PBS NewsHour full episode, October 6, 2022

PBS NewsHour full episode, October 6, 2022

Thursday on the NewsHour, a former police officer kills dozens of children and adults at a daycare center in northeast Thailand. Oil prices are set to rise as winter approaches in the northern hemisphere and global supplies remain tenuous. Plus, President Biden takes action to pardon federal offenses of marijuana possession. WATCH TODAY’S SEGMENTS: News Wrap: Dozens killed in Thailand…

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🚨📢📣⚠️➡️ #Omicron #BA5 ACCOUNT FOR 65% OF NEW #Covid19 CASES AN EST. 88.7-90.7 MILLION+ CONFIRMED CASES WITH 1 MILLION+ 🇺🇸 💀 #Covid22 #Covid19 #Covid19isReal 🦠😷💉

um. BA2 is back, maybe? that's weird

every other circulating variant descends from it

cdc genomic sequencing model does not agree with biobot wastewater monitoring (cdc says ba2 is at less than a percent prevalence and has been for months, and a new variant JN1 is prevalent). i suppose it's possible that biobot is misidentifying JN1 as BA2 or something, because their other numbers seem to largely agree

Experts Await Data on Moderna’s Vaccine for Kids; Criticize Lifting of Mask Mandates

The medical community is celebrating drug maker Moderna’s recent announcement that it is seeking FDA approval for its Covid-19 vaccination for younger kids, though experts add they are “anxiously” awaiting further data on its efficacy and safety.

“We have seen that our youngest patients are getting sick and hospitalized with COVID… even previously healthy kids can develop complications,” said Pediatric Pulmonologist Dr. Manisha Newaskar with Stanford Children’s Health during an April 29 press briefing hosted by Ethnic Media Services.

“The data still needs full review, but we have to educate our families and encourage them to get their young ones vaccinated,” Newaskar added.

The vaccine will require two doses one month apart and is expected to be authorized by the FDA in June. Parents have been hesitant about shots for their kids in part due to the risk of myocarditis—an inflammation of the muscles around the heart—though experts note the risk decreases for younger patients.

“Schools may have a role to play in getting the vaccine out there,” said Dr. Ben Neuman, professor of Biology and chief virologist with the Global Health Research Complex, Texas A&M University.

“There are 500 deaths per year from bacterial meningitis, and that is one of the things that schools would normally require vaccination against,” explained Dr. Neuman. “COVID-19 is around 350 deaths in the same age group in roughly the span of a year. This needs to be one of the vaccines to make school work.”

Moderna previously requested FDA authorization for its vaccine for kids ages 6 to 11 and ages 12 to 17. It expects to submit data on the efficacy of these vaccines by May 9.

The news comes as Moderna also announced progress on a “bivalent” vaccine that would provide immunity to the original Covid-19 strain along with newer variants.

“Each year we update our influenza vaccine and it’s now a quadrivalent vaccine. It has four different antigens in it. So, the thinking among vaccine scientists is to do something quite similar with COVID,” explained Dr. William Schaffner, professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.

“Expanding the antigens in the vaccines, we get broader coverage against this array of variants going forward,” Schaffner noted.  Dr. William Schaffner, professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine

The speed at which variants of the Covid-19 virus are appearing, along with their relative transmissibility, calls for the development of multivariant vaccines, speakers said. The BA2 Omicron variant, which emerged in late November in the United States, is almost gone but has been replaced by a subvariant that is even more contagious: the BA.2.12.1

“We need to advocate the FDA to update the vaccines more quickly considering that we’re just tweaking the spike protein a little bit,” said Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding, co-founder of the World Health Network and chief of the COVID Task Force at the New England Complex Systems Institute. “We should be able to do a phase two (of approval), and then allow these brand-new phases to adapt the vaccines pretty quickly…”

Experts also weighed in on the removal of mask mandates on public transportation which several U.S transit systems, including airlines, have already adopted.

“We don’t just stop wearing helmets, unbuckle our seatbelts, and allow drunk driving because hospital beds are not full. I think the CDC is forgetting prevention (strategies) in trying to push for a return to normal,” added Dr. Feigl-Ding, who highlighted the fact that even for people who are boosted, the protection against hospitalization and death is 90-95%, but the protection against infection is only about 45%.

We don’t just stop wearing helmets, unbuckle our seatbelts, and allow drunk driving because hospital beds are not full.

“Adults now are going out to gatherings, parties, bars, restaurants, nightclubs… so the likelihood of transmission is higher,” continued Dr. Feigl-Ding, “and someone may have immunocompromised children at home or family members who could actually have a severe outcome (from infection).”

