Coronavirus Daily News Brief – June 10: Rare Cancers Began to Appear as Pandemic Got Underway, Moderna Combi Shot Outperforms Standalone Jabs

The Cape Fear Cafe, in Duncans Mills, California
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 1,552nd day.
In news we cover today , a new combination vaccine from Moderna that protects against both Covid and influenza works showed greater efficacy than a standalone vaccine for either, oncologists have seen disturbing reports of unusual cancers that began to appear after the start of the pandemic, and Donald Trump is warning schools that he will not give them one cent when elected if they have any vaccine mandates in effect.
TODAY IN THE FIRST YEAR OF COVID HISTORY
On June 10, 2020, two of the music world’s largest outdoor events – the annual Coachella and Stagecoach festivals – announced plans to cancel their 2020 events due to the ongoing pandemic, as did the Iowa State Fair.
In the world of travel, United Airlines began to require all air passengers to complete a health and wellness assessment prior to travel,
Perhaps not surprisingly, nurses lacked the right training to deal with the onslaught of patients from the pandemic and were not given the support they needed to do their jobs well, a then new report prepared by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security reported.
Finally, the number of coronavirus cases across the globe stood at 7.36 million, an increase of over 45,770 people in the past 24 hours, based on figures compiled by the Coronavirus Morning News Brief.  The death toll stood at 414,476. In the United States and its territories, the number of confirmed cases stood at 2.05 million, an increase of 1,598, while the death toll was 114,223.
UNITED STATES
While it’s not a novel idea that a virus can cause or accelerate cancer, there has been a noticeable uptick in aggressive, late-stage cancers since the start of the pandemic in early 2020. This trend has been confirmed by some early national data and reports from a number of large cancer institutions and some wonder if SARS-CoV-2 is to blame.
One example is what one practice in South Carolina found, namely multiple cases of cholangiocarcinoma, the Washington Post recently reported. This is a rare and lethal cancer of the bile ducts that typically strikes people in their 70s and 80s. Another unusual development has been multiple patients who are contending with multiple types of cancer at the same time.
It may take years to unravel the puzzle, if at all, and there is currently no real-world data that links cancer with SARS-CoV-2.
More people by far get flu shots than coronavirus vaccine jabs. So it’s good news that an experimental Moderna vaccine that protects against both influenza and SARS-CoV-2 performed better than either stand-alone flu or Covid shots in a  large trial, the drugmaker said on Monday.
A better flu shot that also protects against SARS-CoV-2 could have the effect of upending the vaccine market if the new vaccine withstands regulatory scrutiny.
On the campaign trail, Donald Trump, the leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination, is telling those attending his stump speeches that he won’t give “one penny” to schools or school districts with vaccine mandates.
Trump frequently lambasts independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as a “fake” anti-vaxxer while lessening his own critical role in the development of the first generation of coronavirus vaccines thanks to his successful Operation Warp Speed program.
OTHER HEALTHCARE NEWS
An external panel of advisors to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration endorsed donanemab, a new drug for Alzheimer’s disease. In clinical trials, the medication modestly slowed cognitive decline in patients in the early stage of the disease but the drug does come with some risks: It has been known to cause swelling and bleeding in the brain.
British TV presenter Dr. Michael Hugh Mosley was found dead in a rocky area of Symi. His body was located days after he disappeared during a walk on the Greek island, local officials said in a statement. Foul play is not suspected in the incident.
Mosley was born in Calcutta in 1957 and attended boarding school in England from the age of seven. He studied philosophy, politics, and economics at New College, Oxford before working as a banker in the City of London.
Mosley and his wife, Dr Clare Bailey, co-authored numerous books on health and offered everything from health tips to healthy cooking demonstrations. He studied medicine at the Royal Free Hospital Medical School and planned to practice psychiatry but, upon passing his final examinations in 1985, became disillusioned with the field and decided not to practice medicine.
He joined the BBC in 1985 as an assistant production trainee and eventually became a presenter, focusing on science and medicine.
PANDEMIC STATISTICS
CURRENT U.S. COVID STATISTICS AT A GLANCE
In the United States, in the week ending June 1, 2024, the test positivity rate was, based on data released on June 7 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was 4.45%, and the trend in test positivity is +0.4% in the most recent week. Meanwhile, the percentage of emergency department visits that were diagnosed as SARS-CoV-2 was 0.5%, and the trend in emergency department visits is +16.2%.
The number of people admitted to hospital in the United States due to SARS-CoV-2 was 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 remains unchanged over the past three weeks.
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 8,341 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.
=======================================
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
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)