U.S.                                                                  California

                                   CASES               DEATHS                                     CASES              DEATHS       

December 2020    19,111,443              341,149                              2,120,610               24,241

 

2021   Timeline

January                  26,185,362             441,319                               3,310,949               40,702

February                 28,602,101             513,137                               3,563,578               51,953

March                    30,459,874              552,072                               3,668,277               59,240

April                        32,225,012              574,280                              3,742,115                62,078

May                        33,261,284              594,468                              3,789,227                63,247

June                       33,624,871              603,966                              3,814,890                63,569

July                         34,434,136              610,859                              3,903,052                64,231 

August                   39,057,368              638,700                              4,326,204                65,757 

September            43,471,906              698,149                              4,720,860                69,130

October                45,979,056              746,021                              4,915,796                71,950

November            48,214,360               776,586                             5,060,666                74,152

December            54,859,966               825,816                             5,515,250                76,520

 

2022 Timeline

January                 74,333,528               884,265                             8,292,735               79,801

February                79,025,644               949,957                             8,961,636               85,043

March                    81,780,503            1,007,320                             9,102,677               89,052

April                        82,658,881            1,018,326                             9,192,666               90,145

May                        86,065,680            1,032,094                             9,574,768               91,591

June                       86,967,132            1,015,938                           10,024,838               92,113

July                         90,733,888            1,027,886                           10,367,437               92,784

August                    94,199,489           1,043,864                           11,052,866                94,959

September             96,067,772           1,506,416                           11,233,276                95,796

October                 97,450,859           1,070,266                            11,363,979               96,892

November             98,568,849           1,079,197                            11,492,488                97,437

December           100,751,994           1,092,674                            11,829,499               98,637

 

2023 Timeline

January                104,196,861           1,132,935                            11,964,001               99,944

 

UPDATED WEEKLY - Last updated on 29 January 2023, 3:45 pm PST, John Hopkins Corona Virus Dashboard and Worldometer

 

Cases Worldwide  

                            John Hopkins                                                               Worldometer                     

• TOTAL CASES    -   670,334,247                                  TOTAL CASES     -   674,815,191

              Recovered     -                                                           Recovered      -   646,945,989

• TOTAL DEATHS  -       6,823,823                                  TOTAL DEATHS   -       6,759,130

 

POPULATION - is 336,062,635 as of 29 January 2023, 3:45 pm PST, based on Census U.S. and World Population Clock.

 

      * updated information

    ** no updated information at this reporting

 

Cases in the U.S.

• TOTAL CASES    -   102,283,559                                  TOTAL CASES      -    104,113,797

              Recovered     -                                                           Recovered       -    101,197,346

• TOTAL DEATHS  -       1,107,645                                  TOTAL DEATHS    -        1,132,256

*  Unemployment lowers to 3.5%

*  223,000 jobs added in December.

*  69.8% or 166.8 million people working in 2021 worked full time, year round.

 

Cases in California

• TOTAL CASES     -   11,983,168                                    TOTAL CASES          -       11,961,074

              Recovered      -                                                           Recovered            -       11,593,783

• TOTAL DEATHS   -        100,027                                    TOTAL DEATHS       -              99,893

 

01/29/2023                   Cases (WHO)                      Deaths (WHO)                Recovered (WHO)

• Texas                  -    8,319,137                            93,025                                8,096,253
• Florida                -    7,421,680                            84,605                                7,253,898
• New York           -    6,878,320                            76,364                                6,762,336
• Illinois                  -   4,008,844                             40,980                                3,913,172
• Pennsylvania     -   3,469,076                             49,633                                3,391,095
• N. Carolina        -   3,412,543                             28,040                                     N/A
• Ohio                   -   3,347,767                             41,355                                3,276,972
• Georgia             -   3,027,856                             41,915                                2,942,014
• Tennessee         -    2,451,618                            28,669                                      N/A
• Arizona***          -   2,394,646                             32,631                                2,343,573
• Alabama           -   1,596,149                             20,820                                1,520,459
• Louisiana           -    1,538,276                            18,525                                 1,498,633
• W. Virginia         -      633,636                               7,822                                    624,880

  *  Rated last in vaccine distribution

   **  correction

**  no updated information at this reporting

 

United States progress                                       Updated 29 January 2023, 3:45 pm PST,

• Doses Distributed                                                      953,826,425
• Doses Administered                                                 668,814,259
• 1st dose administered                                             268,927,705           81.0 %                     
• Primary series administered                                    229,619,755           69.2 %
• Bivalent Booster                                                         51,437,397           15.5 % 
• Total population                                                      336,062,635

               * Updated information

             ** No updated information at this reporting

• Booster administered**                               111,367,843           49.1 %
• 2nd Booster**                                                  26,796,838           40.6 %

 

 

 

COVID UPDATE

 

Why is strep A surging and how worried are scientists?  The tragic deaths of 13 children in England and an unusual rise in autumn cases have put researchers on alert.   Each spring, British pediatricians expect an increase in group A streptococcal infections that tail off by the summer.  An off-season outbreak of the bacterial infections this year has made scores of people ill and killed 13 children under the age of 15 in England since September.

