In Pictures: 1967 Sunbeam Tiger Mk 1A

Source : Bring A Trailer

U.S. Provincetown COVID Outbreak Shows 74% Cases Are Among Fully Vaccinated

Ernie Mundell and Robin Foster wrote . . . . . . . . .

The Cape Cod resort town of Provincetown draws big crowds every summer. In July, those largely vaccinated crowds — packed into bars, restaurants and private homes — were the genesis of an outbreak of the Delta variant that could be a sobering model for the nation.

New data on the outbreak, released Friday, shows there were a known total of 469 COVID-19 cases “associated with multiple summer events” among Provincetown revelers. Three-quarters (74%) of those cases occurred among people who’d gotten their COVID vaccinations an average of almost three months before.

In 89% of those cases, the highly contagious Delta variant was implicated, concluded a team led by Dr. Catherine Brown of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.

There was some good news, however: While many of the 346 cases among vaccinated individuals might have made them feel miserable for a time — coughs, headache, sore throat, aches and fever being the major symptoms — there were only four cases (1.2%) in this group that required hospital care.

In all four of those hospitalized cases, patients had underlying medical conditions that upped their odds for severe COVID-19, the researchers found.

A fifth case requiring hospitalization occurred in an unvaccinated patient, Brown’s team noted, and that case also involved an underlying medical condition.

There were no deaths linked to the outbreak.

The researchers noted that it’s not surprising that three-quarters of cases in the Provincetown outbreak occurred among the vaccinated, because a full 69% of the town’s vaccine-eligible residents have gotten their shots — a number that’s much higher than the national average.

Equal viral loads

However, given the increased transmissibility of the Delta variant, Brown’s team believe their findings “suggest that even jurisdictions with substantial or high COVID-19 transmission might consider expanding prevention strategies.”

Those strategies should include “masking in indoor settings regardless of vaccination status, given the potential risk of infection during attendance at large public gatherings,” they said.

The Provincetown findings also confirm that, unlike its predecessor, the Delta variant appears to produce high viral loads in people’s systems, upping transmission risks.

“Specimens from 127 vaccinated persons with breakthrough cases were similar to those from 84 persons who were unvaccinated,” the research team noted.

That finding helped drive the CDC’s decision this week to reverse course on its masking advisory. The agency now recommends that even the vaccinated once again don masks in many indoor settings, to lessen the odds they might transmit SARS-CoV-2 to others.

It also adds new energy to federal, state and local efforts to get more Americans vaccinated.

However, one leading infectious disease expert stressed that the one thing the Provincetown report should not do is lessen the average American’s faith in the power of vaccines to protect against what’s most important: Severe illness.

“The new data should not alarm anyone, but reinforce that vaccinations are the solution to the pandemic,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in Baltimore.

A return to masking indoors

“That severe breakthrough infections were rare is testament to the vaccines, which limit the harm an infection can do in a fully vaccinated person,” he said. “It’s also important to remember the breakthroughs that occurred in this situation are likely not completely applicable to the everyday life of the vaccinated, as the intensity and nature of exposure was in the context of a large public gathering.”

Another expert said the implications of the findings are clear.

“At this time, even fully vaccinated people need to consider large gatherings as a potential place to contract the virus,” said Dr. Teresa Murray Amato, chair of emergency medicine at Long Island Jewish Forest Hills, in Queens, N.Y. “This also means that for Americans that are not yet vaccinated,” they should strongly consider doing so.

Adding to the Provincetown findings, a new internal federal government document also finds the Delta variant can cause more severe illness than earlier coronavirus variants, especially among the unvaccinated, and spreads as easily as chickenpox.

In laying out the evidence that this variant looks like the most dangerous one yet, the document urges health officials to “acknowledge the war has changed,” the Washington Post reported.

The document mirrors the data in the Provincetown study, finding that vaccinated people infected with Delta have viral loads similar to those who are unvaccinated and infected with the variant, the Post reported.

CDC scientists were so alarmed that the agency changed masking guidance for vaccinated people earlier this week, even before making the new data public, the newspaper said.

CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said in a statement on Friday that the Provincetown investigation “is one of many CDC has been involved in across the country and data from those investigations will be rapidly shared with the public when available.”

The Provincetown study was published in the CDC journal Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Source: HealthDay

Infographic: The Biggest Ponzi Schemes in Modern History

See large image . . . . . .

