In a study of children’s drawings in Sweden, the children demonstrated significant knowledge about Covid.
Good morning. This is Jonathan Spira reporting. Here now the news of the pandemic from across the globe on the 1,060th day of the pandemic.
A small study published last week in the journal Acta Paediatrica looked at children’s drawings and how – in their artwork – they attempted to get a better sense of their feelings and beliefs about SARS-CoV-2.
The researchers in Sweden found that common themes included detailed images of canceled or postponed activities, illness, and death. In addition, the children demonstrated significant knowledge about the disease.
They assembled a total of 91 drawings from children between the ages of four and six that had been submitted to the Swedish Archive of Children’s Drawings at Linköpings Universitet. The drawings were made in the period April 2020 through February 2021.
The project was part of investigations into children’s voices in the public space during the pandemic.
One child wrote on his drawing: “You throw up, then you cough, then you feel better or die.”
“It was a very fun study to carry out,” said a co-author of the study, Anna Sarkadi, a physician who specializes in children’s health at Uppsala Universitet, in a statement.
“I was actually quite uncertain as to whether a medical journal would publish the article, but they did, including the children’s drawings and everything,” she added.
The researchers used semiotic visual analysis to analyze the drawings’ denotation – what the images represent and how – as well as connotation – the associated meaning, as well as the child’s own explanation of the drawing.
Even the youngest children in the group were found to have been strongly affected by the pandemic. They displayed fear, worry, and absent grandparents in addition to showing the sick and dying.
The children often described children as a monster and some also showed how to protect themselves from the virus, in one case with a drawing showing two children using a sword to fight the giant virus.
In other news we cover today, Moderna will make two different variant-specific boosters later this year, physicians are facing a vacuum of information about Long Covid, and a well-known YouTuber reported on her struggles with Long Covid in a social media post.
LONG COVID
Three years into the pandemic, there are myriad unanswered questions about Long Covid, and this significantly limits healthcare providers’ ability to treat patients with the condition, the Guardian reported on Monday.
“That vacuum of information remains as much of the US has moved on from the pandemic, while Covid long-haulers continue to face stigma and questions over whether their symptoms are real, providers say,” the newspaper stated.
Meanwhile, Dianna Cowern, also known as “Physics Girl” on social media, said she has Long Covid and has been experiencing chronic fatigue and other symptoms for nine months following an initial SARS-CoV-2 infection.
“I can’t talk…I can’t move,” said Cowern in a video on Facebook
UNITED STATES
Drugmaker Moderna said it plans to manufacture wwo variant-focused coronavirus boosters later this year. It will take this step, it said, if countries cannot agree which variants and sublineages to target.
SPORTS AND ENTERTAINMENT
Novak Djokovic, who was famously deported from Australia last year after trying to enter without being vaccinated for the coronavirus and who holds some fairly bizarre medical beliefs, failed in his bid to obtain a waiver to enter the United States when officials took no action on his application.
He withdrew from the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells on Sunday night, just days before it was set to begin in Southern California and hours before the tournament draw was to be released.
“World No.1 Novak Djokovic has withdrawn from the 2023 BNP Paribas Open,” the tournament said in a statement on Twitter.
He recently applied for a similar waiver to play in the Miami Open, a Masters 1000 event that starts in the middle of March, but at press time, no action has been taken on that one either.
TODAY’S STATISTICS
Now here are the daily statistics for Monday, March 6.
As of Monday morning, the world has recorded over 680.7 million Covid-19 cases, an increase of just under 0.1 million cases, and 6.81 million deaths, according to Worldometer, a service that tracks such information. In addition, 653.6 million people worldwide have recovered from the virus, an increase of 0.1 million.
The reader should note that infrequent reporting from some sources may appear as spikes in new case figures or death tolls.
Worldwide, the number of active coronavirus cases as of Monday at press time is 20,323,484, a decrease of 34,000. Out of that figure, 99.8%, or 20,282,803, are considered mild, and 0.2%, or 40,681, are listed as critical. The percentage of cases considered critical has not changed over the past three months.
The United States reported 1,567, new coronavirus infections on Monday for the previous day, compared to 1,671 on Monday, 69,509 on Saturday, 62,111 on Friday, 89,261 on Thursday, and 25,343 on Wednesday, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The 7-day incidence rate is now 38,660. Figures for the weekend (reported the following day) are typically 30% to 60% of those posted on weekdays due to a lower number of tests being conducted.
The average daily number of new coronavirus cases in the United States over the past 14 days is 33,949, a figure down 9% over the past 14 days, based on data from the Department of Health and Human Services, among other sources. The average daily death toll over the same period is 538, an increase of 41% over the same period, while the average number of hospitalizations for the period was 26,142, a decrease of 9%. In addition, the number of patients in ICUs was 3,410, a decrease of 10% and the test positivity rate is now 8.3%, a figure that is down by 14% over the same period.
In addition, since the start of the pandemic the United States has, as of Monday, recorded 105.4 million cases, a higher figure than any other country, and a death toll of 1.15 million. India has the world’s second highest number of officially recorded cases, 44.7 million, and a reported death toll of 530,775.
The newest data from Russia’s Rosstat state statistics service showed that, at the end of July, 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 39.6 million, and Germany is in the number four slot, with 38.2 million total cases.
Brazil, which has recorded the third highest number of deaths as a result of the virus, 699,276, has recorded 37.1 million cases, placing it in the number five slot.
The other five countries with total case figures over the 20 million mark are Japan, with 33.3 million cases, South Korea, with 30.6 million cases, placing it in the number seven slot, and Italy, with 25.6 million, as number eight, as well as the United Kingdom, with 24.4 million, and Russia, with just under 22.4 million.
VACCINATION SPOTLIGHT
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that, as of the past Thursday, 269.6 million people in the United States – or 81.2% – have received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine. Of that population, 69.3%, or 230.1 million people, have received two doses of vaccine, and the total number of doses that have been dispensed in the United States is now 672.1 million. Breaking this down further, 92.1% of the population over the age of 18 – or 237.8 million people – has received at least a first inoculation and 79% of the same group – or just under 204 million people – is fully vaccinated. In addition, 19.6% of the same population, or 50.5 million people, has already received an updated or bivalent booster dose of vaccine, while 22.7 million people over the age of 65, or 41.4% of that population have also received the bivalent booster.
Starting on June 13, 2022, the CDC began to update vaccine data on a weekly basis and publish the updated information on Thursdays by 8 p.m. EDT, a statement on the agency’s website said.
Some 69.7% 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, 13.32 billion doses of the vaccine have been administered on a global basis and 561,411 doses are now administered each day.
Meanwhile, only 27.9% 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 start of vaccinations in North Korea in late September, Eritrea remains the only country in the world that has not administered vaccines.
Anna Breuer contributed reporting to this story.
(Photo: Accura Media Group)
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