Publisher Health

A pharmacist whose brother died after having the AstraZeneca vaccine has told the BBC she still feels strongly that people should continue have their jabs. Alison Astles’ brother Neil, 59, died of a blood clot on the brain on Sunday, after having the vaccination on 17 March.She said he was “extraordinarily unlucky” and that “more lives will be saved by people having the vaccine than not.”

Hundreds of sellers are offering false and stolen vaccine cards, as businesses and states weigh proof of vaccinations for getting people back to work and play.SAN FRANCISCO — On Etsy, eBay, Facebook and Twitter, little rectangular slips of paper started showing up for sale in late January. Printed on card stock, they measured three-by-four inches and featured crisp black lettering. Sellers listed them for $20 to $60 each, with a discount on bundles of three or more. Laminated ones cost extra.All were forgeries or falsified copies of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention vaccination cards, which are given to people who have been inoculated against Covid-19 in the United States.“We found hundreds of online stores selling the cards, potentially thousands were sold,” said Saoud Khalifah, the founder of FakeSpot, which offers tools to detect fake listings and reviews online.The coronavirus has made opportunists out of many people, like those who hoarded bottles of hand sanitizer at the start of the pandemic or those who cheated recipients out of their stimulus checks. Now online scammers have latched onto the latest profit-making initiative: the little white cards that provide proof of shots.Online stores offering counterfeit or stolen vaccine cards have mushroomed in recent weeks, Mr. Khalifah said. The efforts are far from hidden, with Facebook pages named “vax-cards” and eBay listings with “blank vaccine cards” openly hawking the items.A screenshot of a “vax cards” page on  Facebook. Selling fake vaccination cards could break federal laws that forbid copying the C.D.C. logo, legal experts said. If the cards were stolen and filled out with false numbers and dates, they could also violate identity theft laws, they said.But profiteers have pressed ahead as demand for the cards has grown from anti-vaccine activists and other groups. Airlines and other companies have recently said they may require proof of Covid-19 immunization so that people can safely travel or attend events.The cards may also become central to “vaccine passports,” which offer digital proof of vaccinations. Some tech companies developing vaccine passports ask people to upload copies of their C.D.C. cards. Los Angeles also recently began using the C.D.C. cards for its own digital proof of immunization.Last week, 45 state attorneys general banded together to call on Twitter, Shopify and eBay to stop the sale of false and stolen vaccine cards. The officials said they were monitoring the activity and were concerned that unvaccinated people would misuse the cards to attend large events, potentially spreading the virus and prolonging the pandemic.“We’re seeing a huge market for these false cards online,” said Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvania’s attorney general, whose office has investigated fraud related to the virus. “This is a dangerous practice that undermines public health.”The C.D.C. said it was “aware of cases of fraud regarding counterfeit Covid-19 vaccine cards.” It asked people not to share images of their personal information or vaccine cards on social media.Facebook, Twitter, eBay, Shopify and Etsy said that the sale of fake vaccine cards violated their rules and that they were removing posts that advertised the items.The C.D.C. introduced the vaccination cards in December, describing them as the “simplest” way to keep track of Covid-19 shots. By January, sales of false vaccine cards started picking up, Mr. Khalifah said. Many people found the cards were easy to forge from samples available online. Authentic cards were also stolen by pharmacists from their workplaces and put up for sale, he said.Many people who bought the cards were opposed to the Covid-19 vaccines, Mr. Khalifah said. In some anti-vaccine groups on Facebook, people have publicly boasted about getting the cards.“My body my choice,” wrote one commenter in a Facebook post last month. Another person replied, “can’t wait to get mine too, lol.”Other buyers want to use the cards to trick pharmacists into giving them a vaccine, Mr. Khalifah said. Because some of the vaccines are two-shot regimens, people can enter a false date for a first inoculation on the card, which makes it appear as if they need a second dose soon. Some pharmacies and state vaccination sites have prioritized people due for their second shots.The tweet linked to a now-defunct Etsy shop that sold fake vaccine cards. One Etsy seller, who declined to be identified, said she had sold dozens of fake vaccine cards for $20 each recently. She justified her actions by saying she was helping people evade a “tyrannical government.” She added that she did not plan to get inoculated.Vaccine proponents say they have been troubled by the proliferation of forged and stolen cards. To hold those people accountable, Savannah Sparks, a pharmacist in Biloxi, Miss., began posting videos on TikTok last month naming the sellers of falsified vaccine cards.In one video, Ms. Sparks explained how she had tracked down the name of a pharmacy technician in Illinois who had nabbed several cards for herself and her husband and then posted about it online. The pharmacy technician had not disclosed her identity, but had linked the post to her social media accounts, where she used her real name. The video has 1.2 million views.“It made me so mad that a pharmacist was using her access and position this way,” Ms. Sparks said. The video drew the attention of the Illinois Pharmacists Association, which said it reported the video to a state board for further investigation.Ms. Sparks said her work had drawn detractors and vaccine opponents, who have threatened her and posted her home phone number and address online. But she was undeterred.“They should be first in line advocating for people to get vaccinated,” she said of pharmacists. “Instead, they’re trying to use their positions to spread fear and help people circumvent getting the vaccine.”Mr. Shapiro, the Pennsylvania attorney general, said in addition to violating federal copyright laws, the sale of counterfeit and stolen cards most likely broke civil and consumer protection laws that mandate that an item can be used as advertised. The cards could also violate state laws regarding impersonation, he said.“We want to see them stop immediately,” Mr. Shapiro said of the fraudsters. “And we want to see the companies take serious and immediate action.”

