 to 11, especially against milder infections, particularly since younger kids get an even smaller dose than teens.

However, CDC data from additional states doesnt suggest any age-related issues with the vaccine. While vaccines are generally less effective against omicron, they still protect against severe outcomes.

9:40 a.m.: Los Angeles County set to drop indoor mask mandate this week

Los Angeles County is set to lift its indoor mask mandate this week as coronavirus case rates and hospitalizations plummet, according to the Associated Press.

Public Health Director Dr. Barbara Ferrer said Tuesday that California's most populous county would likely issue a revised health order that would take effect Friday and along with new state guidelines.

Ferrer told the county's Board of Supervisors that it would still be recommended but not required for vaccinated and unvaccinated residents to wear face coverings in public indoor settings.

9:41 a.m.: Sacramento County public health officer to virtually attend State of the Union

Sacramento County Public Health Officer Dr. Olivia Kasirye will be a virtual guest, due to safety protocols, at tonights State of the Union address.

Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Sacramento) made the announcement Monday night. The address will cover some of the achievements of the Biden presidency, from the economy to the government's COVID-19 response.

I am thrilled to have Dr. Olivia Kasirye join as my virtual guest and thank her for her guidance, vigilance and service for the Sacramento community, Matsui said in a press release.

Kasirye said that shes worked together with Matusi to provide the people of the Sacramento region with timely and accurate information and the resources they need to stay safe during the battle with COVID-19.

CapRadio will broadcast the speech live at 6 p.m. You can also watch it live on our website.

9:06 a.m.: US Treasury Department says overwhelming amount of federal rental assistance during pandemic went to low-income tenants

The U.S. Treasury Department has concluded that more than 80% of the billions of dollars in federal rental assistance went to low-income tenants during the pandemic.

According to the Associated Press, the Treasury also found that the largest percentage of tenants receiving pandemic aid were Black households, in which many were led by women.

In the fourth quarter of 2021, the Treasury also found that more than 40% of tenants getting help were Black and 20% were Latino, while two-thirds were woman-headed households.

Lawmakers approved $6.5 billion in Emergency Rental Assistance last year, and through 2021, the government body said more than $25 billion has been spent or allocated, representing 3.8 million payments to households.

Find older coronavirus updates on our previous blog page here

CapRadio provides a trusted source of news because of you. As a nonprofit organization, donations from people like you sustain the journalism that allows us to discover stories that are important to our audience. If you believe in what we do and support our mission, please donate today.

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California coronavirus updates: Black-owned businesses dropped 41% during the start of the pandemic, study shows - Capital Public Radio News

Few of Covid-19s peculiarities have piqued as much interest as anosmia, the abrupt loss of smell that has become a well-known hallmark of the disease. Covid patients lose this sense even without a stuffy nose; the loss can make food taste like cardboard and coffee smell noxious, occasionally persisting after other symptoms have resolved.

Scientists are now beginning to unravel the biological mechanisms, which have been something of a mystery: The neurons that detect odors lack the receptors that the coronavirus uses to enter cells, prompting a long debate about whether they can be infected at all.

Insights gleaned from new research could shed new light on how the coronavirus might affect other types of brain cells, leading to conditions like brain fog, and possibly help explain the biological mechanisms behind long Covid symptoms that linger for weeks or months after the initial infection.

The new work, along with earlier studies, settles the debate over whether the coronavirus infects the nerve cells that detect odors: It does not. But the virus does attack other supporting cells that line the nasal cavity, the researchers found.

The infected cells shed virus and die, while immune cells flood the region to fight the virus. The subsequent inflammation wreaks havoc on smell receptors, proteins on the surface of the nerve cells in the nose that detect and transmit information about odors.

The process alters the sophisticated organization of genes in those neurons, essentially short-circuiting them, the researchers reported.

Their paper significantly advances the understanding of how cells critical to the sense of smell are affected by the virus, despite the fact that they are not directly infected, said Dr. Sandeep Robert Datta, an associate professor of neurobiology at Harvard Medical School, who was not involved in the study.

Its clear that indirectly, if you affect the support cells in the nose, lots of bad things happen, Dr. Datta said. The inflammation in the adjacent cells triggers changes in the sensory neurons that prevent them from working properly.

Indeed, many complications of Covid appear to be caused by the immune systems friendly fire as it responds to infection by flooding the bloodstream with inflammatory proteins called cytokines, which can damage tissue and organs.

This might be a general principle: that a lot of what the virus is doing to us is a consequence of its ability to generate inflammation, Dr. Datta said.

March 8, 2022, 6:53 p.m. ET

The new study is based on research carried out at Zuckerman Institute and Irving Medical Center at Columbia University in New York; the New York University Grossman School of Medicine; the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York; Baylor Genetics in Houston; and the School of Medicine at the University of California, Davis. The research was published online in Cell in early February.

The scientists examined golden hamsters and human tissue specimens from 23 patients who succumbed to Covid. After the hamsters were infected with the original coronavirus, scientists tracked the damage to their olfactory systems over time.

(How do you know a golden hamster has lost its sense of smell? You dont feed it for several hours and then bury Cocoa Puffs in its bedding, said Benjamin tenOever, a professor of microbiology at NYU Langone Health and an author of the new research. Hamsters that can smell will find the cereal in seconds.)

The virus did not invade neurons, the researchers learned, only the cells that play supporting roles in the olfactory system. But that was enough to alter the function of the nearby neurons, leading to a loss of smell.

The immune response altered the architecture of genes in the neurons, disrupting production of odor receptors, said Marianna Zazhytska, a postdoctoral fellow at the Zuckerman Institute and one of the papers first authors, along with a graduate student, Albana Kodra.

It is not the virus itself causing all this reorganization its the systemic inflammatory response, Dr. Zazhytska said. The nerve cells are not hosting the virus, but they are not doing what they did before.

The ability of the olfactory receptors to send and receive messages is disrupted. But the neurons dont die, and so the system can recover after the illness resolves.

Earlier work at the Zuckerman Institute showed that neurons that detect smells have complex genomic organizational structures that are essential to the creation of odor receptors, and the receptor genes communicate among themselves very intensively, said Stavros Lomvardas, one of the papers corresponding authors.

We saw early on that upon infection, the genomic organization of these neurons changes completely theyre unrecognizable compared to how they normally are, Dr. Lomvardas said.

There is a signal released from the infected cells that is received by the neurons that normally detect odors, and tells them to reorganize and stop expression of olfactory receptor genes, he said.

He suggested this may represent an evolutionary adaptation that offers a form of antiviral resistance and whose main purpose may be to prevent the virus from entering the brain. That was a relief for us, he said. That was one piece of good news.

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How the Coronavirus Steals the Sense of Smell - The New York Times