Source : Visual Capitalist

Internal CDC Document Warns Delta Infections Likely More Severe

Yasmeen Abutaleb, Carolyn Y. Johnson and Joel Achenbach wrote . . . . . . . . .

The delta variant of the coronavirus appears to cause more severe illness than earlier variants and spreads as easily as chickenpox, according to an internal federal health document that argues officials must “acknowledge the war has changed.”

The document is an internal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention slide presentation, shared within the CDC and obtained by The Washington Post. It captures the struggle of the nation’s top public health agency to persuade the public to embrace vaccination and prevention measures, including mask-wearing, as cases surge across the United States and new research suggests vaccinated people can spread the virus.

The document strikes an urgent note, revealing the agency knows it must revamp its public messaging to emphasize vaccination as the best defense against a variant so contagious that it acts almost like a different novel virus, leaping from target to target more swiftly than Ebola or the common cold.

It cites a combination of recently obtained, still-unpublished data from outbreak investigations and outside studies showing that vaccinated individuals infected with delta may be able to transmit the virus as easily as those who are unvaccinated. Vaccinated people infected with delta have measurable viral loads similar to those who are unvaccinated and infected with the variant.

“I finished reading it significantly more concerned than when I began,” Robert Wachter, chairman of the Department of Medicine at the University of California at San Francisco, wrote in an email.

CDC scientists were so alarmed by the new research that the agency earlier this week significantly changed guidance for vaccinated people even before making new data public.

The data and studies cited in the document played a key role in revamped recommendations that call for everyone — vaccinated or not — to wear masks indoors in public settings in certain circumstances, a federal health official said. That official told The Post that the data will be published in full on Friday. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky privately briefed members of Congress on Thursday, drawing on much of the material in the document.

One of the slides states that there is a higher risk among older age groups for hospitalization and death relative to younger people, regardless of vaccination status. Another estimates that there are 35,000 symptomatic infections per week among 162 million vaccinated Americans.

The document outlines “communication challenges” fueled by cases in vaccinated people, including concerns from local health departments about whether coronavirus vaccines remain effective and a “public convinced vaccines no longer work/booster doses needed.”

The presentation highlights the daunting task the CDC faces. It must continue to emphasize the proven efficacy of the vaccines at preventing severe illness and death while acknowledging milder breakthrough infections may not be so rare after all, and that vaccinated individuals are transmitting the virus. The agency must move the goal posts of success in full public view.

The CDC declined to comment.

“Although it’s rare, we believe that at an individual level, vaccinated people may spread the virus, which is why we updated our recommendation,” according to the federal health official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. “Waiting even days to publish the data could result in needless suffering and as public health professionals we cannot accept that.”

The presentation came two days after Walensky announced the reversal in guidance on masking among people who are vaccinated. On May 13, people were told they no longer needed to wear masks indoors or outdoors if they had been vaccinated. The new guidance reflects a strategic retreat in the face of the delta variant. Even people who are vaccinated should wear masks indoors in communities with substantial viral spread or when in the presence of people who are particularly vulnerable to infection and illness, the CDC said.

The document presents new science but also suggests a new strategy is needed on communication, noting that public trust in vaccines may be undermined when people experience or hear about breakthrough cases, especially after public health officials have described them as rare.

Matthew Seeger, a risk communication expert at Wayne State University in Detroit, said a lack of communication about breakthrough infections has proved problematic. Because public health officials had emphasized the great efficacy of the vaccines, the realization that they aren’t perfect may feel like a betrayal.

“We’ve done a great job of telling the public these are miracle vaccines,” Seeger said. “We have probably fallen a little into the trap of over-reassurance, which is one of the challenges of any crisis communication circumstance.”

The CDC’s revised mask guidance stops short of what the internal document calls for. “Given higher transmissibility and current vaccine coverage, universal masking is essential to reduce transmission of the Delta variant,” it states.

The document makes clear that vaccination provides substantial protection against the virus. But it also states that the CDC must “improve communications around individual risk among [the] vaccinated” because that risk depends on a host of factors, including age and whether someone has a compromised immune system.

The document includes CDC data from studies showing that the vaccines are not as effective in immunocompromised patients and nursing home residents, raising the possibility that some at-risk individuals will need an additional vaccine dose.

The presentation includes a note that the findings and conclusions are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the CDC’s official position.