 

One theory, the lack of exposure to group A Streptococcus, strep A, during lockdowns at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic means young children lack immunity against the bacteria.  

 

Scarlet fever - Strep A infection often presents as a mild sore throat or strep throat.  If caught in time, strep A infections can usually be treated with antibiotics.  Occasionally, this can lead to scarlet fever, typically affecting young schoolchildren and characterized by: 

 

• a sore throat,
• high fever and
• rough skin rash.  

 

In rare instances, strep A can lead to a more serious condition, such as invasive group A streptococcal infection, particularly in those with compromised immune systems.  This can cause conditions including: 

 

• meningitis,
• toxic shock syndrome and
• necrotizing fasciitis - a swiftly progressing infection of the tissue under the skin, sometimes called flesh-eating disease.

 

In England, scarlet fever is carefully tracked, with physicians required to report cases to health authorities.  Between mid-September and mid-November, there were 4,622 notifications of scarlet fever in England, compared with 1,294 in the same period over the past five years.

 

Strep A vaccine on horizon after key antibody found in recovered patient’s blood.  Mon, December 26, 2022 at 8:15 AM PST.  A vaccine for Strep A is on the horizon after scientists discovered a crucial bacteria-fighting antibody in a recovered patient.  Researchers have struggled to produce an effective jab against Strep A, which can be deadly in some people.

 

Scientists at Lund University, in Sweden, studied the blood of patients who had recovered from a serious infection to see whether there was something special about their immune system.  They found a special antibody in one that could be the key to producing a vaccine.

 

Antibodies look like a capital Y, usually grasping on to an invader using just one arm.  When one arm attached, Strep A was able to mount effective counter-measures, preventing immune cells from clearing out the infection, acting like a flag that tells the rest of the immune system to take action.  

 

But the antibody in the recovered patient latched on using both arms, which scientists found was vital for mounting a strong immune response.  Pontus Nordenfelt, a study author and associate professor at Lund, said, “What we have seen, is vital information that the two Y arms can recognize and hook on to two different places on the same target protein.”  The team isolated the antibody and tested it in animals, finding it was able to trigger a strong immune response against the Strep A infection.

 

Researchers believe previous vaccine attempts failed because they relied on a single arm attachment and have applied for a patent, hoping to eventually create a vaccine.

 

Strep A is a bacterium found in the throat or skin.  For most, it lives in their bodies without causing illness.  It spreads through:  

 

• coughs,
• sneezes
• any open cuts

 

Symptoms can include: 

• high temperature,
• swollen glands
• aching body,
• sore throat,
• headache,
• vomiting,
• muscle aches
• and scarlet fever, a rash that feels rough to the touch.

 

It can also cause the deadly condition iGAS or Invasive Group A Streptococcus.  The most recent figures from the UK Health Security Agency show there have been 94 deaths from iGAS infections across England since Sep 12, including 21 children under 18, while the last Strep A outbreak in 2017-2018, caused 27 deaths of children over the entire winter.  Currently, infections can only be treated with antibiotics – but there is an ongoing shortage, with around six times more prescriptions issued than normal at this time of year.

 

COVID isn’t just infecting you—it could be reactivating viruses that have been dormant in your body for years.  Mon, December 26, 2022 at 3:00 AM PST.  You had COVID a few months ago, recovered but things aren’t quite right.  Standing, you feel dizzy and your heart races.  Routine tasks leave you feeling spent.  A good night’s sleep no longer feels refreshing. 

 

A mild or asymptomatic case of COVID can cause viruses you’ve previously battled to reactivate, potentially leading to symptoms of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, a condition resembling long COVID, according to a recent study published in the journal Frontiers in Immunology.

 

Researchers found herpes viruses like Epstein-Barr, a driver behind mono, circulating in unvaccinated patients who had experienced COVID.  In patients with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, antibody responses were stronger, signaling an immune system struggling to fight off the lingering viruses.

