Month: January 2022

Little more than two months after it was first spotted in South Africa, the Omicron variant of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 has spread around the world faster than any previous versions. Scientists have tracked it in more than 120 countries, but remain puzzled by a key question: where did Omicron come from? There’s no transparent path of transmission linking Omicron to its predecessors. Instead, the variant has an unusual array of mutations, which it evolved entirely outside the view of researchers. Omicron is so different from earlier variants, such as Alpha and Delta, that evolutionary virologists estimate its closest-known genetic ancestor probably dates back to more than a year ago, some time after mid-2020 (ref. 1). “It just came out of nowhere,” says Darren Marti...

Two Northeast states reported cases of the omicron subvariant BA.2 this week.  The "stealth" version of omicron has genetic traits that make it trickier to detect – though much remains unknown and it is not yet a variant of concern.  CDC DATA SHOWS OMICRON ACCOUNTS FOR 99.9% OF NEW CASES AS EXPERTS INVESTIGATE SUBVARIANT Fox 5 reported Thursday that the New York Department of Health has confirmed it has found the first cases of BA.2, with four cases found between Jan. 7-12. Also in the tri-state area, Fox 61 said Wednesday that a case of the subvariant was discovered in Fairfield County, Connecticut. A woman wearing a winter coat gets tested for COVID-19 at a mobile testing site in New York, Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2022.  (AP Photo/Seth Wenig) The station said BA.2 was d...

Despite their best efforts, some people still contract COVID-19 and feel immense shame. Doctors say that thinking needs to shift. Though stigma surrounding coronavirus is decreasing with breakthrough cases, doctors urge the importance of vaccines in helping keep symptoms and death rates low. Neil Williams was in charge of making the first in-person pandemic meeting with his coworkers safe. He made sure people were following precautions like masking and socially distancing. So, when he tested positive a few days later, he was "extremely hard" on himself. While his coworkers were understanding, he felt an overwhelming sense of disappointment over his positive test.  Dr. Eric Ascher, a family medicine physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York, has seen a wide-range of patient emotions d...

A widely-used cancer drug that works on the immune system could push HIV out of hiding, potentially leaving the virus open to being attacked and eliminated, according to promising results from a small new study.   HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) almost needs no introduction: the virus is notorious for its ability to evade the immune system. Key to its insidiousness is viral latency – HIV 'hides' inside long-lived immune cells, inserting its genetic material into the cell's own, so it can escape detection. This has been a major barrier to developing a cure for HIV, as the virus is never eradicated entirely with antiviral therapies, but continues to be present in the body within these latent reservoirs. The new study suggests that pembrolizumab, an immunotherapy drug which has trans...