Music therapy is increasingly used to help patients cope with stress and promote healing.“Focus on the sound of the instrument,” Andrew Rossetti, a licensed music therapist and researcher said as he strummed hypnotic chords on a Spanish-style classical guitar. “Close your eyes. Think of a place where you feel safe and comfortable.”Music therapy was the last thing that Julia Justo, a graphic artist who immigrated to New York from Argentina, expected when she went to Mount Sinai Beth Israel Union Square Clinic for treatment for cancer in 2016. But it quickly calmed her fears about the radiation therapy she needed to go through, which was causing her severe anxiety.“I felt the difference right away, I was much more relaxed,” she said.Ms. Justo, who has been free of cancer for over four years, continued to visit the hospital every week before the onset of the pandemic to work with Mr. Rossetti, whose gentle guitar riffs and visualization exercises helped her deal with ongoing challenges, like getting a good night’s sleep. Nowadays they keep in touch mostly by email.The healing power of music — lauded by philosophers from Aristotle and Pythagoras to Pete Seeger — is now being validated by medical research. It is used in targeted treatments for asthma, autism, depression and more, including brain disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, epilepsy and stroke.Live music has made its way into some surprising venues, including oncology waiting rooms to calm patients as they wait for radiation and chemotherapy. It also greets newborns in some neonatal intensive care units and comforts the dying in hospice.While musical therapies are rarely stand-alone treatments, they are increasingly used as adjuncts to other forms of medical treatment. They help people cope with their stress and mobilize their body’s own capacity to heal.“Patients in hospitals are always having things done to them,” Mr. Rossetti explained. “With music therapy, we are giving them resources that they can use to self-regulate, to feel grounded and calmer. We are enabling them to actively participate in their own care.”The Healing Power of Music“A Song for Wayne,” performed by Edie Elkan and written as she played at the bedside of a student who was dying.Even in the coronavirus pandemic, Mr. Rossetti has continued to perform live music for patients. He says that he’s seen increases in acute anxiety since the onset of the pandemic, making musical interventions, if anything, even more impactful than they were before the crisis.Mount Sinai has also recently expanded its music therapy program to include work with the medical staff, many of whom are suffering from post-traumatic stress from months of dealing with Covid, with live performances offered during their lunch hour.It’s not just a mood booster. A growing body of research suggests that music played in a therapeutic setting has measurable medical benefits.“Those who undergo the therapy seem to need less anxiety medicine, and sometimes surprisingly get along without it,” said Dr. Jerry T. Liu, assistant professor of radiation oncology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.A review of 400 research papers conducted by Daniel J. Levitin at McGill University in 2013 concluded that “listening to music was more effective than prescription drugs in reducing anxiety prior to surgery.”“Music takes patients to a familiar home base within themselves. It relaxes them without side effects,” said Dr. Manjeet Chadha, the director of radiation oncology at Mount Sinai Downtown in New York.It can also help people deal with longstanding phobias. Mr. Rossetti remembers one patient who had been pinned under concrete rubble at Ground Zero on 9/11. The woman, who years later was being treated for breast cancer, was terrified by the thermoplastic restraining device placed over her chest during radiation and which reawakened her feelings of being entrapped.“Daily music therapy helped her to process the trauma and her huge fear of claustrophobia and successfully complete the treatment,” Mr. Rossetti recalled.Some hospitals have introduced prerecorded programs that patients can listen to with headphones. At Mount Sinai Beth Israel, the music is generally performed live using a wide array of instruments including drums, pianos and flutes, with the performers being careful to maintain appropriate social distance.