Global Health

Coronavirus Antigen Levels Associated with COVID-19 Severity The levels of SARS-CoV-2 antigen in the blood of hospitalized COVID-19 patients appear to line up with how severe the illness is and other clinical outcomes, according to a new study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. WebMD

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New Covid Variant BA.4.6 Outcompeting Dominant BA.5 Across Swath Of U.S. For First Time CDC data indicates a new Omicron variant dubbed BA.4.6 may be able to outcompete the now-dominant BA.5 strain across the United States. Tom Tapp Deadline

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While BA.4.6 has been in the U.S. since at least May, it remained below 2% of new cases sequenced until July, when it gradually began to rise, even as BA.5 continued to do the same. As of this week’s CDC reporting, it currently stands at 7.5%. But the real wrinkle comes when the variant proportions are broken out regionally.

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CDC advisers to decide on Omicron-retooled boosters on Sept 1 Advisers to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will meet on Thursday to vote on whether to recommend the use of two COVID-19 vaccine boosters tailored against the Omicron variant. Reuters Reuters

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The so-called bivalent vaccines include both the currently dominant BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron subvariants and the original version of the virus. ...

Constrained by a lack of sufficient resources and faced with difficult decisions amid COVID-19 surges in the first year of the pandemic, nearly 72% of US primary care, dental, and behavioral health clinicians working in safety-net clinics report experiencing mild to intense moral distress, finds a study published late last week in BMJ Open.

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