 

Researchers hypothesized COVID sometimes leads to suppression of the immune system, allowing latent viruses reactivated by the stress of COVID to recirculate — viruses linked to symptoms that are common in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and long COVID.  Dr. Anthony Fauci, U.S. infectious disease expert said in 2020, long COVID “may very well be a post-viral syndrome associated with COVID-19.”

 

VACCINE UPDATE

Growing vaccine hesitancy fuels measles, chickenpox resurgence in U.S. Mon, December 26, 2022 at 5:59 AM PST.  A rapidly growing measles outbreak in Columbus, Ohio, involving unvaccinated children, is fueling concerns among health officials that more parent resistance to routine childhood immunizations will intensify a resurgence of vaccine-preventable diseases.  Most of the 81 children infected so far are old enough to get the shots, but their parents chose not to do so, officials said, resulting in the country's largest outbreak of the highly infectious pathogen this year.

 

More than a third of parents with children under 18 and 28% of all adults, say parents should be able to decide not to vaccinate their children for measles, mumps and rubella or MMR, to attend public schools, even if the unvaccinated may create health risks for others.  The growing opposition stems largely from shifts among people who identify as or lean Republican. 

 

Adam Moore, a father of three in the Detroit suburbs, said none of his children - 9, 12 and 17 and enrolled in private school - have received routine childhood immunizations, vaccines for the coronavirus or flu.  He values personal liberty and says the government has no right telling people what to do with their bodies.  "I find it a hard argument when the government says we're all for individual liberty on abortion rights and all this other stuff, but when it comes to vaccinations, there's no such thing as 'my body, my choice.'"  Other parents echo long-standing misinformation about vaccines that continue to spread via anti-vaccine groups. 

 

Support for immunization mandates has held steady among Democrats, with 88% saying that children should be vaccinated to attend public schools because of the potential risk for others when they are not.

 

The growing negative attitudes about school immunization requirements are troubling for health workers.

  

• Kentucky officials are urging that people get flu shots after six children - none of whom were vaccinated - died after contracting influenza.

• South Carolina officials had also promoted childhood vaccinations after two chickenpox outbreaks in March - the first since 2020 - affected nearly 70 people.

• A case of paralytic polio in a New York man this summer prompted worry that low childhood immunization rates and rising vaccine misinformation could result in the disease's resurgence decades after vaccination had eliminated it in the United States.

School vaccination requirements are among the most effective tools to keep children healthy.  All states and the District of Columbia require children to be vaccinated against certain diseases, such as measles, polio and whooping cough, to attend public school.  All states grant exemptions based on medical reasons; a growing number allow religious or philosophical exemptions.

 

D.C. also requires students 12 and older to be vaccinated against covid-19 but delayed enforcement until the 2023-2024 school year.  California has a pending statewide student coronavirus vaccine mandate that will take effect after July 2023.  Two dozen states have some form of ban against student coronavirus vaccine mandates.

 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends children receive two doses of MMR vaccine, the first dose at 12 to 15 months and the second dose between 4 and 6 years old.  One dose is 93% effective in preventing measles, one of the most infectious pathogens on the planet that can cause serious complications, including death.  Two doses are about 97% effective. 

 

Minnesota is also battling a new measles outbreak, 22 cases, as vaccine hesitancy around the MMR vaccine continues to be an issue, said Doug Schultz, spokesman for the Minnesota health department.    Officials are bracing for more cases in the coming weeks as families travel and gather indoors for the holidays.  29 Ohio children have been hospitalized, some required intensive care.

 

Most of the sickened children:

• 78% - Black,
• 6% - Asian,
• 6% - White,
• 4% - Hispanic

Because the measles virus is so contagious, an overall community vaccination rate of about 90 to 94% is needed to keep the virus from causing large outbreaks, according to infectious-disease experts.  In the United States, nearly 91% of children have received at least one dose of the MMR vaccine by age 2.  In the Columbus area, the measles vaccination rate is estimated at 80 to 90%, but health-care providers are not required to report data to Ohio's vaccine registry.

 

Even if overall coverage in a community is high, measles can transmit easily in clusters of under-vaccinated or unvaccinated people.  In recent years, many of the measles cases reported to the CDC have occurred in under-immunized, close-knit communities, where anti-vaccine misinformation has gained a foothold.  In 2019, the United States reported the highest annual number of measles cases, 1,294, in more than 25 years; three-fourths of those cases occurred among New York's Orthodox Jewish communities.  

