Coronavirus Morning News Brief – Sept. 24: NYC Bolsters Ranks of Disease Detectives, Will Monoclonal Antibodies Eradicate Long Covid

Jim Henson created Kermit the Frog (r.) among many other popular characters, shown here with Rick Lyon, an American puppeteer and actor.

Good morning. This is Jonathan Spira reporting. Here now the news of the pandemic from across the globe on the 1,292nd day of the pandemic and the birthday of the late American puppeteer, inventor, and filmmaker Jim Henson

OP-ED AT THE START OF THE WEEK

2023 Vaccine Rollout – What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

In the United States, the new 2023 versions of the coronavirus vaccine have been approved by the appropriate regulatory agencies, millions of doses have been shipped by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech to pharmacies across the country, and websites of chain store pharmacies stand ready to take your appointment for a jab.

What could possibly go wrong?

It turns out that the answer is, “a lot.”

The new Covid version of the vaccine (please don’t refer to it as a “booster”) is the first that isn’t being paid for directly by the federal government.  However, most private insurance programs as well as public programs such asMedicaid and Medicare will cover the inoculations.

If only the correct billing codes had been entered into the insurance company’s computers.

Newspaper and social-media reports of some people are getting billed almost $200 for a shot abound, as do reports of some pharmacies refusing to accept money for it because it would be “out of network.”

Naturally this is taking place just as Covid cases are dramatically rising (the positivity rate has gone from 4% in early June to 14% in the week ending September 9), but hospitalizations  were up 7.7% for the week ending September 7, and deaths from SARS-CoV-2 were up 12.5% in the week ending September 16.

But back to the case of the illusive jab.

The current vaccine should be covered by most private and public health insurances.

The problem, according to multiple pharmacy chains and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, is that the new vaccines have a shiny new billing code and many plans don’t seem to have uploaded the code yet.  This in turn can lead to erroneous cost-sharing and co-pays and appointment cancellations.

Will things improve? Yes, but I must equivocate in my answer as I truly don’t know when.

In other news we report today, in addition to insurance company woes when getting the new Covid shot, health authorities in New York City want to bolster the Big Apple’s corps of disease detectives and researchers are testing a bespoke monoclonal antibody to see if it will eradicate Long Covid.

LONG COVID

Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco are using an infusion of monoclonal antibodies to try to eradicate Long Covid.  Based on the theory that pieces of the coronavirus that causes SARS-CoV-2 can linger in the body for years after infection, they are using AER002, which is manufactured by Aerium Therapeutics, a Boston biotech company, as a kind of “guided missile” to eradicate whatever remains of the virus in a patient’s body.

The clinical trial involves 30 people, 20 of which are receiving AER002, and ten who are receiving a placebo.

In the United Kingdom, researchers at Oxford University found that Long Covid is linked to changes in multiple organs in the body, according to a study published this past week in the journal Lancet Respiratory Medicine..  One-third of people hospitalised with Covid-19 whose records were included in the study were found to have “abnormalities” in multiple organs months after getting infected according to the study.

The study was conducted before much of the world’s population had mass immunity from vaccination and prior infection, which blunted the severity of infections.  It used MRI scans taken of patients where it was observed that they were more likely to have some abnormalities in multiple organs such as the lungs, kidneys, and brain.  The greatest impact appeared to be the lungs, where the scans were 14 times more likely to display abnormalities.

There were no abnormalities found in the heart or liver.

At an online press conference, Dr. Betty Raman, one of the lead investigators on the study, said it was clear that those living with Long Covid symptoms are more likely to have experienced some organ damage.

“The patient’s age, how severely ill they were with Covid, as well as if they had other illnesses at the same time, were all significant factors in whether or not we found damage to these important organs in the body,” she said.

UNITED STATES

Healthcare officials in New York City are planning to spend $28 million to bolster the ranks of their so-called “disease detectives” as well as other healthcare professions.  The Big Apple tripled the number of disease detectives in March 2020, the very early days of the coronavirus pandemic, hired to track Covid among healthcare workers and other high-risk groups.  Now the city wants to prepare for potential outbreaks of Ebola, polio, monkeypox, as well as Covid.

