Public Health

UK downgrades Covid-19 alert level amid falling cases Chief medical officers said the wave of Omicron variants was ‘subsiding’, although ‘further surges are likely’ PA Media the Guardian

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Study explores differences in the efficiency of COVID-19 vaccine boosters In a new study, researchers predicted the efficacy of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine boosters. News-Medical.net

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The study findings indicated that variant-modified booster vaccines could result in significantly higher neutralization titers against prevalent and ancestral SARS-CoV-2 variants compared to ancestral-based boosters.

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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