“We modify what we play according to the patient’s breath and heart rate,” said Joanne Loewy, the founding director of the hospital’s Louis Armstrong Center for Music & Medicine. “Our goal is to anchor the person, to keep their mind connected to the body as they go through these challenging treatments.”Edie Elkan plays the harp as part of the music therapy program at Robert Wood Johnson Hospital in New Jersey.Edie ElkanDr. Loewy has pioneered techniques that use several unusual instruments like a Gato Box, which simulates the rhythms of the mother’s heartbeat, and an Ocean Disc, which mimics the whooshing sounds in the womb to help premature babies and their parents relax during their stay in noisy neonatal intensive care units.Dr. Dave Bosanquet, a vascular surgeon at the Royal Gwent Hospital in Newport, Wales, says that music has become much more common in operating rooms in England in recent years with the spread of bluetooth speakers. Prerecorded music not only helps surgical patients relax, he says, it also helps surgeons focus on their task. He recommends classical music, which “evokes mental vigilance” and lacks distracting lyrics, but cautions that it “should only be played during low or average stress procedures” and not during complex operations, which demand a sharper focus.Music has also been used successfully to support recovery after surgery. A study published in The Lancet in 2015 reported that music reduced postoperative pain and anxiety and lessened the need for anti-anxiety drugs. Curiously, they also found that music was effective even when patients were under general anesthesia.None of this surprises Edie Elkan, a 75-year-old harpist who argues there are few places in the health care system that would not benefit from the addition of music. The first time she played her instrument in a hospital was for her husband when he was on life support after undergoing emergency surgery.“The hospital said that I couldn’t go into the room with my harp, but I insisted,” she said. As she played the harp for him, his vital signs, which had been dangerously low, returned to normal. “The hospital staff swung the door open and said, ‘You need to play for everyone.’”Ms. Elkan took these instructions to heart. After she searched for two years for a hospital that would pay for the program, the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in Hamilton, N.J., signed on, allowing her to set up a music school on their premises and play for patients at all stages in their hospitalization.Ms. Elkan and her students have played for over a hundred thousand patients in 11 hospitals that have hosted them since her organization, Bedside Harp, was started in 2002.In the months since the pandemic began, the harp players have been serenading patients at the entrance to the hospital, as well as holding special therapeutic sessions for the staff outdoors. They hope to resume playing indoors later this spring.For some patients being greeted at the hospital door by ethereal harp music can be a shocking experience.Recently, one woman in her mid-70s turned back questioningly to the driver when she stepped out of the van to a medley of familiar tunes like “Beauty and the Beast” and “Over the Rainbow” being played by a harpist, Susan Rosenstein. “That’s her job,” the driver responded, “to put a smile on your face.”While Ms. Elkan says that it is hard to scientifically assess the impact — “How do you put a number on the value of someone smiling who has not smiled in six months?”— studies suggest that harp therapy helps calm stress and put both patients and hospital staff members at ease.Ms. Elkan is quick to point out that she is not doing music therapy, whose practitioners need to complete a five-year course of study during which they are trained in psychology and aspects of medicine.“Music therapists have specific clinical objectives,” she said. “We work intuitively — there’s no goal but to calm, soothe and give people hope.”“When we come onto a unit, we remind people to exhale,” Ms. Elkan said. “Everyone is kind of holding their breath, especially in the E.R. and the I.C.U. When we come in, we dial down the stress level several decibels.”Ms. Elkan’s harp can do more than just soothe emotions, says Ted Taylor, who directs pastoral care at the hospital. It can offer spiritual comfort to people who are at a uniquely vulnerable moment in their lives.“There is something mysterious that we can’t quantify,” Mr. Taylor, a Quaker, said. “I call it soul medicine. Her harp can touch that deep place that connects all of us as human beings.”

