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Category Archives: Covid-19

Can Children Become Seriously Ill With COVID-19? – Articles and Videos, COVID-19, Featured, Health Topics, Pediatrics – Hackensack Meridian Health

Posted: November 5, 2021 at 10:12 pm

November 5, 2021

Now that the Delta variant which is more easily transmissible than previous strains of COVID-19 is widespread, its important for families to take steps to protect their children from getting sick. The Delta variant is infecting children more frequently than other strains of COVID-19 did.

Hospitals around the country have seen greater numbers of children who are affected by COVID-19, now that the Delta variant accounts for the majority of COVID-19 cases nationwide, says pediatric infectious disease specialist, Mariawy Riollano-Cruz, M.D. Many children who become ill with the Delta variant only experience mild symptoms, but a small number get quite sick and require hospitalization.

Doctors and researchers are still learning about COVID-19 and the Delta variant, but they know many things so far. Here are answers to questions that you may have about kids and COVID-19:

The Delta variant is more than twice as contagious as the original COVID-19 variants among all people, including children; it spreads more quickly between people and causes more people to become sick.

Some evidence suggests that the Delta variant may cause more serious illness among unvaccinated people than previous strains, but more research is needed.

Yes. The COVID-19 vaccines have been shown to help prevent serious illness caused by the Delta variant.

Getting children 5 and older vaccinated should lower their risk of serious illness. Parents of younger children who arent eligible for COVID-19 vaccines yet should get vaccinated to help protect their children, because vaccination reduces the risk of passing COVID-19 to other people.

Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, or MIS-C, is a complication thats associated with COVID-19. Doctors arent sure of its exact cause, but the condition has appeared in certain children who have had COVID-19 or who were exposed to the virus.

MIS-C causes inflammation in different body parts, such as the heart, lungs, brain, digestive system, kidneys, eyes or skin. The child may present with prolonged fevers, generalized pain including the chest and neck, fatigue, headaches, rashes, red eyes, swelling and redness of the tongue, swelling of the extremities, cough, diarrhea, vomiting, confusion and/or trouble breathing.

In most cases, MIS-C requires hospitalization. Most children improve with treatment, but it may take a while for some to come back to their baseline behavior and level of activity. Many patients had a very mild COVID-19 infection about one month before the MIS-C diagnosis was made.

Experts arent sure why some children develop MIS-C and others dont. To reduce your childs risk of getting sick, take steps to keep COVID-19 out of your household, so that your children wont be exposed to the virus.

Here are several ways that you can help protect your children from COVID-19:

The material provided through HealthU is intended to be used as general information only and should not replace the advice of your physician. Always consult your physician for individual care.

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COVID-19: What you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic on 5 November – World Economic Forum

Posted: at 10:12 pm

Confirmed cases of COVID-19 have passed 248.7 million globally, according to Johns Hopkins University. The number of confirmed deaths has now passed 5.03 million. More than 7.19 billion vaccination doses have been administered globally, according to Our World in Data.

President Joe Biden will enforce a mandate that workers at US companies with at least 100 employees be vaccinated against COVID-19 or be tested weekly starting Jan. 4, 2022. The announcement spurred legal challenges from Republican governors who say Biden is overstepping his authority.

Europe registered a 55% rise in COVID-19 cases in the last four weeks, despite the availability of vaccines, which should serve as a "warning shot" to other regions, World Health Organization officials said on Thursday. WHO emergency director Mike Ryan said that some European countries have "sub-optimal vaccination coverage" despite availability.

The first step in Japan's planned phased re-opening of borders, which centres on business travellers, will be put into effect from Nov. 8, the government said on Friday. The change will shorten COVID-19 quarantine periods for inbound business travellers from 10 days to three if they have proof of vaccination, the government said.

Indonesia's economic growth slowed more than expected in the third quarter as restrictions to control a wave of COVID-19 weighed on activity, although recent data suggests growth may be getting back on track in the current quarter. Southeast Asia's largest economy grew 3.51% in the July-September quarter, below the previous quarter's 7.07% expansion.

The City of Vienna said on Thursday it is banning people not vaccinated against COVID-19 from cafes, restaurants and events with more than 25 people, pre-empting measures that are likely to be introduced across Austria soon as infections are surging.

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

Image: Our World in Data

Britain on Thursday became the first country in the world to approve a potentially game-changing COVID-19 antiviral pill jointly developed by US-based Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, in a boost to the fight against the pandemic.

Britain's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency recommended the drug, molnupiravir, for use in people with mild to moderate COVID-19 and at least one risk factor for developing severe illness, such as obesity, older age diabetes, and heart disease.