“New variants of Covid-19 are likely to emerge in the fall/winter, along with other infectious disease outbreaks such as polio and Ebola, causing extensive strain on personnel if temps are unable to be utilized to support NYC’s response activities,” the city’s Department of Health said in public notices.

In California, the summer Covid wave may have peaked.   The 7-day rolling positivity rate fell to 11%, from 13.1% earlier in the month, data from the state’s Department of Health shows.  Hospital admissions are also down by approximately 8%, health officials there said.

Meanwhile, in South Carolina, the number of new cases continues to climb.  Hospitalizations in the state are at their highest rate since January 2023 and cases in the Charleston area have climbed dramatically since the end of June, based on wastewater surveillance data.

TODAY’S STATISTICS

Now here are the daily statistics for Sunday, September 24.

As of Sunday morning, the world has recorded 695.72 million Covid-19 cases, an increase of .04 million, and 6.92 million deaths, according to Worldometer, a service that tracks such information. In addition, 667.75 million people worldwide have recovered from the virus, an increase of 0.03 million from the prior 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 Sunday at press time is 21,060,077, a decrease of 4,000. Out of that figure, 99.8%, or 21,022,025, are considered mild, and 0.2%, or 38,052, are listed as critical. The percentage of cases considered critical has not changed over the past eight months.

The test positivity rate for Covid in the United States for the week ending September 9 was 20.54%, down from 23.05% the prior week, according to data from the CDC Respiratory Virus Laboratory Emergency Department Network Surveillance, or RESP-LENS By comparison, the test positive rate for influenza was 0.86%, down from 1.27% and, for RSV, that figure was 2%, up from 1.25%.

The percentage of deaths due to Covid was 2.7% in the week ending September 9, 2023, a figure that is up 12.5% over the previous week.

Finally, the number of hospital admissions from Covid for seven days ending September 9 was 20,538, a figure that is up 7.7% over the preceding week.

As of March 25, 2023, the Morning News Brief began to update case data as well as death tolls on a weekly basis.  In addition, as of May 15, 2023, the Morning News Brief has pressed pause on certain data sets as we assess the update of changes in reporting by U.S. health authorities at the CDC.  Where appropriate, the Morning News Brief has reintroduced data sets where they have become available.

Since the start of the pandemic, the United States has, as of Sunday, recorded 108.59 million cases, a higher figure than any other country, and a death toll of 1.18 million. India has the world’s second highest number of officially recorded cases, 45 million, and a reported death toll of 531,930.

The newest data from Russia’s Rosstat state statistics service showed that, at the end of July 2022, 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 40.14 million, and Germany is in the number four slot, with 38.43 million total cases.

Brazil, which has recorded the third highest number of deaths as a result of the virus, 705,313, has recorded 37.79 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 34.57 million cases, as number six; Japan, with 33.8 million cases placing it in the number seven slot; and Italy, with 26.04 million, as number eight, as well as the United Kingdom, with 24.7 million, and Russia, with 23 million, as nine and ten respectively.

VACCINATION SPOTLIGHT

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that, as of August 5, the total number of updated bivalent doses given in the United States was 153.57 million, an increase of 1.06 million doses over the past month.

Older – and no longer updated – data from the CDC shows that over 270.2 million people in the United States – or 81.4% – have received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine as of May 11, 2023. Of that population, 69.5%, or 230.6 million people, have received two doses of vaccine, and the total number of doses that have been dispensed in the United States is now over 676.7 million. Breaking this down further, 92.23% of the population over the age of 18 – or 238.2 million people – has received at least a first inoculation and 79.1% of the same group – or 204.3 million people – is fully vaccinated.

Some 70.5% of the world population has received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine by Sunday, according to Our World in Data, an online scientific publication that tracks such information.  So far, 13.5 billion doses of the vaccine have been administered on a global basis and 26,502 doses are now administered each day.

Meanwhile, only 32.6% 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 beginning of vaccinations in North Korea in late September, Eritrea remains the only country in the world that has not administered vaccines in any significant number.

Paul Riegler contributed reporting to this story.

(Photo: Accura Media Group)