A man sweeping at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding
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 1,441st day.
THE LEDE
Getting Reinfected by SARS-CoV-2: It Takes a Village to Survive a Pandemic
There’s a lot scientists and physicians know about SARS-CoV-2, aka Covid-19, but there’s even more than they don’t know.
So far, the world has experienced over 703 million reported cases, just under seven million Covid-related deaths, and there are at the present time 22.2 million active reported Covid cases across the globe.
Covid, at least for the time being, is here to stay and we do know that contracting the virus doesn’t bestow permanent immunity. We also know that, when the virus enters the body, it affects multiple organ systems. For the tens of millions of people who suffer from Long Covid, a condition that in perhaps as much as 15% of those who have contracted Covid surfaces weeks or months after an individual has had an infection, suffer a variety of symptoms – some estimates indicate it could be as many as 200 – and chief among them are debilitating chronic pain, brain fog, shortness of breath, chest pain, and severe persistent chronic fatigue.
Most people have no idea how often they might be getting reinfected with Covid because many cases are asymptomatic and lingering protection from both past infections and vaccinations does typically reduce the severity.
Based on, however, evidence of the long-term impact of other viruses, it does not bode well for people to contract SARS-CoV-2 at regular intervals.
In Year 5 of the pandemic, we may be tired of hearing about it, tired of the idea of masks and vaccines, and tired being tired of it, but the fact that it continues to impact us all as a society – even if the most vulnerable among us, the aged and immunocompromised are bearing the brunt of the risk – we do need to think of health as the most important common good, one that we must guard and protect, regardless of economic and social forces.
We may think of ourselves as proud individuals but, just as, according to the proverb, it takes a village to raise a child, it also takes a village to survive the inevitable pandemic as well, provided that the villagers wash their hands, cover their coughs, and don face masks.
In other news we cover today, one state’s highest court rejected an appeal by a restaurant operator over its business interruption insurance policy rejection, hospitalizations in California are down, and experiments on mutant coronaviruses are not as uncommon as you might think.
UNITED STATES
Health officials in California reported that SARS-CoV-2 hospitalizations in the state are at their lowest point in two months. The news is particularly welcome after a particularly challenging winter marked by the tripledemic of influenza, Covid, and RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus.
In New York, the Court of Appeals – the state’s highest court – upheld lower court rulings that rejected a restaurant operator’s claims under its business interruption policy. The case was decided on February 15, 2024.
The Court of Appeals affirmed that there must be direct physical loss or damage, not just presence of a virus, to trigger coverage under a commercial property policy in order to claim business interruption losses.
The case involved Consolidated Restaurant Operations, a company that operates dozens of restaurants and which had an “all-risk” insurance policy, and Westport Insurance Corporation.
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.
GLOBAL STATISTICS
Now here are the daily statistics for Tuesday, February 20.
As of Tuesday at press time, the world has recorded 703.52 million Covid-19 cases, an increase of 0.04 million in the last 72 hours, and 6.98 million deaths, according to Worldometer, a service that tracks such information. In addition, 674.3 million people worldwide have recovered from the virus, an increase of 0.05 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 Tuesday at press time is 22,236,619, a decrease of 15,000 in the past 72 hours. Out of that figure, 99.8%, or 22,200,924, are considered mild, and 0.2%, or 35,695, 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 Tuesday, recorded 111.37 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 533,473.
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 23.96 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 Tuesday, 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 3,626 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.
☏ 844 LONGCOV (844 566-4268)
(Photo: Accura Media Group)
All Rights Reserved Travel