The internal document contains some of the scientific information that influenced the CDC to change its mask guidance. The agency faced criticism from outside experts this week when it changed the mask guidance without releasing the data, a move that violated scientific norms, said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

“You don’t, when you’re a public health official, want to be saying, ‘Trust us, we know, we can’t tell you how,’” Jamieson said. “The scientific norm suggests that when you make a statement based on science, you show the science. … And the second mistake is they do not appear to be candid about the extent to which breakthroughs are yielding hospitalizations.”

The breakthrough cases are to be expected, the CDC briefing states, and will probably rise as a proportion of all cases because there are so many more people vaccinated now. This echoes data seen from studies in other countries, including highly vaccinated Singapore, where 75 percent of new infections reportedly occur in people who are partially and fully vaccinated.

The CDC document cites public skepticism about vaccines as one of the challenges: “Public convinced vaccines no longer work,” one of the first slides in the presentation states.

Walter A. Orenstein, associate director of the Emory Vaccine Center, said he was struck by data showing that vaccinated people who became infected with delta shed just as much virus as those who were not vaccinated. The slide references an outbreak in Barnstable County, Mass., where vaccinated and unvaccinated people shed nearly identical amounts of virus.

“I think this is very important in changing things,” Orenstein said.

A person working in partnership with the CDC on investigations of the delta variant, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak, said the data came from a July 4 outbreak in Provincetown, Mass. Genetic analysis of the outbreak showed that people who were vaccinated were transmitting the virus to other vaccinated people. The person said the data was “deeply disconcerting” and a “canary in the coal mine” for scientists who had seen the data.

If the war has changed, as the CDC states, so has the calculus of success and failure. The extreme contagiousness of delta makes herd immunity a more challenging target, infectious-disease experts said.

“I think the central issue is that vaccinated people are probably involved to a substantial extent in the transmission of delta,” Jeffrey Shaman, a Columbia University epidemiologist, wrote in an email after reviewing the CDC slides. “In some sense, vaccination is now about personal protection — protecting oneself against severe disease. Herd immunity is not relevant as we are seeing plenty of evidence of repeat and breakthrough infections.”

The document underscores what scientists and experts have been saying for months: It is time to shift how people think about the pandemic.

Kathleen Neuzil, a vaccine expert at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, said getting more people vaccinated remains the priority, but the public may also have to change its relationship to a virus almost certain to be with humanity for the foreseeable future.

“We really need to shift toward a goal of preventing serious disease and disability and medical consequences, and not worry about every virus detected in somebody’s nose,” Neuzil said. “It’s hard to do, but I think we have to become comfortable with coronavirus not going away.”

Source : The Washington Post

Swimming Gives Your Brain a Boost – But Scientists Don’t Know Yet Why It’s Better than Other Aerobic Activities

Seena Mathew wrote . . . . . . . . .

It’s no secret that aerobic exercise can help stave off some of the ravages of aging. But a growing body of research suggests that swimming might provide a unique boost to brain health.

Regular swimming has been shown to improve memory, cognitive function, immune response and mood. Swimming may also help repair damage from stress and forge new neural connections in the brain.

But scientists are still trying to unravel how and why swimming, in particular, produces these brain-enhancing effects.

As a neurobiologist trained in brain physiology, a fitness enthusiast and a mom, I spend hours at the local pool during the summer. It’s not unusual to see children gleefully splashing and swimming while their parents sunbathe at a distance – and I’ve been one of those parents observing from the poolside plenty of times. But if more adults recognized the cognitive and mental health benefits of swimming, they might be more inclined to jump in the pool alongside their kids.

Until the 1960s, scientists believed that the number of neurons and synaptic connections in the human brain were finite and that, once damaged, these brain cells could not be replaced. But that idea was debunked as researchers began to see ample evidence for the birth of neurons, or neurogenesis, in adult brains of humans and other animals.

Now, there is clear evidence that aerobic exercise can contribute to neurogenesis and play a key role in helping to reverse or repair damage to neurons and their connections in both mammals and fish.

Research shows that one of the key ways these changes occur in response to exercise is through increased levels of a protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor. The neural plasticity, or ability of the brain to change, that this protein stimulates has been shown to boost cognitive function, including learning and memory.

Studies in people have found a strong relationship between concentrations of brain-derived neurotrophic factor circulating in the brain and an increase in the size of the hippocampus, the brain region responsible for learning and memory. Increased levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor have also been shown to sharpen cognitive performance and to help reduce anxiety and depression. In contrast, researchers have observed mood disorders in patients with lower concentrations of brain-derived neurotrophic factor.

