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Cont: The One Covid-19 Science and Medicine Thread Part 5

marting said:
Not really. C19 is more contagious and has waves outside of the winter season as well, while Flu rarely has a peak outside of the winter season.

Did you notice that in the last two weeks there were 9 Covid deaths and 7 Flu deaths? Half of the season's 14 Flu deaths were in the last 2 weeks.
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No, I didn't.
marting said:
We just started getting into Flu season and it's starting to ramp strongly. Flu is already accounting for almost 4x more hospitalizations than C19. Deaths, a lagging indicator will follow. Flu was close to non-existent before Dec. C19 was pretty high in the late summer. C19 seems to be growing much slower tahn Flu. Might be due to somewhat higher population immunity from the high summer surge.
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Did you notice this?
Another headline emphasizing the flu even though ....
US respiratory virus infections rise, led by flu (CIDRAP, Jan 3, 2024)
During Christmas week, respiratory virus activity continued a steady rise across much of the nation, with the largest spikes seen for flu. COVID-19 levels continue to climb from low levels, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) activity is still very high in many regions, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today in its latest updates.
(...)
The weekly percentage of deaths, however, is higher for COVID than for flu or RSV, according to the latest CDC data.
(...)
Wastewater tracking shows Midwest as COVID hot spot
Nationally, COVID levels remain at the high level, though detections in the Midwest are nearly twice that of the national level. Levels are showing rising trends, however, in other US regions.
For comparison, wastewater levels are moderate for both flu and RSV. In its weekly respiratory virus snapshot, the CDC said it still expects hospitalizations from the respiratory viruses over the fall and winter to have a similar or lower peak than last season, though officials expect the overall peak hospitalization to remain higher than before SARS-CoV-2 emerged.
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Lungs
One in Ten Lung Transplants Go to Covid-19 Patients: Here’s What We Know (Columbia Surgery: Surgical Lung & Chest Care)
Key Takeaways:
  • COVID-19 accounts for nearly 10 percent of all lung transplants in the U.S., reflecting a major shift in transplant trends.
  • COVID-related lung transplants are particularly challenging due to severe lung damage and complex surgeries, leading to longer and more resource-intensive recoveries.
  • Lung transplant candidates with COVID-19 face similar survival rates to other lung transplant patients, but their aftercare involves a dramatic adjustment to lifelong medications and new health risks.
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NIH-funded study finds cases of ME/CFS increase following SARS-CoV-2 (NIH, Jan 13, 2025)
New findings from the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery (RECOVER(link is external)) Initiative suggest that infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, may be associated with an increase in the number of myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) cases. According to the results, 4.5% post-COVID-19 participants met ME/CFS diagnostic criteria, compared to 0.6% participants that had not been infected by SARS-CoV-2 virus. RECOVER is NIH’s national program to understand, diagnose, prevent, and treat Long COVID.
The research team, led by Suzanne D. Vernon, Ph.D., from the Bateman Horne Center in Salt Lake City, examined adults participating in the RECOVER adult cohort study to see how many met the IOM clinical diagnostic criteria for ME/CFS(link is external) at least six months after their infection. Included in the analysis were 11,785 participants who had been infected by SARS-CoV-2 and 1,439 participants who had not been infected by the virus. Findings appear in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.
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I assume that the low number of uninfected participants is due to the difficulty of finding people who were never infected.
 
Dec 30, 2024:
dann said:
San Diego County Respiratory Virus Surveillance Report, June 30 to Dec 21, 2024 (SanDiegoCounty.gov, Dec 26, 2024)
COVID-19: Cases 20,500; Deaths 178
Influenza: Cases 6,546; Deaths 14
RSV: Cases 1,005; Deaths 0
So far, the number of C19 deaths has been about 13 times higher than that of flu deaths this season, and the number of C19 cases three times higher than the number of flu cases, which seems to imply that C19 is not only more infectious, its virulence (i.e. the CFR) is also much higher.
Strange, isn't it?
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Dec 30, 2024:
dann said:
marting said:
Not really. C19 is more contagious and has waves outside of the winter season as well, while Flu rarely has a peak outside of the winter season.