 

FDA pulls U.S. authorization for Eli Lilly's COVID drug bebtelovimab.  Wed, November 30, 2022 at 11:59 AM.  (Reuters) - Eli Lilly and Co's COVID-19 drug bebtelovimab is currently not authorized for emergency use in the United States indicated the Food and Drug Administration, citing” it is not expected to neutralize the dominant BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 sub-variants of Omicron.  

 

The announcement takes away authorization from the last monoclonal antibody treatment, leaving Pfizer’s antiviral drug Paxlovid, Merck's Lagevrio and Gilead Sciences' Veklury and convalescent plasma for some patients as treatments.   AstraZeneca’s monoclonal antibody Evusheld is also authorized for protection in some people.

 

BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 have become the dominant strains in the United States surpassing Omicron's BA.5 sub-variant, accounting for 57% of cases nationally. 

   

Reverse vaccination technique in mice suggests new way to teach the immune system not to attack lifesaving treatments.  Sun, December 4, 2022.   Autoimmune conditions such as Type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis arise when the immune system mistakenly attacks its own body’s proteins, cells and organs.  These conditions make the body attack itself and can also destroy the medications intended to treat them.  A reverse vaccination approach could train the immune system to ignore self-proteins and prevent unwanted immune responses.

 

Autoimmunity destroys both body and treatment.  Lifesaving treatments for autoimmune conditions are complicated by immune responses that work against them.  Enzyme replacement therapy can help manage this condition, but with some, develop antibodies that direct the immune system to destroy the treatment.  Once these unwanted antibodies are developed, it becomes increasingly challenging to treat their conditions.   

 

A reverse vaccination technique.  Conventional vaccines train the immune system to recognize and attack specific parts of a pathogen that get into the body. The proposed technique teaches the immune system to do the opposite: to ignore and tolerate foreign proteins introduced to the body.  The team previously found that high levels of PS outside the cell also actively teach the immune system to ignore the exposed debris.

 

The concept was tested on mice with hemophilia A.  People with this genetic condition are unable to make the blood-clotting protein factor VIII.  When the mice were reverse-vaccinated with factor VIII paired with an optimized form of PS, 75% of the mice did not develop an unwanted immune response when re-exposed later to factor VIII over four weeks.  This means the immune system was able to learn factor VIII was not harmful and remembered to tolerate it.

 

VARIANT UPDATE

CDC: New Omicron Sub-variant XBB Spreading in U.S.  Dec. 2, 2022, at 3:39 p.m.  Anthony Fauci, infectious disease expert, indicated XBB did not lead to a major increase in hospitalizations in Singapore, where it was first found in August.  He added, “XBB has an increased ability to escape protection provided by vaccines.”

 

According to CDC data, COVID-19 transmission in the U.S. is on the rise, after indoor holiday gatherings and as people head indoors as cold weather spreads.  The Biden administration has ramped up its push to get more Americans updated booster shots that target BA.4 and BA.5 and the original coronavirus strain, hoping to stave off fall and winter coronavirus waves.  Less than 13% of eligible Americans have gotten the shot. 

 

Covid Variant XBB 1.5, driving infection wave in US, found in India.  Here are the details.  As China suffers another wave of infections by an Omicron sub-variant, another sub-lineage of this strain, XBB 1.5, accounts for 40% of the cases in the United States. The first cases of this variant infection, was recently found in India.   

 

Newer version of XBB sub-variant.  XBB, - a hybrid of two different Omicron BA.2 sub-variants.  An even newer version of that sub-variant has emerged, XBB.1.5.  Although XBB.1.5 is not more immune evasive than XBB, it does have a higher level of transmissibility, said Yunlong Cao, biochemist at Peking University.  JP Weiland, Scientist said, "XBB.1.5 appears faster and more sustained than any of the variants since Omicron's first wave, BA.1, last January." 

 

Yunlong Cao and colleagues also reported XBB and three other sub-variants had become entirely resistant to antibodies in blood samples from people who were vaccinated or had Covid infections. 

 

As COVID-19 spikes in California, booster shots could make all the difference.  Sat, December 3, 2022 at 6:00 AM.  With coronavirus cases and hospitalizations rising in Los Angeles County, officials are voicing new confidence in the effectiveness of the updated COVID-19 booster shot.  New data found updated COVID-19 vaccines offer "significant additional protection" against symptomatic infection in people who were previously vaccinated or boosted with the older formula.

 

Efficacy of the shots varied, dependent personal vaccine history.  Data published in a recent U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report found consistently boosted defense across all adult age groups.

