Contents:
- COVID
- H5N1
COVID
HHS Reporting
The big change this week is that HHS no longer requires COVID reporting from hospitals. This is very concerning based on what happened when they stopped requiring the reporting of suspected COVID admissions last June. Here’s how that influenced the data in a number of major cities. The dotted line represents the reports received. There is a very clear drop in the admission numbers at that time.
Atlanta
Boston
Chicago
Cincinatti
Cleveland
Dallas
Indianapolis
Houston
Las Vegas
Little Rock
New York
It’s also suspicious that this change had been made when we were not in a surge, just like now. That made it much easier to let this slip by, such as can be seen in Denver.
Positivity in the UK
The FLiRT variants, KP.2 and KP.3, are descendants of JN.1 and are becoming dominant in the UK. The rise in positivity in the country is alarming, suggesting very rapid spread. This is at a time of year when people are heading outside more often in the northern hemisphere and we would expect a decrease in spread. The big question will be how sick it makes people.
This rapid spread is also supported in a preprint. “The Re [effective reproduction number] of KP.2 is 1.22-, 1.32-, and 1.26-times higher than that of JN.1 in USA, United Kingdom, and Canada, respectively. These results suggest that KP.2 has higher viral fitness and potentially becomes the predominant lineage worldwide.”
New “Truths” Section
It dawned on me that not only should I organize material about myths, but also make it easy to find truths based on primary sources. The first one in this section is Vaccines reduce the risk of hospitalization and death. There is a lot here to build out.
Studies Added
- Severe neurological manifestation associated with COVID-19 in children during the Omicron variant-predominant period
- COVID-19 Vaccination and Incidence of Pediatric SARS-CoV-2 Infection and Hospitalization
- COVID-19-Associated Hospitalizations Among Vaccinated and Unvaccinated Adults 18 Years or Older in 13 US States, January 2021 to April 2022
H5N1
Wastewater
I had written about influenza A surging in wastewater at a treatment plant in Amarillo, TX on April 22. It was odd that CNN did a story about it on April 30. As a follow up, here’s the influenza wastewater curves from across the country, with that site highlighted. It’s good that it has come back down, but I still suspect that it means that H5N1 has entered beef cattle.
Cattle Workers
We also learned more about the dairy worker in Texas that had been infected with H5N1. A neuroscientist pointed out that this is likely a very neurotropic (affinity toward nerve tissue) virus based on the condition of the eyes of the dairy worker.
Also in Texas, “The first calls that Dr. Barb Petersen received in early March were from dairy owners worried about crows, pigeons and other birds dying on their Texas farms. Then came word that barn cats — half of them on one farm — had died suddenly…
…At the same time, on almost every farm with sick animals, Petersen said she saw sick people, too.
‘We were actively checking on humans,’ Petersen said. ‘I had people who never missed work, miss work.'”
