Data Report

SUMMARY - Emory and University of California San Francisco researchers has released a study, published in "Science Transitional Medicine," that reveals that an antibody in the nasal passage predicts the severity of a patient's Covid infection. The presence of the antibody, called anti-interferon alpha, indicated the infection would likely be limited to mild symptoms like coughing or sore throats. Those without the antibodies in their nostrils often experienced shortness of breath, indicative of a more severe case of Covid.

LINK - https://www.gpb.org/news/2024/11/29/emory-researchers-find-clues-covid-severity-in-nasal-swabs

SUMMARY - An electronic device used by patients to treat arthritis and back pain may also ease symptoms of Long Covid according to a new small-scale study conducted by the  Center for Advanced Surgical & Interventional Technology at UCLA Health. The study, which involved 25 people who were afflicted with Long Covid, found that the participants experienced a 26% reduction in pain & an 8% improvement in walking ability when using a device called TENS (Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation). The study was published in Nature Scientific Reports.

LINK - https://www.healthday.com/health-news/neurology/nerve-stimulation-device-might-ease-long-covid-symptoms

SUMMARY - Researchers at the Northwestern Medicine Comprehensive COVID-19 Center, in Chicago, have released a new study on Long Covid. Their findings are that the neurological symptoms of Long Covid are more severe in younger patients than in older and that the symptom severity wasn't linked to the severity of initial bout of Covid. The study has been published in the Annals of Neurology.

LINK - https://www.healthday.com/health-news/infectious-disease/long-covid-hits-the-young-harder-than-the-old-study-finds

SUMMARY - The owner of Odyssey Health Group, Ashley Nicole Cross, has been sentenced to 11 years in prison for a series of charges that includes Covid-19 relief fraud. The business was a behavioral health services provider based in Charlotte, North Carolina.

LINK - https://www.wbtv.com/2024/11/22/charlotte-healthcare-provider-sentenced-medicaid-covid-19-relief-fraud/

We can not be certain that what this child experienced was human-to-human transmission.

Regardless of how this child contracted HPAI (Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza), the facts remain:

** Our surveillance on livestock contamination from HPAI remains limited.
** Our knowledge of the severity of that same livestock contamination remains limited.
** We are observing more incidents of humans contracting HPAI.

A caveat: Observing more incidents of a condition does not correlate with an increase in the number of those conditions. Put simply, if you are not looking for a condition, you tend not to find it. Once you are looking for a condition, you are more apt to find it everywhere. Examples include autism (which was historically dismissed as someone being "simple") & Alzheimer's (again, historically dismissed as someone simply "getting old"), which were both traditionally dismissed as other conditions until the scientific and medical community addressed them as such.

** The conditions that we are observing in humans may be "mild" but they are noticeable.
** HPAI is well-known in birds and at least one instance in pigs (which would potentially allow the condition to be more easily transmissible to humans).

With these and other facts, we must be cognizant that HPAI is a growing threat to humans. The amount of the increase in that threat may be debated but the increase itself should not be debated.

Add to this situation that Covid-19 continues to evolve (as of this writing, XEC is on the rise but has not become the dominant strain in the US) and our population faces significant challenges. A majority of Americans are neither masking nor getting vaccinated for the latest strains.

While I hope that these challenges do not rise to what occurred in 2020, we can't guarantee that. It is up to us, those who are Covid Cautious, to protect ourselves from future hardships as best as we can. What I am suggesting is not "doom-saying" but merely a logical extension of the facts as they are presented. 

SUMMARY - A commercial poultry farm in Cornwall, UK, has been affected by HPAI (Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza). The strain detected was H5N1. A local widl bird hospital has been closed as a precaution. A protection and surveillance zone has been established around the premises.

LINK - https://www.itv.com/news/westcountry/2024-11-18/bird-flu-outbreak-confirmed-at-commercial-poultry-farm

SUMMARY - Researchers at Northwestern University today reported that they had uncovered a link between the RNA in Covid-19 and the activation of cancer-fighting immune cells. The findings stemmed from observations of cancer regression in some patients with severe COVID-19. The breakthrough could lead to innovative therapies targeting cancers that are currently hard to treat.

LINK - https://www.fox32chicago.com/news/northwestern-study-covid-19-rna-cancer-fighting-cells