It will be administered as soon as possible following a positive COVID-19 test and within five days of the onset of symptoms, the regulator said, citing clinical data.

The green light is the first for an oral antiviral treatment for COVID-19 and the first for a COVID-19 drug that will be administered widely in the community. US advisers will meet this month to vote on whether molnupiravir should be authorized.

Treatments to tackle the pandemic have so far focused mainly on vaccines. Other options, including Gilead's infused antiviral remdesivir and generic steroid dexamethasone, are generally only given after a patient has been hospitalized.

Merck's molnupiravir has been closely watched since data last month showed it could halve the chances of dying or being hospitalized for those most at risk of developing severe COVID-19 when given early in the illness.

The World Health Organization called on Thursday for vaccine makers to prioritize deliveries of COVID-19 jabs to the COVAX dose-sharing facility for poorer countries and said that no more doses should go to countries with more than 40% coverage.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, said that boosters should not be administered except to people who are immunocompromised.

"We continue to call on manufacturers of vaccines that already have a WHO Emergency Use Listing to prioritize COVAX, not shareholder profit," he said. The WHO listing of Indian drugmaker Bharat Biotech's Covaxin on Wednesday contributes to vaccine equity, he added.

The first human trial of a COVID-19 vaccine was administered this week.

CEPI, launched at the World Economic Forum, provided funding support for the Phase 1 study. The organization this week announced their seventh COVID-19 vaccine project in the fight against the pandemic.

The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) was launched in 2017 at the Forum's Annual Meeting bringing together experts from government, business, health, academia and civil society to accelerate the development of vaccines against emerging infectious diseases and to enable access to these vaccines during outbreaks.

Coalitions like CEPI are made possible through public-private partnerships. The World Economic Forum is the trusted global platform for stakeholder engagement, bringing together a range of multistakeholders from business, government and civil society to improve the state of the world.

Organizations can partner with the Forum to contribute to global health solutions. Contact us to find out how.

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

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Croatia tightens measures to fight spreading of COVID-19 – Reuters

Posted: at 10:12 pm

General view of Porec, Croatia, April 20, 2021. Picture is taken with drone on April 20, 2021. REUTERS/Antonio Bronic

ZAGREB, Nov 5 (Reuters) - Amid new record-high COVID-19 daily infections Croatia decided on Friday to tighten measures against the spreading of the disease, including introducing obligatory digital certificates for public sector employees.

Croatia reported 6,932 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday, the highest daily number since the beginning of the pandemic. Slightly over 50% of around four million Croats are fully vaccinated and experts largely blame a low vaccination rate for a large increase in the number of infections in recent weeks.

"To prevent the disease from spreading we need to reduce the number of people that can gather indoors, increase the number of vaccinated people and increase safety when doing business," said Interior Minister Davor Bozinovic.

The number of people that can gather indoors will be reduced from this weekend to 50 from 100 unless they have digital certificates that prove they are vaccinated, tested negative or already had the disease.

All indoor gatherings will have to be over by midnight.

From Nov. 15 digital certificates will be obligatory for all public sector employees and all citizens who need services in the public sector institutions. So far, it was a condition only in the health sector and among social care workers.

"If the number of infections continue rising from Nov. 15 we will also introduce digital certificates for entering bars, restaurants or fitness centers," Bozinovic said.

He added that from Jan. 4, 2022, unless the situation improves, the digital certificates will be valid only for those who are vaccinated or have had the disease. Currently it is valid also for those who have tested negative for the virus.

"This period is enough for those who are not vaccinated to do so by the end of the year," Bozinovic said.

Reporting by Igor IlicEditing by Chizu Nomiyama

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Public Health Advisory for the Metro Denver Region and State of Colorado COVID-19 Surge and Hospitalizations – douglas.co.us

Posted: at 10:12 pm

As public health officials, we are issuing this statewide advisory due to steadily increasing cases and concern for hospital bed capacity. Colorado and the metro Denver region continue to see steady increases in COVID-19 cases. On November 4, Colorados daily case rate (49 per 100,000) was the 5th highest in the country and one of the fastest-growing. The metro regions 7-day average positivity rate is over 8%, which suggests a continued surge in cases.

On Oct. 30, the metro region had 581 hospitalizations due to COVID-19 a number that has been increasing over the past weeks. A majority of these COVID hospitalizations (about 80%) continue to be among the unvaccinated. Hospitals serving the metro Denver are full or nearing capacity due to both COVID-19, non-COVID-19 emergencies, and other routine visits, with less than 10% of staffed beds available a trend not seen at any other point in the pandemic. Nearly 40% of hospitals report current or anticipated staff shortages within the next week. Governor Polis stated that if this surge continues, Colorado will need to request FEMA medical surge teams, halt elective surgeries, and hospitals may need to resort to crisis standards of care.

