A broom sits unused next to a rubbish bin at Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding
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 1,420th day of the pandemic.
In news we report today, a new study found that the U.S. government failed to protect many thousands of frontline workers in the early years of the pandemic, social media is busy misinterpreting results of a mice study, and Bank of America is giving workers who aren’t returning to the office under reinstated policies two weeks to comply or possibly lose their jobs.
UNITED STATES
A new study that shows that thousands of frontline workers, namely those whose jobs would not be able to be performed from home, died but would have survived had the U.S. regulatory system better protected them. The study, U.S. Workers During the Covid-19 Pandemic: Uneven Risks, Inadequate Protections, and Predictable Consequences, was published in the thebmj. Thebmj is a weekly peer-reviewed medical journal effectively owned by the British Medical Association
“Federal policies on workplace exposure were developed to protect the supply chain of food or other vital products, or to prevent staff shortages at healthcare facilities, rather than to protect frontline workers from virus exposure,” wrote the George Washington University–led study authors. “Some employers, with the support (and encouragement) of elected officials, put production and profits ahead of worker safety and health.”
The report is the first in a series that examines the lessons learned from the first few years of the pandemic and outlines possible steps that might avert deaths in the next pandemic.
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 and could lose their jobs. “Letter of education” is BoA’s term for a warning letter.
“You are receiving a letter of education for failure to follow the minimum expectation regarding your work location set by the Workplace Excellence Guidelines despite requests and reminders to do so,” the letter reads.
The nastygram gives workers two weeks to comply or face “further disciplinary action”.
GLOBAL
An animal-based study has resulted in false claims that Chinese scientists created a 100% fatal strain of Covid-19 but the numerous posts on social media misconstrue a study’s findings.
In a preprint study published in bioRxrv, a journal operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a research and educational institution, ten researchers in Beijing and Nanjing reported that they had tested a type of coronavirus, GX_P2V, that occurs only in animals. The scientists said they discovered the virus in 2017 in pangolins and cloned a cell-adapted variant of it. They then humanized four mice by genetically modifying them to express the protein ACE2, which SARS-CoV-2 sues to enter cells in the human body.
Sadly, they had to report that all four mice died unexpectedly from severe brain infection within eight days. They had experienced a “high expression” of ACE2 in their brain and lung tissues, which made them more susceptible to infection.
Part of the problem that caused the misinformation to surface appears seems to have come from the study itself, albeit in an earlier version, which incorrectly stated that there is a “spillover risk” of GX_P2V into humans.
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 recognize the parts of the virus that remained conserved, as opposed to portions that had changed among the different variants.
OTHER HEALTHCARE NEWS
Neuralinx has implanted a chip into its first human patient. The controversial startup implanted a chip in a human brain for the first time, the company said on Monday. The operation took place on Sunday and the patient was recovering well, it said.
Previously, the company had said that the implants would at first be used for people who had lost the use of their limbs.
GLOBAL STATISTICS
Now here are the daily statistics for Tuesday, January 30.
As of Tuesday morning, the world has recorded 702.52 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, 673.46 million people worldwide have recovered from the virus, an increase of 0.04 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 Tuesday at press time is 22,079,742, a decrease of 6,000 in the past 24 hours. Out of that figure, 99.8%, or 22,043,319, are considered mild, and 0.2%, or 36,423, 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 Tuesday, recorded 110.79 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 38.81 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 23.88 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 Tuesday, 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 22,823 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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