**Flu vaccines don't match the main circulating flu virus strain, researchers find ** By Maggie Fox, CNN Updated 8:55 PM ET, Thu December 16, 2021
One of the main circulating influenza viruses has changed and the current flu vaccines don't match it well any more -- an indication they may not do much to prevent infection, researchers reported Thursday. But they are still likely to prevent severe illness. "From our lab-based studies it looks like a major mismatch," Scott Hensley, a professor of microbiology at the University of Pennsylvania who led the study, told CNN.
It's bad news for the vaccine, he said. Influenza vaccines protect against four different strains of the flu: H3N2, H1N1 and two strains of influenza B. Hensley's study only covers H3N2, but that happens to be the main circulating strain.
The vaccine mismatch may help explain an outbreak of flu at the University of Michigan last month that affected more than 700 people. More than 26% of those who tested positive had been vaccinated against flu -- the same percentage as those who tested negative. That indicates the vaccine was not effective in preventing infection.
It's what flu viruses do, Hensley said. "We have been monitoring this virus for several months," he said. Flu viruses mutate all the time—far more than other viruses, including the coronavirus. And different variations can circulate at the same time. But this version of H3N2 has changes that help it escape the antibodies the body makes in response to vaccines.
Antibodies are the first line of defense against invaders like viruses, and the current vaccine doesn't seem to generate any of the right antibodies against this new, mutated version of H3N2, called 2a2 for short. Luckily, the changes are unlikely to affect the second line of defense offered by immune system -- cells called T-cells, so even f the vaccines don't protect against infection, they are likely to protect people against severe disease and death, Hensley said.
"Studies have clearly shown that seasonal influenza vaccines consistently prevent hospitalizations and deaths even in years where there are large antigenic mismatches," Hensley and colleagues wrote in a report posted online as a pre-print. It's not published in a peer reviewed journal. "Influenza vaccinations will be crucial for reducing hospitalizations as SARS-CoV-2 and 2a2 H3N2 viruses co-circulate in the coming months."
https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/16/health/flu-vaccine-mismatch/index.html
All New York City employers will soon need to mandate that their workers present proof of vaccination against COVID-19, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Monday.
The outgoing mayor announced the policy during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” describing it as a “pre-emptive strike” against an expected surge in COVID cases this winter amid the emergence of the Omicron variant of the virus.
The policy will go into effect Dec. 27.
“We’re going to announce a first-in-the-nation measure,” de Blasio said. “Our health commissioner will announce the vaccine mandate for private sector employers across the board. All private-sector employers in New York City will be covered by this vaccine mandate.”
Hizzoner added that the mandate is aimed at “maximizing vaccination quickly, so we can get ahead of Omicron and all the other challenges we’re facing right now.”
Currently, only municipal employees are subject to a COVID-19 inoculation requirement, which took effect for most city workers in late October.
https://boston.cbslocal.com/2021/11/17/boston-medflight-out-of-state-hospitals/
BOSTON (CBS) – Some critically ill patients onboard Boston MedFlight helicopters — bound for one of the city’s several hospitals — have flown into a harsh reality of late. No available ICU beds.
“That’s happened half a dozen times in the last 10 days,” says Boston MedFlight CEO Maura Hughes.
Instead, they went to hospitals in neighboring states — Rhode Island, Connecticut and New Hampshire.
“It’s not a great solution,” Hughes says, “particularly for the patient’s family, when you tell them ‘Yes, we have a bed. But it’s in Connecticut.”
Boston MedFlight — a non-profit that shuttled 5,700 patients last year by chopper, plane and ground ambulance — is calling attention to the troublesome “perfect storm” that’s filling local hospital beds — and not just in the intensive care ward.
Experts say Covid-19 is a fraction of the problem — but not the problem itself.
For starters, Boston MedFlight is carrying much sicker patients these days — and more of them — because so many people put off getting medical care for their health issues during the pandemic.
“What we’re seeing,” says CEO Hughes, “is a high volume of critically ill patients.”
The second factor is seriously understaffed hospitals. Almost one-in-five healthcare workers have quit since the spring of 2020 — half a million this past August alone — according to the US Labor Department.
And third, there’s the mental health crisis — with hospitals finding themselves, unfortunately — on the front lines.
“The emergency rooms are taking care of those patients,” says Hughes, “but they really need psychiatric care not medical care.”
At a time of increasing legalization of marijuana, a growing number of people under 50 diagnosed with cannabis use disorder were later hospitalized for a heart attack, new research has found.
The rising trend from 2007 to 2018 was most pronounced in three groups: ages 18 to 34, men and African Americans, according to findings being presented this Sunday at the American Heart Association's virtual Scientific Sessions conference. The results are considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.
Although AHA statistics show heart attacks are much less common in people under 50 compared to older adults, the study suggests people who use cannabis should be followed more closely for possible heart problems.
Now that cannabis is becoming legal in many states, "we need to specifically pay attention to this," said lead researcher Darshi Desai, a clinical observer at the University of California Riverside who is applying for her medical residency.