Taking COVID-19 precautions now will not only prevent additional COVID-19 hospitalizations but will help ease the states strained hospital capacity, which puts every Coloradan who may experience a health emergency or have routine health care needs at risk.

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and the Metro Denver Partnership for Health (MDPH) advise the following to prevent COVID-19 infection and hospitalizations:

As public health officials, we will continue to monitor trends in COVID-19, especially as the region moves into flu season and with holidays approaching, and issue advisories as needed.

Continue to stay up to date by visiting covid19.colorado.gov.

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COVID-19 in South Dakota: 431 total new cases; Death toll rises to 2,267; Active cases at 5,857 – KELOLAND.com

Posted: at 10:12 pm

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) Seven new COVID-19 deaths were reported in Fridays update from the South Dakota Department of Health.

There were 431 new total COVID-19 cases reported on Friday, bringing the states total case count to 156,995, up from Thursday (156,564).

The number of active cases reported on Friday is at 5,857, up from Thursday (5,782).

The death toll from COVID-19 is at 2,267, up from Thursday (2,260). The new deaths include three men and four women in the following age ranges: 20-29 (1); 60-69 (2); 70-79 (4).

Current hospitalizations are at 187, up from Thursday (173). Total hospitalizations are at 7,974, up from Thursday (7,947).

Total recovered cases are now at 148,871, up from Thursday (148,522). The latest seven-day PCR test positivity rate for the state is 13.6% for October 28 Nov. 3.

The DOH currently reports total tests each day. There have been 1,628,101 total tests reported as of Friday, up 4,394 from 1,623,707, total tests reported Thursday.

Of South Dakotas 66 counties, 58 are listed as having high or substantial community spread. High community spread is 100 cases or greater per 100,000 or a 10% or greater PCR test positivity rate.

There have been 650 Delta variant cases (B.1.617.2, AY.1-AY.25) detected in South Dakota through sentinel monitoring, an increase of one over Thursday.

There have been 172 cases of the B.1.1.7 (Alpha variant), three cases of P.1. (Gamma variant) and two cases of the B.1.351 (Beta variant).

The DOH announced changes to how it reports vaccinations on the COVID-19 dashboard as of Monday, October 14. It now includes a breakout of how many people have received booster doses. Due to data clean-up efforts, the percentages of people whove received one dose or completed the series have changed. Findthe DOH explanation in this story.

As of Friday, 68.09% of the population 12-years-old and above has received at least one dose while 58.39% have completed the vaccination series. 9.69% of those eligible have completed their booster dose.

There have been 520,535 doses of the Pfizer vaccine administered, 365,453 of the Moderna vaccine and 31,349 doses of the Janssen vaccine.

There have been 164,056 persons who have completed two doses of Moderna. There have been 224,266 persons who have received two doses of Pfizer.

As for booster doses, 49,793 people have received a 3rd Pfizer shot and 22,547 have received a 3rd Moderna dose.

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COVID-19 Daily Update 11-5-2021 – West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources

Posted: at 10:12 pm

The West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) reports as of November 5, 2021, there are currently 6,832 active COVID-19 cases statewide. There have been 7 deaths reported since the last report, with a total of 4,518 deaths attributed to COVID-19.

DHHR has confirmed the deaths of a 73-year old male from Marion County, a 91-year old male from Preston County, a 57-year old male from Harrison County, an 84-year old female from Harrison County, a 51-year old male from Raleigh County, a 72-year old male from Wood County, and a 54-year old female from Kanawha County.

Each life lost to this disease is a tragedy and we send our sympathies to the families, said Bill J. Crouch, DHHR Cabinet Secretary. We must continue to slow the growth of this virus in West Virginia through vaccination and prevention measures.

CURRENT ACTIVE CASES PER COUNTY: Barbour (71), Berkeley (403), Boone (121), Braxton (54), Brooke (67), Cabell (303), Calhoun (37), Clay (41), Doddridge (21), Fayette (156), Gilmer (37), Grant (74), Greenbrier (107), Hampshire (94), Hancock (138), Hardy (78), Harrison (313), Jackson (79), Jefferson (132), Kanawha (598), Lewis (68), Lincoln (181), Logan (108), Marion (299), Marshall (89), Mason (80), McDowell (68), Mercer (275), Mineral (114), Mingo (87), Monongalia (304), Monroe (45), Morgan (61), Nicholas (178), Ohio (107), Pendleton (14), Pleasants (16), Pocahontas (19), Preston (133), Putnam (298), Raleigh (265), Randolph (100), Ritchie (17), Roane (100), Summers (42), Taylor (116), Tucker (33), Tyler (15), Upshur (118), Wayne (97), Webster (33), Wetzel (61), Wirt (13), Wood (234), Wyoming (120). To find the cumulative cases per county, please visit http://www.coronavirus.wv.gov and look on the Cumulative Summary tab which is sortable by county.