An Operation Warp Speed report last June flagged staffing and quality control concerns at Emergent BioSolutions’ factory in Baltimore. The troubled plant recently had to throw out up to 15 million doses.WASHINGTON — A top federal pandemic official warned last June that Emergent BioSolutions, the government contractor that last month threw out millions of doses of Covid-19 vaccines because of contamination, lacked enough trained staff and had a record of problems with quality control.A copy of the official’s assessment, obtained by The New York Times, cited “key risks” in relying on Emergent to handle the production of vaccines developed by both Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca at Emergent’s Bayview plant in Baltimore.The assessment, which has not been released publicly, was based in part on a visit to the plant just days after the government awarded Emergent a contract worth up to $628 million, mostly to prepare its factories to make coronavirus vaccines as part of Operation Warp Speed.Addressing the problems “will require significant effort,” and the company “will have to be monitored closely,” said the report, which was written by Carlo de Notaristefani, a manufacturing expert who has overseen production of Covid-19 vaccines for the federal government since last May. Though marked as a draft, federal officials said the report was considered to be final.Ten months after his report, the plant has become a major headache for the team named by President Biden to oversee the pandemic response. The Times reported on Tuesday on a host of quality control problems, flagged in audits and investigations by AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, two federal agencies and Emergent’s own quality evaluators.Federal officials ordered major changes to the plant after revelations late last month that Emergent had to jettison between 13 million and 15 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine. It is not clear what will happen to another 62 million doses of the vaccine produced at the plant, or whether Johnson & Johnson will be able to deliver the 24 million doses it has promised to the federal government by the end of the month.So far, the Food and Drug Administration has not certified the factory to distribute any doses for public use, and the agency is not expected to do so until it conducts a thorough review, which can take weeks.Asked about the June report, a company spokesman said on Wednesday night: “Emergent’s top priority continues to be the strengthening of the supply chain for Johnson & Johnson’s vitally needed Covid-19 vaccine.”Biden administration officials insist that the government has enough doses from the other two federally authorized vaccine makers — Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna — to cover the vast majority of the nation’s roughly 260 million adults. But federal officials are still concerned about Emergent’s problems, not only because the federal government has invested heavily in the plant, but because there may be implications for the world’s vaccine supply if the issues are not resolved.AstraZeneca was expected to fulfill the majority of the global need, but safety concerns have upended those plans. British officials said on Wednesday that people under 30 should not take the AstraZeneca vaccine, and authorities in the European Union said they had found a “possible link” between the vaccine and rare but worrisome blood clots. That makes Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine more important, experts say.Emergent was forced to discard the Johnson & Johnson doses after checks revealed contamination with a virus used in the production of the AstraZeneca vaccine. An investigation is now underway, but federal and former company officials suspect the lot was tainted because an employee moved from AstraZeneca’s section of the plant to Johnson & Johnson’s without showering and taking other precautions.Between October and January, Emergent threw away five lots of the AstraZeneca vaccine — each the equivalent of two million to three million doses — because of contamination or suspected contamination, The Times reported on Tuesday.By giving Emergent a key role in its coronavirus response, the government was counting on the company to deliver on a promise made more than eight years earlier. To ensure a domestic supply of vaccines in a pandemic, the government had awarded Emergent a $163 million contract in 2012 to ready the Baltimore plant for mass production in a crisis.But Mr. de Notaristefani wrote that Emergent had used the site primarily for smaller development projects. To make large amounts of Covid-19 vaccines, the company “will have to strengthen” its quality controls, requiring “significant resources and commitment,” he wrote.His report was based in part on a visit to the plant on June 4 last year, as well as information provided by the company and conversations with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, the federal agency that awarded Emergent the manufacturing contract.It is unclear what action, if any, the Trump administration took in response, or whether the Biden administration reviewed the findings before the recent problems arose.Mr. de Notaristefani, a former top executive at two major pharmaceutical companies, cited “significant” personnel problems, writing that plans to increase staffing seemed “inadequate to enable the company to manufacture at the required rate.”He also noted that audits by the F.D.A. and individual companies that had hired Emergent “highlighted the need for extensive training of personnel, and strengthening of the quality function.”Nonetheless, he wrote, “the organization has the necessary experience/competence” to scale up its manufacturing. He wrote that “management is knowledgeable and appears self-confident,” and with enough government oversight, “risks can be mitigated.”At the time of the visit, Emergent also planned to make a third Covid-19 vaccine, developed by Novavax, but that company has since partnered with another manufacturer in a government-backed deal. “Offloading the Novavax program to a different facility will also help reduce the load on Emergent Bayview,” Mr. de Notaristefani wrote.Emergent is a longtime federal contractor in the area of biodefense. Sales of its anthrax vaccines accounted for nearly half the Strategic National Stockpile’s half-billion-dollar annual budget through most of the last decade, The Times reported last month. That left the government with less money for items needed in a pandemic, and last year, the stockpile’s shortage of basic medical supplies became a symbol of the government’s bungled coronavirus response.Though the original federal contract for the Baltimore plant required Emergent to demonstrate large-scale manufacturing of a pandemic influenza vaccine — envisioned by health officials as a pressure test of its abilities — Emergent had yet to do so, The Times reported on Tuesday. The company risked defaulting on the original deal, which had set a deadline of June 2020. The company also has separate agreements with the two vaccine makers worth more than $875 million.In the effort to resolve the factory’s troubles, federal officials have simplified Emergent’s mission, limiting it to only producing Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine and forcing AstraZeneca to move its production lines elsewhere. Johnson & Johnson is also now asserting direct control over the manufacturing, although the work force at the plant in southeast Baltimore remains Emergent’s.The existence of Mr. de Notaristefani’s assessment was reported earlier by Politico, but its details were not previously known. Asked about the report on Wednesday, the White House spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, said she “would have to check on the specifics.”Mr. de Notaristefani’s concerns were echoed by two former plant supervisors, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of career repercussions. In interviews with The Times, they cited crushing workloads and shortcuts taken to meet unrealistic timetables.Mr. de Notaristefani noted that Emergent planned to boost the factory’s work force to nearly 300. It now has 600 workers, according to the company’s spokesman. Even so, the ex-supervisors said, employees are overwhelmed, and some are often forced to work more than 70 hours a week.A review of months of company logs obtained by The Times showed that employees repeatedly said they deviated from manufacturing standards because of a lack of manpower and shortened production times.

