State of the Covid pandemic: Where are we now?

Once again, just as colder weather is on its way, schools are starting up again, and more workers are returning to the office, the SARS-CoV-2 virus is primed to surge yet again. Time to take a look at where we stand as STAT’s J. Emory Parker and Andrew Joseph take us through the numbers and trends. While the future is uncertain, we do know this:

People who are unvaccinated continue to die at higher rates than people who’ve been vaccinated.
The number of deaths are near all-time lows even as transmission has been skyrocketing.
But even with lower death rates, the country can still lose thousands of people each week when millions of infections are occurring.
Kids’ hospitalizations reached their second highest peak of the entire pandemic.

Read more, including what a reprieve might mean, relatively speaking.

FDA authorizes Pfizer and Moderna Covid boosters targeting Omicron strains

Meanwhile, Covid vaccines crafted to target the Omicron strains circulating now moved one step closer to our arms yesterday. The FDA issued emergency use authorizations to Moderna and to Pfizer and its partner BioNTech for shots that combine protein from the original Covid strain as well as from BA.4 and BA.5 variants. The CDC still needs to sign off on the boosters, but could do so after its vaccine advisory panel meets today and tomorrow. A vote to recommend them could come today.

If so, boosters might be available soon after Labor Day. The new booster shots are being authorized without new human clinical trial data for this exact formulation, a familiar strategy from flu vaccines. STAT’s Matthew Herper has more, and scroll down for a peek at Sarah Owermohle’s story on the White House push for boosters.

'Live your life,' but be safe, WHO expert urges

Maria Van Kerkhove knows you’re over Covid. STAT’s Helen Branswell asked her, as technical lead for Covid-19 at WHO, what the right response is now.

What do you say if no one wants to talk about Covid?
The world just so badly wants it to be over that I don’t think we’re optimizing our response. So how do we get the messaging right? To say: Live your life. Live it responsibly, be safe, and by being safe, we mean get all the vaccine doses that are recommended for you, fight like hell for vaccine equity in countries that don’t have it yet. Wear a mask when you’re inside, or when you’re traveling, as much as you can.

What about other diseases?
We are seeing countries dismantle pandemic systems like defunding surveillance, shutting labs down, firing work staff. That is short-sighted because that workforce and those systems can be used for other threats that that country faces: Covid. Monkeypox. Influenza. RSV. Polio.

You can read the full interview here.

Closer look: The Biden administration is pushing new Covid boosters. Who’s listening?

(MARIO TAMA/GETTY)

Here’s the pitch: The new, variant-targeting vaccines will curb a winter coronavirus wave and protect America’s most medically vulnerable people. Here’s the question: Will Americans feel any urgency to get them? “No one’s under any illusion that the demand is going to be what it was in 2020,” a senior Biden official told STAT’s Sarah Owermohle. “But it’s absolutely critical that we focus on those who are at risk.”

As soon as today or tomorrow, the CDC will likely recommend boosters tailored to Omicron variants, following the FDA’s emergency use authorization yesterday for new shots from Moderna and Pfizer. The Biden administration will then campaign to convince Americans to get the boosters, even though Covid fatigue is high and booster rates are already low. Plus, vaccine experts are split about the benefits of offering the doses broadly. Read more.

After organ transplants, disrupted gut bacteria linked to lower survival

After people receive lifesaving transplants, they face a lifelong need for immune-suppressing drugs to keep their bodies from rejecting the new organs. A new study in Science Translational Medicine reports they also confront disruptions in their gut bacteria that are linked to lower survival. These harmful changes have shown up after stem cell transplants, but what happens after organ transplants hasn’t been clear.

Researchers studying nearly 1,400 fecal samples from liver and kidney transplant recipients up to two years post-transplant (and a smaller group 20 years later) found less diverse gut bacteria and more genes linked to antibiotic resistance compared to a control group. People with the lowest bacterial diversity had a three-year survival rate of 77% compared with 96% in patients with high bacterial diversity. Immune-suppressing drugs are likely upsetting the healthy balance of bacteria, but the researchers caution their study can show only an association, as they call for more research.

Expanded telehealth for opioid use disorder helped some, study finds

Here’s another chapter in the history of pandemic telehealth: A new study in JAMA Psychiatry connects expanding telehealth services to better outcomes. Researchers compared how more than 175,000 Medicare patients before and after the pandemic made use of telehealth, medications, and overdose treatment. As you might expect, more people used telehealth during the pandemic, but they were also more likely to receive medications for opioid use disorder, stay on them, and have a lower risk of medically treated overdose compared to those not doing telehealth.

Those benefits were uneven: Non-Hispanic Black people and people living in the South were less likely to receive these services. “Strategies to expand provision of [medications], increase retention in care, and address co-occurring physical and behavioral health conditions are urgently needed in the context of an escalating overdose crisis,” the authors write.

What to read around the web today

Exclusive: Calm’s head of science departs amid a shakeup at meditation app maker, STAT
People experiencing homelessness are catching monkeypox. Why experts are worried and what cities are doing, USA Today
How to fix the CDC, The Atlantic
Opinion: Like me, many Americans struggle with suicidal thoughts. This law can help us, Washington Post
Opinion: ‘Food is medicine’ interventions should be the main course at White House nutrition conference, STAT