In the week ending 18th October, 241 people in England and Wales had COVID listed as their cause of death. This is the highest since February, and reflective of the recent wave of infection. 1,447 people had pneumonia or influenza listed as cause of death.
Overall deaths were still down on the expected number by a massive 10.8%.
The better news is that based on todays figures, hospitalisations (England data) have peaked and are decreasing.
XEC COVID variant looks to be making itself known. By today's report it accounts for around 13% of UK infections, and some are attributing it to the recent rise in cases and subsequent hospitalisations. Around the world it appears to account for about 15% of cases. Still no signs it's actually more severe, although it's early days and solid data is hard to come by. There are some wordnof mouth reports that patients are more tired, and tired for longer, and that people who are going to be very ill deteriorate more quickly. What we do know is it's more easily spread, and will enjoy the fact we are moving inside for Winter. Remember to ventilate indoor spaces often.
There is an opinion piece in The Guardian this week from Professor Devi Sridhar, chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, regarding eligibility for free vaccinations. While the USA, Canada, France and Australia are offering free boosters to anyone over the next few months, the UK has strict criteria and most of us aren't eligible. The NHS pay around £25 per jab, but to buy one privately we'd have to pay around £100. It leaves the UK open to more serious illness, more Long COVID, and more people unable to work or perform caring roles - often for many, many months. Professor Sridhar believes the JCVI (they decide who gets a jab) are not taking Long COVID properly into account when they decide who it is financially astute to vaccinate.
The UK Government have announced the details of the Data (Use and Access) Bill. This will standardise how patients’ data is put into computers and make it more easily transferable across the NHS and adult social care. Currently around 140,000 hours of NHS staff time is spent requesting and searching for information, and then adding it to records, when it was already entered into different records held with a GP, hospital or other agency.
It is insane that GPs and hospitals etc. can't see everything across the NHS already, and causes repeat testing, incorrect medications and all kinds of avoidable errors. This will save time, frustration, stress and pain, as well as cash, and potentially lives.
This week the COVID inquiry returned from a break, and heard from patients, relatives and NHS staff.
- Deaf people struggled very much with the move to telephone and webcam appointments, instead having to rely on email to get their symptoms over to doctors. This to and fro was lengthy and very demoralising for all involved. There was also a lack of interpreter availability inside hospitals, causing real problems for families of hospitalised patients.
- Long COVID patients were often dismissed or treated for just about anything other than Long COVID. Some were told by healthcare professionals that Long COVID didn't exist.
- Symptoms of Long COVID in older people are often dismissed as aging.
- The lack of data and reporting of infections in and between healthcare workers "beggars belief".
- Doctors felt gaslit. They received mixed communication and advice, weren't given the PPE and conditions they really needed, and did not feel protected by the Health & Safety Executive.
- The chair of the British Medical Association, Dr Phil Banfield, gave evidence stating that healthcare workers were 6 times as likely to catch COVID. Mental and physical health suffered greatly. At least 50 doctors have died, and hundreds now have Long COVID.
“If it doesn’t spread from pigs to pigs and it just happened on that one farm, it’s not a big deal. If it starts to spread from pigs to pigs, then it’s much more of a problem.”
Florian Krammer, flu virologist at Mount Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine in New York, speaking to Stat News
It's happened. A pig in Oregon has now tested positive for H5N1 Avian Flu. Luckily for all of us except the farmer, this backyard farm only had 5 pigs alongside infected poultry. All have been euthanised. 2 of the other pigs tested negative, 2 as yet unknown.
Pigs are so close to humans that if they begin to pass Avian Flu amongst themselves, it's likely the mutations that would have occurred would mean the strain of bird flu could pass human to human. Pigs can catch human flu viruses, meaning a pig (the same as a human) could act as a mixing vessel for human and avian flu - this would lead to a brand new flu which could be passed pig to pig, and human to human. As yet, we still have no reason to suspect this has occurred, and if everyone keeps on top of this, no reason to fear it will occur...