Aerobic exercise also promotes the release of specific chemical messengers called neurotransmitters. One of these is serotonin, which – when present at increased levels – is known to reduce depression and anxiety and improve mood.

In studies in fish, scientists have observed changes in genes responsible for increasing brain-derived neurotrophic factor levels as well as enhanced development of the dendritic spines – protrusions on the dendrites, or elongated portions of nerve cells – after eight weeks of exercise compared with controls. This complements studies in mammals where brain-derived neurotrophic factor is known to increase neuronal spine density. These changes have been shown to contribute to improved memory, mood and enhanced cognition in mammals. The greater spine density helps neurons build new connections and send more signals to other nerve cells. With the repetition of signals, connections can become stronger.

But what’s special about swimming?

Researchers don’t yet know what swimming’s secret sauce might be. But they’re getting closer to understanding it.

Swimming has long been recognized for its cardiovascular benefits. Because swimming involves all of the major muscle groups, the heart has to work hard, which increases blood flow throughout the body. This leads to the creation of new blood vessels, a process called angiogenesis. The greater blood flow can also lead to a large release of endorphins – hormones that act as a natural pain reducer throughout the body. This surge brings about the sense of euphoria that often follows exercise.

Research in people suggest a clear cognitive benefit from swimming across all ages. For instance, in one study looking at the impact of swimming on mental acuity in the elderly, researchers concluded that swimmers had improved mental speed and attention compared with nonswimmers. However, this study is limited in its research design, since participants were not randomized and thus those who were swimmers prior to the study may have had an unfair edge.

Another study compared cognition between land-based athletes and swimmers in the young adult age range. While water immersion itself did not make a difference, the researchers found that 20 minutes of moderate-intensity breaststroke swimming improved cognitive function in both groups.

Kids get a boost from swimming too

The brain-enhancing benefits from swimming appear to also boost learning in children.

Another research group recently looked at the link between physical activity and how children learn new vocabulary words. Researchers taught children age 6-12 the names of unfamiliar objects. Then they tested their accuracy at recognizing those words after doing three activities: coloring (resting activity), swimming (aerobic activity) and a CrossFit-like exercise (anaerobic activity) for three minutes.

They found that children’s accuracy was much higher for words learned following swimming compared with coloring and CrossFit, which resulted in the same level of recall. This shows a clear cognitive benefit from swimming versus anaerobic exercise, though the study does not compare swimming with other aerobic exercises. These findings imply that swimming for even short periods of time is highly beneficial to young, developing brains.

The details of the time or laps required, the style of swim and what cognitive adaptations and pathways are activated by swimming are still being worked out. But neuroscientists are getting much closer to putting all the clues together.

For centuries, people have been in search of a fountain of youth. Swimming just might be the closest we can get.

Source: Conversation

Chuckles of the Day

---

---

---

---

Preachers

Three preachers were returning from a conference with their wives when their car was in a crash and they all departed from this earth.

St. Peter was at the pearly gates waiting for them.

The first pastor and his wife went up and St. Peter looked in the book. He shook his head and said. “I’m sorry brother. But all your life yo’ have been concentrated on money not on the Word. You hoarded money. You dreamed money. You were obsessed to the point that you married a women named Penny. Sorry, go away. We don’t need your kind here.”

The second pastor went up and St. Peter looked in the book. He shook his head and said, “I’m sorry brother. but all your life you have been concentrating on hard drink. You hoarded liquor. You dreamed liquor. you were obsessed to the point that you married a women named Brandy. Sorry, go away. We don’t need your kind here.”

At this point the third pastor looked at his wife and said, “come on Fanny, You and I may just as well get out of here.”

* * * * * * *

Heaven

It was getting a little crowded in Heaven, so G-d decided to change the admittance policy.

The new law was that, in order to get into Heaven, you had to have a really bad day the day you died. The policy would go into effect at noon the following day.

So the next day at 12:01 the first person came to the gates of Heaven.

The angel at the gate, remembering about the new law, promptly asked the man, “Before I can let you in, I need you to tell me about the day you died.”