Delays may be experienced with the reporting of information from the local health department to DHHR. As case surveillance continues at the local health department level, it may reveal that those tested in a certain county may not be a resident of that county, or even the state as an individual in question may have crossed the state border to be tested. Please visit http://www.coronavirus.wv.gov for more detailed information.

West Virginians 5 years and older are eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine. Boosters are also available. To learn more about the vaccine, or to find a vaccine site near you, visit vaccinate.wv.gov or call 1-833-734-0965.

Free pop-up COVID-19 testing is available today in Barbour, Berkeley, Braxton, Cabell, Clay, Doddridge, Fayette, Grant, Greenbrier, Hampshire, Jefferson, Lincoln, Logan, Marion, Marshall, Monongalia, Monroe, Morgan, Nicholas, Ohio, Putnam, Raleigh, Randolph, Taylor, Upshur, Wayne, and Wood counties.

Barbour County

8:30 AM - 3:30 PM, Community Market, 107 South Main Street (across the street from Walgreens), Philippi, WV (optional pre-registration: https://labpass.com/en/registration?access_code=WVBBC)

1:00 PM - 5:00 PM, Junior Volunteer Fire Department, 331 Row Avenue, Junior WV (optional pre-registration: https://unityphr.com/campaigns/wvlabs/covid)

Berkeley County

10:00 AM - 5:00 PM, 891 Auto Parts Place, Martinsburg, WV (optional pre-registration: https://unityphr.com/campaigns/wvlabs/covid)

Braxton County

7:30 AM - 1:30 PM, Braxton County Memorial Hospital parking lot, 100 Hoylman Drive, Gassaway, WV (optional pre-registration: https://labpass.com/en/registration?access_code=Braxton)

Cabell County

8:00 AM- 4:00 PM, Marshall University Campus (parking lot), 1801 6th Avenue, Huntington, WV (optional pre-registration: https://wv.getmycovidresult.com/)

9:00 AM - 6:00 PM, Cabell-Huntington Health Department (parking lot), 703 Seventh Avenue, Huntington, WV (optional pre-registration: https://labpass.com/en/registration?access_code=MavCabell)

Clay County

11:00 AM - 5:00 PM, Clay County Health Department, 451 Main Street, Clay, WV

Doddridge County

10:00 AM - 2:00 PM, Doddridge County Park, The Barn, 1252 Snowbird Road S., West Union, WV (optional pre-registration: https://unityphr.com/campaigns/wvlabs/covid)

Fayette County

10:00 AM - 2:00 PM, Fayette County Health Department, 5495 Maple Lane, Fayetteville, WV

Grant County

11:00 AM - 3:00 PM, Petersburg City Parking Lot, South Main Street (across from Walgreens), Petersburg, WV

Greenbrier County

9:00 AM - 3:00 PM, State Fair of WV, 891 Maplewood Avenue, Lewisburg, WV (optional pre-registration: https://labpass.com/en/registration?access_code=WVGBC)

Hampshire County

10:00 AM - 5:00 PM, Hampshire Memorial Hospital, 363 Sunrise Boulevard, Romney, WV (optional pre-registration: https://unityphr.com/campaigns/wvlabs/covid)

Jefferson County

10:00 AM - 5:00 PM, Shepherd University Wellness Center, 164 University Drive, Shepherdstown, WV (optional pre-registration: https://unityphr.com/campaigns/wvlabs/covid)

10:00 AM - 6:00 PM, Hollywood Casino, 750 Hollywood Drive, Charles Town, WV (optional pre-registration: https://unityphr.com/campaigns/wvlabs/covid)

Lincoln County

9:00 AM - 12:00 PM, Lincoln County Health Department, 8008 Court Avenue, Hamlin, WV (optional pre-registration: https://wv.getmycovidresult.com/)

Logan County

12:00 PM - 5:00 PM, Old 84 Lumber Building, 100 Recovery Road, Peach Creek, WV (optional pre-registration: https://wv.getmycovidresult.com/)