Talking of which... Using their new test (which didn’t exist before this case), the CDC have found no traces of H5N1 infection past or present in 5 healthworkers who became ill after contact with the random Missouri man who caught H5N1 bird flu. Yeeeay! One of his household contacts does appear to have been exposed, however this also doesn’t give any proof of human to human infection, as we have no idea where they caught it. They had symptoms at the same time, so the housemate could simply have been exposed to the same source, and we still don't know what that was. It's highly likely we will never know.
Latest figures, (after really excellent surveillance and mass random testing by California) are 403 dairy herds infected across 14 US states. 39 people have now tested positive.
The US CDC still assess risk to anyone not exposed to infected birds or animals as low.
Phew!! (mostly. Rolling that dice again..).
A new study on Long COVID from China has looked at a massive 68,200 people. They are particularly worried about Long COVID and have made strong attempts to avoid it, rather than pretending it won't exist like most of the world.
3 months after infection 30% of participants reported symptoms, reducing to 10% at 12 months.
Symptoms were split into 24 types, with the most common being fatigue (30.53% of people reporting symptoms), memory decline (27.93%), decreased exercise ability (18.29%), and brain fog (16.87%).
Participants had increased chance of symptoms if they were female, lived in Northern China (where most severe waves occurred in Winter), had underlying diseases, regular alcohol consumption, smoked, and with the the severity of acute infection.
"Reinfection was associated with milder symptoms but led to a higher incidence and severity of long COVID."
Vaccination, particularly multiple boosters, significantly reduced long-term symptoms by 30%–70%.
COVID-19 participants also self-reported more bacterial, influenza and mycoplasma infections, and 8%–10% of patients felt SARS-CoV-2-induced chronic diseases.
Nothing particularly new there, it backs up most of what we've already seen - get your booster jabs if you are entitled.
The Marburg outbreak in Rwanda had 5 days with no new cases, but sadly it was only 5 days, and the outbreak continues, although at a much slower trickle.
In a news briefing from WHO, we were told that 'Patient Zero' - the index (or first) patient was a 27-year old man who "has been exposed in a particular area, in a cave with specific species of bat that has been sequenced before in the region".
Genomic sequencing (family tree tracing) confirms that all of the human cases come from the same ancestor. They can see some mutations over the course of the outbreak, but none they believe have made it more dangerous or catchy, and it's very closely related to the 2014 outbreak, so Marburg really doesn't change very quickly. This is all good news - and makes it more likely the vaccine currently on an emergency trial will do the job effectively (and work for longer in the future without needing tweaking).
Rwanda has distributed most of the 1,700 doses of Sabin's experimental Marburg vaccine, mainly to frontline healthcare workers, so Sabin are sending another 1,000 doses. They'll be used to vaccinate more at-risk people, including mineworkers.
Half of the vaccines will be distributed immediately, and half in 21 days. Marburg virus incubates for 2-21 days before the patient develops symptoms.
As of Wednesday 66 positive infections had been detected from 5,913 tests, and 15 of those people have died. 49 people have recovered. This is an excellent recovery rate for Marburg, which has many similarities to Ebola, and this is likely due to quick diagnosis, and because most of those infected are fit and healthy younger adults.
On 15th October another trial treatment began in Rwanda, using Remdesivir—a drug against viruses already used to treat COVID-19, and MBP091—a special antibody designed to fight Marburg virus.
When you have such a high fatality rate, it is well worth throwing everything at it.
The UK has announced a package of measures to help tackle the outbreaks of Mpox and Marburg in central Africa, including up to £9m in support and the deployment of UK-based experts to DRC (Mpox), and £1.9m in support in Rwanda (Marburg), where UK experts in viral haemorrhagic fevers and researchers leading therapeutic trials have already arrived in the capital Kigali in coordination with the WHO.
Surveillance in the USA has seen a large rise in pneumonia during 2024, specifically Mycoplasma Pneumoniae. The bacteria is spread by inhaling droplets produced when an infected person coughs or sneezes, and outbreaks occur mostly in crowded environments like schools, college residence halls and nursing homes.
