Equestrian statue of Simón Bolivar, who led Gran Colombia to freedom from the Spanish empire. Colombia currently has the highest number of severe dengue cases in South America.
Good afternoon. 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 its 1,440th day.
LONG COVID
Some Long Covid patients have long known that having the condition destroys their ability to exercise. A new study tells us why.
The answer lies in the muscle damage some Long Covid patients have suffered as well as their bodies’ ability to make energy, resulting in what is termed post-exertional malaise, which is also a defining condition of myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome.
A new study, entitled Muscle Abnormalities Worsen After Post-Exertional Malaise in Long Covid and published last month in the journal Nature Communications, provides an explanation for this. The study suggests that patients with Long Covid experience multiple changes in their body after exercising, including widespread muscle damage, changes in muscle composition, and disrupted energy metabolism.
The patients included in the study averaged 41 years of age. None had any other pre-existing conditions, and they were all experiencing a significant disruption to their work and social lives due to Long Covid.
UNITED STATES
The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic has ordered for former members of New York ex-Governor Andrew Cuomo’s administration to provide testimony on the so-called “must admit” orders issued to nursing homes in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic.
The committee said it had sent letters to Elizabeth Garvey, a former special counselor and senior adviser to Cuomo; Gareth Rhodes, the former deputy superintendent of New York’s Department of Financial Services; James Malatras, the ex-governor’s former policy adviser; and Linda Lacewell, the former superintendent of the Department of Financial Services.
The committee is investigating government actions in response to the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2.
New York State’s governor, Kathy Hochul, wants to make the to-go cocktail a permanent fixture in the EmpireState’s restaurant and bar scene. Sales of to-go cocktails were first made available in the first year of the coronavirus pandemic as part of an effort to prop up restaurants. The pandemic-inspired drinks policy wasn’t renewed for 2021 but returned in 2022 and is scheduled to expire in 2025. The popular policy allows restaurants to sell wine, beer, and cocktails to go to diners although substantial food orders with each drink order are required and drinks must be sold in sealed containers.
The law isn’t the same as an open-container policy such as those found in Savannah or New Orleans, so it won’t be possible for patrons to walk around the Big Apple with their drink in a martini glass, unless it’s a non-alcoholic beverage.
GLOBAL NEWS
While China’s experiments on mutant coronavirus strains made headlines across the globe in January when scientists in Beijing cloned and then mutated a Covid-like virus uncovered decades ago in a pangolin and used it to infect humanized mice, this type of work is not limited to the east. Such experiments are being conducted in the United Kingdom, led by leading virologists, as well as Germany, Switzerland, Japan, and the United States.
The researchers contend that their work, which is conducted in safe, high-security laboratories, is essential in order to gain a better understanding of SARS-CoV-2 and the coronavirus family to which it belongs.
Oh, and about those humanized mice infected with the GX-P2V virus? They all died, in case you were fearful of encountering a humanized mouse on your evening stroll.
OTHER HEALTHCARE NEWS
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published multiple Level 1 Travel Health Notices regarding dengue outbreaks in, well, pretty much the entire world. The notices covered 1.) Africa and the Middle East, 2.) Asia and the Pacific Islands, and 3.) the Americas. They all warn of “increased numbers of cases of the disease.”
As of the fifth week of 2024, which ended on February 17, there have been 673,267 cases of Dengue reported, out of which 102 have been fatal, yielding a case fatality rate of 0.015%. The early 2024 figure is a 157% increase in the number of cases from the same period in 2023.
Dengue fever is a mosquito-borne tropical disease caused by the dengue virus. It is frequently asymptomatic but, if symptoms appear, they begin three to 14 days after becoming infecting. The symptoms include a high fever, headache, vomiting, and muscle and joint pain, as well as a characteristic skin itching and skin rash.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon confirmed what many had suspected and those working in the White House knew first-hand: A January 2024 report by the Inspector General said that previous White House medical teams had freely sedatives and stimulants, failed to maintain records on powerful drugs such as fentanyl, and offered medical care to as many as hundreds of ineligible White House staff members and contractors.
“We concluded that all phases of the White House Medical Unit’s pharmacy operations had severe and systemic problems,” the report stated. It noted that actions by the medical unit effectively threatened the unit’s primary mission, namely to keep the president and vice president healthy and safe.
Following these revelations, a review by the Washington Post found that the IG’s report had understated the severity of the problem.
“Four former members of the White House Medical Unit confirmed that in both the Trump and Obama White Houses, the team passed out sedatives such as Ambien and stimulants such as Provigil without proper prescriptions, provided complimentary medical equipment and imaging to ineligible staffers, and used aliases in electronic health records to disguise the patients’ identities and deliver free care in cases where the recipients wouldn’t be eligible,” the paper said.
The freewheeling atmosphere, the staffers said, could be traced back to one person, Ronny Jackson, an emergency medicine physician who had joined the White House Medical Unit under George W. Bush and who served as the official physician to the president in the Obama and Trump White Houses.
Jackson, who is now a member of Congress from Florida, “used his proximity to both presidents to build influence by dispensing medical care and drugs without proper procedures,” the Post reported.
GLOBAL STATISTICS
Now here are the daily statistics for Monday, February 19.
As of Monday at press time, the world has recorded 703.48 million Covid-19 cases, an increase of 0.13 million in the last 72 hours, and 6.98 million deaths, according to Worldometer, a service that tracks such information. In addition, 674.25 million people worldwide have recovered from the virus, an increase of 0.14 million in the past 24 hours.
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 22,251,152, a decrease of 8,000 in the past 72 hours. Out of that figure, 99.8%, or 22,215,451, are considered mild, and 0.2%, or 35,701, are listed as critical. The percentage of cases considered critical has not changed over the past 18 months.
Since the start of the pandemic, the United States has, as of Monday, recorded 111.36 million cases, a higher figure than any other country, and a death toll of 1.2 million. India has the world’s second highest number of officially recorded cases, 45.03 million, and a reported death toll of 533,472.
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 38.82 million total cases.
Brazil, which has recorded the third highest number of deaths as a result of the virus, 709,765, has recorded 38.41 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 26.72 million, as number eight, as well as the United Kingdom, with 24.9 million, and Russia, with 23.93 million, as nine and ten respectively.
CURRENT U.S. COVID STATISTICS AT A GLANCE
In the United States, in the week ending February 10, 2024, the test positivity rate was, based on data released on February 16, 2024 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was 9.1%, and the trend in test positivity is -0.6% in the most recent week. Meanwhile, the percentage of emergency department visits that were diagnosed as SARS-CoV-2 was 1.8%, and the trend in emergency department visits is -5.3%.
The number of people admitted to hospital in the United States due to SARS-CoV-2 in the same 7-day period was 21,373, a figure that is up 0.8% over the past 7-day period. Meanwhile, the percentage of deaths due to SARS-CoV-2 was 2.7%, a figure that is down 6.9% in the same 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, 13.57 billion doses of the vaccine have been administered on a global basis and 4,399 doses are now administered each day.
Meanwhile, only 32.7% 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, 2023, 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
If you have Long Covid and need to talk to someone, call the Long Covid Patient Peer Counseling Phone Line, or HOPELINE. The HOPELINE is our free, confidential support and information service.
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