New Covid variant HV.1 variant becomes dominant as America's booster vaccine program lags
A new coronavirus variant is spreading across the United States, but experts have urged people not to be alarmed.
The mutant strain — dubbed HV.1 — is a mutation on the EG.5 variant which sparked concern earlier this year.
It is now dominant in the US behind 25 percent of cases, with experts saying it is more transmissible than other variants. There is no sign it is more likely to cause severe disease.
Experts are not raising the alarm over the mutant strain, however, saying there will 'always be new variants' as Covid continues to spread and mutate.
Concerns are being raised over America's slow booster program, however, with uptake branded 'abysmal' this weekend with less than three percent of Americans having come forward a month into the rollout.
Covid cases and hospitalizations are currently trending downward and deaths are flatlining, although experts warn cold weather leading people to spend more time indoors could lead to an uptick in cases.
Dr Amesh Adalja, an infectious diseases expert at Johns Hopkins University, told WION: 'It is important to recognize that there will always be new variants of SARS-CoV-2.
'[This is] just as there are with any other endemic respiratory virus and most will not be of concern to anyone.'
Dr Ross Kedl, an immunologist at the University of Colorado Anschutz School of Medicine, added: 'All that people know at this point is that it's increasing in representation.
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'There's no evidence that it's more severe.'
And Dr William Schaffner, an infectious diseases expert at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Tennessee, told Prevention: 'I don't think people should be very concerned about this.
'Some of the symptoms recorded have been cough, fatigue, congestion and a runny nose. That sounds pretty much like the common cold.'
Scientists say Covid will continue to mutate and create new variants as new cases arise.
But they add that there is little need to fixate on each new strain that comes along because most will not raise the risk of serious disease.
HV.1 was first detected in late July in Costa Rica, according to Covid variant tracking website outbreak.info.
It has now spread to more than 41 countries — including the UK, Canada and Israel — and a total of 4,397 cases have been detected, mostly in the United States.
This is likely to be a massive underestimate, however, because many cases are not checked for variants.
The mutant strain was spotted in the US back in July and has been accounting for an ever higher proportion of cases since.
By the end of August it was behind three percent of cases, according to figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
By the final week of September, however, it was behind 12 percent of all Covid cases with latest estimates for this month estimating it is now behind one in four infections.
California — America's most populous state — has the most cases at 115 recorded, followed by New York — a 'bellwether' state — at 70 cases.
The mutant strain has several mutations on its spike protein which experts say may make it better able to dodge immunity and infect cells.
There is no sign that it is causing different symptoms at present either, with doctors likening its symptoms — including a cough and runny nose — to the common cold.
The US is currently rolling out an updated Covid booster vaccine which has been made available to everyone over the age of six months. Top advisers say, however, that only those over 65 years old need to get inoculated.
The vaccine is based on the XBB.1.5 Covid variant — which was dominant this summer — with experts saying HV.1 is a 'grandchild' of this strain.
They suggest that the vaccine will still work well against severe disease caused by HV.1 because it only has a few further mutations.
It comes as Covid cases and hospitalizations continue to trend downward nationwide.
Latest CDC data showed the positivity rate — proportion of tests that detected the virus — was down to 8.7 percent in the week to October 21, compared to 9.4 percent in the prior week.
There were also 13,036 Covid patients hospitalized in the week to October 21, the latest available, down 4.6 percent on the 13,652 at the same time last week.
For comparison, at the peak over the last two years there were 145,636 Covid patients in hospitals on January 8, 2022.
Covid deaths are currently flatlining at 1,347 being recorded every week, with preliminary data suggesting they may soon start to fall.
Some experts warn, however, indicators will start to trend upward in the coming weeks because cooler weather will lead to more people staying indoors.
There are also gatherings for the holidays upcoming, including Thanksgiving and Christmas, which will lead to different generations coming together — potentially fueling the spread of Covid.
Dr Kelly Oakeson, chief scientist at the Utah Department of Health, told Deseret News: 'If this was happening in the summertime, it might have less of an impact on everything.
'But now that it's happening in the fall/winter, people are indoors, it's getting colder outside, there's more holidays.
'You're probably going to see an increase in cases for sure. Is that driven by HV.1? Is that driven solely by the seasonality, what time of year it is?
'No, it's probably a combination of all of those things... we've seen this now, year after year.'
Concerns have also been raised over the Covid variant JN.1, which is a mutated version of the strain BA.2.86, or 'Pirola', that scientists warned could spark a new wave of infections.
There have been 51 cases reported worldwide to date across 11 countries including the United States, the UK and Germany.
Some scientists fear this strain is more transmissible than others and could spark a new wave of infections.
Dr Oakeson described this mutant strain as 'alarming'.
'We're definitely watching it,' she said.
