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Coronavirus dashboard for November 8, 2022

NewDealdemocrat | November 10, 2022 9:15 pm

Healthcare

Coronavirus dashboard for November 8 : the new alphabet soup of variants fails to generate a new wave (so far)

– by New Deal democrat

Biobot has not updated since late last week, showing COVID particles at or near 6 month lows both nationwide:

and in all 4 Census regions:

As expected, the CDC’s variant update last Friday showed that BA.5 was down to 40% of all cases, with the alphabet soup of new variants descended from BA.2 and BA.5 making up the other 60%:

Regionally, (not shown) BA.5 is particularly low, at only 25% of all cases, in NY and NJ.

Confirmed cases remain higher than their recent low of 34,300 set 2.5 weeks ago, at 39,600, but the trend is more flat than rising:

The same of true of hospitalizations, at 24,800 almost 2,000 above their recent lows:

Deaths have continued to decline, at 316 close to a 6 month low, and only higher than about 4 months during the entire pandemic:

A regional breakout of confirmed cases shows an increase only in the Midwest, while the Northeast has the highest absolute level per capita. Cases are generally flat in the majority of States and Puerto Rico.

Cases have been declining in the 6 New England States (shown below plus NY and NJ):

and also Washington State.

Cases are rising in CO, NM, IN, KY, LA, MD, MO, NE, NV, OH, SD, UT, and WV:

Although note that the increases are relatively small except in NM, CO, and KY.

It appears the winter wave is slowly beginning, but it is encouraging that it remains so low with the alphabet soup of new variants making up the majority of cases. My suspicion is that cases will rise throughout the holidays, with all of the indoor get-togethers; but that the wave will be more like the recent BA.2.12.1 and BA.5 waves than either of the past two huge winter waves.

“Coronavirus dashboard for October 21: autumn lull continues, despite new subvariants, Angry Bear, New Deal democrat

3 Comments

dilbert dogbert says:

November 10, 2022 at 10:39 pm

Just read that UCSF in San Francisco has no Covid patients.

Good News!!
rjs says:

November 11, 2022 at 6:54 pm

on the efficacy of various combinations of vaccines against some of those newer variants (see the graph above for their US incidence):

The Latest COVID-19 Variants Can Evade Vaccine Protection, According to New Data – New lab data suggest that vaccines and prior infections may not offer enough protection against several new COVID-19 variants cropping up in the U.S. and around the world.Dr. David Ho, director of Columbia University’s Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center (ADARC), and his team reported the results from a set of studies at an ADARC symposium. They showed how well some of the latest variants—BQ.1, BQ.1.1, XBB, and XBB.1, which were all derived from Omicron—are evading both vaccine-derived and infection-derived immunity.These new variants all have mutations in the region that binds to cells and infects them, which means that they’re highly transmissible, as prior Omicron variants were. BQ.1 is growing steadily in France, according to the public database of SARS-CoV-2 variants GISAID. By mid-November, European health officials expect the variant to account for 50% of cases in Europe, and to become the dominant strain in that region by early 2023. XBB is growing quickly in Singapore and India. Both variants have spawned new strains that have each picked up an additional mutation to create BQ.1.1 and XBB.1. As of early November, BQ.1 and BQ.1.1, combined, now make up about 35% of new cases in the U.S. Other studies have found similar drops in antibody protection against BQ.1 among vaccinated people. But Ho’s group conducted what is likely the most comprehensive look to date at BQ.1, BQ.1.1, XBB, and XBB.1, and how existing immunity—from the original mRNA vaccines, the new Omicron boosters, and natural infections—stands up to them. Scientists took blood sera from 88 people in five groups (below) and exposed it to the four variants in the lab. Here’s what they found:
- Fully vaccinated and once-boosted people (three total shots of the original mRNA vaccines) had 37- and 55-fold lower neutralization against BQ.1 and BQ.1.1, respectively, than they did against the original SARS-CoV-2 virus, and about 70-fold lower neutralization against XBB and XBB.1.
- Fully vaccinated and twice-boosted people (four total shots of the original mRNA vaccines) had 43- and 81-fold lower neutralization against BQ.1 and BQ.1.1, respectively, than they did against the original virus, and 145- and 155-fold lower neutralization against XBB and XBB.1, respectively.
- Fully vaccinated and twice-boosted people (three shots of the original vaccine plus one Omicron booster) had 24- and 41-fold lower neutralization against BQ.1 and BQ.1.1, respectively, than they did against the original virus, and 66- and 85-fold lower neutralization against XBB and XBB.1, respectively.
- Fully vaccinated people who had received the original booster and who had been infected with BA.2 had 20- and 29-fold lower neutralization against BQ.1 and BQ.1.1, respectively, than they did against the original virus, and 103- and 135-fold lower neutralization against XBB and XBB.1, respectively.
- Fully vaccinated people who had received the original booster and who had been infected with BA.4 or BA.5 had 13- and 31-fold lower neutralization against BQ.1 and BQ.1.1, respectively, than they did against the original virus, and 86- and 96-fold lower neutralization against XBB and XBB.1, respectively.
rjs says:

November 11, 2022 at 7:01 pm

and for those who’ve had Covid before and think they’re safe…

Repeat coronavirus infections can be dangerous, study suggests – The Washington Post

For people who have endured one bout of covid-19, a question looms: How protected are they from bad outcomes if they’re infected again? Not as much as some might think, according to a study from the Department of Veterans Affairs of nearly 41,000 people who suffered reinfection.

Ziyad Al-Aly, one of the study’s authors and chief of research and development at the VA St. Louis Health Care System, said a second, third or further infections can lead to health complications just as the first can.

“Getting it a second time is almost like you’re trying your chance again with Russian roulette,” Al-Aly, who is also a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University, said. “You may have dodged a bullet the first time, but each time you get the infection you are trying your luck again.”

The paper, published Thursday in the journal Nature Medicine, involves an analysis of electronic medical records in the VA’s national health-care database. It found that patients with reinfections tended to have more complications in various organ systems both during their initial illness and longer term, and they were more likely to be diagnosed with long covid than people who did not get another infection. The findings applied regardless of people’s vaccination status or whether they were boosted.

The study included a review of the medical records of 5.8 million patients, 443,588 of whom had been infected once, and 40,947 who had been infected two or more times. The median time between the first and second infection was 191 days. Compared with people who experienced only one infection, those who were reinfected had a twofold increased risk of death, threefold increased risk of hospitalization, twofold increased risk of long covid, threefold increase in risk of heart problems and blood clotting disorders, and twofold increased risk of fatigue.

Coronavirus dashboard for November 8, 2022

Coronavirus dashboard for November 8: the new alphabet soup of variants fails to generate a new wave (so far)

Coronavirus dashboard for November 8 : the new alphabet soup of variants fails to generate a new wave (so far)