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Good day. This is Jonathan Spira, director of research at the Center for Long Covid Research, reporting. Here now the news of the pandemic from across the globe on the 1,419th day of the pandemic.
In news we report today, researchers in South Korea have uncovered how our body’s immune systems protect against new Covid variants, the Bank of America is sending nastygrams to employees who are supposed to work at least three times per week in the office but don’t, and gene therapy trials are restoring hearing to children born deaf.
UNITED STATES
A Bank of America “letter of education” is apparently putting teeth into the bank’s return- to-office mandate. Apparently, the vast majority of BoA’s 217,000 employees come into the office between three to five days per week. Those who do not, however, are the ones getting the warning letters.
The students who were really innocent bystanders in the affair have their state immunization records voided, health officials said. All of the bogus inoculations were pre-pandemic so no coronavirus vaccinations were involved in the case.
GLOBAL
A team of South Korean scientists published research that suggests that the memory T cells that form during Omicron breakthrough infections respond to subsequent strains of the virus as well. Put differently, a person’s immune system may be getting smarter with each encounter with SARS-CoV-2.
In a paper entitled TGFβ Prevents IgE-Mediated Allergic Disease by Restraining T Follicular Helper 2 Differentiation and published in the journal Science Immunology last week, the researchers, who had compared immune cells in the lab acquired from people who had varying vaccine and infection histories from the different Omicron waves, found that T-cells not only retain memory of the viruses they encounter but recognized the parts of the virus that remained conserved, as opposed to portions that had changed among the different variants.
OTHER HEALTHCARE NEWS
The White House apparently had a pharmacy problem, namely that the White House pharmacy was handing out drugs like candy, without regard for pharmacy rules and regulations, according to a new report.
The investigation was prompted by complaints that were received by the Department of Defense in 2018 and concerned an unnamed senior military medical officer engaging in “improper medical practices.” It covers only activity in the office through early 2020.
In China, five of six deaf children who received several gene therapies to restore a protein required for transmitting sound from the ear to the brain can now hear after a single injection. The news was reported in the journal The Lancet.
The announcement came on the heels of a separate but similar one from U.S. drugmaker E.I. Lilly in which a child born with profound deafness who received a similar treatment could also now hear.
GLOBAL STATISTICS
Now here are the daily statistics for Monday, January 29.
As of Monday morning, the world has recorded 702.49 million Covid-19 cases, an increase of 0.03 million in the last 24 hours, and 6.97 million deaths, according to Worldometer, a service that tracks such information. In addition, 673.42 million people worldwide have recovered from the virus, an increase of 0.03 million.
The reader should note that infrequent reporting from some sources may appear as spikes in new case figures or death tolls as well as the occasional downward or upward adjustment as corrections to case figures warrant.
Worldwide, the number of active coronavirus cases as of Monday at press time is 22,086,122, a decrease of 10,000 in the past 24 hours. Out of that figure, 99.8%, or 22,049,674, are considered mild, and 0.2%, or 36,448, are listed as critical. The percentage of cases considered critical has not changed over the past 16 months.
Since the start of the pandemic, the United States has, as of Monday, recorded 110.78 million cases, a higher figure than any other country, and a death toll of 1.19 million. India has the world’s second highest number of officially recorded cases, 45.03 million, and a reported death toll of 533,445.
The newest data from Russia’s Rosstat state statistics service showed that, at the end of July 2022, the number of Covid or Covid-related deaths since the start of the pandemic there in April 2020 is now 823,623, giving the country the world’s second highest pandemic-related death toll, behind the United States. Rosstat last reported that 3,284 people died from the coronavirus or related causes in July 2022, down from 5,023 in June, 7,008 in May and 11,583 in April.
Meanwhile, France is the country with the third highest number of cases, with 40.14 million, and Germany is in the number four slot, with 38.8 million total cases.
Brazil, which has recorded the third highest number of deaths as a result of the virus, 708,195, has recorded 38.3 million cases, placing it in the number five slot.
The other five countries with total case figures over the 20 million mark are South Korea, with 34.57 million cases, as number six; Japan, with 33.8 million cases placing it in the number seven slot; and Italy, with 26.71 million, as number eight, as well as the United Kingdom, with 24.89 million, and Russia, with 23.85 million, as nine and ten respectively.
CURRENT U.S. COVID STATISTICS AT A GLANCE
In the United States, in the week ending January 20, 2022, the test positivity rate was, based on data released on January 26, 2024 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was 10.8%, and the trend in test positivity is -1.2% in the most recent week. Meanwhile, the percentage of emergency department visits that were diagnosed as SARS-CoV-2 was 2.1%, and the trend in emergency department visits is -16.3%.
The number of people admitted to hospital in the United States due to SARS-CoV-2 in the same 7-day period was 26,607, a figure that is down 14% over the past 7-day period. Meanwhile, the percentage of deaths due to SARS-CoV-2 was 3.7%, a figure that is up -7.5% for the period.
VACCINATION SPOTLIGHT
Some 70.6% of the world population has received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine by Monday, according to Our World in Data, an online scientific publication that tracks such information. So far, 13.53 billion doses of the vaccine have been administered on a global basis and 20,602 doses are now administered each day.
Meanwhile, only 32.9% of people in low-income countries have received one dose, while in countries such as Canada, China, Denmark, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States, at least 75% of the population has received at least one dose of vaccine.
Only a handful of the world’s poorest countries – Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia and Nepal – have reached the 70% mark in vaccinations. Many countries, however, are under 20% and, in countries such as Haiti, Senegal, and Tanzania, for example, vaccination rates remain at or below 10%.
In addition, with the beginning of vaccinations in North Korea in late September, Eritrea remains the only country in the world that has not administered vaccines in any significant number.
Anna Breuer contributed reporting to this story.
The Coronavirus Daily News Brief is a publication of the Center for Long Covid Research. www.longcov.org
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