In an article published in the April 8 issue of Nature, the National Institutes of Health’s Somatic Cell Gene Editing Consortium provided a detailed update on the progress of their nationwide effort to develop safer and more effective methods to edit the genomes of disease-relevant somatic cells and reduce the burden of disease caused by genetic changes.
Gene editing allows scientists to modify sections of an organism’s DNA and is considered a promising treatment for a number of genetic diseases. There have been numerous advances in the laboratory over the last few decades, but there are still many challenges to overcome before gene editing can be widely used in the patient population. Launched in 2018, the Somatic Cell Gene Editing Consortium (SCGE) has brought together some of the leading researchers in the field to advance discovery and accelerate the translation of somatic gene editing advances in the lab to the clinical setting.
Over six years, the NIH will allocate approximately $190 million to SCGE to realize gene editing’s potential. The end result will be a freely available toolkit that will provide the biomedical research community with rigorously evaluated information about genome editors and methods for delivering and tracking gene editing molecules.
“NIH realized it was important for all of us who are investigating gene editing to work together toward a common goal,” said Carnegie Mellon University Professor of Chemistry Danith Ly who joined the consortium in 2019. “We’re designing molecules that can go into the cell and we’re cataloging each and every one. What we’ll end up with is a very valuable, rigorously evaluated resource for those who want to bring gene editing to patients.”
While much of the consortium’s work focuses on CRISPER-Cas related systems, the SCGE points out that it’s important to continue to develop other systems. They specifically single out the peptide nucleic acid-based gene editing technique developed by Carnegie Mellon’s Ly and Yale University’s Peter Glazer.
“Although there is a significant focus on CRISPR-Cas related systems within the SCGE, it is crucial to continue to explore alternate systems, in part because they may differ in both their potential for delivery and their biological or immunological responses,” the consortium wrote in Nature.
While CRISPR-Cas edits genes in cells that have been removed from the body, Ly and Glazer’s peptide nucleic acid (PNA) system is administered intravenously and edits cells in vivo. Using nanoparticles, a PNA molecule paired with a donor strand of DNA is delivered directly to a malfunctioning gene. Ly, a leading researcher in synthetic nucleic acid technology, has programmed PNA molecules to open double stranded DNA at the site of a targeted mutation. The donor DNA from the complex binds to the cell’s faulty DNA and triggers the DNA’s innate repair mechanisms to edit the gene. The team has used the technique to cure beta thalassemia in adult mice and in fetal mice in utero.
The PNA gene editing system doesn’t have the high-yield of CRISPER-Cas systems, but it does have the advantage of being less likely to make off-target modifications. According to Ly, that means their technique might be better for genetic diseases that only need to have a small percentage of cells corrected to make a therapeutic difference. For example, in the beta thalassemia studies, Ly and Glazer found that editing only six to seven percent of cells was curative.
Ly and Glazer plan to further refine and improve their technique through their participation in SCGE, and they look forward to sharing their results with the consortium and the greater biomedical community.
