Coronavirus Morning News Brief – Oct. 19: XBB Variant Spreads Rapidly in Asia, Drug Used for Opioid Addicts May Help Long Covid Sufferers

London roofscape viewed from the Jumeirah Carlton Tower

Good morning. This is Jonathan Spira reporting. Here now the news of the pandemic from across the globe on the 923rd day of the pandemic.

There is some very good news coming out of data from drugmaker Moderna about its new bivalent vaccine.  The data coming out of the United Kingdom shows that vaccine produces a stronger immune response to the Omicron variant three months after being administered than the company’s original vaccine, which didn’t target any variants.

The bivalent vaccine in the United Kingdom targets BA.1, while the bivalent vaccine in the United States targets sublineages BA.4 and BA.5.

The pharmaceutical company said its findings indicated that the “superior” immune response triggered by the booster was durable and should provide “important protection” against the coronavirus in the coming months.

In other news we cover today, bivalent boosters are now available for children, the XBB variant is running rampant in Southeast Asia, and cases may have peaked in the United Kingdom’s current wave.

UNITED STATES

The White House coronavirus pandemic coordinator, Dr. Ashish Jha, is encouraging individuals over the age of 50 to get the new bivalent booster.

“If you’re over 50 – certainly if you’re over 65 – you’ve got to go get these vaccines because it actually, literally could save your life,” he said in an interview with the news network CNBC.

The new bivalent coronavirus boosters are now available for children as young as five.  The new formulation attacks both the original virus as well as the BA.4 and BA.5 sublineages of the omicron variant. The Pfizer booster is available to those ages 5 and up, while children as young as 6 can get Moderna’s.

GLOBAL

The new XBB variant is running rampant across Southeast Asia where, in some countries, it is causing the number of cases to double in a single day. The subvariant was first detected in August in India.  It has since been sequenced in more than 17 countries, including Bangladesh, Japan, and Singapore.  In Singapore, it is “now the predominant subvariant circulating in the community, accounting for 54% of local cases,” the country’s health ministry said in a statement.

In the United Kingdom, new Covid infections have fallen for seven days in a row after doubling in seven weeks.

Daily symptomatic cases have dropped by 21,881, or 9%, from their peak of 237,457 on Sunday October 9 to 215,576 on Sunday October 16, according to figures from the Zoe Health Study, which tracks over 500,000 people in the United Kingdom.  While the study is not official government data, it has in the past been indicative of trends in the country.

Officials in Shanghai plan to build a 3,250 bed coronavirus quarantine facility on a small island close to its city center, yet another indication that China plans to continue its stringent zero-Covid policy rather than relaxing curbs, as most other countries have done.

Meanwhile, non-verified reports that a 16-year-old girl died in a Covid quarantine center after her family’s requests for medical assistance were ignored have caused anger in China. The ongoing tight pandemic controls have started to take their toll on the country’s population, which has been subject to numerous curbs and lockdowns since the start of the pandemic in early 2020.

LONG COVID

A drug used for opioid addiction has shown promise in several small clinical trials in relieving several symptoms of Long Covid including severe chronic fatigue and brain fog. Sold under the brand names Vivitrol and Revia, naltrexone is a generic drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat both alcohol and opioid addictions.

TODAY’S STATISTICS

Now here are the daily statistics for Wednesday, October 19.

As of Wednesday morning, the world has recorded 631 million Covid-19 cases, an increase of 0.5 million cases, and 6.6 million deaths, according to Worldometer, a service that tracks such information. In addition, 610.1 million people worldwide have recovered from the virus, an increase of 0.5 million.

Worldwide, the number of active coronavirus cases as of Wednesday is 14,327,376, an increase of 90,000. Out of that figure, 99.7%, or 14,288,813, are considered mild, and 0.3%, or 38,563, are listed as critical.  The percentage of cases considered critical has not changed over the past 24 hours.

The United States reported 28,124 new coronavirus infections on Wednesday for the previous day, compared to 46,146 on Tuesday, 7,040 on Monday, 2,776 on Sunday, 29,069 on Saturday, and 75,172 on Fri day, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.  The 7-day incidence rate is now 37,555.  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 37,888, a 15% decrease, based on data from the Department of Health and Human Services, among other sources.  The average daily death toll over the same period is 382, a decrease of 3% over the same period, while the average number of hospitalizations for the period was 26,307, a 4% decrease.

In addition, since the start of the pandemic the United States has, as of Wednesday, recorded over 98.9 million cases, a higher figure than any other country, and a death toll of 1.1 million. India has the world’s second highest number of officially recorded cases, 44.6 million, and a reported death toll of 528,923.

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 reported that 3,284 people died from the coronavirus or related causes in July, 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 36.4 million, and Germany is in the number four slot, with 34.9 million total cases.

Brazil, which has recorded the third highest number of deaths as a result of the virus, 687,376, has recorded 34.8 million cases, placing it in the number five slot.

The other five countries with total case figures over the 20 million mark are South Korea, with 25.2 million cases, the United Kingdom, with 23.8 million cases, placing it in the number seven slot, and Italy, with 23.2 million, as number eight, as well as Japan, with 21.9 million, and Russia, with 21.3 million.

VACCINATION SPOTLIGHT

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that, as of the past Thursday, over 265.1 million people in the United States – or 79.9% – have received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine. Of that population, 68.1%, or 226.2 million people, have received two doses of vaccine, and the total number of doses that have been dispensed in the United States is now 627.8 million. Breaking this down further, 90.8% of the population over the age of 18 – or 234.5 million people – has received at least a first inoculation and 77.9% of the same group – or 201.1 million people – is fully vaccinated.  In addition, 52.1% of that population, or 104.8 million people, has already received a first booster dose of vaccine.

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 68.3% 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, 12.84 billion doses of the vaccine have been administered on a global basis and 1.76 million doses are now administered each day.

Meanwhile, only 23.3% 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)