“No problem,” said the man. “Well, for some time now, I’ve thought my wife was having an affair. I believed that each day on her lunch hour, she’d bring her lover home to our 25th floor apartment and have sex with him. So today I was going to come home too and catch them. Well, I got there and busted in and immediately began searching for this guy. My wife was half-naked and yelling at me as I searched the entire apartment. But, I couldn’t find him! Just as I was about to give up, I happened to glance out onto the balcony and noticed that there was a man hanging off the edge by his fingertips! The nerve of that guy to think he could hide from me! Well, I ran out there and promptly stomped on his fingers until he fell to the ground. But, wouldn’t you know it, he landed in some bushes that broke his fall, and he didn’t die.”

“This angered me even more, so in a rage I went back inside to get the first thing I could get my hands on to throw at him. And oddly enough, the first thing I could grab was the refrigerator. I unplugged it, push it out onto the balcony and heaved it over the side. It plummeted 25 stories and crushed him!”

“The excitement of the moment was so great that right after that I had a heart attack and died almost instantly.”

The angel sat back and thought for a moment. Technically, the guy DID have a bad day, and it WAS a crime of passion, so he announced, “OK, Sir. Welcome to the Kingdom of Heaven,” and let him in.

A few seconds later the next guy came up. “OK. Here’s the rule. Before I can let you in, I need to hear about the day you died.”

“Sure thing,” the man replied. “But you’re not gonna believe this. I was out on the balcony of 26th floor apartment doing my daily exercises when I got a little carried away and accidentally fell over the side! Luckily however, I was able to catch myself by my fingertips on the balcony directly beneath mine. When all of a sudden this crazy man comes running out of his apartment and starts cussing and stomping on my fingers! Well, of curse I fell. I hit some trees and bushes on the way down which broke my fall so I didn’t die right away. As I’m laying there face up on the ground, unable to move and in excruciating pain, I see the man push his refrigerator, of all things, over the ledge and it falls directly on top of me and kills me!”

The angel is quietly laughing to himself as the man finishes his story. “I could get used to this new policy,” he thinks to himself. “Very well,” the angel announces. “Welcome to the Kingdom of Heaven,” and he lets the man enter.

A few seconds later the third man in line comes up to the gate. “Tell me about the day you died,” said the angel.

“OK. Picture this,” says the man. “I’m naked inside the refrigerator…”

---

---

---

---

华为将与广汽埃安合作打造新一代智能数字汽车平台

　　在智能汽车领域，有一家企业多次声明不参与造车，但是没有一家造车企业能小瞧它，它坚持给造车企业赋能，并成功与多家车企合作开发车机系统，这家企业就是华为。近日，广汽集团宣布，旗下全资子公司广汽埃安新能源汽车有限公司将于华为合作。

　　7月9日，广汽集团发布公告称，同意全资子公司广汽埃安新能源汽车有限公司与华为（AH8车型）项目的实施。根据公司与华为技术有限公司签署的战略合作协议，双方将基于广汽GEP 3.0底盘平台、华为CCA（计算与通信架构）构建的新一代智能汽车数字平台，搭载华为全栈智能汽车解决方案，联合定义、共同开发，共同打造面向未来的一系列智能汽车。

　　据了解，这个项目为双方联合开发的首款中大型智能纯电SUV车型，项目总投资达7.88亿元人民币，并计划于2023年底量产，项目资金来源由广汽集团统筹。

　　此外，广汽集团还在当天发布了6月产销快报，6月汽车产量为16.36万辆，同比下降17.34%，上半年累计产量为100.14万辆，同比增长25.61%；6月汽车销量为16.6万辆，同比下降11.01%，上半年累计销量为102.65万辆，同比增长24.49%。

Source : Sina

Want to Avoid Sleep Apnea? Get Off the Sofa

Here’s yet another reason to limit screen time and get moving: Boosting your activity levels could reduce your risk of sleep apnea, according to a new study.

Compared to the most active people in the study, those who spent more than four hours a day sitting watching TV had a 78% higher risk of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), and those with sedentary jobs had a 49% higher risk.

And that added risk was not due to their weight.

“We saw a clear relationship between levels of physical activity, sedentary behavior and OSA risk. People who followed the current World Health Organization physical activity guidelines of getting at least 150 minutes of moderate activity per week, and who spent less than four hours per day sitting watching TV, had substantially lower OSA risk,” said study leader Tianyi Huang, an assistant professor and associate epidemiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, in Boston.

People with this disorder stop and start breathing many times during sleep. Common symptoms include snoring, disrupted sleep and excessive tiredness. Poorly managed sleep apnea can increase the risk of high blood pressure, stroke, heart attack, irregular heartbeat and type 2 diabetes.