Story Source:
Materials provided by Carnegie Mellon University. Original written by Jocelyn Duffy. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

The B.1.1.7 variant, first identified in Britain, is now the source of most new coronavirus infections in the United States, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.WASHINGTON — A highly infectious variant of the coronavirus that was first identified in Britain has become the most common source of new infections in the United States, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Wednesday. The worrisome development comes as officials and scientists warn of a possible fourth surge of infections.Federal health officials said in January that the B.1.1.7 variant, which began surging in Britain in December and has since slammed Europe, could become the dominant source of coronavirus infections in the United States, leading to a huge increase in cases and deaths.At that point, new cases, hospitalizations and deaths were at an all-time high. From that peak, the numbers all declined until late February, according to a New York Times database. After several weeks at a plateau, new cases and hospitalizations are increasing again. The average number of new cases in the country has reached nearly 65,000 a day as of Tuesday, concentrated mostly in metro areas in Michigan as well as in the New York City region. That is an increase of 19 percent compared with the figure two weeks ago.Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the C.D.C. director, who warned last week that she felt a recurring sense of “impending doom,” said on Wednesday that 52 of the agency’s 64 jurisdictions — which include states, some major cities and territories — are now reporting cases of these so-called “variants of concern,” including B.1.1.7.The number of deaths, however, continue to decline — potentially a sign that mass vaccinations are beginning to protect older Americans and other highly vulnerable populations.“These trends are pointing to two clear truths,” Dr. Walensky said. “One, the virus still has hold on us, infecting people and putting them in harm’s way, and we need to remain vigilant. And two, we need to continue to accelerate our vaccination efforts and to take the individual responsibility to get vaccinated when we can.”B.1.1.7, the first variant to come to widespread attention, is about 60 percent more contagious and 67 percent more deadly than the original form of the coronavirus, according to the most recent estimates. The C.D.C. has also been tracking the spread of other variants, such as B.1.351, first found in South Africa, and P.1, which was first identified in Brazil.The percentage of cases caused by variants is clearly increasing. Helix, a lab testing company, has tracked the relentless increase of B.1.1.7 since the beginning of the year. As of April 3, it estimated that the variant made up 58.9 percent of all new tests.That variant has been found to be most prevalent in Michigan, Florida, Colorado, California, Minnesota and Massachusetts, according to the C.D.C. Until recently, the variant’s rise was somewhat camouflaged by falling infection rates over all, leading some political leaders to relax restrictions on indoor dining, social distancing and other measures.As cases fell, restive Americans headed back to school and work, against the warnings of some scientists.Federal health officials are tracking reports of increasing cases associated with day care centers and youth sports, and hospitals are seeing more younger adults — people in their 30s and 40s who are admitted with “severe disease,” Dr. Walensky said.It is difficult for scientists to say exactly how much of the current patterns of infection are because of the growing frequency of B.1.1.7.“It’s muddled by the reopening that’s going on and changes in behavior,” said Dr. Adam Lauring, a virologist at the University of Michigan.But he noted that people were becoming less cautious at a time when they should be raising their guard against a more contagious variant. “It’s worrisome,” he said.At the same time, the United States is currently vaccinating an average of about three million people a day, and states have rushed to make all adults eligible. The C.D.C. reported on Wednesday that almost 110 million people had received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, including about 64.4 million people who have been fully vaccinated. New Mexico, South Dakota, Rhode Island and Alaska are leading the states, with about 25 percent of their total populations fully vaccinated.Scientists hope that vaccination will blunt any potential fourth surge.On Tuesday, President Biden moved up his vaccination timetable by two weeks, calling states to make every American adult eligible by April 19. All states have already met or expect to beat this goal after he initially asked that they do so by May 1.The B.1.1.7 variant first arrived in the United States last year. In February, a study that analyzed half a million coronavirus tests and hundreds of genomes predicted that this variant could become predominant in the country in a month. At that time, the C.D.C. was struggling to sequence the new variants, which made it difficult to track them.But those efforts have substantially improved in recent weeks and will continue to grow, in large part because of $1.75 billion in funds for genomic sequencing in the stimulus package that Mr. Biden signed into law last month. By contrast, Britain, which has a more centralized health care system, began a highly promoted sequencing program last year that allowed it to track the spread of the B.1.1.7 variant.“We knew this was going to happen: This variant is a lot more transmissible, much more infectious than the parent strain, and that obviously has implications,” said Dr. Carlos del Rio, a professor of medicine and an infectious disease expert at Emory University. In addition to spreading more efficiently, he said, the B.1.1.7 strain appears to cause more severe disease, “so that gives you a double whammy.”Perhaps even more troubling is the emergence of the virulent P.1 variant in North America. First identified in Brazil, it has become the dominant variant in that country, helping to drive its hospitals to the breaking point. In Canada, the P.1 variant emerged as a cluster in Ontario, then shut down the Whistler ski resort in British Columbia. On Wednesday, the National Hockey League’s Vancouver Canucks said at least 21 players and four staff members had been infected with the coronavirus.“This is a stark reminder of how quickly the virus can spread and its serious impact, even among healthy, young athletes,” the team’s doctor, Jim Bovard, said in a statement.