Dr. Schaffner agreed that the ending of the mask mandate might increase the vulnerability of already fragile people and suggested that people consider their personal circumstances when deciding to leave the mask at home. “Are you older? Do you have an underlying illness, heart disease or lung disease? Are you immune-compromised? Are you a person that’s providing care for someone? Continue to be very careful.”

The speakers emphasized that vaccination is safe and that boosters are essential to strengthen immunity against COVID-19 and its long-term effects such as headaches, fatigue, sleep disturbance, stomach aches, chest tightness, and loss of appetite among others.

Originally published here

Want to read this piece in Spanish? Click here

Covid Came Calling

So it’s been a minute since I posted. Sorry about that, we were battling the plague.  We had a spectacular 4th of July weekend, Matt flew in from Minneapolis and the Edgewater gang drove over. The house was full of giggles and good food (I’m still dreaming of the German Bee Sting Cake that Jamie brought!).  The grandgirl spent time in her “mermaid lagoon” (blow-up pool) and even had fun at a little carnival before watching fireworks. I didn’t go to the carnival because I was still being super careful about crowds, coronavirus, and all that.  I still mask if I go into a store, we don’t dine inside restaurants, we’re vaxxed and boosted.  Couldn’t be more careful.  Guess who got COVID? Yep.  Matt tested positive, then three days later I did.  Mickey finally succumbed yesterday.  Ya’ know who is still negative? The three people who went to the carnival. We’re thinking it must have attached to Matt during his travels and of course we’ve been sitting in the house yakking and eating - so there you go.  We’ve been very, very fortunate with our symptoms (vaccines work!).  Matt has had mostly congestion and cough,  I had one rough night, maybe 12 hours where I felt rotten and feverish, and so far Mickey’s symptoms are very mild - he said he feels like he has a cold.  When I hear tales about people who felt awful for days, even weeks - I know we escaped the worst of it.  From what I’m reading, Omicron BA5 is what’s surging right now and is more immune evasive than other strains.   Here’s an interesting article. https://newatlas.com/health-wellbeing/does-ba5-cause-severe-disease-omicron-covid-ba2-study/ Because we had a doctor in the house, he recommended a course of Paxlovid which I’m sure played a huge part in keeping our symptoms from becoming severe.  It couldn’t have been easier.  There are “test to treat” sites in every state, you can call your primary care physician and let them know you’ve tested positive and they can call in a prescription, or you can use an online urgent care site which is what we did.  Matt handled everything and after filling out the information online (including a pic of our positive tests) we had the meds in about an hour.   https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/05/11/1097698090/3-ways-to-get-covid-pills-if-youve-just-tested-positive

As awful as I felt for that one night, I can’t imagine stringing that out over several days (or longer!).  If you test positive, get the pills.

So that’s what’s been happening at our house.  After being meticulously careful since March of 2020, it finally found us.  On one hand, I’m ticked off.  On the other, I’m grateful that it happened at a time when we’re vaccinated and treatment is easy and widely available.  This particular variant, Omicron BA5, which is likely what we have, doesn’t provide the lengthy immunity that other strains do - doctors are seeing people reinfected within a month.  So, I’ll continue masking in public and try to keep it out of the house.  I don’t want to know what repeat bouts of it might do to the body.  Can’t be good. I hope you’ll all stay careful and safe, this stuff isn’t over and probably won’t be for a long, long time.  Take care of yourself because you are the sunshine in someone’s day.  You’re the one someone looks up to.  You’ve still got big dreams and things to do.  You still have books to read and trips to take and hugs to give.  You have years worth of laughter still bubbling around inside of you, waiting for a reason to come out.  Don’t be careless with all of that good stuff! Mask up. Stay safe, stay well, stick around. XOXO, Nancy

Two Years Later... the virus continues to evolve.

The #omicron variant of #SARSCoV2 is still here through the #BA2 lineage and was one of the major omicron descendent lineages that showed significantly higher transmissibility and infectivity.

The #BA286 is a notable descendent lineage of BA.2 that emerged in 2023. This variant has higher numbers of spike protein mutations than previously emerged variants.

The new #JN1 variant is a descendent of BA.2.86 that has gained significantly higher transmission ability. With an additional substitution mutation (L455S) in the spike protein, the JN.1 variant exhibits faster circulation than BA.2.86 worldwide and is now the most dominant #COVID19 variant in the world.