Marion County

4:00 PM - 8:00 PM, Dunbar School Foundation, 101 High Street, Fairmont, WV

Marshall County

11:00 AM - 5:00 PM, Benwood City Building, 430 Main Street, Benwood, WV

Monongalia County

8:00 AM - 12:00 PM, WVU Recreation Center (lower level), 2001 Rec Center Drive, Morgantown, WV

Monroe County

9:00 AM - 2:00 PM, Appalachian Christian Center, 2812 Seneca Trail South, Peterstown, WV (optional registration: https://labpass.com/en/registration?access_code=WVMRC)

Morgan County

11:00 AM - 5:00 PM, War Memorial Hospital, 1 Health Way, Berkeley Springs, WV (optional pre-registration: https://unityphr.com/campaigns/wvlabs/covid)

Nicholas County

9:00 AM - 3:30 PM, Summersville Regional Medical Center, 400 Fairview Heights Road, Summersville, WV (optional pre-registration: https://labpass.com/en/registration?access_code=WVNL)

Ohio County

9:00 AM - 3:30 PM, Ohio Valley Medical Center (parking lot of former VPC South Building at the top of 22nd Street), 2000 Eoff Street, Wheeling, WV (optional pre-registration: https://roxbylabs.dendisoftware.com/patient_registration/)

Putnam County

9:00 AM - 4:00 PM, Liberty Square Shopping Center, parking lot, 613 Putnam Village, Hurricane, WV (optional pre-registration: https://wv.getmycovidresult.com/)

Raleigh County

9:00 AM - 4:00 PM, Beckley-Raleigh County Health Department, 1602 Harper Road, Beckley, WV (optional pre-registration: https://labpass.com/en/registration?access_code=MavBeckleyRaleigh)

Randolph County

8:00 AM - 3:30 PM, parking lot across from Randolph-Elkins Health Department, 32 Randolph Avenue, Elkins, WV (optional pre-registration: https://labpass.com/en/registration?access_code=WVRDC)

Taylor County

1:00 PM - 3:00 PM, Grafton-Taylor County Health Department, 718 West Main Street (parking lot at Operations Trailer), Grafton, WV (optional pre-registration: https://wv.getmycovidresult.com/)

Upshur County

8:00 AM - 3:30 PM, Buckhannon Fire Department (parking lot), 22 South Florida Street, Buckhannon, WV (optional pre-registration: https://labpass.com/en/registration?access_code=WVUSC)

Wayne County

10:00 AM - 2:00 PM, Wayne County Health Department, 217 Kenova, Avenue, Wayne, WV (optional pre-registration: https://unityphr.com/campaigns/wvlabs/covid)

Wood County

7:30 AM - 3:00 PM, Vienna Baptist Church, 3401 Grand Central Avenue, Vienna, WV (optional pre-registration: https://labpass.com/en/registration?access_code=WVMavWood1)

For additional free COVID-19 testing opportunities across the state, please visit https://dhhr.wv.gov/COVID-19/pages/testing.aspx.

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COVID-19 live updates: US at ‘inflection point’ heading into winter months – ABC News

Posted: at 10:12 pm

Over two dozen stateshave filed lawsuits aimed at dismantling the Biden administration's COVID-19 vaccine mandate that affects nearly two-thirds of the workforce.

Nearly 100 million workers will be required to get the vaccine by Jan. 4, with some allowed to test weekly instead, under federal rules released Thursday.

Since then, five lawsuitsinvolving 26 Republican-led states combined have been filed in federal court seeking to overturn what they claim is an unlawful mandate.

Seven states -- Idaho,Kansas,Kentucky,Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee and West Virginia -- fileda lawsuitagainst OSHA in the 6th Circuit.

Eleven others-- Alaska,Arizona,Arkansas,Iowa,Missouri, Montana,Nebraska,New Hampshire,North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming --joined together to filea lawsuit against Biden and OSHA in the 8th Circuit.

Five states -- Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina,Texasand Utah -- filed a lawsuit against OSHAin the 5th Circuit, and three more -- Alabama,Florida and Georgia -- filedin the 11th Circuit.

The Biden administration has said lawsuits were expected but that the federal government should win in court.

The administration clearly has the authority to protect workers, and actions announced by the president are designed to save lives and stop the spread of COVID,White HousespokeswomanKarine Jean-Pierresaid Thursday.

-ABC News' Cheyenne Haslett

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The COVID-19 pandemic has now killed 5 million people around the world – NPR

Posted: at 10:12 pm

In September, visitors sit amid white flags that were part of artist Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg's "In America: Remember," a temporary art installation that commemorated Americans who have died of COVID-19, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Patrick Semansky/AP hide caption

In September, visitors sit amid white flags that were part of artist Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg's "In America: Remember," a temporary art installation that commemorated Americans who have died of COVID-19, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

Global deaths from COVID-19 have now surpassed 5 million, according to the data released Monday from Johns Hopkins University's coronavirus tracker.