After accounting for risk factors such as obesity, age, smoking and drinking, the researchers found that people whose activity levels were equivalent to three hours of running a week had a 54% lower risk of sleep apnea than those whose activity levels were equivalent to two hours a week of walking at an average pace.

The study included more than 138,000 U.S. women and men without a diagnosis of sleep apnea. They were followed for 10 to 18 years. Over that time, more than 8,700 were diagnosed with the condition.

So are desk jockeys doomed? Not necessarily.

The researchers said folks with sedentary jobs could lower their risk by getting more exercise in their leisure time. Also, those who can’t do much physical activity due to physical limitations could lower their risk of sleep apnea by standing or doing other gentle activities more often.

The study was published in the European Respiratory Journal.

“Importantly, we saw that any additional increase in physical activity, and/or a reduction in sedentary hours, could have benefits that reduce the risk of developing OSA,” Huang explained in a journal news release.

The difference in risk between sedentary work and time spent sitting watching TV could be explained by other behaviors related to those activities, the researchers suggested.

“For example, snacking and drinking sugary drinks is more likely to go along with watching TV compared with being sedentary at work or elsewhere, such as sitting during traveling. This could lead to additional weight gain, which we know to be a risk factor for OSA,” Huang noted.

It’s estimated that 1 billion adults worldwide, aged 30 to 69, have mild to severe sleep apnea.

Anita Simonds, president of the European Respiratory Society, was not involved with the study but commented on the report. She said, “It is encouraging that even a small increase in physical activity or reduction in sedentary hours could reap potential benefits. It is therefore an important message to get across to our patients and their families in primary care and respiratory clinics.”

Source: HealthDay

CDC: New Data Suggests Vaccinated People Could Transmit Delta Variant

Director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Dr. Rochelle Walensky expressed concern over new data that shows that vaccinated and unvaccinated people infected by the delta variant of the novel coronavirus carry viral loads that “are actually quite similar.”

“We are actively conducting outbreak investigations of what’s occurring in places that are having clusters… What we’ve learned in that context, is when we examine the rare breakthrough infections and we look at the amount of virus in those people, it’s pretty similar to the amount of virus in unvaccinated people,” Walensky said.

The news comes as the CDC announced new recommendations on Tuesday that vaccinated people return to wearing masks indoors in parts of the U.S. where the coronavirus is surging.

The new data suggests that vaccinated people “may be contagious and spread the virus to others,” Walensky said.

But Walensky noted that vaccinated people are still unlikely to become severely ill from COVID-19.

Walensky also said that most of the cases and hospitalizations related to COVID-19 are coming from people who are not yet vaccinated. She pleaded with Americans to get inoculated in hopes of not overwhelming the nation’s hospitals.

“Of the transmission that’s happening in country right now, a vast majority of transmission is occurring through unvaccinated people. But on the exception that might have a vaccination breakthrough, (the CDC) thought it was important for people to know they could pass the disease onto someone else,” Walensky said.

Walensky said the CDC is currently monitoring breakthrough cases of the virus, and said the biggest concern is from areas where people are not getting their shots.

“But, again, I want to reiterate — the vast majority of transmission is occurring in unvaccinated people and through unvaccinated people. But unlike the alpha variant that we had back in May, where we didn’t believe that if you were vaccinated you could transmit further — this is different now with the delta variant. And we’re seeing that now, infection is possible if you are a rare breakthrough infection, that you can transmit further which is the reason for the change,” Walensky added.

Walensky’s remarks came in the wake of a study published on July 7 and led by Chinese epidemiologist Jing Lu at the Guangdong Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Guangzhou, China found that the delta variant contains 1,000 times more viral material than that of the original novel coronavirus variant that infected much of the global population during the onset of the global pandemic last year.

Study authors noted that this characteristic is what makes the variant so worrisome and contagious. The delta variant can replicate at a much faster rate than the original strain, making the mutation much more infectious, according to the study.

When a person becomes infected with the delta variant, the mutation is shedding significantly more viral material, making it harder to suppress and easier to infect others.

Researchers also found that on average it took approximately four days for the delta variant to reach detectable levels using a standard COVID-19 test kit compared with the six days it took for the original coronavirus strain to be detected.

