Coronavirus, End of March, 2024

Coronavirus, End of March, 2024

 By the Numbers

It's been a couple of months since the last update.  Not much to report, and that is a good thing.

The Numbers: 

The number of hospitalizations from Covid in the US seems to have hit its peak the first week of January,  and is now in decline.  From 35,000 on Jan 6, 2024 to 9,300 the third week of March.  The overall low in the last 12 months was last May at 6,000. Weekly Covid deaths is down sharply from 2,500 in January to 240 in March.  Covid has dropped to 4th most likely cause of death in the US.  For a reference the leading causes are, in order, Heart Disease, Cancer, Accidents, Covid, then Stroke.

Source Covid-19 hospitalizations here...

Dominant Variants in the US:

JN.1  97.8% up from 7.5% in November

And the rest don't matter...

But at least it was easy to summarize.  

Per CDC tracker...

Too Much of a Good Thing?

A 62 year old man in Germany has been reported to have received 217 Covid vaccines.  In all, he received 8 different types of vaccines.  How and why is not important.  He has now become what is euphemistically called an "Interesting Case Study".

Since then, he has been studied for a number of things of interest to immunologists.

His immune system did not collapse from being overloaded.  Which has been touted by anti-vaccine nutballs as an excuse not to get MMR vaccine.

Other than a sore arm, he is suffering no ill effects.  No liver or kidney damage, no development of auto-immune disease. 

His level of memory and effector T-Cells against Covid is 5 times better than "Wild" Covid, and 11 times better against Omicron. 

He had none of the indicators that he ever contracted Covid.  Which could be from the hyper-vaccination, but could also be just behavioral.

The quality of other antigens he had been vaccinated for showed no degradation.

In all, the German health services ran some 60+ tests on the man.  This is why you do not want to be an "Interesting" case study.

There are many articles on this.  Here is one...

And as a reminder, Don't do this at home folks...

Mixed Blessings

All the tactics deployed to keep Covid from spreading had a collateral effect of having the mildest flu season in over a decade.  Just 5,000 deaths from flu in 2021-22.  The nearest after that was 12,000 in 2011-12.

And it seems like distancing and masks have killed off one of the 4 main strains of flu.  The branch, "Yamagata", hasn't been seen in a couple of years, and this year's flu vaccine will not include it's formula.

The other strains are 2 labeled 'A' H1N1 and H3N2, and 'B', "Victoria".  Article BMJ Yale

Just a refresher.

If you have one or more of the comorbidities (age, weight, diabetes), and test positive for Covid, then getting Paxlovid within 5 days reduces the effects of Covid.  Even though the latest variants are milder, as of mid February, 21,000 still required hospitalization for 2024, and about 10,000 deaths are reported.  Note, that is not 10,000 of the hospitalized. 

Of those hospitalized, 66% are 65 and over.  50% are 75 and over.  And as validation of vaccine effectiveness, only 4% of the those hospitalized had received the latest version of the vaccine out last fall.

The isolation rules have been changed from a hard 5 days to 24 hours fever free.

For 65 and older, a booster shot is being recommended in the spring.  This shot will be the same vaccine as was given in the fall.  

 

Required Corporate Disclaimer:  #CVSTeam  I am employed by CVS and the opinions expressed are solely my own and do not express the views or opinions of my CVS.