Month: December 2021

The newly identified omicron coronavirus variant may have evolved in a nonhuman animal species, potentially a rodent, some scientists suggest. According to this theory, an animal may have picked up SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, around mid-2020, STAT reported. After accumulating many mutations in the animal, the altered coronavirus then would have made the jump back to humans. This chain of events can be described as reverse zoonosis, in which a pathogen jumps from humans to animals, followed by zoonosis, in which a germ passes from animals to humans. One key piece of evidence in support of this theory is that omicron diverged from other SARS-CoV-2 variants very far back in time, Kristian Andersen, an immunologist at the Scripps Research Institute, told STAT.  Related...

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New autism numbers released Thursday suggest more U.S. children are being diagnosed with the developmental condition and at younger ages. In an analysis of 2018 data from nearly a dozen states, researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that among 8-year-olds, 1 in 44 had been diagnosed with autism. That rate compares with 1 in 54 identified with autism in 2016. U.S. autism numbers have been on the rise for several years, but experts believe that reflects more awareness and wider availability of services to treat the condition rather than a true increase in the number of affected children. A separate CDC report released Thursday said that children were 50% more likely to be diagnosed with autism by age 4 in 2018 than in 2014. “There is some progress being made an...

While all eyes are on the new and little-understood omicron variant, the delta form of the coronavirus isn’t finished wreaking havoc in the U.S., sending record numbers of patients to the hospital in the Midwest and New England. “Omicron is a spark that’s on the horizon. Delta variant is the fire that’s here today,” said Dr. Nirav Shah, director of the state Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Maine, where an unprecedented 334 people were in the hospital with COVID-19 as of midweek. The U.S. recorded its first known omicron infection on Wednesday, in a fully vaccinated person who had returned to California from South Africa, where the variant was first identified just over a week ago. Two more U.S. cases were confirmed Thursday. One was in a Colorado woman who had recently travel...