The U.S. leads the world in the number of confirmed deaths from the virus with more than 745,800 people dead from COVID-19. Brazil (with more than 607,000 deaths) and India (with more than 450,000 deaths) follow the U.S. in the number of lives lost since the start of the pandemic.

Yet another tragic milestone of the pandemic comes just as the U.S. prepares to start vaccinating children between the ages of 5 and 11.

But in other parts of the world, health officials are seeing worrying signs of a coronavirus surge just as some nations are relaxing measures to international travelers.

This official global tally only accounts for confirmed cases around the world, according to Amber D'Souza, professor of epidemiology at the university's Bloomberg School of Public Health, who spoke to National Geographic.

Prior to Johns Hopkins releasing the latest global data on Monday D'Souza told the outlet: "It's quite possible that the number of deaths is double what we see. But 5 million is such a staggering number on its own. No country has been able to escape it."

A medical worker prepares a shot of Russia's Sputnik Lite coronavirus vaccine at a vaccination center last week in Moscow's GUM department store in Red Square with the St. Basil Cathedral in the background. The global death toll from COVID-19 has topped 5 million. Pavel Golovkin/AP hide caption

A medical worker prepares a shot of Russia's Sputnik Lite coronavirus vaccine at a vaccination center last week in Moscow's GUM department store in Red Square with the St. Basil Cathedral in the background. The global death toll from COVID-19 has topped 5 million.

The World Health Organization recently reported a rise in cases in Europe during October.

As of Oct. 26, the European region experienced an 18% surge in new COVID-19 cases. Southeast Asia, a region experiencing a similar rise in new COVID cases, also reported a 13% increase in new COVID-19 deaths.

Globally, as of Oct. 26, the health organization reported more than 2.9 million cases and more than 49, 000 new deaths, a 4% and 5% increase respectively.

Last month, Russian officials registered the highest death toll in Europe: more than 235,000 deaths since the start of the pandemic. Due to skyrocketing infections from the delta strain, officials there launched a temporary lockdown in an attempt to defeat the virus.

But there is skepticism over whether the numbers being shared in Russia are actually the official count. Some believe the numbers may be higher.

On Friday, Reuters reported that Poland's total number of COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic passed 3 million. Daily cases are quickly gaining pace as the country is in the middle of the fourth wave of the virus.

In Singapore, where officials have decided to coexist with the coronavirus and cease lockdown measures, a jump in cases has been reported there, too.

More than 80% of Singapore's population has been immunized against COVID-19. Yet as of Oct. 30, cases jumped to well over 3,000 cases a day in about two months.

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The Science You Need To Make Your COVID-19 Decisions – FiveThirtyEight

Posted: at 10:12 pm

If there's one thing we've learned since March 2020, it's that pandemics are all about hard decisions. It's hard to keep track of the information that helps us make those choices let alone notice or remember when new science and expert recommendations come along. At FiveThirtyEight, we want to help. Weve read the science and have come up with broad assumptions you can make based on where the evidence is. When the science changes, so will the assumptions: Well be updating this page regularly as new research is published.

We think these assumptions will help you more easily make decisions for yourself and your family. (But do let us know if there are risk-assessment questions you think were leaving out.) We want this tool to be something that helps take the stress out of decision-making so that you can worry more about the best way to live and less about the virus.

Breakthrough cases especially symptomatic ones are rare, even with the reduced effectiveness of vaccines against the delta variant. If you do catch COVID-19 but you are vaccinated, you can spread it but are probably contagious for a shorter period of time and are probably less likely than an unvaccinated person to spread it.

It is possible for the delta variant of COVID-19 to spread outside, even among the vaccinated. That said, outdoor transmission is probably still unlikely if you avoid crowds. If youre vaccinated and not all up in one anothers business, outdoor transmission shouldnt be a major fear.

Long COVID is real, and it is possible for anyone to get it. That includes kids and vaccinated people although both are probably less likely to end up with long COVID than unvaccinated adults. But we dont really know the rates, largely because there still isnt any universal definition of what does and doesnt count as long COVID. Be cautious with assuming anything too precise from very imprecise research.

Yes. Everyone (kids included) is more likely to catch COVID-19 than they were earlier this year. The delta variant is more contagious, though it doesnt seem to be worse for kids than for adults, either in likelihood of transmission or severity of illness. Kids who spend their time around vaccinated adults and teens are at lower risk, but the benefits of vaccinating kids outweigh the risks.

