Coronavirus Morning News Brief – April 1: New XBB.1.16 Variant ‘One to Watch,’ Over 50% of Parents Lied About Child’s Covid Status

Good morning. This is Jonathan Spira reporting. Here now the news of the pandemic from across the globe on the 1,116th day of the pandemic and April Fools’ Day.

Nothing would please me more than to announce that the pandemic is over, but I’d have to follow it up with the exclamation “April Fools!” and say “never mind, it’s still ongoing.”

Indeed, I further wish the following were also a trick, but it’s not.

The World Health Organization is calling a new subvariant of omicron in India “one to watch.”  The sublineage is driving a surge of new cases, at a time where reported cases are in decline throughout the rest of the world.

The subvariant, XBB.1.16, is similar to the variant XBB.1.5 – which is currently dominant in the United States – but is unquestionably the most transmissible Covid variant or subvariant yet, according to Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s Covid-19 technical lead.

The differences between XBB.1.5 and XBB.1.16 include additional mutations in the virus’ spike protein, which attaches to and infects human cells.  The XBB1.16 subvariant has the potential to be more infectious and cause more severe disease in those who contract the virus.  As a result, especially with rising cases in the East, XBB.1.16 is considered “one to watch,” Van Kerhove said.

Still, it may be too soon to panic: Mutations in sublineages that seem concerning in theory don’t always turn out to be of great concern in the wild due to multiple reasons including the highly complex nature of population immunity.

In news we cover today, many patients have lied over their child’s Covid status in the course of the pandemic thus far, a procedure typically used to relieve pain could help Long Covid patients regain olfactory senses lost due to the condition, and the NIH is being criticized for incorporating exercise into a Long Covid trial.

LONG COVID

Some doctors are reporting promising results by using a procedure typically used to treat pain and post-traumatic stress disorder as a well to restore lost olfactory senses experienced by Long Covid patients.

The procedure, a stellate ganglion block, involves injecting a local anesthetic such as what a dentist would inject before filling a cavity into the stellate ganglion on both sides of the patient’s neck. The stellate ganglion is part of the sympathetic nervous system that controls automatic bodily functions such as heart rate, blood pressure, and digestion.  The stellate ganglion is not known to play a role in how people perceive smell and taste yet some practitioners are reporting that patients are seeing real improvements with the restoration of lost olfactory senses.

Meanwhile, some Long Covid patients as well as patient advocates are criticizing the U.S. National Institutes of Health’s plan to include exercise trials in its Recover Initiative.  The NIH created the initiative “to learn about the long-term effects of Covid,” according to a statement on its website.

The patients and advocates argue that a large number of Long Covid patients experience post-exertional malaise, known also as PEM, a worsening of symptoms such as fatigue, difficulty regulating body temperature, and cognitive dysfunction, even after light exercise.  They worry that this component of the trial could cause harm to some participants.

UNITED STATES

Although many scientists believe that Covid developed in the wild, U.S. intelligence agencies continue to remain divided as to whether that was the case or whether it was a lab leak.  The House subcommittee probing the government’s coronavirus pandemic response will reportedly hold a hearing later this month about intelligence collected by U.S. agencies that could shed further light on the virus’ origins.

A recently published study led by researchers at the University of Utah and published in JAMA Network Open found that a majority of parents who took the survey reported lying to others about their child in the first three years of the pandemic.  According to the study, more than 60% said they lied about their child’s vaccination status in order for the child to be able to participate in activities that required he or she be inoculated, and over 50% lied at one point or another about their child’s positive Covid status because they “wanted freedom to do what they thought best for their family.”

Approximately 43% of parents lied about whether their child had the virus because they didn’t want him or her to miss school, while an additional 35% were dishonest about whether their child had Covid because they couldn’t miss work to stay at home with their child.

Finally, some parents lied about their child’s age, apparently raising it, so he or she could get vaccinated sooner.

OTHER HEALTHCARE NEWS

A worldwide outbreak of hepatitis that occurred between April and July 2022 involving over 1,000 previously healthy children with no known cause may have had its origins with adeno-associated virus 2, or AAV2.  This finding was reported in three independent studies published Thursday in the journal Nature.  Nearly 50 children needed liver transplants and 22 died, according to the World Health Organization.

TODAY’S STATISTICS

Now here are the daily statistics for Saturday, April 1.

As of Saturday morning, the world has recorded just under 684 million Covid-19 cases, an increase of 0.1 million from the previous day, and 6.83 million deaths, according to Worldometer, a service that tracks such information. In addition, 656.9 million people worldwide have recovered from the virus, an increase of 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 Saturday at press time is 20,227,183, a decrease of 38,000. Out of that figure, 99.8%, or 20,187,272, are considered mild, and 0.2%, or 39,911, are listed as critical. The percentage of cases considered critical has not changed over the past five months.

The United States reported 138,481 new cases in the period March 23 through March 29, a figure that is down 16% 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 1,596, a figure that is down 12%.  The average number of hospital admissions from Covid was 5,713 on March 31, a figure that is down 7% over the preceding 14 days.  Finally, the test positivity rate is 7.1%, up 5% over the 14 days preceding March 28.

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 Saturday, recorded over 106.2 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 530,876.

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 39.8 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, 700,239, has recorded 37.3 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 33.5 million cases, South Korea, with 30.8 million cases, placing it in the number seven slot, and Italy, with 25.7 million, as number eight, as well as the United Kingdom, with 24.4 million, and Russia, with 22.6 million.

VACCINATION SPOTLIGHT

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that, as of Thursday, over 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 230.4 million people, have received two doses of vaccine, and the total number of doses that have been dispensed in the United States is now 674 million. Breaking this down further, 92.2% of the population over the age of 18 – or 238.1 million people – has received at least a first inoculation and 79% of the same group – or 204.2 million people – is fully vaccinated.  In addition, 20% of the same population, or 51.6 million people, has already received an updated or bivalent booster dose of vaccine, while 23.1 million people over the age of 65, or 42.1% 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 Satudays 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 Saturday, according to Our World in Data, an online scientific publication that tracks such information.  So far, 13.36 billion doses of the vaccine have been administered on a global basis and 599,278 doses are now administered each day.

Meanwhile, only 28.5% 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.

Paul Riegler contributed reporting to this story.

(Photo: Accura Media Group)