日本はすべての新型コ□ナウイルス変異株が生物学研究所で操作されたという証拠を発表

日本はすべてのCOVIDバリアントがバイオラボで設計されたという証拠を発表

2023年10月8日

日本からの公式の新しい研究は、すべてのCovid変異がバイオラボで設計され、意図的に一般にリリースされたと結論付けました。

これが、海外から報道されています。

宮沢教授の研究は、オミクロンの変異体とその亜変異体が、さまざまな突然変異をテストすることを目的とした人間工学の結果であることを示しています。

宮沢教授の研究は、オミクロンの直接の祖先、つまり、オミクロンになるために突然変異が 1 つだけ欠けていた変異体を見つけることから構成されていました。 しかし、彼はこの特徴を示す武漢変異株の子孫変異株を31個特定することに成功しました。

　

宮沢教授らは、WHOに対抗するために、WCHを立ち上げました。

https://wch-japan.org/

https://thepeoplesvoice.tv/japan-releases-evidence-that-all-covid-variants-were-engineered-in-biolabs/

リンク先より一部翻訳

彼らは、誰がウイルスを設計したのか、そしてその理由について疑問を投げかけています。

“これらのウイルスが人工的に生成されたという仮説は、新しい突然変異獲得メカニズムを提案するよりも合理的です。”論文は読んでいます。

“しかし、現在の新型コロナの流行を考えると、自然に発生する可能性が低いこれらの変異体を人工的に作成する理由はありますか?”

しかし、科学者たちは、新型コロナのパンデミックが意図的に引き起こされているという主張をする際に線を引きます。

彼らは、そのような判断を下すことは彼らの専門分野の範囲外であると主張している。

“人工的に合成されたウイルスが意図的に世界中に広がっていたと考えることは、ウイルス研究にとって不敵です”。

“さらに、これらのウイルスが悪意に基づいて人工的に合成および配布されたとは結論付けていません。”

それにもかかわらず、彼らは変異が自然に形成できなかったと主張し、つまりそれらはラボでのみ設計できたであろうことを意味します。

“ここで示した分析では、オミクロン変異は以前の生物学では説明できない完全に新しいメカニズムによって形成されていると結論付けています”。

（中略）

要約すると、新しい日本の論文は次のように述べています:

この研究で提示された次の結果は、オミクロン変異が自然に発生するのではなく人工的に合成された可能性があるという仮説を裏付ける可能性があります:

1)1つの変異部位が武漢型であるオミクロン変異関連分離株の存在;

2)これらの分離株のSタンパク質に同義変異がほぼ完全に存在しない;

3)2021年11月24日に南アフリカからWHOに最初に報告されるべきだったオミクロン変異は、2020年にプエルトリコですでに風土病でした, オミクロン株BA1とBA2の間に組換え体である分離株があったこと。

[ad_1] The BA.2 sub-variant of Omicron has been present in 5 African international locations, a Global Well being Group scientist stated on Thursday (Dado Ruvic, Reuters) Estimated learn time: 2-3 minsJOHANNESBURG, South Africa — The BA.2 sub-variant of omicron has been present in 5 African international locations, a Global Well being Group scientist stated on Thursday, including she used to be involved concerning the construction as a result of samples of BA.2 might not be noticed as a type of omicron.The BA.2 sub-variant has begun to switch omicron's extra commonplace "authentic" BA.1 variant in international locations corresponding to Denmark. Knowledge from there suggests no distinction in illness severity, in line with any other WHO reliable.The BA.2 variant used to be first known in Utah on Jan. 12, in line with the Utah Division Of Well being."BA.2 ... has been reported in 5 international locations, this is Botswana, Kenya, Malawi, Senegal in addition to South Africa," Dr. Nicksy Gumede-Moeletsi informed a web based media briefing."We're very involved," she stated, including that BA.2 used to be proving exhausting to spot as it used to be no longer at all times picked up through the S-Gene Goal Failure criterion, which is used to tell apart the unique omicron from different variants.Gumede-Moeletsi stated the WHO used to be running very intently with laboratories, asking them to ahead samples that had come again with out being flagged as omicron for additional research, to be able to acquire a extra exact image of the unfold of BA.2.The BA.1 model of omicron has been rather more straightforward to trace than prior variants. This is as a result of BA.1 is lacking one in every of 3 goal genes utilized in a commonplace PCR take a look at. Circumstances appearing this trend have been assumed through default to be brought about through BA.1.BA.2, now and again referred to as a "stealth" sub-variant, does no longer have the similar lacking goal gene as the unique omicron variant.As a substitute, scientists are tracking it the similar method they've prior variants, together with delta, through monitoring the choice of virus genomes submitted to public databases corresponding to GISAID.As with different variants, an an infection with BA.2 may also be detected through coronavirus house assessments kits, even though they can't point out which variant is accountable, mavens stated.×Similar TalesEstelle Shirbon and James Macharia ChegeExtra tales you will be eager about [ad_2] #Omicron #subvariant #BA2 #tougher #establish

