A nurse at a N.Y.C. vaccine center waits for a patient
Good morning. This is Jonathan Spira reporting. Here now the news of the pandemic from across the globe on the 1,141st day of the pandemic and the 37th anniversary of the Chernobyl Disaster, a nuclear accident at the No. 4 reactor in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant near the city of Pripyat in the north of what is now Ukraine. It is considered the worst-ever civil nuclear incident and is one of only two nuclear energy accidents rated at seven – the maximum severity on the International Nuclear Event Scale. The other incident rated at seven is the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan.
The pandemic is literally going to the dogs but, in this case, that’s not a bad thing.
“Scent-trained dogs are a strategy for rapid, noninvasive, low-cost, and environmentally responsible Covid-19 screening” according to a new study published this week in JAMA Pediatrics by Dr. Carol Glaser, the assistant deputy director in Central Laboratory Services and medical officer for infectious disease laboratories at the California Department of Public Health. Dr. Glaser, who is both a medical doctor and a doctor of veterinary medicine, had been in the process of implementing a school coronavirus testing program using antigen nasal swab tests, heard reports describing how dogs were being used to screen for the virus at airports and other public venues and had an “aha” moment.
She enlisted the assistance of two medical alert dogs from Early Alert Canines and the dogs were trained to detect volatile organic compounds emitted by people with SARS-CoV-2 (and yes, when you last had Covid, you, too, were emitting VOCs).
The dogs – Rizzo and Scarlett – were trained in a lab for two months using the socks donated by people, some who had had SARS-CoV2. The dogs’ trainers used positive reinforcement training in which dogs receive rewards for desired behavior. In this case, Rizzo and Scarlett, two yellow Labradors, received either Cheerios or liver treats and eventually achieved “greater than 95% sensitivity and specificity for detection of the virus,” the study’s authors wrote.
The researchers conducted 50 field visits at 27 schools in the period April to May 25, 2022, and a total of 1,588 participants were tested. The participants were asked to stand 6’ apart and typically were behind a screen or curtain for privacy. Only their feet were accessible to Rizzo and Scarlett, who had been trained to sit when detecting a potential case of SARS-CoV-2.
In their findings, Dr. Glaser and her colleagues wrote that their goal was to use the dogs for screening and then only use antigen tests on suspected positive cases. This brought the total number of antigen coronavirus tests down by 85%.
The dogs did indicate 383 false positives and missed 18 cases but Dr. Glazer said that their accuracy increased as they spent more time in school environments, which shows that the dogs were also in school to learn.
In other news we cover today, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is assuring people that no “Kill Batches” of vaccine exist and having RSV as a baby could lead to contracting asthma later on.
UNITED STATES
A patently false social media post claiming that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sent “Red States” deadly “Rapid Kill” batches of coronavirus vaccine is “baseless,” the CDC said in a statement.
“The claim is false,” said Hardie. “Moreover, it is harmful and irresponsible because it could discourage people from getting vaccinated against Covid-19.”
GLOBAL
In the United Kingdom, the Conservative Party, colloquially known as the Tories, expelled MP Andrew Bridgen from the party after he compared coronavirus vaccines to the Holocaust and was found to have breached lobbying rules.
A party spokesman confirmed the move.
“Mr. Bridgen was expelled from the Conservative Party on April 12 following the recommendation of a disciplinary panel,” the spokesman told reporters. “He has 28 days from this date to appeal.”
Bridgen had posted on social media that an unnamed cardiologist had told him that the coronavirus vaccines were “the biggest crime since the Holocaust.”
OTHER HEALTHCARE NEWS
A new study indicates that babies who contract RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, are at a higher risk of asthma later in life. The research program, Infant Susceptibility to Pulmonary Infections and Asthma Following RSV Exposure, or INSPIRE, followed 1,700 healthy children born in Tennessee between 2012 to 2013 for up to five years. The researchers documented when and if the children were exposed to RSV and whether they were diagnosed with asthma by age 5.
The findings highlight yet another benefit of getting inoculated against RSV. Such vaccines are expected to become available this year.
TODAY’S STATISTICS
Now here are the daily statistics for Wednesday, April 26.
As of Wednesday morning, the world has recorded 686.7 million Covid-19 cases, an increase of 0.1 million from the previous day, and 6.86 million deaths, according to Worldometer, a service that tracks such information. In addition, 659.2 million people worldwide have recovered from the virus, an increase of less than 0.1 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 Wednesday at press time is 20,568,705, a decrease of 18,000. Out of that figure, 99.8%, or 20,529,297, are considered mild, and 0.2%, or 39,408, are listed as critical. The percentage of cases considered critical has not changed over the past five months.
The United States reported 94,140 new cases in the period April 13 through April 19, a figure that is down 23% over the same period one week earlier, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The death toll for the same period is 1,160, a figure that is down 34%. The average number of hospital admissions from Covid was 4,569 on April 24, a figure that is down 13% over the preceding 14 days. Finally, the test positivity rate is 5.4%, down 12% over the 14 days preceding April 21.
Starting on March 25, 2023, the Morning News Brief began to update case data as well as death tolls on a weekly basis.
In addition, since the start of the pandemic the United States has, as of Wednesday, recorded just under 106.6 million cases, a higher figure than any other country, and a death toll of 1.16 million. India has the world’s second highest number of officially recorded cases, 44.9 million, and a reported death toll of 531,369.
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 39.9 million, and Germany is in the number four slot, with 38.4 million total cases.
Brazil, which has recorded the third highest number of deaths as a result of the virus, 701,215, has recorded 37.4 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 over 33.6 million cases, South Korea, with 31.1 million cases, placing it in the number seven slot, and Italy, with over 25.7 million, as number eight, as well as the United Kingdom, with over 24.5 million, and Russia, with 22.8 million.
VACCINATION SPOTLIGHT
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that, as of the past Thursday, 269.9 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 230.5 million people, have received two doses of vaccine, and the total number of doses that have been dispensed in the United States is now 675 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 79.1% of the same group – or 204.2 million people – is fully vaccinated. In addition, 20.2% of the same population, or 52.1 million people, has already received an updated or bivalent booster dose of vaccine, while 23.3 million people over the age of 65, or 42.4% of that population have also received the bivalent booster.
For the week ending April 20, 2023, the CDC made slight adjustments downward in several of the data points we include here, although the total number of doses increased by 0.3 million.
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 69.9% of the world population has received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine by Wednesday, according to Our World in Data, an online scientific publication that tracks such information. So far, 13.37 billion doses of the vaccine have been administered on a global basis and 269,353 doses are now administered each day.
Meanwhile, only 29.5% 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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