 

The newest version of the vaccine, available since September, offers protection against the ancestral coronavirus strain as well as the recently circulating Omicron sub-variants, including BA.4 and the long-dominant BA.5.

 

That's why it's known as the bivalent booster, distinguishing it from the older monovalent vaccine, designed only against the original strain.  "If you look at the recent data now coming out, it is clear now the updated vaccine clearly induces a better response against BA.4/5, and the sub-lineages of BA.4/5, than does the ancestral strain," Dr. Fauci said. "It looks quite good."

 

• California, 18.3% of the state's 28.7 million eligible residents received the bivalent booster, far short of the 72% who completed the primary series.

• Los Angeles County, 1.1 million residents 12 and older received the updated booster, 15% of the 7.16 million who are eligible for the shot.

• San Francisco Bay Area, a surge in cases, including among employees of UC San Francisco, getting infected in the community rather than at work.  Dr. Robert Wachter, chair of UC San Francisco's Department of Medicine, tweeted 5% of patients at the campus with no symptoms are testing positive for the coronavirus, up from 2% last month.

 

What the World Should Really Expect From COVID in 2023.  Sun, December 25, 2022 at 9:18 PM PST.  2023 could be the year the world figures out how to finally live with COVID.  The Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is to thank for it.

 

Successive waves of infections from Omicron and its sub-variants, have produced so much natural immunity across the human population that most countries are in good position to weather new sub-variants.  

 

Yes, people will get sick when a new form of the virus becomes dominant, but owing to natural immunity, won’t get very sick.  Fresh infections will seed fresh antibodies that will prolong the population’s natural immunity through the next wave of cases.

 

The exception to this hard-earned natural protection is China, enforcing strict lockdowns through much of the last year, resulting in the lack of widespread natural immunity.  China could spend 2023 catching up to the rest of the world, as far as COVID antibodies go.

 

Where did mpox go? Here's what brought down cases of disease formerly known as monkeypox.  Sun, December 4, 2022 at 8:00 AM.  The Biden administration has declared an end to the public health emergency for the disease formerly known as monkeypox, which now accounts for fewer than 10 new cases a day in the United States.   The World Health Organization renamed monkeypox, ‘mpox,’ to get rid of the stigma that associated the disease with monkeys.  Monkeys don't spread the virus, but it was first identified in them decades ago. The Department of Health and Human Services announced it does not expect to renew the emergency declaration when it ends on Jan. 31, 2023.

 

Mpox cases are down but not gone.  Mpox may never leave the country entirely, said Dr. Daniel Griffin, chief of the division of infectious disease and travel medicine for Optum Health.  People with the virus remain infectious for as long as three weeks, too long for some to remain totally isolated.

 

With widespread transmission, there is also the potential that it will infect animal carriers, typically rodents, then jumping back to people.  The mpox virus typically requires significant contact with open sores or bodily fluids is the most likely route of transmission.to spread, unlike COVID-19, which can pass easily through the air. 

 

Gay community stepped up to stop spread of mpox.  Griffin credits behavior changes within the gay community for stopping the virus' spread.  Initial messaging  by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention regarding mpox frightened many not at any risk for the disease and did not encourage action among those at high risk, said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease specialist and professor at the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine.  Once messaging became more specific, the gay community took action and brought infection rates down.

 

How to Protect Yourself?  Getting vaccinated is your best bet!

 

IT’S NOT OVER!

 

Stay safe.  Mask.  Social distance.  Frequent hand washing.  Avoid crowds

 

ALWAYS CONSULT YOUR PERSONAL HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONAL

 

• https://news.yahoo.com/eli-lillys-covid-drug-bebtelovimab-195915926.html
• https://news.yahoo.com/reverse-vaccination-technique-mice-suggests-133457275.html
• https://news.yahoo.com/covid-19-spikes-california-booster-140039174.html
• https://news.yahoo.com/where-did-mpox-heres-brought-150037061.html
• https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-04403-y
• https://news.yahoo.com/covid-isn-t-just-infecting-110000353.html
• https://news.yahoo.com/growing-vaccine-hesitancy-fuels-measles-135931583.html
• https://news.yahoo.com/world-really-expect-covid-2023-051825073.html
• https://news.yahoo.com/strep-vaccine-horizon-key-antibody-161500539.html
• https://www.msn.com/en-in/autos/news/covid-variant-xbb-1-5-driving-infection-wave-in-us-found-in-india-here-are-the-details/ar-AA15Q809