The Summer Came And Went But The Viruses Hang Around
Always pick your poison carefully
The summer came, the summer went and COVID stayed right with us like a lobbyist on a politician. Early signals indicate we have reached the peak of this summer surge with % test positivity and ER COVID visits just this week showing a very slight decline. Naturally the death curve is still climbing. This particular summer siege was both so intense, and lasted so long, that it threatens to blend into the upcoming colder weather-triggered disease peak. It’s pointless to spend a lot of time worrying about the optimal timing of your once a year COVID booster, since we are left with this virus which refuses to play by the usual respiratory pathogen playbook, and has become a year round nuisance with bi-seasonal peaks. Those peaks are concordant with the seasons of the year when we spend the most time congregating indoors. Here are the CDC COVID charts:
The US isn’t the only place having a bad summer COVID experience. We saw what happened in Paris at the Olympics, where the universal testing of the prior 2021 Summer Games was replaced with the equivalent of, “Don’t ask, don’t test and don’t tell”. The images of Noah Lyles, 100m champion, being carried off the track with oxygen, after collapsing and failing to win his favored, signature 200m event were telling. While the deaths in the US have not kept pace with last summer, the same is not true in Canada, where COVID fatalities are running well above 2023.
As the KP.3.1.1 variant has become predominant in Quebec, as is the case elsewhere in North America, the province recorded 117 deathslinked to COVID-19 for the month of August (as of 24 Aug 2024),
compared with 88 such fatalities for the whole month last year [2023]. In July [2024], there were 109 deaths compared with 46 for the same month in 2023.
What we can expect on the COVID holiday menu this year may have already reared its ugly little head in a few spots around the world, and be racing under the radar to become the new top dog immune evader—the surprise holiday-season package destined to outsmart the new K.2 designed fall booster. I wish it wasn’t so, but it’s imprudent to ignore reality and base expectations on wishful thinking. The summer wave of infections was driven by the so called FLiRT variants K.2, K.3, K.3.1.1, and LB.1, which all had mutations conferring significant immune escape from the antibodies generated by last fall’s monovalent XBB booster vaccine. Infection with the dominant and related JN.1 variant in the spring probably gave a sufficient boost in immunity to these FLiRT variants, and those “lucky” JN.1 infected folks skated through the rest of the summer.
The following quotes are from the most recent, September 4th IDSA COVID-19 Variant Update, with a link to the paper they are discussing at the end. Skip the details as you wish; I’ve provided a summary sound bite below.
Preliminary evidence (not yet peer-reviewed) suggests that the emerging KP.3.1.1 variant may exhibit higher infectivity compared to KP.3, and that 50% neutralization titers against KP.3.1.1 are significantly lower than KP.3 in convalescent sera…..This study also conducted neutralization assays using breakthrough infection sera with XBB.1.5, EG.5, HK.3, and JN.1 infections as well as infection-naïve, monovalent XBB.1.5-vaccinated sera. In all four groups of sera, both LB.1 and KP.2.3 were found to have lower 50% neutralization titers compared to JN.1 and KP.2. Importantly, infection-naïve XBB.1.5-vaccinated sera had very low neutralization titers against JN.1 subvariants, and titer values were lower for KP.3, LB.1, and KP.2.3 compared to JN.1 Importantly, in virus neutralization assays, KP.2 showed substantial resistance to sera of individuals vaccinated with monovalent XBB.1.5 (i.e., the most recently updated COVID-19 vaccine). However, because of the high antigenic similarity between KP.2 and JN.1, it is expected that individuals with a recent JN.1 infection will likely have some cross-neutralizing antibody protection against KP.2. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(24)00298-6/fulltext
The meat here is, “This summer’s wave was so bad because the virus hit upon some novel mutations which were much more effective in dodging the immunity resulting from last fall’s booster than anything we have seen in quite awhile. People with prior immunity from earlier strains didn’t do well avoiding infection from these new mutants, and neither did the 22.5% of the adult population who took a fall booster.
In case you are totally bored with both amateur and highly lethal viruses—here is a new avenue to focus anxiety on. Microplastics are known to be ubiquitous in the food chain, and have been easily found in a wide variety of human tissues. A current Pubmed pre-print from the NIH reveals some pretty disturbing human autopsy findings. Taking unselected random autopsy specimens from the same county in New Mexico from 2016 and 2024, and using very sophisticated measuring techniques, these researchers found that brain levels of micro and nano-plastics were dramatically higher than the amount found in liver and kidney. The measuring technique they employed was able to quantify extremely small nanoparticles which have been missed in earlier studies. They also found a statistically significant increase in these nano-plastics between 2016 and 2024, with an incredible finding of an average brain concentration of .05% by weight, and some brains containing much more. This work needs to be peer reviewed and replicated, but to say it’s concerning is an understatement. I have avoided drinking from plastic bottles for years, and we recently ditched plastic cutting boards. Laundry and dishwashing pods are another source of water contamination which is easily eliminated. If you find yourself occasionally searching for a name and the only thing that comes to mind is Evian—maybe there is a good reason.