'I'm not sure I'm at the same level fo concern I was with BA.2.86 just because this one is a descendent of those and we didn't see that take off in the US like it did in other parts of the world.'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12693085/HV1-new-covid-variant-covid19-know.html
********************************************************Government’s Overreach During COVID-19 Is a Likely Contributor to Waning Confidence in Vaccination
The University of Pennsylvania Annenberg Public Policy Center conducted a survey October 5-12, collecting answers from 1,500+ adults across America, and the results in some ways, are not surprising. For example, the number of Americans who believe that generally, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved vaccines are safe declined to 71% from the last survey number of 77% done April 2021. Are the numbers of American adults that don’t trust the FDA’s judgment growing? You bet. Now, 16% up from 9% in 2021, don’t believe approved vaccines are safe.
What’s behind this growing distrust of government, particularly in the realm of biomedical and health-related research?
The survey also asked questions about the antiparasitic and quite controversial drug ivermectin. Approved as a parasitic drug in the U.S., the FDA went into an information war against doctors that were prescribing the drug off-label for COVID-19. The agency emphasizes its use primarily for animals, but that’s not really true. It's used as much for humans when looking at programs such as the now 35-year Mectizan program where literally over a billion courses have been administered in tropical Africa to help humans fight off parasite-borne disease.
This media found evidence of improper behavior and of course, in a lawsuit a judicial decision concurred.
The number that believes it's safer to get the vaccines versus succumbing to COVID-19 infection has dropped to lower than two-thirds, down from 77% in November 2021.
But the government, in this case the nation’s public health agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), tells us the best way to prevent the disease from causing hospitalizations and deaths is to get the COVID-19 vaccine. But does the government legitimately address many concerns we have about safety signals, for example? Do they help us come up with the individual risk-benefit analysis we need?
So, it's a confusing time. In this case, to have any legitimacy from a broader corporate/government ecosystem, a news outlet must declare exactly what government authorities declare as the exact truth: There can be no deviation. That’s why all trade press following the world of pharmaceutical research such as STAT followed this party line, not daring to question any underlying elements of the formal promulgated narratives.
For example, a news platform seeking full credibility must declare, therefore, that the FDA approved antiparasitic ivermectin is not a safe and effective way for treating COVID-19. Of course, when looked at from a narrow lens of the established narrative, this is of course, true--under the regulatory apparatus empowered for making such calls in the United States.
But during the pandemic, especially earlier in the crisis, ivermectin was used extensively in dozens of nations, often as part of a combination regimen including doxycycline and zinc. C19ivm.org has tracked the number of ivermectin studies involving COVID-19 during the pandemic. While the administrators remain anonymous, which TrialSite suggests was a mistake (they likely did so to keep their employment in academic medical centers or industry), the data is accurate in every case we have checked.
To date, the website reports over 99 studies involving 1,089 scientists, 137,255 patients in 28 counties that generated quite a bit of data showing that the regimen can statistically lower risk for mortality, ventilation, ICU, hospitalization, recovery cases and viral clearance. See the link.
And we can emphatically declare this media, TrialSite, was the first one to systematically track the study output of this drug in the context of the novel coronavirus, plus real-world usage during the pandemic. We have had prominent advocates for use of this drug such as Dr. Pierre Kory, co-founder of the Front Line COVID Critical Care (FLCCC) Alliance, tell us directly that we changed the course of the pandemic for the better. He and many others first learned about its use around the world on TrialSite News.
Of course, a handful of high-profile studies failed to show efficacy, and not surprisingly, those outcomes were fully embraced by mainstream media big time. We have had academic medical researchers look into those studies, and in a few of them raise serious questions which have not been answered.
We certainly sensed an agenda during the pandemic. The government exhibited a clear bias toward waiting for the vaccines and any branded pharmaceutical options. But from March 2020, to essentially the end of the year, there was nothing else. Doctors had to do something on the front lines.
While we cannot declare that across-the-board ivermectin represents a safe and effective treatment for COVID-19, we also cannot just make blanket statements that this would be false and misleading because of government agency or industry pressure.
The way the survey folks will understand it, even discussing ivermectin in the positive would be considered misinformation. But this is not true because there is some level of evidence that it has helped (Remember Uttar Pradesh as a prominent one). Real world scenarios were not documented in study form, and many of the ivermectin studies done around the world were not that well designed. So, we cannot be certain. But we remain open, like true scientists, to the unfolding stream of data. That’s how science is supposed to work.
We reported other glaring examples of industry bias during the pandemic such as with the ICAM protocol at a major Florida-based health system.
What appeared to be a lifesaving protocol involving blood thinners and steroids was quickly discarded after TrialSite reported the topic, gaining hundreds of thousands of views at that time. But due to an apparent contract Pfizer had the health system sign, the health system was forbidden from coming up with a repurposed regimen for COVID-19. It doesn’t matter if lives are saved or not. That policy was enforced by an industry adhesion-like contract, in a pandemic, designed to maximize profits in the worst emergency.
This is absolutely disgusting behavior, and another reason why trust is waning in our health-focused governing institutions. And frankly, while biased on this topic, I think it makes a case for the importance of TrialSite, a unique media and information service platform committed to translating complex biomedical and health research for broader audiences.
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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