China aims to vaccinate entire city in 5 days after outbreak

 A Chinese border city hit by a fresh outbreak of COVID-19 began a five-day drive Friday to vaccinate its entire population of 300,000 people.

State broadcaster CCTV showed people lining up and getting vaccinated in Ruili, where 16 cases have been confirmed since Tuesday. Twelve of them are Chinese and the other four are nationals of Myanmar, which lies across the border.

A city Communist Party official told CCTV the previous day that 159,000 doses of vaccine had arrived in the city.

Television footage showed vacant streets as officials ordered people to home quarantine and closed non-essential businesses. The city has also said it would tighten controls around the porous border to try to stop anyone crossing illegally from Myanmar.

China has largely eradicated local transmission of COVID-19 and quickly rolls out strict measures whenever a new cluster emerges.

This is the first time China has tried to vaccinate an entire city in response to new outbreak. The move comes as the government ramps up a nationwide vaccination drive.

https://apnews.com/article/china-coronavirus-pandemic-myanmar-da0f0ccc4598a2c782b2b0bbeb3e28a0

CDC reverses Walensky statement that vaccinated are no longer contagious

 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is clarifying claims made by the agency’s director that people vaccinated against COVID-19 will not become infected with the coronavirus or spread it to others. 

In an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow earlier this week, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky cited a study from the agency released Monday that found people who received both doses of both Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccine were 90 percent less likely to be infected with the virus.

“We can kind of almost see the end,” Walensky told Maddow. “We’re vaccinating so very fast, our data from the CDC today suggests, you know, that vaccinated people do not carry the virus, don’t get sick, and that it’s not just in the clinical trials but it’s also in real world data.”

Walensky went on to emphasize the importance of vaccinated people to continue wearing masks and social distancing. 

The claim, however, prompted criticism from some scientists who said while transmission from vaccinated people may be unlikely, there is not enough data to claim those vaccinated are completely protected and can’t carry the virus and spread it to others. 

“It’s much harder for vaccinated people to get infected, but don’t think for one second that they cannot get infected,” Paul Duprex, director of the Center for Vaccine Research at the University of Pittsburgh, told The New York Times. 

“If Dr. Walensky had said most vaccinated people do not carry virus, we would not be having this discussion,” John Moore, a virologist at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, told the outlet.

“What we know is the vaccines are very substantially effective against infection — there’s more and more data on that — but nothing is 100 percent.” 

The CDC later told the Times Walensky was speaking broadly during the interview. 

“It’s possible that some people who are fully vaccinated could get COVID-19. The evidence isn’t clear whether they can spread the virus to others. We are continuing to evaluate the evidence,” a CDC spokesman told the Times. 

The CDC study found the two mRNA vaccines prevented 90 percent of infections two weeks after patients received the second of two doses, including asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic infections. Following a single dose of either vaccine, the participants’ risk of infection dropped by 80 percent. 

https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/546234-cdc-reverses-statement-by-director-that-vaccinated-people-are-no

Every variant 'of concern' now detected in Santa Clara County, Cal.

 Every variant of concern has been detected in Santa Clara County, and all have either been shown or are believed to be circulating in the community, public health officials announced on Thursday. 

Specifically, the first two cases of the variants detected in New York -- one each of B.1.525 and B.1.52 -- have now been confirmed in Santa Clara County.

At of the end of March, public health officials said there were 92 confirmed cases of B.1.1.7, the variant first detected in the United Kingdom; three confirmed cases of B.1.351 first detected in South Africa; one case of P.1 first detected in Japan and Brazil; and more than 1,000 confirmed cases of B.1.427 and B.1.429 first detected in California.

"Genomic sequencing is allowing us to confirm what we already presumed based on national trends, which is the presence and unfortunate increase of variants in our community," Santa Clara County Director of Public Health Dr. Sara Cody said. "We’re already seeing surges in other parts of the country, likely driven by variants."

Because of this, Cody said that people must continue to minimize the spread of the disease by avoiding travel and consistently use face coverings. She said things will get better as more people get vaccinated. 

The increase in variants comes as Santa Clara County, and other areas, continue to face inadequate vaccine supply.

The number of allocated doses has remained flat over the past several weeks, with this week’s allocation allowing for roughly 35,000 first dose appointments, health officials said. 

As eligibility expands, Cody said more doses are needed to vaccinate those waiting in line, particularly community members who are most impacted by the pandemic.

