A food shop worker in Chengdu before the pandemic
Good morning. This is Jonathan Spira reporting. Here now the news of the pandemic from across the globe on the 1,098th day of the pandemic.
Regular readers of this space know of my great interest in sleep. Not only do I enjoy getting a good night’s sleep but I’ve studied its effects from both the perspective of a frequent traveler as well as a Covid researcher.
We know that, when you are jet lagged, your body still sees the time as the 2 a.m. New York time, when you should be fast asleep, not having a breakfast meeting, in one example. The time change influences the rest of the day and, although your body will try to acclimate, you may find yourself on a morning run when you really should be in bed.
It also causes headaches, a loss of appetite, and mild irritability, all things better left behind when on a trip.
I myself use the app Sleep Cycle to monitor my sleep and help me wake up.
The Sleep Cycle app works by using your iPhone to detect movements as you sleep. It’ll then use this data to wake you at the optimal time in your so-called “wake up phase” which I set to be 30 minutes long.
Now we are learning that how long you sleep can impact the efficacy of your Covid vaccine.
A new study published this week in “Current Biology” shows that sleeping for less than six hours per night reduces the immune response to vaccination and this is particularly significant in younger men.
The researchers found that the reduction in efficacy is comparable to the waning of Covid-19 antibodies two months after vaccination.
Dr Karine Spiegel of Inserm, or Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale, in Lyon, France, and her colleagues combined and reanalyzed the results of seven studies that involved vaccinating people against influenza and hepatitis A and B, which are all caused by viruses. They then compared the antibody responses of individuals who slept for seven to nine hours per night (the recommended level for healthy adults) and those who slept for less than six hours per night.
The researchers found strong evidence that sleeping for less than six hours reduces the immune response to vaccination in men. Notably, the effect was more variable in women, probably due to fluctuating sex hormone levels.
My own sleep goal is 8 hours and 15 minutes per night, a figure that varies between 8 hours and 8 hours 30 minutes based on what time Sleep Cycle decides to wake me up. Regardless, other research shows that people who regularly get less than 7 hours of sleep per night do not function as well during the day as those who do.
In other news we cover today, a church contends that the State of Connecticut’s vaccine mandate for students violates the Constitution, a Chicago man obtained $83 million in funds from fraudulently billing for coronavirus tests, and the whistle blower of the 2003 SARS outbreak in China died at the age of 91.
UNITED STATES
In Chicago, Zishan Alvi, the 44year-old co-owner and operator of Laboratory Elite, collected over $83 million in fraudulent federal health claims for coronavirus tests. The funds were used for luxury vehicle purchases, cryptocurrency purchases, and stock purchases, among other things. The Department of Justice charged Alvi in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois after he was indicted by a federal grand jury on ten counts of wire fraud and one count of theft of government funds.
In Connecticut, a church that also operates a school and daycare center is asking a federal judge to declare the state’s vaccine mandate for students unconstitutional. Milford Christian Academy argues that the state’s 2021 mandate law violates the Constitution’s first and 14th amendments.
Cameron Atkinson, a lawyer representing Milford Christian Church, told a local newspaper that on March 1, the state of Connecticut delivered “an unconscionable ultimatum” to the church to submit a corrective action plan by March 15 after an inspection by the Office of Early Childhood of its “Little Eagles” daycare and preschool. The action would impact about ten families at Milford Christian Academy, the church’s pastor, Jim Loomer, said.
TRAVEL
Officials in Beijing said China will reopen its borders to foreign tourists, lifting the pandemic-related visa suspensions. The government said that it will honor existing tourist visas and start issuing new ones.
OTHER HEALTHCARE NEWS
The exodus of healthcare workers from poor countries is worsening. They are losing out to wealthier ones as the latter add new staffing to compensate for staff losses during the first three years of the pandemic, the World Health Organization said Tuesday.
Finally, Jiang Yanyong, the whistleblower of the 2003 SARS outbreak, died on Saturday of pneumonia at the age of 91, according to human rights activist Hu Jia and the South China Morning Post. Jiang, a Chinese military doctor, revealed the full extent of the outbreak and was later placed under house arrest.
TODAY’S STATISTICS
Now here are the daily statistics for Tuesday, March 14.
As of Tuesday morning, the world has recorded 681.7 million Covid-19 cases, an increase of 0.1 million from the previous day, and 6.81 million deaths, according to Worldometer, a service that tracks such information. In addition, 654.7 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 Tuesday at press time is 20,194,339, a decrease of 35,000. Out of that figure, 99.8%, or 20,154,013, are considered mild, and 0.2%, or 40,326, are listed as critical. The percentage of cases considered critical has not changed over the past three months.
The United States reported 1,005 new coronavirus infections on Monday for the previous day, compared to 1,489 reported on Sunday, 10,161 reported on Saturday, 55,447 reported on Friday, and 63,372 reported on Thursday, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The 7-day incidence rate is now 29,472. 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 28,698, a figure down 16% 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 383, an increase of 20% over the same period, while the average number of hospitalizations for the period was 23,697, a decrease of 14%. In addition, the number of patients in ICUs was 3,148, a decrease of 11% and the test positivity rate is now 7.6%, a figure that is down by 17% over the same period.
In addition, since the start of the pandemic the United States has, as of Tuesday, recorded over 105.6 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 530,784.
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 over 39.6 million, and Germany is in the number four slot, with just under 38.3 million total cases.
Brazil, which has recorded the third highest number of deaths as a result of the virus, 699,310, 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 over 30.6 million cases, placing it in the number seven slot, and Italy, with just over 25.6 million, as number eight, as well as the United Kingdom, with 24.4 million, and Russia, with 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 Tuesday, 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 378,052 doses are now administered each day.
Meanwhile, only 28.2% 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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