Guten Tag, mein Herr. How many Covid shots would you like today?
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 1,455th day.
In news we cover today, a German man, known only by the initials HIM, has apparently received over 200 Covid vaccinations; the U.S. government is once again suspending free at-home test kits, and low levels of iron may turn out to be a trigger of Long Covid, a new study suggest..
LONG COVID
A new study suggests that low blood iron levels may be a trigger for Long Covid. The study, published this week in the journal Nature Immunology, was based on blood samples from 214 patients collected via the Cambridge Institute of Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Disease.
Study participants provided multiple blood samples during and after a SARS-CoV-2 infection for a period of 12 months.
The study, entitled Iron Dysregulation and Inflammatory Stress Erythropoiesis Associates with Long-Term Outcome of Covid-19 and led by researchers at the Cambridge Institute of Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Disease, suggests that Long Covid was associated with how quickly inflammation and low iron levels regulated after acute infection.
The researchers found that patients who took a longer time to demonstrate regulation, and had more severe initial infections, were at an increased risk of Long Covid.
UNITED STATES
The federal government’s offer for f ree a t-h ome Covid t est k its will soon be discontinued. The on-again/off-again offer was most recently made available in mid-November of last year, just in time for the holiday travel season.
The free test kits will continue to be available at www.covidtests.gov through March 8, 2024.
“Orders for free at-home Covid-19 tests will be suspended on Friday, March 8, 2024,” a message that first appeared on Monday of this week said on the website.
The program was introduced in late January 2022. Deliveries are made by the United States Postal Service within seven to ten days of an order being placed. The government will send four test kits to each residential address that places a request until the program is once again suspended at the end of the current week.
In Washington, D.C., the White House lifted its coronavirus testing requirement for individuals who would be in close contact with President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, as well as their respective spouses.
The move signifies the end of all coronavirus prevention protocols at the White House, as this requirement was the last remaining one.
The protocol was instituted shortly after the start of the pandemic in 2020 under the Trump administration.
The change comes on the heels of new isolation guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that allow people to leave home isolation and return to activities such as work provided symptoms are only mild and at least a day has passed since having a fever.
GLOBAL NEWS
In what appears to be a get into the Guinness Book of World Records, a 62-year-old man with the initials HIM from Magdeburg, the capital of Sachsen-Anhalt in Germany, deliberately received 217 vaccinations within a 29-month period against SARS-CoV-2. In contrast, the average German citizen has received between three and four Covid vaccine shots.
HIM was not part of a clinical study nor was the sum total number of vaccinations contemplated under guidelines from the Robert Koch Institut, Germany’s public-health institute, or the Bundesministerium für Gesundheit, the Federal Ministry of Health.
The number of inoculations was so high that the Staatsanwaltschaft Magdeburg, the public prosecutor’s office, opened an investigation, which was later dropped.
Researchers at several major German universities including the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg in Erlangen and the Technische Universität München asked HIM via the Staatsanwaltschaft if he would participate in a study that would analyze investigate the immunological consequences of hypervaccination what the researchers characterized as “this unique situation.”
The subject did not report any adverse effects of the vaccinations and his bloodwork and past Covid tests did not indicate that he had ever contracted SARS-CoV-2.
The researchers, in what can only be described as a “don’t try this at home” statement, concluded the report in the Lancet saying that “we do not endorse hypervaccination as a strategy to enhance adaptive immunity.”
GLOBAL STATISTICS
Now here are the daily statistics for Tuesday, March 5.
As of Tuesday, at press time, the world has recorded 703.92 million Covid-19 cases, an increase of 0.04 million in the last 48 hours, and 7 million deaths, according to Worldometer, a service that tracks such information. In addition, 674.86 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 22,055,036, a decrease of 7,000 in the past 24 hours. Out of that figure, 99.8%, or 22,019,590, are considered mild, and 0.2%, or 35,446, are listed as critical. The percentage of cases considered critical has not changed over the past 19 months.
Since the start of the pandemic, the United States has, as of Tuesday, recorded 111.57 million cases, a higher figure than any other country, and a death toll of 1.22 million. India has the world’s second highest number of officially recorded cases, 45.03 million, and a reported death toll of 533,499.
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, 709,963, has recorded 38.45 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 24.01 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 7.4%, and the trend in test positivity is -1.1% in the most recent week. Meanwhile, the percentage of emergency department visits that were diagnosed as SARS-CoV-2 was 1.5%, and the trend in emergency department visits is -14.6%.
The number of people admitted to hospital in the United States due to SARS-CoV-2 in the same 7-day period was 17,310, a figure that is down 10.3% over the past 7-day period. Meanwhile, the percentage of deaths due to SARS-CoV-2 was 2.1%, a figure that is down 10.7% 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 2,995 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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