"From March 31 through Oct. 5, the percentage of cases grew from 1% to 7.2% among children ages 2-4 years and from 3.6% to 7.4% among children ages 5-17 years. Among all ages, cases increased from 0.5% to 2.1%."
Infections peaked in August thankfully, but yet again, if you or your children are ill, stay at home!
The number of cases of Syphilis in England has risen from 3,000 in 2012 to over 10,000 in 2023. You can order a home testing kit nowadays, and early on it is simple to treat with antibiotics. If left untreated, even if spots and sores go away, you can still carry the disease and risk brain damage. It can also be very serious for unborn babies.
"The first Phase 3 randomised clinical trial of an investigational mRNA norovirus vaccine will open across the UK within the next two weeks.
Sponsored by Moderna, the trial evaluates the efficacy and safety of a norovirus vaccine called mRNA-1403. There are currently no licensed norovirus vaccines in use anywhere in the world.
The Phase 3 trial will take place at 39 sites across the country. This includes 27 NHS primary and secondary care sites. It aims to recruit 2,500 participants in the UK between late October and early 2025."
Fingers crossed. MRNA technology received a massive boost because of the money pumped into it due to COVID, and it really does open doors to all kinds of new treatments and vaccines. It's great to see researchers making the most of that.
I've shared a fantastic graph above from actuary (numbers expert) Paul Mainwood's Substack blog, detailing cause of death over time in Scotland.
It clearly shows COVID, and also that despite the concerns of some of the more fearful out there: No. Vaccinations for COVID don't cause turbo-Cancer or any other leap in random deaths. Deaths from Cancer are on a slowly decreasing slope, and have continued to decline over the last 4 years. (Source links, as always, below.)
It's taken almost 100 years of hard work, but Egypt has been certified malaria-free by the World Health Organisation. This means for 3 years running they have "proven, beyond reasonable doubt, that the chain of indigenous malaria transmission by Anopheles mosquitoes has been interrupted nationwide". Basically, odd cases will still happen, but no outbreaks and no swarms of mosquitoes living in the country.
Huge congratulations to all involved.
The UK Health Security Agency is again warning of a "tripledemic" this Winter - flu, COVID and RSV - with an added bonus item - Norovirus.
What happens in Australia is usually a sign of things to come, and they had a particularly bad tripledemic Winter while we were having Summer. When you add on the fact that confirmed cases of Norovirus (sickness bug) across the UK have risen to more than double the usual average, it's looking pretty grim at present.
You know the score, STAY AT HOME IF YOU ARE ILL. Don't visit your Gran if you have the trots or are coughing and spluttering, don't send poorly kids to school, and if possible work from home when you are pouring sweat despite stripping down to your vest and pants. Sharing is caring, but no-one wants your bugs.
My thoughts this week are very much with everyone affected by floods. For every degree rise in average temperature, an extra 7% water evaporates and joins the clouds in the sky, where it will inevitably fall as rain. The Earth is currently just below 1.5 degrees hotter than where we were during pre-industrial 1850-1900. Parts of America and Australia are forecast insanely high temperatures over the coming days. Humans caused a lot of this, and we may be too late to simply fix it, but we will have to very quickly learn how to minimise the effects and look after those affected. We're all people.
It is the weekend, so don't forget to do something nice for yourself, and it should probably involve time away from the news. Apparently there's a hotly contested election coming up which is likely affect all of us in some way, and the pressure is showing across news outlets and social media. Hopefully I won't ever have to warn people against disinfecting their insides again, but as we know, COVID can affect the parts of the brain controlling common sense...
Back in 2 weeks, until then...
Ventilate Indoor Spaces Regularly, Go To Bed If You Are Ill, Save The NHS...