Did you notice that in the last two weeks there were 9 Covid deaths and 7 Flu deaths? Half of the season's 14 Flu deaths were in the last 2 weeks. We just started getting into Flu season and it's starting to ramp strongly. Flu is already accounting for almost 4x more hospitalizations than C19. Deaths, a lagging indicator will follow. Flu was close to non-existent before Dec. C19 was pretty high in the late summer. C19 seems to be growing much slower tahn Flu. Might be due to somewhat higher population immunity from the high summer surge.
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The most recent numbers (maybe new numbers tomorrow?!):
San Diego County Respiratory Virus Surveillance Report, June 30, 2024, to Jan 4, 2025 (SanDiegoCounty.gov, Jan 9, 2025)
COVID-19: Cases 21,244; Deaths 194
Influenza: Cases 13,567; Deaths 19
RSV: Cases 1,753; Deaths 1
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The number of flu cases more than doubled since Dec 21 - and yet the flu killed only 5. Whereas COVID-19 killed 16.
We know that it may take C19 a couple of weeks to kill people after they test positive. It's possible that something similar happens with the flu, I assume. We may find out tomorrow.
 
Long Covid article:
SARS-COV-2 reinfection and incidence of post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC) among essential workers in New York: a retrospective cohort study (The Lancet, vol 42, February 2025)
Findings
A total of 475 (prevalence = 18.9%, [95% confidence interval] = [17.4–20.5]) PASC patients were identified. The mean (standard deviation (SD)) age of participants who experienced PASC (54.8 (7.2) years) was similar to those who did not (54.2 (7.4) years). There were 403 (16.1% [14.6–17.5]) participants who experienced multiple instances of COVID-19. After adjusting for relevant demographic, lifestyle, and clinical variables, we found a significant association between the risk of experiencing PASC and multiple SARS-COV-2 infections (RR = 1.41 [1.14–1.74]), severe COVID-19 (RR = 3.17 [2.41–4.16]), and being unvaccinated at first infection (RR = 3.29 [2.46–4.41]).
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So multiple C19 infections and being unvaccinated increases your risk of getting Long Covid.
 
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Cardiovascular:
How the virus behind COVID-19 can harm your blood vessels and your heart (American Heart Association News, Jan 16, 2025)
It started as a respiratory illness – or so everyone thought. But it quickly became apparent that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, was so much more.
"Since the beginning, the virus showed a very dramatic ability to affect different organs and systems beyond the respiratory system," said Dr. Chiara Giannarelli, an associate professor in the departments of medicine and pathology at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. "Early on, there was some evidence the virus was damaging the heart, causing an increased risk of heart attacks and strokes in these patients. But no one was looking at the vasculature," the blood vessels that carry the virus throughout the body and in and out of the heart.
From her lab in New York City, Giannarelli had front-row seats in the spring of 2020 to the epicenter of COVID-19 infections in the U.S. Because her research already focused on the complex relationship between inflammatory and immune cells in the arteries and their role in atherosclerosis – the root of cardiovascular disease – she felt well positioned to investigate.
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The article describes how COVID-19 causes cardiovascular damage.
 
dann said:
Only 430 C19 cases, and almost 3,000 cases of flu.
And yet, still one more C19 death this week, 9 in all, than flu deaths, 8.
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Yep. And a bit over 5x more flu hospitalizations than C19. So C19 kills 6 to 7x more people that are hospitalized than flu. Flu seems to be peaking in San Diego after a very sharp runup. C19 seems to have a much broader peak but may be peaking as well. C19 positivity rate has been quite low at about 3% down from >20% in Aug., while flu is 25-30%. This is an artifact because the increase in flu dominates tests for ILI patients. C19 case numbers is a better proxy for C19 population prevalence.
 
Also mentioned in post 663:
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Has Surged Since the Pandemic, Study Reveals (Sciencealert, Jan 21, 2025)
Scientists are growing concerned that infections of the SARS-CoV-2 virus may be triggering more cases of chronic fatigue syndrome or myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME/CFS)
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COVID-19 dramatically raises the risk of developing ME/CFS (NewsMedical, Jan 16, 2025)
The results indicated that SARS-CoV-2 infections significantly increased the risk of developing ME/CFS. Among the infected participants, 4.5% had symptoms that matched the ME/CFS diagnostic criteria six months post-infection, significantly higher than the 0.6% observed in the uninfected controls.
Additionally, the incidence rate among the acutely infected individuals per 100 person-years was 2.66, which was also significantly higher than the rate of 0.93 observed among the uninfected participants.
The most common symptom in infected individuals was post-exertional malaise, which 24% of participants reported. Other frequently reported symptoms included cognitive impairment, unrefreshing sleep, and fatigue—all aligning with the diagnostic criteria for ME/CFS. Moreover, the symptom prevalence was markedly higher in post-acute participants than in acute cases, highlighting the progressive nature of post-infectious symptoms.
Eighty-nine percent of participants diagnosed with post-COVID-19 ME/CFS were also categorized as having long COVID, with the majority assigned to PASC Cluster 4, the most symptomatic subgroup. This underscores a possible overlap between severe PASC and post-COVID ME/CFS.
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dann said:
Only 430 C19 cases, and almost 3,000 cases of flu.
And yet, still one more C19 death this week, 9 in all, than flu deaths, 8.
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Deaths from the prior week has been updated and there were more Flu deaths than C19. There are now 10 Flu deaths and 9 C19 deaths listed for that week in the latest report:


And for the current week, there are 13 reported Flu deaths and 3 C19 deaths. Flu hospitalizations have gone up from 470 to 505 while C19 decreased from 84 to 72. However, relative to hospitalizations C19 is still far more lethal. Seems C19 is peaking at significantly lower levels than the last winter peak while Flu is on a run.

However, C19 deaths over a year are still far in excess of Flu deaths. Flu is putting a greater strain on hospitals as it tends to have sharp peaks once a year while C19 has multiple, yearly smaller peaks.

Good idea to save the reports since the link goes to the latest only and is updated on Thursdays.
 
dann said:
San Diego County Respiratory Virus Surveillance Report, June 30, 2024, to Jan 11, 2025 (SanDiegoCounty.gov, Jan 16, 2025)
COVID-19: Cases 21,674; Deaths 203
Influenza: Cases 16,545; Deaths 27
RSV: Cases 2,112; Deaths 2
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San Diego County Respiratory Virus Surveillance Report, June 30, 2024, to Jan 18, 2025 (SanDiegoCounty.gov, Jan 23, 2025)
COVID-19: Cases 22,043; Deaths 206
Influenza: Cases 19,892; Deaths 43
RSV: Cases 2,427; Deaths 2

marting said:
(...) Flu is putting a greater strain on hospitals as it tends to have sharp peaks once a year while C19 has multiple, yearly smaller peaks. (...)
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I would like to see proof of this claim. It has been claimed quite often during the pandemic, but it wasn't true so far, but maybe it will be this year.
However, when I try to find the numbers, there is this at the bottom of page 5:
The national reporting mandate expired on April 30, 2024. A new mandate went into effect on November 1, 2024. Data for the interim period are not available.
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The "interim period," May to September 2024, just happens to include the July-August 2024, i.e. the peak of the summer wave of COVID-19 when influenza would have been at its lowest all-year point.
Pretty convenient, isn't it?!
 
dann said:
I would like to see proof of this claim. It has been claimed quite often during the pandemic, but it wasn't true so far, but maybe it will be this year.
However, when I try to find the numbers, there is this at the bottom of page 5:
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Here's a chart of UK hospital admissions for Flu, Covid and RSV for the past couple of years. We tend to get a large flu spike in Nov-Feb and several smaller waves of Covid throughout the year.

christinapagel.substack.com

December was bad for NHS, but the Flu wave has thankfully (just) peaked

Hopefully the worst is over for the NHS this winter, but thousands of people are dying each year due to ambulance and A&E delays.
christinapagel.substack.com christinapagel.substack.com
 
dann said:
San Diego County Respiratory Virus Surveillance Report, June 30, 2024, to Jan 18, 2025 (SanDiegoCounty.gov, Jan 23, 2025)
COVID-19: Cases 22,043; Deaths 206
Influenza: Cases 19,892; Deaths 43
RSV: Cases 2,427; Deaths 2


I would like to see proof of this claim. It has been claimed quite often during the pandemic, but it wasn't true so far, but maybe it will be this year.
However, when I try to find the numbers, there is this at the bottom of page 5:

The "interim period," May to September 2024, just happens to include the July-August 2024, i.e. the peak of the summer wave of COVID-19 when influenza would have been at its lowest all-year point.
Pretty convenient, isn't it?!
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There is a data set of death certs that breaks down by state, covid, flu, pneumonia and all cause deaths.

Provisional COVID-19 Death Counts by Week Ending Date and State | Data | Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

data.cdc.gov data.cdc.gov

It is supposed to be updated every Thursday but that didn't happen last week on Jan 23. The last update was Jan. 16. We are in a new regime it seems. At least the San Diego report, which is also on Thursdays, is current.

One can get the Flu and Covid death cert numbers and hospitalizations are likely correlated to these deaths. Lower correlation in the case of Flu, higher for Covid.

One of the more curious aspects of the death data is that the all cause rate is consistently running 5 to 7% higher than expected and that's after removing the Covid numbers. This may be due to long term secondary effects of Covid infection increasing other morbitities.

