WP Perspectives – March 14, 2022

Dangerous Myth: ‘We’ve Got All the COVID-19 Tools We Need’

In the lead-up to the next White House Global COVID-19 Summit expected to take place this spring, many advocates are rightly focusing on getting more shots in arms and tests and treatments in hands.

But some are saying we have all the tools we need and just need to ensure everyone, everywhere can access them.

While this narrative is seductive in its simplicity, unfortunately, it’s false, writes Jamie Bay Nishi, director of the Global Health Technologies Coalition, in an exclusive commentary for GHN. Basing global strategy on this idea could leave the world less prepared for future COVID-19 curveballs, she says.

Yes, we need to reach everyone with the tools we have, but Nishi argues we also need next-generation tools, including:

• Vaccines: Pan-coronavirus/variant-proof vaccines; more thermostable formulations; needle-free formulations
• Therapeutics: More antiviral options; viable repurposed cheap, widely available drugs; more affordable monoclonal antibody therapies deliverable via injection, not IV
• Diagnostics: Validation of existing tests against new variants; expanded rapid test options

Global Health News – March 10, 2022

Pan-coronavirus vaccine.

A pan-coronavirus vaccine would work equally well against any COVID-19 variant. . .  as a generalist rather than a specialist. A pan-coronavirus vaccine will be designed using features of the virus's genetic code that are shared universally across all different versions of the virus. Several research groups are already working on a pan-coronavirus vaccine, including scientists at the California Institute of Technology, Duke University, University of Washington, Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. Learn more.  ABC News

Two years ago this month, on March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization formally declared a pandemic caused by a novel coronavirus. And as COVID-19 spread across the globe, humanity had little time to adapt to lockdowns and staggering losses. Nearly six million people have died from the disease so far. National Geographic has worked with more than 80 photographers in dozens of countries to document the twists and turns of the pandemic—and the lasting marks it has left on the world. Take a look at the photos: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/photos-show-the-first-two-years-of-a-world-transformed-by-covid19

Epidemiology is the science at center of public health. 

Changes to COVID-19 Dashboards To Streamline Data

VDH has made several changes to its COVID-19 dashboards in order to streamline the information that is most helpful in tracking COVID-19 and its impacts on Virginia at this point in the pandemic. These changes will better highlight current COVID-19 trends in Virginia and inform action.

“Throughout the pandemic, we added more data points and different visualization tools to help the community better understand the impact of COVID-19,” said Acting State Health Commissioner Colin M. Greene, MD, MPH. “With COVID-19 cases continuing to decline, and many communities relaxing restrictions, we are consolidating and focusing on the metrics that matter the most in this new phase of the pandemic. In addition, to provide more meaningful information, we have added a feature to several dashboards allowing the selection of the last 3, 6, and 12 months of data, instead of providing only cumulative statistics.”

The changes include two dashboard retirements, one dashboard with notable changes, five with minor changes, and four with a new reporting schedule.

Dashboards that are being retired or consolidated into other pages:
Case and Testing Data by Zip Code: The corresponding dataset available on the Virginia Open Data Portal will continue to be updated weekly.

• Locality: Most of the data previously located on the locality page will now be available on the Cases Dashboard. Hospitalizations and deaths by report date have been discontinued on this page. The corresponding dataset is available on the Virginia Open Data Portal and will continue to be updated Monday through Friday.

Notable changes will impact the Cases dashboard:

• This page now shows Cases by report date (previously on Locality dashboard) Hospitalizations by event date (date of hospital admission) has been removed as a filter.
• Weekly cases (by date of illness onset) and deaths (by date of death) can now be viewed at the locality, health district, health region, or state level; date range selection has been expanded (past 13 weeks, past 26 weeks, one year, all reporting).

Dashboards with minor changes include the Demographics, Health Equity, Outbreaks, Variants, and VHHA Hospitalizations pages. For more detailed information about the changes on each dashboard, please view the Website Change Log. VDH is also considering changes to its Community Transmission dashboard to align with CDC’s new Community Levels. VDH is in the process of ensuring that CDC’s new model is reflecting Virginia COVID-19 data correctly, and updates will be available soon.

The Vaccine dashboards will have a new reporting schedule. This set of four dashboards will report five days a week (Monday – Friday). These dashboards were previously updated daily.