Bioaccumulation of Microplastics in Decedent Human Brains Assessed by Pyrolysis Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry doi: 10.21203/rs.3.rs-4345687/v1
Py-GC/MS has proven to be an informative and reliable method to determine plastics concentrations in liquid and solid tissue samples, with ample assurance of accuracy, quality, and rigor2,3,9,10. Decedent liver and kidney MNP concentrations were similar, with means of 465 and 666 μg/g, respectively, from 2024 samples (Figure 1A). These were higher than previously published data for human placentas (126 μg/g)10, but comparable to testes (329 μg/g)11. Liver samples had significantly higher concentrations in 2024 than in 2016 samples (145 μg/g; p<0.001). The brain samples, all derived from the frontal cortex, revealed substantially higher concentrations than liver or kidney, at 3,057 μg/g in 2016 samples and 4,806 μg/g (0.48%, by weight) in 2024 samples, ranging as high as 8,861 μg/g. Five brain samples from 2016 (highlighted in orange, Figure 1A,,B)B) were analyzed independently by colleagues at Oklahoma State University, and those values were consistent with our findings.
Mpox (Monkeypox) is rapidly becoming an even bigger deal week by week, with cases exploding in central African nations, and isolated cases popping up in new countries of Europe and Asia. And why not, it’s now spread by human’s third most popular past-time after breathing and eating…sex. Burundi, a small very poor nation next to Congo, has reported several hundred cases this past month, spread across most of the country. Although Mpox has been endemic there for years, it had always previously been a fairly rare disease, primarily affecting more remote folks living in close proximity to, and directly interacting with jungle wildlife. Despite modern medical marvels: syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, herpes, HIV, HPV, Hepatitis B, and others continue to make monkeys out of us, and Mpox will do the same now that it’s joined the ranks of the pleasurably spread infections. This new Congo clade 1 variant with a mortality rate of 3% is whole different ballgame than the other STDs we have effective treatments for. Prevention is the key approach for this disease, which does not have an easy or highly efficacious treatment. “Just say no”, never worked very well in the past, and neither will condoms when it comes to this bug. There is recent good news in the form of a paper just published, showing that an mRNA vaccine from Moderna was significantly more effective in preventing severe disease than the currently used Jynneos vaccine. (Remember Jynneos was a repurposed off the shelf Smallpox vaccine). These experiments were conducted in non-human primates, but they are a very good model for this human disease. I won’t go into the details; suffice it to say that in addition to demonstrating that the new vaccine worked significantly better in lessening disease severity and duration, the data showed much lower levels of viremia, and solid immune correlates of specific antibody types and levels as they relate to several aspects of disease control. Maybe you don’t like RNA vaccines, and would prefer to take a live, attenuated (weakened) vaccinia virus cousin of Smallpox, but this will very likely be a big advance for Africa, and the rest of the world. RNA platform vaccines are relatively easy to mass produce in wicked short time, and relatively cheap to manufacture. Warp Speed proved that, with a great number of lives saved. I am not dismissing side effects, and never did—the important issue is appropriate utilization in demographics with much more benefit to be gained by vaccination than the risk of rare side effects. This is a rapidly expanding epidemic of disease, spread by sexual behavior and other means, and with severe morbidity and a mortality rate of 3%—most Africans and others will gladly take a better vaccine (if they can get their hands on it), and give you a very puzzled look if you try and dissuade them with information that the vaccine causes some side effect they never heard of in 5 out of a million people. Link to the Moderna paper follows.
https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(24)00972-3 Comparison of protection against mpox following mRNA or modified vaccinia Ankara vaccination in nonhuman primates: Cell
Two posts ago I discussed the outbreak of severe illness related to Diamond Shrumz brand psychedelic mushroom products. Illnesses were reported across their product line, and at that point there were a limited number of documented poisonings. The most recent CDC report from August 30th now includes 158 poisonings with 63 hospitalizations and 2 deaths. These products were advertised to contain psilocybin, but in fact contained a synthetic derivative of that natural compound, plus psycho-active chemicals found in Kava and muscinol found in Amanita muscarina, a mildly toxic mushroom. Various products contained different mixes of chemicals and varying levels within different batches of the same product (surprise, surprise). One tested batch even contained pregabalin, the prescription drug best known as Lyrica. Caveat Emptor is the operative word when you are considering ingesting a product made in sketchy, uncontrolled circumstances, with uncertain sources of precursor ingredients, basement laboratory procedures (which may not remove various toxic solvents used to produce cheaper synthetic psychoactive molecules), and the occasional worker who slips in some prescription Lyrica for kicks.
That was a short post this week, I have been occupied working on my 1965 Land Rover which is back on the road after a hiatus of 12 years. A truck that has no memory of the pandemic is emblematic of most of the population now, and I am all in favor of reasonable coping mechanisms. I keep thinking that the country will get back to normal soon, but of course the concept of normal is by now a quaint, archaic, meme. I keep hearing the phrase, “The country has never been so divided”. I take for granted that most of the so called journalists today are registered political operatives—but honestly have they forgotten about a certain four year stretch from April 1861 to April 1865, when 600,000 Americans slaughtered each other over a political disagreement? Donald Trump continues campaigning as Donald Trump—the reason that half the population loves his message, and the other half despises him. The only noticeable difference I detect this time around is he is significantly less orange on camera. Kamala Harris, who may have been replaced recently by an animatronic version, is continuing to follow the tested campaign strategy known as ‘Hidin’ Biden Political pundits are concerned that she has suddenly reversed herself, and is endorsing some policies straight out of Trump. I think concerns she may alienate the far left of her party are overblown—most of those folks would vote for the disinterred body of Chairman Mao before they would vote for Trump. On a bright note for Kamala she has just been endorsed by both Vladimir Putin and the Iranian Ayatollah, who will receive mail in ballots.