As for San Diego, The report has both weekly admissions and a census (snapshot). In the current period Flu admissions are 7x C19 while the census shows 6x.
 
Thursdays data came in.
Flu seems to be kicking butt over the last 4 weeks here in San Diego.

For all those under 65 Y/O, Flu killed 13, Covid-19 killed 4.
For those >= 65 Y/O, Flu killed 26, Covid-19 killed 10.

Interestingly, for those <50 Y/O since summer, Covid and Flu have killed the same number, a total of 10 each. However, Covid-19 killed about 4X more for those over 50 since summer. Covid-19 had a large peak in the summer, while Flu was non-existent. Now Flu dominates.

Seems the Flu season, always concentrated in the winter, is higher than normal this year.
 
ABC News reported, "There have been 2,861 reported COVID-19 deaths in the world in the last 28 days, according to the WHO, with the U.S. making up 2,100 of those deaths. Hospitalizations and emergency department visits are also on the rise, and death rates for COVID-19 are at 1.8%, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention." ABC news went on: ""There are still people who are being admitted who've never been vaccinated at all and others who are not up to date in their vaccinations," [Dr. William] Schaffner said. "That's unfortunate because the data continues to show that vaccination is the single most important preventive measure."" This is disappointing.
 
My earlier post incorrectly said 4 weeks. It should have been 3 weeks. The following is for 4 weeks.

In San Diego from Dec. 29 through Jan. 25, there have been 20 Covid-19 deaths and 44 Flu deaths. Covid-19 remains more lethal but there is far more Flu around right now with hospitalizations running 5x higher than Covid-19.

Since San Diego is 1% of the US population, this seems to consistent with the ABC news report.

As an aside, the 1.8% represented the percentage of all cause deaths marked Covid-19. The CDC also lists deaths from ILI which includes Covid-19, Flu, and Pneumonia. Pneumonia appears to be a catchall with many causes and for most of 2024 ran about 5% of all cause deaths. Flu is a fairly small portion except in the winter months.

Provisional COVID-19 Mortality Surveillance

National Center for Health Statistics
www.cdc.gov www.cdc.gov
 
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Long COVID:
Imaging shows significant lung injury in kids with long COVID (CIDRAP, Feb 26, 2025)
Children and teens with long COVID have significant lung abnormalities detected with an advanced form of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), called free-breathing phase-resolved functional lung (PREFUL) MRI. The findings were published yesterday in Radiology.
(...)
Lung injuries linked to chronic fatigue
The PREFUL results showed that kids with long COVID had lung injuries that correlated to specific long-COVID symptoms and overall loss of blood flow in the lungs. In participants with long COVID, greater lung perfusion correlated with increased chronic fatigue severity. In addition, higher ventilation-perfusion mismatch correlated with increased heart rate.
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Vaccinated kids at 57% to 73% lower risk of long COVID, CDC study suggests (CIDRAP, Feb 25, 2025)

New data: Early fears that COVID raises risk of sudden cardiac events in athletes unfounded (CIDRAP, Feb 26, 2025)
They noted that previous studies also found no link between out-of-hospital cardiac arrest and COVID-19 vaccination in young people or that COVID-19 vaccination increases the risk of SCA/SCD in athletes.
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Here's a long piece on why the FBI came down on the side of the lab leak theory:

Vanity Fair can now report that FBI scientists closely scrutinized the research activities of a group of graduate students and researchers who worked under Shi Zhengli, the lead coronavirus scientist at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). For at least three years prior to the pandemic, those scientists performed risky research on a group of viruses that included one of the closest known relatives to SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19. The FBI found that Shi’s researchers, in their publications, were not candid about the inventory of viruses in their possession and the true breadth of their work, which was conducted in labs with a low biosafety level. The intelligence community also determined that, in the autumn of 2019, three of Shi’s researchers fell ill with COVID-like symptoms.
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and citing Jason Bannon:
Bannan, a registered Democrat, has a PhD in microbiology, and spent almost 20 years as an FBI scientist. In 2009, he was among the recipients of the FBI Director’s Award for outstanding scientific advancement for his work on the anthrax investigation. He says he decided to come forward for several reasons. One was to counter what he described as inaccurate claims espoused by some proponents of the natural-origin theory, their discrediting of government scientists, and the branding of the lab hypothesis as a right-wing conspiracy theory. He also wanted to counter what he described as the bias toward a natural spillover in the government’s reviews to date, and the sidelining of scientific evidence supporting a laboratory origin.
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