"If we have more (heart attack) patients coming in because of cannabis use disorder, if there is a temporal relationship, it is definitely going to put a huge stress on health care resources in general," Desai said.
She and her colleagues analyzed medical records of 819,354 people from a large public database of hospital stays. They identified people 18 to 49 who had been hospitalized for a heart attack and whose records showed a previous diagnosis of cannabis use disorder. That is defined as excessive, chronic use of marijuana with symptoms of dependence, inability to control use and impairment in social functioning.
Marijuana use has been increasing in the United States, particularly among 18- to 25-year-olds, as legalization for medical and recreational use progresses. But researchers haven't pinned down whether that has translated into an increase in cannabis use disorder. A 2019 study published in JAMA Psychiatry showed the disorder increased slightly among 12- to 17-year-olds and people 26 and older from 2008 to 2016. Another JAMA Psychiatry study from 2016 found that while use increased, the trend lines for the disorder were flat.
The new analysis found that overall, 4.1% of patients hospitalized for heart attacks also had cannabis use disorder, and the proportion nearly tripled from 2.4% in 2007 to 6.7% in 2018.
When researchers broke the data into subgroups, they found the biggest increases during the decade among:
people 18 to 34, 7.3% in 2007 to 20.2% in 2018
African Americans, 15.8% in 2007 to 35.2% in 2018
men, 71.6% in 2007 to 78.1% in 2018
Although previous studies suggested a link between cannabis use and heart attack, this adds to the evidence, said Robert Page, a professor of pharmacy at the University of Colorado in Aurora. He holds a doctorate in pharmacy and chaired the group that prepared an AHA scientific statement published last year on cannabis and cardiovascular health.
"These data add to the body of literature that there is a red flag with cannabis use in young adults," said Page, who was not involved in the new study. Cannabis users need to realize that just because it's "natural" does not mean it is safe. "It is not safe. It's like any other psychotropic medication – it has side effects, and this could be one of them."
Because the study is observational and didn't control for use of other substances such as tobacco, alcohol or cocaine, the research can't be used to show a direct cause. What's needed, Page said, is a large, long-term study that follows people over time to determine if cannabis use can be definitively linked to heart attacks, and if so, the impact of the frequency of use and how the cannabis is consumed.
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-11-cannabis-disorder-linked-heart-younger.html
**CDC shifts pandemic goals away from reaching herd immunity **
Since the earliest days of the pandemic, there has been one collective goal for bringing it to an end: achieving herd immunity. That's when so many people are immune to a virus that it runs out of potential hosts to infect, causing an outbreak to sputter out.
Many Americans embraced the novel farmyard phrase, and with it, the projection that once 70% to 80% or 85% of the population was vaccinated against COVID-19, the virus would go away and the pandemic would be over.
Now the herd is restless. And experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have set aside herd immunity as a national goal.
The prospects for meeting a clear herd-immunity target are "very complicated," said Dr. Jefferson Jones, a medical officer on the CDC’s COVID-19 Epidemiology Task Force.
“Thinking that we’ll be able to achieve some kind of threshold where there’ll be no more transmission of infections may not be possible,” Jones acknowledged last week to members of a panel that advises the CDC on vaccines.
Vaccines have been quite effective at preventing cases of COVID-19 that lead to severe illness and death, but none has proved reliable at blocking transmission of the virus, Jones noted. Recent evidence has also made clear that the immunity provided by vaccines can wane in a matter of months.
The result is that even if vaccination were universal, the coronavirus would probably continue to spread.
“We would discourage” thinking in terms of “a strict goal,” he said.
To Dr. Oliver Brooks, a member of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, it was a sobering new message, with potentially worrisome effects.
With just 58.5% of all Americans fully vaccinated, “we do need to increase" the uptake of COVID-19 shots, said Brooks, chief medical officer of Watts Healthcare in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, he said, Jones' unexpected admission "almost makes you less motivated to get more people vaccinated.”
Brooks said he worries that as the CDC backs off a specific target for herd immunity, it will take the air out of efforts to run up vaccination levels.
And if public health officials stop talking about the “herd,” people may lose sight of the fact that vaccination is not just an act of personal protection but a way to protect the community. . . .
From Fostoria, Ohio:
From East Greenbush, NY:
https://cbs6albany.com/news/local/needle-found-in-candy-bar-in-east-greenbush
From Marshfield MA:
From Vernon NY:
https://cnycentral.com/news/local/mother-who-says-she-found-needle-in-halloween-candy-speaks-out
https://pagesix.com/2021/10/29/khloe-kardashian-has-covid-again-true-also-tests-positive/
Khloé Kardashian is battling COVID-19 again — and this time, her 3-year-old daughter has it, too.
“Hi guys I wanted to let you know True and I tested positive for Covid,” the “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” alum, 37, tweeted Friday. “I’ve had to cancel several commitments and I’m sorry I won’t be able to make those happen.”
Kardashian noted that she is “luckily” vaccinated against the deadly disease, so she should not have to worry about severe symptoms or hospitalization, according to the CDC.