County health officials also reminded the public that although most activities are now allowed, many are high-risk and not recommended, and it remains critical for the community to minimize exposure.

https://www.ktvu.com/news/every-variant-of-concern-now-detected-in-santa-clara-county

COVID-19 cases spike in Michigan, fueled by infections among kids

 As federal officials warn of a potential fourth wave of COVID-19 infections, Michigan has emerged as one of the most pressing hotspots, with average daily infections now five times what they were six weeks ago. 

New data from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services shows this dramatic surge is due in large part to cases spiking among children and teenagers. 

According to state data, since February 19, average daily new COVID-19 cases among children under 10 jumped 230%, more than any other age group. The second-highest increase in infections is in the 10 to 19 age group, which saw cases rise 227%. The trends in these groups exceed that of the state as a whole.

The rise in cases among kids has been evident elsewhere across the country. In Minnesota, people under age 20 made up nearly a quarter of reported cases in March, up from less than 15% at the end of February. Similar trends have been seen in other states as well, including Illinois and Massachusetts. According to the most recent data from the American Academy of Pediatrics, more than 64,000 new cases in children were reported nationwide between March 18 and March 25, the highest weekly total in a month.

According to physicians and infectious disease experts in Michigan, much of the rise in pediatric cases can be linked to the reopening of schools and youth sports. State data shows more than 40% of new outbreaks (defined as two or more cases linked by place and time) have come from either K-12 schools or youth programs. But Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian, senior public health physician at the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, says social gatherings after youth sporting events are also contributing to the spread. 

"If everyone is removing their mask and going out to dinner to celebrate a big win then all of those precautions go out the door," she said. "So really, this seems to have driven this surge." 

The state allowed schools to resume contact sports on February 8, but testing wasn't mandatory for every sport. More than a month later, it tweaked that policy to mandate testing for every sport regardless of whether it's contact or non-contact, a change that will take effect Friday. Bagdasarian says that like other mitigation measures, this change has received pushback. 

While children generally are at less risk for severe cases of COVID-19, some have suffered serious illness. Some children go on to develop a condition called multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) after infection, a rare condition that may affect the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, skin, eyes or gastrointestinal organs. As of March 1, more than 2,600 cases had been reported nationwide, with 33 deaths. 

Doctors in Michigan are concerned that the current spike in COVID infections will lead to a rise in this syndrome in the weeks and months ahead. Bagdasarian says anecdotally, that's already happening. 

Beaumont Health, Michigan's largest health care system, says it has received an uptick in MIS-C cases. Dr. Bishara Freij, chief of Pediatric Infectious Disease at Beaumont Royal Oak, says his hospital has had three MIS-C cases in the ICU last month, and eight total this calendar year. He said MIS-C cases normally lag infections by 2 to 6 weeks from their peak, fueling concerns that more are on the way. 

One of the three MIS-C patients at Beaumont Royal Oak in March was 4-year-old Juliana Elkhoury, who was in the ICU for six days. Her parents said they had little to no information about MIS-C before their child was admitted to the emergency room, adding that early symptoms looked like a normal head cold, until they escalated including a persistent rash. 

"It was a really scary experience," said Juliana's mother Michelle, fighting back tears. "It was a hard thing to go through with your kid that you just want to always protect and not see them in the ICU with tubes hooked up everywhere and going through this." Both parents urged others to rethink whether a social activity is essential and worth the risk. 

In recent days, federal health officials have been adamant that while the end of the pandemic may be near, now is not the time to loosen restrictions, specifically mask mandates. The recent rise in infections led to an impassioned plea earlier this week from CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, who warned of a sense of "impending doom." 

"We do not have the luxury of inaction," she said. 

While officials are concerned about the rise in pediatric cases and their contribution to community spread, research on COVID-19 vaccines for kids is making progress. Preliminary data from Pfizer showing its vaccine is fully effective in kids ages 12 to 15 is a significant sign of hope. All three of the vaccines approved in the U.S. have trials underway in children, with the expectation that vaccinations in some age groups could begin before the fall school year. Bagdasarian says it's imperative that vaccines become available as soon as possible. 

"Getting a vaccine for that pediatric age group is our best chance towards reaching herd immunity," she said. 

Freij noted that in the meantime, it's important that adults overcome any hesitancy and decide to get the shot. 

"Our health is all tied together. We stand together and fall together," he said. "And I think people should maybe loosen up on some strongly held beliefs and perhaps try and help those around them." 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-michigan-cases-spike-kids/

Study of coronavirus variants predicts virus evolving to escape current vaccines

 A new study of the U.K. and South Africa variants of SARS-CoV-2 predicts that current vaccines and certain monoclonal antibodies may be less effective at neutralizing these variants and that the new variants raise the specter that reinfections could be more likely.