The B.1.1.7 variant, first identified in Britain, is now the source of most new coronavirus infections in the United States, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.WASHINGTON — A highly infectious variant of the coronavirus that was first identified in Britain has become the most common source of new infections in the United States, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Wednesday. The worrisome development comes as officials and scientists warn of a possible fourth surge of infections.Federal health officials said in January that the B.1.1.7 variant, which began surging in Britain in December and has since slammed Europe, could become the dominant source of coronavirus infections in the United States, leading to a huge increase in cases and deaths.At that point, new cases, hospitalizations and deaths were at an all-time high. From that peak, the numbers all declined until late February, according to a New York Times database. After several weeks at a plateau, new cases and hospitalizations are increasing again. The average number of new cases in the country has reached more than 62,000 a day as of Tuesday, concentrated mostly in metro areas in Michigan as well as in the New York City region. That is an increase of 19 percent compared with the figure two weeks ago.Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the C.D.C. director, who warned last week that she felt a recurring sense of “impending doom,” said on Wednesday that 52 of the agency’s 64 jurisdictions — which include states, some major cities and territories — are now reporting cases of these so-called “variants of concern,” including B.1.1.7.The number of deaths, however, continue to decline — potentially a sign that mass vaccinations are beginning to protect older Americans and other highly vulnerable populations.“These trends are pointing to two clear truths,” Dr. Walensky said. “One, the virus still has hold on us, infecting people and putting them in harm’s way, and we need to remain vigilant. And two, we need to continue to accelerate our vaccination efforts and to take the individual responsibility to get vaccinated when we can.”B.1.1.7, the first variant to come to widespread attention, is about 60 percent more contagious and 67 percent more deadly than the original form of the coronavirus, according to the most recent estimates. The C.D.C. has also been tracking the spread of other variants, such as B.1.351, first found in South Africa, and P.1, which was first identified in Brazil.The percentage of cases caused by variants is clearly increasing. Helix, a lab testing company, has tracked the relentless increase of B.1.1.7 since the beginning of the year. As of April 3, it estimated that the variant made up 58.9 percent of all new tests.That variant has been found to be most prevalent in Michigan, Florida, Colorado, California, Minnesota and Massachusetts, according to the C.D.C. Until recently, the variant’s rise was somewhat camouflaged by falling infection rates over all, leading some political leaders to relax restrictions on indoor dining, social distancing and other measures.As cases fell, restive Americans headed back to school and work, against the warnings of some scientists.Federal health officials are tracking reports of increasing cases associated with day care centers and youth sports, and hospitals are seeing more younger adults — people in their 30s and 40s who are admitted with “severe disease,” Dr. Walensky said.It is difficult for scientists to say exactly how much of the current patterns of infection are because of the growing frequency of B.1.1.7.“It’s muddled by the reopening that’s going on and changes in behavior,” said Dr. Adam Lauring, a virologist at the University of Michigan.But he noted that people were becoming less cautious at a time when they should be raising their guard against a more contagious variant. “It’s worrisome,” he said.At the same time, the United States is currently vaccinating an average of about three million people a day, and states have rushed to make all adults eligible. The C.D.C. reported on Tuesday that about 108.3 million people had received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, including about 63 million people who have been fully vaccinated. New Mexico, South Dakota, Rhode Island and Alaska are leading the states, with about 25 percent of their total populations fully vaccinated.Scientists hope that vaccination will blunt any potential fourth surge.On Tuesday, President Biden moved up his vaccination timetable by two weeks, calling states to make every American adult eligible by April 19. Nearly all states have already met or expect to beat this goal after he initially asked that they do so by May 1.The B.1.1.7 variant first arrived in the United States last year. In February, a study that analyzed half a million coronavirus tests and hundreds of genomes predicted that this variant could become predominant in the country in a month. At that time, the C.D.C. was struggling to sequence the new variants, which made it difficult to track them.But those efforts have substantially improved in recent weeks and will continue to grow, in large part because of $1.75 billion in funds for genomic sequencing in the stimulus package that Mr. Biden signed into law last month. By contrast, Britain, which has a more centralized health care system, began a highly promoted sequencing program last year that allowed it to track the spread of the B.1.1.7 variant.“We knew this was going to happen: This variant is a lot more transmissible, much more infectious than the parent strain, and that obviously has implications,” said Dr. Carlos del Rio, a professor of medicine and an infectious disease expert at Emory University. In addition to spreading more efficiently, he said, the B.1.1.7 strain appears to cause more severe disease, “so that gives you a double whammy.”Perhaps even more troubling is the emergence of the virulent P.1 variant in North America. First identified in Brazil, it has become the dominant variant in that country, helping to drive its hospitals to the breaking point. In Canada, the P.1 variant emerged as a cluster in Ontario, then shut down the Whistler ski resort in British Columbia. On Wednesday, the National Hockey League’s Vancouver Canucks said at least 21 players and four staff members had been infected with the coronavirus.“This is a stark reminder of how quickly the virus can spread and its serious impact, even among healthy, young athletes,” the team’s doctor, Jim Bovard, said in a statement.

Eight months after mild COVID-19, one in ten people still has at least one moderate to severe symptom that is perceived as having a negative impact on their work, social or home life. The most common long-term symptoms are a loss of smell and taste and fatigue. This is according to a study published in the journal JAMA, conducted by researchers at Danderyd Hospital and Karolinska Institutet in Sweden.
