Bourbon Street at night in New Orleans
Good morning. This is Jonathan Spira reporting. Here now the news of the pandemic from across the globe on the 1,108th day of the pandemic.
If you contracted Covid before being vaccinated, I have some bad news: SARS-CoV-2 damages the body’s immune system in some cases, this according to a study, “Robust T Cell Responses to Pfizer/BioNTech Vaccine Compared to Infection and Evidence of Attenuated Peripheral CD8 + T Cell Responses Due to Covid-19,” published in the journal Immunity.
Researchers at Stanford University found that there is a “major reduction” in the body’s quantity and quality of CD*+ T cells in people who had survived a coronavirus infection. CD*+ T cells are known as “killer T cells” due to their ability to kill infected cells, a key element of the body’s defense mechanisms.
“You have damage that, even in recovery from the infection, you haven’t really recovered your ability to make those CD8+ cells,“ Professor Mark Davis, head of the university’s Institute for Immunity, Transplantation and Infection and a co-author of the study, told CBS News. “So, something happened in the course of infection to prevent that, to damage your response.”
The Stanford researchers found that vaccination of people who had never been infected with SARS-CoV-2 sparked robust CD4+ and CD8+ T-cell responses to the virus’ spike protein. CD4+ cells are known as “helper T cells,” but patients who had survived a coronavirus infection before vaccination produced spike-specific CD8+ T cells at considerably lower levels compared to vaccinated people who had never been infected, and these CD8+ T cells had far less functionality as well.
In other news we cover today, an appeals court blocked a federal vaccine mandate and autism diagnoses fell during the pandemic.
UNITED STATES
In Louisiana, a federal appeals court in New Orleans upheld a judge’s ruling that blocked enforcement of President Biden’s 2021 executive order establishing a vaccine mandate for all federal employees.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit said on Thursday that the judge had jurisdiction to issue a nationwide mandate against the requirement, something the administration’s lawyers contested. In April 2022, a three-member panel of the Fifth Circuit overturned that ruling.
Meanwhile, Senator Rand Paul said that he wouldn’t give his children coronavirus vaccinations due to concerns over myocarditis. “I think the risks of the vaccine are greater than the risks of the disease,” the Kentucky senator told the Hill, adding that “[T]he risks of the disease are almost nonexistent.”
OTHER HEALTHCARE NEWS
The number of diagnoses among younger children for autism fell during the pandemic. Before the pandemic, the number of children diagnosed with the condition rose markedly on a yearly basis. In the six months before March 2020, there were 1.89 more autism diagnoses per 1,000 4-year-olds than four years earlier, they said, pointing to a CDC study looking at data from health and education records in 11 communities across the U.S.
However, in the six months following March 2020, there were 0.26 fewer autism diagnoses per 1,000 4-year-old children than four years earlier, the CDC said. By the end of 2020, the rate had failed to return to pre-pandemic level.
TODAY’S STATISTICS
Now here are the daily statistics for Friday, March 24.
As of Friday morning, the world has recorded over 683.1 million Covid-19 cases, an increase of 0.2 million from the previous day, and 6.82 million deaths, according to Worldometer, a service that tracks such information. In addition, 656 million people worldwide have recovered from the virus, an increase of 0.2 million from the previous day.
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 Friday at press time is 20,260,865, an increase of 9,000. Out of that figure, 99.8%, or 20,260,865, are considered mild, and 0.2%, or 40,092, are listed as critical. The percentage of cases considered critical has not changed over the past five months.
The United States reported 51,812 new coronavirus infections on Wednesday for the previous day, compared to 18,373 reported on Wednesday, 9,787 reported on Tuesday, and 1,424 reported on Monday, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The 7-day incidence rate is now 20,771. 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 19,508, a figure down 34% 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 255, a decrease of 36% over the same period, while the average number of hospitalizations for the period was 22,522, a decrease of 14%. In addition, the number of patients in ICUs was 3,013 a decrease of 11% and the test positivity rate is now 6.7%, a figure that is down by 10% over the same period.
In addition, since the start of the pandemic the United States has, as of Friday, recorded 106.1 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 530,818.
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 39.7 million, and Germany is in the number four slot, with 38.3 million total cases.
Brazil, which has recorded the third highest number of deaths as a result of the virus, 699,917, has recorded 37.2 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 33.4 million cases, South Korea, with 30.7 million cases, placing it in the number seven slot, and Italy, with just under 25.7 million, as number eight, as well as the United Kingdom, with 24.4 million, and Russia, with just under 22.6 million.
VACCINATION SPOTLIGHT
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that, as of Thursday, 269.8 million people in the United States – or 81.3% – have received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine. Of that population, 69.4%, or 230.3 million people, have received two doses of vaccine, and the total number of doses that have been dispensed in the United States is now 673.5 million. Breaking this down further, 92.2% of the population over the age of 18 – or 238 million people – has received at least a first inoculation and 79% of the same group – or 204.1 million people – is fully vaccinated. In addition, 19.9% of the same population, or 51.1 million people, has already received an updated or bivalent booster dose of vaccine, while 22.9 million people over the age of 65, or 41.8% 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 69.8% of the world population has received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine by Friday, according to Our World in Data, an online scientific publication that tracks such information. So far, 13.34 billion doses of the vaccine have been administered on a global basis and 681,099 doses are now administered each day.
Meanwhile, only 28.4% 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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