Coronavirus Morning News Brief – Nov. 2: Pandemic Has ‘Had Lasting Impact’ on Our Brain Health, U.K. Former Health Secretary Wanted to Play God

People strolling in St. James’s Park in London

Good morning. This is Jonathan Spira reporting. Here now the news of the pandemic from across the globe on the 1,331st day of the pandemic.

In news we report today, the pandemic has had “a lasting impact” on cognitive ability in all older adults and former Health Secretary Matt Hancock wanted to determine who would live and who would die if the U.K. healthcare system became overloaded.

UNITED STATES

The Department of Health and Human Services reported that over 15 million people have received the updated 2023 coronavirus vaccine as of October 27.  The numbers continue to lag behind last year’s figures.

As of October 26, 2022, almost 23 million people had received updated boosters data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows. The 2022 fall vaccination campaign started ten days earlier than this year’s.

Drugmaker Pfizer reported a loss for the third quarter of 2023. The news came as the company recorded charges largely related to struggles for its SARS-CoV-2 antiviral treatment Paxlovid and coronavirus vaccine.

The pharmaceutical house recorded a $5.6 billion charge for inventory write-offs due to a lower-than-expected demand for its SARS-CoV-2 products.

GLOBAL

A new study coming out of the United Kingdom suggests that the pandemic has caused sustained harm to the cognitive ability of people who are 50 years of age or older.  The public health crisis  has sped up cognitive decline in people regardless of whether or not they contracted SARS-CoV-2, the researchers found.

The study, led by the University of Exeter and King’s College London and published this week in the Lancet Healthy Longevity journal, links pandemic conditions to cognitive decline.

The researchers found that cognitive function and working memory in older adults declined more quickly during the first year of the pandemic between March 2020 and February 2021, even if they had not become infected with SARS-CoV-2. The trend continued into 2021-2022 timeframe, which suggests an impact beyond the initial lockdowns.

“Our findings suggest that lockdowns and other restrictions we experienced during the pandemic have had a real lasting impact on brain health in people aged 50 or over, even after the lockdowns ended,” said Anne Corbett, a professor in dementia research and the lead at Exeter for the Protect study.

In the continuing saga of the United King’s pandemic inquiry, we learn that former health secretary Matt Hancock wanted to decide “who should live and die” if the country’s National Health Service were to becomeoverwhelmed, the panel was told.

The witness statement by Sir Simon Stevens, the former NHS England chief, said that Hancock thought he, not doctors or the public, should decide who to prioritize if hospitals became overwhelmed.

“Fortunately, this horrible dilemma never crystallised,” Sir Simon added.

GLOBAL STATISTICS

Now here are the daily statistics for Thursday, November 2.

As of Thursday morning, the world has recorded 697.32 million Covid-19 cases, an increase of 0.07 million in the past, and 6.93 million deaths, according to Worldometer, a service that tracks such information. In addition, 669.1 million people worldwide have recovered from the virus, an increase of .04 million.

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 Thursday at press time is 21,294,587, an increase of 35,000. Out of that figure, 99.8%, 21,256,552, are considered mild, and 0.2%, or 38,0351, are listed as critical. The percentage of cases considered critical has not changed over the past ten months.

Since the start of the pandemic, the United States has, as of Thursday, recorded 109.18 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 533,293.

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 38.55 million total cases.

Brazil, which has recorded the third highest number of deaths as a result of the virus, 706,808, has recorded 37.95 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 26.23 million, as number eight, as well as the United Kingdom, with 24.79 million, and Russia, with 23.12 million, as nine and ten respectively.

CURRENT U.S. COVID STATISTICS AT A GLANCE

In the United States, in the week ending October 21, 2023, the test positivity rate was – based on data released on October 26 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – 8.7%, a figure that is down 0.7% from the previous 7-day period, while the percentage of emergency department visits that were diagnosed as SARS-CoV-2 was 1.3%, a figure that unchanged.

The number of people admitted to hospital in the United States due to SARS-CoV-2 in the same 7-day period was 16,186, a figure that is down 0.02%. Meanwhile, the percentage of deaths due to SARS-CoV-2 was 2.7%, a figure that is up 12.5% over the same period.

VACCINATION SPOTLIGHT

Some 70.6% of the world population has received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine by Thursday, according to Our World in Data, an online scientific publication that tracks such information.  So far, 13.53 billion doses of the vaccine have been administered on a global basis and 15,550 doses are now administered each day.

Meanwhile, only 32.8% 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.

Anna Breuer contributed reporting to this story.

(Photo: Accura Media Group)