As of early November, the CDC approved vaccination for children ages 5 and up. That was based on results of Pfizer's clinical trial and an analysis of the potential risks. An independent FDA analysis considered both Pfizer's finding that its vaccine is 91 percent effective at preventing COVID-19 in children ages 5-11 as well as the risks of both severe illness and a rare (but mild) vaccine side effect that has caused inflammation of heart tissue, particularly in young men. But Pfizers data included no instances of heart inflammation in the children ages 5 to 11 who received the vaccine, despite it occurring in an estimated 71.5 cases per million 16- and 17-year-old boys vaccinated. Ultimately, the FDA concluded that the benefits of vaccination outweighed the risks. Even if the number of kids hospitalized for heart inflammation exceeded the number of kids hospitalized for COVID-19, getting vaccinated would still be worth it because being hospitalized for heart inflammation is still that much less risky than being hospitalized for COVID.

They do. But effectiveness depends on the type of mask you and those around you are wearing.

Instant at-home tests and PCR tests can both be useful. But it matters when you're using them and what you're trying to do.

Compared with at-home antigen tests, PCR tests are less likely to deliver a false negative over a longer period of time, but when it comes to the critical three days when a COVID-infected person is most contagious, the at-home antigen tests and the PCR tests are both very accurate, according to Michael Mina, a professor of epidemiology at Harvard University. Before and after the peak of infectiousness, the PCR tests are likelier to spot a COVID-19 infection. But at-home tests can be used effectively as a tool for public health, too. One example Mina uses is if everyone had to take a test at the beginning of a school day. If there were five people actually infected, the PCR tests would be more likely to identify them all but you'd need to wait for the results and, in the meantime, all those people would be wandering around the school for a day or two. The instant antigen tests, meanwhile, might only identify four of the infected people, but you'd know immediately and could send them home. And the other one might be identified by a rapid test the next morning, if you were testing every day. Overall, fewer people are exposed and less disease is spread.

Its still best to follow the CDC guidelines, which currently recommend a quarantine for 14 days (from the point of exposure) for unvaccinated people. They also recommend testing at least five days after exposure. Vaccinated people, according to the CDC, can skip quarantine if they show no symptoms, but they should still be tested three to five days after contact and wear a mask indoors in public until they have the results. (The CDC also says there are ways to shorten the quarantine period.)

Most infected people will show symptoms or a positive test result within 14 days of exposure, said Michael Springer, a professor of systems biology at Harvard University. But theres a reason some quarantine periods arent 14 days long. Recommended quarantine timelines are based both on scientific evidence about how long it takes for COVID-19 to make a person sick or contagious, and on attempts to balance that with other kinds of concerns, including economic constraints, child care availability and plain ol' not wanting to be trapped in the house that long. The deviations from CDC guidelines dont mean experts cant agree on the science, Springer told us. Instead, the deviations demonstrate that different communities are trying to balance the competing needs of science and society in a variety of ways. A long quarantine that ends up ignored could lead to more transmission than a shorter quarantine that allows some cases to slip through but has a higher compliance rate. Changing science and circumstances are also factors. Most recently, CDC guidelines changed to give vaccinated people an easier, quarantine-free path because research shows they're less likely to catch and transmit COVID-19. And you should expect recommended quarantine lengths to change in the future, Springer said. If a new variant turns up and has high rates of vaccine breakthrough or takes longer to develop symptoms, that'll change the calculus. On the flip side, if vaccination rates get high enough, quarantine recommendations could disappear altogether.

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The Science You Need To Make Your COVID-19 Decisions - FiveThirtyEight

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Announcing the ORBIT dataset: Advancing real-world few-shot learning using teachable object recognition – Microsoft

Posted: October 24, 2021 at 11:46 am

Object recognition systems have made spectacular advances in recent years, but they rely on training datasets with thousands of high-quality, labelled examples per object category. Learning new objects from only a few examples could open the door to many new applications. For example, robotics manufacturing requires a system to quickly learn new parts, while assistive technologies need to be adapted to the unique needs and abilities of every individual.

Few-shot learning aims to reduce these demands by training models that canrecognizecompletely novel objects from only a fewexamples, say 1 to 10.In particular,meta-learning algorithmswhichlearn to learnusing episodic trainingareapromisingapproachto significantly reduce the number of training examplesneeded totrain a model.However, most research infew-shot learning has been driven bybenchmark datasets that lack the high variationthat applications face when deployed in therealworld.