Potent Immunogenicity and Broad-Spectrum Protection Potential of Microneedle Array Patch-Based COVID-19 DNA Vaccine Candidates Encoding Dimeric RBD Chimera of SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 Variants

Preliminary report; Breakthrough infections by SARS-CoV-2 variants pose a global challenge to pandemic control, and the development of more effective vaccines of broad- spectrum protection is needed. In this study, we constructed pVAX1-based plasmids encoding heterodimeric receptor-binding domain (RBD) chimera of SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 Omicron BA.1 (RBDSARS/BA1), SARS-CoV and SARS- CoV-2 Beta (RBDSARS/Beta), or Omicron BA.1 and Beta (RBDBA1/Beta) in secreted form. When i.m. injected in mice, RBDSARS/BA1 and RBDSARS/Beta encoding plasmids (pAD1002 and pAD131, respectively) were by far more immunogenic than RBDBA1/Beta plasmid (pAD1003). Dissolvable microneedle array patches (MAP) laden with these DNA plasmids were fabricated. All 3 resulting MAP-based vaccine candidates, namely MAP-1002, MAP1003 and MAP-131, were comparable to i.m. inoculated plasmids with electroporation assistance in eliciting strong and durable IgG responses in BALB/c and C57BL/6 mice as well as rabbits, while MAP-1002 was comparatively the most immunogenic. More importantly, MAP-1002 significantly outperformed inactivated SARS-CoV-2 virus vaccine in inducing RBD-specific IFN-g+ T cells. Moreover, MAP-1002 antisera effectively neutralized pseudo- viruses displaying spike proteins of SARS-CoV, prototype SARS-CoV-2 or Beta, Delta, Omicron BA1, BA2 and BA4/5 variants. Collectively, MAP-based DNA constructs encoding chimeric RBDs of SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 variants, as represented by MAP-1002, are potential COVID-19 vaccine candidates worthy further translational study. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.12.01.518127v1?rss=1%22&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=tumblr Read more ↓

Everything You Need to Know About Halyard N95 Health Masks

In recent news, hospitalizations caused by new Covid-19 variants have increased. To avoid infection by variants BA1 and BA2, now might be a good time to invest in high-quality masks. Read our blog: Everything You Need to Know About Halyard N95 Health Masks

PBS NewsHour live episode, September 22, 2022

PBS NewsHour live episode, September 22, 2022

Stream your PBS favorites with the PBS app: https://to.pbs.org/2Jb8twG Find more from PBS NewsHour at https://www.pbs.org/newshour Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://bit.ly/2HfsCD6 Follow us: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@pbsnews Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/newshour Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/newshour Facebook: http://www.pbs.org/newshour Subscribe: PBS NewsHour podcasts:…

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🚨📢📣⚠️➡️ #BA4 #BA5 ⬆️ 50%+ OF #Covid19 CASES in USA 🇺🇸 AN EST. 87.2-89.2 MILLION CONFIRMED CASES & AN ESTIMATED 1.0 MILLION+ 🇺🇸 💀 #Covid19isReal 🦠 😷 💉 FOR ℹ VISIT #CDC OR #WHO FOR DETAILS. #Covid22 #Covid19

omicron-1 variants are practically extinct, it's all BA2+ now

seroprevalence estimates are approximately in line with excess deaths (seroprevalence suggests 2.39x undercounted cases, excess deaths estimated 1.8-2.2x undercounted deaths)

What are the brand new COVID subvariants XBB and BQ.1?

‘These variants are a nuisance, however they’re not killing folks. At this stage, it’s behaving significantly better than BA1 and BA2.’ (Picture: Adobe) Two new Omicron subvariants are right here to play as Australia enters one more wave of COVID-19 infections. Australian state and federal well being authorities have linked XBB and BQ.1 to a rising caseload, however consultants should not but involved. “To know whether or not a variant goes to be an actual drawback, you have a look at hospitalisations, ICU admissions, and deaths. They usually’re not likely going up, they’re staying fixed,” infectious illness doctor on the Alfred Hospital Dr Andrew Fuller advised Crikey. “These variants are a nuisance, however they’re not killing folks. At this stage, it’s behaving significantly better than BA1 and BA2.” Learn extra in regards to the COVID subvariants XBB and BQ.1. Already a subscriber? Log in to maintain studying. Or, register your e-mail deal with for a FREE 21-day trial. Originally published at Irvine News HQ

Symptoms of XBB.1.5 COVID variant #COVID19 #COVID #Omicron #XBB15 #BA2 #CovidIsNotOver https://www.instagram.com/p/CnHiLrPrdV-/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=