The study was published in Nature on March 8, 2021. A preprint of the study was first posted to BioRxiv on January 26, 2021.

The study's predictions are now being borne out with the first reported results of the Novavax vaccine, says the study's lead author David Ho, MD. The company reported on Jan. 28 that the vaccine was nearly 90% effective in the company's U.K. trial, but only 49.4% effective in its South Africa trial, where most cases of COVID-19 are caused by the B.1.351 variant.

"Our study and the new clinical trial data show that the virus is traveling in a direction that is causing it to escape from our current vaccines and therapies that are directed against the viral spike," says Ho, the director of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center and the Clyde'56 and Helen Wu Professor of Medicine at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.

"If the rampant spread of the virus continues and more critical mutations accumulate, then we may be condemned to chasing after the evolving SARS-CoV-2 continually, as we have long done for influenza virus," Ho says. "Such considerations require that we stop virus transmission as quickly as is feasible, by redoubling our mitigation measures and by expediting vaccine rollout."

After vaccination, the immune system responds and makes antibodies that can neutralize the virus.

Ho and his team found that antibodies in blood samples taken from people inoculated with the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine were less effective at neutralizing the two variants, B.1.1.7, which emerged last September in England, and B.1.351, which emerged from South Africa in late 2020. Against the U.K. variant, neutralization dropped by roughly 2-fold, but against the South Africa variant, neutralization dropped by 6.5- to 8.5-fold.

"The approximately 2-fold loss of neutralizing activity against the U.K. variant is unlikely to have an adverse impact due to the large 'cushion' of residual neutralizing antibody activity," Ho says, "and we see that reflected in the Novavax results where the vaccine was 85.6% effective against the U.K. variant."

Data from Ho's study about the loss in neutralizing activity against the South Africa variant are more worrisome.

"The drop in neutralizing activity against the South Africa variant is appreciable, and we're now seeing, based on the Novavax results, that this is causing a reduction in protective efficacy," Ho says.

The new study did not examine the more recent variant found in Brazil (B.1.1.28) but given the similar spike mutations between the Brazil and South Africa variants, Ho says the Brazil variant should behave similarly to the South Africa variant.

"We have to stop the virus from replicating and that means rolling out vaccine faster and sticking to our mitigation measures like masking and physical distancing. Stopping the spread of the virus will stop the development of further mutations," Ho says.

The study also found that certain monoclonal antibodies used now to treat COVID patients may not work against the South Africa variant. And based on results with plasma from COVID patients who were infected earlier in the pandemic, the B.1.351 variant from South Africa has the potential to cause reinfection.

New study contains comprehensive analysis of variants

The new study conducted an extensive analysis of mutations in the two SARS-CoV-2 variants compared to other recent studies, which have reported similar findings.

The new study examined all mutations in the spike protein of the two variants. (Vaccines and monoclonal antibody treatments work by recognizing the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein.)

The researchers created SARS-CoV-2 pseudoviruses (viruses that produce the coronavirus spike protein but cannot cause infection) with the eight mutations found in the U.K. variant and the nine mutations found in the South African variant.

They then measured the sensitivity of these pseudoviruses to monoclonal antibodies developed to treat COVID patients, convalescent serum from patients who were infected earlier in the pandemic, and serum from patients who have been vaccinated with the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine.

Implications for monoclonal antibody treatments

The study measured the neutralizing activity of 18 different monoclonal antibodies -- including the antibodies in two products authorized for use in the United States.

Against the U.K. variant, most antibodies were still potent, although the neutralizing activity of two antibodies in development was modestly impaired.

Against the South Africa variant, however, the neutralizing activity of four antibodies was completely or markedly abolished. Those antibodies include bamlanivimab (LY-CoV555, approved for use in the United States) that was completely inactive against the South Africa variant, and casirivimab, one of the two antibodies in an approved antibody cocktail (REGN-COV) that was 58-fold less effective at neutralizing the South Africa variant compared to the original virus. The second antibody in the cocktail, imdevimab, retained its neutralizing ability, as did the complete cocktail.

"Decisions of the use of these treatments will depend heavily on the local prevalence of the South Africa and Brazil variants," Ho says, "highlighting the importance of viral genomic surveillance and proactive development of next-generation antibody therapeutics."

Reinfection implications

Serum from most patients who had recovered from COVID earlier in the pandemic had 11-fold less neutralizing activity against the South Africa variant and 4-fold less neutralizing activity against the U.K. variant.