Experts believe the delta variant spreads more easily because of mutations that make it better at latching onto cells in human bodies. On its website, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes “increased transmissibility” with the delta variant and the potential for it to make certain monoclonal antibody treatments less effective.

Source : Fox11 Los Angeles

---

Read more

According to data from the county, over 25% of new COVID-19 cases in Los Angeles County are from fully vaccinated people.

“Over the period of July 1 through July 16… There were 13,598 cases diagnosed in LA County and unvaccinated people represented 74% of all of the cases, fully vaccinated people represented 26% or 3,592 of the cases,” Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer stated.

In June fully vaccinated people accounted for 20% of all the cases diagnosed in LA County, while unvaccinated and partially vaccinated people accounted for 80% of the cases.

Find out which vaccine is seeing the most breakthrough cases in Los Angeles County . . . . .

Israelis Age 60 and Up to Start Getting Third Coronavirus Vaccine Dose Next Week

Stuart Winer wrote . . . . . . . . .

Health Ministry Director-General Nachman Ash on Thursday told health management organizations to start giving a third COVID-19 vaccine shot to elderly Israelis from the beginning of next week.

Ash told the HMOs the shots should be given to those aged 60 and older.

His order came hours after Prime Minister Naftali Bennett met with top health officials to review an expert panel’s recommendations that older Israelis receive a third shot.

Israel is among the first in the world to offer a third dose of a coronavirus vaccine — Hungary has also said it would begin rolling out booster shots beginning Sunday, joining Turkey, which adopted the measure earlier this month. The American Food and Drug Administration has yet to approve third doses.

Israel’s decision came amid a struggle to contain a recent wave of coronavirus infections that has seen case numbers rocket from just dozens a day a month ago, to a daily caseload of over 2,000 this week.

With serious cases also on the rise, health officials had been weighing a booster shot for the elderly in order to minimize illness.

“These recommendations, by the committee of experts, are substantial,” Bennett said after meeting with Ash and Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz, according to a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office.

“Our strategy is clear: to safeguard life, and to safeguard daily routines in the State of Israel,” Bennett said in the statement, hours after the reintroduction of the Green Pass system granting access to large events only to those who are vaccinated, recovered or able to present a recent negative virus test.

The prime minister also repeated his calls for all those eligible for vaccinations to go out and get the shots.

The vote by the expert panel on Wednesday to recommend a third dose was not unanimous, according to Hebrew media, but a majority was in favor against the backdrop of the rising number of seriously ill patients in recent weeks.

Health Ministry figures on Thursday showed there were 2,165 new COVID-19 cases diagnosed the day before, the third day in a row that the number was above 2,000, a daily caseload not seen since March.

There were 159 patients in serious condition, an increase of eight since midnight.

A military task force advising the government on coronavirus policy warned Thursday that at the current rate, the number of serious cases will multiply in the coming weeks and could overwhelm hospitals.

In its daily report, the task force said that the number of seriously ill patients “clearly and effectively demonstrates the outbreak of the disease in the country.”

The current transmission rates show that the number of infected people will double every 7-10 days, it said.

“Without additional action and broad vaccination by the public, the number of confirmed cases and the number of seriously ill patients is expected to increase in a manner that is likely to lead, within weeks, to strain on community clinics and hospitals,” the report said.

So far the national vaccination drive, which is open to all those age 12 and up, has inoculated about 55 percent of the population. According to the task force, there are a million eligible Israelis who have not yet received the shots. Of them, 234,000 are aged over 50.

The surge in virus cases has been attributed to travelers returning from abroad who were infected with new strains of COVID-19, notably the Delta variant, but did not properly quarantine after arriving in the country.

At a meeting of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee on Thursday, lawmakers were told that the current policy of banning Israelis from visiting countries with high infection rates is only partially successful at preventing further spread of the virus.

Health Ministry director of public health Sharon Alroy-Preis told the committee that “using tweezers to choose which country is a danger is no longer the correct method.”

Alroy-Preis said that although the system, which saw the government build a list of “red countries” that Israelis were prohibited from visiting, did help reduce morbidity, the current situation demands a change as infection rates are rising all over the world “at a worrying rate.”

She said 150-200 infected people were entering the country every day and that despite mandatory virus testing at the airport, some only find out they have COVID-19 days later when they have already been in contact with others.

Alroy-Preis said the Health Ministry is considering other systems to address the problem, to “find a model that will allow travel and living alongside the coronavirus but will reduce morbidity.”

Source : The Times of Israel