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Sources 1st November
Sources:
Images
Who signs of stroke image
UK NHS stroke image
https://x.com/DHSCgovuk/status/1851187271057236104?t=Lm62pp4Us1AylyAScCz13w&s=19
Breastfeeding image WHO
Covid and cancer Paul Mainwood - includes image
Marburg image - https://x.com/RwandaHealth/status/1851707426161971470?t=d0adbmaqL5-RSXTKHM6HUQ&s=19
Image UK help Mpox and Marburg
https://x.com/UKHSA/status/1846509879504011380?t=JZhwL-Re0metlG1Z9E98Lw&s=19
Deaths data UK
https://x.com/ONS/status/1851557480121123062?t=HtPsLRqexza29pG-TQ0JBg&s=19
Cases
The better news is that based on todays figures, cases have peaked and are decreasing.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/flu-and-covid-19-surveillance-report-published
XEC COVID
XEC Variant
https://x.com/Dave_it_up/status/1847170249809858841?t=hxdK2muQ9h1UzA2ilRn1Jw&s=09
Covid boosters
Government data bill
https://x.com/SciTechgovuk/status/1849413346149200019?t=toeqxVzg4e7O3tu897dP3A&s=09
Uk COVID Inquiry - short video clips - all available in full on You Tube
https://x.com/LongCOVIDPhysio/status/1850880609146569014?t=0mOYMIGx9hVfXCpAWDedkg&s=19
https://x.com/LongCOVIDPhysio/status/1850938710940139836?t=Woxwjp3q8tUhHIyYVIIYxw&s=09
https://x.com/LongCOVIDPhysio/status/1850955369717109216?t=ARWPohzKYgc_mg61f3R5ig&s=19
https://x.com/LongCOVIDPhysio/status/1850879902901252152?t=gjgwR5SomIU6CNkZ50Nx-g&s=19
https://x.com/LongCOVIDPhysio/status/1850946921055318383?t=pC1W1h_WfmZrkCggOhE3OQ&s=19
https://x.com/LongCOVIDPhysio/status/1850946921055318383?t=4zcSz_PCpbxUB8vYqDA8Sg&s=19
https://x.com/LongCOVIDPhysio/status/1850947020879704248?t=TJwtx7Wwe4FsU7jh2550ZQ&s=19
https://x.com/LongCOVIDPhysio/status/1850879753936371964?t=35ZDvThSH41guv_4jUFRBg&s=19
Bird flu in pig for first time
Random missouri man bird flu
https://www.cdc.gov/bird-flu/situation-summary/index.html
Long COVID China large studies
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanwpc/article/PIIS2666-6065(24)00217-7/fulltext?s=09
Marburg
https://x.com/RwandaHealth/status/1851707426161971470?t=d0adbmaqL5-RSXTKHM6HUQ&s=19
https://x.com/HelenBranswell/status/1852039899081273757?t=IcKazfb9zehmElnq-JMJ_A&s=09
https://x.com/kakape/status/1847982508987576566?t=CZIyLaXNP_4kuJqPXhGQ1Q&s=09
https://x.com/YvanButera/status/1847988307994513897?t=yewqiBrO0cCwRfJ0jbDypQ&s=09
Support marburg and mpox
Marburg Remdesivir trial
https://x.com/WHO/status/1846271556810662121?t=pZdKGQ6oRZqOYEE1LgAjPQ&s=09
Mycoplasma pneumoniae USA
https://x.com/AAPNews/status/1848754359468724456?t=EXt1vk2nC-prUjc3NzdPLQ&s=09
UKs first MRNA Norovirus trial
https://x.com/NIHRresearch/status/1849002717936566502?t=kq-cNEQwkdxXX7q0Jq-ylA&s=09
Syphillis
Egypt certified malaria free - 3 years clear
https://www.who.int/news/item/20-10-2024-egypt-is-certified-malaria-free-by-who?s=09
norovirus - plus tripledemic
https://x.com/JohnWest_JAWS/status/1848275454144229569?t=vMikKOCg-6SDL3O8dTg8gA&s=19
https://x.com/chrischirp/status/1849467297133412780?t=s0XOf5y_kn21F4ewhgO4jw&s=09
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