In partnership with City, University of London, we introduce the ORBIT dataset and few-shot benchmark for learning new objects from only a few, high-variation examples to close this gap. The dataset and benchmark set a new standard for evaluating machine learning models in few-shot, high-variation learning scenarios, which will help to train models for higher performance in real-world scenarios. This work is done in collaboration with a multi-disciplinary team, including Simone Stumpf, Lida Theodorou, and Matthew Tobias Harris from City, University of London and Luisa Zintgraf from University of Oxford. The work was funded by Microsoft AI for Accessibility. You can read more about the ORBIT research project and its goal to make AI more inclusive of people with disabilities in this AI Blog post.

You can learn more aboutthe workin our research papers:ORBIT: A Real-World Few-Shot Dataset for Teachable Object Recognition,published atthe International Conference of Computer Vision (ICCV2021),andDisability-first Dataset Creation: Lessons from Constructing a Dataset for Teachable Object Recognition with Blind and Low Vision Data Collectors, published at the 23rd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2021).

Youre also invited to join Senior Researcher DanielaMassicetifor a talk about the ORBIT benchmark dataset and harnessing few-shot learning for teachable AI at the firstMicrosoft Research Summit.Massicetiwill be presenting Bucket of me: Using few-shot learning to realize teachable AI systems as part of the Responsible AI track on October 19. To view the presentation on demand, register at the Research Summit event page.

The ORBIT benchmark dataset contains 3,822 videos of 486 objects recorded by 77 people who are blind or low vision using their mobile phonesa total of 2,687,934 frames. Code for loading the dataset, computing benchmark metrics, and running baselines is available at the ORBIT dataset GitHub page.

The ORBIT dataset and benchmark are inspired by a real-world application for the blind and low-vision community: teachable object recognizers. These allow a person to teach a system to recognize objects that may be important for them by capturing just a few short videos of those objects. These videos are then used to train an object recognizer that is personalized. This would allow a person who is blind to teach the object recognizer their house keys or favorite shirt, and then recognize them with a phone. Such objects cannot be identified by typical object recognizers as they are not included in common object recognition training datasets.

Teachable object recognition is an excellent example of a few-shot, high-variation scenario. Its few-shot because people can only capture a handful of short videos recorded to teach a new object. Most current machine learning models for object recognition require thousands of images to train. Its not feasible to have people submit videos at that scale, which is why few-shot learning is so important when people are teaching object recognizers from their own videos. Its high-variation because each person has only a few objects, and the videos they capture of these objects will vary in quality, blur, centrality of object, and other factors as shown in Figure 2.

While datasets are fundamental for driving innovation in machine learning, good metrics are just as important in helping researchers evaluate their work in realistic settings. Grounded in this challenging, real-world scenario, we propose a benchmark on the ORBIT dataset. Unlike typical computer vision benchmarks, performance on the teachable object recognition benchmark is measured based on input from each user.

This means that the trained machine learning model is given just the objects and associated videos for a single user, and it is evaluated by how well it can recognize that users objects. This process is done for each user in a set of test users. The result is a suite of metrics that more closely captures how well a teachable object recognizer would work for a single user in the real world.

Evaluations on highly cited few-shot learning models show that there is significant scope for innovation in high-variation, few-shot learning. Despite saturation of model performance on existing few-shot benchmarks, few-shot models only achieve 50-55% accuracy on the teachable object recognition benchmark. Moreover, there is a high variance between users. These results illustrate the need to make algorithms more robust to high-variation (or noisy) data.

Creating teachable object recognizers presents challenges for machine learning beyond object recognition. One example of a challenge posed by a human-centric task formulation is the need for the model to provide feedback to users about the data they provided when training in a new personal object. Is it enough data? Is it good-quality data? Uncertainty quantification is an area of machine learning that can contribute to solving this challenge.

Moreover, the challenges in building teachable object recognition systems go beyond machine learning algorithmic improvements, making it an area ripe for multi-disciplinary teams. Designing the feedback of the model to help users become better teachers requires a great deal of subtlety in user interaction. Supporting the adaptation of models to run on resource-constrained devices such as mobile phones is also a significant engineering task.

In summary, the ORBIT dataset and benchmark provide a rich playground to drive research in approaches that are more robust to few-shot, high-variation conditions, a step beyond existing curated vision datasets and benchmarks. In addition to the ORBIT benchmark, the dataset can be used to explore a wide set of other real-world recognition tasks. We hope that these contributions will not only have real-world impact by shaping the next generation of recognition tools for the blind and low-vision community, but also improve the robustness of computer vision systems across a broad range of other applications.

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Announcing the ORBIT dataset: Advancing real-world few-shot learning using teachable object recognition - Microsoft

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