Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Around The World, Number Of People Dying Of Covid At Its Lowest In 2 Years
San Francisco Chronicle: COVID Death Rates Globally Seen Dropping To 2-Year Low Point, But There’s A Caveat
As the world climbs its way out of two years of coronavirus pain, one measure offering hope is that the global rate of COVID deaths appears to be at a level not seen since the early pandemic days of March 2020, the COVID-19 data monitoring site Our World in Data indicates. Although based on available official death tallies that are widely seen as undercounts, the overall trendline nonetheless shows that the number of people losing their lives to COVID is heading in a positive direction — “something to celebrate,” in the words of Dr. Eric Topol, head of Scripps Research Translational Institute, who recently tweeted Our World in Data’s chart showing the steep drop-off in global deaths since February. (Hwang, 4/17)
AP: Rate Of New COVID Infections Across Africa Has "Tanked" To Lowest Level Since Early In Pandemic
The number of coronavirus cases and deaths in Africa have dropped to their lowest levels since the pandemic began, marking the longest decline yet seen in the disease, according to the World Health Organization. In a statement on Thursday, the U.N. health agency said COVID-19 infections due to the Omicron surge had "tanked" from a peak of more than 308,000 weekly cases to fewer than 20,000 last week. Cases and deaths fell by 29% and 37% respectively in the last week; deaths decreased to 239 from the previous week. (4/14)
Bloomberg: Almost All Indonesians Have Covid Antibody, March Survey Shows
Almost all Indonesians have developed antibodies against Covid-19, according to the latest government survey conducted in March. About 99.2% of the population in the survey had antibody against the virus, due to vaccination or past infections, Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said in his weekly briefing on Monday. That’s higher than almost 87% recorded in the previous survey in December. Antibody levels were also higher among respondents in the March survey, he added. (Permatasari, 4/18)
The New York Times: India Is Stalling The W.H.O.’s Efforts To Make Global Covid Death Toll Public
An ambitious effort by the World Health Organization to calculate the global death toll from the coronavirus pandemic has found that vastly more people died than previously believed — a total of about 15 million by the end of 2021, more than double the official total of six million reported by countries individually. But the release of the staggering estimate — the result of more than a year of research and analysis by experts around the world and the most comprehensive look at the lethality of the pandemic to date — has been delayed for months because of objections from India, which disputes the calculation of how many of its citizens died and has tried to keep it from becoming public. (Nolen and Singh, 4/16)
In covid updates from China —
AP: Shanghai Reports First Deaths In Current COVID-19 Outbreak
Shanghai authorities on Monday reported the first COVID-19 deaths in the latest outbreak in China’s most populous and wealthiest city.All three people who died were elderly, had underlying diseases such as diabetes and hypertension and had not been vaccinated against the coronavirus, city Health Commission inspector Wu Ganyu told journalists. (4/18)
The Wall Street Journal: Inside A Shanghai Mass Quarantine Center: No Showers, Lights On 24/7
Jane Polubotko didn’t see darkness for almost three weeks. After testing positive for Covid-19, she was forced to live under 24/7 lighting in a Shanghai exhibition center along with thousands of strangers and the din of their chatter and mobile phones. The 30-year-old Ukraine national was released from the makeshift government quarantine facility Friday, after three negative tests in the past week. The experience, she said, made her feel like a “Covid criminal.” (Khan, 4/17)
Politico: Biden Covid Chief Dismisses Utility Of Lockdowns Like China's
White House Covid czar Ashish Jha said Sunday that onerous lockdown policies like those being instituted in China are unlikely to work and should not be a model for places like the U.S. “We don’t think that this zero-Covid strategy that China is pursuing is one that is likely to work,” said Jha, whom Biden tapped last month to succeed Jeff Zients, on “Fox News Sunday.” “I think it’s very difficult at this point with a highly contagious variant to be able to curtail this through lockdowns.” (Niedzwiadek, 4/17)
In other developments from around the world —
CIDRAP: Study Finds More Than 1 In 5 European Potatoes Harbors C Difficile
European scientists report a 22.4% Clostridioides difficile contamination rate on potatoes sampled from 12 European countries, according to a report yesterday in Eurosurveillance. C difficile causes one of the most common healthcare-associated infections and is predominantly associated with hospital stays. It is considered an urgent antibiotic resistance threat. ... The researchers conclude that the findings "indicate potatoes can serve as a vector for introducing C. difficile spores in the household environment, where the bacterium can then multiply in sensitive hosts." (4/15)
CIDRAP: Acute Pediatric Hepatitis Cases Raise Flags In UK, US, Spain
Clusters of acute hepatitis in kids—many resulting in liver failure—in Europe and the United States are triggering investigations from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as the illnesses appear to be linked to infections with adenoviruses. Nine children in Alabama, 3 in Spain, and at least 74 in Scotland and Northern Ireland have been sickened with acute hepatitis since January. (Soucheray, 4/15)
The Washington Post: Headache Disorders Afflict 50 Percent Of People Worldwide
Migraines, sinus headaches, tension pain. Sound familiar? Almost everyone has experienced a headache at some point in their life. New research quantifies how many people worldwide have headache disorders — and it’s a lot. When a group of researchers trawled through over 350 scientific publications on headaches, they found that 52 percent of people worldwide have experienced a headache disorder in the past year. (Blakemore, 4/17)