Since spring 2020, researchers at Danderyd Hospital and Karolinska Institutet have conducted the so-called COMMUNITY study, with the main purpose of examining immunity after COVID-19. In the first phase of the study in spring 2020, blood samples were collected from 2,149 employees at Danderyd Hospital, of whom about 19 percent had antibodies against SARS-CoV-2. Blood samples have since then been collected every four months, and study participants have responded to questionnaires regarding long-term symptoms and their impact on the quality of life.
In the third follow-up in January 2021, the research team examined self-reported presence of long-term symptoms and their impact on work, social and home life for participants who had had mild COVID-19 at least eight months earlier. This group consisted of 323 healthcare workers (83 percent women, median age 43 years) and was compared with 1,072 healthcare workers (86 percent women, median age 47 years) who did not have COVID-19 throughout the study period.
The results show that 26 percent of those who had COVID-19 previously, compared to 9 percent in the control group, had at least one moderate to severe symptom that lasted more than two months and that 11 percent, compared to 2 percent in the control group, had a minimum of one symptom with negative impact on work, social or home life that lasted at least eight months. The most common long-term symptoms were loss of smell and taste, fatigue, and respiratory problems.
“We investigated the presence of long-term symptoms after mild COVID-19 in a relatively young and healthy group of working individuals, and we found that the predominant long-term symptoms are loss of smell and taste. Fatigue and respiratory problems are also more common among participants who have had COVID-19 but do not occur to the same extent,” says Charlotte Thålin, specialist physician, Ph.D. and lead researcher for the COMMUNITY study at Danderyd Hospital and Karolinska Institutet. “However, we do not see an increased prevalence of cognitive symptoms such as brain fatigue, memory and concentration problems or physical disorders such as muscle and joint pain, heart palpitations or long-term fever.”
“Despite the fact that the study participants had a mild COVID-19 infection, a relatively large proportion report long-term symptoms with an impact on quality of life. In light of this, we believe that young and healthy individuals, as well as other groups in society, should have great respect for the virus that seems to be able to significantly impair quality of life, even for a long time after the infection,” says Sebastian Havervall, deputy chief physician at Danderyd Hospital and PhD student in the project at Karolinska Institutet.
The COMMUNITY study will now continue, with the next follow-up taking place in May when a large proportion of study participants are expected to be vaccinated. In addition to monitoring immunity and the occurrence of re-infection, several projects regarding post- COVID are planned.
“We will, among other things, be studying COVID-19-associated loss of smell and taste more closely, and investigate whether the immune system, including autoimmunity, plays a role in post-COVID,” says Charlotte Thålin.
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Materials provided by Karolinska Institutet. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Sutures are used to close wounds and speed up the natural healing process, but they can also complicate matters by causing damage to soft tissues with their stiff fibers. To remedy the problem, researchers from Montreal have developed innovative tough gel sheathed (TGS) sutures inspired by the human tendon.
These next-generation sutures contain a slippery, yet tough gel envelop, imitating the structure of soft connective tissues. In putting the TGS sutures to the test, the researchers found that the nearly frictionless gel surface mitigated the damage typically caused by traditional sutures.
Conventional sutures have been around for centuries and are used to hold wounds together until the healing process is complete. But they are far from ideal for tissue repair. The rough fibers can slice and damage already fragile tissues, leading to discomfort and post-surgery complications.
Part of the problem lies in the mismatch between our soft tissues and the rigid sutures that rub against contacting tissue, say the researchers from McGill University and the INRS Énergie Matériaux Télécommunications Research Centre.
Inspired by the tendon
To tackle the problem, the team developed a new technology that mimics the mechanics of tendons. “Our design is inspired by the human body, the endotenon sheath, which is both tough and strong due to its double-network structure. It binds collagen fibers together while its elastin network strengthens it,” says lead author Zhenwei Ma, a PhD student under the supervision of Assistant Professor Jianyu Li at McGill University.
The endotenon sheath not only forms a slippery surface to reduce friction with surrounding tissues in joints, but it also delivers necessary materials for tissue repair in a tendon injury. In the same way, TGS sutures can be engineered to provide personalized medicine based on a patient’s needs, say the researchers.
Personalized wound treatment
“This technology provides a versatile tool for advanced wound management. We believe it could be used to deliver drugs, prevent infections, or even monitor wounds with near-infrared imaging,” says Li of the Department of Mechanical Engineering.
“The ability to monitor wounds locally and adjust the treatment strategy for better healing is an exciting direction to explore,” says Li, who is also a Canada Research Chair in Biomaterials and Musculoskeletal Health.
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Materials provided by McGill University. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.