"The concern here is that reinfection might be more likely if one is confronted with these variants, particularly the South Africa one," Ho says.

Story Source:

Materials provided by Columbia University Irving Medical Center. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

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Journal Reference:

1. Pengfei Wang, Manoj S. Nair, Lihong Liu, Sho Iketani, Yang Luo, Yicheng Guo, Maple Wang, Jian Yu, Baoshan Zhang, Peter D. Kwong, Barney S. Graham, John R. Mascola, Jennifer Y. Chang, Michael T. Yin, Magdalena Sobieszczyk, Christos A. Kyratsous, Lawrence Shapiro, Zizhang Sheng, Yaoxing Huang, David D. Ho. Antibody Resistance of SARS-CoV-2 Variants B.1.351 and B.1.1.7. Nature, 2021; DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03398-2

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210308131712.htm

Sugar harms child's brain development

 Sugar practically screams from the shelves of your grocery store, especially those products marketed to kids.

Children are the highest consumers of added sugar, even as high-sugar diets have been linked to health effects like obesity and heart disease and even impaired memory function.

However, less is known about how high sugar consumption during childhood affects the development of the brain, specifically a region known to be critically important for learning and memory called the hippocampus.

New research led by a University of Georgia faculty member in collaboration with a University of Southern California research group has shown in a rodent model that daily consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages during adolescence impairs performance on a learning and memory task during adulthood. The group further showed that changes in the bacteria in the gut may be the key to the sugar-induced memory impairment.

Supporting this possibility, they found that similar memory deficits were observed even when the bacteria, called Parabacteroides, were experimentally enriched in the guts of animals that had never consumed sugar.

"Early life sugar increased Parabacteroides levels, and the higher the levels of Parabacteroides, the worse the animals did in the task," said Emily Noble, assistant professor in the UGA College of Family and Consumer Sciences who served as first author on the paper. "We found that the bacteria alone was sufficient to impair memory in the same way as sugar, but it also impaired other types of memory functions as well."

Guidelines recommend limiting sugar

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans, a joint publication of the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and of Health and Human Services, recommends limiting added sugars to less than 10 percent of calories per day.

Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show Americans between the ages 9-18 exceed that recommendation, the bulk of the calories coming from sugar-sweetened beverages.

Considering the role the hippocampus plays in a variety of cognitive functions and the fact the area is still developing into late adolescence, researchers sought to understand more about its vulnerability to a high-sugar diet via gut microbiota.

Juvenile rats were given their normal chow and an 11% sugar solution, which is comparable to commercially available sugar-sweetened beverages.

Researchers then had the rats perform a hippocampus-dependent memory task designed to measure episodic contextual memory, or remembering the context where they had seen a familiar object before.

"We found that rats that consumed sugar in early life had an impaired capacity to discriminate that an object was novel to a specific context, a task the rats that were not given sugar were able to do," Noble said.

A second memory task measured basic recognition memory, a hippocampal-independent memory function that involves the animals' ability to recognize something they had seen previously.

In this task, sugar had no effect on the animals' recognition memory.

"Early life sugar consumption seems to selectively impair their hippocampal learning and memory," Noble said.

Additional analyses determined that high sugar consumption led to elevated levels of Parabacteroides in the gut microbiome, the more than 100 trillion microorganisms in the gastrointestinal tract that play a role in human health and disease.

To better identify the mechanism by which the bacteria impacted memory and learning, researchers experimentally increased levels of Parabacteroides in the microbiome of rats that had never consumed sugar. Those animals showed impairments in both hippocampal dependent and hippocampal-independent memory tasks.

"(The bacteria) induced some cognitive deficits on its own," Noble said.

Noble said future research is needed to better identify specific pathways by which this gut-brain signaling operates.

"The question now is how do these populations of bacteria in the gut alter the development of the brain?" Noble said. "Identifying how the bacteria in the gut are impacting brain development will tell us about what sort of internal environment the brain needs in order to grow in a healthy way."

The article, "Gut microbial taxa elevated by dietary sugar disrupt memory function," appears in Translational Psychiatry. Scott Kanoski, associate professor in USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Science, is corresponding author on the paper.

Additional authors on the paper are Elizabeth Davis, Linda Tsan, Clarissa Liu, Andrea Suarez and Roshonda B. Jones from the University of Southern California; Christine Olson, Yen-Wei Chen, Xia Yang and Elaine Y. Hsiao from the University of California-Los Angeles; and Claire de La Serre and Ruth Schade from UGA.

