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Suicides and Homicides Among Young Americans Jumped Early in the Pandemic, Study Says
The homicide rate for older U.S. teenagers rose to its highest point in nearly 25 years during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the suicide rate for adults in their early 20s was the worst in more than 50 years, government researchers said Thursday.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report examined the homicide and suicide rates among 10- to 24-year-olds from 2001 to 2021.
The increase is alarming and “reflects a mental health crisis among young people and a need for a number of policy changes,” said Dr. Steven Woolf, a Virginia Commonwealth University researcher who studies U.S. death trends and wasn’t involved in the CDC report.
Earlier this year, Woolf and other researchers looking at CDC data noted dramatic increases in child and adolescent death rates overall at the beginning of the pandemic and found suicide and homicide were important factors.
FDA Advisers to Vote on Composition of Fall COVID Boosters
A panel of outside advisers to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will vote Thursday on the composition of updated COVID-19 vaccines that are expected to roll out in the fall, as the pandemic continues to recede from daily life but the coronavirus shows no signs of slowing its evolution.
In documents posted this week, the FDA said available evidence suggests that the new vaccine should protect against just one strain of the SARS-CoV-2 virus — a departure from the currently available bivalent vaccines — and should target one of three that are currently circulating in the U.S. Called XBB.1.5, XBB.1.16 and XBB.2.3, they’re all sublineages of the Omicron variant.
This single-strain or monovalent vaccine would drop protection against the original strain of the virus that emerged in China in late 2019, a version that experts don’t expect to return and whose continued inclusion in vaccines may contribute to lower efficacy against newer strains.
Dr. David Ho, a professor of microbiology and immunology and director of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center at Columbia University, whose research is cited in the FDA’s briefing documents, has shown that the bivalent boosters, which are designed to target both the original strain and the BA.4 and BA.5 versions of Omicron, produce an immune response that’s similar to a boost with the original vaccine alone — but that infection with the BA.5 strain, encountering the immune system without the older strain alongside it, improves the immune response against newer strains of the virus.
COVID Vaccine Maker Novavax Sees a Pathway to Survival – but It Won’t Be Easy
Novavax has a clear message for Wall Street: The cash-strapped COVID vaccine maker sees a pathway to survival.
Maryland-based Novavax said as much last month when it reported its first-quarter financial results and unveiled a broad cost-cutting push along with a higher-than-expected 2023 revenue forecast of $1.4 billion to $1.6 billion. That report stood in stark contrast to the previous quarter when the biotech company raised doubts about its ability to stay in business.
But Wall Street hasn’t entirely bought into the recovery plan: Shares of Novavax are still down roughly 18% since the start of the year after shedding more than 90% of their value in 2022. And staying afloat through 2023 and beyond may not be an easy task.
The 36-year-old company will continue to rely on its protein-based COVID vaccine — its only commercially available product — for most of its revenue this year.
COVID shot sales will largely depend on Novavax’s ability to deliver an updated version of its jab in time for the fall when the U.S. government is expected to shift vaccine distribution to the private sector. Even if Novavax can meet that timeline, it will face tough competition from mRNA rivals Pfizer and Moderna.
Monoclonal Antibody Injection Shown to Prevent COVID During Delta, Omicron
A single injection of the monoclonal antibody (mAb), adintrevimab prevented COVID-19 in the phase 2/3 EVADE trial, finds a study yesterday in Open Forum Infectious Diseases.
The randomized controlled trial measured outcomes among 2,582 vaccine-naive participants ages 12 years and older who received either a single 300-milligram intramuscular injection of adintrevimab or placebo. Safety was assessed during the 6-month follow-up, and the primary endpoint was symptomatic COVID-19 infection within 28 days and through 3 months. The study was conducted from April 27, 2021, through January 11, 2022.
Adintrevimab is derived from a survivor of the 2003 SARS-CoV epidemic and engineered for improved potency and broad neutralization against SARS-CoV-2 and other SARS-like coronaviruses with pandemic potential, the authors said. There were no serious side effects reported during the study.
Want to Predict the Next Big COVID Variant to Hit the U.S.? Look to Airports
With the summer travel season about to begin, public-health officials face a daunting challenge in keeping on top of ever-evolving COVID-19 variants. Most countries — including the U.S. — have scaled down or eliminated pandemic measures, including pre-flight testing and screening, giving the virus a greater opportunity to slip into countries undetected and start spreading.
But even though the U.S. now has less robust COVID-19 data collection, one important but little-known source remains — samples from international passengers flying into the U.S.
Launched by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in late 2021, the Traveler-Based Genomic Surveillance program is still running in seven of the busiest international airports in the U.S.: John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR), San Francisco International Airport (SFO), Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL), Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA), and Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD).
‘Game Changer’: 5 Long COVID Treatments Researchers Are Most Excited About
San Francisco Chronicle reported:
Three-plus years after the start of the pandemic, COVID may finally be starting to feel like a distant memory for many people. But for those suffering from long COVID, each day is a reminder that the effects of the disease can linger long after it’s gone.
More than 15% of American adults have experienced long COVID — which can include symptoms like brain fog, exhaustion and loss of smell and taste — for weeks, months or years after infection, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In an effort to organize long COVID research under one umbrella, the National Institutes of Health in 2021 created the Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery Initiative, or RECOVER, a billion-dollar program that studies treatments and the long-term impacts of the disease.
For now, research into treatments for long COVID is focused on repurposing drugs that are already on the market for other ailments. These medications are largely being studied as treatments for specific symptoms of long COVID, rather than for the disease as a whole.
Early Surge of Flu Activity in Australia Has Doctors on Alert for What May Happen in U.S. This Fall and Winter
Epidemiologists this summer are closely watching the sharp rise in flu activity in the Southern Hemisphere, where it is currently winter, to see if it’s a sign of what’s to come in the U.S.
The Australian Department of Health and Aged Care reported an increase in influenza-like illness activity in almost all jurisdictions in the final two weeks of May. The illness activity was highest in young children ages 5 to 9, followed by children 4 years and younger, and then those ages 10 to 14.
A review of both the World Health Organization’s surveillance data and the latest Australian Surveillance Report shows the increasing flu activity in Australia is currently within historic ranges, said Dr. Carrie Reed, chief of CDC’s Influenza Division Epidemiology and Prevention branch. “However,” she said, the CDC “continues to monitor influenza trends across the globe.”
