Coronavirus Weekend News Brief – May 28: Current Vaccines Could Protect Against Future Viruses, Gaga OK With Fans With Risking Covid

Lady Gaga performing during her residency at the Park MGM Hotel in Las Vegas.
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 1,539th day.
In news we cover today ,  Lady Gaga dug herself into a deeper hole by saying that, when she performed at five concerts while Covid positive it was okay because fans were “putting themselves in harm’s way” by attending, current vaccines may be able to protect people against future Covid variants and other coronaviruses, and negotiations over a new treaty that is supposed to enable the world to combat the next pandemic have broken down.
TODAY IN THE FIRST YEAR OF COVID HISTORY
On May 28, 2020, just as the death toll in the United States crossed the 100,000 mark. In contrast to the actions of then President Donald Trump, then Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made a poignant appeal for Americans to wear masks.  “There’s no stigma attached to wearing a mask. There’s no stigma attached to staying 6’ [(1.8 m)] apart,” the Kentucky Republican at an event in his home state.
The United Kingdom announced it will start mass coronavirus testing and contact tracing on Thursday.  Individuals with symptoms of Covid-19 who test positive will be asked to provide a list of all individuals with whom they spent a minimum of 15 minutes with.  These people will in turn be contacted and asked to self-isolate.
In figures that underscore the serious nature of the pandemic in the first six months, the U.S. Department of Labor reported that over 2.1 million claims for unemployment had been filed in the week ending May 22, 2020. Over 40 million people have filed since mid March 2020.
Finally, the number of coronavirus cases across the globe stood at 5.83 million, of which 2.52 million hadrecovered, based on data compiled by the Coronavirus Morning News Brief. The death toll stood at 358,329.
In the United States and its territories, the number of confirmed cases stood at 1.75 million, while the death toll stood at 102,249. Brazil continued to have the second highest number of cases in the world, with 414,661, with a death toll of 25,697, while Russia had the third highest number, with 379,051 and 4,142 deaths, which officials in the United States believed to have been a significant undercount.
UNITED STATES
Researchers from Washington University’s School of Medicine in St. Louis studied the ability of current coronavirus vaccines to build up memory in the immune system through a process called immune imprinting, reporting their findings in a study entitled “Imprinting of Serum Neutralizing Antibodies by Wuhan-1 mRNA Vaccines.” The study was published in the journal Nature on May 15, 2024.
“Immune imprinting is a phenomenon in which prior antigenic experiences influence responses to subsequent infection or vaccination,” according to the study.
The researchers were concerned that  any immune imprinting due to annual boosters could make the population vulnerable when a new coronavirus, or even another similar virus, would start to spread.
The study’s results, however, tell a different story.
“The study … shows that people who were repeatedly vaccinated for Covid-19 –  initially receiving shots aimed at the original variant, followed by boosters and updated vaccines targeting variants –  generated antibodies capable of neutralizing a wide range of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes Covid-19) variants and even some distantly related coronaviruses,” they reported.
Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, who performs as “Lady Gaga,” caused great consternation last week when she revealed that she had performed five of her “Chromatica Ball” tour shows while positive for SARS-CoV-2.  Having already said she gave her team the freedom to opt out of working at that point, she later added fuel to the fire with her comment about her own fans.
“The way that I saw it is the fans are all putting themselves in harm’s way every day coming to the show,” she said matter-of-factly in an interview on HBO, a comment which makes it seem that she is perfectly all right with hosting and making a profit from massive superspreader events.
Almost all of her concerts were sold out and no masking or social-distancing was required.
GLOBAL NEWS
A truly bold attempt to adopt a pandemic “treaty” at this week’s World Health Assembly was put on hold Friday after some two and one-half  years of work in framing it. Some members of the assembly voiced disagreements over sharing information about pathogens that cause pandemics and the technology used to fight them.
The treaty’s failure leaves public health officials and researchers across the globe facing against time to get global assent on new ways to prepare and combat whatever the next pandemic will be, and seemingly no one is disagreeing that there will be a future pandemic.
While a deal is believed to be close, the topics that need to be agreed upon include the proposed “transfer of technology” and the creation of a new fund administered by the WHO that would help enhance pandemic-fighting capabilities, “particularly in developing countries.”
PANDEMIC STATISTICS
CURRENT U.S. COVID STATISTICS AT A GLANCE
In the United States, in the week ending May 18, 2024, the test positivity rate was, based on data released on May 24 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was 3.4%, and the trend in test positivity is -0.2% in the most recent week. Meanwhile, the percentage of emergency department visits that were diagnosed as SARS-CoV-2 was 0.4%, and the trend in emergency department visits is +7%.
The number of people admitted to hospital in the United States due to SARS-CoV-2 is no longer being reported as of the end of May. Meanwhile, the percentage of deaths due to SARS-CoV-2 was 0.6%, a figure that is unchanged over the past week.
VACCINATION SPOTLIGHT
Some 70.6% of the world population has received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine at press time, according to Our World in Data, an online scientific publication that tracks such information.  So far, 13.58 billion doses of the vaccine have been administered on a global basis and 9,836 doses are now administered each day.
Meanwhile, only 32.8% 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
Finally, as of April 14, 2024, only Turkmenistan in Central Asia is only state that has not reported any cases of SARS-CoV-2 infections whatsoever, although it is strongly suspected that the virus is present there. Meanwhile, the last territory in the world to have its first ever SARS-CoV-2 infection was Tokelau, a dependency of New Zealand that reported its first five cases on December 21, 2022.
Where Has All the Data Gone?
We regret to inform that, as of April 15, 2024, the Global Daily Statistics data in the Coronavirus Daily News Brief are no longer being updated. Over the past 15 months, as more politicians and governments sought to place SARS-CoV-2 in the rear-view mirror, pandemic data reporting sputtered out and we are now at the point where it is simply not feasible to provide statistically valid case data on a global scale.
We are developing potential new and authoritative sources that we will present once they have been properly vetted, so stay tuned to this space. In the meantime, our Long Covid and pandemic coverage will remain much the same.
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Anna Breuer contributed reporting to this issue.
The Coronavirus Daily News Brief is a publication of the Center for Long Covid Research. www.longcov.org
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