⭐❗❗ This review paper (2024-12-10) reports that pathogens — including some really nasty ones — hang around in semen from days to years. They found 22 different pathogens which had been reported in semen, including HIV, Zika, Ebola, mpox, COVID-19, Lassa fever, dengue, Hep E, mumps, West Nile, adenovirus, Marburg, and some I’d never heard of.
COVID-19
Long COVID
This paper from USA (2024-12-06) reports that the Pfizer vax prevented Long COVID in young people, but mostly by keeping them from getting COVID in the first place. The Pfizer vax was 60.2% effective against Long COVID for children 5 to 11 years old during the Omicron phase, and 75.1% effective for people age 12 to 20. If I understand their figures correctly, all but 31% of the effect was due to keeping the kids from getting COVID-19 for the younger group and all but 21% for the older group.
This paper from Japan (2024-12-09) reports, with caveats, that vaccination reduces Long COVID. They found that three or more shots were protective, but only one or two was not. (NB: I suspect means that a recent vax was protective, but an old was was not.) They also found that only women were protected!
I do not understand their numbers: they say that the effectiveness (which one would assume was for everybody) was 30%, but for women (only), it was 30%. That would imply that men and women had the same protection, but they very explicitly said that only women were protected, so maybe when they said that the effectiveness was 30%, maybe they were only talking about women?
The gender divide seems odd, but then many things about COVID-19 seem gendered. :-/
COVID-Related Excess Death and Sickness
⭐ This paper from USA (2024-12-10) reports that cancers in adults under 50 went up quite a bit after COVID-19 appeared:
- 18-29 year olds: up 11.7%;
- 30-39 year olds: up 7.2%
- 40-49 year olds: up 7.5%/
For comparison, there was only a 5.5% increase in people 50 to 59 years old.
Mitigation Measures
⭐ This paper (2024-12-09) examined differences in 13 different European countries over the first 30 months of the pandemic. They found that countries which did two things had lower mortality and lower economic losses. Countries that did well:
- started non-pharmeceutical interventions when COVID-19 levels were still low;
- they rolled out vaccines for the elderly quickly.
I’m struck by the parallels with Paxlovid: you have to take aggressive action before it looks bad. If you take a wait-and-see attitude, then by the time it looks bad, it’s too late.
Vaccines
This paper from Singapore (2024-12-05) found that bivalent boosters worked a lot better than COVID Classic boosters. People who got the bivalent booster were 37.8% less likely to get Long COVID if I understand the wording of the abstract properly.
This paper from USA (2024-12-12) reports that the Pfizer XBB booster worked well in children:
- for children from 5 to 11, the it was 68% effective;
- for children from 12 to 17, the it was 63% effective.
Recommended Reading
⭐ This article (2024-12-11) talks about a COVID-19 theme park in Vietnam!
H5N1
Transmission
⭐ This paper from USA (2024-12-09) reported on an in-depth analysis of the death of ten outdoor housecats in rural South Dakota from H5N1 related to clade 2.3.4.4b infection (the dairy/poultry farm type). They found both avian and mammal receptors in the cats, which means that the cats could act as a “mixing vessel” to merge both human and avian strains into something which would transmit more easily in humans. Scientists have been worrying for a long time about pigs being good “mixing vessels”, but maybe they missed an animal under their noses. 😬 The cats’ strain already had several mutations which suggest adaptation to mammals. 😬😬
This article (2024-12-11) mentions that there is no US government agency charged with monitoring pets. If there were an outbreak among US housecats, how would they even know? How would they monitor it?
This article (2024-12-10) reports that the Alameda county toddler in California who got H5N1 has clade 2.3.4.4b (the dairy/poultry farm type), not a wild bird clade like the strain which the BC teen has. They still don’t know how that Alameda toddler got it. (The kid did not drink raw milk, in case you were wondering.)
The genotype of the strain the toddler had does not have any scary mutations in it (unlike the BC teen’s strain).
This article (2024-12-11) reported that there was a kid in Marin County, California who was suspected to have H5N1 after drinking raw milk. The kid got very sick, was vomiting etc. However, this later article (2024-12-12) says that kid although the kid did have influenza, they did not find H5N1. This article (2024-12-12) clarifies that there was a very low level of virus, and implies that they just couldn’t tell if the kid had H5N1 or not.
Still, don’t drink raw milk. It’s bad for you.
H5N1 showed up in two more locations’ wastewater. I suspect that is because they have started looking, not that there wasn’t bird flu there before — given how long wild birds (and deer, and raccoons, and opossums, and and and) have been catching it. This week:
- This article (2024-12-10) reports on Hilo Hawai’i (after a detection in Oahu in November);
- This article (2024-12-11) reports that H5N1 has been found in wastewater in Coconino County, AZ;
This article (2024-12-09) says that two poultry workers in Arizona caught H5N1 from the flock during culling.
This article (2024-10-12) says that California is up to 617 infected dairy herds, out of 832 across the USA in 16 states.
Mpox
Transmission
This article (2024-12-12) reports that mpox cases are increasing in Africa, e.g. from 2,708 to 3,545 last week in DR Congo. 🙁
The article also says that the Japanese vaccine should arrive next week. This is important because it’s the first vax approved for kids under 12.
Mystery Disease
Identification
⭐ This article (2024-12-10) reports that 10 of 12 samples collected from sick people in the region with a reported mystery disease had malaria. That doesn’t prove that there is no mystery disease; they could have malaria and Disease X. However, it does move the likelihood slightly towards “malnourished people suffering from known ailments” and away from “eeeeeeek it is going to kill us allllll!”