Story Source:

Materials provided by University of Georgia. Original written by Cal Powell. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

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Journal Reference:

1. Emily E. Noble, Christine A. Olson, Elizabeth Davis, Linda Tsan, Yen-Wei Chen, Ruth Schade, Clarissa Liu, Andrea Suarez, Roshonda B. Jones, Claire de La Serre, Xia Yang, Elaine Y. Hsiao, Scott E. Kanoski. Gut microbial taxa elevated by dietary sugar disrupt memory function. Translational Psychiatry, 2021; 11 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41398-021-01309-7

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210331130910.htm

How brain cells repair their DNA reveals 'hot spots' of aging and disease

 Neurons lack the ability to replicate their DNA, so they're constantly working to repair damage to their genome. Now, a new study by Salk scientists finds that these repairs are not random, but instead focus on protecting certain genetic "hot spots" that appear to play a critical role in neural identity and function.

The findings, published in the April 2, 2021, issue of Science, give novel insights into the genetic structures involved in aging and neurodegeneration, and could point to the development of potential new therapies for diseases such Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other age-related dementia disorders.

"This research shows for the first time that there are sections of genome that neurons prioritize when it comes to repair," says Professor and Salk President Rusty Gage, the paper's co-corresponding author. "We're excited about the potential of these findings to change the way we view many age-related diseases of the nervous system and potentially explore DNA repair as a therapeutic approach."

Unlike other cells, neurons generally don't replace themselves over time, making them among the longest-living cells in the human body. Their longevity makes it even more important that they repair lesions in their DNA as they age, in order to maintain their function over the decades of a human life span. As they get older, neurons' ability to make these genetic repairs declines, which could explain why people develop age-related neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

To investigate how neurons maintain genome health, the study authors developed a new technique they term Repair-seq. The team produced neurons from stem cells and fed them synthetic nucleosides -- molecules that serve as building blocks for DNA. These artificial nucleosides could be found via DNA sequencing and imaged, showing where the neurons used them to make repairs to DNA that was damaged by normal cellular processes. While the scientists expected to see some prioritization, they were surprised by just how focused the neurons were on protecting certain sections of the genome.

"What we saw was incredibly sharp, well-defined regions of repair; very focused areas that were substantially higher than background levels," says co-first and co-corresponding author Dylan Reid, a former Salk postdoctoral scholar and now a fellow at Vertex Pharmaceutics. "The proteins that sit on these 'hot spots' are implicated in neurodegenerative disease, and the sites are also linked to aging."

The authors found approximately 65,000 hot spots that covered around 2 percent of the neuronal genome. They then used proteomics approaches to detect what proteins were found at these hot spots, implicating many splicing-related proteins. (These are involved in the eventual production of other proteins.) Many of these sites appeared to be quite stable when the cells were treated with DNA-damaging agents, and the most stable DNA repair hot spots were found to be strongly associated with sites where chemical tags attach ("methylation") that are best at predicting neuronal age.

Previous research has focused on identifying the sections of DNA that suffer genetic damage, but this is the first time researchers have looked for where the genome is being heavily repaired.

"We flipped the paradigm from looking for damage to looking for repair, and that's why we were able to find these hot spots," Reid says. "This is really new biology that might eventually change how we understand neurons in the nervous system, and the more we understand that, the more we can look to develop therapies addressing age-related diseases."

Gage, who holds the Vi and John Adler Chair for Research on Age-Related Neurodegenerative Disease, adds, "Understanding which areas within the genome are vulnerable to damage is a very exciting topic for our lab. We think Repair-seq will be a powerful tool for research, and we continue to explore additional new methods to study genome integrity, particularly in relation to aging and disease."

Story Source:

Materials provided by Salk Institute. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

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Journal Reference:

1. Dylan A. Reid, Patrick J. Reed, Johannes C. M. Schlachetzki, Ioana I. Nitulescu, Grace Chou, Enoch C. Tsui, Jeffrey R. Jones, Sahaana Chandran, Ake T. Lu, Claire A. McClain, Jean H. Ooi, Tzu-Wen Wang, Addison J. Lana, Sara B. Linker, Anthony S. Ricciardulli, Shong Lau, Simon T. Schafer, Steve Horvath, Jesse R. Dixon, Nasun Hah, Christopher K. Glass, Fred H. Gage. Incorporation of a nucleoside analog maps genome repair sites in postmitotic human neurons. Science, 2021; 372 (6537): 91 DOI: 10.1126/science.abb9032

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/04/210401151248.htm