VSS Scientific Updates During Pandemic Times #30
1. WHO Declares Monkeypox Outbreak a Global Health Emergency
“The rare designation means the WHO now views the outbreak as a significant enough threat to global health that a coordinated international response is needed to prevent the virus from spreading further and potentially escalating into a pandemic.”
2. WHO: COVID Triples Across Europe, Hospitalizations Double
“In a statement on Tuesday, WHO’s Europe director, Dr. Hans Kluge, described COVID-19 as “a nasty and potentially deadly illness” that people should not underestimate. He said super-infectious relatives of the omicron variant were driving new waves of disease across the continent and that repeat infections could potentially lead to long COVID.”
3. Protection of SARS-CoV-2 Natural Infection Against Reinfection with the Omicron BA.4 or BA.5 Subvariants
“Effectiveness of a previous pre-Omicron infection against symptomatic BA.4/BA.5 reinfection was 15.1% (95% CI: -47.1-50.9%), and against any BA.4/BA.5 reinfection irrespective of symptoms was 28.3% (95% CI: 11.4-41.9%). Effectiveness of a previous Omicron infection against symptomatic BA.4/BA.5 reinfection was 76.1%(95% CI: 54.9-87.3%), and against any BA.4/BA.5 reinfection was 79.7% (95% CI:74.3-83.9%).”
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.07.11.22277448v1
4. Bacterial and Fungal Isolation from Face Masks Under the COVID-19 Pandemic
“A longer mask usage significantly increased the fungal colony numbers but not the bacterial colony numbers. Although most identified microbes were non-pathogenic in humans; Staphylococcus epidermidis, Staphylococcus aureus, and Cladosporium, we found several pathogenic microbes; Bacillus cereus, Staphylococcus saprophyticus, Aspergillus, and Microsporum.”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-15409-x
5. Neutralization Escape bySARS-CoV-2 Omicron Subvariants BA.2.12.1, BA.4, and BA.5
“These data show that the BA.2.12.1, BA.4, and BA.5 subvariants substantially escape neutralizing antibodies induced by both vaccination and infection. Moreover, neutralizing antibody titers against the BA.4 or BA.5 subvariant and (to a lesser extent) against the BA.2.12.1 subvariant were lower than titers against the BA.1 and BA.2 subvariants, which suggests that the SARS-CoV-2 omicronvariant has continued to evolve with increasing neutralization escape.”
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2206576
6. Avian Flu Continues to Wreak Devastation on Seabirds
“Dozens of coastal sites in the UK closed to the public as H5N1 continues to sweep through wild bird populations across the world.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jul/20/avian-flu-h5n1-wreaks-devastation-seabirds-aoe
7. New York County Confirms Case of Polio
"This is indicative of a transmission chain from an individual who received the oral poliovaccine (OPV), which is no longer authorized or administered in the U.S., where only the inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) has been given since 2000," the department wrote. "This suggests that the virus may have originated in a location outside of the U.S. where OPV is administered, since revertant strains cannot emerge from inactivated vaccines."
https://www.foxnews.com/health/new-york-county-confirms-case-polio
Concerning masks…
It had been over two years since I went in to get a pedicure and every worker was still completely masked up and I have to be honest with you, their skin looked ashen gray to me and I have to assume that wearing a dirty mask eight hours a day cannot be good for your health! Just stupid on every level…
Give control of the point 1 (money-money pox) to the same guys that have achieved the point 2 (covid). Excellent idea.